This course will introduce students to the application of statistical techniques commonly used in sociological analysis. Topics include measures of central tendency and dispersion, probability theory, confidence intervals, chi-square, ANOVA, and regression analysis. Hands-on computer experience with statistical software and analysis of data from various fields of social research.

Instructor: McDonald
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A survey of research design with emphasis on the appropriateness of the design of the research for the theoretical problems to which it is addressed. Discussions of funded research proposals illustrate practical problems related to human subjects, availability of archival data, and timing of measurement.

Instructor: DeLuca

Intensive readings from classical theorists (Marx, Weber, and Durkheim) form the core of this course. Various critics and elaborators of modern social theory are also studied, ranging from representatives of the Frankfurt School to post modern and feminist social theorists. Emphasis is placed on exploring the utility of social theory for formulating important sociological questions and conceptualizing social research.

Instructor: Silver

This course will explore several important traditions in contemporary social theory, including structural-functionalism, micro-interactionism, exchange and rational choice, post-structuralism, discourse and narrative analysis, and efforts by recent theorists to extend, synthesize, supplement, and revise Marx and Weber’s explanations of inequality, group conflict, and macro-level social change, including world systems analysis.

Instructor: Andreas
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A seminar in multiple regression (least squares and alternative estimation procedures) with a focus on sociological problems and software applications. Extensions to hierarchical linear models will be included. Graduate students should have completed 230.600 or the equivalent. Undergraduates only admitted with instructor’s permission, and 230.205 or equivalent.

Prerequisite: 230.205, 230.600 or equivalent.

Previously offered under course name of Regression Analysis.

Instructor: Plank
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This course provides the students with a set of statistical tools to understand and interpret social science research dealing with categorical dependent variables and to prepare students to apply these models in their own research. The models covered in the course include logit, probit, Poisson, and log-linear models, as well as multi-level models of categorical dependent variables.

Instructor: Hao
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This course introduces the main tools of categorical and panel data analysis. Categorical data analysis deals with categorical dependent variables. The first 7 weeks of the course introduce models for dichotomous, multiple-category, and count dependent variables, including logit, probit, ordered logit, multinomial logit, Poisson, and negative binomial models. Week 7 covers procedures for constructing data and handling missing data. The last 6 weeks introduce discrete-time models for panel data analysis along three lines: continuous vs. categorical dependent variables, random-vs. fixed-effects models, and static vs. dynamic models. This course uses the statistical packages Stata.

Instructor: Hao

A research seminar on the comparative-historical sociology of labor movements. The interrelationships between transformations in the labor process, labor markets, and patterns of working class formation and protest are examined; spatial and temporal convergences/divergences are analyzed.

Instructor: Silver

Individual one-hour presentations by faculty members will introduce students to the faculty’s substantive interests and research styles.

Instructor: Staff

A semester-long course designed to enhance graduate students’ understanding of the logic of sociological research, from the formulation of a research problem to proposal writing and data analysis. This course is designed for advanced graduate students preparing their dissertation proposals.

Instructor: Staff

A critical examination of the research literature in this domain, with special attention to the logic of cross-national comparative analysis and to the methods used for assuring comparability of concepts and indices in cross-national research.

Instructor: Kohn

In this seminar we will read key texts in comparative sociology. The topics covered are cross-national sociology, comparative national development, comparing world-systems, the modern world-system, globalization, and social movements.

Instructor: Hung
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This seminar attempts a broad survey of sociological theorizing and research on social stratification and the role of social institutions in generating and mitigating inequality.

Instructor: Staff

Seminar on the interrelationship between processes of urbanization and the dynamics of social protest. Case studies in comparative and world-historical perspective.

Instructor: Silver

A discussion-oriented seminar focused on major recent writings on the family, in both the developed and developing nations.

Instructor: Cherlin
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The course covers advanced methods for panel data analysis; including discrete time models for continuous vs. categorical dependent variables, random vs. fixed effects, and static vs. dynamic processes. Applications of these models to sociological research will be illustrated.

Instructor: Hao

This advanced graduate seminar reviews the major sociological works on race, class and gender. It is designed to assist dissertation-level students to flesh out specific points and counterpoints feeding debates among scholars in the field

Instructor: McDonald

In-depth reading and discussion of theories and research on immigration to the U.S. Theoretical issues include international migration, immigration, and assimilation. Research topics include the impact of U.S. immigration laws on immigrant inflows and stocks, self-selection of immigrants, the impact of immigration on the native-born population, and the adaptation of the first and second generations. The course focuses on immigration since 1965 and its related controversies and debates.

Instructor: Hao
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A graduate seminar designed as a collective research experience to investigate the interdependent nature of gender, work, and family. Specifically, the course will examine market and non market forces that affect women’s employment trends and employment life trajectories; structural inequality in the society and its consequences for the workplace; how organizational settings affect the behavior of men and women at work; historical racial and ethnic differences in the meaning of work and participation in the paid and non-paid labor force; and the connectedness of women’s employment to marriage and childbearing. Open to advanced undergraduates with permission of instructor.

Instructor: McDonald

This course introduces students to techniques for the analysis of event histories and categorical data such as logistic regression, hazard models, and other censored and truncated regression models. Students will do exercises using sample data and statistical software.

Instructor: Cherlin

This course covers hazard models (also called survival analysis), treatment effects models such as propensity score analysis, censored regression models, and statistical approaches to address endogeneity.  It is offered in alternate years with 230.606, Categorical and Panel Data Analysis.

Instructor: Cherlin

This course engages students in the study of educational inequality through in depth readings on poverty, culture, the family, neighborhoods and public policy.

Instructor: DeLuca

This is a reading seminar on developmental processes at the global, regional, and national level. Students read and discuss recent theoretical and empirical works on one or more of the following topics: the rise and demise of world systems; regional economies and civilizations; hegemonic cycles and world-scale processes of capital accumulation; core/periphery hierarchies and uneven development; transnational institutions and comparative national development.

Instructor: Agarwala

Selected topics in the study of long-term, world-scale social change.

Instructor: Silver

This course focuses on studies of cycles, trends and structural changes in the modern world-system. The literature on globalization is reviewed and studies of the causes and consequences of changing structural features of the whole world-system are examined.

Instructor: Staff

Research-oriented seminar on selected topics in international development. Course work will include various activities including the writing of review essays, critical analysis of key texts, symposium participation, and the collection and ioncorporation of new evidence related to specific theses on global inequality and development.

Instructor: Silver

Non-mathematical introduction to the use of these advanced methods for dealing with measurement error and causal modeling. Emphasis will be given to examining underlying assumptions and critically evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of these methods. Participants will be expected to do analyses using own data or data provided by the instructor.

Prerequisites:

Some knowledge of multiple regression analysis, some familiarity with computers.

Instructor: Kohn

Instructor: Silver / Nealon

Instructor: Silver / Nealon

Working seminar focusing on new research in the field of comparative and world-historical sociology.

Restriction:  Sociology graduate students or permission of instructor

Instructor: Silver

This course is designed to help students think critically, theoretically, and empirically about issues in design of sociological research that aims to answer causal questions and incorporate mixed methods approaches. Specifically, we will focus on: 1) Understanding causal inference and the objectives of social science; 2) Learning the types of validity in research designs; 3) Becoming familiar with the elements of experimental research design, such as treatment, observation and assignment; 4) Comparing and contrasting experimental and quasi-experimental designs and their applications for the study of social processes and social problems; 5) Understanding designs that employ mixed methods to answer questions of social and policy importance .  The course will give a general overview of the challenges of causal inference, but we will focus on research in a few specific areas, such as education and urban sociology, for the sake of consistent, coherent examples.  Sociology/Statistics background is helpful, but not required.

Instructor: DeLuca

Instructor: Silver / Nealon

This course is designed to help students understand the important theoretical and empirical considerations required to design, collect and analyze sociological data in urban settings. Emphasis will be given to the practical aspects of fieldwork and data collection, as well as the benefits and challenges of mixed methods research designs. The significance of research for public policy will also be highlighted. The workload for each semester will vary, usually tackling one or more of the following aspects of conducting research in urban settings: moving from theoretical puzzles to research questions; designing interview guides; designing human subjects/IRB protocols; preparing logistics for fieldwork; interview training; actual interviewing in the field; writing field notes; analyzing data from interviews; writing papers from qualitative data; blending GIS, qualitative and quantitative data to answer questions. Admission is granted by permission from instructor only.

Instructor: DeLuca

An intensive analysis of a wide range of sociological studies, designed to acquaint the student with how sociologists deal with important theoretical issues, using a variety of methods and sources of data. Particular attention will be paid to the logical coherence of the studies and to the fit between data and interpretation.

Instructor: Kohn

Seminar focusing on new research in the study of social inequality, with an emphasis on education, neighborhoods, race, family dynamics, health and social policy.

Restriction:  Sociology graduate students or permission of instructor

Instructor: DeLuca

This course will explore questions related to historical and contemporary trajectories of agrarian change. It begins with classical theoretical debates on the distinctiveness of peasantries and their prospects under capitalism. It will then turn to major themes of agrarian change in the twentieth century: modes of production, class polarization and differentiation, peasant wars, moral economies, everyday resistance, collectivization and decollectivization, food regimes, and depeasantization. It will conclude with new themes in agrarian change, with a particular emphasis on contemporary forms of land dispossession and repossession. The course will be structured as a reading-intensive research seminar.

Instructor: Levien

This course provides in-depth familiarity with qualitative research methods, including ethnographic research, participant observation, and intensive interviewing. Alternative conventions in the elaboration of narratives are also explored. The course includes the application of relevant methods. Open to advanced undergraduates with permission of instructor.

Instructor: McDonald
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The course examines methods of studying long-term, large-scale social change. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are covered.

Instructor: Silver

This seminar surveys important texts that treat key problems of political sociology including the rise of the modern state, the origins and nature of liberal democracy, the relationship between political and economic power, the nation-state model and nationalism, gender and the state, ideology, political contention, collective identity, and collective action.

Instructor: Andreas
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Topics are selected to enable students to understand and extend or revise current theories and measurements of school effects. Topics may include the social organization of schools and classrooms, estimation of cumulative school impact; techniques for examining the interaction of school, individual and family characteristics; definition and measurement of nonacademic outcomes of schooling, formulation of factors which condition the influence of school desegregation; elaboration of attainment models; comparison of within- and between-school models; and study of school, family, and peer group influence processes.

Instructor: Alexander, DeLuca, Plank

Students are introduced to current theory and research regarding the role of schooling in modern society. Topics are selected to enable students to understand and extend or revise current perspectives and measurements of the antecedents and nature of effects of education. Topics include classical theories on the functions of education (e.g., Durkheim, Weber, Waller, Dewey, and Marx), education and nation-building, education and the division of labor, differentiation and stratification in schools, and education and cultural and social reproduction.

Instructor: Plank

This course presents an in-depth study of racial and ethnic residential segregation and its relationship to social inequality. Through various theoretical perspectives, students will explore the history and contemporary patterns of residential segregation in the United States. In doing so, students will learn about the persons, organizations, and social phenomena that contribute to neighborhood segregation, such as developers, homeowner associations, federal government, local governments (like our own Baltimore City), as well as personal preferences. Through lectures, readings, discussions, and films, students will gain insight into the causes of segregation, as well as its social, economic, and demographic consequences.

Instructor: Bennett
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An intensive examination of the research literature on the relationships of position in the social structure (particularly the class structure and the social-stratification hierarchy) with personality, based primarily on research conducted by the instructor and his collaborators in the United States, Japan, Poland when it was socialist, Poland and Ukraine during their transitions from socialism to nascent capitalism, and (currently) China during its very different transformation.

Instructor: Kohn

Students may request instructors to arrange reading or research courses fitting particular needs and interests.

Instructor: Staff