Sociology
Outcome Statements for Sociology Majors
Sociology graduates should be able to:
- Describe the role of culture and social structure in
shaping individual lives and be able to provide and recognize examples
of this process.
- Describe the nature of United States society along major
institutional axes (family, education, religion, etc.) in a comparative
global framework.
- Explain the effects of race, class, gender and other
forms of difference on life chances and be able to provide at least three
significant examples of these effects. In addition, students should be
able to recognize the effects of difference at individual, institutional,
and cultural levels.
- Frame a sociological question of some public significance
and outline a process by which the question posed might be empirically
answered.
- Locate sources of sociologically relevant information
and make informed judgments about the reliability and credibility of
available data.
- Translate publicly available data (census data, polling
data, etc.) into discursive English to highlight in a theoretically informed
way trends and relationships between variables.
- Read literary and non-quantitative accounts of human
life in order to draw conclusions regarding their sociological significance
and their value as evidence in sociological inquiries.
- Employ broad sociological theory (what Mills calls “usable
sociological traditions”) to provide an original analysis of current
circumstances in some sphere of society.