Our program goals are for our students to have a working knowledge in these key areas:

1. Social Theory

2. Sociological Research Methods

3. Social Statistics

4. Multiculturalism

5. Deviance and Social Problems

6. Social Institutions

7. Gender Issues

8. Critical Thinking

Below is an explanation of each of these goals:

Social Theory

Social Theory is the framework from which we analyze the diverse selection of social phenomena of humans found throughout the world. It is a means by which we draw upon to explain what we perceive. Social Theory also provides us the abilities to see things we have never known.

JSU sociology students should have a working knowledge of the following individuals and theories:

Talcott Parsons, Herbert Marcuse, Immanuel Wallerstein, William Graham Sumner, Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Max and Marianne Weber, Cornell West, Patricia Hill Collins, Michele Foucault, Harold Garfinkle, Ida Wells Barnett, Herbert Gans, W. E. B. DuBois, Anna Julia Cooper, Judith Butler, Emile Durkheim, Jane Addams, Harriet Martineau, George Herbert Mead, Erving Goffman, C. Wright Mills, Jurgen Habermas, Dorothy Smith, Jean Baudrillard, and Herbert Blumer

Functionalism, Conflict Theory, Critical Theory, Symbolic Interactionism, Standpoint Theory, Feminist Theory, Essentialism, Exchange Theory, and Social Darwinism

Sociological Research Methods

As a science, sociology has tried and true methods of studying social phenomena. You will learn about many aspects of research methods both as it applies to sociology, as well as science in general. You will learn such things as:

1. The relationship of theory to research

2. The role of independent and dependent variables

3. The role of the hypothesis

4. Developing a research question

5. How to develop a research design

6. How to plan a budget

7. The value of forms of reliability

8. The value of forms of validity

9. The various forms of sampling

10. The different types of scales used in research

11. Knowing the various research methods

      A. Quantitative methods

      B. Qualitative methods

          i. Recognizing the various forms of research methods such as surveys, participant observation, content analysis, and many others.

12. The overall goal is to understand that research methods bring sociology to a place well beyond simple common sense, but instead to a place of scientific understanding.

Statistics

As a key ingredient to understanding Sociological research, students must understand statistics. You will have a working knowledge in these areas:

Representation of Data

Data are often represented in frequency distributions that indicate the frequency of each score in a set of scores. Sociologists also use graphs to represent data. These graphs are important in representing the results of experiments because they are used to illustrate the relationship between independent and dependent variables.

Descriptive Statistics

Descriptive statistics summarize and organize research data. Measures of central tendency represent the typical score in a set of scores. The mode is the most frequently occurring score, the median is the middle score, and the mean is the arithmetic average of the set of scores. Measures of variability represent the degree of dispersion of scores. The range is the difference between the highest and lowest scores. The variance is the average of the squared deviations from the mean of the set of scores. And the standard deviation is the square root of the variance.

Correlational Statistics

Correlational statistics assess the relationship between two or more sets of scores. A correlation may be positive or negative and vary from 0.00 to plus or minus 1.00. The existence of a correlation does not necessarily mean that one of the correlated variables causes changes in the other. Nor does the existence of a correlation preclude that possibility. Correlations are commonly graphed on scatter plots. Perhaps the most common correlational technique is the Pearson's product-moment correlation. You square the Pearson's product-moment correlation to get the coefficient of determination, which will indicate the amount of variance in one variable accounted for by another variable.

Inferential Statistics

Inferential statistics permit social researchers to determine whether their findings can be generalized from their samples to the populations they represent. Consider a simple investigation in which an experimental group that is exposed to a condition is compared with a control group that is not. For the difference between the means of the two groups to be statistically significant, the difference must have a low probability (usually less than 5%) of occurring by normal random variation.

Information taken from McGraw Hill Higher Education

Multiculturalism

JSU students should have a working knowledge of the many factors involved in multiculturalism. 

A sociological emphasis on multiculturalism generally refers to understanding cultural differences and how culture impacts how societies are organized and how individuals view the world.  Through an emphasis on cross-cultural studies students should gain not only an appreciation of cultural differences, but an understanding of the relationship between culture and structure (macro), culture and interaction (meso) and culture and identity (micro).   Cross-cultural research also helps us understand our own cultural assumptions of what is 'natural' by showing the wide diversity of the way people organize their lives around the world.   

Deviance and Social Problems

The study of deviance and social problems has a long history in sociology. The study of deviance goes back to people such as Comte and Martineau in Europe in the 1830s, and Hughes and Fitzhugh in the United States in 1854. The first social problems textbook was published in 1910, by Charles Ellwood.

You are to have a working knowledge of deviance, its influences, trends, and patterns, as well as means of correcting such behavior if warranted. You should know the diverse perspectives, such as:

1. Statistical deviance

2. Absolutist deviance

3. Relativist deviance

4. Pathological deviance

5. Normative deviance

Because the study of deviance in sociology is highly theory driven, it is best also to be aware of the many theories involved in the study of deviance. A very short list would include:

1. Differential Association

2. Neutralization Theory

3. Labeling Theory

4. Control Theory

5. Anomie Theory

Though it would be advantageous to be aware of theories on deviance from social constructionism, feminist theory, queer theory, feminist disability theory, and standpoint theory as well.

With regard to social problems, most of our courses address social justice issues. As part of this, you will be exposed to the many variables involved in social life, as well as the critical thinking to recognize social problems, and the means to find their cure.

Social Institutions

You should have a working knowledge of a variety of social institutions.

A social institution is a patterned regularity designed to meet the needs of society.  Examples of social institutions include the state (maintains social order), religion (gives a sense of common purpose), the educational system (trains individuals to be productive members by passing on the necessary skills), science (solves problems), the media (gives people a sense of common purpose), the economy (produces and distributes goods necessary for physical existence) and the family (births and socializes the young).  Institutions are society's enduring (permanent) system of relations comprised of specific roles (what individuals must do) statuses (the amount of prestige delegated to each role), and normative expectations. A society's institutions are created by people that interact with each other and thereby maintain the institutions.  In this way, institutions are both created by interacting individuals and enable and impede individual interactions.  Finally institutions are linked together in a social system.  Sociologists examine this social system as 'sui generis' or greater than the sum of its parts. 

While theoretically, social institutions are patterned regularities designed to meet the needs of a society, whether or not they do is a research question.  In research, sociologists examine specific institutions and test whether or not these institutions are in fact meeting the needs of their members. Alternatively, sociologists may investigate whether the institutions are meeting the needs of some members better than, or at the expense of, others. In the sociological sense, institutions (e.g. the educational system) pattern the way organizations (e.g. Jacksonville State University) work.

Adapted from "The Practical Skeptic: Core Concepts in Sociology," by Lisa J. McIntyre

Gender Issues

JSU sociology students should understand the dynamics of gender in everyday life.

Gender is one of the most important areas of human development and human relations. Gender, as a master status, influences people throughout their lives, how they form their identities and frame their experiences, how they are treated, and how they treat others and their access to resources.

Gender has many dimensions. For example,
(1) gender is a social institution. Gender, as a social institution, refers to a society's enduring system of gender relations that specifies gender statuses (boy/man and girl/woman), normative expectations about gender, a system of gender-based social relations, a stratification system based on gender, gendered practices/activities, gender ideology, as well as gender stereotypes. A society's gender institution is created by people in a society that interact with each other, and maintain those interactions over time.

(2) Gender is a system of stratification. Gender stratification refers to a societal system whereby men/boys and women/girls that are otherwise status equals (e.g., age, social class, race/ethnicity, religion, etc.) have unequal access to scarce and valued resources in a society (e.g. wealth, health care, nutrition, education, training). Historically and geographically, females are and have been at a disadvantage. No known society has ever favored females.

(3) Gender is a social status for individual people (see girl, woman, boy, man, gender status).

(4) Gender is practice, an accomplishment, actions people do.

(5) Gender exists as an ideology or set of beliefs, expectations, and stereotypes about what women and men, boys and girls are, should do, and can do.

Adapted from Patricia Yancey Martin, as well as Chafetz, Janet. 1990. Gender Equity: An Integrated Theory of Stability and Change.

Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking is a desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to mediate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order, and hatred for every kind of imposture. - Francis Bacon, 1605

"The purpose of critical thinking is, therefore, to achieve understanding, evaluate view points, and solve problems. Since all three areas involve the asking of questions, we can say that critical thinking is the questioning or inquiry we engage in when we seek to understand, evaluate, or resolve."
Maiorana, Victor P. Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum: Building the Analytical Classroom. 1992.