SOCIOLOGY OF HEALTH
Sociological understandings of health and illness represent critical contributions not only to the broader field of sociology but also in the fields of medicine, epidemiology, public health and population health. These courses provide undergraduate and graduate students with a broad overview of medical sociology and background on key issues, theories, and debates in the U.S. context. Classical and contemporary work on topics such as medicalization, the social construction of illness, patient-provider interaction, social networks, and the unequal distribution of disease and death are addressed.
Social determinants of health
What makes people healthy or unhealthy? The health of individuals is not only shaped by lifestyle choices or medical treatments, but also – in large part – by social conditions. This course provides undergraduate students with an introduction to the social determinants of health: the social advantages and disadvantages that people experience based on their social position and social circumstances that influence their health and well-being.
CRIME AND SOCIETY
This course introduces undergraduate students to the criminal justice system, crime-related data collection, and competing theoretical perspectives on deviance, criminality, and crime control. We also discuss substantive issues concerning forms of crime and approaches to crime control in local and global contexts.
SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH METHODS
These courses provide a broad introduction to sociological research for undergraduate and graduate students, covering issues such as the logic of research design, ethics of research, measurement and sampling, the range of methods available to social scientists, and how social scientists analyze and report findings from their data.