Courses
Courses Currently Offered - Registrar's
Office
SOCIOL 301 The City: Urbanization and Urbanism
Historical roots and theories of urbanization. U.S.
urban structure in relation to economics and politics.
Methods for studying the city and its neighborhoods.
Urban reform policies.
SOCIOL 302 Sociology of Organizations
Structure and function of formal organizations,
especially in business and government. Stratification,
social control, and conflict. Discretion, rules, and
information in achieving goals. Modes of participation
and development of informal norms.
SOCIOL 305 Demography and Population Problems
Population and social structure. Fertility,
mortality, and migration. Age-sex structure, spatial
distributions, and socioeconomic composition. Problems
of growth, distribution, population control, and scarce
resources in developed and underdeveloped countries.
SOCIOL 307 School and Society
Reciprocal influences between formal educational
institutions and society, from various theoretical perspectives.
Emphasis on internal organization of schools, the relationship
between education and inequality, and problems of contemporary
urban education.
SOCIOL 308 Sociology of Deviance and Crime
The social organization of crime and other
misdeeds, explanations of crime and deviance, creating
criminal law, policing, detection and investigation,
prosecution, plea bargaining, the courts, sentencing,
punishment, prisons, and alternatives to criminal law.
SOCIOL 309 Political Sociology
Selected topics in political economy and
sociology. Issues include revolutions, the development
of the modern state, Third World development, and international
conflict.
SOCIOL 310 The Family and Social Learning
Historical and modern relationships of
families to major social institutions. Variations in
marriage, divorce, and remarriage patterns under changing
social and economic conditions. Role pressures in modern
family systems with changing social and economic conditions.
Role pressures in modern family systems with changing
social values and familial resources.
SOCIOL 312 Social Basis of Environmental Change
Relationship of the social organization
of production and consumption to environmental degradation.
Evaluation of social forces supporting and opposing
environmental reform. Social welfare considerations
in alternative models of reform.
SOCIOL 314 Sociology of Religion and Ideology
Relation of belief systems to social structure.
Generation, maintenance, and decline of organizational
commitment. The production of ideas. Religion, art,
science, political ideology, and folk knowledge as social
products.
SOCIOL 315 Industrialism and Industrialization
Structure and culture of modern industry,
consequences for status and class organization. Labor
force; formal and informal organization of management
and labor. Union-management interaction. Industrial
morale.
SOCIOL 318 Sociology of Law
The relationship between law and society.
Topics may include theoretical perspectives on law,
comparative legal development, law making, disputing
and the civil litigation system, law enforcement and
regulation, the courts, the profession and practice
of law, law as a mechanism of social control, law and
social inequality, and law and social change.
SOCIOL 319 Sociology of Science
Types of interdependence as determinants
of social relations and forms of discourse among scientists
- sociology of scientific work. Audiences for scientific
work as determinants of the stratification system of
science. Variations among disciplines in social organization.
SOCIOL 321 Armed Forces and Society
Changing military organization and civil-military
relations in the past and present. Military recruitment,
socialization, and professionalism. Minorities and women
in the military. Peacekeeping forces.
SOCIOL 323 American Subcultures and Ethnic Groups
Differentiation, organization, and stratification
by ethnicity, race, lifestyle, and other traits. Maintenance
of subgroup boundaries and distinctiveness. Development
and continuity of American society as a system of subgroups.
Consequences of difference: identity; political and
economic participation; group solidarity.
SOCIOL 325 Sociology of Inequality
Sources, patterns, and dynamics of social
stratification and their effects on life chances and
social organizations. Theoretical, methodological, and
comparative dimensions. Emphasis on advanced industrial
societies.
SOCIOL 326 The Logic of Social Inquiry
Tensions between methodological rules
and researcher judgments in the practice of social inquiry.
Trade-offs in various research designs. Social contexts
and their resources for or their restraints on social
researchers. Effects of research context on forms of
observation and reporting of inferences.
SOCIOL 327 Youth in Society
Focus on American youth, especially oriented
around those who are not college bound. Institutions
with which they interact: families, schools, and workplaces
in particular. Also, the issue of relationships.
SOCIOL 331 Markets, Hierarchies, and Democracies
Forms and social structures for making
economic decision in modern societies. Theories on their
purposes, conditions of their occurrence, and types
of outcomes produced.
SOCIOL 332 Work and Occupation in Modern Industrialized Societies
Work in modern society and its place in
the moral order: selection, recruitment, socialization,
and career stages of workers; the relationship of work
and responsibilities to family and society.
SOCIOL 345 Class and Culture
Theories of class formation and class
reproduction; cultural processes that produce class
relations in the United States.
SOCIOL 350 Sociology of the Arts
Art as a collective activity. Conventions
in artistic activities and aesthetic responses. Training
of professionals and audiences. Relation of artistic
works to other aspects of culture.
SOCIOL 355 Medical Sociology
Response to health and illness in various
cultures and societies. Identification, distribution,
and treatment of disease. Health care systems, organization
of medical careers and practices, the sick role, sickness
as deviant behavior, and the politics of health care
delivery.
SOCIOL 376 Topics in Sociological Analysis
Topics in sociology. Content varies. May
be repeated for credit with change of topic.
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SOCIOL 400 Introduction to Statistics and Statistical Software
Introduction to basic social science statistics, with applications using current computer software. Practical issues of data collection, coding, data entry and dataset management.
SOCIOL 401-1 Statistical Analysis of Social Data: Applied Regression Methods I
Introduction to the theory, methods, and practice of linear regression analysis: descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, ordinary least squares (OLS), regression diagnostics. STATA used for computation. For first-year graduate students in sociology.
SOCIOL 401-2 Statistical Analysis of Social Data: Applied Regression Methods II
Regression models with categorical and discrete outcomes: categorical variables, maximum likelihood estimation (MLE), probit and logistic regression, logit models, tobit models, and advanced STATA techniques. For first-year graduate students in sociology.
SOCIOL 402 Event-History Analysis
Introduction to event-history (survival) analysis: common non-parametric, semi-parametric and parametric models for both continuous and discrete time intervals; practical data management techniques in STATA. Prerequisite: SOCIOL 401-2 or permission of instructor.
SOCIOL 403 Field Methods
Application of the methods of case study, interviewing, and participant observation.
SOCIOL 404 Designs for Descriptive Causal Research in Field Settings
Theories of causation. Analysis of the
ability of various experimental and quasi-experimental
designs to promote the end of two types of causal inference.
SOCIOL 405 Research Methods
Fundamentals of research design, sampling,
data collection, and data analysis. May include questionnaire
design, aspects of archival research, content analysis,
and the relationship between methods, analytic techniques,
and the building and confirming of theoretical models.
SOCIOL 406-1 Classical Theory in Sociological Analysis
Marx and Weber: comparison and contrasts
of their theories. Also, theorists such as Lukacs and
Gramsci, who combine elements from both.
SOCIOL 406-2 Modern Theory in Sociological Analysis
Major theorists after World War II. Functional
theorists, symbolic interactionists, development theorists,
the debate over consensus and conflict. The 1950s and
1960s as background for the social theory movements
of the 1970s and 1980s.
SOCIOL 406-3 Contemporary Theory in Sociological Analysis
Contemporary approaches to important theoretical
issues. Emphasizes the relationship between theory and
current research. Content varies. Topics may include
functionalism, neo-Marxism, rational action, feminism,
or symbolic interactionism. May be repeated for credit
with change in topic.
SOCIOL 408 Sociology of Law
Classical and modern theories of law.
Modes of inquiry in sociolegal research. Patterns of
legal development; comparisons among capitalist, socialist,
customary, and indigenous legal systems. The relationship
of law to social control, inequality, and social change.
Social organization of legal institutions, including
systems of dispute resolution and litigation, the legal
profession, and regulatory and enforcement agencies.
SOCIOL 410 Comparative Methodology
The logic of comparative methods practiced
in the social sciences today; contrast with other analytic
logics and comparative designs for different types of
investigation. Analytic tolls needed to link case-oriented
and variable-oriented discourse in comparative social
research. Advanced introduction.
SOCIOL 416 New Perspectives on Gender in Society
Importance of gender in paid work, feminist revisions of mainstream theory in the social sciences, gender and power, the roles of Third World women under colonialism and after independence, and the relationship of work to the family. Content varies. May be repeated for credit with change of topic.
SOCIOL 420 Cultural Sociology and the Sociology of Culture
Production, distribution, reception of culture; culture and meaning; cultural approaches to social boundaries, social problems; local and global cultures.
SOCIOL 437 Economic Sociology
The sociological approach to production, distribution, consumption and markets. Comparison of microeconomic and sociological treatments of similar subjects. Topics may include labor markets, industrial organization, and comparative economic systems.
SOCIOL 439 Comparative and Historical Sociology
Theoretical and methodological issues in the comparison of whole societies and other macrosocial units. Contrasts approaches that emphasize variables with those that emphasize cases (i.e., countries) and their histories. Content varies. May be repeated for credit with change in topic.
SOCIOL 440 Stratification, Race, and Gender
Issues in current research and theory in stratification, race, and gender. Content varies. May be repeated for credit with change of topic. For graduate students.
SOCIOL 441 Social Organization
Issues in research and theory in organizations, institutions, and social movements. Content varies. May be repeated for credit with change in topic. For graduate students.
SOCIOL 476 Topics in Sociological Analysis
Advanced areas of graduate students' interest. Content varies. May be repeated for credit with change in topic.
SOCIOL 477 Research Methods in Law and Social Science
This course surveys the range of methodological approaches employed in social science studies of law and legal issues. Both qualitative (field observation, elite interviewing) and quantitative (sample surveys, content analysis) data collection procedures will be reviewed. A great deal of attention will be paid to research design issues, for they determine the strength of the causal claims that can be made about a set of findings.
SOCIOL 478 Perspectives on Law and Social Science
Surveys the range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of law in social and historical context. Topics include the history of law and society scholarship, paradigms of inquiry in law and social science, and contemporary trends in law and society research.
SOCIOL 479 Topics in Law and Social Science
Focuses on advanced special topics in law and social science. May be repeated for credit with change in topic.
SOCIOL 480 Introduction to the Discipline
Introduction to the department, faculty, and adjunct faculty. Faculty discuss their research and teaching interests. Mandatory two-quarter weekly seminar for first-year students.
SOCIOL 490 Research
Independent study for work on second-year paper.
SOCIOL 499 Independent Study
May be repeated for credit. Independent
study in social theory, methodology, social change,
and social institutions. Permission of instructor and
department required.
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SOCIOL 510 Seminar and Workshop in the Logic of Analysis
Current issues in research and theory
in method and analytical strategies, including qualitative
and quantitative methods. Presentation of second-year
papers, thesis proposals, and other scholarly papers
by students, faculty, and visitors in addition to reading
seminar sessions. May be repeated for credit.
SOCIOL 511 Seminar on the Theory and Measurement of Social Change
Empirical and theoretical criteria employed
in assertions of major changes; evidence required as
bases for assertions.
SOCIOL 513 Urbanization and Social Structure
Causes and patterns of world urbanization.
The nature of urban life in major regions; variations
related to cultural and structural differences; focus
on the question of community. Techniques for analysis
and comparison of diverse theories.
SOCIOL 514 Sociology of Education
Education issues: stratification, social policy, and organizational changes. Chicago school systems are the focus. Fieldwork-oriented graduate seminar.
SOCIOL 570 Seminar on College Teaching
The art of undergraduate teaching. Explores the role of teaching assistant and teacher, methods, styles.
SOCIOL 576 Topics in Sociological Analysis
Seminar in areas of expressed student interest. Open to advanced graduate students. May be repeated for credit with change of topic.
SOCIOL 590 Research
Independent investigation of selected
problems pertaining to thesis or dissertation. May be
repeated for credit.
Coursemap http://www.tgs.northwestern.edu/facultyandstaffinfo/coursemap/
