The department of Sociology is committed to supporting Carthage College's commitment to excellence in teaching within a small, private, liberal arts setting. As such, we strive to integrate sociological perspectives and ways of knowing with those found in other disciplines, while also building a sense of community among faculty and students alike.
Our primary goal within the discipline of sociology is to foster the development of each student's sociological imagination. To this end, we expect students enrolled in our courses to be able to thoughtfully analyze the interstices between individual lives and complex social institutions. Students are taught to learn how to think critically both about the role of the individual in society, and also those social forces that shape individual human behavior. Students are encouraged to look beyond their own cultural-and perhaps ethnocentric-world views to better understand other cultures; both present and past.
In developing the sociological imagination, we strive to cultivate in our students competence in the scientific and interpretive techniques that characterize sociology as an academic discipline. Students are required to demonstrate theoretical and methodological sophistication. We believe it is of utmost importance for students to be well versed in the classical and contemporary theoretical traditions, and the various methods of quantitative and qualitative sociological inquiry.
We seek to strengthen and build our particular areas of teaching and research expertise within sociology. These areas include:
- Criminology and criminal justice
- Cross cultural issues and globalization
- Inequalities of gender, race and class
- Research methods
- Theory
Finally, we strive to help students become better prepared to live in an increasingly complex social world. We believe that our graduates should engage the world in meaningful ways. We encourage our students to lead civic lives characterized by a sense of responsibility toward others and a sense of compassion that is born of sincere concern for human beings. Our goal is to give students the necessary tools to be responsible citizens in our global community, while also nurturing sensitivity to-and a sophisticated awareness of-human diversity. We are dedicated to enriching our students' experiences and intellectual lives so that they may contribute to the understanding and dismantling of the narrow confines of race, class, gender, age and other barriers that divide individuals and groups, not only in our society, but also in the global community at large.