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Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives

This course is an overview of the discipline of sociology and introduces students to the complex and dynamic social world in which we live. It offers a comprehensive introduction to sociology and its foundational concepts and theories, with emphasis upon the application of these theories to the understanding of social institutions. This course focuses on how society functions and is organized, and how society impacts and influences individual motivation, understanding, action, and well-being. Topics such as social interaction, family, culture, socialization, religion, race, ethnicity and economic and political institutions are examined.

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, students will develop the ability to identify, analyze and apply sociological perspectives to current social issues and apply sociological concepts to everyday life to better understand how larger society affects individual behavior and choices.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives

This course will provide students with insights into the historical, socio-cultural, political and economic factors contributing to the rise of Bengali nationalism and emergence of Bangladesh. It will explore the formation of the capital, bourgeoisie, political elites, and middle class to understand the creation of two nation-states called Pakistan and Bangladesh. This course will also examine the key historical movements and will explore how the worldwide decolonization process contributed to the creation of Bangladesh. In addition, the theories of nationalism and modern nation-states, including modernization theory, primordial theory, Marxist theory, feminist theory, and Subaltern school will be highlighted in this course.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completing this course, the students will develop a comprehensive and critical perspective to understand Bangladesh’s emergence from micro, meso, and macro levels.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives

The purpose of this course is to provide the students with an opportunity to gain knowledge on the anthropological analysis of culture and different approaches to anthropological analysis. This course involves an in-depth exploration of the concept of culture, theories of cultural anthropology, ethnographic methods and field research, pattern of pre-historic indigenous culture, beliefs and rituals, including some of the basic elements of economic and political organizations.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, students will be able to apply anthropological concepts and theories to the analysis of both Western and non-Western cultural traditions.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives

The objective of this course is to introduce students with some of the major social problems and issues in contemporary society with a special focus on Bangladesh. This course is an examination of contemporary social problems through sociological perspectives which is designed to provide students with an understanding of how major social forces are interrelated, and result in numerous social problems. The course will consider different theoretical perspectives used to identify and understand social problems.

Learning Outcomes

Students are expected to learn the process of how these social problems arise in society. When students complete this course, they will be to evaluate social problems from differing viewpoints and perspectives and identify the strengths and flaws of each stance.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives:

The course is designed to introduce students to the sociological study of society. Continuing from the previous semester, the major themes include social stratification, poverty, the causes and consequences of social change, interplay between the individual and environment, social exclusion, crime and deviance, dynamics of power, urbanization, body, health and medicine, cultural construction of human life, and the causes and consequences of major globalization processes. In this course we will consider the importance of sociological perspective for understanding Bangladesh society, focusing on identifying, studying, and solving sociological problems based on empirical data.

Learning Outcomes:

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to develop their ability to apply sociological concepts to current issues that affect individuals, human society and will be able to explain social patterns changing over time and in different settings.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives:

This course aims to introduce students the various approaches and assumptions that are implicit in the context of gender, society and development. The course begins with a range of fundamental concepts and theoretical approaches to gender and development and feminist critiques. In this course we use gender as a central concept of sociological analysis and critically examine how gender hierarchies and stereotypes about gender and work are set in family, mass media, work place and educational institutions through historical processes. Topics will also include discrimination, exploitation, violence and subordination of women in various contexts with a focus on patriarchal system.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of the course the students will be familiar with some of the basic theories and national and international policy questions around development and gender and be able to critically assess the arguments for and against greater gender equality in different institutional contexts.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives:

The focus of this course is on the sociological study of education in Bangladesh society. The major focus will be on the forms of schooling, academic standards, and quality of education, inequality that exist at the global and national level, and education in cross-cultural perspective. This course will also reflect how cultural values of a society shape both formal and informal education system. Students will learn educational movements and reforms, education policies, and fundamental principles and theories from the perspective of sociology of education.

Learning Outcomes:

At the end of this course, students will be able to trace the organization of education in Bangladesh, analyze the relationships between educational institutions and wider social structures including major sociological theories on the role of education in the society.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives:

The course is designed to acquaint the students with the content and structure of rural sociology and to deal with some selected issues of rural social structure and social life of Bangladesh. In this course we will study the state of social conditions in rural South Asia, focusing on social relations and social institutions of Bangladesh. Students will gain a general background in key substantive focus areas of rural sociology, particularly agrarian and rural social structure, social inequalities, social change, and development. We will pay particular attention to economic conditions, and structural transformations in agriculture, an important rural industry.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this course, students should successfully be able to apply sociological concepts to issues and topics concerning rural areas in Bangladesh society, including the application of sociological principles to agriculture, food, and environmental issues.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives:

This course introduces students to basic statistical methods used in the social sciences in general, and sociology in particular. The principal goal of the course is to introduce students to the fundamentals of statistical reasoning and to the role of statistical methods in social research. The course is divided into three parts: the first part covers descriptive statistics, such as frequency distributions, measures of central tendency, and the normal curve and data visualization. The second part covers inferential statistics focusing on probability and sampling, hypothesis testing, and bivariate tables. The third part incorporates measures of association for nominal and ordinal variables.

Learning Outcomes:

At the end of the course, students will be able to learn basic statistical concepts and techniques, undertake elementary data analysis, critically evaluate statistical information and data-based arguments which will equip them with the conceptual knowledge and practical skills to apply this information in scholarly research.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives:

This course addresses the social aspects of economic life and explains how economic institutions work and are influenced by values and norms. It provides a critical perspective of the concepts of structure, culture, institutions and power to the study of economy of a society. This course is organized around three core themes: the relationship between economy and other social institutions, sociological theories of economic relations and globalization of societal and economic relations including the impact of capital flows, labor market and development.

Learning Outcomes:

At the end of this course, students will be able to understand economic action as a socially, politically and culturally embedded activity, and the theoretical traditions in which economic sociology is grounded, and apply ideas and concepts of economic sociology to individual experiences.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives:

This course introduces students to the sociological study of organizations. The goal of the course is to gain understandings of the origins, structure, and dynamics of organizations and their relationships to their environment. This course will provide a broad overview of the theoretical and empirical developments in the study of organizations and enhance the understanding of the impact of complex organizations on modern society. It will present different theoretical paradigms about how sociologists think about organizations, often with contrasting assumptions and conclusions.

Learning Outcomes:

When students have finished this course, they will be able to identify and evaluate the central theories and concepts in the sociological study of organizations and construct convincing arguments related to organizational processes and consequences.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives:

This course critically examines the subject of globalization from a sociological perspective. It aims to engage students in the core debates and developments in understanding sociological perspectives on culture, society and globalization. We examine the concept itself, the central themes of changing communications, social networks, and experiences of space and time, and the major economic, political and ideological dimensions of globalization. In this course we introduce how societies and cultures across the world are increasingly connected, including how social media impacts our global society.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this course, students will be able to demonstrate a clear grasp of the concept of globalization and contending definitions of it, and indicate why concepts of ‘culture’, ‘communication’ and ‘social networks’ have been so central to the study of globalization.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives This course will offer a sociological perspective to understand how we construct and reconstruct our social and natural environment through our ideas and actions. It will discuss how the natural environment is shaped and reshaped by human interventions such as architectural design, urban planning, urbanization, and industrialization. It also will explore how the social environment consists of various spaces, including technological, economic, political, social, cultural, and moral. The course will briefly review major theories of the built environment developed over the last 100 years. Moreover, it will focus on the views of urban sociology, including the perspectives of urban ecology and the production of space. By engaging the global political economic approach, we will also examine the production, alteration, or destruction of local, regional and global space, including how human interactions create, sustain, or destroy our social and natural world.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives: This course introduces students to several advanced statistical techniques commonly used in social research. This course builds on the foundation of SOC 201 and will introduce students to more sophisticated statistical analyses. This course includes a broad range of techniques for predicting variables, thorough theoretical grounding in probability, as well as the basics of statistical tests in order to understand the relationship between variables and compute p-values and confidence intervals. Learning Outcomes: On completion of this course, students will be confident in critically assessing the range of statistical tests that might be employed in a given situation and will acquire knowledge of the most important statistical methods for data analysis, understanding their rationale, conditions of usage and their results.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives: This course focuses upon some of the processes which together describe the functioning of the city as a large social system. The course examines the city as a social structure; how cities form and shape social life, how they operate, how they are structured and how an individual behaves within the city environment. Students will be exposed to a number of theoretical perspectives to the study of urban areas, and special attention is given to Third World Urbanization including Bangladesh to account for the changing social patterns of cities and metropolitan regions. Substantial part of this course is devoted to class polarization in cities, cultural spaces, urban policies and the social problems that cities are currently facing. Learning Outcomes: By taking this course, students will develop a general knowledge of the current issues and debates in urban sociology as well as the ability to frame those issues in the context of the cities of Bangladesh and will learn about how urban living shapes social interaction.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objective: This course enhances students’ understanding on the class structure of Bangladesh. This course focuses on both structural and phenomenological aspects of the class system of this country, with a special attention to the notion of ‘change’. The course begins with a discussion of some central concepts to the study of social class such as power, authority, mobility and inequality, and the institutions through which these concepts are structured, reproduced, and experienced in the contemporary Bangladesh society. Learning Outcomes: On successful completion of this course, students will be able to apply social theory to make sense of the formation of social class and will develop critical perspectives and orient them to undertake empirical research.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives: This course will provide a framework for understanding disability and disability-related issues within societal contexts, using a sociological framework. This course treats disability as a socio-cultural phenomenon of growing import to sociology, and examines competing definitions, conceptions and theories of disability and their social and cultural consequences in everyday life. Students will explore how disability intersects with other categories of identity, particularly those of gender and the complex relationships between these categories. Learning Outcomes: Students completing this course will develop their knowledge regarding sociology of disability with a strong focus on the social construction of disability and the diversity of the lived experience.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives: This course aims to provide students with an overview of and a foundation in classical theory in sociology, analyzing the cultural, social, economic, political, intellectual, and biographical contexts within which they developed. The goal is to understand the concepts, theoretical perspectives and arguments made by several classical sociology theorists and to see how classical social theories and concepts relate to current issues and events in our own society. Learning Outcomes: Upon successful completion, students will have the knowledge and skills to evaluate the various theoretical approaches to the study of society including the relevance of the central and defining themes of classical social theories for understanding everyday social experience, life events and changes in the institutional structure of society.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives: This course introduces students to a special sub-field of sociology commonly referred to as medical sociology. This course allows students to develop understanding of key sociological approaches to the analysis and understanding of health and illness. It covers concepts of health and disease, patterns of health and the social construction of disease. Special attention is given to develop knowledge on theories central to the notion of health, including the social, cultural and institutional forces and context that play a role on health and health related practice. The purpose is to help establish a perspective that will enable the students to better understand the relationship between health and society as well as to provide skills and knowledge for research experiences. Learning Outcomes: On successful completion of this course, students should be able to analyze the influence of society, culture and the socio-political environment on disease and health, and the ability to communicate sociological ideas and concepts relating to health inequalities and the experience of illness.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives: This course is a description of major themes and topics related to demographic development. The course aims to introduce students to an understanding of the dynamics of population and related issues of a society. The main objective is to develop an understanding of the demographic perspectives to the analysis of social structure and social change. The course will allow students to explore opposing viewpoints about world and national population problems and what policies should be pursued. In this course, students will gather knowledge about explanatory theories and frameworks of social-demographic interrelationships. Learning Outcomes: After completing the course, students will be able to identify some of the major social and political factors associated with current population developments. Moreover, they will be able to identify some of the major social and political factors associated with current population developments.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives: This course provides students with opportunities to explore various ritualistic behavior and belief traditions. Students will develop knowledge of the terms and concepts relevant to this area of study, and will examine the ways in which religions and belief traditions meet various human needs, such as birth, marriage, ceremonies, health and hunger, and will learn about the relationship between belief and action. In this course, emphasis has been given on understanding the role of belief and ritual within a given cultural context, as well as capturing broader insight into the general functions of belief and ritual in human life. Learning Outcomes: By the end of the course, students will demonstrate an understanding of the terms and concepts related to the study of rituals and belief traditions and will be able to analyze the interaction between society and various religions and belief traditions.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives: This course provides students with a basic understanding of the distinct character of both quantitative and qualitative research process and its roles in social science research. The main objective is to provide students with hands on training of various research methods used in sociological studies. The course equips students with the skills to review and conduct methodologically sound research as a part of their academic and professional work. The course deals with the general logic of scientific inquiry, epistemology, theoretical foundation, research design, sampling, measurement, questionnaire design, as well as qualitative and quantitative data-analysis and presentation. Learning Outcomes: By the end of this course, students will be able to conceptualize a research problem and will be able to design and conduct their research project, developing an ability to apply effective and innovative solutions to research problems.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives: Minority groups have long been understood with reference to race and ethnicity. This course presents a sociological perspective on the critical issues related to minority and indigenous identity, politics and policies around racial and ethnic groups, and the theoretical debates on ethnicity and nationalism. The question of religious minority would be of critical importance while understanding the idea of minority groups and identity. This course will pay attention to international conventions, declarations, acts, ordinances, and policies to better place the idea of minority groups in the society. We aim to foster a critical understanding of the difference between race, ethnicity, minority groups and indigenous people in accordance with the historical and contemporary structures in Bangladesh. Learning Outcomes: Upon completion, students are expected to understand the theories that sociologists use to analyze how identity categories such as race/ethnicity shape the everyday experience of individuals within a society, and critically assess how structural, cultural, historical, and political contexts affect individual lives.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives The peasant society is undergoing a significant transformation, reflecting fundamental changes in the structure of society. This course focuses on the key issues related to peasant societies, and brings a historical approach to grasp the changes that peasant societies underwent since the ancient period to modern era. We will seek to understand agrarian societies as dynamic entities which are shaped by the social, economic and political forces. The course examines the agrarian political economy to analyze the forces and social relations that define land-based transformations both historically and in the contemporary era. It addresses a comprehensive range of questions from various types of agrarian labor to the capital that takes hold of agrarian production processes and transforms peasant farmers. Learning Outcomes Upon completion of this course, students will learn the definitional categorization of the peasant and think critically on a vast array of societal issues concerning social organization, stratification, kinship, production process, agrarian labor, power structure and the theoretical approaches to rural development.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives:This course offers students a conceptual understanding of global governance of water resources within the context of climate change and sustainable development. It takes a political ecology approach to the study of water resource distribution and management and addresses the issues of accessing water and institutional context including social and political factors affecting water governance and ecosystem integrity. The aim of the course is to equip students with an understanding of global water problems and some of the central challenges of water resource politics, particularly in contexts where water insecurity is a major national problem. Learning Outcomes: After the completion of the course, students will be able to identify relevant water governance challenges and critically analyze government decisions and international policies about water resource management, and will be able to evaluate the environmental and social factors that structure and re-structure access and control of water resources between and within communities.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives: Development of sociological theories in the early and middle of twentieth century took a wide turn both thematically and geographically. While Europe kept its contributing channel open, the USA became the new hub. Synthesizing assumed a new turn in Parsons while individual got primacy in interactionist approach. Pragmatism made its inroad through the theorization of rational choice and exchange maxims. A very significant twist is further received by sociological theory by the Europeans particularly through the notions of structuration and habitus. All these journeys are traced in this course to enable the student to embark on the pluralistic encounters that marked the later development. The main objective of this course is to introduce students some of the major perspectives and key debates in contemporary sociological theory. Learning Outcomes: On successfully completing the course, students will be able to explore and understand various theoretical developments in contemporary sociology and critically examine each theory in terms of its roots, meaning and application prospects for dealing with social issues.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives: This course aims to use sociological concepts and perspectives to better understand how structural and socio-cultural forces influence poverty and shape outcomes for communities, groups or individuals. The course will engage with a wide range of theories to examine the multi-dimensionality of global and national poverty. Thus, this course critically evaluates various policies, programs, and approaches to alleviate poverty and further encounters the prospects and challenges of poverty alleviation approaches in Bangladesh. Learning Outcomes: Upon completing this course, students will be able to sociologically understand the underlying causes and consequences of poverty from international and local contexts. Students will also be able to think critically about the definition and measurement of poverty, including theoretical understanding of policies and programs to address poverty from different perspective.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives: Political sociology encompasses a truly vast and disparate variety of topics and theoretical perspectives. This course provides knowledge on sociological aspects of key political institutions, processes and political power. It begins by examining the social basis of political power, the classic paradigms of political sociology, paying particular attention to Marx and Weber. It then examines globalization, politics, national identity, civil society, social movements, government and the state formation. In the context of globalization the focus of political sociology has been shifted to nation state, citizenship and social exclusion, social protests and social change. This course addresses a range of debates in the study of political sociology and uses sociological knowledge to assess power, authority, and governance. Learning Outcomes: By the end of this course students are expected to demonstrate understanding of major theoretical perspectives, socio-political transformations, significance of national identity, citizenship, and how the domination of power occurs.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives: Sustainable development is a contested concept that can have different meanings when applied to economic, social and environmental situations. The different schools of thought propagated by academicians, The World Bank, environmentalists, large corporations, indigenous communities have contested perspective surrounding the sustainable development paradigm. In this course we will critically examine multiple definitions and framings of development and sustainability, focusing on ecological footprint, greening capitalism, globalization and neoliberalism, climate denial as well as distribution of wealth and access to resources between nations. We will seek to answer questions that relate to our environment and society: are continued ecological degradation, climate change, and extreme inequality and poverty inevitable? Learning Outcomes: After completing the course, students will be able to examine environmental and sustainable development controversies by drawing on sociological concepts and theories. The learning outcome of this course is to develop critical thinking by examining the sociological writings on the relationships between development and sustainability.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives: This course comprises of theoretical and historical perspectives to help understand the basic issues of social changes of Bangladesh. It touches briefly on the history of different periods that was pivotal in shaping the development of Bangladesh society in course of time. It has pursued a multi-dimensional approach to widen the appreciation of nature of critical changes in Bangladesh. Learning Outcomes: Having successfully completed this course, students will be able to develop sociological understanding of social change, and will be exposed to sociology’s rich analytical lens for understanding social change in Bangladesh society.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives: The main purpose of this course is to familiarize students with the analytic debates around the relationships between gender, violence and development. The overall purpose is to increase students’ knowledge and understanding of the concept of gender, and gender-based violence, sexuality, rights and development. It will further delve into various forms of gender-based violence and sexual exploitation. Learning Outcomes: By the end of this course, students should be able to command knowledge with key analytic debates in the field of gender, violence and development, including power relations within the context of gendered violence.

Course Credit: 4

Course Objectives: This course comprises two parts. Part one addresses course work which aims to provide theoretical and conceptual knowledge, explaining the path of doing a sociological research by providing both direction and impetus to the research inquiry. This part seeks to ensure that students are ready to conduct field-based research. Part Two is comprised of an individual research project (monograph) in which students will apply sociological knowledge and skills within a practical field context. A two page proposal with a methodological plan is to be submitted to the supervisor by the date specified. Once approved by the supervisor, a topic may not be changed without the teacher’s approval. Overall, the main purpose of this course is to teach students about writing a sociological research monograph. It aims to train students in planning, designing and conducting a sociological research and how to write research proposals and reports. The objective is to provide students with the necessary skills for the main research methods used in Sociology. Throughout the course, basic philosophy of applying both quantitative and qualitative approaches along with pertinent issues of research methods and applicability of various instruments of data will be discussed. Learning Outcomes: By the end of this course, students should be able to conceptualize a research problem, and will be able to design and conduct their own research project, with an advanced understanding of the methodological principles of research.

Course Credit: 4

The aim of comprehensive examination is to ensure that students have understood the main ideas of the courses offered throughout the undergraduate program. Comprehensive examination entails a variety of concepts and theories related to the subject of study, and evaluate students’ ability to understand and apply the materials taught from the entire semesters. This examination is given towards the end of the final semester, since this is seen as the determining factor as to whether students have understood the subject or not. It is not realistic to expect to read everything taught in the entire semester. However, students should be strategic about their reading, making sure they are only reading the most relevant and important sociological issues to save their time. In the comprehensive examination, essay type questions will be used for testing students’ broad knowledge of course content in a relatively short amount of time, and by nature, students require to narrow down the answer to the question, organizing and composing their answers.