English
Hone your writing skills while deepening your appreciation of literature. Through discussion and close personal attention, you’ll develop analytical, critical reasoning, and communication skills highly sought after by employers in many fields. These skills will also provide you with an excellent foundation for graduate study.
Degree Offered: B.A.
Offered on the Augusta and Bangor campuses
NEW SOCIAL SCIENCE COURSE IN FALL 2013:
SOC 330: SOCIOLOGY OF HEALTH AND HEALTH CARE
The health care system is one of the most influential institutions of our times. If you want to know more about how the field of modern medicine grew to be so powerful, from a sociologist’s perspective, then the upcoming class in the “Sociology of Medicine” is for you.
The course will examine the social context of health and illness: who gets sick, who gets help, and how some social problems become known as medical conditions. The class will also explore the historical development of the health care system, medical education in our country, the roles of various medical professionals, and institutional settings. The interaction between people and their health care providers, health care reforms, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), and health care systems in other countries will also be explored.
This upper level social science class will be offered on site at Augusta in the Fall Semester 2013 on Thursdays from 1 to 3:45 PM. It will be taught by Barbara Snowadzky, who holds a Ph.D. in Sociology with a specialty in Medical Sociology. She has taught courses at University College at Rumford/Mexico and Thomaston/ Rockland, as well as on the UMA campus.
This course is appropriate for anyone concerned about how medicine affects society, as well as those working in or aspiring to careers in health care settings. Prerequisite: SOC 101 Introduction to Sociology.
Professor Lake-Corral to Present Research on Culture and Pedagogy at ASA 2013
Assistant Professor Lorien Lake-Corral will be presenting at a regular session at the 108th annual conference of the American Sociological Association this August in New York City. Dr. Lake-Corral will be presenting her research on the presentation of 'culture' in introductory sociology textbooks and the pedagogical and canonical implications of her findings.
ABSTRACT
This paper reports the results of a content analysis of Introductory Sociology textbooks in order to assess their coverage of, and approach to, the teaching of “culture” in the hopes of ultimately creating a unified approach for the introduction of students to the sociology of culture. Looking at introductory sociology textbooks, the current study documents if and to what extent the topic of culture is included; and if so, analyzes which topics are included, how much space is dedicated to culture, and particularly which frames (in Goffman’s (1974 [1986]) sense) are used to present sociology of culture.
The results of this research highlight three important tendencies of introductory texts. Firstly, there is an apparent inconsistency between current academic work in the sociology of culture and inclusion of that work in introductory textbooks. This is particularly true of cultural production. Additionally, textbooks are extremely likely to treat culture as a concept in an anthropological sense (including a discussion of language, norms, and values) or in terms of diversity or multiculturalism. Finally, textbooks on the whole do not appear to change over time in significant ways. This is certainly not the case from edition to edition (usually a span of one to two years), but also among textbooks from different time periods (the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s).
- Featuring and integrating teaching from disciplines including sociology, anthropology, communications, economics, political science and psychology
- Support for General Education Requirements including research literacy
- In-depth training for Social Science majors in studying societies, cultures, social organizations and the mind
The social sciences are a diverse set of disciplines, but one feature they hold in common is a commitment to professional association. In research, teaching, and community action, the disciplines of the social sciences meet across institutions and in spite of physical distance to coordinate with and inform one another. The following is a list of professional associations of which our program faculty are members and which support the generation of understanding in the social sciences:
- Society for the Study of Social Problems
- National Social Science Association
- National Council for the Social Studies
- International Network for Social Network Analysis
- ASCD
- American Anthropological Association
- American Psychological Association
- American Sociological Association
- Maine State Psychological Association
- National Communications Association
- National Council of Teachers of English
- National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
- National Science Foundation
- National Science Teachers Association
- National Writing Project
- Maine Department of Education
UMA’s Social Science program provides students with a curriculum and supports to increase their knowledge and skills in the social sciences. The program offers courses supporting UMA’s General Education requirements and in depth training for social science majors. The program is committed to supporting institution wide research literacy and engaging in applied social science research projects. The program delivers its curriculum using a range of hybrid designs, to students on campuses and at a distance.
Degree Offered: B.A.
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