Download St. Thomas University The Discipline of Sociology

St. Thomas University
The Discipline of Sociology
Sociology studies how people
collectively shape our social
world. We explore patterns of
social organization, and the
dynamic processes through which
these patterns are continually
formed, negotiated, challenged,
and changed. Sociology does not
view society as a tangible entity
external to people’s lives, but
rather as continually brought into
being and sustained through the
relationships and forces that
people exert over each other.
Sociology explores the dynamics
of power through which people
experience their lives as gendered,
racialized, ethnicized and classed.
The central assumption of
sociology is that our life chances
as individuals are understandable
only within historically specific
social situations. As students of
sociology you will be challenged
to continually shift perspectives in
imagination, to switch from
thinking about family and
interpersonal relations to politics,
the economy, international
relations and war, and to see their
interconnections, and their
relevance for your own lives.
Sociology is the hub of all the
social sciences – the core
discipline that underlies
specialized ares of study like
political science, economics,
criminology and native studies It
forms the foundation of many
professions, including social
work, education, policing,
journalism, urban planning,
management, and political policy
formation and analysis.
The sociological imagination, the
capacity to understand the relationship
between elements of society and their
impact on individual life chances, has
become the central feature of modern
society, dominating how people think
about themselves and others, how
histories are written, and literature
read.
“Knowledge never floats free
of its socio-political context,
and if that context is organized
around relations of power,
then knowledge will be
unavoidably implicated in
those relations. On the other
hand, the critic realizes that
our social world – including
our knowledge of that world –
is not simply given, or the
result of natural processes, but
is an historical construction.
It has been produced by the
past actions of people, and
therefore can be remade by
future actions.”
William Carroll
Critical Strategies for Social
Research, 2004, 2.
The STU Approach
From your first classes in sociology,
you will be encouraged to challenge
and to question what counts as
‘knowledge’, to think about how
knowledge itself is constructed
through social processes. We explore
a wide variety of ways of thinking
about social issues, both looking at
the big picture of world society
and Canada’s place within it, and
the micro-sociology of intimate
personal relations, and how these
are changing. We are committed
to social justice. We seek to use
the tools of sociology to empower
people to challenge and change
structures that perpetuate
inequality and injustice.
Research Skills
As a science, sociology is
concerned with the development
of new knowledge about society.
Through our required research
methods course you will learn the
basic techniques of scientific
inquiry and the practical
experience in designing and
carrying out research projects. In
our many elective courses you
will encounter a full range of
research strategies that
sociologists use, including case
studies, participant observation,
qualitative interviews, survey
research reports, institutional
ethnographies, discourse and
textual analysis. All students who
major in sociology take one of our
capstone senior seminars. These
are designed to encourage
students to apply their
accumulated knowledge of
sociology approaches and
research tools to explore a
substantive issue in collaborative
small group settings. Students
who honour in sociology design
and carry out an individual
research project to produce new
sociological knowledge.
Diversity in Courses
• Our sociology majors program is
organized around core course in
theory and methodology.
• We offer broad overview
courses in Canadian society and
Atlantic Canada designed for
majors and non-majors in
sociology.
• Our political economy focus
offers courses in inequality in
society, social problems,
ecology political economy,
social movements, war,
globalization, and development.
“The sociological imagination
enables its possessor to
understand the larger historical
scene in terms of its meaning
for the inner life and the
external career of a variety of
individuals”
C. Wright Mills
“The Promise”, 1959, 5
Generic Skills
Students of sociology learn important
generic skills of analysis, research and
communication, and have experience
in working independently and in study
• The sociology department offers teams. You will learn to think about
a range of core courses in the
situations and events as complex
Women’s Studies and Gender
processes unfolding in time, and to
Studies programme, particularly bring diverse perspectives to bear on
including courses in feminist
issues, and especially to pay attention
theory, gender relations,
to competing and minority voices.
employment equity policy,
You will be alert to complex
women in third world, women in interrelationships, sensitive to how
education, and in law, and a
policy decisions commonly have
specialized course in Chinese
unintended and unforeseen
women.
consequences, and aware of the
importance of social justice in
• We offer a special focus on
achieving positive social change. You
deviance, law, women and law,
will develop the research skills needed
and social control and social
to apply principles of scientific
justice.
reasoning to explore cause
relationship, and the critical insight
• We also specialize in the study
needed to appreciate the strengths and
of communications and mass
limitations of available evidence. The
media, Internet as social process, skills are important for work in a broad
the sociology of knowledge, and range of professional fields.
of science.
• We also offer and range of
substantive area studies in race
and ethnic relations, religion,
family, work, and education.
• We overlap with the Fine Arts
Programme in offering courses
in the sociology of art and
culture, and music.
graduates include: teaching,
policy analysis and research,
probation, community relations,
urban and city planning,
management, labour relations,
marketing, journalism, and social
services of all kinds. Sociologists
work for government agencies,
non-profit organizations, social
service agencies, community
organizations, mass media,
personnel and public relations.
Faculty Research at STU
Dr. Michael Clow
Political economy of Canada;
labour-process theory
Dr. Sylvia Hale
Contested theory perspectives in
Canadian Sociology
Dr. Colm Kelly
Social theory; Derrida;
continental philosophy
Dr. Gayle MacDonald
Women and Law; sex-trade
workers
Dr. Peter MacDonald
Labour-process theory in treeharvesting industry
Dr. Susan Machum
Rural sociology; women in
primary production
Dr. Adele Mueller
Internet communication and
surveillance
Career Preparation
A sociology degree will prepare you
for graduate studies in a wide range of
disciplines including sociology,
education, business, criminology, and
law. A sample of careers in which you
will typically find sociology
Dr. Marilee Reimer
Women’s careers in corporate
university
Dr. Peter Weeks
Ethnomethodology of collective
music-making