Practicum Seminar (Amherst)

This weekly seminar provides students with opportunities to design and discuss case studies involving adolescents in middle and secondary school settings, review researched-based models of instruction, and classroom management, and engage in dialogue with professionals regarding numerous aspects of teaching and student learning. Additional topics covered include reviewing the legal obligations of teachers, addressing the needs of students with disabilities, English language learners, and developing effective communication between home and school.

Feminist & Queer Theory

We will read a number of key feminist texts that theorize sexual difference, and challenge the oppression of women. We will then address queer theory, an offshoot and expansion of feminist theory, and study how it is both embedded in, and redefines, the feminist paradigms. This redefinition occurs roughly at the same time (1980s/90s) when race emerges as one of feminism's prominent blind spots. The postcolonial critique of feminism is a fourth vector we will examine, as well as anti-racist and postcolonial intersections with queerness.

Dialoguing for Racial Change

A critical analysis of race, racism, and justice in the United States, as set in a socio-historical context defined by power. In addition to traditional modes of teaching-learning, students use intergroup dialogue and collaborative group work to examine how race is constructed, experienced, reproduced, and transformed within social structures.

Social Network Analysis

This course introduces the theory and methods which underpin efforts to study social relations through the influential paradigm of network analysis. It features a hands-on component using Python/R that involves data manipulation, visualization, and modeling. These individual hands-on activities will invite students to think critically about how social theories and phenomena are quantified, measured, and compared.

Research Methods

This course is an introduction to the use of quantitative data in sociology. It focuses on the ways in which data is collected, analyzed, and presented to make sociological arguments. It introduces various tools to describe data for single variables, explore relationships between pairs of variables, and make statistical inferences. Students will learn basic skills to conduct their own social science research and analyze data using statistical software.

Cultural Sociology

Cultural sociology examines the ways in which meaning shapes social life, including the food we eat, what we wear, who we vote for, where we travel, and even wars that are fought. This course focuses on symbols, narratives, performance, aesthetics, and emotion, and traces the interdisciplinary development of cultural sociological thought, from foundational theory to breakthroughs in cultural anthropology, linguistics, and theater studies, all the way up to contemporary cultural sociology.
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