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

Summer 2025: May 12 - June 27

Instructor: Ashley Berard

Schedule: Mondays and Wednesdays 2:30pm - 4:45pm

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 2025: July 3 - August 20

Instructor: Edwin Hodge

Schedule: Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:30pm - 4:45pm

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 2025: May 12 - June 27

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 2025: July 3 - August 20

Instructor: Sahr Malalla

Schedule: Wednesdays 2:30pm - 4:45pm

Delivery: Online, 50% asychronous

Course description

This course will introduce students to the foundational theoretical approaches to studying crime and deviance. We will engage in a critical exploration of the role of social institutions in defining, controlling, and punishing behaviour. 

A wide range of topics will be covered, including the criminalization of racialized groups, media portrayals of crime, public perceptions of crime and victimization, and violence against women. With a focus on the Canadian criminal justice system, we will consider how various social factors intersect to produce specific outcomes in spaces such as the courtroom and in prisons. 

This course will provide students with the conceptual tools and theories needed to engage in discussions surrounding contemporary criminal justice policies and social justice issues. 

Course delivery

This class will be delivered entirely online, with both synchronous and asynchronous components. In addition to a weekly live lecture, students will be expected to complete online activities via Brightspace each week. 

SOCI 220 - Media and Contemporary Society

Summer 2025: May 12 - June 27

Instructor: Jason Miller

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

Delivery: Online, 50% asynchonous

Course description

Media—the diverse means of communication through which ideas and information are shared—are more central to our lives today than ever before. Not only do they shape our perceptions of self, others, and society, they are increasingly central to collective projects for progressive social change—as well as those that maintain or advance systems of oppression. This online course explores sociological perspectives and frameworks for understanding the contemporary influence of media and communication technology, with a special focus on the intersection of media and social movement politics.

As a hybrid, a/synchronous class, it will involve one “live” or synchronous meeting per week (lasting 2 hours & 15 minutes), in addition to self-directed asynchronous activities (totalling roughly another 2 hours & 15 minutes).

Course outcomes/objectives

This course aims to provide students with conceptual tools for thinking critically about their own media use and participation, as well as the social structures that facilitate and can be affected by it. Engaging with sociological resources through course readings, lectures, and online participation, students will increase their media literacy and empower themselves to use media effectively for the social good. The course is also designed to improve students’ writing skills, foster academic community, and cultivate capacities for honest, perceptive, and respectful discussion.

Topics may include

Artificial intelligence, political polarization, misinformation, digital globalization, data dispossession, advances in advertising, labour and automation, digital and artistic activism, escapism and parasocial celebrity culture, virtual reality, political storytelling and the evolution of news media

SOCI 307 - Moral Panics

Instructor: Sean Hier

Delivery: Online, asynchronous

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:

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

Readings

There is no textbook for this course. There are several academic papers assigned for weekly reading.  All papers are available online (through Brightspace).

Evaluation

Students will write three non-cumulative module exams and complete one course assignment.

Exams will be written online between 9:00am and 12:00pm on July 25, August 8, and August 20 (likely mixed format). Exams will take no more than 90 minutes to complete unless students have formal accommodations through the university.

Students will also complete a course application assignment that applies course content to some social issue or event. Applications may be completed with a partner. Options will be provided for how to present applications (e.g., video presentations, narrated PowerPoints, concept maps, essay-style).

Important Dates

Module Exam 1          Friday July 25 (written between 9:00am-12:00pm)   

Module Exam 2          Friday August 8 (written between 9:00am-12:00pm)            

Module Exam 3          Friday August 20 (written between 9:00am-12:00pm)          

Assignment                 Monday August 23    

SOCI 345 - Sociology of Mental Health

Summer 2025: July 3 - August 20

Instructor: Ashley Berard

Schedule: Mondays 2:30pm - 4:45pm

Delivery: Online, 50% asynchronous

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 2:30 - 4:45pm 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 357 A01 and A02: Global and Transnational Sociology in Germany

Summer 2025: Session 1 (A01): June 16 - June 27.  Session 2 (A02): June 30 - July 11. 

Both sessions: June 16 - July 11

Instructor: Bruce Ravelli

Delivery: Exchange program: in Germany

Course description

Please note this course takes place abroad in Germany.  Please contact our International Adviser, Bruce Ravelli (bravelli@uvic.ca), if you are interested in this opportunity. 

SOCI 382 - Sociology of Sexualities 

Summer 2025: May 12 - June 27

Instructor: Kelsey Block

Schedule: Thursdays 2:30pm - 4:45pm

Delivery: Online, 50% asynchonous

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.

SOCI 384: Colonialism, Postcoloniality and Indigenous Resurgence

Summer 2025: July 3 - August 20

Instructor: Peyman Vahabzadeh

Schedule: Tuesdays and Thursdays 6:00pm - 8:15pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

This course offers, in relative depth, classical and contemporary engagements with the issues of colonialism and postcoloniality, both as a historic phenomenon and epistemological issue, as well as approaches to Indigenous resurgence with a focus on Canada. We will delve into the original colonial conditions in the “New World,” to set the stage for our explorations into the various responses to colonization: anti-colonial war of liberation, orientalism, postcolonialism, subalternity, end of postcoloniality, and the indigenous responses to settler-colonialism in Canada. We will focus on the epistemological grounds of colonialism and responses to it, but here epistemology involves action and resistance. The works we study are primarily theoretical in nature, but they dwell in historical, geographical, and cultural conditions of the multiplicity experiences of colonization and subalternity.

Course outcomes/objectives

The course will provide the student with some key readings in the postcolonial theoretical literature, theories of subalternity and orientialism, as well as African and indigenous theory. By the end of this course the students should have a solid footing in “non-western” theoretical contributions with the common denominator of various experiences of colonialism. We will find how the West, as a historical, self-acclaimed epistemological centre, has been permeated by multiplicity of voices and epistemological subversions.

Topics may include

Colonization, wars of liberation, racialization, postcoloniality, orientalism, settler colonialism, indigenous resurgence, epistemologies of the boundaries.

SOCI 390: Cinema and Society

Summer 2025:May 12 - June 27

Instructor: Peyman Vahabzadeh

Schedule: asynchronous

Delivery: online

Course description

Since its inception as an industry of popular culture in the early 20th century, cinema has dramatically changed human approach to storytelling and imagination. Visual representation, which is at heart of cinematic expression, has not only influenced our cultural learning, it has produced a global language shared across cultural and worldview differences. This course uses cinematic expression as way of understanding social issues and approaches to our societal dilemmas. The seven feature-length movies selected for this course speak to selected social issues and topics, and we will read some of the key writings in social theory for the purpose of our sociological analyses pertaining to the films we watch.

Please note that, as with any artistic expression, these films may entail violence, sexuality, nudity, course language, discriminatory slur, or expressions contrary to one’s beliefs. I trust that as adults, each one of us can judge for ourselves whether this course is appropriate to take.

Course outcomes/objectives

The course will provide content analysis, visual literacy and theoretical analysis. The readings are important in this course. We will learn about the way fiction is reality and reality is fictional. The expectation is that the assignments reflect how the story told in a film is sociologically significant through analysis and discussion. While this is a “fun” course, it pursues its objectives with rigour and is demanding.

Topics may include

Memory, hegemony, violence, exploitation, decolonization, loss, racialization, gender, education.

Mode of Delivery

This a fully asynchronous and on-line course offered through UVic Brightspace. While a self-pace course, there will be deadlines for submitting forums and assignments.

SOCI 436: Issues in Sociology and Social Justice

Summer 2025: July 3 - August 20

Instructor: Bill Carroll

Schedule: Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:30 - 4:45pm

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 take-home final exam.

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 100A - Intro. to Sociology: Understanding Social Life

Instructor: Bruce Ravelli

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

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 discipline and why it matters. Sociology challenges black and white thinking by exposing students to the shades of grey. Topics may include social theory, socialization, culture, norms, social interactions, self, and identity.

Course outcomes/objectives

• Demonstrate a broad understanding of what Sociology is.
• Describe several classical and contemporary theoretical perspectives and apply various theoretical perspectives to contemporary issues.
• Demonstrate basic understanding of how culture, socialization, social situations, social structure, and individual agency shape personal behaviour, ideas, choices and social opportunities and barriers.
• Articulate a general understanding of social stratification and be able to explain the role of social relations like gender, class, racialization, and ethnicity in society.
• Examine the impacts of colonialism in Canada.
• Describe how Indigenous ways of knowing differ from Western scientific traditions.
• Define reconciliation and describe different ways it has been proposed to be achieved in Canadian society.

Topics may include

Socialization, social theories, culture, media and globalization.

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

Instructor: Bruce Ravelli

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

Please note: students registered in 100A A02 must register into a tutorial section, selected from T13-T20

Delivery: In Person

Course description

Introduction to the discipline and why it matters. Sociology challenges black and white thinking by exposing students to the shades of grey. Topics may include social theory, socialization, culture, norms, social interactions, self, and identity.

Course outcomes/objectives

• Demonstrate a broad understanding of what Sociology is.
• Describe several classical and contemporary theoretical perspectives and apply various theoretical perspectives to contemporary issues.
• Demonstrate basic understanding of how culture, socialization, social situations, social structure, and individual agency shape personal behaviour, ideas, choices and social opportunities and barriers.
• Articulate a general understanding of social stratification and be able to explain the role of social relations like gender, class, racialization, and ethnicity in society.
• Examine the impacts of colonialism in Canada.
• Describe how Indigenous ways of knowing differ from Western scientific traditions.
• Define reconciliation and describe different ways it has been proposed to be achieved in Canadian society.

Topics may include

Socialization, social theories, culture, media and globalization.

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

Instructor: Edwin Hodge

Schedule: Tuesday/Wednesday/Friday 9:30 - 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 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 206 A01 - Crime and Deviance

Instructor: Tamara Humphrey

Schedule: Mondays and Thursdays 4:30 - 5:45pm

Delivery: In Person

SOCI 206 A02 - Crime and Deviance

Instructor: Tayler Zavitz

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

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.

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.

SOCI 207 A01 - Ecology, Society and Global Change

Instructor: Anelyse Weiler

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

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

1. Describe and critically evaluate various explanations for the causes of environmental degradation, including population growth, self-interest, consumerism, capitalism and colonialism.
2. Analyze why distinct groups of people experience disproportionate environmental harms and systematically lack equal access to environmental benefits.
3. Compare and assess various proposed solutions for addressing the climate crisis and environmental inequality.
4. Engage in effective teamwork and contribute to productive group dialogue on environmental problems.
5. Â鶹¾«Æ· 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.
6. 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: Athena Madan

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

Delivery: In Person

SOCI 222 - Sociology of Religion

Instructor: Edwin Hodge

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

Delivery: In Person

SOCI 271 - Introduction to Social Statistics

Instructor: Min Zhou

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

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

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:

(1) graphical approaches to displaying data,
(2) descriptive statistics for summarizing data, and
(3) inferential statistics for generalizing beyond data to make predictions.

In terms of the number of variables involved in the analysis, this course mainly examines univariate analysis (e.g., the distribution and description of a single variable) and bivariate analysis (e.g., the relationship between a pair of variables).

As a mandatory part of this course, the lab will teach you how to use a software package to conduct data analysis. More information will be provided by lab instructor Ruth Kampen.

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 twofold: it (1) helps you better understand academic work that uses quantitative evidence, and (2) prepares you to conduct elementary statistical analysis in your own research and future employment.

SOCI 281 - Sociology of Genders

Instructor: Katelin Albert

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

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.

Course prerequisites

Recommended prior to SOCI 382, SOCI 389, and SOCI 435.

SOCI 309 - Contemporary Social Theorizing

Instructor: Steve Garlick

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

Delivery: In Person

Course description

Social theorizing involves both attempts to explain the world we live in and efforts to think beyond the given towards a different world. It is a creative activity that is concerned with generating new ideas and with 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 engages with important theorists and concepts that emerged from the latter part of the twentieth century and into our current times. We will trace the influence of classical theorists on the work of those who came after them, as well as examining innovations specific to contemporary social theorizing. We will consider how different theories emerged as responses to specific historical conditions. This is not, however, a course on the history of social theory; rather, we will be concerned with the contemporary relevance of the theories covered and, especially, with developing our own capacities to theorize.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course you should expect: (1) to have gained a broad understanding of the trajectory of social theory over the latter half of the 20^th century and into the 21^st century; (2) to have become familiar with important concepts (e.g., power, subjectivity, agency, ideology, materialism, culture, gender, colonialism, globalization) and debates that inform social theory today; and (3) to have developed your abilities to engage in theorizing  (i.e., creating and using theoretical concepts to produce new or different perspectives on contemporary social phenomena).

Topics covered will include

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

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 12:30 - 1:20pm

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 326 - Social Networks

Instructor: Min Zhou

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

Delivery: In Person

Course description

From the perspective of social networks, the world around us is not made up of isolated individuals but is full of connections and networks. These connections generate friendship, support, trust, sense of community, and social cohesion. They are also the foundation of social capital and status, and give rise to inequality, hierarchy and power. Thanks to its great utility, the perspective of social networks has been developing rapidly and has been applied to substantive fields such as social interaction and friendship, community and neighborhood, social stratification, organizational studies, diffusion of ideas and technologies, social epidemiology, online social networking sites, and international relations, among others. It is a powerful approach to understand how society works at many different levels and domains.

This course introduces the social network approach from three aspects—theoretical foundations (theory), methodological tools (methodology), and substantive studies (application). (1) The theoretical component of this course will cover major concepts and general principles in social networks. You will learn interesting concepts such as ties, balance, transitivity, diffusion, cohesion, centrality, clusters, small worlds, homophily, hierarchy, structural equivalence, roles, structural holes, brokerage, and the world system, among others. (2) A set of methods for social networks (“social network analysis”) has been developed over the recent years. The methodological component of this course will introduce elementary techniques without getting into abstruse technicalities. (3) The perspective of social networks has generated numerous substantive studies in many fields. We will sample social network studies with diverse substantive concerns and interesting findings. These empirical studies lend support to the ubiquity of social networks in our daily life and give you a sense of the potential offered by the social network approach.

Course outcomes/objectives

• By the end of this course, hopefully you will (1) have a good understanding of the existing literature on social networks, (2) understand major theoretical ideas and concepts underlying network studies, and (3) be able to view many social phenomena from a social network perspective.

SOCI 326 - International Perspectives on Inequities in Health and Health Care

Instructor: Athena Madan

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

Delivery: In Person

SOCI 331 - Politics and Society

Instructor: Eugene Dim

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

Delivery: In Person

SOCI 345 - Sociology of Mental Health

Instructor: Andre Smith

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

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:

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.
4. To become aware of alternate paradigms for mitigating the impact of mental illness and improving mental health.

SOCI 346 - Sociology of Surveillance

Instructor: Midori Ogasawara

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

Delivery: Online

SOCI 374 - Qualitative Research Methods

Instructor: Edwin Hodge

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

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

1. To understand mainstream qualitative research methods as practiced in
   sociology
2. To understand how Indigenous research practices both challenge and enrich
   mainstream research practices
3. 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 4:30 - 5:45pm

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 - 5:45pm

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 434 A01 - Issues in Deviance, Crime, Law, and Social Control

Instructor: Midori Ogasawara

Schedule: Tuesdays 9:30 - 12:20pm

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 434 A02 - Issues in Deviance, Crime, Law, and Social Control

Instructor: Tamara Humphrey

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

Delivery: In Person

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 438 A01 - Issues in Contemporary Sociology "Internationalisms"

Instructor: Seb Bonet

Schedule: Tuesdays 2:30 - 5:20pm

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 438 A02 - Issues in Contemporary Sociology "Political Economy of Social Media"

Instructor: Simon Carroll

Schedule: Mondays and Thursdays 10:00 - 11:20am

Delivery: In Person

SOCI 499 - Honours Seminar and Thesis

Instructor: Ashley Berard

Schedule: Wednesdays 9:30 - 11:20am (year long)

Delivery: In Person

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

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

Instructor: Edwin Hodge

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

Please note: students registered in 100A A01 must register into a tutorial section, selected from T01-T10 

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: Bruce Ravelli

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. Topics may include gender, families, religion, ethnicity, education, social media, social determinants of health and environmental sociology.

Course outcomes/objectives

• Demonstrate a broad understanding of what Sociology is.
• Demonstrate basic understanding of how individual agency shapes personal behaviour, ideas, choices, social opportunities and barriers.
• Articulate a general understanding of social stratification and be able to explain the role of social relations like gender, education and religion in society.
• Examine the impacts of colonialism in Canada.
• Describe how Indigenous ways of knowing differ from Western scientific traditions.
• Define reconciliation and describe different ways it has been proposed to be achieved in Canadian society.

Topics may include

• Gender, education, religion and environmental sociology.

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

Instructor: Bruce Ravelli

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. Topics may include gender, families, religion, ethnicity, education, social media, social determinants of health and environmental sociology.

Course outcomes/objectives

• Demonstrate a broad understanding of what Sociology is.
• Demonstrate basic understanding of how individual agency shapes personal behaviour, ideas, choices, social opportunities and barriers.
• Articulate a general understanding of social stratification and be able to explain the role of social relations like gender, education and religion in society.
• Examine the impacts of colonialism in Canada.
• Describe how Indigenous ways of knowing differ from Western scientific traditions.
• Define reconciliation and describe different ways it has been proposed to be achieved in Canadian society.

Topics may include

• Gender, education, religion and environmental sociology.

SOCI 103 - Settler Colonialism and Canadian Society

Instructor: Ashley Berard

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

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.

SOCI 204 - Self, Identity and Society

Instructor: Simon Carroll

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 A01 - Crime and Deviance

Instructor: Mike Ma

Schedule: Tuesday/Wednesday/Friday 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 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 206 A02 - Crime and Deviance

Instructor: Tayler Zavitz

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

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.

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 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: Athena Madan

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

Delivery: In Person

SOCI 215 - Class and Social Inequality

Instructor: Finn Deschner

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

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

Course pre/corequisites 

Recommended prior to SOCI 331 and SOCI 436

SOCI 235 A01 - Racialization and Ethnicity

Instructor: Seb Bonet

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

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: Eugene Dim

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

Lab: Thursdays from 1:30 - 2:20 or Fridays from 10:30 - 11:20

Delivery: In Person

SOCI 285 - Health Over the Life Course

Instructor: Katelin Albert

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

Delivery: In Person

Course description

Held tight in time’s grip, all things in the world undergo change over the lifecourse – 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: 1) the key concepts and theories involved in studying health from a life course perspective; 2) why social determinants of population health are differentially expressed and experienced across the life course and across subgroups, and 3) 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, STIs and stigma, trans and intersex health, mental health, cumulative adversity and resiliency, and navigating health disruptions over the life course.

Course pre-requisites

Recommended prior to SOCI 327, SOCI 385, and SOCI 432

SOCI 307 - Moral Panics

Instructor: Sean Hier

Delivery: Online and asynchronous

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:

1. Conventional (or traditional/classical) moral panic studies (1960s-1980s).
2. Efforts to rethink moral panic studies (in light of changing media and politics in the 1990s and early 2000s).
3. 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: Edwin Hodge

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

Delivery: In Person

SOCI 313 - Sociology of Law

Instructor: Garry Gray

Schedule: Mondays 6:30 - 9:20pm 

Delivery: In Person

SOCI 321 - Work, Globalization and Labour Movements

Instructor: Anelyse Weiler

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

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

1. Describe some of the key concepts, theories, and debates in the sociology of labour.
2. 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.
3. Diagnose emerging and ongoing issues of workplace inequality and identify evidence-based solutions.;
4. 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

Instructor: Midori Ogasawara

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

Delivery: In Person

SOCI 366 - Drugs, Policy, and Society

Instructor: Mike Ma

Schedule: Wednesdays 4:30 - 7:20pm

Delivery: In Person

SOCI 374 - Qualitative Research Methods

Instructor: Anelyse Weiler

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

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

1. Describe some of the key concepts and theories in qualitative research, along with approaches including Indigenous and participatory research methods.
2. 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.
3. Â鶹¾«Æ· skills in select qualitative research techniques taught in the course, such as interviewing, writing memos and coding.
4. Practice reflexivity and ethical conduct in research.
5. Collaborate with team members by actively engaging in course material.

SOCI 376 - Quantitative Research Methods

Instructor: Tamara Humphrey

Schedule: Mondays and Thursdays, 4:30 - 5:45pm

Delivery: In Person

SOCI 389 - Death and Dying

Instructor: Athena Madan

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

Delivery: In person

SOCI 390 - Special Topics in Sociology - Social Changes in Contemporary China

Instructor: Min Zhou

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

Delivery: In Person

Course description

This course discusses major social changes and issues in contemporary China (particularly in the post-Mao era or from 1978 to present) through a sociological lens, including its economic and political reforms, social institutions and structure, various forms of social inequalities, demographic trends and challenges, urbanization and internal migration, gender and family relations, environmental issues, as well as its global engagement and positioning. This course will provide students with a systematic overview of the literature on contemporary Chinese society and an informed discussion on key social changes (and their impacts on individuals, society, and global communities) in today’s China.

Course outcomes/objectives

Through lectures, readings, and in-class discussions, students are expected to develop general knowledge of major social structure, changes, and problems in today’s China. They are expected to gain a more sophisticated and balanced understanding of Chinese society and its complexity. They are also expected to learn how to apply various sociological theories and perspectives to the study of specific social issues.

SOCI 430A - Issues in Racialization, Ethnicity and Decolonization

Instructor: Mike Ma

Schedule: Tuesdays 2:30 - 5:20pm

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 432 A01 - Issues in Health and Aging

Instructor: Katelin Albert

Schedule: Mondays 2:30 - 5:20pm

Delivery: In Person

Course description

This is a course in gender, racialization, health, and medicine. It examines the relationships among sex, gender, race, health, and modern medicine. It looks at the ways that social relations like gender and race organize health and medicine, but also how medical systems and health practices create and organize them as well. In this class, we will look at how sex became a subject of scientific study, explore the medicalization of bodies, medical racism, and how gender, race, and ethnicity became categories of analysis. It will explore questions about social forces and how they become embodied as pathologies. There will be also be a significant focus on health technologies, exploring the ways in which health technologies organize, create, and discipline human bodies. We will ask questions of how modern Western medicine traditions view gendered bodies and define their health and illnesses accordingly.

Course Objectives

The goals for this course are to have you learn about pressing topics related to gender, race, health, and medicine, and to learn how to talk about these issues in an informed way. This course is meant to acquaint you with many of the major areas of inquiry, questions, debates and arguments – and the work of influential and/or interesting researchers in this area. You will develop skills to think critically about medicine, scientific and medical knowledge, and health practices. You will also learn to conduct research into a health issue of your choosing – and will learn to revise and critically engage your own writing and work. As a student, you will also learn how to be a class leader and facilitate a healthy peer-learning environment.

Mode of Delivery

This class is a seminar style class and is very hands on for students. Students will be class leaders wherein they facilitate half of each class. This is not a presentation but is early practice in learning to design and organize class time. Students play a big part in facilitating discussion and learning.

This is a face-to-face course and will not be recorded. Students are expected to come to class. There may be several in-class workshops. There may be a few classes held over zoom to accommodate guest speakers. This course will make use of many of the online tools on Brightspace.

SOCI 432 A02 - Issues in Health and Aging

Instructor: Andre Smith

Schedule: Fridays 1 - 3:50pm

Delivery: In Person

SOCI 436 - Issues in Sociology and Social Justice

Instructor: Eugene Dim

Schedule: Thursdays 9:30 - 12:20pm

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.

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 471 - Intermediate Social Statistics

Instructor: Min Zhou

Schedule: Mondays 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 probably 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.

We will do 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 student copy of the software at .

As an important part of this course, the lab will teach you how to use Stata. Attendance at labs is mandatory. More information will be provided by our lab instructor Ruth Kampen.

Please note that this course is intended to build upon the statistical knowledge students have acquired in Sociology 271. That is, I assume that students have had Sociology 271 or equivalent. For students who completed their undergraduate training elsewhere, this implies one semester course in statistics, covering basic descriptive and inferential statistics.

Course outcomes/objectives

At the end of this course, hopefully you will have sufficient familiarity with regression techniques to (1) understand the literature using 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 would be even better if you use the methods learned in this course in your own thesis/dissertation research.

SOCI 499 - Honours Seminar and Thesis

Instructor: Ashley Berard

Schedule: Wednesdays 9:30 - 11:20pm (year long)

Delivery: In Person

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