Global Arc

International migration has been and continues to be a major force shaping the world, as it significantly affects the sending and receiving societies. This course provides an overview of immigration trends over the twentieth century and the sociological theory and research that informs our understanding about its causes and consequences.

By using examples from the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America, this course employs a comparative approach to investigating religion as a source of strength among immigrants -- including exiles and refugees -- as they undertake perilous journeys. Key questions addressed include: How does religion transform (and how is it transformed by) the immigrant experience? How is religion used to combat stereotypes? Are there differences between the ways men and women or dominant groups and racial minorities understand religion? Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Classical and contemporary theories of organizations as collective tools, as cultural systems, and as actors in changing environments. Research on problems of innovation and survival, authority, and control in business firms, public bureaucracies, and voluntary associations. Special emphasis on the historical development of managerial ideologies in the U.S. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Designed as an extension of SOC 300, this course will be of particular help to students interested in questions of research design. Students will gain greater proficiency in deploying data, in using case studies more effectively in their research, and in writing up the results of a research study.

An introduction to the study of communications media. Topics include: growth and impact of literacy, printing, telecommunications, and broadcasting; communications and the modern state (for example, secrecy, surveillance, intelligence); organization, control, and effects of the media; cross-national differences in communications policy and institutions; impact of computers and electronic communication. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

The course offers a sociological account of production, consumption, distribution, and transfer of assets. Examining different sectors of the economy from corporations and finance to households, immigrants, welfare, and illegal markets, we explore how in all areas of economic life people are creating, maintaining, symbolizing, and transforming meaningful social relations. Economic life, from this perspective, is as social as religion, family, or education. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

What kinds of social forms do we organize ourselves into, what makes these forms endure, and where does change come from? In this course, we will explore classic and contemporary theories of organization with a special focus on technology in organizations. We'll discuss engineering cultures, skilled work, entrepreneurship, innovation, risk and failure in the context of such cases as the dot com boom, the rise of Silicon Valley, and the imprint of office technologies in the workplace. As companies pick up, produce, or respond to technological change, we'll witness and discuss some of the great questions and theories of social organization.

An explanation of the modern city, using New York as an example¿its role as an international center of business, finance, and culture, and as the main gateway to America for an ever-changing array of immigrants and their children. Special attention paid to the city"s ethnic and racial tensions; cleavages between wealth and poverty, celebrity and obscurity; its vibrant neighborhoods; the contested use of space and the ways in which the physical use of space shapes, and is shaped by, the City"s social life. Course concludes with an examination of the impact of the events of 9/11 on NY and the future of large American cities in general.

Environmental sociology has become a lively subfield of the discipline. This is especially true as environmental conditions related to global warming present challenges to individuals and groups working at every level of social organization. This seminar will consider the history of efforts to bring environmental concerns into social theory and research. Our readings and class discussions will focus primarily on some of the most influential ideas that advanced contemporary understandings of our relationships to natural ecosystems, and which have helped create the framework of environmental institutions and laws in the US since the 1830s.

This course uses sociological methods to examine the roles that race, class, and gender play in the making of U.S. educational systems. We will explore the challenges of schooling in an increasingly diverse society, devoting great attention to the complex factors that produce inequities in P-16 education. We will also interrogate many assumptions and themes that dominate contemporary discussions of U.S. education, including merit, school discipline, and college access. The course introduces students to leading approaches to the sociological study of education and offers fresh perspectives on pressing educational issues facing society.