81 - 90 of 264 results for: SOC

What are the historical trajectories and consequences of marriage, divorce, and premarital cohabitation? Where have gay rights come from and what is the future of gay rights in the US? What are the gender differences in marriage, family and housework? What does it mean for the personal to be political? What are the racial differences in family life and how have those differences been politicized? How did marriage equality go from being impossible to being the law of the US? We will study social change from the perspective of public opinion, legal changes, and family politics.

After decades of decline, U.S. cities today are undergoing major transformations. Young professionals are flocking to cities instead of fleeing to the suburbs. Massive increases in immigration have transformed the racial and ethnic diversity of cities and their neighborhoods. Public housing projects that once defined the inner city are disappearing, and crime rates have fallen dramatically. Do these changes signal the end of residential segregation and urban inequality? Who do these changes benefit? This course will explore these issues and strategies to address them through readings and discussion, analyzing a changing neighborhood in a major city in the Bay Area in groups (which will include at least one site visit), and studying a changing neighborhood or city of their choice for their final project. The course does not have pre-requisites.

(Graduate students register for 260.) Organizations are ubiquitous: they educate us, manage our finances, and structure our daily routines. They also distribute resources, status, and opportunities. This course will explore the role of formal organizations in contemporary social life, and their consequences for individuals. Drawing on a range of research in the social sciences and examples from the real world, we will examine several topics, including: the origins of organizations, how decisions are made in organizations, why some organizations survive while others die, incentives and employment relationships, how social networks shape social stratification, and what kinds of organizational policies promote diversity.

Social and political forces that shape market outcomes. The emergence and creation of markets, how markets go wrong, and the roles of government and society in structuring market exchange. Applied topics include development, inequality, globalization, and economic meltdown. Preference to Sociology majors and Sociology coterm students.

Post-WW II transformation in the Asia-Pacific region, with focus on the ascent of Japan, the development of newly industrialized capitalist countries (S. Korea and Taiwan), the emergence of socialist states (China and N. Korea), and the changing relationship between the U.S. and these countries.

How can emerging technologies and human-centered design be used to help people going through problems with housing, medical care, and debt? In this class, we will work with local partners to develop new tech and design prototypes to address poverty-related problems. We will explore new digital solutions, as well as how to use emerging technologies like AI and blockchain. At the same time, we will explore policy and legal reforms that could address root causes of the problems.nStudents will work in small, interdisciplinary teams with partners organizations in law, medicine, and policy. They will do design research in the field, propose new solutions and test them, and develop new initiatives that will be piloted. The goal is to incubate promising, feasible public interest technology and design projects.nThe class will be run in parallel to similar classes in Mexico, Guatemala, and Colombia. Students will have the chance to learn about similar innovation efforts in other countries, and will be challenged to think about how their own projects could be replicated and scaled

This course provides an introduction to the study of race and place within urban political ecology (UPE). Geographer Natasha Cornea defines UPE as a 'conceptual approach that understands urbanization to be a political, economic, social, and ecological process, one that often results in highly uneven and inequitable landscapes' in and beyond cities. The primary focus will be cities in the Americas, but we will draw on insights from scholars studying the mutually constitutive nature of race and place in other regions. In line with critical theories that frame intersectional experiences of race, the course readings also take into account class, gender, sexuality, and nation.

This course is part of an ongoing research project that examines the consequences of social, demographic, economic, and political changes in ethnic and race relations in in urban California. Students taking this course will construct will investigate a particular issue, place, policy, or event of special interest and write a 15-20-page paper. Through individualized research projects, our aim is to understand how and why policies and practices developed that isolated and marginalized communities of color leading to environmental racism, housing inequality, public health crises, socioeconomic (im)mobility, over-policing, and underserving, and (un)fair representation in city politics and governments. We will also focus on solutions. We look at the creative, challenging, and diverse ways grassroots organizers, academics, and governments at every level can work in partnership to reshape policy and rectify injustice in a variety of urban and suburban environments in California. Each paper should conclude with ideas about how to make constructive change. This course has been designated as a Cardinal Course by the Haas Center for Public Service. Cardinal Courses apply classroom knowledge to pressing social and environmental problems through reciprocal community partnerships. The units received through this course can be used towards the 12-unit requirement for the Cardinal Service transcript notation.

(Graduate students register for 270). Sociologists seek to understand how society works, specifically: how social life is organized, changed, and maintained. Sociological theory provides hypotheses for explaining social life. All empirical research in sociology is enriched by, and has some basis in, sociological theories. This course introduces students to the earliest sociological theories and the thinkers who developed them. Specifically, we will discuss the work of W.E.B. Du Bois, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx. We will compare and contrast how they thought about important modern-day social realities such as capitalism, racism, crime, religion, and social cohesion. We will consider how these early theories and thinkers influence the way sociologists think about and study the social world today.