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Self and Society

SOCIOL XL 130

Through our everyday interactions, we make and remake our social worlds and these worlds make and remake us. This course examines social processes shaping experience, definition, and enactment of self and personal identity.

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What you can learn.

Gain an awareness of the crucial importance of social locations and statuses in determining life chances
Understand how behavior and self-image are shaped by the factors of nature and nurture
Learn how technology, sex, gender, and race/ethnicity have the potential to impact the socialization process
Understand and apply social science research methods and data interpretation

About this course:

What is reality and where does it come from? Why do we understand the world in the ways we do? How are society's rules enforced and experienced? Where does society end and your "self" begin? This course examines the social processes that shape experience, definition, and enactment of self and personal identity. Designed to provide an overview of how the social environment affects human behavior and how the individual affects the social environment, the course immerses students in the theories and research associated with Social Psychology, not only through reading and writing, but also through personal experience. The main goal of this course is for you to understand how, through our everyday interactions with one another, we make and remake our social worlds and how these worlds make and remake us. Transferable for UC credit.