21:920:201
Introduction to Sociology (3)
This course is intended for those with no background in sociology. The goal for the course is to learn how to read the news from sociological perspectives. This includes how to formulate sociological interpretations of current events at the local, regional, and international levels. To read the world from sociological perspectives we must learn how to understand, critique, and develop our sociological imaginations. We will do this by studying sociological categories, which are social and political formations including class, race, gender, nationality, culture, and much more. We will consider how sociological categories impact our everyday lives and, in turn, how people have the capacity to reshape social and political structures.
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21:920:209
Crime and Justice in American Society (3)
Analysis of major criminal justice institutions in American society; the function of courts, police, and judicial systems in helping or impairing the fair administration of criminal law.
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21:920:275
Popular Culture (3)
This course focuses on the rich tradition of studying popular culture from a social science point of view. We examine how popular culture has helped to create the middle class and how it maintains class behaviors. It examines issues of representation in popular culture: race and ethnicity as well as gender and sexuality. It also examines a history of popular culture in the United States, and elsewhere, starting long before the eras of radio and television and memes. In many ways, popular culture is the culture of the United States. The course makes use of the many different ways to access popular culture that have emerged in the 21st century as well.
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21:920:285
Drugs and Society (3)
This course takes a multidisciplinary approach to consider how we use drugs in our society and how they may vary from culture to culture. Although primarily focusing on a social science perspective, the course also considers drugs from the perspectives of health, criminality, and history, as much as sociology and anthropology. As drugs represent such a large aspect of both formal and informal economies, the course examines how some drugs have been integrated with organized crime, while others are a feature of potential corporate crime. The course will explore how drugs can create subcultures, how they have been used to reinforce racial stereotypes and maintain racial discrimination, and how they affect the lives of men and women differently. It also considers how drugs create an altered consciousness that humans have been seeking for thousands of years. We will place an emphasis on discussing human's 8,000-year-old problem: opium and its derivatives.
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21:920:301-302
Social Research I,II (3,3)
The art and the science of doing research. Teaches students how to develop a researchable question (hypothesis construction and causal modeling); how to collect data (observation, surveys, experiments, and secondary analysis) and analyze data (statistics); and how to write a scientific report.
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21:920:303
Social Change and Globalization (3)
Examines causes and consequences of social change, as it touches individuals, small groups, communities, organizations, and societies on a global level, analyzing intended and unforeseen changes in both current social relations and the history of social structures.
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21:920:304
Social Problems (3)
This course examines leading social problems facing Americans today. It examines the causes and processes underlying these problems and addresses how to evaluate proposed solutions.
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21:920:306
Marriage and the Family (3)
The family is a social institution. This course focuses primarily on the modern American family and the current search for alternatives to the traditional monogamous family.
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21:920:307
Social Protest and Revolution (3)
When people's needs and aspirations are no longer satisfied through existing institutions and modes of representation, social protest results. This course uses specific examples of protest movements in order to examine who protests, why, and under what circumstances. It also examines popular and elite reactions to protest movements, including the reshaping of political institutions and the emergence of vigilante forces.
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21:920:308
Social Movements (3)
Theoretical approaches to the study of social movements. Comparative examination of historical and contemporary social movements in democratic and nondemocratic contexts; their emergence, strategies, dynamics, and outcomes.
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21:920:310
Occupations and Professions (3)
Variations in cultural definitions of work, attitudes toward careers, and the social environment of work; the development of professions; occupational and professional recruitment.
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21:920:311
Sociology of the Economy and Industry (3)
The ups and downs of the business cycle, as in the Great Recession of 2007-2008, directly affects how well or poorly people live, their plans and aspirations for the future, the types of work they perform, and the compensation they receive. New technologies--such as the automobile, the computer, and fast food--impact people's lives in similar ways. Economic changes are also social changes. This course focuses on the continuous transformation of society that is a feature of the modern world. Each generation faces a situation uniquely its own.
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21:920:313
Sociology of Criminology (3)
Crime and criminals in modern society, including causes of crime; machinery of justice; penal and correctional institutions; probation and parole; theories of crime and punishment.
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21:920:316
Race and Ethnicity in Multicultural Societies (3)
Ways in which race has been socially and historically constructed; critical examination of the sociological dimensions of race, ethnicity, and their influence on identity, racial categorization, and interlocking systems of oppression; historical and contemporary theories of race and racism with a primary focus on the United States, but also incorporating relevant international perspectives and experiences.
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21:920:321
Urban Sociology (3)
The city as a mosaic of communities; persistence and change in the structure of urban neighborhoods; city life and the urban personality; the sociology of community planning; the future of neighborhood, suburb, and city.
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21:920:325
Human Rights in a Global World (3)
This course explores the origins and recent proliferation of concepts, practices, and institutions related to human rights. It considers how human rights claims are contested, appropriated, and transformed in particular contexts. Struggles for human rights reconfigure social and cultural norms, and they transform local and global politics. Topics include the relationships of human rights to individual agency, culture, suffering, body, memory, law, justice, security, violence, citizenship, and group difference.
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21:920:326
American Society (3)
Explores the social structure and culture of American society today. Major topics are introduced from conceptual and historical sociological points of view. Topics include: the nature and consequences of American capitalism and the resultant disparities between advantaged and disadvantaged American social classes; the nature and consequences of racial inequality and discrimination in the United States today; the nature and politics of American immigration; the culture wars, political cleavages, and cultural divisions in American society over the past 50 years.
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21:920:328
Global Sustainable Development Goals (3)
Sustainable development is defined as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (Brundtland Report, 1987). On September 25, 2015, countries adopted a set of goals to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all as part of a new sustainable development agenda. Each goal has specific targets to be achieved over the next 15 years. For the goals to be reached, everyone needs to do their part: governments, the private sector, civil society, and you! This course will provide an understanding of the challenges facing the global community as it contemplates sustainable development and will introduce strategies and instruments for achieving the United Nation's ambitious, global sustainable development goals.
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21:920:329
Sociology of Law (3)
This class is not a prelaw course or a study in jurisprudence or legal reasoning, which are abstract approaches to the law. Rather, sociological approaches focus on the law's impact on our everyday lives, and our capacities to influence the law and legal institutions. The course is conceptually divided into two parts. The first considers prominent sociological theories of the law, and the second engages some core sociological perspectives on different areas of the law. We will group sociological theories of the law into two themes: competing theories on the relationship of democracy to the law; and competing theories as to why people obey the law. In the second part of the semester we will consider sociological perspectives on different legal domains, including criminal justice, immigration law, and corporate political influence.
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21:920:332
Class, Status, and Power (3)
Theories of inequality, social ranking, and the distribution of resources and opportunity as they affect individuals and groups in terms of crime, health, family life, and value systems.
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21:920:337
Sociology of Gender (3)
What is gender and why do we need it? How is it shaped and constructed? Does gender rely solely on the dichotomy masculinities/femininities? How does gender help us understand issues of race, class, and sexuality, etc.? This course explores gender and feminisms from a sociological perspective. It looks at the ways in which gender norms, roles, relations, and practices are shaped through social structures, institutions, and power relations. It also analyzes how gender and sexualities are related to race, class, religion, ethnicity, etc. We will also explore feminist theories and concepts such as patriarchy, sexism, and intersectionality. The course encourages students to investigate central themes in sociology, such as violence, family, education, health, work, state, nation, religion, etc.
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21:920:338
Sociology of Death and Dying (3)
Social factors that influence death and dying in the United States; characteristics of patients, professional staff, and institutions as these relate to the dying process and the definition of death; the routinization of death; the impact of technology on dying; current issues in the field.
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21:920:340
Sociology of Religion (3)
This
course examines religious practices from a cross-cultural and
comparative perspective. The course begins with a focus on religion as a concept and
explores theoretical approaches to the study of religion. The second half of
the course focuses on how modernity and globalization are affecting religious
traditions across the globe.
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21:920:345
Sociology of Education (3)
The interaction between schools and society; basic social concepts such as stratification, social role, and bureaucratic organization as they relate to the educational system; the system in relation to the larger institutions in the society, with emphasis on both stated objectives and actual social functions.
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21:920:349
Law and Society (3)
Law as a social institution; social processes in the creation and enforcement of law; the professions of law; law as product and producer of social change; ancient and modern legal institutions; modern societies and their legal systems.
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21:920:354
Applying Sociology (3)
Sociological practicum; the sociological meaning of the practical experiences in work, internships, volunteer programs, and other real-world organizational settings.
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21:920:358
Sociology of Migration (3)
Sociology of immigration and migration is a huge subfield. This course is not an overview of that discipline. Rather, we will use critical criminology to have a rigorous discussion about certain immigration trends in the United States, and within a global context. As we will mostly be using critical criminological theories, the course has an admitted bias to the study of migration and crime. The course is divided into four interrelated topics (called modules): (Module 1) rising global inequality and migration from poor to rich countries; (Module 2) the criminalization of migration to the United States; (Module 3) the feminization of migration; (Module 4) mass deportations in the United States and their social impacts. These topics are analyzed using sociological categories of class, race, gender, culture, citizenship, and their intersections.
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21:920:359
Race, Ethnicity, Space, and Place: Exclusion, Confinement, and Transformation (RESPECT) (3)
How have racial and ethnic inequalities in housing and neighborhood development become hallmarks of many U.S. cities? This course focuses on the complex and often misunderstood topics of race and racism from a spatial perspective, paying particular attention to the effects of interlocking systems of oppression on the economic restructuring and spatial transformation of primarily urban African-American communities. However, students will not just examine the built environment of such communities. People shape and are shaped by the places they physically occupy. Students, therefore, also delve into the narratives and everyday experiences of racialized city dwellers through various fields and forms: the social sciences (e.g., sociology, economics, political science, geography); the humanities (e.g., literature, history, anthropology); and media (e.g., music, photography, television, film, podcasts). Students will think critically about the uneven development of U.S. cities through three different lenses: exclusion, confinement, and transformation. They represent three crucial and intersecting moments in the physical development of U.S. cities, and the social, economic, and political lives of their inhabitants. Students will cover topics such as: residential segregation, the development of the "ghetto" and ethnic enclaves, environmental racism, crime, justice, policing, urban protest, social movements, and gentrification.
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21:920:360
Sociology of Contemporary Islam (3)
This course explores contemporary Islam(s) and Muslim communities from a sociological perspective, providing a critical understanding and analysis of Muslim intellectual, religious, and cultural productions and traditions. The course looks at social, economic, and political realities and experiences related to Islam(s) and Muslims. It analyzes the relationship between Islam and "Muslimness" with race, ethnicity, class, gender, etc.
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21:920:374
Issues Before the United Nations (3)
This course is designed to provide an orientation to the activities of the United Nations. The course will include exposure to current events, exploration of pressing international issues, the understanding of the basics of international law, and mastery of the protocol and procedures of international diplomacy.
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21:920:380
Civil Conflict and Violence (3)
Analyzes conflict as a normal process in social life; the emergence and dynamics of conflict; the effects of conflict on individual values and social structures; the processes of conflict resolution; individual, group, and intersocial conflicts.
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21:920:390
Sociology of Peace and Conflict (3)
Provides an introduction to peace and conflict from sociological as well as interdisciplinary perspectives. Students examine issues of peace and conflict, from interpersonal to international. Students will think critically about violence, its causes and consequences, and alternatives, both at home and abroad. Violence is conceptualized as direct violence, such as domestic violence, gang violence, police brutality, human rights abuses, genocide, and war; structural violence, such as the violence of social inequalities that prevent people from meeting their basic needs; and cultural violence, which justifies direct and structural violence. By the end of the course, students should understand: 1) the inherency of cooperation and conflict in society; 2) forms and manifestations of violence; 3) psychological, political, and structural bases of conflict; 4) methods of conflict resolution; and 5) nonviolent strategies for conflict transformation.
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920:393,394
Topical Issues in Sociology (3,3)
Topics vary each semester. Consult department for current information.
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21:920:395
Field Research Methods (3)
Nonquantitative observational, participant-observational, and face-to-face interviewing research techniques; how to collect (tape recording, videotaping) and analyze (transcribing, qualitative software) data; and how to write an academic report. Independent research project required.
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21:920:409
Classical Sociological Theory (3)
Foundations of social theory; Tocqueville, Durkheim, Marx, Weber, and other contributors to major orientations to historical development of modern society in the Western world.
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21:920:415
Contemporary Sociological Theory (3)
Current modes of theoretical analysis, and contemporary perspectives on the nature and historical development of modern forms of social organization and social relationships.
Prerequisite: 21:920:409 or permission of instructor.
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21:920:454
Topics in Criminal Justice (3)
In-depth exploration of selected issues in criminal justice of general relevance and specific interest to course participants.
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21:920:491,492
Research in Sociology (3,3)
Prerequisites: Junior or senior standing, and permission of instructor.
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21:920:499
Independent Study in Sociology (BA)
Prerequisites: Permission of instructor and department chair.
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School of Arts and Sciences-Newark 
