This course is a broad introduction to the field of sociology. Course materials are designed to illustrate the distinctive features of the sociological perspective and to start you thinking sociologically about yourself and the broader social world. To think sociologically is to recognize that being embedded in the world constrains behavior, and that individuals are both social actors and social products. To think sociologically is also to recognize that our contemporary world, with its enduring cultural, political, and economic institutions, is as much a social product as we are. We will begin by covering theoretical and methodological foundations of the sociological perspective. We will go on to explore the concept of social stratification and will survey primary axes of social difference. In the second half of the course we will look more closely at how individuals relate to each other, how social inequality is enacted and reinforced in everyday life, and at the way in which the organization of social life shapes individuals and groups, such as through social networks, residential neighborhoods, schooling, families, and on-line communication.

Full details for SOC 1101 - Introduction to Sociology

Population and Public Policy exposes students to the logic and skills of demographic research and policy analysis. The course emphasizes the nature, collection, and interpretation of demographic data, the application of demographic techniques, the major components (i.e., fertility, mortality, and migration) of national and global population change, and contemporary population problems (e.g., population aging, teen childbearing, the rise in non-marital childbearing, immigrant adaptation). The course also emphasizes public policies that can influence demographic change. The format primarily involves lectures and class discussion. Students are expected to attend each class and be prepared to discuss assigned materials.

Full details for SOC 2030 - Population and Public Policy

This course introduces some central ideas in the field of S&TS. It is aimed at students from any background who are challenged to think more critically about what counts as scientific knowledge and why, and how science and technology intervene in the wider world. It also serves as an introduction to majors in Biology and Society or in Science and Technology Studies. The course mixes lectures, discussions, writing, and other activities. The discussion sections are an integral part of the course and attendance is required. A series of take-home written assignments and quizzes throughout the semester comprise the majority of the grade.

Full details for SOC 2100 - What Is Science? An Introduction to the Social Studies of Science and Technology

This course surveys research on inequalities in education, income, wealth, prestige, occupation, political power, and health in the U.S. and other rich countries. How much inequality exists and why is it rising in some places? Do we live in a class society (and what does that mean)? How do families, aspirations, schools, social networks, employers, neighborhoods, and government policies shape who gets ahead and who falls behind? Why are education, jobs, and income distributed unequally by race, immigrant status, and gender? Throughout the course, we’ll discuss and evaluate evidence from administrative data, surveys, experiments, and qualitative studies.

Full details for SOC 2208 - Social Inequality

This course is designed for students who want to better understand elite higher education and how inequalities are both perpetuated and mediated by its structure and practices (focusing on gender, race, and first generation college students). Social scientists define “elite” as the high end of a distribution of resources, social influence, and prestige. This course will prepare students for their own undergraduate study at Cornell, using research and reflection. The course draws from research in education, sociology, and gender studies. While it is designed for undergraduates, with a notable utility for first-year students, anyone is welcome!

Full details for SOC 2210 - How College Works: Making Sense of Higher Education

This course examines the evolution of modern rational legal capitalism as the dominant economic order of the global economy. It explores the question of capitalism and socialism through the lens of the new institutionalism in economic sociology. Why and how has American capitalism shaped the emergence of dynamic capitalism in China? What enables and guides the emergence of a global high-technology knowledge economy in the 21st century? What is the relationship between capitalism as an economic order and democracy?

Full details for SOC 2280 - Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy

This course introduces the field of sexuality studies to advanced undergraduates by examining the social, cultural, political, and historical dimensions of sexuality. We will read theoretical and empirical research with an emphasis on sociological perspectives and methods. We will develop an understanding of sexuality as a socially constructed system of stratification that is shaped by race, gender, class, and ability. Topics include sexual identity, behavior, and desire (such as heterosexuality and homosexuality), queer theory, the body, healthism, reproductive justice, and human rights.

Full details for SOC 2310 - Sociology of Sexualities

Public policy is a fundamental mechanism for addressing the most vexing and important social problems of our time. Racial inequality and structural racism are chief among such problems. Policy is thus widely understood and frequently touted as a means for redressing the harms of racism. Yet, public policy has also been identified as a channel through which racism flows. These seemingly paradoxical understandings of the relationships between racism and public policy raise critical questions about equality, democracy, the economy, and politics. This course examines such questions. questions. We begin by theoretically grounding key concepts such as race racism and public policy. We then consider the historical record, highlighting the fundamental role of racism in shaping politics and policy. Next, we build on these conceptual and historical foundations through thematic investigation of core policy elements (e.g., policy design, policy implementation, policy feedback), key policy institutions (e.g., legislatures, parties) and significant policy actors (e.g., social movement organizations, interest groups). Finally, the class wraps up with a series of policy deep dives involving close examination of specific policy domains (e.g., housing, health, the enviornment). This course provides students with the knowledge and analytical tools necessary to better understand the realities and complexities of race, racism, and public policy in the United States.

Full details for SOC 2370 - Race, Racism, and Public Policy

Analyzes the social aspects of aging in contemporary American society from a life course perspective. Topics include (1) an introduction to the field of gerontology, its history, theories, and research methods; (2) a brief overview of the physiological and psychological changes that accompany aging; (3) an analysis of the contexts (e.g., family, friends, social support, employment, volunteer work) in which individual aging occurs, including differences of gender, ethnicity, and social class; and (4) the influences of society on the aging individual.

Full details for SOC 2510 - Social Gerontology: Aging and the Life Course

This course provides an introduction to the sociological perspective of law and legal institutions in modern society. A key question is the extent to which the law creates and maintains social order. And, what is its role in social change? We will review theoretical perspectives on the reciprocal relationship between law and society, and consider how this relationship is reflected in contemporary legal issues. Empirical research covered in this course will examine social interactions among actors within legal institutions (including the criminal courts, law school classrooms, and the jury room), and how individuals experience and utilize the law in everyday life.

Full details for SOC 2560 - Sociology of Law

This course aims to explore and answer a single question about America's promise-of success if you work hard and do well in school: Why do we have such substantial and long-standing inequality in the U.S.? In answering this central question, we will investigate the goals, roles, and outcomes of formal educational institutions in American society and the legal and policy environment in which they operate. Specifically, we will review historical state and federal policy, trace the $700 million spent, and interrogate the sociological functions of public and private K12 schools, including the successes, failures, and enigmas of school organization and policy at the local, state, and national level.

Full details for SOC 2710 - US Education System: Courts, Data, Law and Politics

Full details for SOC 2800 - Social Movements

This course introduces students to the principles of sociological research methods. We will first discuss the research process itself, then focus on issues such as the relationship between theory and empirical analysis, the logic of research design, causal inference, measurement of concepts, modes of data collection, and ethics. By the end of the course, students will be able to evaluate the methodological strength of social science research projects and design methodologically rigorous research proposals.

Full details for SOC 3030 - Research Design and Methods of Social Research

This course focuses on the sociological histories of regional-based technology clusters. The construction and life course of the technology cluster is a prevalent form of contemporary economic development. Students enrolled in the course will regularly provide in-class presentations of select case studies of particular regions and industries. Case studies will include regional high-tech clusters in the following locations: Silicon Valley, Boston, Israel, Taiwan, Japan, Germany, South Korea, Great Britain, Austin, Seattle, Portland, Albany-New York, Rochester-NY, Buffalo-NY, North Carolina, Chicago, Washington D.C., New York City-Cornell Tech, and regions and industries selected by students enrolled in the course. The course will utilize classical sociological themes as a guiding conceptual framework including: structuration, community, culture, social networks, and inequalities (gender/race/class).

Full details for SOC 3060 - High Tech Regions in Comparative Perspective

This course provides an introduction to the ways in which medical practice, the medical profession, and medical technology are embedded in society and culture. We will ask how medicine is connected to various sociocultural factors such as gender, social class, race, and administrative cultures. We will examine the rise of medical sociology as a discipline, the professionalization of medicine, and processes of medicalization and demedicalization. We will look at alternative medical practices and how they differ from and converge with the dominant medical paradigm. We will focus on the rise of medical technology in clinical practice with a special emphases on reproductive technologies. We will focus on the body as a site for medical knowledge, including the medicalization of sex differences, the effect of culture on nutrition, and eating disorders such as obesity and anorexia nervosa. We will also read various classic and contemporary texts that speak to the illness experience and the culture of surgeons, hospitals, and patients, and we will discuss various case studies in the social construction of physical and mental illness.

Full details for SOC 3130 - Social Studies of Medicine

This course will examine how health disparities are defined and measured, sources of health disparities, and strategies to reduce health disparities. During the course students will learn of the complexities of factors that influence patterns of disease and health at multiple levels by analyzing studies of health outcomes, the social conditions that are related to the health of populations, and some of the mechanisms through which these patterns are produced.

Full details for SOC 3180 - Health Disparities

Introduction to the main ideas and lines of research in contemporary sociology, from the emergence of the field in the American academy to the present. We read the work of seminal theorists and researchers such as Robert Merton, Erving Goffman, James Coleman, Harrison White, and Theda Skocpol. Topics include the development of distinctive lines of argument in areas like the study of the face-to-face group, the modern organization, social movements and social revolutions, inequality, and social mobility. The course considers the relationship between intellectual challenges, techniques of social inquiry, and the social context within which ideas are put forward and take hold.

Full details for SOC 3190 - Contemporary Sociological Theory

Humans have fraught relationships with the animals, plants, land, water-even geological processes-around us. In this course, we will examine how people make and respond to environmental change and how groups of people form, express, struggle over, and work out environmental concerns. We will probe how environmental injustices, demographic change, economic activity, government action, social movements, and varied ways of thinking shape human-environmental relationships. Through our conversations, we will explore possibilities for durable ways of living together in our social and material world. Our goal in this course is to give you knowledge, analytical tools, and expressive skills that help you feel confident to address environmental concerns as a social scientist and a citizen.

Full details for SOC 3240 - Environmental Sociology

Economic sociology extends the sociological approach to the study of economic life. The aim of the seminar is to understand the relationship between social structure, organizational form and economic action. We explore social processes embedded in economic exchange and knowledge spillover and economy. Why do individuals cooperate with strangers? Why is trust important in economic life. Why is social exchange the foundation of sustainable economic action? At the macro-level, the course addresses the question of why and how institutions enable, motivate and guide economic action; the social dynamics of institutional change; and explore the role of norms and networks in the capitalism of the United States and China.

Full details for SOC 3290 - Economic Sociology

Examines the social institution of the family, challenges to the institution's well-being and stability, and the role of public policy in these transformations. Topics include family structure and responsibilities; marriage as a traditional building block of the family and challenges to the institution of marriage, including divorce, nonmarital childbearing, cohabitation, and same-sex unions; children, and the impact of family change on their wellbeing, including the effects of child poverty, maternal employment, and paternal involvement. The role of public policy in managing and shaping these developments is discussed.

Full details for SOC 3360 - Evolving Families: Challenges to Public Policy

Where do social structures come from? Social structures emerge from interaction between individuals. But not all interactions create durable structures. In this course, we will explore several micro-mechanisms through which the intended and unintended consequences of interdependent action create macro-level structures that we care about. How can small initial difference blow-up into large macro-level inequality? Will interpersonal influence alleviate or aggravate inequality? Why do individual actors engage in collective action to create public goods, when everyone will enjoy the benefits of such goods regardless of one's participation? How large an in-group bias is needed to create segregated neighborhoods? These are examples of questions that we will explore in this seminar. Exploring these questions will lead us to topics in interpersonal influence, diffusion, collective action, and emergence of norms, hierarchies, and segregation patterns, among others.

Full details for SOC 3490 - How do Social Structures Emerge? An Introduction to the Micro-Macro Problem

This course showcases frontier research that uses big data and graphical analysis to understand our social world. Topics include inequality and opportunity, success in higher education, the gender wage gap, taxing the rich, Chinese censorship, the spread of false news, online dating, and other issues relevant to contemporary society.

Full details for SOC 3580 - Big Data on the Social World

Disciplines as different as anthropology, literary studies, philosophy, and sociology have developed a strong interest in the theory and practice of friendship in recent years; friendships are seen on TV, Facebook is based on the concept of “friends” connecting. Whereas definitions of friendship traditionally emphasized proximity, similarity, and mutuality, new readings and representations find distance, difference, and asymmetry at the core of this relation. The seminar will explore friendship as a radically different form of relationship and community. Taught in English.

Full details for SOC 3630 - Friendship: Other Loves, Other Selves

This course offers a sociological understanding of social inequality and the social construction of difference. Designed from the perspective of comparative historical analysis, we will examine the ways in which class, gender, race/ethnicity, religion, and sexuality differences work across place and time within a shared set of global dynamics. The course will pay special attention to how difference is constructed, institutionalized, and experienced. Thus, the course will not only address inequality based on economic and labor relations, but also emphasize complicated notions of difference and identity to offer an analysis that links inequality to power and forms of rule.

Full details for SOC 3710 - Comparative Social Inequalities

In this course we will explore the origins and consequences of mass incarceration- extraordinarily high incarceration rates within particular demographic groups above and beyond historical levels in the United States. We will examine theories of social control and deviance to uncover how institutions and individuals use power to shape societies. This course also engages theories of state power to understand and to analyze how labeling is deployed to control groups of people, and, in doing so, we will conduct a genealogy of a contemporary driver of social inequality: the prison industrial complex. Current policy debates around the movement to reduce the number of men and women in American jails and prisons will also be covered. Contemporary social problems like homelessness and food insecurity will be discussed in detail, as well as how mass incarceration contributes to growing gaps in labor force participation, wealth accumulation, and familial instability.

Full details for SOC 3810 - Mass Incarceration and Social Inequality in America

This course explores poverty and inequality in American society through the lens of ethnographic and other field-based research. We will read classic and contemporary texts which have shaped our understanding of how social inequality and exclusion constrain people's daily lives and how groups develop innovative responses to these constraints.

Full details for SOC 4160 - The Ethnography of Poverty and Inequality

Ever wonder why the same traits that get you sent to the principal’s office might land you a six-figure tech job - or leave you struggling to find any work at all? Why the intense focus that makes someone an exceptional researcher might make daily tasks feel impossible? Society is finally recognizing different ways of thinking and being - but this recognition comes with deep contradictions. While some workplaces now actively seek neurodivergent talent, others still demand rigid conformity. Mental health institutions once housed those seen as different; today, many face prison instead. Schools praise “neurodiversity” while still punishing students who can’t sit still. Through a sociological lens, we’ll examine how social background, cultural expectations, and institutional power shape who gets support versus surveillance, who gets accommodated versus excluded. From mental health and social movements to education and employment, from gender and sexuality to race and class, we’ll investigate how society is unevenly shifting from pathologizing differences to recognizing diverse ways of being human. We’ll examine who gets to define what counts as normal, who benefits from these definitions, and what happens to those who don’t fit. This course centers neurodivergent perspectives and welcomes students of all neurotypes.

Full details for SOC 4380 - Neurodiversity and Society

This is for undergraduates who wish to obtain research experience or to do extensive reading on a special topic.

Full details for SOC 4910 - Independent Study

Students choose a sociology faculty member to work with on research to write an honors thesis. Candidates for honors must maintain a cumulative GPA at least an A- in all sociology classes.

Full details for SOC 4950 - Honors Research

Continuation of SOC 4950. Continue to work with honors supervisor and work on and write an honors thesis.

Full details for SOC 4960 - Honors Thesis: Senior Year

Continuation of SOC 5010. Emphasis is on the logical analysis of theoretical perspectives, theories, and theoretical research programs shaping current sociological research. The course includes an introduction to basic concepts used in the logical analysis of theories and examines their application to specific theories and theoretical research programs. Theoretical perspectives include functionalism, social exchange, and interactionism.

Full details for SOC 5020 - Basic Problems in Sociology II

This course provides a forum in which students and others can present, discuss, and receive instant feedback on their inequality-related research. Its primary goals is to help students advance their own research; its secondary goal is to introduce selected debates in the contemporary inequality literature in a more comprehensive fashion that is possible in the introductory graduate-level seminar on inequality.

Full details for SOC 5190 - Workshop on Social Inequality

This course aims to explore and answer a single question about America's promise-of success if you work hard and do well in school: Why do we have such substantial and long-standing inequality in the U.S.? In answering this central question, we will investigate the goals, roles, and outcomes of formal educational institutions in American society and the legal and policy environment in which they operate. Specifically, we will review historical state and federal policy, trace the $700 million spent, and interrogate the sociological functions of public and private K12 schools, including the successes, failures, and enigmas of school organization and policy at the local, state, and national level.

Full details for SOC 5710 - US Education System: Courts, Data, Law and Politics

This course provides the second part of a two-semester introduction to quantitative methods in sociological research. It is designed for first-year graduate students in sociology. The course covers intermediate topics in linear regression, and provides an introduction to models for categorical and count data, the analysis of time data, and longitudinal data. We'll also discuss data-related issues such as missing data and weighting, and data that are complicated by issues of non-random design. While statistical modeling is the focus of the course, we proceed with the assumption that models are only as good as the theoretical and substantive knowledge behind them. Thus, in covering the technical material, we will spend considerable time discussing the link between substantive knowledge and statistical practice.

Full details for SOC 6020 - Intermediate Statistics for Sociological Research

Discussion of the current state of sociology and of the research interests of members of the graduate field; taught by all members of the field.

Full details for SOC 6080 - Proseminar in Sociology

Social Network Analysis (SNA), or the mathematical analysis of webs of relationships, is a thriving part of sociology and an active research area for numerous other disciplines. This course is intended to introduce students to the basics of SNA and help them apply it to a variety of research questions. We will discuss the theoretical underpinnings of the area, basic concepts used in SNA analyses, and finally methods for describing and interpreting network data. At the completion of this course students should have a basic understanding of social networks and be able to carry out a variety analyses on their own.

Full details for SOC 6110 - Social Network: Theory and Applications

There are fewer concepts in sociology that are both more controversial and more widely discussed and employed in the literature. This course introduces to the deep theoretical bases of the concept, follows its historical growth within the discipline, covers empirical research on the topic, and addresses its connections to related sociological perspectives such as the social network paradigm and research on social inequality in different areas of sociology. The class will be dominated by largely by discussions of readings and theory. Students will also use the opportunity to apply the concept of social capital, and related concepts, to their own research projects, which will culminate in an independent paper to be submitted at the end of the semester.

Full details for SOC 6240 - Social Capital and Inequality

In this Graduate seminar we will discuss the nature, politics and basic assumptions underlying qualitative research. We will examine a selection of qualitative methods ranging from interviewing, oral history, ethnography, participant observation, archival research and visual methods. We will also discuss the relationship between theory and method. All stages of a research project will be discussed - choice of research topic and appropriate methods; human subject concerns and permissions; issues regarding doing research; as well as the process of writing up and publishing research findings.

Full details for SOC 6310 - Qualitative Research Methods for Studying Science, Technology, and Medicine

This seminar will provide a graduate-level examination of the social organization of urban communities. We will begin with the classic urban sociological theories of the Chicago School and recent extensions and revisions of this perspective. Then, we will consider both qualitative and quantitative approaches to the study of topics including urban social networks, neighborhood social context, urban inequality and social problems, and processes of urban change.

Full details for SOC 6440 - Urban Structure and Process

The seminar in economic sociology explores questions addressed by social scientists studying the social mechanisms that enable economic life. The aim is to introduce the most important and influential texts that have shaped the field of economic sociology. Core problems addressed by seminal texts include: How do social networks and norms enable, motivate and guide economic decisions, behavior, and outcomes? What is the role of trust, reputation and reciprocity in economic action? How do norms and networks influence entrepreneurship, innovation and socio-economic mobility? Why and how do institutions enable economic outcome and behavior? We explore work in the new institutionalism in economic and organizational sociology that have informed the sociological study of markets, organizations, and economic exchange.

Full details for SOC 6460 - Seminar in Economic Sociology

For graduates who wish to obtain research experience or to do extensive reading on a special topic. Permission to enroll for independent study is granted only to students who present an acceptable prospectus and secure the agreement of a faculty member to serve as supervisor for the project throughout the semester.

Full details for SOC 6910 - Independent Study

Work with a faculty member on a project that is related to your dissertation work.

Full details for SOC 8920 - Graduate Research

Work with chair of your committee on your dissertation work.

Full details for SOC 8960 - Thesis Research