Traditions of social theory basic to sociological knowledge, their reflection and expansion in contemporary theory, their applications in selected areas of empirical research. Sample topics: social inequality, social organization and politics, family organization and social reproduction, social order and change, sociology of knowledge and religion.

Multiple objectives of social research and how they inform research design. Conceptualization and measurement of complex concepts. Broad issues in research design and quantitative and qualitative approaches to data collection and management. prereq: Grad soc major or instr consent

Statistical methods for analyzing social data. Sample topics: advanced multiple regression, logistic regression, limited dependent variable analysis, analysis of variance and covariance, log-linear models, structural equations, and event history analysis. Applications to datasets using computers. prereq: recommend 5811 or equiv; graduate student or instr consent

Interviewers have opened up other worlds to the sociological imagination and taught us much about the way people think, feel, and make sense of the world as well as of their own identities. We will conduct interviews; transcribe, code, and analyze interview data; and write up interview- based research. We will also consider a range of epistemological, practical, and ethical issues related to interviewing as a research method, reading materials drawn from a broad range of substantive sociological subfields as well as from geography. This course is best suited to graduate students who have an interview-based project in mind and want to acquire the skills for carrying out their research, and students who are considering using interviews in their dissertation research and want to try their hand at interviewing before making a decision. Because this is a hands-on, fieldwork-based course, no auditors are permitted.

Ethnographic practice involves two core activities: engaging people in their own space and time, and separating yourself enough from the fieldwork site to write about observations and experiences with some degree of analytical distance and theoretical sophistication. Ethnographers are always both participant and observer, although some of them -- often those who start off as insiders at a site from the beginning -- will be more practically or emotionally enmeshed in a fieldwork site than others. This seminar emphasizes both these core activities: students develop the practice of shuttling constantly between fieldwork site and writing field notes and analysis. Complementing the field work will be reading and discussion of classic and contemporary ethnographies. Each student will undertake his or her own fieldwork project, learning how to generate field notes that include rich description and coherent, flexible analysis. These projects should generate a useful body of qualitative data, as well as an intensive, hands-on experience of the design, research process, and analysis of ethnography. Prerequisites: graduate student, and completion of SOC 8801, or instructor consent.

This course is designed to teach graduate students to design and carry out theoretically informed and methodologically sophisticated historical research projects. In the first section of the course, we will explore the meaning of historical sociology, the disciplinary reflexes of sociologists and historians, conceptions of time in historical sociology, the uses of narrative in explanation, the use of case studies and comparisons in historical analysis, and varieties of explanation. The following section will examine the problems and potentials involved in different types of sources used by historically-oriented social scientists and the politics of historical memory. The final section will survey research by sociologists, historians, and political scientists that attempts to develop historically informed theories of various phenomena, such as race relations, nation and state formation, colonialism and imperialism, democratization and citizenship, gender and sexuality, and contentious politics. This course fulfills an advanced qualitative methods requirement for Sociology graduate students.

Advanced Research Methods (e.g., multilevel models), historical/comparative, field, survey research. Topics specified in Class Schedule. prereq: 8801, 8811, or instr consent. Cr will not be granted if cr has been received for the same topics title

This 1 credit class fosters adaptation to the Graduate Program in Sociology and preparation for a sociological career. In the Fall, we explore professional careers in this field. We discuss the wide range of opportunities in sociology and help students further explore the next steps to becoming a scholar, educator, and member of various professional, intellectual, and social communities. We share practical information about being a student in sociology and about sociological careers, discuss presentations in department workshop seminars, and provide a safe place to discuss issues of student concerns. Students are encouraged to bring to the class their thoughts and reactions to experiences during their first semester in the PhD program. The Spring 8001 class is oriented to particular milestones in the Sociology Graduate Program and important student activities (for example, preparing reading lists for the preliminary exam and then writing the preliminary exam, preparing a dissertation prospectus, writing grant proposals, preparing an article for publication, etc.). Pre-req: Soc PhD students

(No description) prereq: Max 18 cr per semester or summer; 10 cr total required [Plan A only]