Please contact the Program Coordinator, Dr. Matt O'Mansky, for more information.  (330) 941-1688, meomansky@ysu.edu

YSU Sociology Program Mission

The YSU Sociology Program aims to equip students with sociological knowledge and skills they can use to think critically about and engage with social issues. In doing so, students will be prepared to appreciate social and intellectual diversity as well as meet new national and international challenges. 

YSU Sociology Program Vision

To be an emancipatory social science that seeks to generate scientific knowledge relevant to the collective project of understanding and challenging various forms of human oppression.

Why Major in Sociology?
 

A major in sociology is excellent for advanced graduate/professional study of sociology, law, counseling, social work, criminal justice, urban development, education, and other fields requiring work beyond the bachelor's level. A major in sociology also prepares students for employment in:

• government agencies
• businesses
• hospitals
• education
• urban affairs
• personnel

To earn the BA degree, the student must satisfy all the degree requirements in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and take 34 semester hours of courses from the sociology curriculum. Required courses are:

Students are responsible for satisfying all prerequisites and maintaining a “C” or better in all major and  minor requirements and cannot take courses on a "CR/NC" basis.

If a student is a double-major in Sociology and another program, a single Capstone Course in either program will satisfy the Capstone requirement. They will need to take an additional upper-division course in either program to fill the hours requirement.

Students wishing to minor in Sociology must complete 15 s.h. by selecting courses from appropriate categories. Students are responsible for satisfying all prerequisites and maintaining  a “C” or better in all minor requirements and cannot take courses on a "CR/NC"  basis.

*Please see your advisor in order to ensure that you are on track to graduate.

*For General Education electives, be sure that you take two courses from each knowledge domain, including a science lab: 

For more information, consult General Education Courses by Knowledge Domain.

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Placement test in English, math, and foreign languages required before registration for classes.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The department's learning outcomes for sociology majors are as follows:

•  Students will identify how social structures create and reproduce different forms of social inequality in human society through specific processes.
  •  Articulate what sociologists mean by social structure and how structural forces affect human action and social life at the micro, meso, and macro levels.
  •  Comprehend how social structures reproduce themselves across generations
  •  Understand how patterns and processes of cultural, socio-political, and economic change occur
  •  Identify the roles and relationships of institutions, ideas, and processes that create, maintain, and reinforce inequality 
     
•  Students will be able to critically evaluate explanations of human behavior, social phenomena, and social processes.
  •  Explain the relationship between the self and society and how the self is socially constructed and maintained at multiple levels.
  •  Understand that people’s identities are intersectional
  •  Evaluate and respond the inequalities that emerge from a global, integrated, and unequal world
  •  Interpret empirical patterns and effects of social inequality
  •  Examine taken for granted assumptions about social categories (race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, etc.)
     
•  Students will recognize key theoretical frameworks and assumptions on which the discipline is founded and differentiated from other social sciences.
  •  Employ the sociological imagination
  •  Identify how sociological theories relate to everyday life
  •  Compare and evaluate different theories
  •  Apply theoretical frameworks to navigate and engage in social change
     
•  Students will apply social scientific principles to understand the social world.
  •  Use disciplinary standards for rigorous qualitative and quantitative analysis of data in sociological research
  •  Articulate the importance of evidence and scientific methods for explanations of social phenomenon
  •  Identify the characteristics of high-quality data and methods in sociological research as well the limits of the scientific method in understanding social behavior and processes
  •  Generate research questions and/or hypotheses based on social research
     
•  Students will be able to use their sociological knowledge and skills to engage with and impact the world around them. 
  •  Identify how sociological concepts relate to everyday life
  •  Possess a critical lens for understanding human behavior and societies
  •  Convey sociological concepts and understandings to a broader audience
  •  Generate and evaluate solutions to social problems in their context
  •  Formulate strategies for resisting inequality through application of knowledge and skills learned