Graduate courses act as Honors courses, with Honors credit awarded for a grade of B- or higher.

The Sociology department invites Honors students to consider the following graduate courses. For a permission number to enroll in any of them, email the instructor.

SOCI 5203: Quantitative Research I

Instructor: Jeremy Pais

This is an introductory social statistics course for graduate students. The topics covered in this course form the foundation of modern quantitative social research. The primary goal of the course is to introduce students to the fundamentals of statistical reasoning and to the role of statistical methods in social research. Topics include linear regression, hypothesis testing and model selection; regression diagnostics; non-linearity and functional form; mediation and moderation effects; path analysis; and factor analysis.

University Honors Laureate: STEM

SOCI 5231: Qualitative Research I

Instructor: Nancy Naples

This course will emphasize the relationship between epistemology, methodology and method begun in the fall semester. We will also discuss contemporary debates in qualitative methodology and critical perspectives on qualitative methodology including feminist, queer, Third World, indigenous, and postcolonial approaches to social research. We will also explore the design and application of different methods including interviewing, the case method, institutional ethnography, narrative analysis, discourse analysis, content analysis, policy analysis, mixed methods. The readings for the course are designed to assist you in locating your own work within the larger sociological tradition.

The class will include an intensive workshop in use of NVivo for data analysis and conducting research using various media including online and newspaper sources led by Kate Ragon (UConn ABD).

University Honors Laureate: SS

SOCI 5515: Sociology of Immigration

Instructor: Bandana Purkayastha

Do you want to learn about immigration as a terrain of struggle, shaped by forces of inclusion and exclusion? We will use a decolonized approach to the sociological study of immigration by focusing on scholarship from the global South and North. We will focus on internal and international migration, examine migration “by choice” and forced migration (including human trafficking), and examine the racialized/gendered/class/sexualized structures that shape policies and practices towards migrants. We will examine 20th century concepts such as assimilation but we will emphasize 21st century discussions such as changing governance of migrants (including detention) migrant and refugee activism and resistance amidst questions of their human security within national and transnational contexts. The cases will be drawn from the US, selected Asian, European, South and Central American, and African countries.

University Honors Laureate: SS, D&M

SOCI 5601: Gender and Sexualities

Instructor: Mary Bernstein

This course explores the social organization, construction, and politics of sexualities with a particular focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (lgbtq) experiences and the intersection of sexualities, gender, race, age, and class. We look at how institutions, identities, and discourses interact with, are regulated by, and produce sexual meanings. We examine the ways in which sexuality and desire are constituted through the state and the political economy as well as the ways in which sexuality serves as an axis of domination. Other topics include sexuality and immigration, sex work, transnational sexuality, sexuality and masculinity, and adolescent sexuality.

University Honors Laureate: SS, D&M

SOCI 5895-002: (Special Topics) Genders and Globalizations

Instructor: Manisha Desai

“Women’s Rights are Human Rights and Human Rights are Women’s Rights,” entered the global human rights discourse at the Second UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993 as a critique of the gendered nature of Human Rights discourse and practice. In this seminar we will study the history of women’s mobilizing around the world that led to this articulation; how it has or has not influenced human rights theories and practices; how the gendered critique might perpetuate other inequalities even as it challenges gendered ones; and what it has meant for global gender justice specifically and social justice more generally.

University Honors Laureate: SS, D&M