Office: Dudley Moorhead Hall 241

Telephone: 408-924-5320

Professors

Maria Luisa Alaniz
Tanya Bakhru, Coordinator, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program
Natalie Boero
Peter Chua
Hien Duc Do, Coordinator, Asian American Studies Program
Carlos Eduardo Garcia, Chair
Shahin Gerami
Amy Leisenring
Susan Bell Murray, Director of Graduate Studies
Scott Myers-Lipton

Associate Professors

William Armaline
Megan Thiele

Assistant Professors

Jack Caraves
Faustina DuCros
Yvonne Y. Kwan
Joanne Rondilla
Preston O. Rudy
Elizabeth Sweet

Overview

The Department of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences educates students about the social processes that create, maintain, and transform our society. The major uses sociological foundations and applications as well as interdisciplinary approaches to the study of society and in teacher education training. Sociologists analyze how social institutions and social structures such as the economy, politics, education, the family, mass media, and the criminal justice system affect individuals in society. The major provides students with the skills and knowledge to navigate the social, political, economic, historical, and cultural issues that build and sustain effective leadership in our complex global society. The teacher preparation program is designed to ensure that teachers will excel in classrooms that are increasingly heterogeneous in terms of race and ethnicity.

We have two major degree program tracks: Sociology, Sociology with Concentrations (Community Change; Race and Ethnic Studies; Social Interaction; Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies); Social Science Teacher Preparation (Multiple and Single Subject). The department offers several minor courses of study: Asian American Studies, Sociology, Sociology of Education, and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies. These degree programs lead to careers in education, government and public policy, criminal justice, nonprofit organizations, marketing research, human resource management, social work, and other areas.

Programs

• Asian American Studies Minor
• Sociology Minor
• Sociology of Education Minor
• Sociology, BA
• Sociology, Community Change Concentration, BA
• Sociology, MA (Not Accepting Students)
• Sociology, Race and Ethnic Studies Concentration, BA
• Sociology, Social Interaction Concentration, BA
• Sociology, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Concentration, BA
• Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Minor

Courses

• WOMS 114 - Politics of Mothering and Reproduction
• WOMS 120 - Special Topics in Women’s Studies
• WOMS 121 - Philosophy and Feminism
• WOMS 122 - Women in the Second Half of Life
• WOMS 131 - Gender, Sexuality, and Religion
• WOMS 156 - Black Women Writers: Race, Culture and Resistance
• WOMS 160 - Queering Gender, Race, and Class
• WOMS 169 - Sexualities and the Body
• WOMS 175 - Sociology of Masculinities and Femininities
• WOMS 180 - Individual Studies
• WOMS 182 - Women in Literature
• WOMS 187 - Feminist Perspectives on Gender and Education in the U.S.
• WOMS 189 - Islamic Perspectives on Gender
• WOMS 190 - Internship
• WOMS 192 - Int’l Program Studies