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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