6 courses with the subject SOCI GU, 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.
SOCI GU4028GENDER/INEQUALITY IN FAMILIES4.00
In-depth, critical exploration of changing expectations and patterns of socialization for women and men in contemporary U. S. families. Draws from family studies, gender studies, and LGBT studies to understand how gendered forces work to structure relations between and among family members. Readings highlight socioeconomic, racial and ethnic variations in patterns of behavior, at times critiquing assumptions and paradigms drawn from the experiences of traditional, middle-class nuclear families. Topics include division of household labor in same-sex and different-sex couples, adolescent experiences growing up disadvantaged, what happens to undocumented immigrant children when they reach adulthood, gender inequality in wealthy white families, and ethnic differences in men’s expected roles in families.
Participants may elect to enroll in the 1-credit CWI independent study offered through the Sociology Department. CWI takes place Thursdays from 2-4pm in Knox Hall, room 509. The course ID for Fall 2025 is SOCI4043GU. The Center for Wealth and Inequality (CWI), in this course, is a forum for students interested in social science topics broadly related to inequality. In particular, it will provide an opportunity for students to read and discuss the works presented in the weekly CWI seminar series, while also sharing and refining their own works in progress. The CWI seminar series is sponsored by Columbia University’s Institute for Social and Economic Research Policy (ISERP) and is devoted to the investigation of social and economic inequality. The seminar invites speakers from both within and outside of Columbia to present recent papers covering a wide range of topics pertaining to inequality, such as poverty, labor market behavior, education, and the family. The research topics and methodologies are at the cutting edge of the interdisciplinary study of wealth and inequality, as the CWI seminar invites speakers from multiple social science disciplines and fields. Past speakers include Annette Lareau, Adam Gamoran, Timothy Smeeding, Lisa Kahn, Mario Small, Rob Warren and Florencia Torche, among numerous others. The primary preparation for these gatherings is to read the papers slated for presentation, whether written by an outside speaker or a student within the course. Students will meet to constructively critique these papers collectively, raising key questions and concepts for discussion and debate. One student will serve as the discussion leader each week by kicking off the dialogue. This student also will have the opportunity to prepare a review of the paper, if desired. When discussing CWI seminar papers, the product of each meeting will be a shortlist of pertinent questions for the visiting speaker, which participants will be encouraged to ask during the Q＆A following each seminar. When focusing on student papers, participants will provide detailed comments geared towards supporting further development of our peers’ work. We regularly will be joined by the CWI presenters. The spirit behind the student independent study is one of collective student growth and learning through semi-structured discussion. While the course will pose a relatively limited time commitment, students will be expected to participate actively, complete the readings, and regularly attend the CWI seminars
SOCI GU4370Processes of Stratification and Inequality3
The nature of opportunity in American society; the measurement of inequality; trends in income and wealth inequality; issues of poverty and poverty policy; international comparisons.
SOCI GU4411Politics and Society in Central Eastern Europe3
The goal of the course is to discuss different approaches to the study of developmental pathways in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in a broad historical perspective drawing on various approaches from political science, sociology and economic history. Students participating in the seminars will get an overview on the various approaches to explaining divergence in political, social and economic developments between the Eastern and Western parts of Europe, and within the region. The course aims to establish a dialogue between three types of scholarships: one dealing with the pre-regime change developmental pathways in the region, another dealing with factors that could account for persistent post-communist and post- enlargement developmental divergence and a third one that deals with issues of backwardness and core-periphery relations in transnational and global perspective. The course starts with a discussion of broad historical perspectives on East-West divergence in Europe. The second bloc deals with the various great transformations in the region: the remaking of states, polities and economies. The third bloc is devoted to the discussion of the transnationalization of states and economies in the region. Finally, the forth bloc deals with hybrid regimes and problems of democratic backsliding in the region.
The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were marked by the discovery of a new object of systematic inquiry in addition to Nature and the Individual: Society. First Economics, then Anthropology, Sociology, and Political Science developed strikingly new understandings of the actions, beliefs, and institutional arrangements of men and women in society, which were seen as obeying regular laws not derivable from, or reducible to, either the laws of nature or the laws of individual behavior. But these new disciplines, which came to be called the Social Sciences, were different from their predecessors in one fundamental and centrally important way: They revealed the study of society, and indeed society itself, to be mystified, ideologically encoded, shaped and distorted by the interests and beliefs of men and women even though those living in society or studying it often were oblivious of this fact. In this course we shall read in depth a series of texts by authors who explored the ideological mystifications of social reality in their disciplines. The goal of the course is not merely to inform students of these authors and their ideas but to strengthen the ability of students to understand their own involvement in, indeed complicity in, ideological mystification. Cross-Listed Courses Urban Studies
The seminar will examine the main political, economic, and social processes that have been shaping contemporary Israel. The underlying assumption in this seminar is that much of these processes have been shaped by the 100-year Israeli-Arab/Palestinian conflict. The first part of the course will accordingly focus on the historical background informing the conflict and leading to the Palestinian refugee problem and establishment of a Jewish, but not Palestinian, state in 1948. The second part of the seminar focuses on Israel’s occupation of the West Bank (and Gaza) and the settlement project, as well as on USA's role and its impact on the conflict, the occupation, and Israel. These topics did not get much academic attention until recently, but as researchers began to realize that the Occupation and the West Bank settlements are among the most permanent institutions in Israel, they have come under the scrutiny of academic research. The third part the seminar will concentrate on the development of the conflict after the establishment of Israel and its effects on sociological processes and institutions in contemporary Israel. Analyzing patterns of continuity and change in the past seven decades, we will discuss immigration and emigration patterns, as well as issue relating to ethnicity, gender, religion and politics, and the Israeli military
