Is there a place for digital technologies in play-based early childhood education? What value, if any, stems from children playing with educational apps with their peers in classrooms? How can digital play support children's meaning-making? This course uses a hands-on research approach to explore these and related questions while engaging with young children in preschool settings. Students learn how to collect observational data of preschool children interacting with iPad apps and conduct qualitative analyses.

People in all societies face uncertainty. Dangers, many of our own making, confront us at every turn - in the form of global warming, market collapses, tainted food, epidemics, and accidents at work and on roads. Terrorist attacks and crime have led to the increased control of urban public spaces. Modern institutions and technologies of risk (probability, insurance, audits, sundry regulation) strive to tame chance, to make it manageable, and even potentially profitable, and have contributed to emergent cultures of risk.

Are children "wired" to be able to learn without direct instruction? Does the process of schooling diminish or enhance our capacity to be self-directed learners? What factors determine one's readiness for self-directed learning, and can self-directed learning be "taught?" What role, if any, do teachers play in self-directed learning? This seminar explores these questions in the context of an ongoing ethnographic study of an alternative education program within a public high school.

Health is about bodies, selves and politics. We will explore a series of health topics from feminist perspectives. How do gender, sexuality, class, disability, and age influence the ways in which one perceives and experiences health and the access one has to health information and health care? Are heteronormativity, cissexism, or one's place of living related to one's health status or one's health risk?

We shop for our food, for our clothes, for our colleges. We purchase cars, manicures, and vacations. It seems that there is little that cannot be bought or sold. But we also give and receive gifts, exchange favors, 'go dutch' in restaurants, and invite friends for potlucks. This course examines exchange systems cross-culturally, in order to understand their cultural significance and social consequences.

In the role of a participant-observer, each student studies intensively the social and personality development of the children in one classroom at the Gorse Children's Center at Stonybrook. Students learn how to articulate developmental changes and individual differences by analyzing detailed observations. Topics include social cognition, peer relationships, social skills, concepts of friendship, emotional development, identity formation, self-esteem, and the social and cultural context of development.

Introduces the analysis of cultural diversity, including concepts, methods, and purposes in interpreting social, economic, political, and belief systems found in human societies.

Introduces the analysis of cultural diversity, including concepts, methods, and purposes in interpreting social, economic, political, and belief systems found in human societies.

This course examines the emerging field of Positive Psychology which uses science to understand and enhance positive aspects of the human experience (i.e., "the good life"). Positive Psychology stands in contrast to more traditional psychological approaches that focus on pathology. We will critically examine theory and research in Positive Psychology, including strengths and virtues, meaning in life, positive coping, authenticity, happiness, gratitude, flow, religion/spirituality, and optimism.

This course provides a hands-on introduction to psychological research in the domain of personality psychology. We will consider research methods, personality assessments, the intersection of personality and social psychology, and issues broadly relevant to psychological research. Students will work collaboratively in groups through all phases of a research project, including conducting a literature review, designing a study, receiving ethics approval, collecting data, conducting statistical analyses, and reporting the results.