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Our undergraduate curriculum provides students with meaningful sociological experience. The theory and methods courses are designed to build competence in core areas, while advanced classes help students develop expertise in major fields of contemporary sociology, including race and ethnic relations, work and leisure, aging studies, gender research, crime and juvenile delinquency, urban ethnography, sociology of medicine, health, and mental illness.

Learning Outcomes

The sociology graduate will have knowledge of:

Key concepts, debates, and trends in sociology —Demonstrate an understanding of the discipline of sociology, key concepts, debates and trends and how these contribute to our understanding of social reality.

Students can demonstrate knowledge and comprehension of basic concepts in sociology: culture, social change, socialization, stratification, social structure, institutions, and differentiations by race/ethnicity, gender, age, and class.

Students can articulate an understanding of how culture and social structure operate

Students can articulate the reciprocal relationships between individuals and society

Students can articulate the macro/micro distinction

Students can articulate the internal diversity of the United States and its place in the international context

Major sociological paradigms and theories —Demonstrate the role of theory in sociology

Define theory and describe its role in building sociological knowledge;

Compare and contrast basic theoretical orientations and paradigms;

Demonstrate the historical/cultural context in which these theories were developed;

Methods used in sociological research — Demonstrate understanding of the role of evidence and qualitative and quantitative methods in sociology:

identify basic methodological approaches and describe the general role of methods in building sociological knowledge;

compare and contrast the basic methodological approaches for gathering data;

design a research study in an area of choice and explain why various decisions were made; and

critically assess a published research report and explain how the study could have been improved

Sociology students will be able to:

Show evidence of the development of a sociological imagination — Apply sociological knowledge, principles, concepts and the sociological imagination to their own projects, whether intellectual, personal and/or political.

Exhibit confidence in expressing ideas orally and in writing —

Students can demonstrate critical thinking

Demonstrate skills in recall, analysis and application, and synthesis and evaluation.

Identify underlying assumptions in theoretical orientations or arguments.

Identify underlying assumptions in particular methodological approaches to an issue.

Show how patterns of thought and knowledge are directly influenced by political and economic social structures.

Present opposing viewpoints and alternative hypotheses. Engage in teamwork where many different points of view are presented

Students will develop values:

Articulate the utility of the sociological perspective as one of several perspectives on social reality;

Explain the importance of reducing the negative effects of social inequality.