Social Studies Teaching (BS) Sociology

Catalog Year

2024-2025

Degree

Bachelor of Science

Major Credits

74

Total Credits

120

Locations

Mankato

Career Cluster

Education and Training

This program satisfies licensure-to-practice standards for Minnesota and may satisfy standards for other states or US territories.

Licensure/Certification Disclosure

Program Requirements

Required General Education

This course surveys human biological and cultural diversity through time and space. You will learn about questions like: how did humans evolve? and how do anthropologists collect and interpret information about human beings and their ancestors?

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-08

Diverse Cultures: Purple

An introduction to Geography and its themes of study. The course will familiarize students with where places are located in the world together with their cultural and physical features. Students will be tasked to think critically and diversely about various cultures and features of the modern world.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-08, GE-10

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Become informed enough to play your part in governing the United States. Start by learning about the Constitution, our rights and freedoms, how the national government works and the opportunities and challenges of citizen influence. Political Science methods, and the challenges of citizenship are emphasized.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-09

This course is designed to provide a thorough introduction to the broad spectrum of theories and applications that make up the field of psychology

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05

US History to 1877 - Choose 3 - 4 Credit(s). 3 credits available for transfer students.

This course is designed to provide an overview of America's political, social, economic, and cultural development from earliest colonization to 1877.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-07

Diverse Cultures: Purple

This course is designed to provide an overview of America's political, social, economic, and cultural development from earliest colonization to 1877. Same content as HIST 190. Students may not take both HIST 190 and HIST 190W for credit.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-07

Diverse Cultures: Purple

US History Since 1877 - Choose 3 - 4 Credit(s). 3 credits available for transfer students.

A survey of American History from the end of Reconstruction to the present with a special emphasis on political and social developments.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-07

Diverse Cultures: Purple

This course is designed to provide an overview of America's political, social, economic, and cultural development from 1877 to the present. This course has the same content as HIST 191. Students may not take both HIST 191 and HIST 191W for credit.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-07

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Major Common Core

Emphasis on forces influencing employment and inflation. Current problems of the economy are stressed along with tools government has to cope with them.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05

Examines decision making by the individual firm, the determination of prices and wages, and current problems facing business firms.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05

Students will develop a knowledge of the similarities and contrasts in regional landscapes and cultures of the United States.

Prerequisites: none

Review of World History as a field of study.

Prerequisites: none

Students learn about active citizenship from readings and discussions on the theory and practice of democracy. Students should become more motivated to participate, feel a greater sense of empowerment, improve political skills, and to better understand and appreciate democracy.

Prerequisites: none

Overview of the structure and processes of social life; impact of social forces on individuals and groups; interdependence of society and the individual; social significance of social class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality; emphasis on critical analysis of social inequalities and injustice.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-08

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Acquaints students majoring in social studies (teaching) with the social studies major and fundamental ideas that will help students integrate what they are learning in social sciences and history within the context of secondary social studies classroom.

Prerequisites: none

Organization and presentation of social studies in secondary schools. Preparation of units for teaching purposes, examination of materials useful to the social studies teacher. Application of national and state standards to teaching social studies. Prereq: Concurrently with KSP 420

Prerequisites: Concurrently with KSP 440

Major Restricted Electives

Diversity & Inclusion - Choose 3 - 4 Credit(s).

Students will examine the forces which create and maintain prejudice, discrimination and racism within global perspectives. Special attention will be given to the work of Paulo Freire.

Prerequisites: ETHN 100 or ATHN 400

Diverse Cultures: Purple

This course will examine women's lives and activism, past and present, throughout the world. We will explore and evaluate individual and collective efforts to achieve social justice in the context of interlocking systems of oppression. Fall, Spring, Summer

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-08, GE-09

Diverse Cultures: Purple

This course will examine women's lives and activism, past and present, throughout the world. We will explore and evaluate individual and collective efforts to achieve social justice in the context of interlocking systems of oppression. Fall, Spring, Summer

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-08, GE-09

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Emphasis Restricted Electives

Sociology: Social Inequality and Social Change - Choose 8 Credit(s).

In this class, you will learn about indigenous relationships with the environment and how interactions with Europeans and other invading groups have altered this interaction with nature. We will begin with an understanding of how indigenous groups view nature differently than Western societies and move to the general interaction of societies with the environment. By looking at our general interaction with the environment, we will be able to discuss the similarities and differences between the indigenous and sociological critiques of contemporary environmental interactions. Same course as AIS 360. Credit allowed for only one of these courses.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Purple

The course will explore how collective action creates social change by examining both academic and activist orientations toward social movements, with a focus on US movements. Students will learn about social movement histories, explore social movement theories, and examine how people achieve success in education, outreach, and activism efforts.

Prerequisites: none

The study of the principles and processes that account for the patterns of relations among racial and ethnic groups in the context of the U.S. society. It is designed to provide students with the essential background that will allow them to analyze social structures based on different dimensions such as class, gender, sexuality, and others. In any one of these dimensions or at the cross-section of two or more we find dominant (or majority) groups, which have better access to institutional resources, and subordinate (or minority) groups, which are kept on the margins and powerless.

Prerequisites: SOC 101

Diverse Cultures: Purple

The environment tends to be taken for granted, and it is often assumed to be separate from society. People are an inseparable part of nature and must interact with it if they are to survive. This course will encourage students to contemplate their relationship with nature over time and cross-culturally. The course will address a number of contemporary concerns regarding the environment, such as food production, toxins in the environment, natural resource extraction, and climate change. We shall also contemplate solutions to the current environmental issues facing society now and into the future.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Within the pluralistic culture of the United States, sociology promotes knowledge about multi-cultural groups. With rapid globalization, sociology reveals how the sociological imagination extends beyond the United States. The principle goal of the course is to help students to develop a broader, more informed understanding of the past and present social forces that have created and sustained a global society composed of various class, racial and ethnic groups. The goal of this course is for students to develop an appreciation of the ways in which various theoretical perspectives lead to different understandings of the structures and practices of group relations.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Analysis of social forces that impact social change in the United States and globally. Examines the interaction between structural and cultural forces in the understanding of societal changes. Explores the global economic impact and the implications for world-wide changes. Analysis of the process of development and globalization and impacts on nations and populations across the globe.

Prerequisites: none

Sociology: Social Institutions and Interactions - Choose 8 Credit(s).

This course explores sociological understandings of deviance including: an overview of major sociological theories of deviance; examinations of specific examples of high consensus criminal deviance (i.e., murder, rape, street crime, white collar crime), lifestyle deviance (i.e., alcohol and drug abuse, sex work), and status deviance (i.e. mental illness, obesity and eating disorders, LGBTQ identities). This course will emphasize how social constructions of deviance reinforce inequalities in society.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-09

This course examines the sociological significance of popular culture and focuses on how popularized aspects of social life are produced, consumed, and experienced by members of society. Students will explore everyday rituals, collective behaviors, and cultural constructions that shape both macro and micro social interactions. Includes discussion of: celebrity culture, music, television and advertising, dating and romance, gendered inequalities, spaces and places, and the social and cultural significance of everyday practices.

Prerequisites: none

This course explores theories of sociological social psychology, especially emphasizing the creation of reality, self and identity, emotions, social order, and how inequalities are produced and experienced in everyday life.

Prerequisites: none

Introduces students to social determinants of health and illnesses; health inequalities; and issues related to social class, race, gender, and ethnicity. Covers standards and practices in the healthcare services, professions, and institutions and their impacts. The course is designed to provide social and cultural competencies among students who choose the career path to becoming medical, health and human services professionals.

Prerequisites: none

This course introduces students to thanatology, which is the study of the human response to death, dying, and bereavement within socio-cultural contexts. Topics include the history of death and dying practices and conceptions, current trends of death in our society, cross cultural beliefs and practices surrounding death, functions of death rituals, grief, the dying process, and debates about euthanasia and death with dignity legislation.

Prerequisites: none

This course explores various forms of family violence including dating violence, spouse abuse, and child abuse. There is particular emphases on power dynamics in families and in the broader culture and evaluations of current policies related to family violence.

Prerequisites: none

Upper-division seminar focused on major theories and findings in contemporary family sociology; emphasis on reading, interpreting, and critically engaging with scholarly research on families, including dating and cohabitation, marriage, divorce, and parenting.

Prerequisites: none

Analysis of the structures, functions, and origins of religion, its relationship to other social institutions, and its role in modern secular society. Examines processes of individual religiosity and explores current religious movements and trends. Explores world religions to enhance greater cultural understanding.

Prerequisites: none

Other Graduation Requirements

Policies

Admission

Admission to the major is granted by the program.  Students enrolling in SOST 450 (KSP Level 3) must be admitted to the Social Studies program, a process in addition to admission to the KSP Program.  Admission to the Social Studies teaching program is limited.  Preference for admission to the program is given to students who have a 3.0 GPA and how have been involved in global, multicultural, civic and/or community service experiences.  Students are encouraged to work closely with the Director of Social Studies Education to prepare for admission into the KSP and SoST programs.

GPA Policy

A grade of “C” or better is required in all courses in the major.

P/N Grading Policy

No more than 12 credits may be taken P/N.