Topics in Sociological Analysis (476-0-20)

Topic

Status and Inequality in Education

Instructors

Simone Zinaida Ispa-Landa
Ispa-Landa’s scholarship concerns the sociology of education, race and gender, and youth peer cultures. She is interested in understanding how individuals and groups respond to stigma and discrimination, maintain the meaning systems that support it, and seek to overcome its negative consequences. She is currently working on two projects: first, how college men and women in historically white Greek life navigate gendered power dynamics and sexual violence. Her second project is a book about the strengths and challenges of various approaches to racial disparities in discipline in a self-consciously liberal suburban school district. Her areas of teaching include race and ethnicity, gender, sociology of education, sociology of youth and childhood, and qualitative research methods.

Meeting Info

Parkes Hall 222: Wed 2:00PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

"Status and Inequality in Education"

This course provides a graduate-level introduction to sociological approaches to studying schools and schooling. We will read and discuss research that treats school as a platform for understanding broader social realities as well as research that explores how schools contribute to broader social realities. Although most of the readings focus on educational institutions, the theoretical and methodological frameworks we discuss are relevant to a number of other subfields, including organizations, culture, inequality, family dynamics, social mobility, sexuality, and elites.

Learning Objectives

1. Students will demonstrate fluency with the main theoretical frameworks used to understand educational processes and outcomes.
2. Students will identify and evaluate the strengths and limits of empirical studies.
3. Students will develop research questions and methods grounded in a solid understanding of the subfield.

Teaching Method

seminar

Evaluation Method

grade

Class Materials (Required)

All materials for this course will be made available on Canvas - no purchase necessary.

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Sociology/MORS-Soc PhD Students