Sonoma State University

About

The Department of Sociology is housed within the College of Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Arts. The department consists of eight full-time faculty and several lecturers who specialize in environment, race, education, family, immigration, media, gender, organizations, social psychology, culture, and health & welfare. All sociology faculty are active within their areas of expertise and related professional communities.

Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs)

Upon degree completion, sociology majors will be able to 

  1. Apply sociological theories to understand social phenomena 
  2. Critically evaluate explanations of human behavior and social phenomena 
  3. Apply scientific principles to understand the social world 
  4. Evaluate the quality of social scientific methods and data 
  5. Rigorously analyze social scientific data. 
  6. Use sociological knowledge to inform policy debates, promote social justice, and engage in public exchange of ideas

Curriculum Goals

Through successful completion of the major, sociology students will engage the following capacities:

  • Critical Comprehension: To develop the capacity for critical reading of scholarly and professional materials in sociology.
  • Written and Oral Presentation: To develop the capacity for critical written and oral presentation and evaluation of scholarly and professional materials in sociology.
  • Bibliographic Search: To develop the capacity to identify and to make productive use of a variety of traditional and non-traditional bibliographic and archival sources.
  • Computer & Information Technologies: To achieve competence in the use of relevant computer modalities and information technologies.
  • Professional Ethics: To develop an understanding of the ethical issues involved in scholarly inquiry and professional and workplace practice, and in publication.
  • Individual and Collaborative Work: To gain experience working individually and collaboratively.
  • Intellectual Competence: To develop the capacity to understand contemporary issues from a sociological perspective and to grasp major issues in sociology.
  • Responsible Citizenship: To develop an understanding of the rights and obligations of their roles as citizens, of their exercise, and of the application of critical inquiry to these roles.

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