Introduction to Sociology — Syllabus
Introduction to Sociology is a 3-unit, lower-division undergraduate course offered at [Institution] in [Term]. The class meets in person twice a week for about 75 minutes each time: [Meeting days/times].
This syllabus is the governing document for the course. It tells you what the course is, how your grade is built, what happens each week, and the policies you can count on. Weeks are numbered from Week 1 to Week 16; your instructor's course site gives the due date for each item.
Instructor and Contact
- Instructor: [Instructor name]
- Contact: [Contact info]
- Office hours: [Office hours]
Bring a specific question to office hours, or a statistic or a theory you cannot quite put into words, and reach out early: a question asked in the week it comes up is far easier to answer than one saved for exam week. Check the course announcements at the start of each week.
Course Description
This is the one-semester introductory survey of sociology, open to students in every major with no prerequisite. It teaches the sociological way of thinking: connecting a private life to a public pattern, running one situation through three theoretical perspectives, reading a social statistic for what it measures and what it does not, and reasoning from documented evidence rather than from anecdote or stereotype.
The course moves in a clear arc. It opens with the sociological imagination, C. Wright Mills's name for the habit of linking personal troubles to public issues, along with the founders of the field and the three perspectives that run through every week: structural functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism. It then turns to how sociologists gather evidence. The building blocks of social life come next: culture, socialization and the self, social interaction and groups, and deviance and social control, followed by social stratification and class, with the midterm as a checkpoint in Week 8. The second half takes up the axes of inequality (global inequality, race and ethnicity, and sex, gender, and sexuality), then the major institutions (family, education, religion, the economy and work, and government and politics), and closes with population, cities, and social change.
Two habits carry the whole course. Every time you apply a perspective, you name its level of analysis: macro, the large structures of a society, or micro, everyday face-to-face interaction. Every time you read a figure, you walk four questions: what is measured, over what population and period, what it shows and does not show, and whether it is a correlation or a cause. You will meet the field's founders, including Émile Durkheim, Karl Marx, Max Weber, and W. E. B. Du Bois, with the ideas and works each is known for, and you will read real, sourced figures from public agencies and survey organizations such as the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Pew Research Center, and the World Bank.
This is not a statistics course. There is no formula work, no significance testing, and no regression; the numbers you work with are rates, shares, medians, and percentage-point changes, and every one of them ends in a plain sentence about what it means. It is also a broad survey rather than a specialized course: crime, the family, and inequality each get a week or a few weeks here, not a whole term.
A note on contested topics
The second half of the course takes up race, gender, sexuality, religion, poverty, and politics. Where sociologists disagree, as on why stratification exists, why some countries are poorer than others, what explains the earnings gap, whether the family is declining or changing, and who holds power, the course presents the competing perspectives at full strength and asks you to weigh them. It prescribes no position, and no grade depends on which view you hold. Documented findings, such as a gap measured for a named year by a named source, are stated plainly. Every figure comes with its source, and every group is described in the source's own categories.
Required Materials
You buy no textbook and pay nothing for course materials. Every reading and video is a link to an external resource, opened from the week's page so you always reach the version the course teaches from. Beyond a web browser, you need:
- A spreadsheet: Google Sheets or any free spreadsheet, for the parts of the weekly Sociology in Action Workshop that ask you to type a count and a population into cells and compute a rate, a share, or a change.
- Free public data tables: the Workshops link the tables they use, from the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Pew Research Center, the World Bank, Our World in Data, and the General Social Survey. You open each one from its link; none costs anything.
- A free account with one approved AI chatbot, from the list in the AI-Use Policy below. A free tier is enough for everything in this course, and every AI-based activity also has a route that needs no AI at all.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course you will be able to:
- Outcome A — Sociological theory and analysis. Apply the sociological imagination and the major theoretical perspectives to interpret social phenomena and institutions, naming the level of analysis and the theorist correctly.
- Outcome B — Evidence and data literacy. Locate, read, and evaluate sociological evidence and social data, distinguishing correlation from causation, rates from counts, and a source's categories from a stereotype, and reason from evidence rather than anecdote.
The eight course objectives below build toward those two outcomes. Each week's Start Here page names the objective that week serves and turns it into a short checklist of what you should be able to do by the end of the week.
- Apply the sociological imagination — connecting personal troubles to public issues — and the three major theoretical perspectives (structural functionalism, conflict theory, symbolic interactionism) to interpret a social phenomenon, naming the level of analysis each works at and placing the discipline's founders with the ideas and works they are known for.
- Describe and evaluate the major sociological research methods (surveys, experiments, field research and ethnography, secondary-data analysis), distinguish reliability from validity and a population from a sample, and read a social statistic critically — what it measures, over what population and period, what it shows and does not, and whether it is a correlation or a cause.
- Analyze culture and socialization — values, beliefs, norms, symbols, and language; ethnocentrism and cultural relativism; the agents of socialization; and the social development of the self in Cooley's and Mead's accounts.
- Explain social interaction, groups, and organizations — status and role, dramaturgy, primary and secondary groups, conformity, and bureaucracy — and compare the functionalist, conflict, and interactionist explanations of deviance and social control, reading crime data as rates rather than counts.
- Analyze social stratification, class, and global inequality — caste and class systems, income versus wealth, poverty measures, social mobility, the Davis-Moore thesis against the conflict view, and modernization against dependency and world-systems perspectives — reading income, poverty, and cross-national inequality data with their sources and years.
- Analyze race and ethnicity and sex, gender, and sexuality as socially constructed categories — prejudice, discrimination, and institutional racism; gender socialization and 'doing gender'; the earnings gap and its competing explanations — reasoning from documented evidence in the source's own categories rather than from anecdote or stereotype.
- Explain the major social institutions — family, education, religion, the economy and work, and government and politics — through the functionalist, conflict, and interactionist perspectives, including Weber's types of authority and the pluralist and power-elite models.
- Analyze social change — demography and the demographic transition, urbanization, collective behavior, and social movements and their theories — and the forces that drive it, reading population data for what a rate measures.
How this course works
Every module presents the same content in three ways — a chapter to read, a slide deck with speaker notes, and captioned videos — so you can choose how to take it in. Each module's lecture page carries the week's explanation as one spoken-style walk-through as well.
A typical week runs in this order:
- Start Here. Open the week's module overview. It lists the week's items in order with time estimates and names the week's checkpoint, the one thing you should be able to do by the end of the week.
- Chapter (about 35 to 45 minutes). The week's primary reading. Read it first.
- Lecture page and slide deck (about 15 to 20 minutes for the lecture, plus time with the deck). The same ideas, explained aloud and in slides.
- Readings and videos. An optional go-deeper menu; every video has captions.
- Lecture tutorial (60 to 90 minutes). A one-on-one session with your chatbot that teaches, gives practice, and ends with a summary you submit.
- Practice set (about 20 minutes). Ungraded practice with a coach, at your own pace.
- Sociology in Action Workshop (about 90 minutes). The week's idea put to work: you apply a perspective to a case, read and interpret a public data table in a spreadsheet, or run a structured observation of your own social world, and then catch and correct a slip your chatbot makes on the same question.
- Discussion (about 45 minutes) and assignment (60 to 90 minutes). Where you put the week's ideas to work on a real question.
- Quiz. A short auto-graded check of what you now know, taken on your own.
Week 8 is lighter: the chapter, lecture, slides, readings, practice set, and discussion, then the study guide, exam-prep tutorial, practice exam, and midterm. Week 16 has no new module; it holds the final exam and its study guide, practice exam, and exam-prep tutorial.
Grading
Your course grade is the weighted average of the six groups below. The weights sum to 100%.
| Component | Weight |
|---|---|
| Tutorials & Practice | 10% |
| Quizzes | 10% |
| Workshops | 20% |
| Assignments | 25% |
| Discussions | 15% |
| Exams | 20% |
| Total | 100% |
What each group holds
- Tutorials & Practice: the 14 weekly lecture tutorials, 5 points each. The practice sets sit beside them and are ungraded.
- Quizzes: 14 weekly quizzes, 10 points each, in every module except Week 8.
- Workshops: the 14 weekly Sociology in Action Workshops, 50 points each, in every module except Week 8.
- Assignments: 14 weekly assignments, 100 points each, in every module except Week 8.
- Discussions: 15 weekly discussions, 10 points each, one in every module from Week 1 to Week 15.
- Exams: the midterm in Week 8 (50 points) and the cumulative final in Week 16 (100 points).
Each week's discussion and assignment ship in two versions. The adaptive version is published and graded by default. A traditional version that uses no AI is also in the module, unpublished; your instructor may publish it instead. An unpublished version does not appear to you and does not count. A published traditional version takes the adaptive one's place in the same group, for the same points.
Letter grades follow the standard scheme:
| Letter | Percentage range |
|---|---|
| A | 90–100 |
| B | 80–89 |
| C | 70–79 |
| D | 60–69 |
| F | below 60 |
Weekly Schedule
The course runs for sixteen weeks: fifteen weeks of modules and a finals week. Every module from Week 1 to Week 15 holds the same materials: the Start Here page, the chapter, the lecture page (titled "Lecture:" followed by the week's focus), the slide deck, the readings and videos page, and the practice set. Every module also ships both an adaptive discussion and a traditional no-AI alternative, and every module except Week 8 ships both an adaptive assignment and a traditional no-AI alternative. The adaptive versions are graded and published; the traditional alternatives are unpublished by default and count only if your instructor publishes them instead.
| Week | Focus | Lecture page | Graded and published | Traditional alternative (unpublished) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Sociological Imagination & Doing Sociology | Lecture: The Sociological Imagination & Doing Sociology | Tutorial, Sociology in Action Workshop, adaptive discussion, adaptive assignment, quiz | Discussion, assignment |
| 2 | Sociological Research Methods | Lecture: Sociological Research Methods | Tutorial, Sociology in Action Workshop, adaptive discussion, adaptive assignment, quiz | Discussion, assignment |
| 3 | Culture | Lecture: Culture | Tutorial, Sociology in Action Workshop, adaptive discussion, adaptive assignment, quiz | Discussion, assignment |
| 4 | Socialization & the Self | Lecture: Socialization & the Self | Tutorial, Sociology in Action Workshop, adaptive discussion, adaptive assignment, quiz | Discussion, assignment |
| 5 | Social Interaction, Groups & Organizations | Lecture: Social Interaction, Groups & Organizations | Tutorial, Sociology in Action Workshop, adaptive discussion, adaptive assignment, quiz | Discussion, assignment |
| 6 | Deviance, Crime & Social Control | Lecture: Deviance, Crime & Social Control | Tutorial, Sociology in Action Workshop, adaptive discussion, adaptive assignment, quiz | Discussion, assignment |
| 7 | Social Stratification & Class | Lecture: Social Stratification & Class | Tutorial, Sociology in Action Workshop, adaptive discussion, adaptive assignment, quiz | Discussion, assignment |
| 8 | Midterm Review & Exam | Lecture: Midterm Review & Exam | Adaptive discussion, midterm exam | Discussion |
| 9 | Global Inequality | Lecture: Global Inequality | Tutorial, Sociology in Action Workshop, adaptive discussion, adaptive assignment, quiz | Discussion, assignment |
| 10 | Race & Ethnicity | Lecture: Race & Ethnicity | Tutorial, Sociology in Action Workshop, adaptive discussion, adaptive assignment, quiz | Discussion, assignment |
| 11 | Sex, Gender & Sexuality | Lecture: Sex, Gender & Sexuality | Tutorial, Sociology in Action Workshop, adaptive discussion, adaptive assignment, quiz | Discussion, assignment |
| 12 | Family & Marriage | Lecture: Family & Marriage | Tutorial, Sociology in Action Workshop, adaptive discussion, adaptive assignment, quiz | Discussion, assignment |
| 13 | Social Institutions: Education & Religion | Lecture: Social Institutions: Education & Religion | Tutorial, Sociology in Action Workshop, adaptive discussion, adaptive assignment, quiz | Discussion, assignment |
| 14 | Social Institutions: Economy, Work & Politics | Lecture: Social Institutions: Economy, Work & Politics | Tutorial, Sociology in Action Workshop, adaptive discussion, adaptive assignment, quiz | Discussion, assignment |
| 15 | Population, Urbanization & Social Change | Lecture: Population, Urbanization & Social Change | Tutorial, Sociology in Action Workshop, adaptive discussion, adaptive assignment, quiz | Discussion, assignment |
| 16 | Finals week (no module) | None | Final exam | None |
The midterm in Week 8 covers Weeks 1 to 7, which is Objectives 1 to 4 and Objective 5 as far as stratification and class. The final in Week 16 is cumulative and draws on every course objective: the sociological imagination, the three perspectives, and the founders (Objective 1), research methods and reading social data (Objective 2), culture and socialization (Objective 3), interaction, groups, organizations, and deviance (Objective 4), stratification, class, and global inequality (Objective 5), race and ethnicity and sex, gender, and sexuality (Objective 6), the major social institutions (Objective 7), and population, urbanization, and social change (Objective 8). Both exams come with a study guide, a practice exam, and an exam-prep tutorial you work with your chatbot.
Attendance and Participation
This course meets in person twice a week. Come to class having opened the week's Start Here page and read the chapter, because class time builds on that reading with examples, data, and questions. Your participation also shows in your weekly work: the tutorial, the Sociology in Action Workshop, the discussion, the assignment, and the quiz. Each week reads its examples through the perspectives and the four data questions taught in the weeks before it, so falling a week behind is the most common reason a grade slips; keep to the weekly rhythm and talk to your instructor the moment you feel lost. If you must miss class, follow the week's module from its Start Here page so you stay on pace.
Late Work
Late work loses 10% of the item's points for each day it is late. If something serious comes up, such as an illness or a family emergency, contact your instructor before the due date whenever you can so the two of you can agree on a fair plan. The penalty exists to keep the course moving, not to punish genuine hardship.
Academic Integrity
The work you submit must be your own, and you are bound by your institution's academic integrity standard. Do not copy another student's work, do not submit work you did not do, and do not misrepresent how a piece of work was produced. In a course built on evidence, integrity also means honest sourcing: every statistic, study, and attribution you submit must trace to a real source you can name. Three violations matter most in this course: presenting an invented statistic, study, or quotation as real, including one a chatbot supplied; fabricating or doctoring a chatbot conversation or its share link; and using AI on the quizzes, the midterm, or the final. Violations are handled under your institution's academic integrity process and may result in no credit for the item.
Accessibility and Disability
This course is designed to reflect universal-design principles and offers multiple means of representation, engagement, and expression. If you have a disability and need an accommodation, contact your institution's disability services office to arrange it, and let your instructor know so it can be put in place promptly. If any material is hard to use with your assistive technology, tell your instructor and an equivalent version will be provided. This course is not yet accessibility-certified, and your feedback helps improve it. The course page Accessibility & Inclusion in Module 0 explains how the course offers multiple modes, how to turn on captions, and how to request an accommodation.
AI-Use Policy
This course uses an AI chatbot as a study partner, and then asks you to check its work against the evidence. Use any one of the approved chatbots: Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, Grok, or Microsoft Copilot. Your instructor may edit this list. Free tiers are fine, and Copilot is often included with a campus Microsoft 365 account.
AI may be used on these activities:
- Lecture tutorials (completed with a chatbot). Each week you work the tutorial in a conversation with an approved chatbot, then submit the conversation share link and your completion summary.
- Practice sets (ungraded). You work the practice exercises with a chatbot coach.
- Adaptive discussions (completed with a chatbot). You hold a real-time dialogue with an approved chatbot, then post the AI's summary with the conversation share link. This version does not require replies to classmates.
- Adaptive assignments (AI-coached). You work the problems with a chatbot coach that scores your work against the assignment's rubric, then submit the self-scored report and the conversation share link.
- Sociology in Action Workshops (a required AI-critique step). After your own work, you ask your chatbot the same question, then catch, explain, and correct a slip in its answer by hand against the source, such as an invented statistic or study, a theory credited to the wrong theorist, a group generalized from a stereotype rather than a source, a correlation turned into a cause, or a group average applied to one person.
- Exam-prep tutorials and studying. Use AI freely to review, to check your understanding, and to prepare for the exams.
AI may not be used on the quizzes, the midterm, and the final. These are closed to AI and must be entirely your own work, because they confirm that you personally can apply the perspectives, read a social statistic, and reason from evidence.
A chatbot is not a source. It can explain a term or quiz you on a theorist, but it routinely invents exact percentages and plausible-sounding studies and mixes up who said what. Every figure, study, and attribution you submit must trace to a real source, checked by you.
If your instructor publishes a traditional alternative. A traditional discussion is your own post and your own replies to classmates; a traditional assignment is your own submitted work, graded by your instructor. AI may help you think, but you write and submit the work yourself.
Disclosure. The share link documents your AI use on the AI-based activities, so they need no separate note. For any other graded work where AI help is allowed, add one line naming the tool and how you used it.
Bring your own AI: access, cost, and privacy
- Equity and a non-AI route. You never have to create an account with a chatbot company to complete this course or to reach any grade in it. Every AI-based activity in this course carries an Equivalent route (no AI required) on its own page. It assesses the same objectives, for the same points, against the same rubric. Take it whenever you like, for any reason or none; you do not have to ask permission, explain, or arrange it in advance.
- Cost. A free tier of any approved chatbot covers everything in this course. No graded work depends on a paid subscription.
- Privacy. Before you start, read what your chosen chatbot keeps of your conversations and how it uses them. Never paste personal information you would not want stored, about yourself or about the people you describe in an observation, and remember that a share link lets anyone who has it read that conversation.
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