Sociology

This course will teach students to recognize, assess, and generate evidence-based crime policies across a range of contexts and criminal justice domains such as police, courts, and corrections. This will include a focus on how government and non-government agencies can develop "upstream" responses; that is policies and programs that aim to prevent crime before they become "downstream" problems requiring responses by the criminal justice system. This requires an evidence-based approach that emphasizes problem solving and analysis. Topics will include program design and evaluation and the course will cover various crime prevention approaches such as crime prevention through environmental design, situational crime prevention, social prevention, and developmental crime prevention.

This course examines the link between migration and development. A large share of the migration in the world goes from the periphery in the world system to core states. The course covers the causes of migration, the effect of migration on the sending countries, and the ways in which the unequal relations between the countries influence migration. Migration is studied on a micro-level, as an individual decision to move to another country, or as a family strategy in sending regions to increase income. The course also considers how these remittances affect communities in sending regions. The social networks between sending and receiving countries drive migration and how states influence migration streams are also studied. The course identifies the causes of migration and how migration affects both sending and receiving countries.

Students learn about the science of wellbeing, including wellbeing as a measure of welfare and its different conceptualizations such as evaluations and experiences of happiness; behavioral scientific phenomena uniquely captured by wellbeing such as adaptation to changing life circumstances, our tendency to make mistakes and mispredict what actually makes us happy, and relative comparisons (or jealousy); and how happiness differs between individuals and societies. Importantly, students then learn how to apply these insights to policy-making, including policy design, appraisal, and evaluation. Students are being familiarized with wellbeing theories and frameworks; data, measurement, and survey design; methods for wellbeing policy appraisal, including cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis; wellbeing policy evaluation; social welfare; and wellbeing interventions.

The aim of this course is two-fold: to take a retrospective view to trace the evolution of media sociology, and a prospective view to assess current challenges confronting sociological analyses of the new media paradigm – monopoly-owned and user-driven digital platforms – the business models which underpin them, including algorithmic journalism, and their perceived "surveillance" effects.

Through the teaching of this course, students can master the basic concepts, basic theories and methods of social administration. It covers social service plan formulation, service organization organization design, personnel motivation and leadership, service coordination and supervision, project evaluation, and institutional development. 

This course explores how people engage in political activism to challenge structures of domination and oppression, and to bring about social and political change. It explores key debates about political activism and social change in contemporary societies, drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives (e.g. sociology, political science, cultural studies, oral history) and different case studies (e.g. public housing, environment activism, gender and LGBTQ activism, anti-racist movements, black power movements, workplace and labor activism, student activism). 

The course introduces the evolution of the social service professions in South Africa and the global, national, and regional contexts within which they work. It focuses on the socio-political context created by pre- and post-democratic social policies within which social services in South Africa are now delivered. The course provides an introduction to the main policies, legislation, and programs that shape the developmental context in which social service professions now work in South Africa. It also introduces the global and national trends that impact on social service provisions in the South. Lastly, the course reviews the specific roles of social service professionals in promoting human wellbeing. Assessment: coursework (50%), final exam (50%).

This course explores the processes through which we come to experience our body as sexed, gendered, and sexualized, and situates them in particular political and economic contexts at specific historical moments. We take the “body” as a focal site through which power is exercised and subverted. Rather than viewing the body as what is “naturally” given, we examine how bodies are constantly made and remade through knowledge practices and political struggles. Drawing on the theories and methods developed in cultural anthropology, feminist and queer theories, and feminist STS (science and technology studies), we ask how the ideologies of normativity and productivity are built into seemingly “natural” bodies. We consider debates about reproduction, sciences of sex/gender/ sexuality, and experiences of illness that allow us to ask how bodies come to matter. Students develop the ability to critically analyze diverse materials ranging from pop culture to scientific literature that contribute to shaping the body as sexed, gendered, and sexualized; Students apply theories and methods from cultural anthropology, feminist and queer studies, and feminist science and technology studies (STS) to explore how power dynamics operate in the (re)construction of bodies; and Students enhance their ability to effectively communicate and collaborate with people from diverse backgrounds—through active participation in group discussions, projects, and interactive learning activities.

This course introduces definitions, concepts, and debates relating to museums and heritage, and associated cultural organizations and industries. It draws on both theory and contemporary practice to encourage students to think critically and reflexively, and to interrogate the roles of museum and heritage institutions in the past, present and future. It poses questions, such as: What are the different roles played by museums and heritage, and the people who work in these sectors? Who and what are these institutions for? Who do they reach and speak to, and who is excluded or marginalized in the spaces and discourses of museums and heritage? Scholarly texts are combined with policy and industry materials, and lectures and seminars are augmented by visits to museums and heritage sites.