printer friendly pageSOC 141P: Public Interest Tech: Case Studies (SOC 241P)
What does public interest technology look like in practice? Each week, a guest speaker will present a case study of their work to improve government and public systems through innovative methods, data-driven efforts, emerging technology, and human-centered design. Students will reflect on the practicalities, ethics, and best practices of public interest technology work.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Repeatable
16 times
(up to 16 units total)
SOC 142: Sociology of Gender (FEMGEN 142, FEMGEN 242, SOC 242)
Sociologists study taken-for-granted social categories and systems, like gender, to understand how they shape our lives. In this course, we will learn sociological approaches to understanding and studying gender. We will critically examine how gender structures society and reproduces inequality. To do this, we will use a multi-level approach, examining gender at the individual, interactional, and structural level. We will apply this framework to multiple areas of social life, including the self, the family, school, and work. This introductory course is designed to cover a range of topics in the sociology of gender, providing a baseline for further study. You will actively participate in class, bringing your own experiences while building your sociological imagination. Through a combination of lectures, in-class discussions, and papers, students will strengthen their academic analysis and writing skills.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Warner, M. (PI)
SOC 145: Race and Ethnic Relations in the USA (CSRE 145, SOC 245)
(Graduate students register for 245.) Race and ethnic relations in the U.S. and elsewhere. The processes that render ethnic and racial boundary markers, such as skin color, language, and culture, salient in interaction situations. Why only some groups become targets of ethnic attacks. The social dynamics of ethnic hostility and ethnic/racial protest movements.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul
SOC 146: Introduction to Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CSRE 100, EDUC 166C, ENGLISH 172D, PSYCH 155, TAPS 165)
Race and ethnicity are often taken for granted as naturally occurring, self-evident phenomena that must be navigated or overcome to understand and eradicate the (re)production of societal hierarchies across historical, geopolitical, and institutional contexts. In contrast, this transdisciplinary course seeks to track and trouble the historical and contemporary creation, dissolution, experiences, and stakes of various ethnoracial borders. Key topics include: empire, colonialism, capital/ism, im/migration, diaspora, ideology, identity, subjectivity, scientism, intersectionality, solidarity, resistance, reproduction, and transformation. Cardinal Course certified by the Haas Center for Public Service . (Formerly
CSRE 196C)
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
Instructors:
Rosa, J. (PI)
SOC 147: Race and Ethnicity Around the World (CSRE 147A, SOC 247)
(Graduate students register for 247.) How have the definitions, categories, and consequences of race and ethnicity differed across time and place? This course offers a historical and sociological survey of racialized divisions around the globe. Case studies include: affirmative action policies, policies of segregation and ghettoization, countries with genocidal pasts, invisible minorities, and countries that refuse to count their citizens by race at all.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI, WAY-EDP
Instructors:
Saperstein, A. (PI)
SOC 149: The Urban Underclass (CSRE 149A, SOC 249, URBANST 112)
(Graduate students register for 249.) We explore the history of residential segregation, urban policy, race, discrimination, policing and mass incarceration in the US. What are the various causes and consequences of poverty? How do institutions that serve the poor work and sometimes fail? We will read deeply into the social, political, and the legal causes of today¿s conflicts.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI, GER:EC-AmerCul, GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-EDP
SOC 151: From the Cradle to the Grave: How Demographic Processes Shape the Social World (SOC 251)
(Graduate students register for 251 and 5 units. Undergraduates register for 151 and 4 units.) Comparative analysis of historical, contemporary, and anticipated demographic change. Draws on case studies from around the world to explore the relationship between social structure and population dynamics. Introduces demographic measures, concepts and theory. Course combines lecture and seminar-style discussion.
Last offered: Spring 2017
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
SOC 152: The Social Determinants of Health (SOC 252)
When we consider a person's health, we often look first to the body. But our bodies don't exist in a vacuum: how we feel, whether we get sick, even how long we live depends on many factors beyond our biology. In this course, we will shift our focus to the world our bodies inhabit, considering how our circumstances affect our health, healthcare, and well-being. We will explore the 'social determinants' of health outcomes, including neighborhoods, social networks, healthcare systems, inequalities, and power structures. We will also reflect on what it means to live a healthy life and the extent to which individuals may or may not be able to determine their own health outcomes.n nBeyond the substantive topic of health, a core component of applying the sociological lens is being able to use research to explain and analyze the social world. To build your critical analysis skills, you will read and engage with social science research and apply theoretical concepts to empirical observations. Throughout the course, we will engage with case studies, both in class and in assignments that ask you to turn your sociological lens to health disparities in the world around you. We will also brainstorm ways to build a world without health inequality.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-SI
SOC 154: The Politics of Algorithms (COMM 154, COMM 254, CSRE 154T, SOC 254C)
(Graduate students enroll in 254.
COMM 154 is offered for 5 units,
COMM 254 is offered for 4 units.) Algorithms have become central actors in today's digital world. In areas as diverse as social media, journalism, education, healthcare, and policing, computing technologies increasingly mediate communication processes. This course will provide an introduction to the social and cultural forces shaping the construction, institutionalization, and uses of algorithms. In so doing, we will explore how algorithms relate to political issues of modernization, power, and inequality. Readings will range from social scientific analyses to media coverage of ongoing controversies relating to Big Data. Students will leave the course with a better appreciation of the broader challenges associated with researching, building, and using algorithms.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
SOC 154A: American Disaster (AMSTUD 154D, ENGLISH 154D)
How do we make sense of catastrophe? Who gets to write or make art about floods, fires, or environmental collapse? How do disaster and its depiction make visible or exacerbate existing social and economic inequalities? Beginning with the Jamestown colony and continuing to the present, this course explores the long history of disaster on the North American continent, and how it has been described by witnesses, writers, and artists. From the 1793 Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic to Hurricane Katrina, the Dust Bowl to contemporary explorations of climate change, this seminar will put in conversation a wide range of primary and secondary materials. Possible texts include writings by Mike Davis, Katherine Anne Porter, Rebecca Solnit, Jesmyn Ward, and Richard Wright; films Wildlife (2018), First Reformed (2017), When the Levees Broke (2006), and Free Willy II (1995); and art by Dorothea Lange, Winslow Homer, and Richard Misrach. For the final paper, students will write a critical essay on a disaster novel, film, or other work or object of their choice, or develop their own creative piece or oral history.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
Filter Results: