Sample Courses
- Community, environment, and society looks at the interrelationship of social and environmental factors in human communities, processes of community change, and the impact of environmental change on human communities.
- America’s peoples examines how the size, composition, and distribution of America’s ethnic and racial subpopulations have shaped social structure, social culture, and social change in the United States.
- Social issues and movements views contemporary social issues, ideologies, and social movements in relation to the social structure of American society.
- Sociology of the family puts the family in historical perspective, providing an introduction to the family as a social institution and small-group association.
- Race, class, and ethnic groups focuses on major class, racial, and ethnic groups in the U.S. with special attention on the culture and experience of minority groups.
- Sociology of women looks at the position of women in contemporary society, including women and work, politics, families and the economy; women’s movements, and the intersection of gender, race, and class.
Hands On Learning
Student positions in the Oregon Survey Research Laboratory (OSRL) offer hands-on research training. Sociology Professor Patricia Gwartney is director of the lab. These positions are open to all students on campus. However, as a sociology student, you would do well to look at what the facility has to offer. According to Gwartney, student researchers go through a rigorous training program that teaches invaluable interviewing techniques. “Some students don’t realize until they’ve finished how much these skills are worth in the workplace,” she says. You can use these techniques at the OSRL and for your own projects in sociology. This opportunity is a winner all around—education, hands-on training, and part-time employment all rolled into one.
The department offers opportunities to work as undergraduate peer advisers or as student assistants on faculty research projects.
You can participate in the department’s honors program. It allows you to work closely with faculty members and fellow honors students on a year-long project and honors thesis.
Interdisciplinary Opportunities
Sociology can be integrated with many other disciplines. You might be interested in law or political science. You can apply sociological knowledge to anthropology or history. It is useful in education courses. It can be integrated with psychology and with women’s studies or ethnic studies.