People are getting older – not just in the individual sense, but the human population itself. Today we’re going to explore those shifting patterns and their implications. We’ll go over the biological, psychological, and cultural aspects of aging, including some of the particular challenges that older individuals face.

We’ve talked about deviance more broadly, but today we’re focusing on crime, specifically in the US. We’ll start with legal definitions of crime and use FBI data to get an idea of the amount and kinds of crime committed in the US. We’ll also use that date to paint a demographic picture of who gets arrested, and explain why that’s not necessarily a full look of who commits crime. We’ll also discuss society’s response to crime in the criminal justice system, and how that response has resulted in mass incarceration.

What is culture? How do we define it and how does it change? We’ll explore different categories of culture, like low culture, high culture, and sub-cultures. We'll also revisit our founding theories to consider both a structural functionalist and a conflict theory perspective on what cultures mean for society.

What is social deviance? Who defines what is deviant and how to people come to behave that way? Today we’re going to explore biological and psychological approaches to explaining deviance, including what each perspective can bring to the table, and their inherent limitations. From there, we’ll explain the sociological perspective and the social foundations of deviance.

We’re continuing our exploration of conflict theories with W.E.B. Dubois, who is one of the founders of sociological thought more broadly and the founder of race-conflict theory. We’ll discuss shifting ideas about race, Dubois’ idea of ‘double-consciousness’, and the modern day field of racial identity. We’ll explore the idea racial formation and discuss Dubois’ survey of African Americans in Philadelphia to look at how economic, political, and social structures affect how we perceive different races – and vice versa. We’ll also discuss the activist side of Dubois’ life as co-founder of the NAACP and editor of the Crisis, and how modern day sociologists study racial politics and racial resistance.

This week we’ll see how economies can be broken down into the primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors. We’ll look at the three stages of economic revolution that brought us to the modern post-industrial era. We’ll also explore two types of economic models: capitalism and socialism.

Today we’ll explore the history of education as a social institution, with a specific focus on how the US organizes its educational system. We’ll look at education through the lenses of some sociological paradigms: structural functionalist approaches (including some of the manifest and latent functions associated with education), and a symbolic interactionist approach to education that shows us how self-fulfilling prophecies in educational settings contribute to differences in academic outcomes for students.

Today we are exploring the world of formal organizations. We’ll go back to the historical process of rationalization and its impact on organizations in the form of bureaucracy and then discuss how organizations change in response to their organizational environment. We will also go over the negative consequences of rationalization in organizations.

Today we’re looking at how society becomes stratified along gender lines. We’ll discuss Raewyn Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinities and emphasized femininities. We’ll explore gender socialization in the home, media, and schools. Finally, we’ll explain how gender stratification results in different outcomes by gender in education, occupations, earnings, and criminal activity.

This week we’re taking our discussion of stratification global. We’ll look at First and Third World countries and the reasons why these terms are no longer used. We’ll introduce the four types of country categories we now use: high income, upper middle income, lower middle income, and low income countries. We’ll also go over some consequences of and explanations for global poverty. A note about the maps in this episode: the maps don't reflect the most current data and so there are a few countries that have moved up or down in classification.

Today we’re exploring another branch of conflict theory: gender conflict theory, with a look at sociology’s forgotten founder, Harriet Martineau. We’ll also discuss the three waves of feminism, as well as intersectionality.

Our final unit of Crash Course Sociology is medical sociology. Today we’ll explain what it is and get an overview of the role of society in our notions of health and disease.

So we know that sociology is the study of society, but what exactly *is* a society? Today we’re going to find out. We’ll look at Gerhard Lenski's classification of societies into five types, and the technological changes that turn one into another. We’ll also return to Marx, Weber, and Durkheim to consider how they understood societal change. Finally, we’ll explore Durkheim's concept of social solidarity.

This week we are building on last week’s outline of American stratification to explore how class differences affect people’s daily lives. We’ll explore variations in everything from values & beliefs to health outcomes, and look at how these things can perpetuate inequality across generations.

Today we’ll continue to explore sociology’s founding theorists with a look at Karl Marx and his idea of historical materialism. We’ll discuss modes of production, their development, and how they fit into Marx’s overall theory of historical development, along with class struggle and revolution. We’ll also discuss how Marx’s ideas gave rise to Gramsci’s idea of hegemony, and to conflict theories more generally.

This week we introduce sociology’s three major theoretical paradigms, and some of the advantages and disadvantages of each paradigm.

This week we are wrapping up our overview of sociology’s core frameworks and founding theorists with a look Max Weber and his understanding of the modern world. We’ll explore rationalization and the transition from traditional to modern society. We’ll also discuss bureaucracy, legitimacy, and social stratification in the modern state. Finally, we’ll see why Weber was so worried about the modern world.

While politics is generally seen as the domain of a civics class (and Craig did a great job of teaching US Government & Politics elsewhere on this channel!) it’s something that sociology is interested in too. Today we’re looking at the sociological approach to politics, different types of authority and political systems, and different sociological theories of power.

We’re continuing our unit on health with a discussion of some of the indicators that help us measure health for different populations. We’ll also explore three contributors to health disparities: individual factors like genetics, physical factors like pollution, and social factors like stress.

What’s the difference between race and ethnicity? Today we’ll look at how definitions of races and ethnicities have changed over time and across places. We also discuss the terms minority and minority-majority and how races are defined in the United States.