Sociology Courses

SOCI6001	Alternative Dispute Resolution	3 ch
This course fits in the critical area of Criminology, Law and Society and Human Rights Research and remains an essential platform in course offerings for graduate students who wish to study with faculty who specialize in this area. The course will be cross listed with the Alternative Dispute Resolution course ADR 6001: Enhanced disputant participation and equitable self-determinism are the primary objectives of effective dispute resolution. Explore the theoretical understandings of disputing and dispute resolution; the principles, skills, methods and models of dispute-resolution. Assess social policy research and practice. Learn effective strategies to prevent and to resolve conflict.

SOCI6003	Social Scientific Inquiry I	3
This course provides an examination of key issues in social scientific research strategies, methodological design, and research techniques utilised in qualitative and quantitative social scientific research. Components of the course may also include professional and academic skills such as drafting funding proposals, effective bibliographic sourcing, and writing and presenting research to various audiences. Prerequisites: None

SOCI6004	Social Scientific Inquiry I	3
This course provides an examination of key issues in social scientific research strategies, methodological design, and research techniques utilised in qualitative and quantitative social scientific research. Components of the course may also include professional and academic skills such as drafting funding proposals, effective bibliographic sourcing, and writing and presenting research to various audiences. Prerequisites: None

SOCI6013	Social Scientific Inquiry II	3 ch
This course develops advanced knowledge of issues pertinent to social scientific epistemology and associated methodologies. Further course components will include expanding knowledge and skills in drafting research proposals, fieldwork techniques, data management, and wider strategies for presenting research to various audiences.Prerequisites: Soci 6003

SOCI6014	Social Scientific Inquiry II	3 ch
This course develops advanced knowledge of issues pertinent to social scientific epistemology and associated methodologies. Further course components will include expanding knowledge and skills in drafting research proposals, fieldwork techniques, data management, and wider strategies for presenting research to various audiences.Prerequisites: Soci 6004

SOCI6022	Quantitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences	3 ch
This course introduces advanced management analytics. The focus will be on finding solutions to business issues and deriving value from statistical algorithms for tree-based methods, support vector machines, deep learning and neural networks, survival analysis, and clustering methods. Programming environments, data storage, and control systems that are widely used in the field will be applied to create interactive notebooks. Through the use of advanced analytics, this course will seek to improve customized consumer experiences, deliver strategic and competitive advantages in markets, create efficiencies in operations, and automate business decisions. Prerequisites: SOCI2022 or equivalent; permission from the instructor.

SOCI6103	Sociological Theory (MA)	3 ch
Provides an overview of the shape and texture of contemporary theory, paying particular attention to its new as well as its unresolved problems. The analysis and interpretation of certain conditions of modern life and the role of Social theory in such investigations may be examined.

SOCI6104	Sociological Theory (PhD)	3 ch
Provides an overview of the shape and texture of contemporary theory, paying particular attention to its new as well as its unresolved problems. The analysis and interpretation of certain conditions of modern life and the role of Social theory in such investigations may be examined.

SOCI6112	Stats Pack	3 ch
SPSS is a statistical software package largely used in the social sciences. If applied to analyze large scale secondary data, it provides students and researchers with a powerful tool to answer critical questions on phenomena, trends, and relationships in a variety of disciplinary areas. Most textbooks and courses at the undergraduate and graduate level tend to combines the teaching of substantive topics in methodology and methods with practical applications of this software package. This course tries to contribute twofold. Practically, it aims at offering students and faculty and opportunity to learn about the software package, its tools, its challenges independently from content coverage on methods and statistics. While maintaining a substantial coverage of analytical and statistical topics, the course will focus on how to design and implement data analysis with SPSS syntax commands rather than on teaching statistics. Pedagogically, this course will: Familiarize students and new researchers to public use large scale datasets teach how to approach and trat large scale secondary data and prepare them for data analysis apply a variety of descriptive and inferential statistical methods to answer research questions and then show how to present and discuss the results of the statistical analyses in academic and non-academic contexts.

SOCI6113	Sociology of Law	3 ch
This course will explore the interrelationship of law and society. Students will examine the evolution of socio-legal theories from classical to contemporary view points.

SOCI6162	Resilience and Sustainability in Complex Adaptive Systems	3 ch
This course examines complex adaptive systems theory and its ability to illuminate a) the operation of social processes at a variety of levels (micro, meso/institutional, macro), b) the mechanisms interconnecting those levels and the resulting ability to c) explicate both stability and change (either gradual or dramatic). Particular attention will be paid to a variety of system characteristics (e.g., complexity, coupling, etc.) and the implications of these characteristics for the resilience and sustainability of the system. Substantively, the course will apply the ideas to a variety of different systems. Possibilities include: marriage and the family; technological systems such as nuclear plants, climate change, and social revolutions. Students will be expected to apply the theoretical ideas to a substantive area of their choosing. This course is suitable for graduate level students in a variety of disciplines and an active attempt will be made to recruit students from other disciplines (e.g. Psychology, Forestry & Environmental Mgt., Biology).

SOCI6185	Interdisciplinary Seminar in Family Violence	3 ch
This course will examine current knowledge about family violence, as well as identifying important areas for future research. It will be open to graduate students from a number of different departments. The course will take an interdisciplinary approach to understanding family violence by integrating theory and research developed within the psychological, sociological, feminist, historical, and legal traditions. The course will look at various aspects of family violence such as wife abuse, abusive families, child abuse, abuse of the elderly, sexual violence within the family, dating violence and violence in rural areas.

SOCI6303	Multivariate Social Statistics (MA)	3 ch
Examines statistical techniques, such as multiple regression and path analysis and their relation to the general linear model. Emphasis is on the application and interpretation of techniques frequently used in Sociology.

SOCI6304	Multivariate Social Statistics (PhD)	3 ch
Examines statistical techniques, such as multiple regression and path analysis and their relation to the general linear model. Emphasis is on the application and interpretation of techniques frequently used in Sociology.

SOCI6323	Qualitative Methods in Sociological Research (MA)	3 ch
Advanced study of such topics as participant observation, naturalistic observation, interviewing, document analysis, and life histories, as well as issues such as those pertaining to gaining access to and maintaining relations with subjects, coding and classifying data, and the ethics of research.

SOCI6324	Qualitative Methods in Sociological Research (PhD)	3 ch
Advanced study of such topics as participant observation, naturalistic observation, interviewing, document analysis, and life histories, as well as issues such as those pertaining to gaining access to and maintaining relations with subjects, coding and classifying data, and the ethics of research.

SOCI6403	Socio-Economic Change	3 ch
This course lays the foundation for an understanding of the origins, development and characteristics of the modern industrial order. It examines the formation and changing operation of societies and economies.

SOCI6404	Ethics in Research	3 ch
Explores historical and contemporary ethical dilemmas in conducting research, using Canadian and international settings.

SOCI6513	Canadian Society	3 ch
This course will critically examine Canadian society. The objective of the course will be to familiarize the student with theory and research on Canadian Society.

SOCI6523	Criminology	3 ch
Advanced analysis of contemporary developments in criminology, examining criminal behaviour and social control in the wider social and political context.

SOCI6553	Environmental Sociology	3 ch
This course provides an overview of the sub discipline of Environmental Sociology. Potential topics include public environmental opinion, environmentalism as a social movement, human-induced environmental decline, social response to natural disasters, environment and conflict, environmental policy, and social dimensions of the built environment. Readings will cover both classic contributions and more recent academic research from a range of sociological perspectives.

SOCI6573	Social Network Analysis	3 ch
Social Network Analysis will provide foundational knowledge related to the social-scientific study of networks, as well as familiarity with the most commonly used social network analysis software: UCInet and Netdraw. Students who complete this course should develop competency with core theoretical and methodological concepts related to social network analysis. Students will also gain hands-on and practical experience with gathering, refining, and employing relational data in order to analyze and interpret a variety of different social networks.

SOCI6585	Organized Crime	3ch
This course takes a sociological and criminological approach to understanding core concepts and theories of organized crime. It will provide a familiarity with, and a conceptual overview of, the various forms and incarnations of organized crime, ranging from street gangs to highly complex and sophisticated transnational criminal organizations. Prerequisites: none

SOCI6599	Apprenticeship in Teaching (PhD)	cr
After completion of course work, the student (in conjunction with their Supervisory Committee) selects a Teaching Mentor. They select the (undergraduate) course to be taught. Normally, the course will be in the student’s area of research, and the Teaching Mentor already teaches a course in the selected area.

SOCI6603	Feminist Theory/Sociology of Women	3 ch
A critical examination of current debates, within feminist theory as these pertain to an understanding of women’s position in society.

SOCI6611	Comprehensive Examination I (PhD)	CR
The first Comprehensive Examination in the area of sociological theories is a written-only exam that follows the successful completion of the course load and assesses whether students have general knowledge about the field of sociology and about research methodologies. Successful completion of the Examination will demonstrate that students developed knowledge and critical thinking in sociological theories and related debates.

SOCI6613	Sociology of the Family	3 ch
This course provides a critical examination of theoretical perspectives on the sociology of the family and their contribution to understanding family structure and change in society.

SOCI6622	Comprehensive Examination 2 (PhD)	CR
The second Comprehensive Examination in a sociological substantive area of Communication and Media; Cultural Sociology; Demography; Domestic and Family Violence; and Health is a written-only exam that follows the successful completion of the course load and assesses students’ specific knowledge of their research area and of the specific research methodologies. Successful completion of the Examination will demonstrate that students developed knowledge and critical thinking in sociological theories and related debates specific of a substantive sociological area.

SOCI6623	Sociology of Religion	3 ch
Explores religion at a societal, group and individual level and examines sociological theory concerning religion and society.

SOCI6633	Alternative Health Care	3 ch
This joint PhD/MA course aims to cover a broad range of perspectives and issues in the sociology of alternative health care, a growing area within the sub-discipline of medical sociology. Wherever possible the emphasis will be on examination of the nature and use of alternative health care in the Canadian context. We will also make use of research on alternative health care in the wider international context.

SOCI6643	Selected Topics in the Sociology of Health and Health Care	3 ch
This graduate seminar will cover a broad range of perspectives and issues in the sociology of health and health care. While we will make use of research on health and health care in the wider international context, our focus in general will be on examinations of the nature and use of health care in Canada. While it is difficult in a one-term course to be comprehensive, this course is designed to cover as much of the area as possible to give students a sense of the scope of this area of sociological research. Topics covered within this course will include: theoretical approaches to the sociological study of health and health care; a variety of conceptual models of health; the social production of disease; health seeking behaviour; health care professions and the institution of medicine, as well as alternative and complementary health care. This course is designed to run on a seminar format where the emphasis is on student contribution to discussion of course material. Students will be responsible for presentation of articles assigned from the weekly readings and presenting students will take the lead role in facilitating discussion of the article(s) assigned to them. However, all students are required to come to seminar prepared to discuss all the assigned readings for each week, not only those they are responsible for presenting.

SOCI6713	Society and Population	3 ch
Examine the key theories and measures used to study population dynamics, as related to the drivers of population growth (fertility, mortality, and migration) and consequences for societal change (e.g., population health, urbanization, aging, family structures). Learn to recognize and manage reliable demographic measurements and draw conclusions from the results. We will make use of research data from both Canadian and international settings.

SOCI6723	Selected Topics in Cultural Sociology	3 ch
Offers an in-depth examination of one or more topics in cultural sociology. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, Foucauldian cultural theory, critical cultural studies such as the thinking inspired by Stuart Hall’s Birmingham school and Phenomenological/feminist understandings of ‘culture’.

SOCI6803	Special Reading Course	3 ch
A student may normally select one such course in consultation with the Director of Graduate Studies and the approval of the Graduate Committee.

SOCI6804	Special Reading Course	3 ch
A student may normally select one such course in consultation with the Director of Graduate Studies and the approval of the Graduate Committee.

SOCI6805	Special Reading Course	3 ch
A student may normally select one such course in consultation with the Director of Graduate Studies and the approval of the Graduate Committee.

SOCI6997	M.A. Thesis	cr
Course Desc

SOCI6998	Ph.D Thesis	cr
Course Desc