Description:

What makes you, you? Are you free to choose your own destiny, or does society determine your path? Explore how our different identities impact our everyday lived experiences and develop useful ways to think about the world around you. Themes include power dynamics, culture, identities, deviance, stereotyping, and/or the social construction of knowledge.

Outcomes:

After completing this class, students should be able to:

• Identify and demonstrate an understanding of basic concepts most widely used in sociology today, such as the sociological imagination, social and institutional norms, ethnocentrism and cultural relativism, perspectives on social order and conflict, and/or social stratification;
• Describe some of the “classics” in sociology and explain the shift within sociology toward cultural studies;
• Critically examine the social landscape in which you live and understand how groups, communities, and institutions impact individual lives;
• Identify the ways in which culture and social institutions (such as education, economy, media, family) shape our everyday experiences; and
• Explain social constructionism and how life experiences and opportunities differ according to race, class, gender, and sexuality.