3.0

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Race, class and gender are among key factors in systematic patterns of inequality in the United States (and globally). In this course, we examine the manner in which social inequality comes about and is maintained through a range of social institutions and daily social interactions. This class will examine how social institutions and daily social interactions structure the decisions individuals make and, in turn, how the decisions that individuals make serve to perpetuate or challenge existing social institutions and interactions. We will explore how the intersection of different forms of inequality, for example race and class or class and gender challenge traditional conceptions of inequality and provide insight into the processes that perpetuate inequality. We will use these sociological tools to develop what sociologist C. Wright Mills calls the "sociological imagination" and apply this imagination to contemporary debates in American society. We will discuss how the sociological imagination differs from the approach other disciplines in social science might take to study inequality.