Sociology

SOCI W1000x and y The Social World 3 pts. No instructor permission needed to register. Identification of the distinctive elements of sociological perspectives on society. Readings confront classical and contemporary approaches with key social issues that include power and authority, culture and communication, poverty and discrimination, social change, and popular uses of sociological concepts.

SOCI W2220 Evaluation of Evidence 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. Corequisites: There will be discussions. Registration for sections will take place during the first week of classes. Discussion of the logic and procedures of social science research and standards for the critical evaluation of that research based on a careful reading and analysis of significant studies exemplifying the use of different kinds of social science data and methods (field observations, historical archives, surveys, and experiments). No mathematical or statistical background is required. Discussion Section Required.

SOCI V2225 Globalization: Empirical & Theoretical Elements 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. The course will examine how different processes of globalization a) are actually constituted at different scales and in a range of institutional settings; b) transform key aspects of major institutions, such as sovereignty and citizenship, and major processes, such as urbanization, immigration, and digitization; and c) are in turn shaped by these institutions and processes. Particular attention will go to analyzing the challenges for theorization and empirical specification.

SOCI V2230x Food and the Social Order 3 pts. Instrumental in the formation and transformation of the social order, food is an indicator of collective as well as individual aspirations and assumptions. We shall look at the production and consumption of food, both material and symbolic, from the eating in the Bible to globalization in the 21st century.

SOCI W2240x Economy and Society 3 pts. An introduction to economic sociology. Economic sociology is built around the claim that something fundamental is lost when markets are analyzed separately from other social processes. We will look especially at how an analysis of the interplay of economy and society can help us to understand questions of efficiency, questions of fairness, and questions of democracy.

SOCI W2250 Climate Change, Social Change 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. An introduction to climate change as a social and political issue, providing a background in the many ways this complex issue is being addressed in society. The course will focus on the many different social actors involved in this issue and the multiple scales of governance at which solutions are emerging.

SOCI W2400 Comparative Perspectives on Inequality 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. This course focuses on the contours, causes, and consequences of social inequality in contemporary American society. Our objective is to put contemporary American inequalities into sharper perspective by comparing them to inequalities in other contemporary societies and in American history. Our comparisons will focus predominantly on other wealthy democratic societies, those most like the United States. However, the theoretical concepts developed in the course will be useful for students with an interest in a range of other countries.

SOCI W2420x Race and Place in Urban America 3 pts. Analyzing the relationship between race/ethnicity and spatial inequality, emphasizing the institutions, processes, and mechanisms that shape the lives of urban dwellers. Surveying major theoretical approaches and empirical investigations of racial and ethnic stratification in several urban cities, and their concomitant policy considerations.

SOCI W3000x Social Theory 3 pts. Required for all sociology majors. Prerequisite: at least one sociology course or the instructor's permission. Theoretical accounts of the rise and transformations of modern society in the 19th and 20th centuries. Theories studied include those of Adam Smith, Tocqueville, Marx, Durkheim, Max Weber, Roberto Michels. Selected topics: individual, society, and polity; economy, class, and status; organization and ideology; religion and society; moral and instrumental action.

SOCI W3010y Methods for Social Research 4 pts. Prerequisites: SOCI W1000 The Social World or Instructor Permission Required for all Sociology majors: introductory course in social scientific research methods. Provides a general overview of the ways sociologists collect information about social phenomena, focusing on how to collect data that are reliable and applicable to our research questions. Discussion Section Required.

SOCI W3020x Social Statistics 3 pts. This course introduces methods of empirical social research for describing and drawing inferences from quantitative data. Emphasis is on basic but very serviceable methods of statistical analysis for information drawn from surveys or archives. The course includes several exercises in analysis of sample survey data.

SOCI W3190 Introduction To Historical Sociology 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. How can we understand such major social forces as nationalism, Islam, and class conflict by combining historical analysis and sociological theory? Can these two disciplines take us further than either one alone?

SOCI W3201 Elites in Democratic America 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. The aim of this course is to provide you with the tools to think about elites within democratic societies. What is the place of an elite within a democracy? What roles have they traditionally played? How have they supported or undermined democratic institutions? And how have elites worked for and against the reproduction of social inequality.

SOCI V3208 Unity and Division in the Contemporary United States: A Sociological View 4 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. Prerequisites: One introductory course in Sociology. Sophomore standing. Conflict and unity in the U.S: the tensions of individualism and communalism; the schism between blue and red states; culture war; the careers of racism and anti-Semitism; identity politics and fragmentation; immigration and second generation identities; the changing status of whiteness and blackness; cultural borrowing and crossover culture.

SOCI W3214y Immigration and the Transformation of American Society 4 pts. In 2010, one in eight residents of the United States was born outside the country. This course will consider why people move and the policies that let some people in while keeping others out, assimilation and incorporation, the experiences of the immigrants and their U.S.-born children, and how sociologists theorize, measure, and evaluate immigrant incorporation. We will also look at the challenges immigrants bring to American society: post-9/11 concerns about security, questions about democracy, participation and language use, and debates about tolerance and multiculturalism. The course focuses on receiving countries and the lives of immigrants, not the impact of migration on those left behind.

SOCI W3218 Race, Crime, and Law 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. This course critically examines the interplay between crime, law, and the administration of justice in the United States and how these issues are shaped by larger societal factors. Students will receive a theoretical and empirical overview of the American legal and criminal justice system, emphasizing such issues as: the function and purpose of crime control; the roles of the actors/subjects of the criminal justice system; crime and violence as cultural and political issues in America; racial disparities in offending and criminal justice processing; and juvenile justice.

SOCI W3225x Sociology of Education 3 pts. How do schools influence students? How do students make sense of their lives in the context of schools? And what role do schools play in reinforcing or challenging broader patterns of social inequality? This class will draw on multiple sources, from classical sociological texts to ethnographies of schools to our own experiences at Columbia and in this class itself, to examine the school as a central institution in modern society.

SOCI V3227 The Sociology of U.S. Economic Life 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. Prerequisites: One introductory course in Sociology is suggested. Examines the social forces that shape market behavior: ideologies of liberalism and conservatism; the culture of commodities and consumption; income, class, and quality of life; the immigrant economy; life in financial institutions; the impact of the global economy.

SOCI W3243 China Today: Change, Inequalities, and Social Life Not offered in 2013-2014. Comprehensive introduction to the major social issues in contemporary China. Not a survey in general Chinese history, but a discussion of important thematic issues, we will read and discuss with an emphasis on changes in the post-Mao era. Meant to be interdisciplinary, incorporating readings in anthropology, history, economics, political science, a number of important subjects will be discussed: state politics in pre-reform China since the 1949 revolution, shift to market reforms since 1978, rural China, and various population issues.

SOCI V3247 The Immigrant Experience, Old and New 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. The immigrant experience in the United States. Topics include ideologies of the melting pot; social, cultural, and economic life of earlier immigrants; the distinctiveness of the African-American experience; recent surge of new immigrants (Asians, Latinos, West Indians); Proposition 187 and changing American views of immigration.

SOCI W3264y The Changing American Family 3 pts. Examines social forces contributing to changes in U.S. family formation including declines in marriage, increases in nonmarital childbearing, and women's labor force participation. Analyzes forces affecting growth of "non-traditional" families including lesbian/gay, multigenerational families. Particular attention given to urban, suburban, rural contexts of poverty. Discussion Section Required.

SOCI W3265y Sociology of Work and Gender 3 pts. This course examines gender as a flexible but persistent boundary that continues to organize our work lives and our home lives, as well as the relationship between the two spheres. We will explore the ways in which gender affects how work is structured; the relationship between work and home; the household as a place of paid (and unpaid) labor; and how changes in the global economy affect gender and work identities.

SOCI W3277 Post-Racial America? 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. What is race? Is the US a post-racial society? Is such a society desirable? Is a post-racial society necessarily a just and egalitarian one? We consider these questions from ethnographic, historical, and theoretical perspectives. Topics discussed include intersectionality, multiracial identity, colorism, genetics, and the race and/or class debate.

SOCI W3281x American Society 3 pts. Debates about the distribution of income, policies towards the poor, policies towards immigration, and the proper balance between state, religion, and family for addressing important social problems are an endemic feature of American politics and have sharpened considerably in the increasingly polarized condition of American politics. This course addresses the character of inequality, religion, family, and immigration in contemporary America. We will frequently use a comparative perspective to better understand the nature of American distinctiveness within the broader industrialized world. Through such comparisons, the course will also clarify the potential role that social science evidence can play in policy debates around these issues.

SOCI W3285y Israeli Society 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. The purpose of the course is to acquaint students with Israeli society. The first part of the course will set the historical, social, political, and demographic background which is essential for understanding current processes in Israel. The second part will focus on the main social conflicts and cleavages in contemporary Israel. Patterns of continuity and change in the past sixty years will be analyzed.

SOCI W3288 Social Exclusion and Inclusion in Indian Society Not offered in 2013-2014. The course provides an overview of existing structures and processes in Indian society, and of modernization and globalization from the South Asian perspective. It will analyze the specificities of exclusion and inclusion of India's ex-untouchables or Scheduled Castes who are now popularly known as Dalits. It will examine Dalit politics, including the roles of Ambedkar and Gandhi, and examine the full spectrum of Dalit movements: socio-religious reform, literary, women's, NGOs, and the Dalit diaspora.

SOCI W3290 Environmental Sociology 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. This course is an introduction to the sociology of the environment and technology: a broad overview of the field and six key areas of study, including environmental attitudes, post-materialism, environmental movements, environmental justice, globalization, and resource dependency.

SOCI W3296y Paris: The Making of a Modern City 3 pts. How did Paris become the "Capital of the 19th Century," the paradigmatic modern city? We shall look at some of the paths that Paris took to modernity, focusing on the 19th century city from the French Revolution to the Great War of 1914-1918. Readings include sociological and historical studies as well as the novels that dramatize the experience of a sociologuically imagined city.

SOCI W3315 Sociology of Religion: Religion, Modernity, and the State 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. What is religion? How can religion be studied sociologically? How did religion's significance change as the world enters the modern age? What affects the different importance and position of religions in different societies? The course is designed to cultivate in students an understanding of the distinctively sociological approach to studying religion, and familiarize students with the important theoretical approaches, as well as major findings. problems, and issues in the field.

SOCI W3322x Sociology of Emotions 3 pts. This course introduces students to the major sociological and anthropological theories of emotions as well as empirical studies that focus on emotions as a form of social and cultural knowledge. We shall discuss emotions such as fear, anger, hate, love, shame and loneliness, and explore the role that emotions play in constructing collective identities and form identifications.

SOCI W3324x Global Urbanism 3 pts. Using classical texts about cities (do they still work for us?) and on the diverse new literatures on cities and larger subjects with direct urban implications, we will use a variety of data sets to get at detailed empirical information, and draw on two large ongoing research projects involving major and minor global cities around the world (a total of over 60 cities are covered in detail as of 2008).

SOCI W3325 Global Civics: How Do We Survive and Prosper in an Interdependent World? 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. The course will start with a review of the current state of the world, and proceed to identify and analyze the centripetal forces that push us together. We will then investigate key areas of climate change, genocide prevention and poverty alleviation, and discuss what if any responsibility we all have towards others. We will review various arguments for normative and technocratic frameworks. At the end of the course, each student will participate in thought experiments to explore her or his version of a global civics.

SOCI W3355 Topics in Religion and Politics 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. Exploring the major themes of religion and politics in the contemporary world: how did the major thinkers conceptualize the role of religion in society, the relationship between religion and politics, and state and church? How do different religions conceptualize and give life to these arrangements? After a mix of theoretical and historical readings, we study various substantive examples of the relationship between religion and politics, within differing contexts, different religions as well as different nation-states.

SOCI W3490x Mistake, Misconduct, Disaster 3 pts. How Organizations Fail - the fundamental principles of organizations, examining how and why organizations fail, producing harmful outcomes. Studying failures opens up parts of organizations for public view that are seldom seen; studying the dark side is especially revealing. Students will examine cases to identify the causes of failures and think about what kind of strategies can be developed that prevent failure.

SOCI W3645 Stratification, Inequality, and Public Policy 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. Prerequisites: SOCI W3010 Methods for Social Research Examines the structure of inequality in US society and in European countries, with a consideration of public policy in relation to taxation, social welfare, and poverty alleviation. Relevant theoretical frameworks are addressed.

SOCI W3660 Political Sociology 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. Prerequisites: Contemporary Civilization or one course in sociology, or political science, or European or American history. The course studies seminal interpretations of democratic politics from the perspectives of sociology, comparative politics and political theory. Theoretical analyses are discussed in the context of illustrative historical documents and accounts, and extended to contemporary concerns involving citizenship, culture, identity, representation and war.

One introductory course in Sociology, Psychology, or Anthropology is advisable, but not required.

SOCI W3670 Culture, Markets, and Consumption 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. An introduction to the cultural aspects of economic sociology. Consumer preferences have social origins, and the patterns of economic self-interest depend on religion, family, the state, shared stories, and social interactions. Students will examine the meanings of money, how some rational people account for their disadvantageous financial decisions, and how social movements and shared meanings affect the emergence of different types of markets.

SOCI W3671y Media, Culture, & Society in the Age of the Internet 3 pts. This course examines writings on "new media" and "social media." The focus will be on the ways that information technology has changed our social relations and experiences. We will examine different kinds of social collectivities, including "virtual communities," "crowd sourced" collaboratives and other kinds of social networks. Particular attention will be paid to the production and consumption of information and image, especially the making of cultural objects.

SOCI W3675y Organizing Innovation 3 pts. This course examines major innovations in organizations and asks whether innovation itself can be organized. We study a range of forms of organizing (e.g., bureaucratic, post-bureaucratic, and open architecture network forms) in a broad variety of settings: from fast food franchises to the military-entertainment complex, from airline cockpits to Wall Street trading rooms, from engineering firms to mega-churches, from scientific management at the turn of the twentieth century to collaborative filtering and open source programming at the beginning of the twenty-first. Special attention will be paid to the relationship between organizational forms and new digital technologies.

SOCI W3900x Societal Adaptations to Terrorism 4 pts. Prerequisite: Junior or Senior standing Examines how countries have adjusted to the threat of terrorism. How the adaptation reflects the pattern of terrorist attacks, as well as structural and cultural features of the society. Adaptations by individuals, families, and organizational actors.

SOCI V3901 The Sociology of Culture 4 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. Prerequisites: SOCI BC1003 or equivalent social science course and permission of the instructor.

Drawing examples from popular music, religion, politics, race, and gender, explores the interpretation, production, and reception of cultural texts and meanings. Topics include aesthetic distinction and taste communities, ideology, power, and resistance; the structure and functions of subcultures; popular culture and high culture; and ethnography and interpretation. Enrollment limited to 15.

SOCI W3909y Deviance and Social Control 4 pts. In this seminar. we will trace the historic shifts in causal theories of deviance and their significance for the societal response. The readings are classics of social research that have been of great historical impact. They range from the early focus on individual pathologies to sociological explanations, the most recent being attempts to understand deviance as a product of organization factors that result in harmful outcomes. Examples are Katrina, the 2008 financial crisis, and school shootings.

SOCI W3915x Stigma and Discrimination 4 pts. This course considers stigma and discrimination as general processes that apply to a broad range of phenomena, from mental illness to obesity to HIV/AIDS to racial groups. We will use a conceptual framework that considers power and social stratification to be central to stigma and discrimination. We will focus on both macro- and micro-level social processes and their interconnections, and we will draw on literature from both sociology and psychology.

SOCI W3923y Adolescent Society 4 pts. This seminar will explore the social and cultural construction of adolescence in contemporary American society. Adolescence is an important life-stage where experiences and decision-making have both individual and group consequences. Major themes will include: cultural and legal socialization of youth, crime and deviance, health and sexuality, employment and educational outcomes, and political behavior/civic engagement.

SOCI W3930 Immigration and Ethnicity in Israel 4 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. This seminar will focus on migration patterns to and from Israel and their effect on the ethnic composition and cleavages in Israeli society. We will discuss Jewish immigration and emigration in the pre-state period, Arab forced migration in 1948, Jewish immigration to Israel until the 1967 war, and migration patterns from the late 1960s until the present. In addition, we will discuss Jewish emigration from Israel, which is viewed as a major social problem. The focus will be on the number of emigrants, their composition, the causes for emigration, return migration, and on the question of the brain drain from contemporary Israel.

SOCI W3932 Sociology of the Arts 4 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. We sketch general keys to socio-cultural construction-sorts of identities and their stories in networks of relations amidst swirling searches for footing and control-from which emerge realms and languages of all sorts, including arts. The main text - Careers and Creativity: Social Forces in the Arts provides tools and examples.

SOCI W3933 Art and Social Movements 4 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. The interaction of culture and politics: the relations between artistic and social movements, political engagement among artists, the dynamics of the public sphere and civic participation, and the communicative potential of artists and their work within social movements. The use of art as propaganda, counter-cultural expression as resistance, art as a utopian model, and art as a path to participation and collaboration.

SOCI W3934 Religions in Chinese Society 4 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. The continuity and discontinuity of the religious ecology and culture throughout the Chinese history, from the Antiquity to the present: how religious changes and transformations were shaped by the state politics, socio-economic forces, and the penetration of foreign religions. Special focus on the religions in the Post-Mao China and how the religious ecology starts to depart from the paradigm crystallized in the past. A comparison with the religious development in contemporary Taiwanese society is used to illustrate the case. Photos and documentary films will provide a visual component.

SOCI W3936y Sociology and the Public 4 pts. Prerequisites: Sociological Imagination (SOCI V1202)or The Social World (SOCI W1000) (not required) This course explores how sociologists address pressing public concerns. With a focus on contemporary American issues, we will discuss: (1) how particular problems are identified; (2) what resolutions are put forth, who is likely to achieve them, and how; (3) what the audience is (and should be) for such work.

SOCI W3940 (Section 001) History-Sociology Colloquium 4 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. For students who are interested in combining sociological theory and methods with historical analysis in their projects. Students writing historical theses in sociology, political science, and anthropology would benefit from thinking about the combination of social scientific analysis with historical settings. Combining readings that are theoretical, methodological as well as excellent examples of essays and books that have succeeded at bridging the gap between disciplines. Class presentations and discussions of student work.

SOCI W3945 Seminar On Inequality and Public Policy 4 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. Economic inequality in the United States; the roles of labor market processes and inheritance with respect to wealth assimilation; assets and the poor; public policies in regard to income redistribution; taxation of income, wealth, and bequests; issues in poverty policy.

SOCI W3950y Ethnographic Imagination: Mapping the Social 4 pts. Guided by questions such as "ethnography for what purpose?, to what ends?, in what context?, with what tools?", this course will explore the territory(ies) of ethnograpohy in contemporary sociological research by pairing different kinds and modes of ethnographical research, both within the social sciences (sociology/anthropology/history) and outside (fiction/journalizm).

SOCI W3955 Real and Imagined Communities: Sociology in/and/of the Novel 4 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. Given that both the novel and sociology of products of and responses to modern society, this seminar will explore interconnections between the two. We shall read sociological texts and novels against each other to ascertain where and how each connects to the other and where they part.

SOCI W3958y Fact and Fiction 4 pts."Correct" findings are often mistranslated into "facts" prematurely and lead to misguided social policy. This course asks how do we become better readers, how do we become better critical analysts, and how do we evaluate evidence that has direct bearing on how we lead our lives?

SOCI W3960x Law, Science, and Society 4 pts. This course addresses basic contemporary social issues from several angles of vision: from the perspective of scientists, social scientists, legal scholars, and judges. Through the use of case studies, students will examine the nature of theories, evidence, "facts," proof, and argument as found in the work of scientists and scholars who have engaged the substantive issues presented in the course.

SOCI W3965y Topics in American Stuidies: Elites in America 4 pts. Wealth, not poverty, is the engine of inequality. Theoretically, almost all explanations of inequality are relational. Poverty cannot be understood as a thing in-and-of itself. Instead, it must be understood in relation to both wealth and overall social organization. Yet scholars have dedicated almost all their time to the disadvantage side of inequality and spent little time on understanding the "other side" of the relations of inequality: advantages. This class is dedicated to that other side.

SOCI W3980x Immigrant New York: The Changing American City 4 pts. How has immigration transformed New York City? What are the major ethnic groups in the city? How are immigrants and their U.S.-born children incorporated into the city's schools, workplaces and neighborhoods? How will their integration reshape patterns of ethnic and racial inequality in the city? This course will focus on New York City as a case study to highlight how immigration has transformed the city's demographic, political, socioeconomic and spatial landscape.

SOCI W3995x-W3996y Senior Seminar 4 pts. Prerequisites: Instructor permission required. Students wishing to qualify for departmental honors must take W3996. Prerequisites: required methods and theory courses for the major. Students carry out individual research projects and write a senior thesis under the supervision of the instructor and with class discussion. Written and oral progress reports.

SOCI C3998x-C3999y Individual Study 1-6 pts. Open only to qualified majors in the department; permission from the director of undergraduate studies is required. An opportunity for research under the direction of an individual faculty member. Students intending to write a yearlong senior thesis should plan to register for C3999 in the spring semester of their senior year and are strongly advised to consult the undergraduate studies as they plan their programs.

SOCI G4030 Sociology of Language 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. Use of language by actors in social contexts, called "discourse" in English, is the central topic. It concerns the establishment and reproduction of social relations of all sorts, as well as reference to other environments. Discourse grows into, and out of, various sublanguages across social networks, amid struggles for domination and identity.

SOCI G4032x Sociology of Labor Markets 3 pts. We will discuss the main concepts and processes necessary for understanding the functioning of labor markets in rich countries. The main topics to be discussed are: changes in the employment relationships, trends in labor force participation, the dynamics of occupations and industries, unemployment and underemployment, human capital and formal education, wage determination and earnings inequality, information and social networks in the labor markets, segmented labor markets, labor unions, labor market discrimination, ethnic and gender inequalities, and immigrants in the labor market. At the end of the course students are expected to be familiar with the main debates and developments in the field of sociology of labor markets.

SOCI G4042 Economic Sociology Meets Economic Geography 3 pts. Priority enrollment - Sociology graduate studentsNot offered in 2013-2014. For students interested in economic and organizational sociology, in the interplay of local and global forces, in political economy, and in the intersection of business and policy studies, the course is to be a graduate level seminar tracing the development and future direction of the conversation between the fields of economic sociology and economic geography.

SOCI G4068 The University in American Life 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. Prerequisites: None The values systems and structures of the university; the university as a transmitter and producer of knowledge; social mobility; stratification; discrimination; affirmative action; political ideology; academic freedom; the process for generating discoveries; intellectual migration; interactions with industry and the federal and state governments; and the threats to the vitality of institutions of higher learning that are critical for the welfare of the nation.

SOCI G4110 Power and Politics in Organizations 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. This course provides an institutional perspective on power and politics in the study of organizations. It starts with more macro-level levers of power and proceeds 'downward' through States, fields, and organizations. The aim is to understand theoretically and practically both the active and the more hegemonic forms of power at work in organizational life. Permission of instructor required.

SOCI G4120 Racial and Ethnic Identities 4 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. Seminar analyzes how historical, political, and social contexts shape the meaning of race and ethnicity. Delineates processes of group identity formation, renewal and change among African Americans, Whites, West Indians, Asian Americans, Latinos, American Indians, and racially mixed people.

SOCI G4121x Racial and Ethnic Inequality 3 pts. This seminar critically examines how racial/ethnic inequality is generated and maintained in contemporary American society. We will explore the merits and limitations of various paradigms that aim to explain racial inequalities and the concomitant social policies that have been implemented and/or proposed. Major topics include: residential segregation, wealth inequality, educational achievement, employment outcomes, crime & punishment, and culture.

SOCI G4122 Theory and Practice In the Sociology of Culture 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. Introduction to the study of culture, cultural products, and practices. The social organization and stratification of cultural products and practices in contemporary society, historical antecedents; tradition vs. innovation, popular vs. high culture, literature vs. the plastic and performing arts; models of cultural and aesthetic change.

SOCI G4130y Sociology of Expertise 3 pts. A new approach to the classical problems of the sociology of knowledge - the social determination of knowledge and the social roles of those who create, possess, and distribute knowledge. This new approach rejects the current boundaries of inquiry and reunifies them as a network of practices straddling the boundaries of science and the professions.

SOCI G4138x Ethno-Religious Identity and Politics in the Middle East and South Asia 3 pts. This is a comparative course intended to bridge areas and disciplines in the social sciences. Both the Middle East and South Asia are areas of democratization and conflict around issues of ethnic, religious, and communal issues. The pull and push of democratic politics and conflict along communal dimensions can be studied fron an historical as well as comparative perspective, by looking at India, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, (and Syria, and Iraq) to understand first the historical legacies of communalisms and then the impact of religious and ethnic politics as they developed in the post democratic era.

SOCI G4215 World-Historical Sociology: Perspectives on Natural Resources and Development 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. We will concentrate on such questions as: What role have natural resources and commodities played in the formation and evolution of the capitalist world-economy? Under what circumstances has natural resource wealth been an economic disadvantage/advantage? In which ways, if any, is the contemporary period of globalization changing the mechanisms linking natural resource wealth and economic development? While the course will focus on questions relating to the political economy of natural resources and development, students will gain an overview of world-historical sociology which can be used to examine a wide range of sociological questions.

SOCI G4260 Race and Ethnic Relations In the United States 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. Major theories of race and ethnic relations, drawing primarily from sociology but also from anthropology, social psychology, and economics. Theories and case studies of a variety of racial and economic groups in North America; identity, ethnic enclaves and immigrant enterprise, race and class formation, the nature of prejudice, and ethnic political mobilization.

SOCI G4270y Social Demography 3 pts. This course introduces the ideas, facts, and materials of demography. It explores social and economic causes and effects of population growth, composition, and distribution while considering demographic phenomena in both developing and developed countries. Topics include the history of population growth in the world as well as social science perspectives. The course includes some discussion of basic concepts in demographic analysis, but does not focus on methods of analysis or research techniques.

SOCI G4338 Welfare Regimes and Inequality in Europe 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. Prerequisites: A course in Introduction in Applied Social Statistics (or equivalent) is required. Intermediate level command of STATA could help even if SAS, R, SPSS could make it. The comparative welfare regime dynamics is an important field of the contemporary applied sociology, particularly in Europe. The now classic book of Esping-Andersen (1990): "Three world of welfare capitalism" has been an important debated milestone of the comparative sociology, in public policy, inequality/stratification, work, social change. In connection with birth-cohort analysis (Age-Period-Cohort APC), this course covers an important field of macrosociological research and comparative microdata survey analysis.

SOCI G4338 Welfare Regimes and Inequality in Europe 3 pts. Prerequisites: A course in Introduction in Applied Social Statistics (or equivalent) is required. The comparative welfare regime dynamics is an important field of the contemporary applied sociology, particularly in Europe. The now classic book of Esping-Andersen (1990): "Three world of welfare capitalism" has been an important debated milestone of the comparative sociology, in public policy, inequality/stratification, work, social change. In connection with birth-cohort analysis (Age-Period-Cohort APC), this course covers an important field of macrosociological research and comparative microdata survey analysis.

SOCI G4370x Processes of Stratification and Inequality 3 pts. The nature of opportunity in American society; the measurement of inequality; trends in income and wealth inequality; issues of poverty and poverty policy; international comparisons.

SOCI G4371 Comparative Perspectives on Social Inequality and Mobility 3 pts. SOCI G4370 constitutes useful preparation for the material covered in this course.Not offered in 2013-2014. Prerequisites: SOCI G4370 constitutes useful preparation for the material covered in this course. A comparative perspective on the structure of social inequality and mobility in industrialized societies. Topics include class, income, wealth inequality, and the distribution of poverty. Market, family, and state determinants of inequality and mobility will be addressed, as will the impact of migration on inequality.

SOCI G4407 The Dynamics of Israeli Society 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. The seminar will examine the main political, economic, and social processes that have been shaping Israeli society. Emphasis will be on immigration and emigration patterns, the economy and stratification system, the ethnic hierarchy among Jews as well as between Jews and Arabs, the question of democracy, the military, as well as the Occupation and the settlers.

SOCI G4530 European Construction from 1945 to 2020 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. The European integration and its institutional result, the European Union, is one of the most outstanding political constructions of modern history. But geopolitical, social, ecological, conditions have changed dramatically. The aim of the course is to make students familiar with the construction process, exploring internal and external obstacles and deficiencies as well as unutilized potentials.

SOCI G4540 Civil Society, Democracy, Trust: E. Central Europe 1989 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. The course will focus on intertwining processes of transformation and the construction and de-construction of social trust in East Central Europe before and after 1989. The introduction to the course clarifies the conceptual and theoretical framework of analysis with special regard to theories of civil society, democracy and social trust and provides a historical background of social and political change in East Central Europe from 1968 through the fermenting decade of the '80s to the present.

SOCI G9120 Social Networks 3 pts.Not offered in 2013-2014. Focus on theoretical and substantive themes within social network analysis, some of which are of general interest, some of which are of specific interest to the instructor. Also stressed are works in progress. Some technical solutions to substantive issues of interest�centrality, blocking, clusters, duality�are presented. Mathematical sophistication is unnecessary.