2008 Spring Graduate Course List

2008 Fall Graduate Course List

Graduate Courses and Syllabi

230.600 (S,Q) Introduction to Social Statistics

This course will introduce students to the application of statistical techniques commonly used in sociological analysis. Topics include measures of central tendency and dispersion, probability theory, confidence intervals, chi-square, ANOVA, and regression analysis. Hands-on computer experience with statistical software and analysis of data from various fields of social research. 
McDonald/ 4 credits

230.601 Research Design

A survey of research design with emphasis on the appropriateness of the design of the research for the theoretical problems to which it is addressed. Discussions of funded research proposals illustrate practical problems related to human subjects, availability of archival data, and timing of measurement.
Kohn/ 3 hours

230.602 Social Theory: Theories of Society

Intensive readings from classical theorists (Marx, Weber, and Durkheim) form the core of this course. Various critics and elaborators of modern social theory are also studied, ranging from representatives of the Frankfurt School to postmodern and feminist social theorists. Emphasis is placed on exploring the utility of social theory for formulating important sociological questions and conceptualizing social research.
Silver/ 3 hours

230.603 Contemporary Social Theory

Contemporary theories of social interaction. Functionalism: Parsons and Merton. Critical sociology and conflict theory: Mills, Habermas, and Bourdieu. Symbolic interactionism: Mead, Blumer, and Goffman. Theories of rational choice: Homans, Blau, and Coleman. Ethnomethodology, standpoint theory, and postmodernism: Garfinkel, Smith, Foucault. Alternative solutions to the micro-macro "bridging problem."
Arrighi/ 3 hours

230.604 Regression Analysis

A seminar in multiple regression (least squares and logistics) with an introduction to computer applications. Limited to graduate students with a solid statistics background. Prerequisite: 230.301 or the equivalent.
Alexander/ 3 hours

230.605 Categorical Data Analysis and Selected Topics

This course provides the students with a set of statistical tools to understand and interpret social science research dealing with categorical dependent variables and to prepare students to apply these models in their own research. The models covered in the course include logit, probit, and Poisson models. The selected topics include multi-level models and measurement models.
Hao/ 3 hours

230.606 Categorical and Panel Data Analysis

              (new course for Fall 2008)

This course introduces the main tools of categorical and panel data analysis. Categorical data analysis deals with categorical dependent variables. The first 7 weeks of the course introduce models for dichotomous, multiple-category, and count dependent variables, including logit, probit, ordered logit, multinomial logit, Poisson, and negative binomial models. Week 7 covers procedures for constructing data and handling missing data. The last 6 weeks introduce discrete-time models for panel data analysis along three lines: continuous vs. categorical dependent variables, random-vs. fixed-effects models, and static vs. dynamic models. This course uses the statistical packages Stata.

Hao / 3 hours

230.606 Issues in Economic Sociology

In-depth reading and discussion of classical and contemporary works in economic sociology. Typical issues examined include capitalism as historical social system; capital and markets as social structures; social networks, commodity chains, and product cycles; sociological perspectives on economic development.
Arrighi / 3 hours

230.607 Labor in the World System

A research seminar on the comparative-historical sociology of labor movements. The interrelationships between transformations in the labor process, labor markets, and patterns of working class formation and protest are examined; spatial and temporal convergences/divergences are analyzed.
Silver/ 3 hours

230.608 Proseminar in Sociology

Individual one-hour presentations by faculty members will introduce students to the faculty's substantive interests and research styles.
Staff/ 1 hour

230.609 Dissertation Seminar

A semester-long course designed to enhance graduate students' understanding of the logic of sociological research, from the formulation of a research problem to proposal writing and data analysis. This course is designed for advanced graduate students preparing their dissertation proposals.
Staff/ 3 hours

230.610  Seminar on Cross-National Comparative Research

A critical examination of the research literature in this domain, with special attention to the logic of cross-national comparative analysis and to the methods used for assuring comparability of concepts and indices in cross-national research.

Kohn/ 3 hours

230.611 Seminar in Comparative and World-Historical Sociology

In this seminar we will read key texts in comparative sociology. The topics covered are cross-national sociology, comparative national development, comparing world-systems, the modern world-system, globalization, and social movements.
Arrighi/Silver/ 3 hours

230.612 Seminar on Social Inequality

This seminar attempts a broad survey of sociological theorizing and research on social stratification and the role of social institutions in generating and mitigating inequality.
Staff/ 3 hours

230.613 Urbanization and Social Movements

Seminar on the interrelationship between processes of urbanization and the dynamics of social protest. Case studies in comparative and world-historical perspective.
Silver/ 3 hours

230.614 Seminar on the Family

A discussion-oriented seminar focused on major recent writings on the family, in both the developed and developing nations.
Cherlin/ 3 hours

230.615 Seminar on Panel Data Analysis

The course covers advanced methods for panel data analysis; including discrete time models for continuous vs. categorical dependent variables, random vs. fixed effects, and static vs. dynamic processes. Applications of these models to sociological research will be illustrated.
Hao/ 3 hours

230.616  Researching Race, Class, and Gender

This advanced graduate seminar reviews the major sociological works on race, class and gender.  It is designed to assist dissertation-level students to flesh out specific points and counterpoints feeding debates among scholars in the field

McDonald/ 3 hours

230.617 Seminar on Immigration

In-depth reading and discussion of theories and research on immigration to the U.S. Theoretical issues include international migration, immigration, and assimilation. Research topics include the impact of U.S. immigration laws on immigrant inflows and stocks, self-selection of immigrants, the impact of immigration on the native-born population, and the adaptation of the first and second generations. The course focuses on immigration since 1965 and its related controversies and debates.
Hao/ 3 hours

230.620 Seminar on Women and Work

A graduate seminar designed as a collective research experience to investigate the interdependent nature of gender, work, and family. Specifically, the course will examine market and nonmarket forces that affect women's employment trends and employment life trajectories; structural inequality in the society and its consequences for the workplace; how organizational settings affect the behavior of men and women at work; historical racial and ethnic differences in the meaning of work and participation in the paid and non-paid labor force; and the connectedness of women's employment to marriage and childbearing. Open to advanced undergraduates with permission of instructor.
McDonald/ 3 hours

230.622 Seminar on Limited Dependent Variable Models

This course introduces students to techniques for the analysis of event histories and categorical data such as logistic regression, hazard models, and other censored and truncated regression models. Students will do exercises using sample data and statistical software.
Cherlin/ 3 hours

230.625 Seminar on Development

This is a reading seminar on developmental processes at the global, regional, and national level. Students read and discuss recent theoretical and empirical works on one or more of the following topics: the rise and demise of world systems; regional economies and civilizations; hegemonic cycles and world-scale processes of capital accumulation; core/periphery hierarchies and uneven development; transnational institutions and comparative national development.
Arrighi/ 3 hours

230.626 World Systems Analysis

           Selected topics in the study of long-term, world-scale social

           change.

           Silver/ 3 hours

230.627 Research on Structural Globalization

This course focuses on studies of cycles, trends and structural changes in the modern world-system. The literature on globalization is reviewed and studies of the causes and consequences of changing structural features of the whole world-system are examined.
Staff/ 3 hours

230.631 Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Linear Structural-Equations Modeling

Non-mathematical introduction to the use of these advanced methods for dealing with measurement error and causal modeling. Emphasis will be given to examining underlying assumptions and critically evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of these methods. Participants will be expected to do analyses using own data or data provided by the instructor. Prerequisites: some knowledge of multiple regression analysis, some familiarity with computers.
Kohn/ 3 hours

230.643 Sociological Analysis

An intensive analysis of a wide range of sociological studies, designed to acquaint the student with how sociologists deal with important theoretical issues, using a variety of methods and sources of data. Particular attention will be paid to the logical coherence of the studies and to the fit between data and interpretation.
Kohn/ 3 hours

230.649 Qualitative Research Methods in the Social    

               Sciences

This course provides in-depth familiarity with qualitative research methods, including ethnographic research, participant observation, and intensive interviewing. Alternative conventions in the elaboration of narratives are also explored. The course includes the application of relevant methods. Open to advanced undergraduates with permission of instructor.
McDonald/ 3 hours

230.650 Macro-Comparative Research Methods

The course examines methods of studying long-term, large-scale social change. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are covered.
Silver/ 3 hours

230.651  Politics and Society

           This seminar surveys important texts that treat key problems

           of political sociology including the rise of the modern state, the

           origins and nature of liberal democracy, the relationship between  

           political and economic power, the nation-state model and nationalism,

           gender and the state, ideology, political contention, collective

           identity, and collective action.        

         Andreas/ 3 hours

230.655 Seminar on Sociology of Education

Topics are selected to enable students to understand and extend or revise current theories and measurements of school effects. Topics may include the social organization of schools and classrooms, estimation of cumulative school impact; techniques for examining the interaction of school, individual and family characteristics; definition and measurement of nonacademic outcomes of schooling, formulation of factors which condition the influence of school desegregation; elaboration of attainment models; comparison of within- and between-school models; and study of school, family, and peer group influence processes.
Alexander, DeLuca , Plank/ 3 hours

230.656 Theoretical Perspectives on Education and Society

Students are introduced to current theory and research regarding the role of schooling in modern society. Topics are selected to enable students to understand and extend or revise current perspectives and measurements of the antecedents and nature of effects of education. Topics include classical theories on the functions of education (e.g., Durkheim, Weber, Waller, Dewey, and Marx), education and nation-building, education and the division of labor, differentiation and stratification in schools, and education and cultural and social reproduction.
Plank/ 3 hours

230.657 Race, Segregation, and Social Inequality

This course undertakes an in-depth study of racial residential segregation and its relationship to social and economic inequality. Students will explore the history of residential segregation in the United States, its patterns and causes, as well as its social, economic, and demographic consequences. In doing so, students will gain insight into racial and ethnic inequality across several social, economic, and demographic domains.

Bennett/ 3 hours

230.660 Social Structure and Personality

An intensive examination of the research literature on the relationships of position in the social structure (particularly the class structure and the social-stratification hierarchy) with personality, based primarily on research conducted by the instructor and his collaborators in the United States, Japan, Poland when it was socialist, Poland and Ukraine during their transitions from socialism to nascent capitalism, and (currently) China during its very different transformation.

Kohn/ 3 hours

230.800 Independent Study

Students may request instructors to arrange reading or research courses fitting particular needs and interests.
Staff/ 3 hours

230.801  Research Assistantship

Staff

230.802 Dissertation Research

Staff

230.804 Research Apprenticeship

Staff/ 1 hour

230.811  Teaching Assistantship

Staff

230.815 Trial Research Paper I

Staff

230.816 Trial Research Paper II

Staff

 

Interdepartmental

360.669-670 General Seminar of the Institute for Global Studies in Culture, Power, and History

Arrighi