This course will challenge your views on a wide range of issues that affect us all. It will also excite your interest in a unique sociological way of understanding your world. We will analyze the globalization of culture, emerging patterns of class, race, and gender inequality in Canada and internationally, criminal and deviant behaviour, and so on. You will learn to understand these and other pressing social issues by analyzing the way the social world is organized. These topics are further taken up in the sequel to this course, SOC150H1: Introduction to Sociology II: Sociological Inquiries.

In the sequel to SOC100H1: Introduction to Sociology I: Sociological Perspectives, this course will explore in more depth the topic of social inequality and the contemporary debates that animate sociology. We may like to think of ourselves as perfectly free but powerful social forces open up some opportunities and close off others, constraining our freedom and helping to make us what we are. By examining the operation of these social forces, sociology can help us know ourselves. The course is also about skills-building, skills useful not only for success at U of T, but beyond the walls of the university.

This course has two goals. It aims to familiarize students with current challenges and dynamics within Arab societies. It seeks to help students develop a critical perspective on prevalent analytical frameworks such as culturalist, orientalist analyses applied to the region. To achieve this, we will use a controversy, conflict, or current event as an entry point to illuminate one or more dimensions of the society we are studying. The countries studied will vary from session to session to reflect the socio-economic, cultural, religious, and political diversity of the region, as well as the common challenges facing these countries. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

This course will explore how changes in technology, economy, ecology, culture, and other factors shape how individual lives and social relations tend to unfold. Much of the research and theory that social scientists have produced on the “life course” has focused on how historical events and trends, such as war, economic depression, and trends in family-life have re-shaped life transitions and aging. Those latter changes in turn lead to broad social changes that influence subsequent generations in new ways. In this course we will not be solely concerned with changes in and from the past. We will also keep an eye on the future, and ask how technological changes related to bodies, such as genetic engineering and bioelectric implants, might alter the trajectory of lives and social relations of future generations. Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

This seminar will trace the evolution of theoretical approaches to sexuality in social theory over the past century. The course will begin with an examination of critical psychoanalytic works, progressing through radical feminist and social constructionist theories. Students will then engage with Foucauldian analysis and its critiques, leading to an exploration of post-queer theoretical developments. The latter part of the course will focus on contemporary frameworks that investigate the complex relationships between sexuality and broader societal structures. Particular attention will be given to cutting-edge research in sociology that explores how sexuality intersects with state formation, late-modern capitalism, and sexual stratification. Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

This seminar introduces the famous idea that “demography is destiny”, and then explores this assertion’s relevance and validity through a series of historical and contemporary case studies. "Demography is destiny" means that a population's size, age structure, and other demographic characteristics significantly influence its future economic, social, and political trajectory, essentially dictating its "destiny". Examples include aging populations in developed countries, rapid population growth in developing countries, brain drain(gain) due to migration, migration’s effect on generational well-being, political instability from demographic shifts, gender shifts in education and professions, pandemics effects on medicine and public health, technology and labor market dynamics, and family/household change. We will apply sociological perspectives and reasoning to understand how demographic changes play a significant role, but will stress that other factors like government policies, technological advancements, and social changes also influence society. That is, we will learn how the consequences of demographic trends differ based on a society’s specific economic and social conditions. Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

Introduction to the history, nature, and role of sociological theory, through an examination of the works of key classical theorists such as Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, and others. Restricted to sociology majors and specialists.

Introduction in quantitative social science research from descriptive statistics to hypothesis testing using various strategies for the analysis of bivariate relationships. Restricted to sociology majors and specialists.

Introduction to the methods and issues of qualitative research, the theories, methods for data collection and analysis, and the personal and ethical issues relating to qualitative research. Restricted to sociology majors and specialists.

This course reviews theories of urban genesis and urban form; the interrelationship of urbanization, industrialization and modernization, issues in urban living (housing, transportation, urban-renewal, poverty, unemployment, etc.); urban social networks (ethnic and cultural heterogeneity, neighbourhood, community and other voluntary associations).

The nature and meaning of work in relation to changes in the position of the professions, unions and government, of women and minority groups, and in industrial societies more generally. Career choice and strategies, occupational mobility, and individual satisfaction at work.

This course introduces students to the concepts, history and development of social policy in economically developed welfare states. It examines the problems and concepts of the policy process, exploring the political, economic, and institutional frameworks that structure public choices about social policy in Canada, and compare systems of social policy around the world.

This course examines questions related to sexuality, with a special focus on the social construction of sexual identity, practice, community and desire. To do so, we proceed self consciously with a critical analysis of the modern study of sexuality, and the ways in which sexual science, as a kind of social practice, has affected the construction and regulation of sexual orientation.

The course explores the concepts of race and ethnicity and major theories to understand race and ethnic relations.

This course provides an overview of the study of crime and deviance. We critically examine how scholars have gone about studying crime and deviance (the methods they use and the statistics they employ) as well as the major sociological explanations for crime and deviance. We also consider the empirical evidence as it relates to the validity of these explanations and some of the policy fallout from different theoretical approaches.

This course provides an introduction to the systematic study of the influence of individuals, groups, and society on individuals' thoughts, feelings, and behaviours from a sociological perspective. The course emphasizes interaction among individuals, between an individual and a group, or among groups, all situated within particular social contexts. One core emphasis involves the ways that individual-level processes contribute to explaining social inequality in social groups and organizations. Topics include identity processes, social cognitions, attitudes, emotions, status processes, power relations, legitimacy, and justice.

This course examines diverse family patterns, to show the economic, political and cultural factors that influence families. A brief social history of family paves the way for an examination of the various family patterns common in Canada today. Special attention is paid to the gender relations at the heart of family.

Organizations are ubiquitous in modern society. Many of us spend the first days of our life in hospitals and our last days in nursing homes. During our lifecourse, we go to school, we work, we dream of becoming a part of some organizations (perhaps an elite university or firm), while we try to avoid becoming a part of other organizations (e.g., jail). Despite their ubiquity and importance in our lives, we seem not to notice organizations or think about how they may be shaping our lives for better or worse. This course will help students begin to see organizations sociologically. We will examine organizations from several theoretical perspectives and learn about empirical developments in organizational sociology.

The course will explore the structures and processes of Asian communities in Canada. Historical development of various Asian communities will be explored.

This course is concerned with the causes and consequences of economic inequality. More specifically, it explores how achieved and ascribed characteristics are related to social class and related economic outcomes. Although some of the material will be comparative and pertain to modern Democracies generally, emphasis will be on Canadian society.

This course uses a sociological approach to understand current Canadian society, Canada’s role in global politics, and how Canadian social policies compare to the policies of other countries around the world. The topics considered in the course include economics, politics, happiness, health and mental health care, crime and punishment, tolerance for diversity, education, and more. The most current Canadian research and global comparative research are explored to ensure students leave with a thorough scientific awareness of where Canada is, where it is going, and what they think the best policies for Canada are moving forward.

In advanced economies, schooling is a near-universal and highly structured institution. During the most impressionable times in their lives, children and adolescents go nearly every day to sit in the same pattern of classes with the same peers. In theory, students both within and across schools are supposed to learn the same things, at approximately the same time, and engage in similar rituals. And yet, this level of standardization often leads to substantively different outcomes across groups. This course investigates the structure of schools and the achievement hierarchies within and across them.

This course asks students to think critically about the role of law in society, and to develop a sociological understanding of law and legal institutions. The course will include theoretical approaches to understanding the role of law and legal authority, and the constitutive ways in which law affects, shapes, and is negotiated in everyday life. In addition, attention will be paid to the legal profession, including empirical research on lawyers, legal careers, and their relationship to fields of practice, with an emphasis on the relationship between the structure of the legal profession and law as a democratic institution.

This course examines (1) the social causes of illness and disease, (2) the experience of illness, and social processes that shape both of these issues, including medicalization. It focuses on population health, the relation between agency and structure, and macro-micro connections. Professional health care is discussed to the extent that it provides context for analyses of illness patterns and experiences.

This course deals with population aging, cohort effects, inter-generational relations, historical variation in effects of social environment on aging, how health and family relationships vary with age, and social policies related to aging. The whole life course is considered, but the emphasis on adulthood and old age.

This course examines contemporary migration flows, types and causes of migration, theories of migration, immigration policies, and migrant integration with emphasis on Canada.

This course will examine religious beliefs, practices, and experiences from a historical-sociological and comparative perspective. Classical and contemporary theories will be reviewed and applied to investigate such topics as: the social origins of religions; the formation of religious communities; heresies, schisms and the making of orthodoxies; secularization and fundamentalism; cults and new religious movements; religious regulation of the body and person; and the variable linkages of religion to politics, war, art and science

A selective introduction to major contemporary thinkers and approaches whose ideas have achieved wide influence, as well as an on-going inquiry into the nature and role of sociological analysis. Restricted to sociology majors and specialists.

Provides students with the opportunity to develop an understanding of the logic of multivariate analysis by applying various strategies for the analysis of complex multivariate data. Restricted to sociology majors and specialists.

An in-depth examination of key methods of qualitative research, and an opportunity to design and conduct qualitative research that draws from key debates, methodologies, and methods in the field. Restricted to sociology majors and specialists.