Fall Course – SOCL 363  The Individual & Society

Microsociology affirms that human beings are ‘subjects’, active and creative respondents to each other and their social environment, as opposed to passive ‘objects’, defined by either large, distant social forces, group-think, or instinctual stimulus-response reactions lacking any shared group meaning. Interdisciplinary engagements with phenomenology and philosophical pragmatism inspired its challenge to a disciplinary status quo between grand, all-encompassing theories and methodological positivism.
TR: 1:30–2:45 p.m.
Tanetta Andersson

SOCL 363-01   The Individual & Society
TR: 1:30PM-2:45PM
Tanetta Andersson

Microsociology affirms that human beings are ‘subjects’, active and creative respondents to each other and their social environment, as opposed to passive ‘objects’, defined by either large, distant social forces, group-think, or instinctual stimulus-response reactions lacking any shared group meaning. Interdisciplinary engagements with phenomenology and philosophical pragmatism inspired its challenge to a disciplinary status quo between grand, all-encompassing theories and methodological positivism. Reading Mead, W.E.B. Du Bois, Cooley, and Goffman, for instance, we examine language and symbol-use, human subjectivity, socialization, social construction of reality, the interactive social order, situation versus frame analysis, the social self as a structure of consciousness (shaped through race, class, and gender hierarchies), and methodological pluralism like grounded theory research. Students’ essay writing explores these concepts through the UP! documentary series, ultimately complicating bifurcated divides between macro- and micro-levels of social life.

Prerequisite(s): Prerequisite: C- or better in Sociology 101
Distribution Requirement: Meets Social Sciences Requirement