This class focuses on challenges to and changes in gender and sexuality during conservative time periods. Focusing on the U.S., the course primarily examines the 1980's and the contemporary period as case studies. The class looks at how political and other institutions affect gender and sexuality and at social movements addressing gender and sexuality from both the right and the left.

This class explores the roles of communities in an era of globalization by focusing on ghettos and enclaves in U.S. cities. Immigrant communities and ethnic enclaves are often viewed as temporary platforms for assimilation, while ghettos are seen as inner-city neighborhoods marked by stigma, where minorities are trapped in cycles of poverty. Why are some minority neighborhoods seen in a positive light, while others are not?

The mass media are an important social institution that reflects and shapes norms and values. But the processes governing media production and reception are often taken for granted, immersed as society is in a highly mediated social world where preconceived notions about "the media" and its effects hold sway.

This course examines sexuality from a sociological perspective, focusing on how sexuality is constructed by and structures major social institutions. The course examines the social construction of individual and collective identities, norms and behaviors, discourses, institutional regulation, and the place of sexuality in the state, education, science and other institutions, and social movements. Consideration of gender, race, class, time, and place are integrated throughout.

Offered as SOC 244 and LAS 244. This course is designed to familiarize students with the history of Latin American and Latina (primarily Chicana) feminist thought and activism. A central goal of the course is to provide an understanding of the relationship between feminist thought, women’s movements, and local/national contexts and conditions. The writings of Latin American and Latina feminists comprise the majority of the texts.

This course engages with the various dimensions of globalization through the lens of gender, race, and class relations. It studies how gender and race intersect in global manufacturing and supply chains as well as in the transnational politics of representation and access in global media, culture, consumption, fashion, food, water, war, and dissenting voices. Prerequisite: SOC 101. Enrollment limited to 25.

Using theoretical frameworks from environmental sociology, political and economic sociology, and sociology of culture, this course will examine how social structures shape the way we produce, prepare and consume food. We will investigate political and environmental dynamics that structure food systems and practices and we will consider inequalities related to food at the local and global levels. Finally, we will explore food movements and investigate ideas for creating more equitable and sustainable practices. Prerequisite: SOC 101.

Qualitative research methods offer a means of gaining insight and understanding into complex perspectives held by people about social practices and social phenomena. Whereas good quantitative research captures scale, good qualitative research reaches the depth of perceptions, views, experiences, behaviors and beliefs. Qualitative research deals with meanings; it seeks to understand not just what people do, but why they choose to do what they do.