Sociology

This course is designed to introduce students to sociological concepts, theories, and principles.

This course is designed to offer a description and analysis of selected social problems, their causes, effects, and social responses to these problems.

This course is an introduction to the philosophical and historical background of law enforcement agencies, processes, purposes, and functions. It includes an evaluation of law enforcement today, including current trends in social and criminal justice. This course provides an overview of crime and the criminal justice system: Police, Courts, and Correction.

This course is designed to offer a sociological and historical analysis of the institution of marriage in the United States, with an emphasis on the changing structure of marriage and family in a contemporary context.

This course is designed to introduce students to the diversity of human cultural experience in the contemporary world, and to cultivate students’ cultural awareness and sense of global citizenship. Over the course of the semester, we will explore sociological approaches to the study of culture, investigate the relationships between culture, identity (race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and religion), and society, overview trends in development and globalization, and examine human rights issues in a global context.

This course is designed to examine social justice in relation to the economy, racial paradigms, political structures, and past and present social welfare policies. A specific emphasis will be placed on government responses to inequities in American society.

This course will explore many of the foundational social thinkers who have framed how we understand contemporary social life. It will explore themes including industrialization, capitalism, democracy, nationalism, individualism, religion, sex, race, postmodernity and globalization.

This course is designed to examine the origins, dynamics, and consequences of social movements through both sociological theory and empirical case studies.

This course examines the many difficult decisions that social and criminal justice professionals make in an environment of competing interests. The decision-making of criminal justice professionals is often impacted by their ethical dilemmas. Emphasis is placed on addressing moral issues and concerns of our justice process in personal, social, and criminal justice contexts.

This course is designed to introduce students to the societal assumptions of work and organizations and the role of work and organizations in perpetuating or solving social inequalities.

This course is designed to expose students to the theoretical frameworks from sociology that are used to examine how the law shapes society and society shapes the law. We will begin by reading and discussing how various theoretical traditions understood the role of law in society, whose interests they saw the law serving, and the law’s role in societal transformation. We will apply these theoretical perspectives to current legal issues and policies. The approach we will take to studying the law will emphasize the social, political, cultural and historical aspects of the law, rather than studying the law through legal doctrines, statutes or judicial opinions (though at times these aspects of the law will be raised). From this vantage point, this course will enable students to understand how the law influences and is influenced by social change, social reproduction and inequality (including race, class, gender, and sexuality). We will also analyze the role of law in contemporary legal issues related to these topics in order to understand and evaluate how the law seeks to achieve certain objectives such as compliance, deterrence and social control. Finally, as many students may have an interest in pursuing a legal career, we will examine how the legal profession and the field of law have changed over time and the enduring hierarchies and divisions that have remained.

This course critically examines the purposes, outcomes, and effectiveness of the contemporary US criminal justice system. It will incorporate not only comparative perspectives approaches, but will encourage student to (re)imagine effective and just alternatives to punishment. Criminal justice areas covered include: policing, corrections, incarceration. We will explore policing, corrections, incarceration using retributive, restorative, transformative, and abolitionist frameworks to punitive criminal justice through an intersectional lens of racial, economic, and gender justice.

This course will focus on examining sociological explanations of crime and how these theories relate to empirical evidence and social policy. We will begin by asking the question, “What is crime?” From there, we will look at how crime is measured and what general patterns emerge from previous surveys of criminal behavior. Next, we will dive into the heart of the course: investigation of the various explanations of crime and the implications these theories have for crime control policies and social change. Finally, we will conclude with a discussion about what the future holds for crime and social control in American society.

This course is designed to give students a basic understanding of the role of sport in human life through social theories, methods, and research findings of sociological inquiry.

This course is designed to introduce students to the culture, economics, politics, families, literature, and religions of the Appalachian region.

This course is designed to help the student think about the environment, sustainability, and the role of society and culture in determining how we will survive and prosper on this planet. Please note that this course employs service learning and therefore involves significant work outside of the classroom.

This course is designed to examine the U.S. health care system from a critical perspective. It will consider the system in comparison with developed and developing countries, the culture and practice of medicine, inequalities in the U.S. and global health contexts, and alternatives. The course will address the social meanings of health, illness, mental health and will give attention differences between health care and sick care.

This course is designed to offer students sociological explanations of the racial and ethnic, class, and gender inequalities that are reproduced within education and focuses on critical pedagogical theories and practices that promote social justice and social change.

The study of a special topic in sociology. Required as preparation for students interested in pursuing study through the Oxford Program at Georgetown College. Please consult department chair for current offerings.

This course is designed to introduce students to a sociological overview of issues pertaining to race and ethnicity in the United States.

This course is designed to offer an explanation of the social construction of gender. The central themes of the course will be changes and continuities in gender roles within the United States, social processes that influence our lives and our gender identities, and the connections between gender, power, and inequality.

This course is designed to explore the challenges of empowering communities in a world marked by marginalization, disempowerment, globalization, and injustice. Topics to be covered include worldview issues that influence our understanding of poverty and development; a framework for transformational development; an overview of contemporary development theory; and the development practitioner. Please note that this course employs service learning and therefore involves significant work outside of the classroom.

This course focuses primarily on the constitutional issues confronting law enforcement and suspects during a criminal investigation as a result of the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. It covers the law of search and seizure, self-incrimination, and the right to counsel as defined by the U.S. Supreme Court. Attention will also be given to differences in these areas between the U.S. Supreme Court and the law of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. It covers important selected procedural issues that arise during the prosecution of a criminal case, including double jeopardy, discovery, pretrial hearings, jury selection, confrontation, and the ethical responsibilities of a prosecutor.

This course is designed to look at the food we eat, the way we think about food, and the need for reform in our overall understanding of food. Particular attention will be paid to concerns such as food insecurity, food safety, environmental and health impacts, as well as the role of food systems in perpetuating systemic inequality. Please note that this course employs service learning and therefore involves significant work outside of the classroom.

This course is designed to offer a comprehensive study of the dimensions of aging from young adulthood through the senior years. Particular emphasis will be placed on the analysis of problems related to aging with exploration of possible solutions, including social services.

Emphasis on independent research.

Social science research methods focus on issues of social and behavioral research design, covering such topics as the relationship between theory and research, the ethics of social science research, units of analysis, identification of variables and statement of hypotheses, sampling, measurement, and modes of social observation.

Capstone course in sociology.

Supervised internship experiences in the application of sociological concepts in selected organizations.

The study of special topics in sociology.