SOC& 101:E - Intro to Sociology

1. Explain sociological research methods as a scientific approach to studying the social environments and forces.  
2. Describe the historically and socially constructed nature of human differences, with a focus on with power, privilege, and social inequalities.  
3. Explain how sociological perspectives, theories, and concepts (such as race, gender, class, and other stratification systems) can help us understand the social world at the individual, institutional and societal levels.
4. Apply sociological perspectives and concepts to examine social conditions.  
5. Describe social movements and social change processes, including those for racial equity and social justice.  
6. Reflect on one’s individual and group status within a broader social context, and one’s role in response to social problems like racial inequity.  
7. SOCIAL SCIENCES: Explain the variables that influence the structure of cultures and societies.

1. Development of sociology as a discipline.  
2. Sociological research methods as well as theories and perspectives used to analyze social systems, and diverse sociological outlooks.
3. Sociological perspectives (such as intersectionality, feminisms, conflict theory, symbolic interactionism, and functionalism).  
4. Social institutions (for example family, peers, religion, education, work, mass media, government, economy) and how these perpetuate or respond to systems of power, especially related to racial, gender, class, and other inequities.
5. Concepts used to understand and assess social conditions such as socialization, sociological imagination, social construction of reality, race as a social construct, institutional racism vs racism as individual phenomena, sex vs. gender vs. sexuality, ableism, power, privilege, deviance, different forms of discrimination, pluralism, and equity.
6. The importance of historical and social contexts in understanding categories of difference, forms of discrimination, and stratification, including impacts on and responses by racial, ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, class, and other population groups.
7. Social Movements to include Civil Rights Movements, also collective action, and other forces for social change.
8. Social Imagination how one’s personal experience intersects with and is shaped by a larger social and historical context.
9. One’s individual and group status and how this informs and creates ethical responsibilities as a citizen, consumer, and environmental actor with emphasis on race, gender, class and other marginalities.