Undergraduate courses

These summaries are not official course outlines. You will receive detailed course outlines for all courses you're registered in on the first day of class.

Courses are dependent upon enrollment numbers. 

Search for classes in  to confirm dates, days, times and locations.

See classes listed by research areas.

Summer 2024 courses

SOCI 100A - Into. to Sociology: Understanding Social Life

Summer 2024: May 13 - June 28

Instructor: Ashley Berard

Schedule: Mondays and Wednesdays 2:00pm - 4:30pm

Delivery: Online

Course description

Sociology 100A will provide students with an introduction to the discipline of sociology and a consideration of why this discipline matters, especially in our contemporary context. In this course, we will explore the fundamental sociological theories, research methods, culture, socialization, and social interactions.

The course will challenge you to look beyond the norms within your social world to better understand the social forces which shape our reality.

Topics will include

Socialization, social theories, research methods, culture, media and globalization.

SOCI 100B - Intro. to Sociology: Understanding Contemporary Society

Summer 2024: July 3 - August 18

Instructor: Edwin Hodge

Schedule: Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:00pm - 4:30pm

Delivery: Online

Course description

Introduction to the study of contemporary society through the sociological lens. This course will be delivered in a hybrid online format with lecture slides posted at the beginning of each week and lecture recordings posted following each livestream.

Course outcomes/objectives

Ability to explain and describe (using students’ own examples) the meaning and relevance of the sociological imagination.
Ability to define and articulate how the individual is influenced by the social; and,
Ability to discuss some of the primary areas of sociological interest as reviewed by the lecture, text, and tutorial materials.

Topics may include

Gender, families, religion, ethnicity, education, social media, social determinants of health and environmental sociology.

SOCI 202 - Constructing Social Problems

Summer 2024: May 13 - June 28

Instructor: Sean Hier

Schedule: Asynchronous

Delivery: Online

Course description

SOCI 202 focuses on how social problems are socially constructed. The social construction of social problems is not about people making problems up. It’s not even about subjective interpretations of otherwise objective problems.

The social construction of social problems is about the ways in which human beings identify and come to think about certain issues as social problems at particular times, in specific places, and with different levels of intensity. It’s also about how we avoid thinking about otherwise problematic social issues by denying, rationalizing, justifying, or downplaying their significance.

In the summer term, we will examine the social construction of the following social problems: popular hazards, terrorism and torture, the fight against breast cancer, asylum seekers, serial killing, Halloween sadism, poor single mothers, infectious diseases (Ebola and COVID-19), surveillance and public shaming.

We will also consider different kinds of media messaging and how perceived problems that at some points in time occupy a considerable amount of attention and debate habitually decline in importance (only to be replaced by new issues and concerns).

Course delivery

SOCI 202 will be presented online in an asynchronous format. Course instruction will consist of pre-recorded lectures, instructional video links and assigned weekly readings.

SOCI 206 - Crime and Deviance

Summer 2024: May 13 - June 28

Instructor: Tayler Zavitz

Schedule: Tuesdays and Thursdays 1:00pm - 3:20pm

Delivery: Online

Course description

This course will introduce students to the key theories of crime, deviance and social control.

Students will learn about both classical and contemporary theoretical explanations of crime and deviant behaviour and how these theories are reflected in our current criminal justice system. We will cover a wide range of issues and case studies including race and crime, violence against women, crimes against animals, environmental crime and crime in the media.

By the end of the course, students will be able to identify the various theoretical approaches to crime and deviance, as well as critically analyze and evaluate these approaches in relation to contemporary sociological issues and understandings of criminality.

Course delivery

The course will be delivered completely online, with a combination of synchronous and asynchronous sessions. Course content will be delivered through live virtual lectures and additional, complementary media (TED talks, documentaries, podcasts, etc.), of which students can move through at their own pace each week.

SOCI 345 - Sociology of Mental Health

Summer 2024: May 13 - June 28

Instructor: Ashley Berard

Schedule: Mondays and Wednesdays 6:30pm - 8:20pm

Delivery: Online

Course description

This course will provide a sociological overview of the construction of mental health and illness. Topics will include; the theoretical foundations of the sociology of mental health, the social conditions that influence mental well-being, the experiences and social meanings of mental illness and its treatment, institutionalization and deinstitutionalization, and the social construction of mental conditions. The course will also cover the intersections of mental health and social media, as well as mental health and colonization.

This course will be fully online. Live Zoom lectures will occur Mondays from 6:30-8:20pm and will be recorded. Instead of a lecture on Wednesday, students will be required to complete a weekly asynchronous component, which will occur on Brightspace.

Course outcomes/objectives

The learning objectives are: (1) to become familiar with key sociological concepts and debates concerning the nature of mental illness; (2) to gain a broad understanding of the relationship between mental illness and mental health in relation to various aspects of social structure; (3) to develop insights into the lived experience of mental illness; and (4) to become aware of alternate paradigms for mitigating the impact of mental illness and improving mental health.

SOCI 355 - The Corporation, Capitalism and Globalization

Summer 2024: July 3 - August 18

Instructor: Bill Carroll

Schedule: Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:00pm - 4:30pm

Delivery: In person, face-to-face

Course description

This course takes a critical approach to the sociological analysis of corporations, capitalism and globalization. We will work through three recent texts plus a few articles and chapters, all of which view large corporations as centres of power that generate deep disparities within and among nation-states and communities.

The agency of corporations is largely responsible for the deepening climate crisis. Corporate power does not go unchallenged; indeed, in recent years grassroots opposition to the rule of transnational capital has burgeoned. In the final section of the course, we take up alternatives to the rule of corporate capital.

Course outcomes/objectives

Students will gain a good rudimentary understanding of the political economy and sociology of corporate capitalism, in Canada and globally. Assignments and activities will support the development of oral and written communication skills and group work, with extensive use of breakout group discussions.

Topics may include

Realities of capitalism and the myth of TINA (There Is No Alternative)
How corporate power works: its economic, political and cultural modalities
The struggle between capitalism and community
Global capitalism and the imperial mode of living
Corporations, capitalism and climate crisis
Platform capitalism (capitalism and the internet)
Alternatives

SOCI 382 - Sociology of Sexualities

Summer 2024: July 3 - August 18

Instructor: Kelsey Block

Schedule: Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:00pm - 4:30pm

Delivery: Online

Course description

This course will explore the construction of sexual desires, identities, and practices from a Canadian perspective. It will examine the theoretical foundations of the sociology of sexualities with a focus on queer theory and intersectionality, and cover lived experiences of sexualities within Canada as they intersect with various other identities and structures.

Course outcomes/objectives

The learning objectives are: (1) to become familiar with key concepts and debates within the sociology of sexualities; (2) to gain a broad understanding of the relationships between sexualities and various aspects of social structure; and (3) to develop insights into the lived experiences of sexualities in Canada.

Topics may include

Theoretical foundations of the sociology of sexuality, sexual identities and social inequality, medicalization and criminalization, sex in popular culture, the relation of gender to sexuality, activism, sex education, sex and the family, sexuality and religion.

Fall 2024 100-level courses

SOCI 100A - Intro. to Sociology: Understanding Social Life

Instructor: Edwin Hodge

Schedule: Tuesday/Wednesday/Friday 10:30 - 11:20

Please note: students registered in 100A A01 must register into a tutorial section, selected from T01-T12

Delivery: In Person

Course description

Introduction to the study of contemporary society through the sociological lens. This course will be delivered face to face, with lecture slides posted to Brightspace at the beginning of each week.

Course outcomes/objectives

Ability to explain and describe (using students’ own examples) the meaning and relevance of the sociological imagination;
Ability to define and articulate how the individual is influenced by the social; and,
Ability to discuss some of the primary areas of sociological interest as reviewed by the lecture, text and tutorial materials.

Topics may include

Race and colonialism, sexuality, research methods and a history of sociology, crime and deviance, globalization and the environment.

SOCI 100A - Intro. to Sociology: Understanding Social Life

Instructor: Edwin Hodge

Schedule: Tuesday/Wednesday/Friday 1:30 - 2:20

Please note: students registered in 100A A02 must register into a tutorial section, selected from T13-T24

Delivery: In Person

Course description

Introduction to the study of contemporary society through the sociological lens. This course will be delivered face to face, with lecture slides posted to Brightspace at the beginning of each week.

Course outcomes/objectives

Ability to explain and describe (using students’ own examples) the meaning and relevance of the sociological imagination;
Ability to define and articulate how the individual is influenced by the social; and,
Ability to discuss some of the primary areas of sociological interest as reviewed by the lecture, text and tutorial materials.

Topics may include

Race and colonialism, sexuality, research methods and a history of sociology, crime and deviance, globalization and the environment.

SOCI 100B - Intro. to Sociology: Understanding Contemporary Society

Instructor: Ashley Berard

Schedule: Tuesday/Wednesday/Friday 9:30am - 10:20am

Please note: students registered in 100B A01 must register into a tutorial section, selected from T01-T06

Delivery: In Person

Course description

Introduction to the study of contemporary society through the sociological lens. This course will be delivered in face-to-face format with lecture slides posted at the beginning of each week.

Course outcomes/objectives

Ability to explain and describe (using students’ own examples) the meaning and relevance of the sociological imagination;
Ability to define and articulate how the individual is influenced by the social; and,
Ability to discuss some of the primary areas of sociological interest as reviewed by the lecture, text and tutorial materials.

Topics may include

Gender, sexualities, families, religion, ethnicity, education, social change, health and environmental sociology.

Fall 2024 200-level courses

SOCI 202 - Constructing Social Problems

Instructor: Sean Hier

Delivery: Fully Online and Asynchronous - no class times

Students will need to complete an online quiz (approx. 15 minutes) between 5:00am and 8:00pm most Fridays

Course description

The social construction of social problems is about the ways in which human beings identify and come to think about certain issues as social problems at particular times, in specific places and with different levels of intensity. It’s also about how we avoid thinking about otherwise problematic social issues by denying, rationalizing, justifying, or downplaying their significance.

SOCI 206 A01 - Crime and Deviance

Instructor: Garry Gray

Schedule: Mondays 6:30pm - 9:20pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

What is a crime? What constitutes deviant behaviour? What are the major agencies involved in the control of crime and deviance? How effective are they?

In this course, students will be encouraged to question and to think critically about criminal justice policies and practices. Students will also be presented with different theories and explanations of crime and deviance, as well as a wide range of topics

Course outcomes/objectives

The course will provide students with the theoretical skills to evaluate policies on crime and deviance, as well as guidance on how to communicate criminological research to the general public. Overall, students will learn how to think and respond as a criminologist when confronted with different types of crime and deviant behaviour.

SOCI 206 A02 - Crime and Deviance

Instructor: Michael Ma

Schedule: Tuesdays/Wednesdays/Fridays 10:30am - 11:20am

Delivery: In Person

Course description

In this course, we will set out to think seriously about what it means to study criminology in the current context.

We will explore concepts, trends, theories, institutions and processes associated with defining, explaining, and responding to crime and deviance. We will consider the roots of contemporary ideas about deviance and social control, including our own beliefs and assumptions.

By thinking critically about the status quo, we will develop an understanding of how things came to be --and how they might be changed. This course offers an opportunity to reflect on important social issues and critically consider some taken-for-granted beliefs about crime, law, justice, and social control.

Course outcomes/objectives

Having successfully completed this course, you will be able to:

explain how crime is a social phenomenon
identify, describe, and critically analyze the various ways that crime is measured
analyze the role of social and historical context in crime and criminalization
apply various interdisciplinary theories to the study of crime and criminalization
analyze the effects of media representation on criminological issues
describe how Eurocentric perspectives might influence crime and criminalization
critically assess opposing points of view on key criminological issues
analyze the impact of colonization on Indigenous peoples in relation to the Canadian criminal justice system

Topics may include:

Right and wrong, fear of harm, causation, media, counting, consent, social response, racism, inequality and poverty.

SOCI 206 A03 - Crime and Deviance

Instructor: Tayler Zavitz

Schedule: Mondays/Thursdays from 4:30pm - 5:50pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

This course will introduce students to the key theories of crime, deviance and social control. Students will learn about both classical and contemporary theoretical explanations of crime and deviant behaviour and how these theories are reflected in our current criminal justice system.

We will cover a wide range of issues and case studies including race and crime, violence against women, crimes against animals, environmental crime and crime in the media.

SOCI 207 A01 - Crime and Deviance

Instructor: Anelyse Weiler

Schedule: Mondays/Thursdays from 11:30 - 12:45pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

How has our political and economic system rewarded environmental degradation? In a world of plenty, why do some groups in society lack access to basic needs like fresh air and clean water? What strategies for social change can effectively support human and ecological flourishing?

This course introduces an array of concepts, theories and case studies that reveal the complex
interplay between powerholders and the environment. We will focus on the unequal distribution of ecological harms and benefits across social groups, along with debates on how to address the climate crisis. We will also investigate social movements seeking to realize justice and sustainability at a local and global scale.

Knowledge and skills developed in this course will help prepare you for environmental challenges that will increasingly intersect with many career paths, and for contributing to public life as resourceful, conscientious, and critical thinkers.

Course objectives

Describe and critically evaluate various explanations for the causes of environmental degradation, including population growth, self-interest, consumerism, capitalism and colonialism.
Analyze why distinct groups of people experience disproportionate environmental harms and systematically lack equal access to environmental benefits.
Compare and assess various proposed solutions for addressing the climate crisis and environmental inequality.
Engage in effective teamwork and contribute to productive group dialogue on environmental problems.
Apply the concept of environmental justice to an issue of your choice through a persuasive op-ed or video commentary; OR critically reflect on how your volunteer experience relates to course material through an essay or video.
Critically reflect on the relevance of environmental problems, inequalities and solutions to your own life and learning, including your emotional skills.

Topics may include

capitalism, corporate power and the new climate denialism
mental health and the environment
eco-fascism
petro-masculinity
consumption and lifestyle choices
environmental justice and colonialism
political polarization
mining and agriculture
Indigenous environmental movements
civil disobedience
eco-sabotage
youth environmental activism

SOCI 211 A01 - Introduction to Sociological Research

Instructor: Simon Carroll

Schedule: Tuesdays/Wednesdays/Fridays from 12:30-1:20pm

Delivery: In Person

SOCI 235 A01 - Racialization and Ethnicity

Instructor: Seb Bonet

Schedule: Mondays/Thursdays from 8:30 - 9:20am

Delivery: In Person

Course description

In June of 2019, the image of Oscar Martinez and his two-year-old daughter, Valeria, who both drowned attempting to cross the Rio Grande into the United States, raced around the world. It prompted widespread mobilizations condemning border practices and denunciations of the dehumanizing implications of the image itself. Meanwhile, caravans of migrants continued to defy the web of bordering controls developed by Fortress North America.

On May 25th of 2020, amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, Black people in America rose up in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, while the same happened in Canada following the death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet. In the Canadian context, Black activist and political commentator Desmond Cole called for the police to be disarmed and defunded, even as he questioned the Canadian tendency to fixate on America to the exclusion of our own history of white supremacy, settler colonialism, and antiBlack racism.

And in 2021, the remains of 215 Indigenous children were discovered on the grounds of a former residential school in Kamloops. This horrifying re-confirmation of the genocidal foundations of Canadian settler colonialism comes even as Indigenous land defenders continue to be arrested and surveilled defending their territories from resource extraction.

This course takes these tragic images and events as its point of departure. We will ask, and attempt to respond to, questions like:

Why is the global crisis of displacement and migration happening and intensifying?
How are anti-Black racism and the afterlives of slavery continuing to shape Black life in North America?
How is settler colonialism evolving into a discourse of reconciliation even as its structural imperative to maintain access to Indigenous territory continues?
And how are systems like capitalism, white supremacy and settler colonialism entwined?

As we attempt to understand these systems of racialized domination, we will also try and ground ourselves in the experiences and practices of the people resisting them. What visions of liberation and flourishing are being offered amidst resistance?

We will seek to learn from land reclamation and unbordering efforts in movements for migrant justice; from the politics of abolition and transformative justice being practiced as part of Black liberation; and, from the struggles for LandBack and beyond that we see in Indigenous Resurgence movements.

Course objectives

This course aims to provide students with a wide and deep enough theoretical framework to make sense of contemporary forms of racialization and the movements that attempt to sustain and create mutualistic alternatives to domination.

The course also aims to connect theory to practice. The course will invite students to think of themselves in relation to the questions we grapple with, and will attempt to bring to life the movements that racialized empire attempts to control.

SOCI 271 - Introduction to Social Statistics

Instructor: Ruth Kampen

Schedule: Tuesdays/Wednesdays/Fridays from 9:30 - 10:20am

Lab: Thursdays or Fridays from 11:30 - 12:20

Delivery: In Person

Course description

This course introduces statistical methods for describing and analyzing quantitative data in sociology. Broadly speaking, it covers three major components:

graphical approaches to displaying data
descriptive statistics for summarizing data
inferential statistics for generalizing beyond sample data to make predictions.

This course focuses on univariate analysis (e.g., distribution and description of a single variable) and bivariate analysis (e.g., relationship between two variables).

An additional mandatory aspect of this course includes a weekly 50 minute lab session (all students must register for a lab section). Labs will take place in one of the computing facilities on campus.

The lab portion will teach you how to use a software package, SPSS, to conduct data analysis. The labs are designed to reinforce the material you are learning in the lecture. More information will be provided about the lab expectations on the first day of class.

Course objectives

The main focus of this course is on statistical methods commonly used in the analysis of social science data. It will not go into technical details about statistical theory. The goal of this course is primarily to (a) help students better understand reports and academic articles that use quantitative evidence, and (b) to prepare students to conduct elementary statistical analysis which will be required in future core courses (i.e., Soci 376), and possibly for their own research or future employment.

SOCI 281 - Sociology of Genders

Instructor: Katelin Albert

Schedule: Mondays/Thursdays from 10:00 - 11:15am

Delivery: In Person

Course description

This course offers an introduction to the social construction of sex and genders, particularly in relation to other structures of inequality such as race, class, ethnicity, and sexualities.

In this course, you will learn to sociologically examine the gendering of everyday social interactions, the role of gender in major social institutions, how gender is a main organizing factor in society, and we will look critically at the idea that sex and gender are fixed biological realities.

The course will focus on a sociological approach to sociology of genders, and readings will draw on empirical research that draws on these sociological theories and concepts. We will cover topics like family, health, education, work, gendered economies, sport, masculinities, feminist movements, postcolonial feminism and the politics of representation, gender and culture, sexualities, transgender and intersex topics, embodiment and gendered violence.

Course objectives

The overall objectives of this course are to provide a space to discuss the major theoretical approaches and debates in the sociology of genders, to explore research in the fields of gender and feminist studies, and to evaluate and apply course readings in your discussions, written work, and everyday life (locally and globally).

By the end of this course, students will have a deeper knowledge of: (1) the key theories in the sociology of genders; (2) how these theories have been used to understand gendered processes, and (3) how gender is reproduced (or resisted) on different levels, such as in discourses, interactions, structures, social relations, and in embodied ways.

Fall 2024 300-level courses

SOCI 309 - Contemporary Social Theorizing

Instructor: Steve Garlick

Schedule: Mondays and Thursdays 10:00 - 11:15am

Delivery: In Person

Course description

Social theorizing aims both to explain the world that we live in, and to think beyond the given towards a different world. It is a creative activity that is concerned with generating new ideas that can be starting points for sociological research. Theorizing is concerned with producing and taking up perspectives that allow us to ask, and to try to answer, questions concerning some of the most crucial issues in our lives.

This course builds on classical social theorizing (SOCI 210) and focuses on important theorists and concepts that emerged during the latter part of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century. We will trace the influence of classical theorists on the work of those who came after them, as well as examining innovations specific to more recent social theories.

We will consider how different social theories emerged as responses to specific historical conditions.This is not, however, a course on the history of social theory; rather, we will be primarily concerned with the contemporary relevance of the theories covered, and with how they can assist us in developing our own capacities to theorize.

Course outcomes/objectives

The course has several main objectives: (1) to gain a broad understanding of the trajectory of social theory over the latter half of the twentieth century and in recent decades; (2) to become familiar with important concepts and debates that inform social theorizing today; and (3) to gain experience in theorizing (i.e., creating and using theoretical concepts to produce new insights into contemporary social phenomena).

It is important to learn the work of influential social theorists, but the coursework that students will undertake is designed primarily to develop their abilities to theorize for themselves. This will include a final paper in which students will engage in extended theorizing of their own.

Topics covered will include

Critical theory; structuralism; micro-sociological theory; colonialism & postcolonial theory; feminist theory; poststructuralism; power; subjectivity; freedom; bodies; symbolic violence; globalization; Indigenous theorizing and new materialisms.

SOCI 345 - Sociology of Mental Health

Instructor: Andre Smith

Schedule: Tuesdays/Wednesdays/Fridays from 11:30 - 12:20

Delivery: In Person

Course description

This course provides a critical overview of the problems of mental health and illness from a sociological perspective.

Topics include: the theoretical foundations of the sociology of mental health, the social conditions that influence mental well-being, the experiences and social meanings of mental illness and its treatment, institutionalization and deinstitutionalization, and the social construction of mental disorders.

Course outcomes/objectives

The learning objectives are:

To become familiar with key sociological concepts and debates concerning the nature of mental illness.
To gain a broad understanding of the relationship between mental illness and mental health in relation to various aspects of social structure.
To develop insights into the lived experience of mental illness.
To become aware of alternate paradigms for mitigating the impact of mental illness and improving mental health.

SOCI 355 - The Corporation, Capitalism and Globalization

Instructor: Jason Miller

Schedule: Thursdays from 2:00 - 3:15pm

Delivery: Online

Course description

As the dominant economic system organizing labour, production, and the distribution of wealth, capitalism exerts a ubiquitous influence over our lives and world. Its logics and patterns shape everything from the nature of our social relationships and interactions to the lives of other species and literal ground we walk on.

Today, in an era of increasing globalization when transnational corporations wield unprecedented power—often dwarfing that of nation-states—and intersecting environmental, financial, political, and cultural crises appear to threaten civilizational breakdown, questions about capitalism’s viability and that of alternatives are once again coming to the fore.

This online course offers a critical sociological approach to these and other important questions about the corporate-capitalist imperatives, values, and processes that permeate our daily experiences—often in destructive and oppressive ways.

Through engagement with a variety of multimedia resources and an emphasis on critical discussion, the course aims to give students conceptual tools for better understanding and acting on the social systems they are part of.

Course outcomes/objectives

Students will gain a good rudimentary understanding of capitalism’s inner-workings, the roles they play in its ongoing function, the ways that it shapes their lives and the world around them, and some social movements and practices that challenge its primacy. Assignments and activities will support the development of oral and written communication skills.

Mode of delivery

This is a fully online course. Class time is split into two, roughly equal, synchronous and
asynchronous components.

For the synchronous component, one “live” meeting will take place each Thursday, from 2:00 – 3:15 pm Pacific Time. The asynchronous part involves self-directed activities assigned each week, such as watching videos and engaging in reflective writing.

Because half of the official class time happens outside the digital classroom, students should expect to spend more time on self-directed activities each week than in a regular, fully synchronous class. Consistent, effortful participation istherefore required for success.

SOCI 374 - Qualitative Research Methods

Instructor: Edwin Hodge

Schedule: Mondays and Thursdays from 2:30 - 3:45pm

Delivery: In person

Course description

This course is designed to introduce students to contemporary qualitative research methods in sociology, and to help students foster best practices in research design.

Course outcomes/objectives

To understand mainstream qualitative research methods as practiced in
sociology
To understand how Indigenous research practices both challenge and enrich
mainstream research practices
To become comfortable with Human Research Ethics Board applications,
survey and interview script construction online and digital discourse analyses and best practices in qualitative research

Topics may include

Critical discourse analysis, digital archival analysis, interview scripts and interviewing, critical research methods.

SOCI 376 - Quantitative Research Methods

Instructor: Eugene Dim

Schedule: Mondays and Thursdays from 11:30 - 12:45pm

Delivery: In person

Course description

Research is integral to sociology, and it is vital to how we understand social reality. This course provides an examination of quantitative techniques and principles in sociological research. In this course, students will understand the approaches used in quantitative research, with a specific focus on survey methods applied to study social phenomena.

Course outcomes/objectives

Through this course, you will gain a better and deeper understanding of the quantitative research process and how theory, methods, and statistical analysis are linked together to investigate social phenomena.

Through this course, you will be given an opportunity to design a research project, analyze existing survey data, and develop tangible skills to critically assess the quality of research findings. You will be engaged in a research project over the course of the term that employs population-level Canadian survey data.

Topics may include

Some of the topics we will cover for this course include:

selecting a topic for quantitative research
research questions and literature review
research design
conceptualization, operationalization and measurement of variables
questionnaire construction
sampling methods
data collection
bivariate data analysis
multivariate data analysis

SOCI 388 - Sociology of Food and Eating

Instructor: Susanna Klassen

Schedule: Mondays and Thursdays from 4:30 - 5:50pm

Delivery: Online

Course description

This course will explore some of the ways to think sociologically about food, eating and agriculture, including socio-political, economic and ecological dynamics and how they intersect.

We will learn to understand and use concepts such as food system, food security, food system sustainability and food sovereignty, and the ways that capitalism and colonialism shape food system dynamics.

We will also explore debates and concepts related to food that have emerged in sociology, but that have broad applicability to other fields and to our lives as eaters, citizens and community members.

Overall, this course will give you a starting point to think about the food on your plate in new ways, and the opportunity to explore ideas and concepts that excite you. My hope is that this course will leave you feeling inspired by the richness of insights related to food available in sociology and related fields!

Course outcomes/objectives

have a deep understanding of a variety of concepts related to the food system
be familiar with several important critical debates and inquiries around food and eating that have emerged in sociology and related fields
have a more nuanced view of food itself as an entry point to understanding a plethora of sociological dynamics
be able to discern individual and collective ways of thinking about and acting within the food system

Topics may include

food systems
foodscape
food labour and work
food security
food sovereignty
food system sustainability
capitalism
colonialism
Indigenous food sovereignty
local food systems
place-based food systems
corporate concentration
food futures
agri-food tech
food waste

SOCI 390 - Special Topics in Sociology - The Sociology of Extremism

Instructor: Edwin Hodge

Schedule: Tuesdays and Fridays from 2:30 - 3:45

Delivery: In Person

Course description

How do sociologists investigate radicalized, extremist, and conspiratorial movements? What are the pathways to radicalization, and what strategies exist to assist in the deradicalization project? This course will introduce students to the sociological investigation of extremist and conspiratorial social movements and ideologies. We will investigate their structures, beliefs, recruitment patterns, and repertoires of action, and we will see how these movements impact North American societies.

Fall 2024 400-level courses

SOCI 430A - Issues in Racialization, Ethnicity and Decolonization

Instructor: Michael Ma

Schedule: Tuesdays 11:30 - 2:20pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

In this course we will examine the way race and racialization has been carried out in a historical and institutionalized fashion.

We look at how race and racism are activities, which are man-made, artificial and created, but appear to us as if they are natural categories and real material things.

The course is premised on the assumption that “race” is a verb, not a noun. Race is not a thing. it is a practice. We racialize ourselves and we racialize other people. This is what we study in this course. But of course, we are not studying ourselves, specifically, but rather the society into which we are born.

Course outcomes/objectives

to consider how we are socially constructed (as raced subjects)
to understand the socio-historical production of racial difference
to articulate arguments in writing and presentation forms

Topics may include

whiteness
anti-Black racism in Canada
racial profiling
crime and systemic racism in the USA
economic measurements of race
gaslighting
technology and racial bias

SOCI 434 - Issues in Deviance, Crime, Law, and Social Control

Instructor: Midori Ogasawara

Schedule: Mondays 2:30 - 5:20pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

This is an advanced seminar course on surveillance and technologies that are increasingly used
in the field of crime prevention, national security, marketing, public health or welfare, and as
means of social control in general.

Today’s surveillance is often invisibly embedded in digital communication networks, so surveillance targets have been shifting from the deviant to the general population, and the boundaries between legal and illegal surveillance are being redrawn.

First, we will start with situating identification as a starting point of surveillance and learn that roles and effects of identification systems are not only the verification of a person, but also the classification and categorization of people, such as the status cards or pass system that have been historically implemented to the Indigenous Peoples in Canada.

Next, we will discuss some key theories of surveillance studies, a dynamic and interdisciplinary area of research, such as the concepts by Foucault, Agamben, Bauman and Lyon. Those theories help you find and analyze the previously unknown consequences of identification and surveillance practices, in constant references to colonial histories and neoliberal policies.

Some invited speakers will share their marginalized experiences of surveillance, intersecting race/ethnicity, gender and class.

Finally, you will choose a specific case or issue of surveillance you are interested in and write an in-depth research paper to explore possible actions to protect and improve citizenship and human rights in the digital era, individually and collectively.

Course outcomes/objectives

This is a reading-intensive and discussion-centred seminar course. The objectives of this course are achieving an advanced understanding of major issues and theories of surveillance, applying the theories to the real world and developing critical thinking on the past, present and future of surveillance technologies.

You are encouraged to open the eye to the world beyond your everyday life and electronic screen, learn from "others," both inside and outside the class, including the guest speakers, and discover the meanings of civil liberty, equity and social justice for vulnerable people and situations in global contexts.

You will also increase your abilities to identify benefits and harms of identification and surveillance systems surrounding you and take actions on the problems.

Topics may include

identification systems implemented to the Indigenous Peoples
security intelligence activities targeting the Muslims in North America,
Snowden revelations
welfare monitoring against the poor
pandemic surveillance tools (vaccine passports, contact tracing apps, GPS tracking or
health databases)
biometrics (facial recognition, fingerprinting, or DNA databases)
immigration and border control
the internet and social media
surveillance capitalism
social credit systems
“China Panic”

SOCI 436 - Issues in Sociology and Social Justice

Instructor: Bill Carroll

Schedule: Mondays and Thursdays 1:00 - 2:20pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

Sociology has, from its inception in the nineteenth century, had a complicated relationship with currents, movements and practices of social justice.

In this course, we explore that relationship, focusing on the contemporary scene and the future possibilities that lie within that scene. Although SOCI 436 is a sociology course, our definition of sociology is broad, and moreover, the course is also an elective in the interdisciplinary minor/diploma program in Social Justice Studies. I hope the course will take on an interdisciplinary flavor as our discussions progress.

The course will involve more discussion than lecture. This makes for a dynamic and interesting experience, but it also requires commitment and preparation by all members of the class. SOCI 436 is not only a seminar-style course; it is also a writing course. Throughout the term, students will write a number of small reflective essays, leading to a term paper, which is due in December.

Course outcomes/objectives

This is a capstone course, intended to stimulate critical thinking about the multifaceted
relationship between sociology as a practice of inquiry and social justice as a practice of human
emancipation.

This principal objective will guide our activities, which will include brief lectures, small group and whole class discussions, weekly workshops that will be particularly interactive and reflective writing.

Participation is crucial to this course’s success! I will begin each session with a relatively short lecture, introducing the topic and readings, and giving you some background as to how they fit into our course problematic, i.e., the complex relationship between sociology and social justice. But most of our time together will involve discussion.

Topics may include

sociology, knowledge and power
public sociology
critical sociology
sociology and alternative policies
activism, movements and solidarity
sociology, radicalism and the left

SOCI 437 - Issues in Environmental Sociology and Climate Change

Instructor: Ashley Berard

Schedule: Wednesdays 2:30 - 5:20pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

The climate crisis is happening now, and sociologists are uniquely posed to understand, deconstruct and tackle the path forward.

This seminar is based upon an in-depth examination of sociological theories, concepts and ideas that will provide us with tools to discuss climate change and environmental destruction.

The course material will reflect the societal moment we find ourselves in, considering re-emergent epistemologies and ontologies, political activism and social justice.

Topics may include

Indigenous and feminist knowledge systems
climate disaster experiences
grassroots initiatives
corporate power
our personal connection to nature
possibilities for more just and livable places for current and future generations

SOCI 438 - Issues in Contemporary Sociology

Instructor: Tayler Zavitz

Schedule: Tuesdays 2:30 - 5:20pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

This course will introduce students to the relatively new and rapidly growing field of critical animal studies (CAS).

Critical animal studies is rooted in and engages with critical theory, from a variety of disciplines, as well as social justice activism.

This course draws on this range of critical theories to better understand and challenge the commonly held beliefs about animals and the human-animal relationships that permeate our lives, specifically as we see them play out within the food, science, fashion, entertainment and pet industries.

Critical animal studies critiques the entire social system that facilitates and enforces the exploitation, property status and institutionalized oppression of animals, and challenges the human/non-human animal divide. As such, critical here refers to an active engagement with the various socially constructed ideologies and biases that influence our relationships with other animals and our daily interactions with them.

In this course, therefore, we will examine the most influential philosophical and contemporary discourses around the human-animal relationship, and how critical animal studies intersects with various other critical theory, such as environmental, feminist, anti-racism, disability and queer theory.

An underlying theme of this course will be the re-evaluation of our understandings of animals, their role within human societies, and a reconsideration of our responsibilities to them, on both an individual and collective, societal, level.

Course objectives

understand what critical animal studies is, its key theories and principles, and how it differs from work within animal studies and human-animal studies
understand the concept of intersectionality and how critical animal studies is an intersectional approach that looks at the ways in which animal issues intersect with other social justice issues
be able to use a critical animal studies perspective to inform their own relationships with animals, both in their academic work and outside of it

SOCI 499 - Honours Seminar and Thesis

Instructor: Ashley Berard

Schedule: Fridays 11:30 - 1:20pm (year long)

Delivery: In Person

Please note: you must be accepted in the sociology honours program to enroll in this course.

Spring 2025 100-level courses

SOCI 100A - Intro. to Sociology: Understanding Social Life

Instructor: Ashley Berard

Schedule: Tuesday/Wednesday/Friday 9:30am - 10:20am

Please note: students registered in 100A A01 must register into a tutorial section, selected from T01-T12

Delivery: In Person

Course description

Introduction to the study of contemporary society through the sociological lens. This course will be delivered face to face, with lecture slides posted to Brightspace at the beginning of each week.

Course outcomes/objectives

ability to explain and describe (using students’ own examples) the meaning and relevance of the sociological imagination
ability to define and articulate how the individual is influenced by the social
ability to discuss some of the primary areas of sociological interest as reviewed by the lecture, text and tutorial materials

Topics may include

sociological imagination
classical and contemporary theory
research methods
crime, deviance and technology

SOCI 100B - Intro. to Sociology: Understanding Contemporary Society

Instructor: Edwin Hodge

Schedule: Tuesday/Wednesday/Friday 10:30am - 11:20am

Please note: students registered in 100B A01 must register into a tutorial section, selected from T01-T06

Delivery: In Person

Course description

Introduction to the study of contemporary society through the sociological lens. This course will be delivered face to face, with lecture slides posted to Brightspace at the beginning of each week.

Course outcomes/objectives

ability to explain and describe (using students’ own examples) the meaning and relevance of the sociological imagination
ability to define and articulate how the individual is influenced by the social
ability to discuss some of the primary areas of sociological interest as reviewed by the lecture, text and tutorial materials

Topics may include

gender
families
religion
ethnicity
education
social media
social determinants of health
environmental sociology

SOCI 100B - Intro. to Sociology: Understanding Contemporary Society

Instructor: Edwin Hodge

Schedule: Tuesday/Wednesday/Friday 1:30pm - 2:20pm

Please note: students registered in 100B A02 must register into a tutorial section, selected from T13-T21

Delivery: In Person

Course description

Introduction to the study of contemporary society through the sociological lens. This course will be delivered face to face, with lecture slides posted to Brightspace at the beginning of each week.

Course outcomes/objectives

ability to explain and describe (using students’ own examples) the meaning and relevance of the sociological imagination
ability to define and articulate how the individual is influenced by the social
ability to discuss some of the primary areas of sociological interest as reviewed by the lecture, text and tutorial materials

Topics may include

gender
families
religion
ethnicity
education
social media
social determinants of health
environmental sociology

SOCI 103 - Settler Colonialism and Canadian Society

Instructor: Ashley Berard

Schedule: Tuesday/Wednesday/Friday 1:30pm - 2:20pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

In this course, we will explore the historical development of Canada as a settler colonial state and discuss how settler colonialism continues to structure Canada’s political, economic, legal and social institutions.

At the same time, we will emphasize the Indigenous values, practices, traditions and modes of governance, kinship and nationhood that continue to exist in contention with settler Canada.

Finally, we will ask what it would mean to decolonize. In other words, if the horizon of peaceful coexistence so often invoked through Indigenous treaties were to be materialized, what sorts of transformations might that demand of the country we know as Canada?

Content warning

Settler colonialism is inherently violent. The topics being covered in this course will at times be heavy and challenging to work through.

I will do my best to provide adequate content warnings on specific aspects, but please note that in taking this course, you will be exposed to content about the nature of tactics of colonialism and the vast impacts these tactics have on people, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

You are welcome to request time to talk to me about any concerns you have on the content being presented.

Spring 2025 200-level courses

SOCI 204 - Self, Identity and Society

Instructor: Edwin Hodge

Schedule: Tuesday/Wednesday/Friday 1:30pm - 2:20pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

An exploration of the sociology of social interaction, with an emphasis on understanding the way self-identity is formed in social context and social activity. Explores the ways in which society, culture, inequality and history affect how individuals define their experiences and themselves.

Course objectives

ability to explain and describe the major sociological theories about the development of identity
to gain an understanding of how race, class, gender, age, ability and other social categories influence a person’s identity
to learn how social inequality manifests through identity formation

Topics may include

classical and contemporary sociological theory
culture, subculture and countercultural movements and identities
social inequality
race, gender, class, ethnicity, ability/disability

SOCI 206 - Crime and Deviance

Instructor: Mike Ma

Schedule: Tuesday/Wednesday/Friday 9:30am - 10:20am

Delivery: In Person

Course description

In this course, we will set out to think seriously about what it means to study criminology
in the current context.

By thinking critically about the status quo, we will develop an understanding of how things came to be--and how they might be changed. This course offers an opportunity to reflect on important social issues and critically consider some taken-for-granted beliefs about crime, law, justice and social control.

Course objectives

explain how crime is a social phenomenon
identify, describe and critically analyze the various ways that crime is measured
analyze the role of social and historical context in crime and criminalization
apply various interdisciplinary theories to the study of crime and criminalization
analyze the effects of media representation on criminological issues
describe how Eurocentric perspectives might influence crime and criminalization
critically assess opposing points of view on key criminological issues
analyze the impact of colonization on Indigenous peoples in relation to the Canadian
criminal justice system

Topics may include

right and wrong
fear of harm
causation
media
counting
consent
social response
racism
inequality
poverty

SOCI 210 - Classical Social Theorizing

Instructor: Sean Hier

Schedule: Asynchronous - no class times

*Students will need to complete two online exams between 5:00am and 8:00pm on Fridays during the term.

Delivery: Online

Course description

SOCI 210 is a fully online, asynchronous course. There are no live sessions. All lectures can be viewed on your own time. Exams will be completed online.

The course examines the emergence of sociology in Europe and America, its founding ideas and some its early theorists.

The main ideas, concepts, and theorists composing the history of European and American sociology are reviewed, as well as the social and historical contexts from which they developed.

The course centers on the canonical theories of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber but also considers the philosophical foundations of classical theorizing and some of the ways that the traditional canon has been expanded.

SOCI 211 - Introduction to Sociological Research

Instructor: Simon Carroll

Schedule: Tuesday/Wednesday/Friday 12:30pm - 1:20pm

Delivery: In Person

SOCI 215 - Class and Social Inequality

Instructor: Finn Deschner

Schedule: Tuesday/Wednesday/Friday 11:30am - 12:20pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

This course explores class conflict and social inequality, both in Canada and in the wider global context. We will move through a range of contemporary Canadian and global sites of struggle, from colonialism to patriarchy, to labour movements and climate change.

As we shift through these different topics, we will gain a better sense of the intersectional nature of inequality - the ways in which systems of power interlock and overlap to shape our social worlds.

How does inequality come to be seen as normal in our society? In what ways do questions of climate change entangle with colonialism? Importantly: if we understand inequality as struggle and class as always in tension, can we identify opportunities for change?

Course objectives

to become familiar with intersecting systems of domination in Canada and beyond
- consider: race, gender, class, and others
to better understand the role of capitalism in inequality - this includes an introduction to Marxism
- explore: class structures of advanced capitalist society

Topics may include

theoretical foundations of inequality
class
intersectionality
gender
race and racialization
colonialism
capitalism

SOCI 271 - Introduction to Social Statistics

Instructor: Ruth Kampen

Schedule: Tuesdays/Wednesdays/Fridays from 10:30 - 11:20am

Lab: Thursdays from 1:30 - 2:20 or Fridays from 11:30 - 12:20

Delivery: In Person

Course description

This course introduces statistical methods for describing and analyzing quantitative data in
sociology.

Broadly speaking, it covers three major components:

graphical approaches to displaying data
descriptive statistics for summarizing data
inferential statistics for generalizing beyond sample data to make predictions

This course focuses on univariate analysis (e.g., distribution and description of a single variable) and bivariate analysis (e.g., relationship between two variables).

Course objectives

The main focus of this course is on statistical methods commonly used in the analysis of social science data. It will not go into technical details about statistical theory.

The goal of this course is primarily to (a) help students better understand reports and academic articles that use quantitative evidence, and (b) to prepare students to conduct elementary statistical analysis which will be required in future core courses (i.e., Soci 376), and possibly for their own research or future employment.

SOCI 285 - Health Over the Life Course

Instructor: Katelin Albert

Schedule: Mondays and Thursdays 2:30pm - 3:50pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

Held tight in time’s grip, all things in the world undergo change over the life course – particularly health. This course examines sociological theories and consequences of this ever-present process, with particular attention to inequalities.

It focuses on notions of health, wellness, and the ways in which people differently experience health and health care. We will (1) examine some of the main sociological ways of conceptualizing and studying health across the life course, (2) learn social factors and social institutions that shape individual health trajectories,and (3) critically discuss health care experiences.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, students will have a deeper knowledge of:

the key concepts and theories involved in studying health from a life course perspective
why social determinants of population health are differentially expressed and experienced across the life course and across subgroups
the social relations and social inequalities that impact health, health care, and health experiences

The approach taken in this course will also be largely informed by a broad consideration of the entire life span, better known in sociology as “the life course perspective,” which posits that people are never fully separated from the impact of their origins.

Topics may include

We will cover core themes in sociology, including social inequality, colonization and health, social networks and linked lives, early childhood development, sexuality, sexual health, STDs and stigma, trans and intersex health, mental health, cumulative adversity and resiliency, and navigating health disruptions over the life course.

Spring 2025 300-level courses

SOCI 307 - Moral Panics

Instructor: Sean Hier

Schedule: Mondays and Thursdays 1:00pm - 2:15pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

It really happened: In 1907, the City of Chicago passed the first municipal censorship ordinance in America, empowering police to censor and ban movies that they thought posed a threat to public safety. Shakespeare’s Macbeth was the first to go.

It really happened: In 1937, the City of New York dumped more than one thousand slot and pinball machines into the Long Island Sound to discourage young men from congregating in arcades. Pinball was banned in the city from 1942 to 1976.

It really happened: In 1983, daycare workers in California were falsely accused of practicing Satanism and ritualistically abusing children. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, reports of satanic child abductions, ritual torture, and cannibalism proliferated across the US and Canada.

It really happened: In March 2020, North American retailers limited the number of toilet paper packages customers were permitted to buy to discourage ‘panic buying’ as the novel coronavirus made its way across the continent.

Each of these examples are commonly understood as moral panics. This course investigates moral panics by exploring historical and contemporary social reactions to perceived threats.

Topics might include social reactions to drug use, youth conflict, rave dance parties, school shootings, muggings, clothing styles, child murderers, racially motivated police violence, Satanism, climate change, and reconciliation politics.

The course will be presented in 3 modules or units:

Conventional (or traditional/classical) moral panic studies (1960s-1980s).
Efforts to rethink moral panic studies (in light of changing media and politics in the 1990s and early 2000s).
The expansion of moral panic studies after 2008 (to new and unconventional areas of research like ‘good’ or progressive moral panics).

SOCI 309 - Contemporary Social Theorizing

Instructor: Mike Ma

Schedule: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 12:30 - 1:20pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

What are social practices of everyday life (Henri Lefebvre)? How do we engage with the social?

For myself, I have engaged with the “social practices of everyday life” in my involvement with social movement building and resistance to neoliberalism for over 25 years. But through this experience I have also experienced immense and overwhelming social containment, absorption and co-option of these efforts.

It is enough to make someone cynical about being involved in any kind of social resistance to the state. And I have been thinking and trying to theorize about these “social practices” of resistance for some time.

Most recently, for the last 10 or 15 years, I have been involved in working with peers to mobilize community in the area of harm reduction and overdose prevention, but it isn’t easy. On the level of everyday organizing it often feels like all our efforts to change society are met with the impossible task of over-turning sedimented power and social inertia.

What does this mean for “Contemporary Social Theorizing”? What is the point of theorizing society if it isn’t connected to the world live in? What is the point of theorizing if it does not change anything?

In this course, we will explore these exact questions and challenges. We will examine how social theory can be a tool for understanding and critiquing the complex dynamics of power, resistance, and co-option in contemporary society.

We'll investigate how theoretical frameworks can illuminate the mechanisms of neoliberal absorption and help us develop more resilient strategies for social change. Through engaging with key thinkers from Marx to intersectional theorists, we'll consider how theory can inform praxis and vice versa.

Students will be encouraged to apply theoretical concepts to their own experiences of activism, community organizing and/or the absence of such experience, fostering a dialectical relationship between abstract ideas and concrete realities.

Course outcomes/objectives

This course aims to give students the analytical tools to navigate the complexities of social change, while critically examining the role and limitations of theory itself in transforming society.

SOCI 312 - White Collar Crime

Instructor: Garry Gray

Schedule: Mondays 6:30 - 9:20pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

What is white collar crime? Why is it important to study the crimes of the powerful? This course will explore an often neglected but critically important area of criminology.

Students will be presented with different theories and explanations of white collar crime, as well as a wide range of closely related fields such as corporate crime, elite deviance, green (environmental) crime, and institutional corruption.

The course will also cover a wide range of topics, including financial fraud, market manipulation, health and safety crimes, and the corruption of scientific knowledge. The sessions will be divided between lectures, class discussion and videos on current events.

Course outcomes/objectives

Students will learn how to think and respond as a criminologist when confronted with different types of white collar crime and elite deviance.

The course will also provide students with the theoretical skills to evaluate policies on white collar crime, as well as guidance on how to communicate research on white collar crime to the general public.

SOCI 316 - Social Movements

Instructor: Iman Fadaei

Schedule: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays 11:30 - 12:20pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

Social movements (SMs) are the source of societal renewal. Either being universalist in their outlooks and mandates, like labor or social justice movements, or particularistic, such as those catered on identity politics, SMs bring issues and grievances to public attention that had not been parts of institutional mandates.

This course will introduce the students to the various aspects of SMs. Through lectures, discussions and hands-on research activities, students will explore various facets of SMs and develop essential research skills to investigate real-world related issues. (The course will be in-person.)

Course outcomes/objectives

develop a comprehensive understanding of SMs and the many complexities at play in it.
define genuine questions about SMs and actively participate in research to answer them
articulate how contemporary social theorizing applies to modern societies in understanding SM
foster critical thinking and analytical skills through research-based assignments and projects

SOCI 318 - Social Change

Instructor: Peyman Vahabzadeh

Schedule: Thursdays, 2:30 - 5:20pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

This course offers, in relative depth, descriptions and analyses anti-systemic movements: autonomous movements that have (tried to) break away with the state-system and capitalism.

All states—regardless of their ideological underpinnings—are founded on violence and continue to function based on violent proceduralisms that justified through the hegemonic construction of citizens. The violence of capitalism, which continues to destroy all life on earth—human and nonhuman—has reached its pinnacle with no prospect of declining.

This course shows how some movements have broken away with the violent civilizational frameworks of our contemporary age. These autonomous movements enact participatory democracy and egalitarian social systems.

The course offers the study of autonomous movements that may hold a view of the future of humanity. The course entails descriptive accounts of these movements that are enriched by theoretical perspectives.

Course outcomes/objectives

The students will be familiarized, in relative depth, with anti-systemic and autonomous movements in contemporary world. They will learn that we are not sentenced to live under nation-states and capitalism. Key theoretical components of these movements will be provided. Students are encouraged to reflect on the cases they study.

Topics may include

anti-systemic movements
autonomous movements in the world
alternatives to current systemic violence
participatory and collective action

SOCI 321 - Work, Globalization and Labour Movements

Instructor: Anelyse Weiler

Schedule: Mondays and Thursdays, 11:30 - 12:45pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

Why do many people commit decades of their lives to working in jobs that are precarious, inadequately remunerated, and unsatisfying? What does the future hold for more dignified work, particularly given the climate crisis? How do workers build working-class power to establish greater democracy in the workplace?

In this course, we will focus on inequalities facing workers along with organized resistance. In addition to investigating labour history, we will examine current trends in the world of work. This course will give you tools to make more informed decisions about your own career trajectory and opportunities for solidarity.

Course outcomes/objectives

Describe some of the key concepts, theories, and debates in the sociology of labour.
Conduct an in-depth comparative case study on a labour policy or law of relevance to Canadians or British Columbians and convey your research in a professional report or video format OR critically examine labour issues facing workers in a career pathway in which you are interested OR create a profile of labour organizers in partnership with a labour non-profit.
Diagnose emerging and ongoing issues of workplace inequality and identify evidence-based solutions.;
Critically reflect on issues related to work, labour, and globalization as they relate to your own experiences and career aspirations.

Topics may include

sex work
precarious work
climate change and green jobs
gig economy
emotional labour
care work
trade union and alt-labour organizing
service and retail work
racialized labour markets
food chain workers
worker-owned cooperatives

SOCI 345 A01 - Sociology of Mental Health

Instructor: Andre Smith

Schedule: Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 10:30 - 11:20am

Delivery: In Person

Course description

This course provides a critical overview of the problems of mental health and illness from a sociological perspective. Topics include: the theoretical foundations of the sociology of mental health, the social conditions that influence mental well-being, the experiences and social meanings of mental illness and its treatment, institutionalization and deinstitutionalization, and the social construction of mental disorders.

Course outcomes/objectives

The learning objectives are:

to become familiar with key sociological concepts and debates concerning the nature of mental illness
to gain a broad understanding of the relationship between mental illness and mental health in relation to various aspects of social structure
to develop insights into the lived experience of mental illness
to become aware of alternate paradigms for mitigating the impact of mental illness and improving mental health

SOCI 345 A02 - Sociology of Mental Health

Instructor: Simon Carroll

Schedule: Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 9:30 - 10:20am

Delivery: In Person

SOCI 374 - Qualitative Research Methods

Instructor: Anelyse Weiler

Schedule: Mondays, 2:30 -5:20pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

How do sociologists conduct qualitative research? This course introduces students to several qualitative research methods used in the social sciences.

We will also cover core aspects of the research process including design, sampling, data collection and analysis, ethics, reciprocity, and publication for various audiences.

Students will carry out their own original research using methods learned in this course, which provides an opportunity to gain hands-on experience. Previous students have published their research in undergraduate journals.

Developing strong skills and practical experience in qualitative methods is useful for a wide range of careers, including academia, market research, government consultation, and non-profits.

Course outcomes/objectives

Describe some of the key concepts and theories in qualitative research, along with approaches including Indigenous and participatory research methods.
Conduct an original research project based on qualitative interviews, including a proposal, plan for ethical conduct, 2-3 high-quality interviews, data analysis and formal essay modelled on the style of a journal article.
Apply skills in select qualitative research techniques taught in the course, such as interviewing, writing memos and coding.
Practice reflexivity and ethical conduct in research.
Collaborate with team members by actively engaging in course material.

SOCI 376 - Quantitative Research Methods

Instructor: Eugene Dim

Schedule: Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 1:30 -2:20pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

Research is integral to sociology, and it is vital to how we understand social reality. This course provides an examination of quantitative techniques and principles in sociological research.

In this course, students will understand the approaches used in quantitative research, with a specific focus on survey methods applied to study social phenomena.

Course outcomes/objectives

Through this course, you will gain a better and deeper understanding of the quantitative research process and how theory, methods and statistical analysis are linked together to investigate social phenomena.

Through this course, you will be given an opportunity to design a research project, analyze existing survey data and develop tangible skills to critically assess the quality of research findings. You will be engaged in a research project over the course of the term that employs population-level Canadian survey data.

Topics may include

selecting a topic for quantitative research
research questions and literature review
research design
conceptualization, operationalization, and measurement of variables
questionnaire construction
sampling methods
data collection
bivariate data analysis
multivariate data analysis

SOCI 388 - Sociology of Food and Eating

Instructor: Susanna Klassen

Schedule: Mondays and Thursdays from 4:30 - 5:50pm

Delivery: Online

Course description

This course will explore some of the ways to think sociologically about food, eating and agriculture, including socio-political, economic and ecological dynamics and how they intersect.

We will also explore debates and concepts related to food that have emerged in sociology, but that have broad applicability to other fields and to our lives as eaters, citizens and community members.

Course outcomes/objectives

have a deep understanding of a variety of concepts related to the food system
be familiar with several important critical debates and inquiries around food and eating that have emerged in sociology and related fields
have a more nuanced view of food itself as an entry point to understanding a plethora of sociological dynamics
be able to discern individual and collective ways of thinking about and acting within the food system

Topics may include

food systems
foodscape
food labour and work
food security
food sovereignty
food system sustainability
capitalism
colonialism
Indigenous food sovereignty
local food systems
place-based food systems
corporate concentration
food futures
agri-food tech
food waste

SOCI 390 - Special Topics in Sociology - Social Dimensions of Substance Use and Addiction

Instructor: Michael Ma

Schedule: Tuesdays and Fridays, 2:30 -3:45pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

This course critically examines the social dimensions of substance use and addiction from a sociological perspective. It explores theories of drug use, social constructions of addiction, impacts across different populations, drug policy and regulation, harm reduction approaches, and drug-related social movements.

The course takes a critical approach to biomedical models of addiction and considers how social factors shape patterns of drug use and related harms.

Course outcomes/objectives

identify social and structural factors influencing the understanding of drugs
demonstrate knowledge of how drug use and harms vary across social groups
understand drugs and their connection with social disparity, health, and criminalization
critically analyze the relationship between social norms and drug use

Spring 2025 400-level courses

SOCI 431 - Issues in Social Theorizing

Instructor: Peyman Vahabzadeh

Schedule: Tuesdays 4:30 - 7:20pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

This course is called “Reading Marx,” and this is exactly what we are going to do in this course: we mainly read the original, classical works of Karl Marx, plus a small number of secondary literature that expand or elaborate on specific components of Marx’s works.

Karl Marx provided the first systematic and the most influential critique of capitalism and colonialism, and no critique of the contemporary, possibly fatal, global crisis will be complete without incorporating the insights of Marx. The students are required to keep up with the readings and engage with the material in class.

Course outcomes/objectives

By the end of this course, the students will have a sufficient and foundational knowledge of Marx. They will understand that the critique of status quo should be systemic.

They will learn that no critique of contemporary society is sufficient without a ruthless critique of capitalist production, distribution, and exploitation of labour. This course will prepare students for further studies of Marx.

Topics may include

critique
capitalism
epochs
labour
alienation
surplus value, use and exchange values
commodification and commodity fetishism
essence of humanity
human-nature relationship
colonization

SOCI 435 - Issues in Gender, Sexuality and Trans+ Communities

Instructor: Aaron Devor

Schedule: Wednesdays 6:30 - 9:20pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

This 3-hour seminar will explore Transgender, Nonbinary, Two-Spirit and other gender-diverse (Trans+) people’s lives and social issues.

Topics may include

experiences of gender-variant people in other times and places
some of the challenges faced by Trans+ people today in terms of access to health care and legal recognition
issues related to transition for children, youth and adults
challenges faced in families of origin and families created
the treatment of trans people in the media
challenges faced by Trans+ people in sports
trans activism

SOCI 436 - Issues in Sociology and Social Justice

Instructor: Eugene Dim

Schedule: Mondays 2:30 - 5:20pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

Every criminal justice policy and operation is a political decision. Our ideas and experiences of crime, punishment and the criminal can inform our evaluation and perception of the political system.

This course explores the linkages between politics and crime. This course will also explore how individuals are implicated in the interaction between the political and criminal justice systems.

Course outcomes/objectives

Every criminal justice policy and operation is a political decision. Our ideas and experiences of crime, punishment, and the criminal can inform our evaluation and perception of the political system.

This course explores the linkages between politics and crime. This course will also explore how individuals are implicated in the interaction between the political and criminal justice systems.

Topics may include

Some of the topics we will cover for this course include: the state and death; the politics of punishment; the linkages between the state, crime, and the individual; corruption; the state and corporate crime; state violence; and police brutality.

SOCI 438 - Issues in Contemporary Sociology

Instructor: Seb Bonet

Schedule: Mondays and Thursdays 11:30 - 12:50pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

In the wake of October 7th, 2023, radicals have renewed commitments to internationalism. As students hold down encampments across Turtle Island, anti-war activists blockade weapons manufacturers, and anti-Zionist Jews engage in countless direct actions, Palestinian resistance to settler colonial occupation has inspired new constellations of solidarity to emerge across all manner of divisions and borders. As these constellations take shape, the practices producing them are posing old and new challenges to theorizations of internationalism.

In this course, we will investigate current and historical practices of internationalism. Historically, we will attempt to glean lessons from Tecumseh and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Marx and Bakunin’s International Workingmen’s Association, and countless other examples, like the anti-globalization movement, the Third World Women’s Alliance and the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.

In the present, even as we look closely at Palestine, we will also pay attention to internationalism in the context of Oaxaca, the Zapatistas and Haiti. Cumulatively, these practices pose sharp theoretical questions to people engaging in Third and Fourth world internationalist solidarity.

How should organizers respond to the question of armed struggle? What organizational forms produce the webbing that holds immensely diverse coalitions together? How is leadership, strategy and decision-making practiced in internationalist contexts? And, at the intimate scale, how does the stretching demanded by internationalism show up in our relationships, affinity groups and local contexts?

Course outcomes/objectives

A common complaint amongst sociology students is that, by fourth year, you are intimately acquainted with the many social problems that beset us, and relatively much less aware of efforts to resolve them.

This course’s primary objective is to counter this phenomenon by foregrounding many historical and contemporary experiments in creating mutualistic alternatives to colonial and imperial domination. And we will do so even as we continue to practice the rigours of sociology: making careful analytic cuts into the world to better grasp it; apprehending how social logics of oppression are contended with through relations of struggle; and, showing the liberatory role that sociological theory itself can play by helping us make sense of the world that is to be transformed.

SOCI 471 - Intermediate Social Statistics

Instructor: Ruth Kampen

Schedule: Wednesdays 10:00 - 12:50pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

The purpose of this course is to introduce useful statistical methods (especially multivariate regression models) for social scientists, including various extensions of linear models, logistic models, and count models.

In each class, we will both study the statistical model and its empirical application in substantive fields. For sociology students, the most helpful way to study a statistical model is to look at how it can be employed to address sociological questions in practice.

The course provides an overview of useful techniques, rather than going into great technical details. We will discuss some pertinent statistical theories in class sessions, but the emphasis will be on applications.

You will learn to conduct data analysis with the aid of a software package, Stata. The computing facilities on campus have Stata on their computers. If you would like to work with Stata on your own computer, you may want to purchase a . As an important part of this course, the lab will provide instruction on how to use Stata.

Attendance at labs is mandatory. The labs reinforce the material introduced during lecture and provide an opportunity to practice running models and interpreting the output.

Students will be evaluated through lab homework assignments, an in-class exam and a quantitative research paper which will require synthesizing the course and lab material using the analysis tools learned.

Course outcomes/objectives

At the end of this course, you should have sufficient familiarity with regression techniques to (1) feel more confident reading literature that uses advanced regression techniques, and (2) apply these procedures properly in your own research.

This course will also lay the foundation for more advanced studies in statistical models. It is hoped that some of you will use the methods learned in this course in your own thesis/dissertation research.

SOCI 499 - Honours Seminar and Thesis

Instructor: Ashley Berard

Schedule: Fridays 11:30 - 1:20pm (year long)

Delivery: In Person

Please note: you must be accepted in the sociology honours program to enroll in this course.

Directed Studies

Directed studies are offered under SOCI 490.

Occasionally, directed studies courses may be taken by fourth-year students under a faculty member’s supervision.

They may count as an elective course or a required 400-level course with permission of the department.

Please get in touch with the undergraduate adviser for details.

Individually supervised courses

Waitlists

Sometimes certain students who are waitlisted for a course get priority. Normally, this happens in two circumstances:

Fourth-year students who have not yet completed the two 400-level courses required to fulfill their graduating requirements are given priority to get into those courses. Upper-level SOCI Majors may also be given priority to registration in our required 300-level courses.
In some 200- and 300-level courses with heavy demand, instructors may give priority to waitlisted students who attend the first few classes of the term.

If you are waitlisted for a course you need to graduate, contact our administrative officer, Sara Harding. Please do not contact the instructor of the course directly.

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