Summer Sessions | Courses | Sociology

 

The COVID-19 pandemic has made the underlying health disparities that exist in the United States more apparent. The traditional biomedical model places the responsibility of these disparities on the choices that an individual makes. The model assumes that one’s smoking, eating and exercising habits are based on personal choice. Therefore, the prevalence of morbidities such as high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes is the result of an individual’s poor decisions. This course will explore how the conditions under which individuals live, work, play and pray impact their health outcomes. Collectively these conditions are referred to as the Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) and often they reveal the systemic inequalities that disproportionately affect marginalized communities. This course will also call upon the need for a paradigm shift from the “Social” Determinants of Health to the “Structural” Determinants of Health. This shift is in recognition that it is the underlying structures (laws, material infrastructure) that impact health outcomes. The development of the SDoH has challenged health care providers to look beyond the biomedical model that stresses an individual’s behavior as the main predictor of adverse health conditions. Instead the SDoH focuses on an “upstream” approach that examines the underlying systemic and racial inequalities that impact communities of color and their health outcomes. An analysis that focuses upstream reveals that government policies and social structure are at the core of health disparities. Through the lens of New York City and its health systems, this course will cover a wide range of topics related to race and health, including: racial inequalities in housing and homelessness, biases in medical institutions, and the unconscious bias that lead providers to have racialized perception of an individual’s pain tolerance. In addition to exposing these inequalities the course will also provide innovative solutions that seek to mitigate these barriers including: home visiting programs, medical respite programs for homeless patients and food as medicine in health care systems. Students will demonstrate their knowledge through individual writing, and class discussion. The course revolves around important readings, lectures, and podcasts that illustrates how one’s class position and the color of one’s skin can influence the access to healthcare one has as well as their experience of it.

Analysis of the complex relationship among race, art, organizations, economics, social movements and identity. Emphasis is on shifting conceptions of identity and changing roles of race and racism in the spirituals, gospel music, minstrelsy, rhythm and blues, rocknroll, soul music, Hip Hop and contemporary popular music.

All of us have spent many years in school and understand that schools impact our lives in important ways. But how exactly does formal schooling shape young people? And how do students make sense of their lives in the context of schools and educational systems more broadly? In this class we will examine education as a central institution in modern society, and we will grapple with an important question: What role does education play in reinforcing or challenging broader patterns of social inequality and mobility? Particular emphasis will be placed on higher education as a critical site in which these processes take shape.

All of us have spent many years in school and understand that schools impact our lives in important ways. But how exactly does formal schooling shape young people? And how do students make sense of their lives in the context of schools and educational systems more broadly? In this class we will examine education as a central institution in modern society, and we will grapple with an important question: What role does education play in reinforcing or challenging broader patterns of social inequality and mobility? Particular emphasis will be placed on higher education as a critical site in which these processes take shape.

Prerequisites: One introductory course in Sociology suggested. Examination of factors in gender identity that are both universal (across time, culture, setting) and specific to a social context. Social construction of gender roles in different settings, including family, work, and politics. Attention to the role of social policies in reinforcing norms or facilitating change.

Prerequisites: open only to qualified majors in the department; the director of undergraduate studies permission is required. An opportunity for research under the direction of an individual faculty member. Students intending to write a year-long senior thesis should plan to register for C3996 in the spring semester of their senior year and are strongly advised to consult the undergraduate studies as they plan their programs.