Waseda University

This course studies basic ideas of sociology focusing on empirical topics such as city, gender, and religion. Sociologists such as Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and Jurgen Habemas are closely examined to understand the basic ideas of theories in contemporary sociology. Course topics include materialism, ideology and critical theory, social structure, religion and functionalism, social structures and social action, feminist and gender theories. Text: Pip Jones and Liz Bradbury, INTRODUCING SOCIAL THEORY.

This is the first half of a semester-long class which introduces elementary statistical approaches in social science. The course covers basics of statistical inference and programming skills that can be used to answer questions in real world social phenomena, policy analysis, and academic research. Students derive and explain key measures of elementary statistical analysis. They conduct elementary statistical analysis using a programming language and collect datasets and conduct research using skills introduced. Assessment: class participation, exam.

At present, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are adopted as conceptual goals for international cooperation. In order for global improvement, they have the goals for 17 items including poverty, education, food, environment and gender. Institutions engaged in international cooperation as The United Nation, individual governments, international organizations, and NGOs, are working on SDGs to achieve as many goals as possible. This course is divided into the first and second half, in which theoretical work and practical work in workshop are involved.