university of chicago sociology phd students

Welcome to Sociology

at the University of Chicago

The University of Chicago Department of Sociology is among the great sociology departments of the world. Founded in 1892 as the first sociology department in the United States, Chicago has a proud tradition of creative and foundational work.

One Year of the Stone Center

The Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility is celebrating its first year of research and programming on contemporary inequality

How Uncertainty Motivates Our Actions in Epidemics

Professor Jenny Trinitapoli's new book is  An Epidemic of Uncertainty: Navigating HIV and Young Adulthood in Malawi

Professor Lis Clemens wins 2023 Award for Graduate Teaching and Mentoring

Pranathi Diwakar wins 2023 Saller Prize for outstanding dissertation

Changing Women in a Changing Society @ 50

Associate Professor Kristen Schilt hosts five panels to revisit the American Journal of Sociology 's 1973 special issue on women

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Department of Sociology

• The William B. and Catherine V. Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies
• The University of Chicago Booth School of Business
• The Divinity School
• The Law School
• The Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
• The Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies
• The Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice
• Andreas Glaeser
• Andrew Abbott
• Luc Anselin
• Neil Brenner
• Terry N. Clark
• Elisabeth S. Clemens
• James A. Evans
• Kimberly Hoang
• Karin Knorr Cetina, Anthropology
• John Levi Martin
• Stephen W. Raudenbush
• Ross M. Stolzenberg
• Jenny Trinitapoli
• Linda Waite
• Kazuo Yamaguchi

Associate Professors

• Rene Flores
• Marco Garrido
• Omar M. McRoberts
• Kristen Schilt
• Geoffrey Wodtke

Assistant Professors

• Robert Vargas

Visiting Professor

• Hans Joas, Social Thought

Emeritus Faculty

• William L. Parish
• Richard Taub
• Dingxin Zhao

Associated Instructional Professor

• Sharon Hicks-Bartlett

Senior Lecturer

• Chad Broughton

Associated Faculty

• Eman Abdelhadi
• Luis Bettencourt
• Ronald S. Burt, Business
• Eve L. Ewing
• Chiara Galli, Comparative Human Development
• Angela Garcia, School of Social Service Administration
• Gary Herrigel, Political Science
• Guanglei Hong, Comparative Human Development
• Nicole Marwell, School of Social Service Administration
• Reuben Miller
• John Padgett, Political Science
• Amanda Sharkey, Organizations and Markets

The Department of Sociology, established in 1893 by Albion Small and Charles A. Henderson, has been centrally involved in the history and development of the discipline in the United States. The traditions of the Chicago School were built by pioneers such as W. I. Thomas, Robert E. Park, Ernest W. Burgess, and William F. Ogburn. It is a tradition based on the interaction of sociological theory with systematic observation and the analysis of empirical data; it is interdisciplinary, drawing on theory and research from other fields in the social sciences and the humanities; it is a tradition which seeks to fuse together concern with the persistent issues of social theory and attention to the pressing social and policy problems of modern society.

Continuous developments in social research have marked the department’s work in recent years. The department has pursued a balance in effort between individual scholarship and the development of group research approaches. Faculty members have been engaged in the development of systematic techniques of data collection and in the statistical and mathematical analysis of social data. Field studies and participant observation have been refined and extended. There has been an increased attention to macrosociology, to historical sociology, and to comparative studies. The staff is engaged in individual and large scale group projects which permit graduate students to engage in research almost from the beginning of their graduate careers. The student develops an apprenticeship relation with faculty members in which the student assumes increasing amounts of independence as he or she matures.

The study of sociology at the University of Chicago is greatly enhanced by the presence of numerous research enterprises engaged in specialized research. Students often work in these centers pursuing collection and study of data with faculty and other center researchers. Students have the opportunity for experience in the following research enterprises:  the Ogburn-Stouffer Center for the Study of Social Organizations; the Population Research Center; the Committee on Demographic Training; NORC Research Centers; the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality; the Center for the Study of Race, Culture, and Politics; the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory; the University of Chicago Urban Network; the Center for Health Administration Studies; the Rational Choice Program; and the Center on Demography and Economics of Aging. These provide an opportunity either for field work by which the student brings new primary data into existence or for the treatment of existing statistical and other data. The city of Chicago provides opportunities for a variety of field investigations, and the department also encourages cross national and foreign studies.

The Social Sciences has a strong tradition of comparative and international research, with area studies centers focused on East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Eastern Europe and Russia.  In addition, graduate students may benefit from activities at the University of Chicago centers in Paris and Beijing as well as the deep roster of language training opportunities available on campus.  There are equally diverse training opportunities and infrastructure to support quantitative research including the Survey Laboratory, the training program in Demography, course offerings in Statistics and a number of professional schools as well as a growing interdisciplinary community in computational research methods.

The Department of Sociology offers a program of studies leading to the Ph.D. degree. It does not have a master’s degree program (students interested in a one-year master's program should consider the Divisional Master of Arts Program in the Social Sciences or MAPSS). Students ordinarily earn a master’s degree as part of the Ph.D. program upon successful completion of the first year of coursework and the preliminary examination. The department welcomes students who have done their undergraduate work in other social sciences and in fields such as mathematics, biological sciences, and the humanities. The department also encourages students who have had work experience, governmental or military service, or community and business experience to apply.

All applicants for admission are required to submit Graduate Record Examination (GRE) General Test scores. Foreign students must provide evidence of English proficiency by submitting scores from either the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). A writing sample is required for all applications.

The application process for admission and financial aid for all Social Sciences graduate programs is administered through the divisional Office of the Dean of Students. The Application for Admission and Financial Aid, with instructions, deadlines, and department specific information is available online at https://apply-ssd.uchicago.edu/apply/ .

Questions pertaining to admissions and aid should be directed to [email protected] or (773) 702-8415. Most materials in support of the application can be uploaded through the application.

For additional information about the Sociology program, please see http://sociology.uchicago.edu/ or call (773) 702-8677.

The Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

The doctoral program is designed to be completed in five to seven years of study by a student entering with a bachelor’s degree. Satisfactory completion of the first phase of the Ph.D. program also fulfills the program requirements for the M.A. degree.

Common core course requirements

To complete the requirements for the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees, students are required to complete a set of required courses for credit in the first phase of the program.  These include  SOCI 30002 Principles of Sociological Research , and SOCI 30003 History of Social Theory .  First-year students are required to register for SOCI 60020 1st-Year Proseminar Research Questions and Design , a non-credit colloquium, in Autumn, Winter, and Spring.  Also required is  SOCI 30006 Second-Year Writing Seminar and   SOCI 30008 Third-Year Dissertation Proposal Seminar .

Statistics requirement

Students seeking the doctorate are also required to complete SOCI 30004 Statistical Methods of Research  and SOCI 30005 Statistical Methods of Research-II during the first year.  The department approves alternative sequences during the first year for students with strong preparation in statistics or mathematics. All students, however, are to take two courses in statistics in the first year of study.

M.A. examinations

First-year Ph.D. students are required to take a total of five sociology (SOCI) courses designated as “exam courses” among their nine graded courses; designated exam courses will vary from year to year. The courses are divided into ten topic areas. Students are required to take SOCI 30003 History of Social Theory as their first exam course. For the remaining four courses, students select ONE course each from four additional subject areas. Students are not allowed to count multiple courses from the same subject area or to substitute in courses that are not on the list of designated exam courses for their cohort year.

The qualifying paper

The qualifying paper should represent an original piece of scholarship or theoretical analysis and must be written in a format appropriate for submission to a professional publication. Note that the requirement is “publishable,” not “published,” although many recent papers have been presented at professional conferences and eventually published. The paper is prepared under the direct supervision and approval of a faculty member and may be written or revised in connection with one or more regular courses. Students entering with M.A. papers may petition to submit an supervised revision to meet the qualifying paper requirement.

Special field requirement

Ph.D. students are required to demonstrate competence in two special fields of sociological inquiry. The Special Field Requirement is to be met during the third year of graduate study. Students must pass the M.A. Examinations at the Ph.D. level before meeting the Special Field Requirement. This requirement may be met in three ways: by examination, with a review essay, or through a specified sequence of methods courses. Both the examination and review essay options are prepared on an individual basis, overseen by two faculty readers, in the fields of sociology in which the student wishes to develop research competence; one should be related to the subject of the subsequent Ph.D. dissertation. Special Fields cover both theoretical and substantive materials as well as the methods required for effective research. Preparation takes the form of specialized courses and seminars, supplemented by independent study and reading. For either an exam or essay, the student must first construct a bibliography to be approved by both faculty readers; readers must also agree in advance to either the examination or review essay format. The fields most commonly taken are urban sociology, organizational analysis, sociology of gender, sociology of education, culture/STS/knowledge, sociology of health and medicine, economic sociology, political sociology, stratification, social movements/change, and sociology of religion. One of the two special field requirements may be met with a sequence of courses. Three types of special fields in methodology are recognized: (1) social statistics, (2) survey research methods, and (3) qualitative methods.

Dissertation

The student prepares a research plan under the guidance of a designated faculty committee. The plan is subject to review by the faculty committee organized by each student to determine whether the project is feasible and to assist in the development of research. Upon approval of the dissertation proposal (by the first quarter of the fifth year of study) and completion of the other requirements listed above, the department recommends that the Division of the Social Sciences formally admit the student to candidacy for the Ph.D. degree. When the dissertation is completed, an oral examination is held on the dissertation and the field to which it is related.

Mentored Teaching Experiences

Students are required to complete four mentored teaching experiences (MTEs) during their time in the program. MTEs are intended to help students form working relationships with faculty, to build students’ skills with public speaking and presentation, and to develop students’ capacity to teach a method or area of sociological inquiry effectively. Students will work with their advisers in Year 1 to develop an individualized teaching plan that details their goals for developing pedagogical experience in a particular area, such as sociological theory or statistical methods. The Graduate Administrator and the Director of Graduate Studies will be responsible for matching students with MTE positions. Students typically begin teaching in Year 2, though students who enter the program with an M.A. may be able to begin teaching in Year 1. Students are expected to complete three mentored teaching experiences by spring Year 3. The fourth teaching experience must be completed prior to scheduling a dissertation defense. 

Graduate Workshops

Students in sociology are invited to participate in the program of Graduate Workshops in the Humanities and Social Sciences, a series of interdepartmental discussion groups that bring faculty and advanced graduate students together to discuss their current work. At the workshops, Chicago faculty and students or invited guests present portions of books or other projects in which they are currently engaged. Workshops in which students and faculty in the department participate include those addressed to the following topics: City, Society, and Space; Computational Social Science; Demography; East Asia: Politics, Economy, and Society; Education, Gender and Sexuality; History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Science; Money, Markets, and Consumption; Reproduction of Race and Racial Ideology; Semiotics: Culture in Context; and Social Theory and Evidence.

Sociology Courses

SOCI 30002. Principles of Sociological Research. 100 Units.

Explores how theoretical questions and different types of evidence inform decisions about methodological approach and research design. This course is required for first year Sociology PhD students.

Instructor(s): J. Trinitapoli     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open only to 1st year Sociology PhD students

SOCI 30003. History of Social Theory. 100 Units.

This course is an introduction to sociological theory. It will cover Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Simmel, Mead, Dewey, the Chicago School, Bourdieu, and possibly others.

Instructor(s): K. Hoang     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open only to 1st-year Sociology Phd students

SOCI 30004. Statistical Methods of Research. 100 Units.

This course has two purposes. First, using nationally representative US surveys, we'll examine the early emergence of educational inequality and its evolution during adolescence and adulthood. We'll ask about the importance of social origins (parent social status, race/ethnicity, gender, and language) in predicting labor market outcomes. We'll study the role that education and plays in shaping economic opportunity, beginning in early childhood. We'll ask at what points interventions might effectively advance learning and reduce inequality. Second, we'll gain mastery over some important statistical methods required for answering these and related questions. Indeed, this course provides an introduction to quantitative methods and a foundation for other methods courses in the social sciences. We consider standard topics: graphical and tabular displays of univariate and bivariate distributions, an introduction to statistical inference, and commonly arising applications such as the t‐test, the two‐way contingency table, analysis of variance, and regression. However, all statistical ideas and methods are embedded in case studies including a national survey of adult labor force outcomes, a national survey of elementary school children, and a national survey that follows adolescents through secondary school into early adulthood. Thus, the course will consider all statistical choices and inferences in the context of the broader logic of inquiry with the aim of strengthening our understanding of that logic as well as of the statistical methods.

Instructor(s): S. Raudenbush     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Priority registration for Ugrad Sociology majors and Sociology PhD students. No prior instruction in statistical analysis is required. Others by consent of instructor. Note(s): Students are expected to attend two lectures and one lab per week. Required of students who are majoring in Sociology. Substitutes for this course are STAT 20000 Elementary Statistics or higher. Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20004

SOCI 30005. Statistical Methods of Research-II. 100 Units.

Social scientists regularly ask questions that can be answered with quantitative data from a population-based sample. For example, how much more income do college graduates earn compared to those who do not attend college? Do men and women with similar levels of training and who work in similar jobs earn different incomes? Why do children who grow up in different family or neighborhood environments perform differently in school? To what extent do individuals from different socioeconomic backgrounds hold different types of political attitudes and engage in different types of political behavior? This course explores statistical methods that can be used to answer these and many other questions of interest to social scientists. The main objectives are to provide students with a firm understanding of linear regression and generalized linear models and with the technical skills to implement these methods in practice.

Instructor(s): G. Wodtke     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): SOCI 30004

SOCI 30006. Second-Year Writing Seminar. 100 Units.

Doctoral students in Sociology are required to take this seminar in their second year as they develop their Qualifying Paper (a full draft, at minimum, must be turned in to the department by June 11). In addition to providing a framework for these individual writing projects, the seminar will address norms of professional publishing, including professional peer review, as well as strategies for argumentation and analysis.

Instructor(s): L. Zhao     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Sociology PhD students only

SOCI 30008. Third-Year Dissertation Proposal Seminar. 100 Units.

This course is required for all Sociology PhD students. Most students take this course in their 3rd year, though it may be possible to take the course in year 4. The course intensively involves workshops dissertation projects, and students are expected to produce a defensible proposal by the end.

Instructor(s): K. Schilt     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Restricted to Sociology third year PhD students only; all others with consent of instructor.

SOCI 30103. Social Stratification. 100 Units.

Social stratification is the unequal distribution of the goods that members of a society value - earnings, income, authority, political power, status, prestige etc. This course introduces various sociological perspectives about stratification. We look at major patterns of inequality throughout human history, how they vary across countries, how they are formed and maintained, how they come to be seen as legitimate and desirable, and how they affect the lives of individuals within a society. The readings incorporate classical theoretical statements, contemporary debates, and recent empirical evidence. The information and ideas discussed in this course are critical for students who will go on in sociology and extremely useful for students who want to be informed about current social, economic, and political issues.

Instructor(s): R. Stolzenberg      Terms Offered: Autumn Equivalent Course(s): KNOW 30103, SOCI 20103

SOCI 30104. Urban Structure and Process. 100 Units.

This course reviews competing theories of urban development, especially their ability to explain the changing nature of cities under the impact of advanced industrialism. Analysis includes a consideration of emerging metropolitan regions, the microstructure of local neighborhoods, and the limitations of the past American experience as a way of developing urban policy both in this country and elsewhere.

Instructor(s): R. Vargas     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): CRES 20104, ENST 20104, CHST 20104, SOCI 20104, ARCH 20104, SOSC 25100, GEOG 32700, GEOG 22700

SOCI 30106. Political Sociology. 100 Units.

This course provides analytical perspectives on citizen preference theory, public choice, group theory, bureaucrats and state-centered theory, coalition theory, elite theories, and political culture. These competing analytical perspectives are assessed in considering middle-range theories and empirical studies on central themes of political sociology. Local, national, and cross-national analyses are explored.

Instructor(s): T. Clark     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Completion of the general education requirement in the social sciences Equivalent Course(s): ENST 23500, SOCI 20106, PBPL 23600

SOCI 30112. Applications of Hierarchical Linear Models. 100 Units.

A number of diverse methodological problems such as correlates of change, analysis of multi-level data, and certain aspects of meta-analysis share a common feature-a hierarchical structure. The hierarchical linear model offers a promising approach to analyzing data in these situations. This course will survey the methodological literature in this area, and demonstrate how the hierarchical linear model can be applied to a range of problems.

Instructor(s): S. Raudenbush     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Applied statistics at a level of multiple regression Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20112, PPHA 44650, EDSO 30112

SOCI 30116. Global-Local Politics. 100 Units.

Globalizing and local forces are generating a new politics in the United States and around the world. This course explores this new politics by mapping its emerging elements: the rise of social issues, ethno-religious and regional attachments, environmentalism, gender and life-style identity issues, new social movements, transformed political parties and organized groups, and new efforts to mobilize individual citizens.

Instructor(s): T. Clark     Terms Offered: Winter Equivalent Course(s): HMRT 20116, GEOG 20116, SOCI 20116, GEOG 30116, LLSO 20116, HMRT 30116, PBPL 27900

SOCI 30120. Urban Policy Analysis. 100 Units.

Cities are sites of challenge and innovation worldwide. Dramatic new policies can be implemented locally and chart new paths for national policies. Five main approaches are compared: Leadership patterns: are business, political, or other kinds of leaders more important--and where, when, and why do these matter? Second do capitalism, or more recently, global markets, make specific leaders irrelevant? Third: leaders like mayors are weaker since citizens, interest groups, and media have grown so powerful. Fourth innovation drives many policy issues. Fifth consumption, entertainment, and the arts engage citizens in new ways. Can all five hold, in some locations? Why should they differentially operate across big and small, rich and poor neighborhoods, cities, and countries? The course introduces you to core urban issues, whether your goal is to conduct research, interpret reports by others, make policy decisions, or watch the tube and discuss these issues as a more informed citizen. Chicago, US and big and small locations internationally are considered; all methods are welcome.

Instructor(s): T. Clark     Terms Offered: Autumn Equivalent Course(s): GEOG 30120, SOCI 20120, GEOG 20120, PBPL 24800

SOCI 30125. Rational Foundations of Social Theory. 100 Units.

This course introduces conceptual and analytical tools for the micro foundations of macro and intermediate-level social theories, taking as a basis the assumption of rational action. Those tools are then used to construct theories of power, social exchange, collective behavior, socialization, trust, norm, social decision making and justice, business organization, and family organization.

Instructor(s): K. Yamaguchi     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20125

SOCI 30179. Labor Force and Employment. 100 Units.

This course introduces key concepts, methods, and sources of information for understanding the structure of work and the organization of workers in the United States and other industrialized nations. We survey social science approaches to answering key questions about work and employment, including: What is the labor force? What determines the supply of workers? How is work organized into jobs, occupations, careers, and industries? What, if anything, happened to unions? How much money do workers earn and why? What is the effect of work on health? How do workers and employers find each other? Who is unemployed? What are the employment effects of race, gender, ethnicity, and religion?

Instructor(s): R. Stolzenberg     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20179

SOCI 30192. The Effects of Schooling. 100 Units.

From at least the Renaissance until some time around the middle of the twentieth century, social class was the pre-eminent, generalized determinant of life chances in European and, eventually, American societies. Social class had great effect on one's social standing; economic well-being; political power; access to knowledge; and even longevity, health, and height. In that time, there was hardly an aspect of life that was not profoundly influenced by social class. In the ensuing period, the effects of social class have receded greatly, and perhaps have even vanished. In their place formal schooling has become the great generalized influence over who gets access to the desiderata of social life, including food, shelter, political power, and medical care. So it is that schooling is sociologically interesting for reasons that go well beyond education. The purpose of this course is to review what is known about the long-term effects of schooling.

Instructor(s): R. Stolzenberg     Terms Offered: Autumn Equivalent Course(s): EDSO 30192, SOCI 20192, EDSO 20192

SOCI 30324. Muslims in the United States. 100 Units.

Muslim migration to the United States and Western Europe proliferated in the last quarter of the 20th Century, and Islam has been a visible (and controversial) presence in these societies ever since. Though internally varied by race, ethnicity, national origins, sect and class positionality, Muslim communities have faced homogenizing narratives rooted in orientalist frameworks. As Islam continues to be a site of conflict in geopolitical struggles, these frameworks have reproduced themselves into the twenty-first century. This course will use an intersectional and critical lens to examine the issues facing Muslims in the United States and Western Europe on both macro and micro levels. One third of the course will cover the interactions between Muslim communities and their "host societies" vis-à-vis the state, mass media, and public opinion. Another third of the course will delve into issues of socioeconomic mobility and cultural assimilation, Finally, the last third will show how these macro concepts influence the everyday lived experiences of Muslims in these contexts. This is a seminar-style, reading-heavy course. Students should be familiar with and capable of deploying the sociological concepts of race, class, gender and intersectionality.

Instructor(s): E. Abdelhadi     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Undergrads must have 3rd or 4th year standing. Note(s): Subject area: Undergrad: C; Grad: 3 Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 38990, CHDV 28999, CHDV 38990, GNSE 28990, ISLM 38990, CRES 38990

SOCI 30233. Race in Contemporary American Society. 100 Units.

This survey course in the sociology of race offers a socio-historical investigation of race in American society. We will examine issues of race, ethnic and immigrant settlement in the United States. Also, we shall explore the classic and contemporary literature on race and inter-group dynamics. Our investigative tools will include an analysis of primary and secondary sources, multimedia materials, photographic images, and journaling. While our survey will be broad, we will treat Chicago and its environs as a case study to comprehend the racial, ethnic, and political challenges in the growth and development of a city.

Instructor(s): S. Hicks-Bartlett     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring. Autumn quarter offered at the Undergraduate level only and Spring offered at the Graduate level only Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20233, MAPS 30233, RDIN 20233

SOCI 30252. Urban Innovation: Cultural Place Making and Scenescapes. 100 Units.

Activists from Balzac, Jane Jacobs, and others today seek to change the world using the arts. Ignored by most social science theories, these new cultural initiatives and policies are increasing globally. Urban planning and architecture policies, walking and parades, posters and demonstrations, new coffee shops and storefront churches reinforce selective development of specific cities and neighborhoods. These transform our everyday social environments into new types of scenes. They factor into crucial decisions, about where to work, to open a business, to found a political activist group, to live, what political causes to support, and more. The course reviews new case studies and comparative analyses from China to Chicago to Poland that detail these processes. Students are encouraged to explore one type of project.

Instructor(s): T. Clark     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): ARCH 20252, ENST 20252, SOCI 20252

SOCI 30253. Introduction to Spatial Data Science. 100 Units.

Spatial data science consists of a collection of concepts and methods drawn from both statistics and computer science that deal with accessing, manipulating, visualizing, exploring and reasoning about geographical data. The course introduces the types of spatial data relevant in social science inquiry and reviews a range of methods to explore these data. Topics covered include formal spatial data structures, geovisualization and visual analytics, rate smoothing, spatial autocorrelation, cluster detection and spatial data mining. An important aspect of the course is to learn and apply open source GeoDa software.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): STAT 22000 (or equivalent), familiarity with GIS is helpful, but not necessary Equivalent Course(s): MACS 54000, GISC 20500, ENST 20253, GISC 30500, SOCI 20253, CEGU 20253

SOCI 30258. Maverick Markets: Cultural Economy and Cultural Finance. 100 Units.

What are the cultural dimensions of economic and financial institutions and financial action? What social variables influence and shape 'real' markets and market activities? 'If you are so smart, why aren't you rich?' is a question economists have been asked in the past. Why isn't it easy to make money in financial areas even if one knows what economists know about markets, finance and the economy? And why, on the hand, is it so easy to get rich for some participants? Perhaps the answer is the real markets are complex social and cultural institutions which are quite different form organizations, administrations and the production side of the economy. The course provides an overview over social and cultural variables and patterns that play a role in economic behavior and specifically in financial markets. The readings examine the historical and structural embeddedness of economic action and institutions, the different constructions and interpretations of money, prices, and other dimensions of a market economy, and how a financial economy affects organizations, the art and other areas.

Instructor(s): K. Knorr     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 35405, ANTH 25440, SOCI 20258

SOCI 30263. Human Migration. 100 Units.

At any moment, spatial location is a fixed, essential characteristic of people and the places they inhabit. Over time, individuals and groups of people change places. In the long run, the places themselves move in physical, social, economic and political space. These movements can be characterized by their origins and destinations, as intentional or accidental, forced or voluntary, individual or collective, within political borders (e.g. the farm-to-city migration of the 1940's in the U.S), migration across political boundaries (e.g. "displacement" of pariah ethnicities after World War II), and by other criteria. All of these phenomena are aspects of migration This course reviews contemporary demographic research and theory concerning the nature of migration, and its extent, causes and consequences for individuals and collectivities. The demographic perspective absorbs a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, including those of psychology (e.g. individual decision-making), sociology (collective behavior, stratification, race and ethnicity), economics (rational behavior, macroeconomic conditions), and more.

Instructor(s): R. Stolzenberg     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20263

SOCI 30269. Policing the City. 100 Units.

This course explores the historical origins, evolution, and current manifestations of policing the United States. Using a political sociological perspective, this course explores policing in ways that will provide broader lessons about societal issues of social control, social order, race, class, crime, social psychology, and politics. The course examines key issues in policing, such as police brutality, racial profiling, and the management of social protest. It also reviews the historical origins of the policy in order to understand that modern day policing issues is much more of a continuation of the past than most think. Reading and course material will be discussed in relation to current events.

Instructor(s): R. Vargas     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20269

SOCI 30283. Introduction to GIS and Spatial Analysis. 100 Units.

This course provides an introduction and overview of how spatial thinking is translated into specific methods to handle geographic information and the statistical analysis of such information. This is not a course to learn a specific GIS software program, but the goal is to learn how to think about spatial aspects of research questions, as they pertain to how the data are collected, organized and transformed, and how these spatial aspects affect statistical methods. The focus is on research questions relevant in the social sciences, which inspires the selection of the particular methods that are covered. Examples include spatial data integration (spatial join), transformations between different spatial scales (overlay), the computation of "spatial" variables (distance, buffer, shortest path), geovisualization, visual analytics, and the assessment of spatial autocorrelation (the lack of independence among spatial variables). The methods will be illustrated by means of open source software such as QGIS and R.

Instructor(s): Crystal Bae     Terms Offered: Spring Summer. Offered 2023-24 Equivalent Course(s): ARCH 28702, SOCI 20283, GISC 28702, ENST 28702, CEGU 28702, PPHA 38712, GISC 38702

SOCI 30298. Schooling and Social Inequality. 100 Units.

How and why do educational outcomes and experiences vary across student populations? What role do schools play in a society's system of stratification? How do schools both contribute to social mobility and to the reproduction of the prevailing social order? This course examines these questions through the lens of social and cultural theory, engaging current academic debates on the causes and consequences of social inequality in educational outcomes. We will engage these debates by studying foundational and emerging theories and examining empirical research on how social inequalities are reproduced or ameliorated through schools. Through close readings of historical, anthropological and sociological case studies of schooling in the U.S, students will develop an understanding of the structural forces and cultural processes that produce inequality in neighborhoods and schools, how they contribute to unequal opportunities, experiences, and achievement outcomes for students along lines of race/ethnicity, class, gender, and immigration status, and how students themselves navigate and interpret this unequal terrain. We will cover such topics as neighborhood and school segregation; peer culture; social networks; elite schooling; the interaction between home, society and educational institutions; and dynamics of assimilation for students from immigrant communities.

Instructor(s): Lisa Rosen     Terms Offered: Autumn. Offered 2023-24 Note(s): This course is open only to students pursuing the MAPSS Education Certificate. This course is consent-only. Equivalent Course(s): MAPS 33007, RDIN 33006, EDSO 33006

SOCI 30315. Introduction to Causal Inference. 100 Units.

This course is designed for graduate students and advanced undergraduate students from the social sciences, education, public health science, public policy, social service administration, and statistics who are involved in quantitative research and are interested in studying causality. The goal of this course is to equip students with basic knowledge of and analytic skills in causal inference. Topics for the course will include the potential outcomes framework for causal inference; experimental and observational studies; identification assumptions for causal parameters; potential pitfalls of using ANCOVA to estimate a causal effect; propensity score based methods including matching, stratification, inverse-probability-of-treatment-weighting (IPTW), marginal mean weighting through stratification (MMWS), and doubly robust estimation; the instrumental variable (IV) method; regression discontinuity design (RDD) including sharp RDD and fuzzy RDD; difference in difference (DID) and generalized DID methods for cross-section and panel data, and fixed effects model. Intermediate Statistics or equivalent such as STAT 224/PBHS 324, PP 31301, BUS 41100, or SOC 30005 is a prerequisite. This course is a prerequisite for "Advanced Topics in Causal Inference" and "Mediation, moderation, and spillover effects."

Instructor(s): G. Hong     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Intermediate Statistics or equivalent such as STAT 224/PBHS 324, PP 31301, BUS 41100, or SOC 30005 Note(s): CHDV Distribution: M; M Equivalent Course(s): PLSC 30102, STAT 31900, CHDV 30102, PBHS 43201, CHDV 20102, MACS 51000, MACS 21000

SOCI 30337. Organizational Analysis. 100 Units.

Organizations - NGOs, corporations, social movement organizations, governments, etc. - impact almost every aspect of social life; in addition, organizations have become some of the most significant actors in modern society. The course will provide a grounding in the sociological literature on how organizations function as well as the dynamics that govern both their internal structures and how they interface with society. We will cover rational, ecological, and resource-based approaches, as well as others. We will study organizations in local and global contexts, their role in economic production, their impact on members and non-members, as well as public policy. Throughout, we will engage questions pertaining to where organizations come from, how they function, when they 'succeed' and 'fail', as well as their social consequences. At the completion of the course, students will apply the concepts covered in class to a final project.

Instructor(s): Arroyo, Pedro Alberto     Terms Offered: Autumn Winter Equivalent Course(s): MACS 20617, SOCI 20585, MAPS 30617, PBPL 23002, MACS 30617

SOCI 30345. Technologies of the Body. 100 Units.

From models and measures to imaging technologies and genomic sequencing, technologies have profoundly shaped how we know and understand human bodies, health, and disease. Drawing on foundational and contemporary science and technology studies scholarship, this class will interrogate technologies of the body: how they are made, the ways in which they have changed understandings of the human condition, their impact on individual and collective identities, and the interests and values built into their very design. Course readings will examine how technologies render bodies knowable and also construct them in particular ways. We will also focus on how technologies incorporate, and reinforce, ideas about human difference. Students will conduct an independent, quarter-long research project analyzing a biomedical technology of their choice. By the end of this course, students will be able to identify and explain the social, political and economic factors that shape the design and production of biomedical technologies, as well as the impact of these technologies on biomedicine and the social world more broadly. This course provides students with an opportunity to conduct a quarter-long research project, using a biomedical technology as a case study. Students will be introduced to foundational and cutting-edge scholarship in science and technology studies, and will use this scholarship to conduct their independent research.

Instructor(s): Melanie Jeske     Terms Offered: Autumn Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 26080, HLTH 26080, KNOW 36080, CHSS 36080, GNSE 36080

SOCI 30508. Working with Found Data: Library/Internet Research. 100 Units.

This course is an introduction to the methods involved in "research with found data:" that is, found material like manuscripts, books, journals, newspapers, ephemera, and government and institutional documents. (Such materials can be found both in print and on the Internet.) The course covers the essentials of project design, bibliography, location, access, critical reading, source evaluation, knowledge categorization and assembly, and records maintenance. The course is a methodological practicum organized around student projects. The texts are Thomas Mann's Oxford Guide to Library Research and Andrew Abbott's Digital Paper.

Instructor(s): A. Abbott     Terms Offered: Winter. Autumn quarter graduate level restricted to Sociology PhD students, Ugrads doing a BA paper require permission of instructor; Winter quarter restricted to MAPSS students only Note(s): Autumn quarter graduate level restricted to Sociology PhD students, Ugrads doing BA paper require permission of instructor; Winter quarter restricted to MAPSS students only Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20508

SOCI 30519. Spatial Cluster Analysis. 100 Units.

This course provides an overview of methods to identify interesting patterns in geographic data, so-called spatial clusters. Cluster concepts come in many different forms and can generally be differentiated between the search for interesting locations and the grouping of similar locations. The first category consists of the identification of extreme concentrations of locations (events), such as hot spots of crime events, and the location of geographical concentrations of observations with similar values for one or more variables, such as areas with elevated disease incidence. The second group consists of the combination of spatial observations into larger (aggregate) areas such that internal similarity is maximized (regionalization). The methods covered come from the fields of spatial statistics as well as machine learning (unsupervised learning) and operations research. Topics include point pattern analysis, spatial scan statistics, local spatial autocorrelation, dimension reduction, as well as spatially explicit hierarchical, agglomerative and density-based clustering. Applications range from criminology and public health to politics and marketing. An important aspect of the course is the analysis of actual data sets by means of open source software, such as GeoDa, R or Python.

Instructor(s): L. Anselin and P. Amaral     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): STAT 22000 or equivalent; SOCI 20253/30253 (or equivalent) Introduction to Spatial Data Science required. Equivalent Course(s): GISC 30519, ENST 20519, DATA 20519, GISC 20519, MACS 30519, MACS 20519, SOCI 20519

SOCI 30530. Schooling and Identity. 100 Units.

This course examines the dynamic relations between schooling and identity. We will explore how schools both enable and constrain the identities available to students and the consequences of this for academic achievement. We will examine these relations from multiple disciplinary perspectives, applying psychological, anthropological, sociological, and critical theories to understanding how students not only construct identities for themselves within schools, but also negotiate the identities imposed on them by others. Topics will include the role of peer culture, adult expectations, school practices and enduring social structures in shaping processes of identity formation in students and how these processes influence school engagement and achievement. We will consider how these processes unfold at all levels of schooling, from preschool through college, and for students who navigate a range of social identities, from marginalized to privileged.

Instructor(s): Lisa Rosen     Terms Offered: Winter. Offered 2022-23 Prerequisite(s): Priority registration will be given to MAPSS students seeking the Education and Society certificate. Equivalent Course(s): EDSO 33002, RDIN 33002, SOCI 20530, CHDV 23003, EDSO 23002, RDIN 23002

SOCI 30557. Sociology of Money. 100 Units.

This course serves as an introduction to the study of money in both the public sphere and private domains. By surveying the work of economic sociologists, anthropologists, geographers, legal scholars, and historians the goal is to provide students with and introduction so economic theory by prominent social theorists. The first part of the course focuses on classical theories such as Smith, Marx, Simmel, Polyani, Veblen, and Mills. The second part of the course will look at how money shapes gendered relations in the private domain through the works of Hochschild, Zelizer, Parrenas and several others. The third part of the course addresses how current theories are insufficient for explaining the rise of new money forms such as mobily money, cryptocurrencies, NFT's and the ways that new money fundamentally transforms social relations, politics, and society.

Instructor(s): K. Hoang     Terms Offered: Autumn Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20557, GLST 24557

SOCI 30559. Spatial Regression Analysis. 100 Units.

This course covers statistical and econometric methods specifically geared to the problems of spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity in cross-sectional data. The main objective for the course is to gain insight into the scope of spatial regression methods, to be able to apply them in an empirical setting, and to properly interpret the results of spatial regression analysis. While the focus is on spatial aspects, the types of methods covered have general validity in statistical practice. The course covers the specification of spatial regression models in order to incorporate spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity, as well as different estimation methods and specification tests to detect the presence of spatial autocorrelation and spatial heterogeneity. Special attention is paid to the application to spatial models of generic statistical paradigms, such as Maximum Likelihood and Generalized Methods of Moments. An import aspect of the course is the application of open source software tools such as various R packages, GeoDa and the Python Package PySal to solve empirical problems.

Instructor(s): L. Anselin     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): An intermediate course in multivariate regression or econometrics. Familiarity with matrix algebra Equivalent Course(s): GISC 20559, SOCI 20559, GISC 30559, DATA 20559

SOCI 30568. Historical Methods in the Social Sciences. 100 Units.

This course is designed to introduce students to the methods, theories, and problems encountered in research utilizing historical methods in the social sciences. The course pairs readings that address theoretical and ethical issues in historical methods-such as for and by whom history is written- with practical instruction in using common sources such as archives, oral histories, newspapers, and non-textual evidence. Drawing from diverse readings across the social sciences, we will examine some of the ways scholars from different fields have approached problems of structure, agency, and method; in the process, we will explore the relationship between theory and methods in our own projects. Throughout the course, students will have the opportunity to practice their skills through hands-on assignments that make use of the materials at University of Chicago and beyond.

Instructor(s): M. O'Shea     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): CHST 20568, SOCI 20568, GLST 20568

SOCI 30574. Sociology Structure and Agency. 100 Units.

The course will unpack two fundamental concepts in sociology-social structure and agency-and examine how they relate to one another. In this endeavor, we will consult both classical and contemporary sources and discuss theoretical elaborations as well as empirical applications. We will pay particular attention to what may be the three most powerful social structures in America: gender, class, and race. The aim of the course is to impart a distinctly sociological perspective and equip students with sociological modes of explanation (as opposed to, say, economic or biological/evolutionary modes) in the belief that such a framework will enrich their understanding of the world. To this end, students majoring in other disciplines-in economics, STEM fields, and the humanities-are encouraged to enroll. While the readings will include dense social theory, every effort will be made to make the ideas at stake accessible to a non-specialized audience.

Instructor(s): M. Garrido     Terms Offered: Winter Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20574, HIPS 20574, CHSS 30574

SOCI 30575. Logic of Social Inquiry. 100 Units.

This course is intended to cultivate deeper thinking about research practice. We will talk about different methods of sociological research, quantitative and qualitative, including surveys, interviews, systematic observation, and archival research. In particular, we will discuss the logic underlying each method, exploring questions such as What kind of data can we get at using this method? How do we know our findings are valid? To what extent are they generalizable? On what basis can we make causal inferences? Is my research ethical? and How does my positionality matter? In addition to research logic, our other focus will be on research design. Here we want to get students to think about the many choices they have to make in pursuing a research project; choices about what aspect of reality to focus on and how to construct a research question in order to get at it, which methods to employ, and which case(s) to investigate. We see this course as a necessary bridge between theory and research, believing that good sociology lies precisely in the ability to bridge this gap. Suffice it to say, it will better prepare students to write an academic paper for their capstone projects. We recommend that sociology majors take the course in their third year.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Autumn Note(s): Priority registration for Sociology 3rd year majors Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20575

SOCI 30576. Social Theory for the Digital Age. 100 Units.

Society rearranges itself, though we don't always know where it is heading. When the postmodern moment had arrived in the 1980s it perplexed social theorists, hence its characterization as simply a "post"-stage of modernity. Digitization is one answer to the question of direction of change in the last decades. In this class, we take the ongoing transformations that we attribute to digital media as a starting point to ask what challenges they provide to social theory that may force us to reconsider some of our most basic concepts and premises. We will understand the term digital age broadly to refer to the rise of algorithms, sensors, (big) data, machine learning, and computational methods, all developments that swirl in and around the Artificial Intelligence scene and intersect with and replace purely human relations. The class gives particular attention to concepts such as action and interaction, embodiment, social situations, subjectivity and autonomy, as wells as society as communication.

Instructor(s): K. Knorr     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): CHSS 30576, SOCI 20576, HIPS 20576

SOCI 30588. Beyond the Culture Wars: Social Movements and the Politics of Education in the U.S. 100 Units.

Passionate conflicts over school curriculum and educational policy are a recurring phenomenon in the history of US schooling. Why are schools such frequent sites of struggle and what is at stake in these conflicts? In this discussion-based seminar, we will consider schools as battlegrounds in the US "culture wars": contests over competing visions of national identity, morality, social order, the fundamental purposes of public education, and the role of the state vis-à-vis the family. Drawing on case studies from history, anthropology, sociology and critical race and gender studies, we will examine both past and contemporary debates over school curriculum and school policy. Topics may include clashes over: the teaching of evolution, sex and sexuality education, busing/desegregation, prayer in schools, multiculturalism, the content of the literary canon, the teaching of reading, mathematics and history, and the closure of underperforming urban schools. Our inquiry will examine how social and political movements have used schools to advance or resist particular agendas and social projects.

Instructor(s): Lisa Rosen     Terms Offered: Spring 2022-23 Equivalent Course(s): HIST 27718, HIST 37718, PBPL 23011, EDSO 33011, CHDV 23011, CHDV 33011, EDSO 23011, SOCI 20588

SOCI 30591. Introduction to Critical Social Theory. 100 Units.

This course introduces graduate and advanced undergraduate students to a tradition of social thought and research called "Critical Social Theory." As opposed to Traditional Social Theory, Critical Social Theory questions inherited theoretical frameworks and conceptual formations in an attempt to reconstruct social theory and harness it for its liberatory potential. It offers alternative theories and concepts to inform social research that exposes and questions rather than assumes existing social institutions, inequalities and power relations. Examples of readings are works by the Frankfurt School, Marxist theorists of hegemony (e.g. Antonio Gramsci, Stuart Hall), theorists of power and agency (Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu), Feminist Standpoint Epistemology/Theory, Black Marxism, Black Feminist Thought, Queer Theory, and Decolonial/Postcolonial Theory - among other possible schools of theorizing. Rather than a detailed examination of any one of these schools of theorizing, the course offers a broad overview, locating shared and contrasting themes and lines of argumentation.

Instructor(s): J. Go     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): CCCT 20591, CCCT 30591, SOCI 20591

SOCI 30593. Housing, Inequality, and Society. 100 Units.

This course considers the way US society has approached housing and inequality in the past and present - from public housing and homelessness to suburbia, mobile homes, and beyond. Housing is the site and subject of policies, profit, ideologies, biases, regulations, activism, and reputations. The course overviews how each of these shape housing, which in turn shape inhabitants - particularly along lines of race, class, gender -, and what we can do to intervene. Drawing on theoretical approaches and empirical studies from the social sciences, this course offers an advanced focus on the inequality that pervades contemporary US housing, enabling students to understand how people are impacted by their homes.

Equivalent Course(s): SSAD 21750, SSAD 41750, SOCI 20593, ANTH 21750

SOCI 30594. Sociology of religion in everyday life. 100 Units.

Religion is a non-material social fact that has been one of humankind's most important collective meaning systems. Although this social fact changes, it survives as a meaning system in different societies with different forms, representations, and functions. The survival of religion, even in the face of change, is due to its collective meaning functions, like forming and maintaining a collective conscience and social solidarity (in the Durkheimian approach). In this course, the primary purpose is to investigate religion as a social current and collective fact in the context of the everyday life of ordinary people (even in student's life experiences) and try to achieve these goals: to investigate the religious meanings in everyday life, to get an analytical view of religious phenomena as social facts, to get a sociological viewpoint about regular religious events, to differentiate analytically between positivistic and post-positivistic approaches, to provide concrete examples of religious contexts like Iran for a better understanding of students.

Instructor(s): Z. Khoshk Jan     Terms Offered: Winter Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20594

SOCI 30598. Slavery and Emancipation: Caribbean Perspectives. 100 Units.

This graduate-level reading colloquium explores the interpretive problems and perspectives critical to understanding the historical dynamics of slavery and emancipation in the Caribbean. Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, over five million African men, women, and children were trafficked to the Caribbean as enslaved captives. During this period, Africans and their descendants, as well as the tens of thousands of slaveholders, indentured laborers, Indigenous peoples, and free people in the region, forged the political, economic, social, and cultural dynamics that arguably made the Caribbean the birthplace of the modern world. Through course readings in foundational and emerging scholarship, we will examine how slavery and emancipation underlined crucial historical transformations and problems in the Caribbean, with attention to their global repercussions. Students will also have the opportunity to draw comparisons with other regions in the Atlantic World. Upper-level undergraduates may enroll with instructor consent.

Instructor(s): Lyons, Deirdre     Terms Offered: Winter Equivalent Course(s): HIST 29006, ANTH 26452, SOCI 20598, ANTH 46452, MAPS 33505, HIST 39006

SOCI 30600. The Political Sociology of Religion. 100 Units.

By combining the two fields of political sociology and sociology of religion, political sociology of religion seeks to investigate and analyze religious phenomena with a political nature and political phenomena with religious-spiritual approaches.The main aim of this course is to investigate the mutual influence of political forces and religion. Therefore, one of the most important concepts to be considered is "political religion" and the way to construct identity and social-political actions at micro and macro levels. This course seeks to answer these questions: What is political religion, and how is it constructed and represented in different contexts? What political definitions of salvation, sin, suffering, liberation, and spirituality have been presented by world religions? How are these definitions represented in social reality by actors and political systems? How do religious fundamentalist approaches represent the political issue? How is politicized religion represented in everyday life?

Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20600

SOCI 40103. Event History Analysis. 100 Units.

An introduction to the methods of event history analysis will be given.The methods allow for the analysis of duration data. Non-parametric methods and parametric regression models are available to investigate the influence of covariates on the duration until a certain even occurs. Applications of these methods will be discussed i.e., duration until marriage, social mobility processes organizational mortality, firm tenure, etc.

Instructor(s): K. Yamaguchi     Terms Offered: Autumn

SOCI 40112. Ethnographic Methods. 100 Units.

This course explores the epistemological and practical questions raised by ethnography as a method -- focusing on the relationships between theory and data, and between researcher and researched. Discussions are based on close readings of ethnographic texts, supplemented by occasional theoretical essays on ethnographic practices. Students also conduct original field research., share and critique each other's field notes on a weekly basis, and produce analytical papers based on their ethnographies.

Instructor(s): O. McRoberts     Terms Offered: Winter Note(s): Graduate students only

SOCI 40133. Computational Content Analysis. 100 Units.

A vast expanse of information about what people do, know, think, and feel lies embedded in text, and more of the contemporary social world lives natively within electronic text than ever before. These textual traces range from collective activity on the web, social media, instant messaging and automatically transcribed YouTube videos to online transactions, medical records, digitized libraries and government intelligence. This supply of text has elicited demand for natural language processing and machine learning tools to filter, search, and translate text into valuable data. The course will survey and practically apply many of the most exciting computational approaches to text analysis, highlighting both supervised methods that extend old theories to new data and unsupervised techniques that discover hidden regularities worth theorizing. These will be examined and evaluated on their own merits, and relative to the validity and reliability concerns of classical content analysis, the interpretive concerns of qualitative content analysis, and the interactional concerns of conversation analysis. We will also consider how these approaches can be adapted to content beyond text, including audio, images, and video. We will simultaneously review recent research that uses these approaches to develop social insight by exploring (a) collective attention and reasoning through the content of communication; (b) social relationships through the process of communication; and (c) social state

Instructor(s): James Evans     Terms Offered: Winter Equivalent Course(s): CHDV 30510, MACS 60000

SOCI 40137. Introduction to Science Studies. 100 Units.

This course provides an introduction to the interdisciplinary study of science, medicine, and technology. During the twentieth century, sociologists, historians, philosophers, and anthropologists raised original, interesting, and consequential questions about the sciences. Often their work drew on and responded to each other, and, taken together, their various approaches came to constitute a field, "science studies." The course furnishes an initial guide to this field. Students will not only encounter some of its principal concepts, approaches and findings, but will also get a chance to apply science-studies perspectives themselves by performing a fieldwork project. Among the topics we may examine are: the sociology of scientific knowledge and its applications; actor-network theories of science; constructivism and the history of science; and efforts to apply science studies approaches beyond the sciences themselves.

Instructor(s): Michael Paul Rossi     Terms Offered: Winter. Offered in Winter 2024 Equivalent Course(s): CHSS 32000, HIPS 22001, HIST 44906, KNOW 31408, ANTH 32305, HLTH 22001

SOCI 40141. Historical Sociology. 100 Units.

This course provides an introduction to research in historical sociology. We will discuss both classic and recent work related to state formation and empire, racial regimes, and the emergence or transformation of markets among other topics. These studies will also be used to analyze theoretical and methodological approaches, archival strategies, and questions of research design.

Instructor(s): E. Clemens     Terms Offered: Autumn. Not offered in 2023/24

SOCI 40164. Involved Interviewing: Strategies for Interviewing Hard to Penetrate Communities and Populations. 100 Units.

Imagine that you must interview someone who hails from a background unlike your own; perhaps you need to interview an incarcerated youth, or gather a life history from an ill person. Maybe your task is to conduct fieldwork inside a community that challenges your comfort level. How do we get others to talk to us? How do we get out of our own way and limited training to become fully and comfortably engaged in people and the communities in which they reside? This in-depth investigation into interviewing begins with an assumption that the researcher as interviewer is an integral part of the research process. We turn a critical eye on the interviewer's role in getting others to talk and learn strategies that encourage fertile interviews regardless of the situational context. Weekly reading assignments facilitate students' exploration of what the interview literature can teach us about involved interviewing. Additionally, we critically assess our role as interviewer and what that requires from us. Students participate in evaluating interview scenarios that are designed to explore our assumptions, sharpen our interviewing skills and troubleshoot sticky situations. We investigate a diversity of settings and populations as training ground for leading effective interviews. The final project includes: 1) a plan that demonstrates knowledge of how to design an effective interviewing strategy for unique field settings; 2) instructor's feedback on students' personal journals on the role of.

Instructor(s): S. Hicks-Bartlett     Terms Offered: Autumn Winter. Autumn-restricted to 4th and 3rd year Sociology Majors ONLY. Winter restricted to graduate students ONLY. Prerequisite(s): Ugrad Level restricted to 4th and 3rd year Sociology Majors ONLY Equivalent Course(s): MAPS 40164, SOCI 20547

SOCI 40177. Coding & Analyzing Qualitative Data using MAXQDA. 100 Units.

This focus of this course is on coding and analyzing qualitative data (e.g., interview transcripts, oral histories, focus groups, letters, and diaries, etc). In this hands-on-course students learn how to organize and manage text-based data in preparation for analysis and final report writing of small scale research projects. Students use their own laptop computers to access one of two free, open-source software programs available for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. While students with extant interview data can use it for this course, those without existing data will be provided text to code and analyze. This course does not cover commercial CAQDAS, such as AtlasTi, NVivo, The Ethnograph or Hypertext.

Instructor(s): S. Hicks-Bartlett     Terms Offered: Spring Winter. Winter restricted to 4th and 3rd year Sociology Majors only and MAPS students only. Spring restricted to graduate students only. Prerequisite(s): Ugrad Level restricted to 4th and 3rd year Sociology Majors ONLY Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20548, MAPS 40177

SOCI 40198. Economy and Ethnography. 100 Units.

This seminar is a practicum in theoretically grounded and critically reflexive qualitative methods of research. The first objective of this course is to provide an overview of the key issues in the epistemology, practice, ethnics and the politics of participant observations of the state and economy. We will read ethnographic fieldwork and interview based research projects involved a variety of different strategies and approaches to "studying-up". We will cover various traditions and modalities of qualitative research. Students will evaluate their goals, epistemological questions, field techniques, relational dynamics with research subjects, analytical strategies, representational devices, and ethical quandaries. Practically, this class will provide the tools for the study of economic environments in global cities, urban environments and rural areas; large organizations and small micro-enterprises; as well as informal economies and hidden markets.

Instructor(s): K. Hoang     Terms Offered: Autumn

SOCI 40233. Sociology of Immigration. 100 Units.

This graduate seminar seeks to cover the main topics in this vast field. Topics include: determinants of migration, immigrant assimilation, transnationalism, immigration and race, immigration policies, immigration attitudes and public opinion, and illegality. We will also devote some time to immigrant-receiving contexts outside of the U.S. especially Western Europe. The purpose of the class is to encourage graduate students to develop their own immigration research projects. We will pay special attention to research design and methodological issues.

Instructor(s): R. Flores     Terms Offered: Autumn. Not offered in 2023/24

SOCI 40248. Social Network Analysis. 100 Units.

This course introduces students to concepts and techniques of Social Network Analysis ("SNA"). Social Network Analysis is a theoretical approach and a set of methods to study the structure of relationships among entities (e.g., people, organizations, ideas, words, etc.). Students will learn concepts and tools to identify network nodes, groups, and structures in different types of networks. Specifically, the class will focus on a number of social network concepts, such as social capital, homophily, contagion, etc., and on how to operationalize them using network measures, such as centrality, structural holes, and others.

Instructor(s): Sabrina Nardin     Terms Offered: Autumn Equivalent Course(s): MACS 20101, MACS 40101

SOCI 40258. Causal Mediation Analysis. 100 Units.

Causal mediation analysis lies at the very heart of social science. It seeks to uncover not just whether but al so why an exposure affects an outcome by quantifying the processes and mechanisms through which a causal effect operates. That is, it aims to identify causal chains that connect an exposure to an outcome via intermediate variables known as mediators. This class will cover methods for analyzing causal mediation with an emphasis on social science applications. It will use precise notation (potential outcomes) and accessible conceptual diagrams (directed acyclic graphs) to lead students from basic definitions of effects, via minimally necessary identification assumptions, to cutting-edge estimation procedures. It will provide a guide for analyzing causal mediation using modern techniques, including effect decomposition, adjustment for both pre- and post-exposure confounding, analysis of multiple mediators, and estimation via regression modeling, inverse probability weighting, and machine learning methods. The class will address both theory and conceptual material alongside practical implementation using R or Stata.

Instructor(s): G. Wodtke     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Students interested in taking this class are expected to have a solid background in probability, multivariate statistics, linear models, and the basics of causal inference. Knowledge of linear algebra and calculus will be an asset but is not required.

SOCI 40260. Politics and Political Knowledge. 100 Units.

Recent developments have led to a renewed interest in the question how to most fruitfully to understand "politics" or "the political." Is it best understood as a dimension of many practices, a specific set of practices, or is it more advantageous to see it as a specific institutional domain separate from others? What is it's relationship to violence and/or to the solution of common problems? What is it that enables politics to proceed and under which circumstances is it crowned by success? What in particular is the role of specific kinds of knowledge such as eu/dystopian thinking, sociology, rhetorics, and organizational knowledge in enabling politics? In search for answers we will, armed with core ideas by Hobbes and Rousseau, read texts by Weber, Tilly, Mann, Schmitt, Mouffe, Laclau, Mannheim, Foucault, Taylor, Anderson, Bourdieu, Habermas, and Latour.

Instructor(s): A. Glaeser     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open to advanced undergraduates with permission of instructor Equivalent Course(s): KNOW 40260

SOCI 40261. Politics and Sociology of Markets. 100 Units.

Course will survey conceptions of market exchange in both micro and macro dimensions. The emphasis will be (mostly) on sociological and normative understandings of markets as forms of order.

Terms Offered: Winter Equivalent Course(s): PLSC 43434

SOCI 40262. Non Parliamentary Forms of Democracy. 100 Units.

This course will survey an array of theoretical arguments for democracy outside the electoral arena. In some case, the views will involve complements to electoral democracy, in other cases there will be proposals to substitute other forms of democratic process for elections. Among other traditions, the course will survey Pluralism, Guild Socialism, Labor Republicanism, Economic Democracy and Co-determination, Progressive Regulation and Democratic Experimentalism

Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): PLSC 46666

SOCI 40263. Weber, Veblen and Genealogies of Global Capitalism. 100 Units.

After quick review or Marxs, this course considers other possibilities. It focuses on critical comparative reading of Thorstein Veblen's theory of the late modern "new order" and Max Weber's comparative sociology, but will also read widely among other authors, including Simmel, Sombart, Mahan, Tolstoy and Gandhi. Questions to engage will include: relations between capital, the state, and military force (between means of production and means of coercion); commerce in Asia before European colonialism and the rise of colonial plantations and monopoly trading companies; types of capital, the rise and spread of joint-stock companies, stock markets, and capitalist corporations; the "new order," decolonization and the nation-state.

Instructor(s): John Kelly Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 43700

SOCI 40264. Education, Culture, and Power. 100 Units.

This course critically examines how power and culture operate within educational systems. This course will presume that education is not simply a neutral good that we must acquire to gain social mobility. Instead, educational systems are sites where power is enacted and where culture is learned (or suppressed). Thus, this course will ask important questions like: What type of education gets you power? What is the normative culture of education (schooling)? Do you need to perform a certain type of culture to accrue educational power? Who has power over educational systems? How is education wielded as a tool of power? Can educational systems be sites of challenging power? To answer these questions, we will read a range of educational scholars, sociologists, historians, anthropologists, and social theorists. We will pay particular attention to the many lines of difference that stratify educational systems, such as: race, indigeneity, gender, sexuality, class, nationality, and disability.

Equivalent Course(s): EDSO 31522, EDSO 21522, MAPS 31522

SOCI 40265. In-Depth Interviewing: Talk as Data. 100 Units.

This course is meant for students who have just started, or are soon planning to carry out, a qualitative research study that utilizes in-depth interviewing. This course will take a practical and hands-on approach to doing the work of listening to strangers. In addition to a brief, but rigorous, theoretical introduction to the methodology, this course will mainly be aimed at helping students collect their own rich interview data. This means that we will place the ability to problem solve research hiccups, dilemmas, and contingencies at the front and center. Along the way, our fieldwork will be supplemented by reading accessible guides by experienced qualitative scholars on the mechanics of interviewing. By the course's end, students will be expected to have collected, and begun to analyze, actual data in their research study.

Equivalent Course(s): MAPS 40165

SOCI 40266. Research Colloquium: Reconstructing Philippine Politics. 100 Units.

This course is an opportunity for the instructor and selected graduate students to discuss their research projects in parallel. The topic of the colloquium is Reconstructing Philippine Politics, which may be of interest to scholars of politics in the "Global South" generally. The project is motivated by the sense that traditional approaches to Philippine politics-in terms of patronage and plunder, factions and families, and civil society-are insufficient to understanding the recent illiberal turn. It prioritizes historical and ethnographic approaches to reconstructing politics. This is the instructor's project, which he will develop over the course of the quarter. Students are expected to bring their own research projects to class (ideally ones that relate to the general theme of politics in the Global South), and also to develop them over the course of the quarter. The practice of working out ideas in the crucible of sustained critical inquiry (i.e., the seminar) is a venerable University of Chicago tradition.

Instructor(s): M. Garrido     Terms Offered: Spring

SOCI 50092. Sem: Religion and Politics. 100 Units.

In this seminar we will consider meanings of religion and politics, and examine their interactions from a comparative perspective. After digesting alternative theoretical understandings of the relationship between religion, states, and political processes, we will turn to empirical accounts that illuminate historical and local issues at points around the globe. Among other phenomena, students will explore patterns of secularization, religious nationalism, fundamentalisms, and policy-oriented religious social movements.

Instructor(s): O. McRoberts     Terms Offered: Winter Equivalent Course(s): AASR 50092

SOCI 50106. Sem: The Social Process. 100 Units.

This course sets forth a general analysis of the social process, based on the exposition of a processual theoretical system. It begins with desiderata for the theory, then proceeds through the topics of orders, events, locality, lineage, stability, and entity processes to the usual micro and macro analyses of social life.

Instructor(s): A. Abbott     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open to undergrads by special permission from the instructor

SOCI 50112. Sem: Health and Society. 100 Units.

A long and healthy life is a widely sought after human goal. But not everyone has equal chances of achieving this goal. This course focuses on the role played by society in differential access to physical, psychological, cognitive health and well-being. We will discuss the role of parental characteristics and childhood circumstances in later-life health, differences in health and well-being for men and women, for racial and ethnic groups, by characteristics of our neighborhoods and communities, and by regions or countries. Each class meeting we will read and discuss three or four journal articles or sections of a book, with class participants presenting each reading, summarizing it, and then critiquing it. The class will then discuss. We will add to and subtract from the readings to match the interests of participants on each topic; the syllabus will list readings as a starting point for this process.

Instructor(s): L. Waite     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Some Social Science background Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 50112, CHDV 40112

SOCI 50127. Public History Practicum II. 100 Units.

In this two-quarter course students will engage in the theory and practice of public history in partnership with organizations doing community-oriented work in a variety of areas. In the winter colloquium, we will read and discuss the theory and practice of public history as well as materials relevant to the projects you will pursue in the spring. In the spring practicum, you will work in groups of 3-5 directly with one of the partner organizations. All of the project-based work will be done collaboratively; working with partners means that there will be hard deadlines. Projects and coursework will be designed to be adaptable to current public health conditions. A showcase presentation of the projects is scheduled for the end of the spring quarter, by which time you will have become acquainted with current scholarship on public history and with experience in its actual practice. The final projects will be part of your portfolio and may be listed on your c.v.

Instructor(s): A. Green     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): HIST 67603; Students must take Public History Practicum I (HIST 67603) and II in sequence. Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 34612, HIST 47604, RDIN 47604, CHSS 67604, ARTH 47604

SOCI 50137. Colloquium on Law and Social Science. 100 Units.

This unique workshop brings together social science and law faculty and students to examine new empirical scholarship with implications for law scholarship and legal reform. Rather than being a testing ground for works-in-progress, this workshop is an incubator for legal-reform-oriented scholarship based on social science research. We will encounter a mix of law scholarship and sociology scholarship on several topics, such as poverty and housing, higher education, and criminal system replacement. Students will write reaction papers and research proposals, which will count toward the grade, in addition to class participation.

SOCI 50132. Sem:Causal Inference in Studies of Educational Interventions. 100 Units.

This course will engage students in evaluating the validity of causal claims made in important educational studies conducted within multiple disciplines. A focus will be on what can be learned about the school as an organization and the work of teaching by evaluating attempts to improve education. Fellows will re-analyze data from such studies, write reports that critically evaluate published study findings, and consider implications for research on educational improvement. This course is required of second year Fellows in the Education Sciences. Otherwise, admission to the seminar requires permission of the instructor. Introductory coursework in applied statistics is a prerequisite; prior study of causal inference is recommended.

Instructor(s): S. Raudenbush, G. Hong     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): EDSO 50132, CHDV 50132

SOCI 50134. Sem: Democratic Backsliding. 100 Units.

What is happening to democracy around the world? Is it dying, as some pundits suggest, or simply transforming? The course examines the causes, processes, and repercussions of so-called democratic backsliding in Global South countries particularly. This year (Spring 2024) we dive deeply into one case: The Philippines. We will consider the formation of liberal institutions, the nature of postcolonial politics, and the puzzle of popular support for illiberal leaders. Being a seminar, the course will be reading- and discussion-intensive. Students are expected to keep up.

Instructor(s): M. Garrido     Terms Offered: Spring. Cancelled - Not being offered

SOCI 60001. Workshop: Demography. 100 Units.

This workshop is sponsored by the Committee on Demographic Training in collaboration with the Population Research Center of NORC and the University. Visitors from other campuses as well as Chicago faculty discuss current research activities in population studies. PQ: Must Register for an R

Terms Offered: Spring Winter Equivalent Course(s): ECON 58900

SOCI 60020. 1st-Year Proseminar Research Questions and Design. 000 Units.

A required, non-credit colloquium for first-year doctoral students in Sociology. The Colloquium addresses how to generate research questions and design projects through the current work of department faculty.

Instructor(s): G. Wodtke     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): 1st-year Sociology PhD students only

SOCI 60021. Wksp. Politics, History and Society. 000 Units.

The Politics, History, and Society workshop provides a home for graduate students and faculty who occupy the interdisciplinary spaces that exist between sociology and political science and/or between sociology and history. All of the papers we workshop are concerned with the institutions and processes of modern political orders, studied comparatively or historically. State formation, civil society, legal structures, social movements, colonialism, empire, and globalization are all frequent themes. Recent and upcoming papers include an ethnographic study of the political culture of indigenous Taiwanese, a case study of criminal conspiracy and corporate regulation in the 1920s and 1930s United States, an analysis of the role of social networks of Sufi Saints in the 18th and 19th century Ottoman Empire, and a multi-national comparison of causes of inter-communal violence. PQ: Students must register for an R

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter

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Contacts | Program of Study | Course Requirements for the Major in Sociology | Qualifying Courses, Academic Year 2023–2024 | BA Project Guidelines | Grades | Honors | Research Funding | Questions? | Sociology Courses

Department Website: http://sociology.uchicago.edu

Program of Study

The discipline of sociology explores the nature, structure, and dynamics of social life, and also its causes and consequences for the world. With this broad mandate, sociology encompasses a diversity of substantive interests, methodological approaches, and theoretical orientations. Sociologists study diverse social phenomena ranging from online conversations, friendship, and families to neighborhoods, governments, and global markets. They study cities and communities, inequality, social mobility and social class, patterns of population change and migration, social identities such as race, class, and gender, ethnic relations and social conflict, social media and digital interaction, and social dimensions of sex, health, business, education, law, politics, religion, and science. Sociologists study the emergence, stabilization, disintegration, and wide-ranging implications of these social institutions, behaviors, and meanings. Methodologies of the field range from ethnography, interviews, and historical research to surveys, computational modeling, and big data analysis.

The University of Chicago’s sociology department was the first in the United States, and it stewards the American Journal of Sociology , the discipline’s longest running sociology journal. Chicago sociology builds on these legacies by continuing to sponsor pathbreaking research. Chicago training in sociology confers deep understanding of social organization and human relations, along with skill in drawing inferences from data, which has made it attractive for students considering careers in business, social media, data science, education, law, marketing, medicine, journalism, social work, politics, public administration, and urban planning. Chicago’s sociology education forms an excellent basis for specialized graduate work and affords entry to careers in federal, state, and local agencies, as well as into business enterprises, private foundations, and research institutes.

The curriculum has been carefully designed to provide students with instruction on essential aspects of the discipline: theory, research logic, methods, and real-world applications. To preserve its coherence, we discourage petitions to get out of taking a course requirement or to substitute a non-SOCI course for a required SOCI course.

Please plan ahead! Because several course requirements are offered concurrently, it will be difficult to take them all in one year without overloading.

Course Requirements for the Major in Sociology

It is strongly recommended that the requirements be taken in the following sequence:

(1) Introduction to Sociology, (2) Sociological Theory, (3) the two Methods courses, (4) Logic of Social Inquiry, and (5) the BA project (seminar and paper), with the four electives taken throughout. 

Complete this checklist of requirements. It must be submitted for inspection in order to graduate as a sociology major.

Qualifying Courses, Academic Year 2023–2024

1. INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY

2. SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

3. QUANTITATIVE METHODS

 Upper-level statistics courses generally count toward this requirement. Check with the Director of Undergraduate Studies.

4.  QUALITATIVE METHODS

5.  LOGIC OF SOCIAL INQUIRY

6.  FOUR COURSES IN SOCIOLOGY

7. BA PROJECT (OPTIONAL)

Students pursuing this option must register for the BA Seminar and BA Project in their fourth year. They should have fulfilled their Methods and Logic requirements beforehand—no later than the Autumn Quarter of their fourth year.

BA Project Guidelines

The BA project is optional. Students traditionally write an academic thesis for their project, but also have the option to complete an internship or apprenticeship.

Track 1: Thesis

The thesis option allows students to complete a 30–40 page paper based on substantial research. This track is recommended for most students and especially those pursuing academic or research-based professions.

Thesis research efforts are structured by the BA Seminar. Students should enroll for the seminar in the Autumn Quarter of their fourth year and take it all three quarters. They will receive their course grade at the end of the Spring Quarter. Additionally, s tudents will need to secure a faculty advisor from within the Department of Sociology.

Ideally, students will have taken the relevant Methods course before taking the BA seminar (i.e., if planning to conduct qualitative research for their thesis, they will have already completed the Qualitative Methods requirement) and  will have started doing research in the summer before their fourth year. In order to prepare them to do so, the Director of Undergraduate Studies will hold a meeting in the Spring Quarter for all sociology third-years interested in pursuing a BA project.

Track 2: Internship/Apprenticeship

Students may complete a BA project in the form of an internship in an organization or an apprenticeship with professionals in various fields. They may work in non-profits or government agencies or apprentice with policymakers, journalists, lawyers, doctors, artists, investors, and others. The goal of this track is to engage students in thinking about these endeavors sociologically. To this end, they will be required to produce a review of the “literature” on their chosen field or organization, a series of sociologically minded reflection papers, and a final report considering their activities from a sociological perspective.

• Students pursuing this track must take SOCI 29998 Sociology BA Thesis Seminar . They will be grouped into a particular section.
• They must obtain two advisors: a faculty advisor from within the Department of Sociology and someone to advise their internship or apprenticeship from within their chosen organization or field.
• Their internship/apprenticeship will last for a period of six months, typically beginning in mid-October and ending in late April.
• Students may enroll for the BA Seminar without having secured an internship/apprenticeship, but they should have a good idea of the organization or field they want to work in. The first month of the seminar will be devoted to securing an internship/apprenticeship.
• For more information, see the Internship/Apprenticeship tab in the Department of Sociology’s website .
• We encourage students interested in pursuing this track to consult with the Director of Undergraduate Studies, Marco Garrido [email protected] , and the BA Seminar preceptor handling internships, Pranathi Diwakar [email protected] , by the Spring Quarter of their third year.

Students will receive two grades on their transcript for the BA project, one for SOCI 29998 Sociology BA Thesis Seminar and another for the project itself ( SOCI 29999 BA Project ).

To attain honors in the major, students will need to meet all four conditions: (1) a GPA of 3.25 in the College, (2) a GPA of 3.5 in the major, (3) completing a BA project, and (4) their advisor’s determination that the project merits honors.

Research Funding

We hope to make available five small grants of $1,000 each to students conducting research associated with their BA project through a competitive process. Students will complete the application in the Autumn Quarter. Their preceptors will recommend a set of applications to the Director of Undergraduate Studies. The Director will review the applications and determine which merit funding. Students may also apply to the Dean’s Fund for research funding: https://college.uchicago.edu/student-life/deans-fund .

For substantive questions, contact the Director of Undergraduate Studies, Marco Garrido [email protected] . You can also save your questions for the quarterly town halls. For administrative matters, email Pat Princell [email protected] . 

Sociology Courses

SOCI 20000. Invitation to Sociology. 100 Units.

What do sociologists do all day? This course introduces students to the vast terrain of contemporary sociology, including: culture, deviance, economic life, education, family, health and the body, politics, population, professions, race, science and knowledge, and sex/gender, employing institutionalization as a basic lens that leads sociology to have a somewhat different approach from other social sciences. Why an invitation? Unlike introductory courses that cover 10 topics in 10 weeks with an emphasis on foundational texts, students will get to know sociology by reading and analyzing a rotating selection of books and articles that exemplify the field today. Students will complete exercises and write-ups that link claims about the social world to evidence. Throughout the quarter, class format takes a variety of forms, including lectures, informal presentations, student-led discussions, debates, and guest speakers.

Instructor(s): J. Martin     Terms Offered: Spring

SOCI 20001. Sociological Methods. 100 Units.

This course introduces the approach and practice of social research. This course explores questions of causality in social research and the limits of knowledge. It then covers the basic practices that are a component of all methods of social research through an in-depth examination of interviews, ethnography, surveys, archival, online and computational research. Students spend the quarter working on a series of assignments that culminate in a research proposal for the BA thesis.

Instructor(s): L. Waite     Terms Offered: Winter Note(s): Required of students who are majoring in Sociology

SOCI 20002. Society, Power and Change. 100 Units.

The central objective of this course is to introduce students to some key themes of sociological thought and research relating to social structures, power relations and social transformation. Themes include but are not restricted to the relationship of the individual to society, the social construction of societal institutions and identities, social cleavages such as race, gender and class, and social movements and revolution.

Instructor(s): J. Go     Terms Offered: Autumn Note(s): Required of students who are majoring in Sociology

SOCI 20004. Statistical Methods of Research. 100 Units.

This course has two purposes. First, using nationally representative US surveys, we'll examine the early emergence of educational inequality and its evolution during adolescence and adulthood. We'll ask about the importance of social origins (parent social status, race/ethnicity, gender, and language) in predicting labor market outcomes. We'll study the role that education and plays in shaping economic opportunity, beginning in early childhood. We'll ask at what points interventions might effectively advance learning and reduce inequality. Second, we'll gain mastery over some important statistical methods required for answering these and related questions. Indeed, this course provides an introduction to quantitative methods and a foundation for other methods courses in the social sciences. We consider standard topics: graphical and tabular displays of univariate and bivariate distributions, an introduction to statistical inference, and commonly arising applications such as the t‐test, the two‐way contingency table, analysis of variance, and regression. However, all statistical ideas and methods are embedded in case studies including a national survey of adult labor force outcomes, a national survey of elementary school children, and a national survey that follows adolescents through secondary school into early adulthood. Thus, the course will consider all statistical choices and inferences in the context of the broader logic of inquiry with the aim of strengthening our understanding of that logic as well as of the statistical methods.

Instructor(s): S. Raudenbush     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Priority registration for Ugrad Sociology majors and Sociology PhD students. No prior instruction in statistical analysis is required. Others by consent of instructor. Note(s): Students are expected to attend two lectures and one lab per week. Required of students who are majoring in Sociology. Substitutes for this course are STAT 20000 Elementary Statistics or higher. Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 30004

SOCI 20005. Sociological Theory. 100 Units.

This course provides a general introduction to theory and theoretical thinking in sociology. The readings include both classical and contemporary theoretical works and arguments. Since the course emphasizes theoretical thinking, it also involves papers applying theoretical ideas from the readings to social situations familiar to any student.

Instructor(s): A. Abbott     Terms Offered: Winter Note(s): Required of students who are majoring in Sociology.

SOCI 20104. Urban Structure and Process. 100 Units.

This course reviews competing theories of urban development, especially their ability to explain the changing nature of cities under the impact of advanced industrialism. Analysis includes a consideration of emerging metropolitan regions, the microstructure of local neighborhoods, and the limitations of the past American experience as a way of developing urban policy both in this country and elsewhere.

Instructor(s): R. Vargas     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): CRES 20104, ENST 20104, CHST 20104, ARCH 20104, SOSC 25100, SOCI 30104, GEOG 32700, GEOG 22700

SOCI 20106. Political Sociology. 100 Units.

This course provides analytical perspectives on citizen preference theory, public choice, group theory, bureaucrats and state-centered theory, coalition theory, elite theories, and political culture. These competing analytical perspectives are assessed in considering middle-range theories and empirical studies on central themes of political sociology. Local, national, and cross-national analyses are explored.

Instructor(s): T. Clark     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Completion of the general education requirement in the social sciences Equivalent Course(s): ENST 23500, PBPL 23600, SOCI 30106

SOCI 20112. Applications of Hierarchical Linear Models. 100 Units.

A number of diverse methodological problems such as correlates of change, analysis of multi-level data, and certain aspects of meta-analysis share a common feature-a hierarchical structure. The hierarchical linear model offers a promising approach to analyzing data in these situations. This course will survey the methodological literature in this area, and demonstrate how the hierarchical linear model can be applied to a range of problems.

Instructor(s): S. Raudenbush     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Applied statistics at a level of multiple regression Equivalent Course(s): PPHA 44650, EDSO 30112, SOCI 30112

SOCI 20116. Global-Local Politics. 100 Units.

Globalizing and local forces are generating a new politics in the United States and around the world. This course explores this new politics by mapping its emerging elements: the rise of social issues, ethno-religious and regional attachments, environmentalism, gender and life-style identity issues, new social movements, transformed political parties and organized groups, and new efforts to mobilize individual citizens.

Instructor(s): T. Clark     Terms Offered: Winter Equivalent Course(s): HMRT 20116, GEOG 20116, SOCI 30116, GEOG 30116, LLSO 20116, HMRT 30116, PBPL 27900

SOCI 20120. Urban Policy Analysis. 100 Units.

Cities are sites of challenge and innovation worldwide. Dramatic new policies can be implemented locally and chart new paths for national policies. Five main approaches are compared: Leadership patterns: are business, political, or other kinds of leaders more important--and where, when, and why do these matter? Second do capitalism, or more recently, global markets, make specific leaders irrelevant? Third: leaders like mayors are weaker since citizens, interest groups, and media have grown so powerful. Fourth innovation drives many policy issues. Fifth consumption, entertainment, and the arts engage citizens in new ways. Can all five hold, in some locations? Why should they differentially operate across big and small, rich and poor neighborhoods, cities, and countries? The course introduces you to core urban issues, whether your goal is to conduct research, interpret reports by others, make policy decisions, or watch the tube and discuss these issues as a more informed citizen. Chicago, US and big and small locations internationally are considered; all methods are welcome.

Instructor(s): T. Clark     Terms Offered: Autumn Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 30120, GEOG 30120, GEOG 20120, PBPL 24800

SOCI 20125. Rational Foundations of Social Theory. 100 Units.

This course introduces conceptual and analytical tools for the micro foundations of macro and intermediate-level social theories, taking as a basis the assumption of rational action. Those tools are then used to construct theories of power, social exchange, collective behavior, socialization, trust, norm, social decision making and justice, business organization, and family organization.

Instructor(s): K. Yamaguchi     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 30125

SOCI 20138. Politics/Participation/Organization. 100 Units.

When and why do citizens participate in politics? What skills do they bring to that participation? And why should we care? These questions are central to debates in both democratic theory and political sociology. Through case studies of voluntary associations and social movements, the course explores how participation is shaped by distinctive organizational cultures that create both opportunities and constraints for political actions.

Instructor(s): E. Clemens     Terms Offered: Autumn Equivalent Course(s): PLSC 20138

SOCI 20140. Qualitative Field Methods. 100 Units.

This course introduces techniques of, and approaches to, ethnographic field research. We emphasize quality of attention and awareness of perspective as foundational aspects of the craft. Students conduct research at a site, compose and share field notes, and produce a final paper distilling sociological insight from the fieldwork.

Instructor(s): O. McRoberts     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 20140, CHDV 20140

SOCI 20175. The Sociology of Deviant Behavior. 100 Units.

This course examines how distinctions between "normal" and "deviant" are created, and how these labels shift historically, culturally, and politically. We analyze the construction of social problems and moral panics (e.g., smoking, "satanic" daycares, obesity) to explore how various moral entrepreneurs shape what some sociologists call a "culture of fear." Additionally, we investigate the impact on individuals of being labeled "deviant" either voluntarily or involuntarily, as a way of illustrating how both social control and social change operate in society.

Instructor(s): K. Schilt     Terms Offered: Autumn Equivalent Course(s): CHDV 20175

SOCI 20179. Labor Force and Employment. 100 Units.

This course introduces key concepts, methods, and sources of information for understanding the structure of work and the organization of workers in the United States and other industrialized nations. We survey social science approaches to answering key questions about work and employment, including: What is the labor force? What determines the supply of workers? How is work organized into jobs, occupations, careers, and industries? What, if anything, happened to unions? How much money do workers earn and why? What is the effect of work on health? How do workers and employers find each other? Who is unemployed? What are the employment effects of race, gender, ethnicity, and religion?

Instructor(s): R. Stolzenberg     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 30179

SOCI 20192. The Effects of Schooling. 100 Units.

From at least the Renaissance until some time around the middle of the twentieth century, social class was the pre-eminent, generalized determinant of life chances in European and, eventually, American societies. Social class had great effect on one's social standing; economic well-being; political power; access to knowledge; and even longevity, health, and height. In that time, there was hardly an aspect of life that was not profoundly influenced by social class. In the ensuing period, the effects of social class have receded greatly, and perhaps have even vanished. In their place formal schooling has become the great generalized influence over who gets access to the desiderata of social life, including food, shelter, political power, and medical care. So it is that schooling is sociologically interesting for reasons that go well beyond education. The purpose of this course is to review what is known about the long-term effects of schooling.

Instructor(s): R. Stolzenberg     Terms Offered: Autumn Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 30192, EDSO 30192, EDSO 20192

SOCI 20233. Race in Contemporary American Society. 100 Units.

This survey course in the sociology of race offers a socio-historical investigation of race in American society. We will examine issues of race, ethnic and immigrant settlement in the United States. Also, we shall explore the classic and contemporary literature on race and inter-group dynamics. Our investigative tools will include an analysis of primary and secondary sources, multimedia materials, photographic images, and journaling. While our survey will be broad, we will treat Chicago and its environs as a case study to comprehend the racial, ethnic, and political challenges in the growth and development of a city.

Instructor(s): S. Hicks-Bartlett     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring. Autumn quarter offered at the Undergraduate level only and Spring offered at the Graduate level only Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 30233, MAPS 30233, RDIN 20233

SOCI 20252. Urban Innovation: Cultural Place Making and Scenescapes. 100 Units.

Activists from Balzac, Jane Jacobs, and others today seek to change the world using the arts. Ignored by most social science theories, these new cultural initiatives and policies are increasing globally. Urban planning and architecture policies, walking and parades, posters and demonstrations, new coffee shops and storefront churches reinforce selective development of specific cities and neighborhoods. These transform our everyday social environments into new types of scenes. They factor into crucial decisions, about where to work, to open a business, to found a political activist group, to live, what political causes to support, and more. The course reviews new case studies and comparative analyses from China to Chicago to Poland that detail these processes. Students are encouraged to explore one type of project.

Instructor(s): T. Clark     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): ARCH 20252, ENST 20252, SOCI 30252

SOCI 20253. Introduction to Spatial Data Science. 100 Units.

Spatial data science consists of a collection of concepts and methods drawn from both statistics and computer science that deal with accessing, manipulating, visualizing, exploring and reasoning about geographical data. The course introduces the types of spatial data relevant in social science inquiry and reviews a range of methods to explore these data. Topics covered include formal spatial data structures, geovisualization and visual analytics, rate smoothing, spatial autocorrelation, cluster detection and spatial data mining. An important aspect of the course is to learn and apply open source GeoDa software.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): STAT 22000 (or equivalent), familiarity with GIS is helpful, but not necessary Equivalent Course(s): MACS 54000, SOCI 30253, GISC 20500, ENST 20253, GISC 30500, CEGU 20253

SOCI 20258. Maverick Markets: Cultural Economy and Cultural Finance. 100 Units.

What are the cultural dimensions of economic and financial institutions and financial action? What social variables influence and shape 'real' markets and market activities? 'If you are so smart, why aren't you rich?' is a question economists have been asked in the past. Why isn't it easy to make money in financial areas even if one knows what economists know about markets, finance and the economy? And why, on the hand, is it so easy to get rich for some participants? Perhaps the answer is the real markets are complex social and cultural institutions which are quite different form organizations, administrations and the production side of the economy. The course provides an overview over social and cultural variables and patterns that play a role in economic behavior and specifically in financial markets. The readings examine the historical and structural embeddedness of economic action and institutions, the different constructions and interpretations of money, prices, and other dimensions of a market economy, and how a financial economy affects organizations, the art and other areas.

Instructor(s): K. Knorr     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 35405, ANTH 25440, SOCI 30258

SOCI 20263. Human Migration. 100 Units.

At any moment, spatial location is a fixed, essential characteristic of people and the places they inhabit. Over time, individuals and groups of people change places. In the long run, the places themselves move in physical, social, economic and political space. These movements can be characterized by their origins and destinations, as intentional or accidental, forced or voluntary, individual or collective, within political borders (e.g. the farm-to-city migration of the 1940's in the U.S), migration across political boundaries (e.g. "displacement" of pariah ethnicities after World War II), and by other criteria. All of these phenomena are aspects of migration This course reviews contemporary demographic research and theory concerning the nature of migration, and its extent, causes and consequences for individuals and collectivities. The demographic perspective absorbs a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, including those of psychology (e.g. individual decision-making), sociology (collective behavior, stratification, race and ethnicity), economics (rational behavior, macroeconomic conditions), and more.

Instructor(s): R. Stolzenberg     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 30263

SOCI 20269. Policing the City. 100 Units.

This course explores the historical origins, evolution, and current manifestations of policing the United States. Using a political sociological perspective, this course explores policing in ways that will provide broader lessons about societal issues of social control, social order, race, class, crime, social psychology, and politics. The course examines key issues in policing, such as police brutality, racial profiling, and the management of social protest. It also reviews the historical origins of the policy in order to understand that modern day policing issues is much more of a continuation of the past than most think. Reading and course material will be discussed in relation to current events.

Instructor(s): R. Vargas     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 30269

SOCI 20282. Immigrant America. 100 Units.

Nearly 60 million immigrants have arrived in the U.S. in the past 50 years, mostly from Latin America and Asia, but also from Africa and the Middle-East. Today, a near-record 14% of the country's population is foreign born compared with just 5% in 1965. These profound demographic changes raise critical questions: Why do immigrants come to the U.S.? What impact do they have on U.S. society? Are today's immigrants fundamentally different from previous waves of immigrants? Are these immigrants assimilating to the U.S. or retaining their culture? Why do some immigrant groups appear to fare better than others? This course will expose students to the latest social science research on contemporary immigration to the United States. We will explore its origins, adaptation patterns, and long-term effects on American society.

Instructor(s): R. Flores     Terms Offered: Autumn Equivalent Course(s): CRES 20282

SOCI 20283. Introduction to GIS and Spatial Analysis. 100 Units.

This course provides an introduction and overview of how spatial thinking is translated into specific methods to handle geographic information and the statistical analysis of such information. This is not a course to learn a specific GIS software program, but the goal is to learn how to think about spatial aspects of research questions, as they pertain to how the data are collected, organized and transformed, and how these spatial aspects affect statistical methods. The focus is on research questions relevant in the social sciences, which inspires the selection of the particular methods that are covered. Examples include spatial data integration (spatial join), transformations between different spatial scales (overlay), the computation of "spatial" variables (distance, buffer, shortest path), geovisualization, visual analytics, and the assessment of spatial autocorrelation (the lack of independence among spatial variables). The methods will be illustrated by means of open source software such as QGIS and R.

Instructor(s): Crystal Bae     Terms Offered: Spring Summer. Offered 2023-24 Equivalent Course(s): ARCH 28702, SOCI 30283, GISC 28702, ENST 28702, CEGU 28702, PPHA 38712, GISC 38702

SOCI 20290. Theories of Sexuality and Gender. 100 Units.

This is a one-quarter, seminar-style course for undergraduates. Its aim is triple: to engage scenes and concepts central to the interdisciplinary study of gender and sexuality; to provide familiarity with key theoretical anchors for that study; and to provide skills for deriving the theoretical bases of any kind of method. Students will produce descriptive, argumentative, and experimental engagements with theory and its scenes as the quarter progresses.

Instructor(s): Kristen Schilt     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Prior course experience in gender/sexuality studies (by way of the general education civilization studies courses or other course work) is strongly advised. Equivalent Course(s): CHDV 20001, GNSE 20001

SOCI 20295. Morrissey's America: Contemporary Social Problems. 100 Units.

What are the most pressing social problems in the U.S.? What do we know about them and what can we do to address them? We will use the life and music of Morrissey, the controversial former frontman of The Smiths, as a lens through which to explore our country's most critical social issues. An outspoken defender of animal rights and disaffected youth's preeminent lyricist, Morrissey has also increasingly flirted with nationalist policies. As such, he embodies the tensions, complexities, and ambiguities around critical topics that characterize our time. Guided by sociological theory, we will examine the latest social science evidence on race, immigration, gender and sexuality, health, poverty, segregation, crime, and education as they are key sites in which social inequality is produced and reproduced today. Finally, we will discuss potential solutions to these problems.

Instructor(s): R. Flores     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 22295

SOCI 20297. Education and Social Inequality. 100 Units.

How and why do educational outcomes and experiences vary across student populations? What role do schools play in a society's system of stratification? How do schools both contribute to social mobility and to the reproduction of the prevailing social order? This course examines these questions through the lens of social and cultural theory, engaging current academic debates on the causes and consequences of social inequality in educational outcomes. We will engage these debates by studying foundational and emerging theories and examining empirical research on how social inequalities are reproduced or ameliorated through schools. Through close readings of historical, anthropological and sociological case studies of schooling in the U.S, students will develop an understanding of the structural forces and cultural processes that produce inequality in neighborhoods and schools, how they contribute to unequal opportunities, experiences, and achievement outcomes for students along lines of race/ethnicity, class, gender, and immigration status, and how students themselves navigate and interpret this unequal terrain. We will cover such topics as neighborhood and school segregation; peer culture; social networks; elite schooling; the interaction between home, society and educational institutions; and dynamics of assimilation for students from immigrant communities.

Instructor(s): Lisa Rosen     Terms Offered: Autumn. Offered 2023-24 Equivalent Course(s): CRES 23005, EDSO 23005, CHST 23005, CHDV 23005

SOCI 20508. Working with Found Data: Library/Internet Research. 100 Units.

This course is an introduction to the methods involved in "research with found data:" that is, found material like manuscripts, books, journals, newspapers, ephemera, and government and institutional documents. (Such materials can be found both in print and on the Internet.) The course covers the essentials of project design, bibliography, location, access, critical reading, source evaluation, knowledge categorization and assembly, and records maintenance. The course is a methodological practicum organized around student projects. The texts are Thomas Mann's Oxford Guide to Library Research and Andrew Abbott's Digital Paper.

Instructor(s): A. Abbott     Terms Offered: Winter. Autumn quarter graduate level restricted to Sociology PhD students, Ugrads doing a BA paper require permission of instructor; Winter quarter restricted to MAPSS students only Note(s): Autumn quarter graduate level restricted to Sociology PhD students, Ugrads doing BA paper require permission of instructor; Winter quarter restricted to MAPSS students only Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 30508

SOCI 20515. Virtual Ethnographic Field Research Methods. 100 Units.

"Virtual worlds are places of imagination that encompass practices of play, performance, creativity and ritual." - Tom Boellstorff, from Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method This course is designed to provide students in the social sciences with a review of ethnographic research methods in an online environment, exposure to major debates on virtual ethnographic research, and opportunities to try their hand at practicing fieldwork virtually. We will analyze and problematize enduring oppositions associated with ethnographic fieldwork - field/home, insider/outsider, researcher/research subject, expert/novice, 'being there'/removal-and we will debate epistemological, ethical, and practical matters in online ethnographic research. Mirroring the complexities and opportunities of research in virtual worlds, this course will alternate between in-person and online instruction, and will combine synchronous and asynchronous opportunities for conversation, work, and play."

Instructor(s): Caterina Fugazzola     Terms Offered: Summer Equivalent Course(s): SOSC 20224, ANTH 21432, ANTH 31432, SOSC 30224, ENST 20224, GLST 26220

SOCI 20519. Spatial Cluster Analysis. 100 Units.

This course provides an overview of methods to identify interesting patterns in geographic data, so-called spatial clusters. Cluster concepts come in many different forms and can generally be differentiated between the search for interesting locations and the grouping of similar locations. The first category consists of the identification of extreme concentrations of locations (events), such as hot spots of crime events, and the location of geographical concentrations of observations with similar values for one or more variables, such as areas with elevated disease incidence. The second group consists of the combination of spatial observations into larger (aggregate) areas such that internal similarity is maximized (regionalization). The methods covered come from the fields of spatial statistics as well as machine learning (unsupervised learning) and operations research. Topics include point pattern analysis, spatial scan statistics, local spatial autocorrelation, dimension reduction, as well as spatially explicit hierarchical, agglomerative and density-based clustering. Applications range from criminology and public health to politics and marketing. An important aspect of the course is the analysis of actual data sets by means of open source software, such as GeoDa, R or Python.

Instructor(s): L. Anselin and P. Amaral     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): STAT 22000 or equivalent; SOCI 20253/30253 (or equivalent) Introduction to Spatial Data Science required. Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 30519, GISC 30519, ENST 20519, DATA 20519, GISC 20519, MACS 30519, MACS 20519

SOCI 20523. Digital Media & Social Life: Contemporary Methods. 100 Units.

Digital and networked media include forms and social phenomena such as memes, social media, live-streaming platforms, video games, virtual worlds, electronic literature, and online communities. What methods taken from the humanities and social sciences enable the study of these digital media forms and cultures? In order to model a series of methods, this course runs one shared media object (this term, the video game Stardew Valley) through a series of research methods, one per week, taken from the humanities (e.g., close reading, critical theory, response theory, and critical making) and social sciences (e.g., interviews, digital ethnography, discourse analysis, and quantitative analysis) methods. At the end of the course, students will compose a research paper or create a digital project that uses one or more of these methods to analyze a digital or networked media case of their choosing.

Instructor(s): K. Schilt, P. Jagoda     Terms Offered: Winter. Not Offered in 2023/2024 Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 27808, ENGL 20523, CMST 27808, MAAD 10523

SOCI 20530. Schooling and Identity. 100 Units.

This course examines the dynamic relations between schooling and identity. We will explore how schools both enable and constrain the identities available to students and the consequences of this for academic achievement. We will examine these relations from multiple disciplinary perspectives, applying psychological, anthropological, sociological, and critical theories to understanding how students not only construct identities for themselves within schools, but also negotiate the identities imposed on them by others. Topics will include the role of peer culture, adult expectations, school practices and enduring social structures in shaping processes of identity formation in students and how these processes influence school engagement and achievement. We will consider how these processes unfold at all levels of schooling, from preschool through college, and for students who navigate a range of social identities, from marginalized to privileged.

Instructor(s): Lisa Rosen     Terms Offered: Winter. Offered 2022-23 Prerequisite(s): Priority registration will be given to MAPSS students seeking the Education and Society certificate. Equivalent Course(s): EDSO 33002, SOCI 30530, RDIN 33002, CHDV 23003, EDSO 23002, RDIN 23002

SOCI 20547. Involved Interviewing: Strategies for Interviewing Hard to Penetrate Communities and Populations. 100 Units.

Imagine that you must interview someone who hails from a background unlike your own; perhaps you need to interview an incarcerated youth, or gather a life history from an ill person. Maybe your task is to conduct fieldwork inside a community that challenges your comfort level. How do we get others to talk to us? How do we get out of our own way and limited training to become fully and comfortably engaged in people and the communities in which they reside? This in-depth investigation into interviewing begins with an assumption that the researcher as interviewer is an integral part of the research process. We turn a critical eye on the interviewer's role in getting others to talk and learn strategies that encourage fertile interviews regardless of the situational context. Weekly reading assignments facilitate students' exploration of what the interview literature can teach us about involved interviewing. Additionally, we critically assess our role as interviewer and what that requires from us. Students participate in evaluating interview scenarios that are designed to explore our assumptions, sharpen our interviewing skills and troubleshoot sticky situations. We investigate a diversity of settings and populations as training ground for leading effective interviews. The final project includes: 1) a plan that demonstrates knowledge of how to design an effective interviewing strategy for unique field settings; 2) instructor's feedback on students' personal journals on the role of.

Instructor(s): S. Hicks-Bartlett     Terms Offered: Autumn Winter. Autumn-restricted to 4th and 3rd year Sociology Majors ONLY. Winter restricted to graduate students ONLY. Prerequisite(s): Ugrad Level restricted to 4th and 3rd year Sociology Majors ONLY Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 40164, MAPS 40164

SOCI 20548. Coding & Analyzing Qualitative Data using MAXQDA. 100 Units.

This focus of this course is on coding and analyzing qualitative data (e.g., interview transcripts, oral histories, focus groups, letters, and diaries, etc). In this hands-on-course students learn how to organize and manage text-based data in preparation for analysis and final report writing of small scale research projects. Students use their own laptop computers to access one of two free, open-source software programs available for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. While students with extant interview data can use it for this course, those without existing data will be provided text to code and analyze. This course does not cover commercial CAQDAS, such as AtlasTi, NVivo, The Ethnograph or Hypertext.

Instructor(s): S. Hicks-Bartlett     Terms Offered: Spring Winter. Winter restricted to 4th and 3rd year Sociology Majors only and MAPS students only. Spring restricted to graduate students only. Prerequisite(s): Ugrad Level restricted to 4th and 3rd year Sociology Majors ONLY Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 40177, MAPS 40177

SOCI 20552. Undergraduate research seminar: Chicago Urban Morphology. 100 Units.

This seminar is open to Seniors and Juniors, particularly for but not necessarily limited to those in the fields of geography, environmental science, and urban studies. It is designed for students to undertake original research on a topic of their own choosing within the broad scope of Chicago's built environment. Following a brief reading course in the theoretical literature of urban morphology, each student will identify and select a topic of interest to research using Chicago sources, with the objective of a formal written research paper. Discussions will center around formulating research questions, theoretical underpinnings, suitable methodology, modes of writing, appropriate presentation of evidence, and effective illustration. Sessions will combine open discussion with a rotating series of periodic individual progress reports to the group, reflecting an interesting diversity of topics and mutual support in gaining experience in the research process.

Instructor(s): Michael Conzen     Terms Offered: Winter Note(s): Restricted to 3rd and 4th years This course counts towards the ENST 4th year Capstone requirement. Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 25012, PBPL 25012, ENST 25012, GEOG 25012, ARCH 25012, CHST 25012

SOCI 20555. The Sociology of Work. 100 Units.

From the Great Depression to the Great Resignation, paid work has played a central role in American life. The average American spends 1/3 of their life at work - making it an area of the social world heavily examined by politicians, journalists, and social scientists. In this course, we will look at the structural and interpersonal dynamics of work to consider the questions of what makes a "good job" in America and who gets to decide? Our topics will include low-wage work, the stigma of "dirty jobs," gender and racial inequality at work, physical and emotional labor on the job, side hustles and the gig economy, and life after retirement. Students will be required to write a 15 page research paper that draws on interview data they will collect over the quarter. No prior background in doing interviews is required!

Instructor(s): K. Schilt     Terms Offered: Winter Equivalent Course(s): PBPL 20555, CHDV 24711, GNSE 20555

SOCI 20557. Sociology of Money. 100 Units.

This course serves as an introduction to the study of money in both the public sphere and private domains. By surveying the work of economic sociologists, anthropologists, geographers, legal scholars, and historians the goal is to provide students with and introduction so economic theory by prominent social theorists. The first part of the course focuses on classical theories such as Smith, Marx, Simmel, Polyani, Veblen, and Mills. The second part of the course will look at how money shapes gendered relations in the private domain through the works of Hochschild, Zelizer, Parrenas and several others. The third part of the course addresses how current theories are insufficient for explaining the rise of new money forms such as mobily money, cryptocurrencies, NFT's and the ways that new money fundamentally transforms social relations, politics, and society.

Instructor(s): K. Hoang     Terms Offered: Autumn Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 30557, GLST 24557

SOCI 20559. Spatial Regression Analysis. 100 Units.

This course covers statistical and econometric methods specifically geared to the problems of spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity in cross-sectional data. The main objective for the course is to gain insight into the scope of spatial regression methods, to be able to apply them in an empirical setting, and to properly interpret the results of spatial regression analysis. While the focus is on spatial aspects, the types of methods covered have general validity in statistical practice. The course covers the specification of spatial regression models in order to incorporate spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity, as well as different estimation methods and specification tests to detect the presence of spatial autocorrelation and spatial heterogeneity. Special attention is paid to the application to spatial models of generic statistical paradigms, such as Maximum Likelihood and Generalized Methods of Moments. An import aspect of the course is the application of open source software tools such as various R packages, GeoDa and the Python Package PySal to solve empirical problems.

Instructor(s): L. Anselin     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): An intermediate course in multivariate regression or econometrics. Familiarity with matrix algebra Equivalent Course(s): GISC 20559, GISC 30559, SOCI 30559, DATA 20559

SOCI 20564. Religion and Abortion in the United States. 100 Units.

In American public discourse, it is common to hear abortion referred to as a "religious issue." But is abortion a religious issue? If so, in what ways, to whom, and since when? In this course we will answer these questions by tracing the relationship between religion and abortion in American history. We will examine the kinds of claims religious groups have made about abortion; how religion has shaped the development of medical, legal, economic, and cultural perspectives on the topic; how debates over abortion have led to the rise of a certain kind of religious politics in the United States; and how issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, and the body are implicated in this conversation. Although the course will cover a range of time periods, religious traditions, and types of data (abortion records from Puritan New England, enslaved people's use of root medicine to induce miscarriage, and Jewish considerations of the personhood of the fetus, among others), we will give particular attention to the significance of Christianity in legal and political debates about abortion in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. There are no prerequisites for this course and no background in Religious Studies is required. However, this course may be particularly well-suited to students interested in thinking about how their areas of study (medicine and medical sciences, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, political science) converge with religion and Religious Studies.

Instructor(s): tbd Equivalent Course(s): HMRT 26304, HIPS 26304, HLTH 26304, GNSE 12115, PBPL 25304, CCTS 21015, HIST 28008, RLST 26304

SOCI 20567. Introduction to Computational Sociology. 100 Units.

Advances in machine learning, high performance computing, and big data are opening exciting new ways of doing social science. This course introduces students to the burgeoning field of computational sociology, emphasizing both conceptual understanding and hands-on training. The course does not require any prior experience with coding, computer science, or statistics. The only requirement is that students have fluency in high-school mathematics (pre-calculus) and an interest in acquiring computational skills. Students will learn the basics of R and Python, and will gain practical experience with simulation modeling, computational text analysis, and neural networks. This course will pair a practical training in computational methods with a critical examination of how these technologies are being deployed in the real world and their roles in reproducing systems of power and inequality. This class is recommended for students who want a basic introduction to "data science" and who are seeking the conceptual knowledge necessary to participate in current debates over information technology in contemporary society.

Instructor(s): A. Kozlowski     Terms Offered: Winter Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 20567, MAAD 10567

SOCI 20568. Historical Methods in the Social Sciences. 100 Units.

This course is designed to introduce students to the methods, theories, and problems encountered in research utilizing historical methods in the social sciences. The course pairs readings that address theoretical and ethical issues in historical methods-such as for and by whom history is written- with practical instruction in using common sources such as archives, oral histories, newspapers, and non-textual evidence. Drawing from diverse readings across the social sciences, we will examine some of the ways scholars from different fields have approached problems of structure, agency, and method; in the process, we will explore the relationship between theory and methods in our own projects. Throughout the course, students will have the opportunity to practice their skills through hands-on assignments that make use of the materials at University of Chicago and beyond.

Instructor(s): M. O'Shea     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): CHST 20568, SOCI 30568, GLST 20568

SOCI 20569. Music, Society, and Politics. 100 Units.

Course description: Music is related to acts of listening, producing, circulating, composing, dancing, humming, aestheticizing, resisting, relating, coping--all of which put the individual in conversation with the social world. Music "gets into life" by allowing individuals to make meaning of the social world and form social relations of taste, aesthetics, and politics with one another. In this course, "musicking" is taken as a sociological site to interrogate the roles that sound, music, and noise play in ordering or disrupting social norms, constituting identities, and organizing political action and social movements. Taking a global perspective, this course traverses cultural sociological reading selections to introduce themes of taste, group boundary-making, and (counter)cultural capital, investigating how music allows individuals to constitute the self and negotiate identity-making with respect to race, class, nationality, ethnicity, caste, gender, and sexuality. These themes are then brought in conversation with the role of music--especially protest music, hip-hop, and other musical genres of resistance--in effecting social change. Finally, with the impact of digitalization and globalization, how do seemingly "local" musical genres enter global circuits of taste, aesthetics, and politics? This course will be of interest for students curious about how music mediates the relationship between individuals and the social world, especially in this present political moment.

Instructor(s): P. Diwakar     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): MUSI 22322, CHST 20569, ANTH 20569

SOCI 20574. Sociology Structure and Agency. 100 Units.

The course will unpack two fundamental concepts in sociology-social structure and agency-and examine how they relate to one another. In this endeavor, we will consult both classical and contemporary sources and discuss theoretical elaborations as well as empirical applications. We will pay particular attention to what may be the three most powerful social structures in America: gender, class, and race. The aim of the course is to impart a distinctly sociological perspective and equip students with sociological modes of explanation (as opposed to, say, economic or biological/evolutionary modes) in the belief that such a framework will enrich their understanding of the world. To this end, students majoring in other disciplines-in economics, STEM fields, and the humanities-are encouraged to enroll. While the readings will include dense social theory, every effort will be made to make the ideas at stake accessible to a non-specialized audience.

Instructor(s): M. Garrido     Terms Offered: Winter Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 20574, SOCI 30574, CHSS 30574

SOCI 20575. Logic of Social Inquiry. 100 Units.

This course is intended to cultivate deeper thinking about research practice. We will talk about different methods of sociological research, quantitative and qualitative, including surveys, interviews, systematic observation, and archival research. In particular, we will discuss the logic underlying each method, exploring questions such as What kind of data can we get at using this method? How do we know our findings are valid? To what extent are they generalizable? On what basis can we make causal inferences? Is my research ethical? and How does my positionality matter? In addition to research logic, our other focus will be on research design. Here we want to get students to think about the many choices they have to make in pursuing a research project; choices about what aspect of reality to focus on and how to construct a research question in order to get at it, which methods to employ, and which case(s) to investigate. We see this course as a necessary bridge between theory and research, believing that good sociology lies precisely in the ability to bridge this gap. Suffice it to say, it will better prepare students to write an academic paper for their capstone projects. We recommend that sociology majors take the course in their third year.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Autumn Note(s): Priority registration for Sociology 3rd year majors Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 30575

SOCI 20576. Social Theory for the Digital Age. 100 Units.

Society rearranges itself, though we don't always know where it is heading. When the postmodern moment had arrived in the 1980s it perplexed social theorists, hence its characterization as simply a "post"-stage of modernity. Digitization is one answer to the question of direction of change in the last decades. In this class, we take the ongoing transformations that we attribute to digital media as a starting point to ask what challenges they provide to social theory that may force us to reconsider some of our most basic concepts and premises. We will understand the term digital age broadly to refer to the rise of algorithms, sensors, (big) data, machine learning, and computational methods, all developments that swirl in and around the Artificial Intelligence scene and intersect with and replace purely human relations. The class gives particular attention to concepts such as action and interaction, embodiment, social situations, subjectivity and autonomy, as wells as society as communication.

Instructor(s): K. Knorr     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): CHSS 30576, SOCI 30576, HIPS 20576

SOCI 20580. Health and Society. 100 Units.

A long and healthy life is a widely sought after human goal. But not everyone has equal chances of achieving this goal. This course focuses on the role played by society in differential access to physical, psychological, cognitive health and well-being. We will discuss the role of parental characteristics and childhood circumstances in later-life health, differences in health and well-being for men and women, for racial and ethnic groups, by sexual minority status, by characteristics of our neighborhoods and communities, and by regions or countries. We will examine the role of social policies. The format will be lectures and a series of short exercises.

Instructor(s): L. Waite     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): HLTH 20580, GNSE 20580

SOCI 20581. Gender, Sexuality and Sport. 100 Units.

This course will examine how the categories of gender and sexuality have shaped the contemporary life of sport. We will begin by unpacking the complexity of gender and sex as concepts in the study of sport while also considering the origins of gender-based segregation in sport. Major topics in this course include: Title IX protections; intersectionality and race; sexuality, homophobia, and sport; hyperandrogenism; trans inclusion; and cultural nationalism and sport. This is an interdisciplinary course that will draw on methods in philosophy, history, bioethics, and the study of gender and sexuality. Our texts will comprise of readings as well as visual media across multiple regions, including India, South Africa, and the United States. Students will broadly learn to critically think about sport in relation to concepts of gender, sexual orientation, and race along with the ideals of law, social justice, and inclusivity.

Instructor(s): Zoya Sameen     Terms Offered: Autumn Note(s): This course counts as a Foundations course for GNSE majors Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 12120, HIST 18502

SOCI 20585. Organizational Analysis. 100 Units.

Organizations - NGOs, corporations, social movement organizations, governments, etc. - impact almost every aspect of social life; in addition, organizations have become some of the most significant actors in modern society. The course will provide a grounding in the sociological literature on how organizations function as well as the dynamics that govern both their internal structures and how they interface with society. We will cover rational, ecological, and resource-based approaches, as well as others. We will study organizations in local and global contexts, their role in economic production, their impact on members and non-members, as well as public policy. Throughout, we will engage questions pertaining to where organizations come from, how they function, when they 'succeed' and 'fail', as well as their social consequences. At the completion of the course, students will apply the concepts covered in class to a final project.

Instructor(s): Arroyo, Pedro Alberto     Terms Offered: Autumn Winter Equivalent Course(s): MACS 20617, MAPS 30617, PBPL 23002, SOCI 30337, MACS 30617

SOCI 20588. Beyond the Culture Wars: Social Movements and the Politics of Education in the U.S. 100 Units.

Passionate conflicts over school curriculum and educational policy are a recurring phenomenon in the history of US schooling. Why are schools such frequent sites of struggle and what is at stake in these conflicts? In this discussion-based seminar, we will consider schools as battlegrounds in the US "culture wars": contests over competing visions of national identity, morality, social order, the fundamental purposes of public education, and the role of the state vis-à-vis the family. Drawing on case studies from history, anthropology, sociology and critical race and gender studies, we will examine both past and contemporary debates over school curriculum and school policy. Topics may include clashes over: the teaching of evolution, sex and sexuality education, busing/desegregation, prayer in schools, multiculturalism, the content of the literary canon, the teaching of reading, mathematics and history, and the closure of underperforming urban schools. Our inquiry will examine how social and political movements have used schools to advance or resist particular agendas and social projects.

Instructor(s): Lisa Rosen     Terms Offered: Spring 2022-23 Equivalent Course(s): HIST 27718, HIST 37718, PBPL 23011, SOCI 30588, EDSO 33011, CHDV 23011, CHDV 33011, EDSO 23011

SOCI 20591. Introduction to Critical Social Theory. 100 Units.

This course introduces graduate and advanced undergraduate students to a tradition of social thought and research called "Critical Social Theory." As opposed to Traditional Social Theory, Critical Social Theory questions inherited theoretical frameworks and conceptual formations in an attempt to reconstruct social theory and harness it for its liberatory potential. It offers alternative theories and concepts to inform social research that exposes and questions rather than assumes existing social institutions, inequalities and power relations. Examples of readings are works by the Frankfurt School, Marxist theorists of hegemony (e.g. Antonio Gramsci, Stuart Hall), theorists of power and agency (Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu), Feminist Standpoint Epistemology/Theory, Black Marxism, Black Feminist Thought, Queer Theory, and Decolonial/Postcolonial Theory - among other possible schools of theorizing. Rather than a detailed examination of any one of these schools of theorizing, the course offers a broad overview, locating shared and contrasting themes and lines of argumentation.

Instructor(s): J. Go     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): CCCT 20591, CCCT 30591, SOCI 30591

SOCI 20592. Monuments & Memory. 100 Units.

Twice in the last decade have there been mass removals of monuments in the United States; first in 2015-2017, and again starting in 2020. However, the construction and removal of monuments has a long political and cultural history in the US and in other countries. In this this course we will explore concepts of monument and monumentality, and their connection to politics and memory primarily in two geographical cases-the USA and the former Soviet Union-to consider how and why monuments are built, when they are used by political regimes and for what purpose (including when they are removed). What might be considered a monument and how do monuments change over time? Lastly, how can understandings of monuments and monumentality help us understand ourselves, our histories, and our visions for the future? This course offers an introduction to a variety of theories and methods for approaching monuments and monumentality, using case studies from different countries. Over the course of the semester, you will have the opportunity to build skills in cultural, historical, and visual analysis and to apply these skills toward the development of an original project.

Instructor(s): M. O'Shea     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): CHST 20592

SOCI 20593. Housing, Inequality, and Society. 100 Units.

This course considers the way US society has approached housing and inequality in the past and present - from public housing and homelessness to suburbia, mobile homes, and beyond. Housing is the site and subject of policies, profit, ideologies, biases, regulations, activism, and reputations. The course overviews how each of these shape housing, which in turn shape inhabitants - particularly along lines of race, class, gender -, and what we can do to intervene. Drawing on theoretical approaches and empirical studies from the social sciences, this course offers an advanced focus on the inequality that pervades contemporary US housing, enabling students to understand how people are impacted by their homes.

Equivalent Course(s): SSAD 21750, SSAD 41750, SOCI 30593, ANTH 21750

SOCI 20594. Sociology of religion in everyday life. 100 Units.

Religion is a non-material social fact that has been one of humankind's most important collective meaning systems. Although this social fact changes, it survives as a meaning system in different societies with different forms, representations, and functions. The survival of religion, even in the face of change, is due to its collective meaning functions, like forming and maintaining a collective conscience and social solidarity (in the Durkheimian approach). In this course, the primary purpose is to investigate religion as a social current and collective fact in the context of the everyday life of ordinary people (even in student's life experiences) and try to achieve these goals: to investigate the religious meanings in everyday life, to get an analytical view of religious phenomena as social facts, to get a sociological viewpoint about regular religious events, to differentiate analytically between positivistic and post-positivistic approaches, to provide concrete examples of religious contexts like Iran for a better understanding of students.

Instructor(s): Z. Khoshk Jan     Terms Offered: Winter Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 30594

SOCI 20598. Slavery and Emancipation: Caribbean Perspectives. 100 Units.

This graduate-level reading colloquium explores the interpretive problems and perspectives critical to understanding the historical dynamics of slavery and emancipation in the Caribbean. Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, over five million African men, women, and children were trafficked to the Caribbean as enslaved captives. During this period, Africans and their descendants, as well as the tens of thousands of slaveholders, indentured laborers, Indigenous peoples, and free people in the region, forged the political, economic, social, and cultural dynamics that arguably made the Caribbean the birthplace of the modern world. Through course readings in foundational and emerging scholarship, we will examine how slavery and emancipation underlined crucial historical transformations and problems in the Caribbean, with attention to their global repercussions. Students will also have the opportunity to draw comparisons with other regions in the Atlantic World. Upper-level undergraduates may enroll with instructor consent.

Instructor(s): Lyons, Deirdre     Terms Offered: Winter Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 30598, HIST 29006, ANTH 26452, ANTH 46452, MAPS 33505, HIST 39006

SOCI 20600. The Political Sociology of Religion. 100 Units.

By combining the two fields of political sociology and sociology of religion, political sociology of religion seeks to investigate and analyze religious phenomena with a political nature and political phenomena with religious-spiritual approaches.The main aim of this course is to investigate the mutual influence of political forces and religion. Therefore, one of the most important concepts to be considered is "political religion" and the way to construct identity and social-political actions at micro and macro levels. This course seeks to answer these questions: What is political religion, and how is it constructed and represented in different contexts? What political definitions of salvation, sin, suffering, liberation, and spirituality have been presented by world religions? How are these definitions represented in social reality by actors and political systems? How do religious fundamentalist approaches represent the political issue? How is politicized religion represented in everyday life?

Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 30600

SOCI 28091. Brains, bodies, and culture: An introduction to the sociology of culture. 100 Units.

Culture"-a loaded and thorny term for many sociologists. Used differently by scholars within the subfield and across social science disciplines, the term escapes easy definition. In this course, we will attempt to arrive at a working definition of culture that considers cognitive science and psychological research, and that is consistent with what we know to be the case about how bodies and brains work. To do this, we will remain in dialogue with research in cognitive science and use this work to inform our reading and evaluation of key theoretical and empirical texts in the sociology of culture. Over the course of the quarter, we will cover major sociological treatments of culture, debates within the subfield regarding what culture properly "is," enculturation processes, and contemporary empirical and theoretical treatments. The following two questions will guide us: "What do we mean-and what should we mean- when we talk about culture?" and "How does culture intersect with sociopsychological processes of fundamental importance to sociologists like inequality, power, perception, interpretation, and action?" Through a range of topics like gender, the workplace, political orientations, and music and fashion, we will explore how our environment interacts with our bodies and brains to produce our particular experience of the world. The focus of the course is on reading and discussion; although not required, prior experience with sociology's "greatest hits" may be helpful.

Instructor(s): A. Lembo     Terms Offered: Autumn

SOCI 28092. Nations and Nationalism. 100 Units.

What is a Nation? How do nations come into being? What does it mean to be a part of a national group? These questions will be explored over the quarter through close readings and discussions of both classical theories of nationalism as well as the critiques that have been leveled against them. Studying both classical and contemporary approaches to nationalism, the class will consider how scholars have grappled with the from whence and how a nationalism over time. Over the course of the quarter we will critique ideas of nationalism; consider the efficacy of nation and nationalism as categories of analysis; and will use cases from post-Soviet and post-socialist spaces to ground our discussions in the later part of the quarter, exploring narrative, performative, and material aspects of nationalism in the contemporary period.

Instructor(s): M. O'Shea     Terms Offered: Winter Equivalent Course(s): GLST 28092

SOCI 29997. Readings in Sociology. 100 Units.

Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form. With consent of instructor, students may take this course for P/F grading if it is not being used to meet program requirements.

Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Summer Winter Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor and program chair.

SOCI 29998. Sociology BA Thesis Seminar. 100 Units.

For students who choose to pursue a BA project, this course is required. It is designed to help students develop the project and provide them with opportunities to discuss their research. While it only counts as one course, students will participate in the course throughout their fourth year in the College with meetings held 3-4 times a quarter beginning in the Autumn and lasting through Spring. Students will formally register for the course and receive their grade in the Spring quarter.

Instructor(s): M. Garrido     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter Prerequisite(s): Open only to students who are majoring in sociology. Note(s): Must be taken for a quality grade.

SOCI 29999. BA Project. 000 Units.

This is not a course. Students pursuing a BA project must register for it in the Spring quarter of their final year in the College to receive a BA project grade.

Instructor(s): M. Garrido     Terms Offered: Spring

Undergraduate Primary Contact

Associate Professor Marco Garrido SS 317 773.702.6515 Email

Administrative Contact

Departmental Contact Pat Princell SS 307 773.702.8677 Email

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The University of Chicago: Graduate Studies

Application management, master's and doctoral applications.

The application for enrollment in Autumn 2024 is now available. Thank you for your interest in applying to the Division of the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago!

For admissions information about the Division of the Social Sciences, please visit our website . Application deadlines can be found here . Interested in learning more? Register for an admissions webinar .

If you have specific questions or concerns, please contact the Office of Admissions at [email protected] . Note: If you previously applied to a UChicago Social Sciences Division program, please use the same application account for your 2024 application. If you need assistance in updating the email address or resetting a password, please contact us.

Dissertation Fellowships for Continuing UChicago PhD Students

2024 - 2025 application is available now. This application is intended for current UChicago PhD students applying for department or Divisional dissertation completion fellowships. Email [email protected] with any questions.

Non-Degree Visiting Students -- Rolling admissions

Applications for Winter, Spring, and Fall 2024 are available now. This status is only available to students who are advanced graduate students pursuing a graduate level degree at another academic institution, who are at the research or writing stage, and who have been invited to temporarily work on their research project with a faculty member at the University of Chicago. If you select this type of application, you will be asked to provide information regarding your faculty advisor; you will not be considered for Non-Degree Visiting Student status if you have not been specifically in touch with a University of Chicago faculty member in advance of your application. Questions about this status or the application can be directed to Cathy Mican at [email protected] .

Summer Institute in Social Research Methods

Applications for Summer 2024 will be available in December 2024. University of Chicago undergraduates, University of Chicago Laboratory Schools students, and students participating through Chicago State University or INSPER apply for SISRM through this portal. Please select 2024 SUMR as your application type. 

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Programs of Study

Consistently ranked among the top ten social science research universities in the world, the Division of the Social Sciences is at the vanguard of inquiry and impact. The Division offers Doctoral degrees in nine programs , Masters in four , and  opportunities for joint degrees with other University of Chicago divisions and professional schools.

Doctoral Programs

• Anthropology
• Comparative Human Development
• Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science
• Political Science
• Social Thought

Masters Programs

• Computational Social Science
• International Relations
• Middle Eastern Studies
• Social Sciences

Joint/Dual Doctoral Programs

• Anthropology and Linguistics
• Cognition and Linguistics
• Financial Economics
• Psychology and Business
• Social Thought and Classics
• Social Thought and Philosophy
• Political Economy

Joint/Dual Masters Programs

• JD/MA in International Relations
• MPP/MA in Middle Eastern Studies
• MBA/MA in International Relations
• MBA/MA in Area Studies
• MA in Public Policy and International Relations

Undergraduates and the Social Sciences

Undergraduates at the University of Chicago  apply to  and receive admission from the  College .  As part of the  Core  and through their  Major and Minor  programs, their interaction with the Division’s distinguished faculty is a cornerstone of their UChicago experience. 

The Division, in concert with the College, offers  BA/MA opportunities for undergraduates , and Division faculty offer a host of research positions for undergraduates throughout the academic year to more closely engage them in the core mission of the institution.

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The social sciences are the means by which we come to understand the world in which we live.

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UChicago scholars established the world’s first department of sociology. Today, according to the National Research Council, the department’s graduate program ranks first in the nation. Undergraduates work closely with faculty members investigating a range of topics: sociology of the state, urban policy analysis, theories of crime and social control, and feminist theories of gender, among many others. In their course work and research, students draw on the resources of the University and the city. A course in Urban Culture, for example, asks students to carry out fieldwork in UChicago’s cultural spaces and places.

Introductory course work covers social structure and change; interaction, community, and culture; and sociological and statistical methods. Students then examine topical clusters: macrosociology and intergroup relations; sociology of institutions; urban sociology; comparative, historical, and cultural sociology; microsociology; and theory and methodology. Graduating seniors do an original piece of research of their own design.

The knowledge sociology provides for the understanding of human relations and social organization has made it attractive for students considering careers in such professions as business, education, law, marketing, medicine, journalism, social work, politics, public administration, and urban planning. As a basis for more specialized graduate work, it affords entry to careers in social research in federal, state, and local agencies, as well as into business enterprises, private foundations, and research institutes. Sociology also provides an excellent foundation for students who are planning academic careers in any of the social sciences. The program is designed, therefore, to meet the needs of a very diverse group of students.

• Sociology in the College Catalog
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Mapping the Young Metropolis

The Chicago School of Sociology, 1915-1940

Exhibition on view from June 22, 2015 – The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center

Between 1915 and 1940, a small faculty in the University of Chicago Department of Sociology, working with dozens of talented graduate students, intensively studied the city of Chicago . They aspired to use the approaches of social science in developing a new field of research, and they took the city as their laboratory.

Chicago was the ideal place for such an effort: in the last half of the nineteenth century it had grown from a population of 30,000 in 1850, to 1,700,000 in 1900, probably faster than any city in history. More than one-third of the population had been born abroad, in Germany, Poland, Ireland, Italy, and dozens of other countries. It had a panoply of social problems, such as prostitution, drunkenness, hoboes, and boys' gangs.

The Department of Sociology faculty sent students out into Chicago's "real world" to collect information. They employed all sorts of research methods—they refined existing ones, such as censuses, surveys and mapping, and they invented new ones, such as the personal life history.

They described and analyzed what they had seen. The Chicago sociology faculty wrote books, such as  The Polish Peasant in Europe and America . Graduate students in sociology wrote dissertations, many of which became books published by the University of Chicago Press. Notable among them are  The Ghetto ,  The Hobo ,  The Gang,  and  The Gold Coast and the Slum . Many of the books became sociological classics. Prior to this work, sociology was for the most part a combination of history and philosophy, an armchair discipline. Scholars of the Chicago School transformed it into an empirical discipline.

Significantly, the University of Chicago sociologists did not refer to themselves as a "school." The term was applied to them later, when others recognized the impact of their accomplishments as a whole.

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June 22, 2015 – Sept. 11, 2015 The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center

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Graduate student inspires next-generation scientists and engineers

March 18, 2024

By Emily Ayshford

Related content

• Quick thinking! PhD student Adarsh Suresh takes first place in Three Minute Thesis competition
• South Side middle schoolers create ‘instant snow,’ map the hidden surface of planets at PME science fair
• Engineering design capstone course gives undergraduates ‘an engineer’s intuition’

Growing up in Bangalore, India, Adarsh Suresh was encouraged by his scientist father to go out, explore, and, most importantly: ask questions.

In neighboring forests, a teenage Suresh found his passion for science — well, at least for studying one class of organisms.

“Like everyone, I went through an insect phase,” he said. Not content to examine the six-legged creatures on his own, he reached out to an entomology professor at the National Center for Biological Sciences whose website said that he accepted high school students. The professor agreed to take in Suresh, assigning him to go into the forest, gather insects, and identify them. Soon enough, Suresh had graduated to bigger projects, including training bees to fly to the lab.

“I said, ‘This is really great. I really enjoy doing research,’” he said. “I was treated like an adult, and I felt relevant and important. And that’s when I really learned how to ask questions, how to break them down into digestible chunks.”

That led to a yearslong pursuit of research that took him to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and then to the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) at the University of Chicago, where he also found his passion for teaching, mentoring, and communicating science. Now, as he finishes his PhD and looks back at what he has learned, he’s ready to help reform education in India.

“Science that is not communicated to society is useless,” he said. “And to communicate science and educate students, you need to make them feel relevant and important, to be allowed to make risky decisions to understand how the world works.”

Learning to fail

When Suresh arrived at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2015 — his first time in the United States — to study chemistry and chemical engineering, he immediately began to search for his next research project. He found his place in a lab that worked to convert nitrogen to ammonia using visible light. He enjoyed the experience so much that he began to research graduate schools. PME immediately grabbed his attention.

“The school was doing something new and exciting, and I wanted to be a part of it,” he said. “It was interdisciplinary and avant-garde, and I knew there would be challenges and opportunities as we figured it out as we went. It was the best decision I could have made.”

He wanted to work on big problems, like the global water crisis, so he devised a plan: He would work with both Prof. Stuart Rowan , who had developed a porous material with a high surface area, and Prof. Chong Liu , an expert at extracting ions from water using electron fields. Combining the two technologies could lead to a new way to not only desalinate water at scale — it could also remove toxins and mine valuable resources from it.

He developed a selective electrode to facilitate these processes, but it did not perform well enough inside the electrochemical cell. “Science does not go in a predictable way,” Suresh said. “When people ask me to tell about a time I failed, I say, ‘I’m a graduate student, I fail every day of my life.’”

Suresh even accidentally dropped the electrode and stepped on it. Luckily, it didn’t break. But the mistake made him wonder about the strength of materials — a question he knew would be on the minds of other young people, as well.

“I started to think about how to explain fundamental concepts of mechanics,” he said. “So I posed that as a challenge to myself.”

Giving students ideas they can understand

In fact, where Suresh found his groove at UChicago was in communicating science, mentoring young students, and acting as a sounding board for his peers.

As a PME science communication fellow, he has presented scientific concepts at PME’s Junior Science Cafés and at the annual South Side Science Festival . To explain how materials get their strength, he shows how vertical rolled-up Post-it notes (seemingly weak on their own) can support a stack of books. He loves explaining scientific concepts to kids.

“Our job is not to inundate them with equations and theories,” he said. “We have an obligation to inspire them and make them believe they are capable of changing the world by giving them the ideas and toolkits they can understand.”

But young kids aren’t his only audience. He won UChicago’s Three Minute Thesis Competition and also served as a mentor to a group of students (one high school student and two undergraduate students) on a research project to develop next-generation carbon foams for selective carbon capture. “I will aways welcome high school students in the lab,” he said. “I want them to explore, to foster independence, and to learn how to ask questions.”

He also found time to serve as a PME ombudsperson, acting as a resource and sounding board for PME students. In each communication and mentoring experience, he draws on his the tenets of improv — saying, “Yes, and” — to respond to the person and situation.

Creating accessible education for everybody

As he finishes up his PhD, Suresh is excited for a career in education. He wants to inspire kids in his home country with visual demonstrations of the power of science. He had a taste of what it might be like when he taught a summer scholars class in 2020 to high school students. Due to the pandemic, the class shifted online, so every student was sent a breadboard, on which they could create circuits.

A month after the class ended, a student emailed him, asking for help building something new on the breadboard. Suresh was happy to comply. They got on a Zoom call and worked it out.

“That he emailed to ask for my help was very nice,” Suresh said. “I want to bring these innovative learning techniques to schools. I want education to be free and accessible to anybody. That’s my goal.”

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Graduate Students

After careful consideration of our occupancy on both Lake Shore and Water Tower campuses, we will not be able to offer graduate housing for teh 2024-2025 academic year. There are a multitude of factors that impact what spaces we can offer from year to year, and unfortunately, we will not have the space available.

Below are some suggested resources as students make alternative housing plans.

Off-Campus Housing Options

There are several resources for students as they begin their off-campus apartment search. We encourage students to start with the following:

Conference Services oversees select floor in Baumhart Hall and may be able to offer accommodations. For rates and availability, students are encouraged to connect with their office directly.

Connect with  Lakeside Management . Lakeside Management is a property management compancy owned by Loyola University Chicago. With this being the case, they understand the unique needs of a college student apartment search process and are well-versed in the neighborhood surrounding Loyola. While most of their properities are near the Lake Shore Campus, there is a property near the Water Tower Campus.

Places4Students  is an apartment listing site available to the Loyola Community. In addition to seaching for available apartments, students can post or search for subleasing opportunities and also find potential roommates!

Teaching Assistant in Sociology: AY 24-25, Includes Summer 2024 (Anticipated)

Job posting for teaching assistant in sociology: ay 24-25, includes summer 2024 (anticipated) at university of california - merced.

Open date: March 22, 2024

Next review date: Friday, Apr 5, 2024 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time) Apply by this date to ensure full consideration by the committee.

Final date: Friday, May 31, 2024 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time) Applications will continue to be accepted until this date, but those received after the review date will only be considered if the position has not yet been filled.

The School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts anticipates hiring Teaching Assistants for lower- and upper-division courses for Academic Year 2024-2025, including Summer Session 2024, in the following disciplines:

The Teaching Assistant will be responsible for grading, attending lectures, leading discussion sections when appropriate and holding office hours. Additional information on the title is available at https://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/_files/apm/apm-410.pdf

The University of California Teaching Assistants are represented by the UAW-AFL-CIO. http://ucnet.universityofcalifornia.edu/labor/bargaining-units/bx/index.html

Program : https://sociology.ucmerced.edu/students/graduate-students/graduate-studies

School : https://ssha-grad.ucmerced.edu/

Qualifications (must meet all listed qualifications): * Bachelor's degree in the subject area or a related field * Maintenance of a qualifying grade point average * Academically eligible to hold the appointment (per UC Merced's Graduate Policies and Procedures Handbook) * Must be a registered UC Merced graduate student in full-time residence (registered for 12 units per term appointed; for summer appointment registered in 12 units in the previous term; incoming students for summer appointment have submitted the Statement of Intent to Register) * Must have passed an Oral English Proficiency Examination (if applicable)

Curriculum Vitae - Your most recently updated C.V.

Help contact: [email protected]

The University of California, Merced, is the newest of the University of California system's 10 campuses. With over 9,000 undergraduate and graduate students (https://cie.ucmerced.edu/analytics-hub/student-statistics), UC Merced is committed to interdisciplinary excellence in research and teaching as well as to diversity, equity and inclusion. Ranked as one of the best public universities in the nation by U.S. News and World Report, UC Merced provides outstanding educational opportunities to highly qualified students from the heart of California, the nation, and abroad. The campus has special connections to nearby Yosemite National Park; is on the cutting edge of sustainability in construction and design; and supports the economic development of Central California. The Merced 2020 Project doubled the physical capacity of the campus, and enhanced academic distinction, student success, and research excellence (https://merced2020.ucmerced.edu/).

The University of California, Merced is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer advancing inclusive excellence. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age, protected veteran status, or other protected categories covered by the UC nondiscrimination policy.

As a University employee, you will be required to comply with all applicable University policies and/or collective bargaining agreements, as may be amended from time to time. Federal, state, or local government directives may impose additional requirements. This includes the University of California Policy on Vaccination Programs: https://policy.ucop.edu/doc/5000695/VaccinationProgramsPolicy.

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Alumni news – March 2024

Anthony Carroll (MA ’80) will be joining Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in April as a senior fellow. Carroll has over 35 years of experience as a corporate lawyer and business advisor in the areas of international trade and investment, with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa.

Romina Soria (MIPA ’05) launched a monthly series of household income data to gauge the economic well-being of American households with the data science and economic consulting firm she co-founded, Motio Research . The new series is based on microdata from the Current Population Survey and follows the core methodology of a discontinued series that garnered widespread national media attention in the 2010s.

Lauren Benditt (MPA ’09) recently joined YouGov as senior vice president of research. She has worked in various leadership and analyst positions at the international market research and data analytics firm since 2016.

Emma Cleveland (MPA ’20) started a new position with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources as an air policy analyst. She was previously a contractor to the DNR with the Lake Michigan Air Directors Consortium.

Jose Martinez (MPA ’21) was featured in a Waisman Center story about a recently published study that shows that the triplication of the 21st chromosome, which causes Down syndrome, impacts brain development at its earliest stages. The story highlights research that Martinez conducted while in graduate school. Martinez received an MPA from the La Follette School in 2021 and went on to complete a Ph.D. in cellular and molecular biology in 2024. He recently joined The RAND Corporation as an associate physical scientist.

Dylan Helmenstine (MPA ’22) is running for the Black Earth Village Board . Helmenstine works as a health care rate analyst in the Bureau of Rate Setting, Division of Medicaid Services at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, where he conducts analysis and program improvement for the state’s Medicaid waiver program.

Tessa Reilly (MPA ’22) was promoted to senior consultant at Guidehouse, where she has worked since 2022. While completing her MPA, Reilly worked as a regional affordable housing innovation fellow for the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority. Prior to graduate school, Reilly received bachelor’s degrees in sociology and political science with an undergraduate certificate in public policy.

Rianna Mukherjee (certificate in public policy ’23) was accepted into the Maryland Office of the Attorney General’s Thurgood Marshall Program. As part of the program, she will spend her summer as a law clerk with the Maryland State Department of Education. Mukherjee is a J.D. candidate at the University of Maryland Law School. In 2023, she completed a bachelor’s degree in political science along with certificates in public policy, Asian American studies, and educational policy studies from UW–Madison.

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Historian McClellan to Present on the Underground Railroad

Hear untold stories of how enslaved people fled oppression by escaping north to Illinois and the Chicago area at 7 p.m. on April 4 at Lewis University in Romeoville. 

Listen to how black and white abolitionists assisted the Underground Railroad as Larry McClellan, professor e meritus of sociology and community studies at Governors State University, presents "Freedom Seekers and the Underground Railroad in the Chicago Area".

“This is a not-to-be-missed presentation by McClellan. His new book from Southern Illinois University Press set out how freedom seekers escaped their enslavers. It is a story of courage and determination,” said Dennis H. Cremin, History Department chair at Lewis University.

McClellan further asserts that transportation links, such as the I & M Canal, completed in 1848, and the later train route from Chicago to Detroit, expanded opportunities for the enslaved.

This event is free and open to the public and will be held in the University Dining Room (AS 104C). It is partially funded by the Lewis University History Department’s Sczepaniak Endowed Lecture Series. Visit  https://www.alumni.lewisu.edu/2024-sczepaniak-spring-lecture  for more information and registration.

For additional information, contact Sara Pasowicz, History Department administrative assistant,  [email protected]  or 815-836-5148.

Lewis University is an innovative Catholic university offering market-relevant undergraduate and graduate programs to 6,500 students. Sponsored by the De La Salle Christian Brothers, Lewis University is nationally recognized for preparing intellectually engaged, ethically grounded, and globally-connected graduates who impact the world for the better. Visit www.lewisu.edu for further information.

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• Union Contract

Graduate Student Union Contract

Last updated: March 21, 2024  

On March 15, 2024, the graduate student union (NUGW-UE) informed Northwestern that a majority of its voting members voted to ratify their first collective bargaining agreement with the University.

To ensure a smooth and transparent implementation of the contract, the University has established a strategy team that will oversee the process. This team consists of representatives from central support offices (Office of the Provost, Human Resources, etc.) and members of each Northwestern school with student employees covered by the contract. Work groups are evaluating the contract terms and working with partners across the University to create action plans for immediate tasks and address foundational needs as Northwestern puts this agreement into practice and incorporates it into policies and procedures.

This webpage provides a high-level overview of the contract and addresses frequently asked questions about the agreement and its implementation. Northwestern will update this webpage as needed to share information with the broader University community. Additionally, the University will provide detailed guidance to specific audiences as appropriate through emails, meetings and trainings.

Northwestern community members are encouraged to submit questions or feedback during the implementation process through this online form . Members of the implementation strategy team will monitor this form and respond to inquiries promptly.

Contract Details  

The agreement between Northwestern and NUGW-UE covers graduate students in most schools when they are providing research or instructional services for the University. The contract is effective March 15, 2024 through March 31, 2027 , subject to further renewal . Below is a summary of key terms of the agreement. Northwestern will publish the full contract after it has been signed by all parties .

Union Contract FAQs 

Below are some frequently asked questions that are specific to Northwestern’s contract with NUGW-UE and the implementation of the agreement. Additional information on union basics, collective bargaining and other general topics are published on the General FAQs  webpage .

Union Eligibility

What portion of a graduate student’s time at northwestern is covered by the union contract.

The contract terms apply to graduate students only when they are in the bargaining unit (i.e., providing research or instructional services for the University).

Who is covered by the union contract?

The contract covers graduate students in the bargaining unit who are enrolled in degree programs and providing instructional and research services for the University. Any stipends/benefits provided by the University outside of the contract are, for the most part, subject to University discretion and the terms of any offer letters provided to prospective students.

Union Dues and Agency Fees

How will union dues or agency fees be paid.

With advance authorization, the University shall deduct union dues or agency fees from graduate student workers’ pay and remit the deducted funds to the union.

Are graduate students required to pay union dues or agency fees?

The payment of either union dues or agency fees is a condition of employment in a bargaining unit position.

Compensation and Benefits

When will eligible union members receive the ratification bonus.

Based on the payroll calendar, the ratification bonus is scheduled to be paid in April.

Who will receive the ratification bonus?

All graduate students who were in the bargaining unit (i.e., providing research or instructional services for the University) at the time of ratification (March 15, 2024) will receive the ratification bonus.

Which graduate students will receive a base stipend increase effective June 1, 2024?

Graduate students in the bargaining unit (i.e., those students who are providing research or instructional services for the University) on June 1, 2024 will receive a base stipend increase under the terms of the contract.

Which graduate students will receive a base stipend increase effective September 1, 2024?

Graduate students in the bargaining unit (i.e., providing research or instructional services for the University) on September 1, 2024 will receive a base stipend increase under the terms of the contract.  

At the University’s discretion, the following four additional groups of students will see the same stipend increases as those in their program who are performing services for the University: those in fully funded PhD and TGS MFA programs who are in their period of guaranteed funding, graduate students enrolled in the Kellogg School of Management PhD program, and graduate students in the Bienen School of Music who are enrolled in the doctor of musical arts (DMA) program and who are in their period of guaranteed funding or in the masters of music (MM) program and whose offers of admission include funding.

What will be the new hourly rate for graduate student employees?

Graduate student employees not enrolled in fully funded programs, employees who are beyond their period of guaranteed funding, and/or employees working pursuant to appointments outside of or in addition to the base funding related to their academic program will be paid a minimum hourly rate of $23 per hour effective September 1, 2024.

How and when will eligible graduate students be able to enroll in dental and vision coverage?

The University’s Vision and Dental open enrollment period will be extended beyond March 31 to facilitate eligible graduate student employees taking advantage of these newly secured benefits. The University anticipates providing more information the week of March 25.

How do graduate students who are bargaining unit members notify supervisors about and request time off?

Graduate student workers generally should consult with their direct supervisor(s) to request time off at least two weeks in advance.

How does sick time work for graduate students who are bargaining unit members?

For incidental, temporary illnesses and exposures to infectious illness, graduate students may request time off from their direct supervisors and such requests shall not be unreasonably denied.

What is the workload of an appointment associated with a full stipend?

The collective bargaining agreement provides that “no employee should be compelled to devote more than an average of 20 hours per week over the course of their appointment period on work not associated with degree requirements and academic expectations.”  Time spent by graduate students on academic efforts associated with degree requirements and academic expectations are not subject to this limit.

Can graduate students still be appointed to provide research or instructional services on an hourly basis?

Yes, the union contract includes a schedule of minimum hourly rates for appointments unrelated to base funding. These hourly rates also may be set as a flat-rate equivalent based on a set expectation of hours worked.

Can graduate students be appointed to provide research or instructional services for a period that does not cover a full quarter or year?

Yes, graduate students can be appointed to bargaining unit positions for periods less than a full quarter or year, subject to the needs and discretion of the University.

Does the union contract have any impact on TGS's policy for graduate student permission to work requests?

No. Employees must continue to follow TGS’s Permission to Work Policy in order to undertake work that is not assigned to them in their appointment letter(s) and/or letter of admission.