14 courses with the subject SJSC, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
SJSC 1100Introducing Social Justice Studies4
Goals: This course will introduce students to major streams of social justice thought, including historical social justice movements, theoretical problems having to do with social equality, personal freedom, access to social resources, marginalization, and stigmatization, and the ways in which communities respond to these issues. Content: Students will engage with classic and contemporary texts from philosophical, historical, legal and social scientific thought comprising a survey of core debates in Social Justice scholarship and activism. Students take an active and collaborative role in synthesizing and applying these ideas through several class projects, including elements of policy-focused problem solving and community engagement.
SJSC 1110Introducing Sociology: Society and Social Change4
Goals: To introduce students to the discipline of sociology and how understanding the organization of society enables one to both understand and effect social change. Content: Introduction to theoretical perspectives, research methods, culture, socialization, and social institutions such as, but not limited to family, education, and government. Introduction to class, race, and gender as forms of social structure, with a specific focus on social change. Topical focus may vary with the instructor.
Goals: To gain a thorough understanding of a specific social issue and its impact on society. Content: The social issues selected will vary with the instructor; for example: family, poverty, social inequalities, environmental justice, etc. See the course listing for a given term for that course’s focus. Taught: Annually
Goals: Understanding the role of power in social and political identities, relationships and political institutions across time and space, with particular emphasis on the US context. Content: Specific content will focus on the social causes and consequences associated with the exercise of power. The subjects of study range from the very micro (political psychology and the nature of political attitudes) to the very macro (the processes of globalization). Though students may have strong affinities with one or more political perspectives, we will not be adjudicating the claims associated with those perspectives or “deciding who is right.” Rather, we’ll be spending our time in the course characterizing the nature of power and politics in our social world. This course is a survey, and as such is not meant to be exhaustive. Several issues of interest may be beyond the scope of this course, but an effort will be made to incorporate topics of interest to the students as well as issues that may be timely and “in the news.”
SJSC 1100 or SJSC 1110, grade of C- or higher Credits: 4
SJSC 3330Sociology of Gender4
Goals: To understand and evaluate gender as a form of social structure and the consequences that structure holds for individuals and society. To understand gender as a social, rather than purely biological, construct. Content: Covers a variety of topics including the social construction of sex and gender, biological explanations of gender difference, and a selection of contemporary issues in gender studies including masculinities, and intersex and transgender experiences.
SJSC 1100 or SJSC 1110, grade of C- or higher Credits: 4
SJSC 3350Sociology of Race, Racisms, and Racialization4
Goals: To develop a deep and nuanced understanding of the causes and consequences of the system(s) of racial categorization that exist in the contemporary United States. Content: Among other things, course content will privilege the historical process that gave rise to the current racial order, the ideologies that justify it, and the racial inequalities and ideologies that are the products of that order.
SJSC 1100 or SJSC 1110, grade of C- or higher Credits: 4
SJSC 3360Religion and the Just Society4
Goals: To understand the role of religion as a social institution from a social scientific perspective with special attention to the role of religious practice, identity, and belief in the cause of social justice. Students will understand the various ways in which religion has shaped and been shaped by our evolving social order. Content: Students will engage with texts, documentaries, scholarly studies, and analyses of public opinion that treat religious people, religious ideas, and religious institutions as specific social artifacts for study. The course material takes no position on the existence of God(s), the value of one prophetic tradition over another, or any other doctrinal debate. The material is not oriented toward judgments as to whether a given religious tradition is “good” or “bad,” but rather represents an endeavor to understand the social context that gave rise to that tradition – as well as the impact that the tradition had on the society from which it emerged.
SJSC 1100 or SJSC 1110, grade of C- or higher Credits: 4
SJSC 3370Sexualities4
Goals: The aim of this course is to increase understanding of the connections between human sexual attitudes and behaviors and larger social forces. Although the primary focus is on sexualities in the United States, comparative historical and cultural aspects are also regularly engaged.
SJSC 1100 or SJSC 1110 or PBHL 1100, grade of C- or higher Credits: 4
SJSC 3390Self, Identity, and Society4
Goals: To provide an overview of sociological social psychology, specifically the perspective of symbolic interaction. To understand how we become social beings and how, through our everyday interactions with one another, we create and re-create both ourselves and the social world in which we live. Content: The course will begin with a comparison of sociological and psychological theories of social psychology. We will then turn to symbolic interaction with topics that include meaning and symbols as human creations, language and cognition, impression management, the self, and the social construction of reality.
SJSC 1100 or SJSC 1110, grade of C- or higher Credits: 4
SJSC 3900Engaging Social Justice: A Sociology Practicum and Seminar4
Goals: To support and strengthen the academic component of the internship experience. Content: Readings/viewings, discussion, and writing in the context of a 120-hour internship related to the study of social justice and social change.
SJSC 1100 or SJSC 1110, grade of C- or higher, and instructor permission Credits: 4
SJSC 3920Social Research Methods4
Goals: To learn how to design and implement a research project. To become familiar with limits and appropriateness of various qualitative and quantitative research methods. Content: Various types of research methods such as field research, content analysis, and survey. Taught: Spring term
SJSC 1100 or SJSC 1110, grade of C- or higher, and junior or senior standing Credits: 4
SJSC 5830Storytelling and Narrative in Ethnography4
Goals: This course explores how to harness the power of effective storytelling for the strategic benefit of an individual, an organization, and society as a whole. Students will learn to recognize how people’s everyday stories matter, and how these stories can be used to understand social injustice, institutional power, the social dynamics of community, and the relationship between individuals and communities. Students will learn how stories can be analyzed for their social meaning and how to document others, as well as oneself, in images, sounds, and words using ethnographic methods. Content: Students are introduced to ethnography, the systematic study and recording of human cultures. This is a course about the stories that constitute people’s everyday lives and the significance of documenting and writing about these life stories. Students will be introduced to theories and practices related to ethnographic storytelling with an emphasis on storytelling and narrative and to the methodological techniques social scientists use to collect, analyze, and write about these real-life stories. Course materials include social scientific forms of writing, short stories, autobiography, as well as documentary films, photographs, and digital audio and visual texts. Students will conduct an original ethnographic research project.
SJSC 1100 or SJSC 1110 and two SJSC electives, with grades of C- or higher Credits: 4
SJSC 5900Agents of Social Change4
Goals: Students will synthesize the diverse components of their disciplinary experience to engage in a focused and collaborative seminar aimed at putting their skills into practice. This capstone course is intended to allow students the opportunity to demonstrate their learning and to begin the process of applying that knowledge to their future work - both within their careers and from without. Content: Students will engage with scholarly texts and practical resources aimed at putting social justice education to practice. Students will learn from practitioners and reflect on how to develop their academic development into meaningful and sustainable practice. This process will be collaborative and students will draw on and benefit from peer experience and input.
