Sociology Courses

Leadership & Social Change, Undergraduate Sociology Department, University of California, Berkeley Role: Course Reader, Spring 2024

Leadership has many meanings. What works well in one context cannot always be applied in another. And contexts have history. What works well in one domain does not necessarily work for all time. In this course we will reflect on the meaning of leadership in society. Our focus will be modern ideas of leadership, and how these ideas evolved, succeeded or failed in moments of social change. We will read in the area of organizational sociology with a focus on interactions, institutions and culture. In addition, we will consider work from political science, management studies and history as we attempt to unravel what leadership looks like across a variety of social domains in different states of change.

Virtual Communities, Undergraduate Sociology Department, University of California, Berkeley Role: Course Reader, Fall 2023

With the explosion of virtual communities and social media, technology and its effect on
society has become a daily reality, invading all areas and aspects of our social lives. This ranges from pop culture, sports, and entertainment to political participation, sexual intimacy, and family. Everyone taking this course has some exposure to virtual communities and social media—even if one is unaware of the extent and depth of this exposure in their lives. As a result, this course is not about discovering new ideas and never-before-seen concepts, but rather providing some tools and perspectives to understand aspects of society that we are somewhat familiar with. Put another way, this course seeks to understand a growing aspect of our society through a sociological lens of understanding

Organizations and Social Institutions, Undergraduate Sociology Department, University of California, Berkeley Role: Course Reader, Spring 2019

How does social structure shape organization's objectives and practices? What consequences does this have for society? How do we effect change in organizational behavior, and why is it difficult to do so? This course will introduce theoretical perspectives organizational sociologists use to make sense of the organizational world. Although the course is built upon specific case studies, students will learn how to understand and engage any part of the organizational world—organizations large and small, for-profit and not-for-profit, or public and private.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Undergraduate Sociology Department, University of California, Berkeley Role: Course Reader, Fall 2018

The basic premise of this class is that sociology has a great deal to offer not only to the theoretical understanding of innovation and entrepreneurship, but also to entrepreneurship as a practical enterprise. This perspective, while popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, has gotten steadily lost in the entrepreneurial fervor of the 1980s as the study of entrepreneurship was passed almost exclusively into the hands of people in and around the business-school community. The objective of this class is to (re-) incorporate critical social analysis into the field.Throughout the semester, we will explore the various ways in which the social sciences have provided fresh new insights into entrepreneurial behavior by placing innovation in its broader social, cultural, and cross-national contexts. Additionally, we will look at entrepreneurship from the perspective of a much wider range of actors (classes, genders, racial and ethnic groups) than is typically done by the business community. By the end of the semester, you should have a firm grasp of what entrepreneurs do (the usual purview of modern business schools), as well as the causes of entrepreneurship and its cumulative (often not so positive) effects.

Evaluation of Evidence, Undergraduate Sociology Department, University of California, Berkeley Role: Graduate Student Instructor, Spring 2018, Summer 2018

People today are barraged by information –a torrent of facts, opinions, and analyses that appear in books, in newspapers and magazines, on radio stations, through television broadcasts, on computer screens, and on cell phones. The pressure to make sense of that information has never been greater. This course will introduce you to the major types of data and analysis used by sociologists, and seeks to make students better consumers of social scientific research reported by the media or used in political or policy-making debates. This course will give you an overview of the tools used by social scientists and a sense of what distinguishes good research from bad. By the end of the semester, you will be able to assess the soundness of research by evaluating research designs and data-collection strategies in light of research questions and theory

Sociology of Mass Media, Undergraduate (Online) Sociology Department, University of Massachusetts-Lowell Role: Instructor of Record, Summer 2016, Fall 2016

This course is designed to introduce students to the sociology of mass media, foster a critical understanding of mass media, teach important media skills, and introduce students to the process of creating sociologically relevant mass media pieces via Wikipedia. This course uses Wikipedia as a medium of instruction alongside using Blackboard. We will focus our inquiry on understanding the relationship between media and society. We will learn about the importance of media for democracy, the complex ways media and society influence each other, how media is produced and received by audiences, and the potential effects media can have on individuals and society. Students will learn how to be critical media consumers with the ability to critique media texts using their knowledge of how economic, cultural, and political factors affect media production and our understanding of media messages and also produce content for a mass audience. Student’s will ultimately create/edit/contribute to a sociologically relevant article on Wikipedia as part of this course and create a final project that incorporates both a personal account of the creation of their mass media piece and also an understanding of classic and emerging mass media via course readings.