Student Learning OutcomesThe primary aim of our curriculum is to provide students with the knowledge and
analytic skills necessary to understand social life in an increasingly complex
world. We want our graduates to be able to use the key insights and analytic
methods of sociology to improve the social conditions in which they and others
coexist. We expect holders of a California State University San Marcos bachelor’s
degree in sociology to be able to address large and small-scale social problems
through constructive empirical inquiry,critical analysis, and strategic action. The
Sociology Department’s curriculum cultivates the theoretical, methodological,
and advocacy skills integral to meeting these goals. The list below summarizes
the primary knowledge and skills students graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree
in Sociology will possess. Students who graduate with a B.A.in Sociology will be able to:
- Analyze and interpret the diversity of social experience using a sociological perspective.
- Assess competing theoretical approaches to societal problems of publics with differing and multiple interests; specify structural or institutional sources of these social problems; and, propose and assess policies, interventions and/or modes of advocacy that will enact positive change.
- Locate, analyze, assess, and communicate sociological scholarship.
- Articulate the applicability of and demonstrate ability to employ a range of research strategies — quantitative and qualitative — to particular research questions, theoretical orientations, and social contexts.
- Articulate the ethical and social justice implications of sociological inquiry.