SOC336L - Social Inequality

3 Credit(s)

Liberal Arts
This course investigates those processes whereby members of society are placed into higher and lower status based on differential access to wealth, power, and prestige. Emphasis is on the historic and contemporary institutional organization and reproduction of social inequality according to social class, gender, ethnicity, age, and perceived handicap in America within the global context of the modern world system. Functionalist, conflict, and interval explanations of these processes are fully considered. The integration of theories of social inequality with direct experience through the classroom simulation of the social-class structure in American society is a major dimension of the course. Opportunities for involvement aimed at lessening social inequality in community-based sites are also available.