Faculty of Arts & Sciences

Introduces students to the main objects and goals of Sociology-both for sociology concentrators and curious non-concentrators. Explores the theories of classical authors in the history of sociology (such as Marx, Durkheim, Weber, and beyond). Examines major topics in sociological research (including but not limited to social problems, deviance, inequality, social change, culture, education, social interaction).

Examines descriptions and explanations for inequality by social class, race, and gender, with a focus on the United States. Comparisons to other societies are also part of the course. Readings include classical and contemporary research reports in the form of nine classic and will-become-classic books; lectures update and contextualize the readings.

Focuses on the development of global capitalism and the relationship between markets, the state, and civil society. The course will pay particular attention to power and inequality, and to various forms of resistance against globalization.

Introduces the city as both object and site of social inquiry. We will start with the individual experience of living in cities, then explore the neighborhood structure of the modern metropolis, take on segregation and inequality, and conclude with globalization and world cities. We will also consider themes that cut across these levels, including crime, immigration, workforce issues, and arts and the creative economy. Throughout, students will use the cities of Cambridge and Boston to explore and evaluate ideas from class, via observational and fieldwork opportunities.

What can qualitative approaches to research add to our understanding of education, in an era where 'data' are often equated with numbers? In this course, we will examine qualitative methods as a complement and counterpoint to mainstream paradigms in education research. Students will design and implement a small pilot study on an education topic of choice. We will investigate the process of research design, including question formulation, selecting appropriate tools for data collection, and strategies for analyses. The work will be informed by critical reading and discussion of empirical and theoretical scholarship on the intersection of culture, community, and education.

One of the few courses at Harvard that integrates students' participation in activities outside the University with course work. Course integrates readings with hands-on research projects in the Boston area. Topics vary; refer to course website for details. Previous topics have included: immigration, marginalization, adolescents, civic activity.

In the context of recent theoretical advances in cultural sociology, the course considers how culture can be systematically compared across populations. While carrying out independent empirical studies, students will navigate the central problems associated with comparative cultural research: defining and measuring cultural phenomena, identifying appropriate units of cultural variation, understanding between- and within-unit heterogeneity, and demonstrating culture's causal effects.

This tutorial guides students through the preparation of an empirical research paper that explores the labor migration of workers from Mexico to the United States using quantitative data and methods.

Examines how culture, politics, and finance "matters" in health care through an exploration of the diverse community health centers and major medical centers throughout greater Boston. Students will enhance their qualitative research skills through ethnographic observation, mapping, and historical and documentary analysis of the services provided and populations served in various clinical settings.

Students will familiarize themselves with the literatures on racism and anti-racism, as well as racial identity and boundaries and design their own qualitative research project.

This tutorial will examine urban social problems and their relationship to public policy solutions through a sociological lens. We will examine social problems that affect city dwellers such as poverty, homelessness, crime, the achievement gap, and health, and their correlate policy solutions including public assistance, housing, policing and incarceration, education policy, health care and more. Students will complete an in-depth independent research project on a social problem of interest, collect their own data, and think through sociological and policy implications. The course will specialize in data collection through the use of qualitative methods such as ethnography, observation, and interviewing.

This course reviews major approaches to political sociology through explorations of state formation, civil society, citizenship, democracy, elections, terrorism, media coverage and conflict. A strong emphasis is put on historical analyses and empirical studies. This tutorial guides students through the preparation of a research paper using qualitative and/or quantitative methods.

Race, Poverty and Justice surveys some of the key topics in urban sociology, focusing on major social problems in American cities. With particular attention to factors associated with crime, such as poverty, race, education, gender and unemployment, the course draws from different academic, media and narrative sources. Our focus on urban communities of concentrated poverty is intended to challenge students to think about policy solutions to complex problems. How do we respond to under-resourced schools, violence, joblessness, drug addiction and incarceration? Our methodological focus will be on qualitative data collection that includes ethnography and interviews. The last three weeks of the semester will be reserved for students to present original research projects designed to address the problems discussed in class. Questions for consideration: In what ways do various political, economic and religious ideologies shape our understandings of race? What kinds of practices lead us out of poverty? How do we understand justice? An optional visit to at least one Massachusetts state jail/prison will be incorporated into the curriculum.

What does it mean to do a job well? What does it mean to be a good teacher, doctor, social worker, lawyer, or business person? How does the bureaucratic arrangement of work change people's incentives, perceptions of their jobs, and their capacities to do their jobs well? This class will examine how people in various professional and occupational fields navigate the day-to-day demands of their work, with particular attention to how the demands of organizational life-rules, authority, formality, coordination-interact with the work itself. This course will draw on an array of research in the sociology of organizations, the sociology of occupations, and the sociology of professions. The goal of this course is to help students develop a research project in some professional or occupational field of their interest.

This course will examine the institution of sports and how it is shaped by society. Is sports a level playing field and meritocracy where the best person or team wins? Or is sports a mirror of an unequal society where power and wealth shape social life? How do class, race and gender shape the sports we play and how we play them? We will consider sports and higher education in the U.S. and at Harvard. We will also look at youth sports, sports as a business, the media and sports, and sports and health. Students will do an in depth research project on the topic and will actively discuss readings in class each week.

Examines organizational failures and disasters from a variety of sectors and professional fields as way to understand how organizational life influences people's behavior, thinking, decision-making, and moral judgment.

From Plantations to Prisons serves as an introduction to the current crisis of mass incarceration. Specifically, it focuses on the religio-historical roots of the U.S. penal industry, suggesting a continuum between plantations and prisons that calls into question our basic notions of justice. The course draws from academic, media, and narrative sources to give particular attention to factors long associated with crime and punishment, such as sin, race, and citizenship. We will also study the unprecedented prison-population explosion (in terms of race, gender and class), and its relationship to major social problems in American cities. Questions for consideration: How do we understand punishment? What is the relationship between race and crime? How are human rights, democracy, and family at risk? An optional visit to at least one Massachusetts state jail/prison will be incorporated into the curriculum.

This course introduces students to core methodological concepts and strategies used in social science research including: question formulation, hypothesis generation, the logic of hypothesis testing, sampling and measurement, experiments, survey analysis, content analysis, ethnography, and in-depth interviewing. In the course we will discuss and develop the analytic skills necessary to interrogate epistemological assumptions in published research specifically and truth-claims generally. In addition to critically evaluating previous research, students will collect and analyze their own data based on the different methods discussed in the class. By the end of the course, students should have acquired valuable research tools widely applicable in academic and professional settings.

Approaching food as material culture that reveals complex social relations of power, this course begins with the examination of the larger historical processes of conquests and other uneven cross-cultural encounters that shaped the making and remaking of ethnic and regional identities of food. Then it investigates the political economy of transnational production, circulation, and consumption of food in various areas of the world. It also explores the cultural politics of how tastes of food are invested with corporate interests, and images and meanings of status distinction and inequalities. Finally, it examines the role of food in shaping ethnic/racial, national, and gender identities in the midst of globalization. To complement analytical approaches in classroom, this course may incorporate experiential learning components, including a visit to a local restaurant, a local farm, or a collaborative cooking exercise.

Examining different sectors of the economy from corporations and finance to households, immigrants, welfare, and illegal markets, we explore how in all areas of economic life people are creating, maintaining, symbolizing, and transforming meaningful social relations. Economic life, from this perspective, is as social as religion, family, or education.

How can and do people build institutions that are just? This course examines the psychological and sociological underpinnings of people's understanding of justice and their motivation to make situations just. The course draws heavily on real world cases from a variety of social, cultural, and historical settings, as well thinking and research from sociology, philosophy, psychology, and anthropology.

Since the late 1970s, the American style of management has been revolutionized. This course reviews the history of American management strategies, focusing on the origins and effects of the shareholder value approach that now prevails among leading firms. Shareholder value traces its roots to America's lackluster performance in the global economy during the 1970s, and the prescriptions offered by agency theorists in the field of financial economics. We explore how the shareholder value approach was promoted in American firms. We look at how the approach has changed core corporate strategy, how it has affected corporate performance, and how it has shaped labor markets, income inequality, and global trade.

Ideas about order and disorder have driven debates about the city for over a century. After reviewing classic approaches we will examine contemporary research on neighborhood inequality, "broken-windows" and crime, racial segregation, ethnic diversity and immigration, the symbolic meanings of disorder, community organizations, and competing visions for the uses of public space. Students will conduct field-based observations drawing upon cutting-edge methods employed by urban sociologists to understand the workings of the modern city.

Introduces quantitative analysis in social research, including principles of research design and the use of empirical evidence, particularly from social surveys. Descriptive and inferential statistics, contingency table analysis, and regression analysis. Emphasis on analysis of data and presentation of results in research reports.

Male/Female, Man/Woman, Masculine/Feminine, Straight/Gay. These "dueling dualisms" structure our lives, identities and social institutions. Most of us believe that we have a concrete biological sex, social gender and sexual orientation; yet, sociologists increasingly debate the very meanings of these categories and their relationships to one another. We will examine theoretical and empirical approaches to understanding sex, gender and sexuality, paying particular attention to the historical construction of categories, theories about human difference and efforts within sociology to make sex, gender and sexuality into proper objects of study.

As an integral part of society, science and technology play increasingly important roles in shaping political debates and public policies. This course explores the roles of science and technology in democratic politics in light of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident.

Asks why certain social groups are at greater risk for more severe health problems (e.g., infant mortality, HIV/AIDS, cancer) and yet receive unequal health care in the US. Examines what best practices foster adequate delivery of healthcare services, mutual respect between patient and provider, and healthy living. Considers the role of government, the private sector, family and community.

Explores the intersection of art, crime and law, including: (1) how certain crimes involve-or are directed at or against-art; (2) how certain activities are interpreted as both crime and art; (3) how traditional artists and others have creatively depicted crime, criminals and deviance over the centuries; and (4) what contemporary laws and international treaties cover art crime, and what opportunities exist for further legislations/global cooperation. Case studies may involve the protest artist Banksy and other "street artists," the destruction of the Buddas of Bamiyan, the confiscation/destruction of art in armed conflict (e.g., World War II and the Bosnian War of 1992-95), the thefts at Boston's Isabella Gardner Museum, and many others. This course will be highly interdisciplinary and interactive, and it will encourage students to explore the topic from both scholarly and creative perspectives

Applies negotiation frameworks to a rich array of cases about community organizing, health care reform, social enterprise ventures, and diplomacy, including cases that students will share from their own research and field study. The course will enable students to be more reflective about large-scale conflicts, organizational and neighborhood tensions, and everyday experiences of dispute and enmity. Students will also engage in a series of lab exercises and negotiation simulations that will permit them to extend their relational problem-solving skills.

Examines the prominence of crime narratives in Anglo-American societies in various media formats since the advent of mass communication. Explores why crime has been consistently compelling to societies and citizens, and how these narratives have been harnessed to advance religious, political, governmental and ideological objectives. Critically analyzes the power of mass communication and the impact that crime events have on societies and their legal systems. Questions what responsibilities (if any) media organizations, individual journalists, media consumers, state officials and the legal system assume when producing, consuming and otherwise engaging highly publicized crime events.

This course examines global migration and the sociopolitical responses of national communities to this phenomenon. In the first half of the course, students consider the process of international migration, and the dynamics of immigration policy, border control and citizenship. In the second half, students address contemporary approaches to settlement, integration and political incorporation. The course concludes by evaluating the impact of transnational affiliations and supranational governance on a process that conventionally has been overseen by national authorities. At hand each week are some of the great social and political debates confronting American society and many other countries today.

Interests in social network analysis have exploded in the past few years. Aimed to examine social relationships and interactions from a structural perspective, social network analysis has become an essential tool for us to understand and address a variety of social issues, including friendship formation, peer influence, career mobility, socioeconomic inequality, organizational alliance and competition, economic development, international trade, diffusion of innovations, political mobilization, crime proliferation, spreading of diseases, etc. This course covers the basic concepts and theory in social network analysis, and major approaches and methods to collect, represent, visualize and analyze social network data. Students will also have the opportunity to learn using the mainstream software in social network analysis to conduct their own research on social networks.

This course explores the tensions, contradictions, and mutual appropriations that characterize the relationship between law, science, and technology in America. It examines how ideas of evidence, expertise, and public reason have changed over the past half-century in response to such phenomena as the rise of the risk society, environmentalism, patient advocacy, and the information revolution. Law is broadly construed to include the activities of legislatures, regulatory agencies, and courts. The course seeks to contextualize the interactions of law, science, and technology in relation to wider transformations in US culture and society.

Focuses on ethno-racial distinctions as they have played out in the US, particularly in the period from post-World War II to the present. The specific topics covered include the concept of race itself, whiteness and white identity, sociological theories of racial and ethnic stratification, immigration and immigration politics, processes of assimilation, new and changing ethno-racial identities, and racial attitudes. In the process of addressing these large and cross-cutting topics we will also take up a host of related issues dealing with such matters as income and wealth differentials, schooling and its outcomes, crime and incarceration, families, interracial marriages, and racism and antiracism.

Examines criminal justice from the perspective of local communities. Questions of how local communities affect and are affected by crime and criminal justice will be addressed. A central concern will be the discussion of characteristics of neighborhoods that lead to high rates of criminality and how federal, state, and local policies not directly concerned with crime policy may nonetheless bear on crime rates. The City of Boston will be used as a laboratory in which to study these issues.

Matrix approach to regression analysis with an emphasis on the assumptions behind OLS. Instrumental variables, generalized least squares, probit and logit models, survival analysis, hierarchical linear models, and systems of equations are studied.

Introduction to the formative ideas and socio-intellectual contexts of 19th and early 20th century sociological theory. Course will explore social thought from the perspective provided by the problem of social order - and the roles different thinkers attributed to such factors as solidarity, power, and meaning as solutions to this problem. Consideration of the continuing significance of these ideas for contemporary social thought.

Examines debates surrounding the nature of the process of economic development. Major attention is devoted to rival theories of where and why development occurs and to a variety of social consequences of economic development.

Examines approaches to non-numerical data used by social scientists to obtain valid, reliable, and meaningful insight into the social world through the analysis of ethnographic field notes, interview transcripts, and archival and other interpretative data.

Explores growing inequality in the U.S., and its implications for public policy in the areas of social support for families and workers, immigration and citizenship, and access to higher education. Students are expected to develop and present their own research.

This seminar is about the practice, politics, and poetics of ethnographic fieldwork--the method of immersing oneself into people's daily routines and systematically recording social processes as they unfold in real time. Along with engaging with several classic and contemporary texts, participants will collect, analyze, and argue with ethnographic data.

This advanced course will consider recent developments at the intersection of cultural sociology and the sociology of inequality, mobility and poverty. Topics will include: the coproduction of social and symbolic boundaries; moral schemas and inequality; cultural scripts in the construction of racism and anti-racism; new developments in the study of identity, ethno-racial and class cultures; cognition, cultural repertoires and networks; evaluation and other cultural and social processes; and the conceptualization of context and explanations in cultural sociology.

Examines the normative, psychological, and sociological underpinnings needed to develop and maintain social institutions that are considered "just". The seminar will design and develop a General Education course for undergraduates.

This multidisciplinary seminar will read and discuss research on crime, the social context in which it occurs, and criminal justice policy. We address this literature in the historic context of shifts in US crime policy to a less punitive regime, where incarceration rates may be significantly reduced. Besides studying empirical research on crime and punishment, we will also consider the future of crime policy, and how principles of justice can guide the role of police and corrections in poor communities.

The purpose of this course is to critically examine current writings and debates on how social structure and culture affect the social outcomes of the African Americans and immigrants in the US. The relevance of these works for public and social policy will also be discussed.

Examines the issues involved in providing fair and effective police services to urban communities. Questions of how police can effectively prevent crime while enhancing their legitimacy will be addressed. Major police innovations over the last thirty years, such as community and problem-oriented policing, are closely examined and discussed. Sociological and criminological theories, as well as empirical evidence, are applied to understand critical issues that persist for the policing profession such as race, use of force, and police deviance.

This course examines power relations between (and within) society and the state. We will focus on nation-state formation, revolutions, social movements, ideology and political attitudes, welfare state policies, and globalization, while interrogating the major theoretical traditions that have shaped the sociological study of politics.

The first doctoral seminar in the Inequality and Social Policy three-course sequence, this course considers the effects of policies and institutions in creating or reducing inequality in the U.S. and other advanced democracies, we well as the reciprocal effects of inequality on political activity and policy choices.

Examines current methodological scholarship in the social sciences with an eye to assessing its quality and potential for advancing quantitative methods. Recently published and unpublished work by local scholars examined.

Presentations and discussions of new research by members of the community and visiting scholars. Students are exposed to the major paradigms in the field, and see how research articles are developed and refined.

Guides students through the process of producing an original research paper of high quality. Readings and discussion cover the identification of appropriate research problems, the nature of causal reasoning, and data analysis and write-up.

Cities are back, urbanization is rapidly expanding around the world, and new forms of data are presenting unique opportunities for research. SOC314 is a forum to explore the social mechanisms, processes, and structures that occur in urban settings and the diverse behaviors that are shaped by spatial inequality. The workshop highlights the presentation of graduate student research but also includes discussion sessions on selected readings and work-in-progress by faculty at Harvard and around the country.