We can’t talk about race without also discussing racism, so today we are going to define and explain prejudice, stereotypes, and racism. We’ll look at five theories for why prejudice exists. We’ll discuss discrimination and the legacies of institutional racism. We’ll also provide an overview of four types of racial interaction: pluralism, assimilation, segregation, and genocide.

Today we’re turning our sociological eye to another major social institution: religion. We’ll use symbolic interactionism to help us understand the dichotomy of the Sacred vs. the Profane. We’ll compare the perspectives of structural functionalists and conflict theorists on whether religion improves social cohesiveness or increases social stratification. We’ll also explore how religious practice in the US differs across race and class lines.

In the second half of our education unit, we’re using conflict theory to explore a few social inequalities in the US education system. We’ll look at variation in school funding and quality, the role of cultural capital, and some of the ways in which the American school system disadvantages minority students.

While sociology is a social science, we can use it to explore some intensely personal, private things. Today we’ll explore what sociology can tell us about sex and sexuality. We’ll also see what the three sociological paradigms have to say about sexuality and sexual orientations.

Today we’re breaking down the five different social class in the United States: the upper class, the upper middle class, the average middle class, the working class, and the lower class. We’ll also go over what poverty looks like in the United States.

What makes you… you? How did you get to be that way? Today we’re talking about social development, starting with the role of nature and nurture in influencing a person’s development. We’ll discuss socialization, the importance of care & human interaction, as well as theories of development from a range of theorists.

How do the groups that you're part of affect you? How do you, in turn, affect those groups? Today we are talking about how people in society come together with a look at social groups. We’ll look at what social groups are, the different kinds of groups that exist, group dynamics, leadership, conformity, networks and more!

How do sociologists study and understand social interaction? Today we’ll explain the language sociologists use to discuss how we interact with the social world. What are statuses and roles? How are they different? How do you acquire them? We’ll talk about why these things matter by exploring the socially constructed nature of reality. We’ll also discuss the theory of dramaturgical analysis and how we can understand social interaction as in terms of theatrical performance.

Today we’re exploring social mobility in some more depth. We’ll look at intergenerational and intragenerational mobility and the difference between absolute and relative mobility. We’ll go over the long run upward social mobility trends in the United States, as well as recent declines in absolute social mobility. We’ll also explore how opportunities for social mobility differ by class, race, and gender.

How do different societies establish a social hierarchy? Today we’re starting our unit on social stratification, starting with four basic principles of a sociological understanding of stratification. We’ll explain open and closed systems of stratification and explore examples of different kinds of stratification systems, including caste systems and class systems.

Social class in America is... hard to talk about. As Sociology, the difficulty lies in pinning down what we mean by "Social Class." In this episode of Crash Course Sociology, Nicole chats to us about how Sociologists figure this out so we can all have a clearer idea of what we're talking about.

Last week we introduced the idea of socialization and today we’re talking a little more about how it works, including an introduction to five main types of socialization. We’ll explore anticipatory socialization from your family, the “hidden curriculum” in schools, peer groups, the role of media in socialization, and we’ll discuss total institutions and how they can act as a form of re-socialization.

Today we’re talking about how we actually DO sociology. Nicole explains the research method: form a question and a hypothesis, collect data, and analyze that data to contribute to our theories about society.

What puts the “science” in social science? Today we’ll explore positivist sociology and how sociologists use empirical evidence to explore questions about the social world. We’ll also introduce two alternatives: interpretative sociology and critical sociology.

One way of thinking about family life says that there are stages that families move through: courtship, marriage, child-rearing, and family life in your later years. We’ll also discuss changing patterns of marriage and childbearing in the US, highlighting some of the varied family types that exist.

In our final episode of Crash Course Sociology we are going to talk about what the health care system in the US looks like, the five A’s of health care accessibility, and a couple of contributing factors to the affordability of health care: fee for service care and the structure of our health insurance system which encourage higher spending.

Thanks everybody for joining us for the past year on Crash Course Sociology!

Today we’ll explore how sociology defines family and the different terms used to describe specific types of family. We’ll look at marriage in different societies, as well as marital residential patterns and patterns of descent. And, of course, we’ll go over the three sociological schools of thought on the societal role of marriage and family.

Why is gender even a thing? To answer that, we’re going back to our three sociological paradigms and how each school of thought approaches gender theory. We’ll look at the structural functionalist view that gender is a way of organizing society into complementary roles, the symbolic interactionist take on how gender guides our daily life, and conflict theory’s ideas about how gender distributes power within society.

Today we’ll discuss two theories of global stratification. First, we’ll go over modernization theory and Walt Rostow’s Four Stages of Modernization. Next, we’ll explain dependency theory, the legacy of colonialism, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s Capitalist World Economy Model.

Last week we introduced deviance as a concept, but today we’re going return to our major paradigms in sociology and how each approaches deviance. We’ll explore how structural functionalism sees deviance fulfilling a function in society; how deviance is constructed, according to symbolic interactionism; and finally, how conflict theory views deviance as tied to power and inequality.