Sociology and Human Services

This course examines sociology as a scientific discipline with an introduction to its foundational themes, empirical concerns, and analytical approaches. Students will investigate the interrelationship between individual experience and broader social contexts emphasizing the effects of social class, race/ethnicity and gender on life experiences and opportunities. Students will gain knowledge and critical thinking skills regarding contemporary social life in the United States. Offered fall and spring. Exploration Area: Social Sciences

This course is designed to provide an overview to human services by introducing students to foundational skills, attitudes, and dispositions needed both in the field and related health and social service disciplines. We will emphasize the social, legal, and ethical aspects of human service and an understanding of historical and current trends affecting vulnerable populations. Offered fall

This course focuses on the structure of the American family and how this structure is changing as society changes. Major focus in on the diversity of family forms, roles in partnered relationships, and a variety of social problems associated with family life. The impact of political and economic systems on family life is also explored. Offered fall of odd-numbered years. Prerequisite: SHS 101 or CHI 101

U.S. Social Problems explores current, domestic issues through a sociological lens, taking into consideration the sociological imagination, and exploring the constructivist approach to the study of conditions. Moreover, students will complete service to the community in order to experience first‐hand work being done on the local level to combat issues such as poverty and addiction. Prerequisites: SHS101. Offered fall.

Academically qualified sophomores, juniors or seniors may apply to work with faculty members as research assistants on the faculty member’s own research. The research assistantships can be at the 200, 300, or 400 level of course work. Students may not complete more than one assistantship at any one level.

This exploratory internship gives students the opportunity to gain experience with the study of sociology as well as with career opportunities available to graduates. Graded Pass/Fail. Prerequisites: sophomore standing, pre-internship seminar. Offered fall and spring.

This course provides a thorough and critical look at intimate partner violence from a sociological perspective. Students will acquire the skills necessary to effectively study intimate partner violence in the United States through examination of history, theories, and methods, before proceeding to investigate how intimate partner violence is shaped by social location. Race, social class, gender, sexual orientation, family composition, religion, and military status will all be included. Throughout, students will analyze and evaluate social service responses to intimate partner violence. Prerequisites: CLS101 or SHS101. Offered spring of odd years.

This course acquaints students with sport as a reflector and transmitter of values incorporated into the nature of sports in our society. Topics include sport and mass media, violence in sport, deviant behavior and sport, issues of race and culture in sport, and gender in sport.

This course examines how race and ethnicity continue to organize social relations and inequality in the United States and beyond. The course focuses on race and ethnicity as socially constructed categories and on contemporary forms of structural inequality. Topics may include issues in health care, residential segregation, access to education, the criminal justice system, media representations, and immigration. Discrimination at the interpersonal and institutional level will be featured as well as how race and ethnicity intersect with other forms of oppression such as gender and socio-economic class status. Offered fall of odd-numbered years.

This course is designed to highlight social work’s central commitments to diversity, human rights, and social and economic justice. The topics of this course include an examination of human rights and social and economic justice through study and scholarship, and preparing for work with diverse and at-risk populations. Emphasis will be placed on defining and developing skills for culturally competent social work and advocacy, and on promoting social justice and service to all persons.

This course serves as an introduction to and analysis of social welfare policies and programs in the United States, with emphasis on the role of social, economic, and political forces in shaping policy development and change. The commitment and contributions of social work to social policy and social reform throughout history will be explored, and policies addressing or exploiting the vulnerabilities of oppressed and at-risk Americans over time will be highlighted. Offered spring of even-numbered years.

This course provides an introduction to the central issues in sociological theory and a survey of both classical and modern sociological theorists.  Sociological theory plays a critical role in the formation and development of sociology, in that it provides lenses through which to see the world; lenses that define the actors, contexts, and institutions that populate the realm of sociology. While sociology inculcates an awareness of how individual problems connect to social issues, it is sociological theory that structures the social world such that “problems” and “issues” first emerge.

Gender and Society explores both “sex” and “gender” from a sociological perspective. We will examine and critique a variety of social institutions that produce, maintain, and enforce these categories as well as investigate how they are connected to social stratification and structures of race/ethnicity, socio‐economic class, and sexualities. The course will investigate the lives of transgender individuals as well as various theories of sexual orientation. Central to the course is a focus on how an active, informed sociological imagination can promote a better understanding of the forces that shape our “individual” gendered lives.

This course provides exposure to the variety of quantitative and qualitative research methods used in sociology with the emphasis on survey research and statistical analysis using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).  The course introduces descriptive and inferential statistics and the conditions under which they are meaningful.  Students become familiar with issues related to measurement and data processing with an emphasis on research design. (QL)

Junior standing recommended.

Through this minimum 160-hour internship students gain professional experience by applying skills learned in their sociology class work. Students may choose from a variety of internship options including community and government agencies, the criminal justice system, nonprofits or others that assist entry into a professional career. Students must work with a full-time sociology faculty member as their faculty sponsor. Graded Pass/Fail.

This course involves a semester of directed research in which students carry out an empirical research study. Students work closely with faculty and will present their research to the college community at the spring Scholars Symposium.