Boston University courses

Sociology of gender

Sociologists conceptualize gender as a socially constructed system of stratification. In this overview of the field, we will examine the ways that ideas about gender differences organize our behavior, institutions, and opportunities. The course begins by exploring central theoretical perspectives sociologists use to study gender and their critiques. We will then use these theoretical tools to examine how gender both structures–and is structured by– institutions. To do so, we will employ an intersectional lens to explore how gender intersects with other vectors of identity (including race, sexuality, class, age, nationality, citizenship, and ability) in institutional settings. Course topics include theorizing and studying gender; gender and the family; gendering processes in childhood, adolescence, and emerging adulthood; gendered labor; gender-based violence; the gendering of crime and criminalization; global economies of the body; reproductive rights and justice; and gender and resistance. By the end of the course, you will have developed a sociological imagination to see gender as a structural force that orders both the social and the material world in systematically unequal ways, and knowledge on how individuals, communities, and policy makers are working collectively to resist gender-based forms of oppression.

Genders, Sexualities, and Youth Cultures

This seminar will investigate the social construction and control of gender and sexuality in adolescence. The teen years are often considered a developmental period of physical, psychological, and social turmoil. These concerns are often characterized in distinctly gendered ways and frequently focus on the “risks” and “dangers” of adolescent sexuality. Yet, young people are often negotiating their own experiences of gender and sexuality within restrictive institutions, including oppressive educational environments, media exploitation, familial control, and increasing criminalization. Engaging with critical approaches to youth cultures and an intersectional lens, we will first examine the structural conditions that shape young people’s experiences of gender and sexuality. We will then focus on the range of creative ways that young people navigate, reinforce, and resist gender and sexuality norms within these structural confines. Finally, we will explore the diverse strategies young people use to redefine the possibilities of what gender and sexuality can be.

GENDER & CRIME

This course explores gender differences in crime and criminalization. In the United States, while race shapes incarceration in exceedingly disproportionate ways, the largest demographic discrepancy for federal and state prisoners is across gender. The vast majority of incarcerated people are cisgender men. A small minority (approximately 7%) are cisgender women. Meanwhile, transgender and nonbinary people experience incarceration at significantly higher rates than the cisgender population. Using an intersectional feminist lens, this course interrogates the underlying social forces that shape gender discrepancies in both the perpetration and prosecution of crime. Together, we will examine how cultural ideologies about masculinity, femininity, and gender diversity shape criminalization, victimization, and offending. We will also explore how these social phenomena are shaped through the matrix of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and migration status. The course is organized into a series of units: gendered contexts of crime, youth violence, policing, intersectionality and incarceration, sexual and intimate partner violence, and intimate labor.

Sociology of Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality

This course explores race, class, gender, and sexuality as intersecting axes of stratification, identity, and experience. Drawing from current sociological research and feminist theory, we will analyze how these intersections can be applied to understanding social problems. At this course’s foundation is an exploration of intersectionality. Intersectional feminist scholarship examines social issues beyond focusing on singular identity categories in order to more accurately address the complex realities of being human. Race, class, gender, sexuality, national origin, citizenship, age, ability and other social locators intersect to form myriad experiences and power arrangements, all of which shape our identities as well as our encounters with institutions and culture. Together, we will explore social inequality through this framework, examining the processes by which these categories are socially constructed, interconnected, and maintained within social institutions. We conclude with a discussion of potential pathways for social change.

Principles of Sociology

This class offers an introduction to the field of sociology. Sociology is the scientific study of the social behaviors of people, groups, and societies. Sociologists study social phenomena of all kinds, at both micro (i.e.: interaction, interpersonal dynamics, agency) and macro (i.e.: systems, organizations, institutions) levels. As a survey course, students will explore broad strokes of sociological inquiry, examining the connections between the larger forces of history and personal experiences by engaging what C. Wright Mills coined in 1959 “the sociological imagination.” Through lecture, readings, films, and discussion students will work together to analyze everyday life through the lens of sociology, examining the relationships between the individual, society, social institutions, and social structure. 

Gender & Sexuality: An Interdisciplinary Introduction

Nature vs. nurture? Is it biology or social construction? Polarized questions like these are often invoked in discussions of gender and sexuality or the sources of masculinity and femininity. In this class, we discard this polarization to explore gender and sexuality from multiple perspectives of natural science, social science, and the humanities. We explore how different disciplines (e.g. biology, psychology, and literary studies) define gender and how those definitions influence disciplinary modes of critical analysis. This course considers the origins, diversity, expression, and experience of gendered individuals in social contexts including communities and institutions. Together, we will explore non-binary thinking, delve into the origins of sexes and genders, then examine the creation of sex/gender inequities. We will examine sexuality and sexualities at greater length. This Interdisciplinary Introduction is the required gateway course for the minor in Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies.* In this class, we will work with many different kinds of readings, including empirical research articles and scholarly essays in the natural sciences and social sciences and scholarly works from the humanities along with creative and artistic works. Disciplines will span biology, sociology, history, literature, film, and philosophy.

Previous Courses

Sociology 110: Introduction to Sociology (Taught at UMass Amherst 2015)

Sociology 344: Gender, Crime and Criminalization (Taught at UMass Amherst 2013-2014)

Sociology 387: Sexuality and Society (Taught at UMass Amherst 2013-2015)

Sociology 397: Youth and Social Inequality (Taught at UMass Amherst 2014)