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Current Students Alpha Kappa Delta (AKD): International Sociology Honor Society Alpha Kappa Delta (AKD) is an international sociology honor society founded by University of Southern California sociologist Dr. Emory S. Bogardus in 1920. AKD is dedicated to promoting, facilitating, and recognizing academic scholarship. It is an integral part of many sociology programs. It has chartered more than 490 chapters throughout the world, and over 80,000 students and scholars have been initiated into the Society in the past eight decades. Look for more information about AKD, eligibility for membership, and benefits to membership at www.alphakappadelta.org. The Blaine T. and Jean W. Williams Endowed Scholarship in Sociology is granted annually to a junior or senior majoring in Sociology at the University of Texas at Arlington. The Fast Track Program allows outstanding undergraduate students in sociology at UT Arlington to take up to three graduate seminars in sociology that will earn credit toward both the Bachelor's degree and the Master's degree in Sociology. It is designed to encourage high standards of performance, to facilitate the transition from undergraduate to graduate study, and to reduce time needed to complete the MA. Interested undergraduate students should apply for the Fast Track Program when they are within 30 hours of completing the Bachelor's degree. For an application form or to obtain more details about this program, contact the Sociology Graduate Advisor.
Graduate Advisor: DEPARTMENTAL FORMS The Office of Graduate Studies maintains their own online list of required forms. USEFUL LINKS GENERAL SOCIOLOGY GRADUATE EDUCATION AT UTA The Graduate Catalog - Sociology and Anthropology Section JOBS TEACHING RESEARCH GRADUATE COURSES Required Courses This course delves deeply into the main issues in social and cultural theory, from Plato to postmodernism. We explore the development of the empirical social sciences after the Enlightenment and during early industrialization, and we focus particularly on the role of sociology as a reformist response to 19th urban problems in Europe and the Americas. We examine the positivist turn in the social sciences after the sixties, and we consider the weird fact that the positivist philosophy of science (Newton) has been eclipsed in physics since 1905 (Einstein) but upheld in mainstream sociology. We discuss challenges to positivism within the social sciences, especially from phenomenology, existentialism, feminist theory, critical theory, postmodernism, cultural studies. We will read deeply into original texts of Durkheim, Weber, Marx, Parsons and various post-WWII theoretical perspectives such as those listed above. A major emphasis of the course will be to read science as a text that is unprivileged by comparison to fiction, biography, journalism, letters to the editor, various polemics. But science will also be defended as an expression of what Marcuse viewed as play-what he, following Nietzsche, termed 'gay science.' SOCI 5303, SEMINAR IN GRADUATE RESEARCH DESIGN This course provides an intensive introduction to conducting theoretically informed social research. We will focus on the logic of research design as well as procedures for conducting research. We will cover a variety of techniques for gathering data including survey research and field and observational methods. By the end of this course you should be familiar with the range of methods available to social scientists. You should also be able to select and craft a research design such that the data collected are appropriate for the theory to be tested. SOCI 5304, SOCIAL STATISTICS This course provides a graduate-level introduction to the use of multivariate statistics in the social sciences. We will begin by reviewing univariate and bivariate descriptive and inferential statistics. Topics will include the organization and presentation of data, measures of central tendency and variability, probability and the normal distribution, sampling distributions, and estimation and hypothesis testing. The course will focus on multivariate descriptive and inferential statistics - ordinary least squares multiple regression and binary logistic regression in particular. You will calculate statistics with the help of a calculator and statistical software (i.e., SPSS - Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). Our primary goals for the course are to understand the logic behind social statistics and to calculate and interpret appropriate statistics in order to test theory. Elective Courses The focus of this course is on the social self and methods for investigating the social construction of self and social identities. Topics include factors in development, organization, evaluation and presentation of self in everyday life and processes by which shared social categories and roles influence self-concept. Questions such as the following are considered: What is the "self"? How is it defined and measured by social psychologists? How do individuals themselves understand who they are? How are self-attitudes organized? What determines self-esteem and sense of self-efficacy? What are the effects of social categories like gender, age, race, class, ethnicity and sexual orientation on the formation of self-concept? How is the self presented and maintained or changed in ongoing social interaction?
This course is a study of the influence of the social context on human thoughts, feelings, and actions. Social context refers to the actual and implied presence of other people. This topic, often referred to as social psychology, is the child of both sociology and psychology. However, the two parent disciplines differ somewhat in their primary approaches and areas of emphasis. Although the course draws extensively from both disciplines, somewhat more emphasis will be placed on sociological social psychology. Readings will be comprised of a variety of original works, which will be discussed in class. Topics include: social perception and cognition, socialization, interpersonal communication and influence, the nature of social interaction, and the social construction of reality. SOCI 5319, SEMINARS IN SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS AND CHANGE This course will address work, class structure, inequality and poverty in the U.S. today. The main text will be Barbara Ehrenreich's gripping account of working at minimum-wage jobs, Nickel and Dimed. In addition to diagnosing problems of work and poverty, we will also discuss potential solutions.
Social movements are a type of group action, often considered a subarea of the topic of collective behavior or collective action. They are composed of groupings of individuals and/or SMOs (social movement organizations) focused to promote or resist specific political or social changes. Concepts to be examined in light of actual past or present episodes of collective behavior include: the civil rights and black liberation movements, the women's movement, the environmental movement, anti-globalization movements, and political revolutions (the latter with special emphasis on current revolutions in the mid-East and Latin America). We will ask questions such as who joins social movements and why? What tactics are employed, and with what results? Member recruitment and control will be examined. Resource mobilization for social movements will be studied, as will the process of the cognitive framing of movement issues. Countermovements and control of social movements will likewise be investigated.
This course is an introduction to one of the fastest growing fields in the social sciences: Science, Knowledge, and Technology Studies. This course provides an overview of the central topics in this area including the history, structure, and philosophy of science, as well as issues regarding scientific procedures, risk analysis, and ethical controversies such as those found between religion and science. This class will also explore the differences between pseudoscience, paranormal beliefs, and scientific inquiry. Science as an institution and technology as its stepchild will be explored in terms of race, gender, and multicultural politics. SOCI 5330, SEMINARS IN SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION This course provides a graduate-level introduction to one of the major sub-fields within sociology - social stratification and inequality. We will focus on social inequalities in the areas (and intersections) of social class, gender, and race. The course will cover theories of stratification, the American class structure, and processes of stratification (e.g., social mobility). We will examine social stratification and inequality in the United States and in the world system.
In this course we will explore the roles women and men enact in the contemporary U.S. Gender roles in a variety of social institutions (e.g. families and work) will be evaluated with emphasis on how they are changing and how they are stable.
Women and Work is designed to introduce important trends in research on women's participation in paid labor while also considering factors that affect and are affected by their paid work. In particular, we will focus on how women's continuing responsibility for housework impacts their participation in the paid labor force. We will also address past, present and future trends in women's work lives.
This course examines women's experiences with families, focusing on contemporary families in the United States. Attention to the ways that women's experiences within families have changed over time as well as how the experiences of US women differ in significant ways from women in other countries will also be addressed. Some attention will be given to the impact of the nature of work and the composition of the labor force on women's family lives, as well as on the lives of children.
This course is an overview of the contemporary sociological literature on the black experience in America. Some of the topics to be addressed include (but are not limited to) racial differences across various spheres of society such as income, education, and occupation. Other substantive areas include the debate over race and class, the persistence of racial discrimination, and emerging disputes within the black community regarding what it "means to be black" in the post-Civil Rights Era.
This course provides a graduate-level introduction to ethnic and racial conflict. We will focus on the following topics: the creation and maintenance of ethnic and racial identities, conflict, the consequences of conflict, conflict prevention and resolution, and attaining justice. Emphasis is on contemporary ethnic and racial conflicts (e.g., former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sudan, etc.). We will seek answers to the following questions (and many others): is it possible to attain both peace and justice, is nationalism always bad, does globalization generate and exacerbate ethnic conflicts, do ethnic nationals abroad contribute to ethnic conflict at home, and how are states limited in their ability to prevent ethnic conflict? SOCI 5341, SEMINARS IN THEORY AND RESEARCH METHODS This is a writing course and a theory course. It is a course in literary methodology. We learn how to get from the first draft to the final draft, working in groups on editing our papers and writing projects. You will spend the semester working on a paper of your choosing that you are writing or have written. Theory (e.g., Derrida's notion of undecidability 'there is no single correct way to say things') will help us understand our writing ('the text') as multiple possibilities, which need to be explored, refined, retooled, revised. We will work in small groups and edit each other's writings. At the end, you will be a more experienced writer and editor; you will know more about theories of writing, texts, culture; and you will have a better, more finished literary product to show for it. This course is ideal for people who have a hard time undertaking their writing and/or finishing it.
This seminar-style course introduces students to the qualitative tradition in sociology. We will study the assumptions underlying qualitative methods and important ethical and theoretical issues in field work. Students will become familiar with ethnographic research techniques (participant-observation and in-depth interviewing) and have the opportunity to implement those methods in a small-scale research project.
Evaluation research includes the systematic collection and analysis of data on social programs, and reporting of results. Focus will be on the need for, implementation of, effectiveness, and efficiency of particular social intervention efforts. Participants in the seminar will advance their skills in quantitative and qualitative research in partnership with community organizations. The course is designed for students to learn more about, and practice, techniques for needs assessment, formative and summative program evaluation, developing and testing social impact models, examining costs and benefits, and communicating findings. A collaborative approach provides opportunities for professional socialization in the context of applied research. PREREQUISITES: SOCI 5303 Research Design or SOCI 3462 Social Research and instructor approval. |
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