This is an introductory course to the basic concepts and tools of social research, covering the areas of research of problem definition, research design, measurement, and data collection, processing, and analysis. Students are given in-depth understanding of what qualitative, e.g. participant observation, in-depth interviewing, and quantitative, e.g. survey, data collection techniques involve. In addition, students are introduced to qualitative and quantitative data analysis techniques. Students are taught the important aspects of making a good presentation of research findings. This course is mounted for all students in NUS with interest in research methods.

This course aims to help students develop a framework with which to analyse and understand the following: (1) key political issues and underlying social mechanisms relating to the dynamics of industrial society and the organisation of work; (2) various aspects of social relations at the workplace; (3) how different categories of workers respond to the organisation of work; and (4) the interconnections between (1), (2), and (3). The course is open to all students throughout NUS with an interest in analysing work situations sociologically.

This course addresses a seemingly simple question: who gets ahead? It introduces students to some of the key theoretical approaches and methodological tools for finding answers to this question. More specifically, it aims at helping students acquire a good understanding of relevant theories, measurement issues, and class maps, structures, societies, and dynamics. The course is accessible to all students who want to understand the impact of class and stratification on contemporary societies.

This course focuses on theories of family and social change, by examining perspectives on families, drawing on literature from history, anthropology, sociology, and demography. Questions addressed include: What is a family? What is the relationship between family and household structure and economic, political, and cultural change both historically and in contemporary time? How do couples allocate their time and money in relationships? How do families vary by social class and race/ethnicity? How have attitudes, expectations, and behaviors surrounding childbearing and childrearing changed? Theoretical perspectives on the family are supplemented with case studies of change and variation in families and households.

We are living in a world marked by cultural diversity. We encounter different cultural norms and practices every day, which may enable us to become more reflexive, curious, and open-minded or, in some cases, lead us to become defensive. This course provides an analytical lens to learn how cultures affect social behaviour and how different cultures interact with each other in the contemporary world. We shall discuss issues related to "ethnocentrism", "cultural relativism", “hybrid cultures”, “sub cultures” and "multiculturalism". This course will furthermore discuss how cultures are socially constructed. In this sphere, the course will explore such topics as travel and encounters, the construction of personal and collective identities, ethnic minorities and the state, gender relations and family systems, workspaces and hierarchy, and globalization.

This course provides, using an anthropological perspective, a general introduction to select peoples and cultures in Southeast Asia. The course examines, among others, issues of economic adaptation to the varied physical environments of SEA; the interaction between indigenous cultures and those cultures from outside the geographical context (which may include Chinese, Indian, European and other cultures); the organization of states; and the interrelationship between religious and political systems.

Why are Singaporeans having fewer babies? Why is Japan's population shrinking? Population dynamics affects our daily lives. This course aims to provide students with a critical overview of the key issues in demography with a focus on Asia. We adopt an international perspective to think about ways in which populations grow, shrink, and change over time, and uncover the linkages between seemingly distinct demographic processes. Fertility is a fundamental issue underlying many demographic processes - population growth, aging, migration and demographic dividend, and will be discussed in detail. This course also covers health and mortality, gender and marriage, and urbanization.

This course focuses on the sociology of economic life. At the micro level, it examines the social relationships that are formed when economic transactions are performed. At the macro level, it analyses the role of social institutions in economic behavior. The course introduces the students to how social network analysis tools are applied to examine entrepreneurship, social capital, innovation, and organizational change. Students will acquire knowledge and skills relevant to understanding how subjective understandings and cultural practices affect labor and organizational networks in markets. Such knowledge will be applied to issues such as social capital, leadership, and organizational efficacy.

This course examines the spread of consumption and its link to popular culture in the context of global capitalism. Emphasis will be given on the relationship between mass production and mass consumption, and the role of mass media in creating and widening the sphere of popular culture. Relationship between class and popular culture will be explored in this course. Issues such as changing leisure patterns, fashions, consumerism, role of advertisements and symbolic protests will also be examined in this course. The course is mounted for students throughout NUS with interest in the study of popular culture.

This course will examine the relationship between society and health-related issues. The differing notions of "illness" and "wellness," and how societies influence the type, definition and distribution of disease and illness will be examined. The social organization of medicine, the social functions of healthcare institutions in society will also be explored. Special emphasis will also be given to the role of the state in providing healthcare as well as the relationship between the state and the health industry. This course is mounted for students throughout NUS with interest in society and health-related issues.

This course introduces students to the sociological study of deviance and social control, distinguishing it as a field of research from biological and psychological explanations of deviance. It will trace the historical development of sociological theories on deviance and introduce students to contemporary approaches to deviance and crime. These perspectives will be utilized and illustrated through a study of the changing patterns of defining and controlling deviance in modern societies with reference to selected substantive issues. Students who have a keen interest in issues of social order, social control and conformity will find this course attractive.

This course begins with an understanding of age as a social variable and the life-cycle approach. It then examines the social construction of childhood from a historical and cross-cultural perspective. The central focus of this course is youth as a particular stage of the life-cycle. Topics such as the life cycle approach in sociology; the social construction of childhood: children and the state; the social construction of adolescence: images of youth will be dealt with. This course is mounted for all students throughout NUS with interest in childhood and youth.

Precludes: IF2214

Mass communications should be understood in the context of their production and consumption. In particular, we have to look at macro-structures like economy and politics as well as the legal framework in which mass media systems operate. This course analyses those relationships and looks at some key issues in media such as propaganda, media ethics, sociology of looking, celebrities and media stereotypes. This course is mounted for students throughout NUS with an interest in culture and politics, but some background in sociology is important. It provides a good foundation for those who wish to read Ethnographic Analysis of Visual Media in the third year.

Food is a social phenomenon: what constitutes food and, therefore, what can be eaten; how it is to be prepared, presented, and consumed; with whom you eat and so forth express complex relationships to class, ethnicity and gender. This course will uncover the complexity behind an everyday life material that affects and effects multiple social networks, wherein food is both the material and symbol by which class, race/ethnicity, sex/gender are socially constructed. This course is mounted for all students throughout NUS with interest in food and society.

This course will explore the connections between emotions, social life and social identities. It will examine the prevalent sociological and anthropological literature on emotions, morality and consciousness. Attention will be given to the concept of personhood and the cultural meanings circulating through the expression of emotions. We will see how cultural practices serve to organise particular emotional responses to particular social and cultural environments; why collective emotional experiences are regularly mediated by the means of symbolic representations. This course is mounted for all students who are interested in studying the relationships between emotional responses and social experiences.

This course looks at the development of tourism in the past and in the modern world. Looking at tourists as the "typical modern person", this course will explore what it means to be a tourist, the different kinds of tourist and the place of tourism in globalisation. More importantly, it looks at the influence of tourists and tourism in various places of the world. What happens to culture and heritage when it becomes a tourism object? What happens to local communities and the relations between people because of tourism? This course is mounted for students interested in Sociology and Anthropology.

See the world afresh through the lens of anthropology and its distinctive ways of studying, thinking and understanding the social and cultural underpinnings of human behaviour, institutions, and practices. Once described as a science of man, anthropology confronts the facts of human diversity, inviting you to delve deep into questions of what it means to be human. How do language, culture and the environment shape us? How do we understand people and societies vastly different from our own? Anthropological thinking offers a grounded, human-centred approach to contemporary problems in fields like education, health, media, urban planning, organizations, policy, and businesses.

This course introduces the topic of gender by using basic concepts like biological sex, nature, nurture, roles, norms and culture. The meaning of gender categories is examined in relation to difference, exchange, reproduction, knowledge and social change. Although the main perspective is ethnographic, this course is intended to be an exercise in interdisciplinary thinking. Understanding gender provides a foundation to analyse social structures (power and inequality), social institutions (family, kinship, education, economy, the state, health) and cultural issues (science, food, emotions, popular culture).

Did nature make humans, or have humans made nature? Or are both continuously co-evolving, and changing in relation to one another? This course explores the practices and institutions through which contemporary societies understand and appropriate the natural world. We use concepts from environmental sociology and anthropology, to look at how different societies’ engagements with nature reshape social thought. Students will learn research skills such as ethnographic fieldwork; critical analysis of environmental policies; and interpreting discourses on issues like energy and environmental crises. This will be useful in professional fields including conservation, urban planning, policy-making, infrastructural services, development and aid-work.

Sports have developed into a pervasive social institution. From living rooms to stadiums, sports extend to a multitude of arenas to influence economies, politics, and cultures as well as the everyday lives of many individuals. This course is designed to provide students the ability to evaluate the relationship between sports and society. Students do not need a background in sociology nor knowledge about the technicalities of sports to benefit from the course. The approach is comparative and interdisciplinary; covering historical and contemporary issues, foreign and local sporting cultures, as well as theories and methods that cut across several academic boundaries.

Art and anthropology have had a long, if at times, contentious history of exchanges, from selective appropriations to inventive collaborations. This course explores the vibrant relationship between art and anthropology to think about what each still can learn from the other. We start with a historical examination of the exchanges between two disciplines over the 20th century, from the use of ethnographic tropes by artists to avant-garde influences on anthropological practices of representation. We then turn to the deeper affinities with between the two as found in the ethnographic turn in art, art/anthropology collaborations, and, more recently, the social/participatory/relational turn.

Pre-requisite: SC1101E Making Sense of Society

This course introduces students to the key issues in the sociology of mental health. It emphasizes the social influences on mental disorders, especially factors associated with the family-of-origin, while acknowledging the medical aspects of mental health. The consequences of mental disorders on individuals and their ecological systems will also be discussed. Students will be equipped with the knowledge to frame mental disorders from a biopsychosocial perspective, view mental disorders as social conditions and be able to attest to the social construction of medical diagnosis of mental disorders.

This course introduces theories, methods and important debates in the sociology of religion to students interested in understanding religion in society and the social dimensions of religious beliefs and practices. Students will be able to analyse the social origins and organisation of religion, as well as understand trends such as secularisation and the resurgence of religion. The course will also focus on transnational issues related to religion in Asia.

Digital technologies are transforming societies, economies, politics and cultures across the world. This course equips students with conceptual frameworks for analysing the socio-economic origins and impacts of these changes, and their ramifications for local and global politics and economics. Topics to be covered include the digital transformation of knowledge, work and expertise; the material economies and politics of digital infrastructure; the digitalization of money, markets and finance; and the intersections of race, class and Artificial Intelligence. Through these topics, students will learn how the sociological issues of identity, class, mobility and conflict are being remade by our rapidly evolving technologies.

This course is designed to cover foundational anthropological and ethnographic methods. These processes include fieldwork, documentation, and the presentation and production of the eventual text that typically carry description, representation and interpretive analysis. How is anthropological fieldwork conducted in the study of different cultures? How do anthropologists detail social relations and human behaviour in the field? What are the methods and modes of evidence which anthropologists deploy in the presentation of their arguments and data? Students will therefore be imparted with key methodological skills and techniques of how anthropologists practice their craft when carrying out research.

This course aims to help students develop a framework with which to analyse and understand the following: (1) key political issues and underlying social mechanisms relating to the dynamics of industrial society and the organisation of work; (2) various aspects of social relations at the workplace; (3) how different categories of workers respond to the organisation of work; and (4) the interconnections between (1), (2), and (3). The course is open to all students throughout NUS with an interest in analyzing work situations sociologically.

Preclusion: SC2207

This course draws on an anthropological perspective to examine social, cultural and historical processes that have shaped the peoples and cultures of Southeast Asia. The course focuses on issues of migration and population; trade and economic networks; the influences of Indian, Chinese, Arab and European cultures and their interaction with indigenous cultures; the organization of states; and the interrelationship between religious and political systems; all of which have produced complex diversity as well as a shared heritage for Southeast Asian across the region.

Preclusion: SC2214

Media should be understood in the context of their production, distribution and consumption. In particular, we have to look at the practices, technologies, spaces and institutions as well as infrastructures in which media operate. This course analyses those dimensions and their relationships through such issues as propaganda, ethics, practices of looking, stereotypes, while emphasising   networks of interaction, circulation and exchange. This course is for students throughout NUS with an interest in between media and culture.

Preclusion: SC2215

Food is a social phenomenon: what constitutes food and, therefore, what can be eaten; how it is to be prepared, presented, and consumed; with whom you eat and so forth express complex relationships to class, ethnicity and gender. This course will uncover the complexity behind an everyday life material that affects and effects multiple social networks, wherein food is both the material and symbol by which class, race/ethnicity, sex/gender are socially constructed. This module is mounted for all students throughout NUS with interest in food and society.

Preclusion: SC2221

Did nature make humans, or have humans made nature? Or, are both continuously co-evolving, each changing in relation to the other? This course explores the socio-political dynamics, practices and institutions through which societies endeavour to understand and appropriate the natural world. We examine how different societies engage with nature, and how these engagements have in turn shaped social thought. In addition to exploring the way humans across time and space have constructed their understandings and relationships with nature, topics also include urban ecology and infrastructure, biotechnology, bio-capitalism, international energy politics, climate change, ‘natural’ disasters, global environmental inequality, conservation and environmentalism. 

Preclusion: SC2225

Art and anthropology have had a long, if at times, contentious history of exchanges, from selective appropriations to inventive collaborations. This course explores the vibrant relationship between art and anthropology to think about what each still can learn from the other. We start with a historical examination of the exchanges between two disciplines over the 20th century, from the use of ethnographic tropes by artists to avant-garde influences on anthropological practices of representation. We then turn to the deeper affinities with between the two as found in the ethnographic turn in art, art/anthropology collaborations, and, more recently, the social/participatory/relational turn.