SPRING 2025
SOC 201A, HOUSING CRISIS, Andrew Messamore, 5 CREDITS, (SSc) M/W 12:30 AM-2:20 PM, SLN: 19668
How did the housing crisis get this bad? What can we do about it?
This course will explore the key foundations, important dimensions, and debated solutions to the American housing crisis. We will consider the historical basis of contemporary dynamics, compare Seattle’s housing crisis. Students will consider the historical basis on contemporary dynamics, compare Seattle’s housing crisis to trends for other populations and communities, and draw upon work across sociology, history, and public policy.
The goal of this course is to provide a conceptual background and problem solving perspective for students interested in a more just and efficient housing system.
For more information, contact the course instructor, Andrew Messamore at afmess@uw.edu
SOC 201A, TIES THAT KILL: INFECTIOUS DISEASE AND SOCIAL DYNAMICS, Audrey Dorelien, 5 CREDITS, (SSc) T/TH 2:30 AM-4:20 PM, SLN: 19701
This course examines how social interactions (e/g/ sex networks, contacts, kinship) influence the spread of infectious diseases, while also examining how factors like sex/gender, race, socioeconomic status, and culture shape individual’s disease exposure, healthcare-seeking behavior, treatment adherence, and mortality rates.
By the end of the course, students should have a good understanding of human to human infectious disease spread, understand how contact rates can influence infectious disease dynamics, be able to critique and evaluate interventions targeting directly transmitted human diseases for their ability to mitigate disease transmission and reduce disparities in health outcomes.
For more information, contact the course instructor, Audrey Dorelien at dorelien@uw.edu
SOC 377A, SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF MADNESS AND MENTAL HEALTH IN THE US, Amy Bailey, 5 CREDITS, (SSc) M/W 13:30 AM-5:20 PM, SLN: 19713
How do we define mental health? What does it look like to be mentally unhealthy?
This course will examine the construct of “mental health” and mental “un-health” from a social science perspective. We will interrogate how categories such as mental illness, intellectual/developmental disability, cognitive impairment, and mad studies developed in the US.
Topics will include the medicalization of deviant behavior, how the definition of madness has changed across time and place, and how sociologists think about, definite, and measure mental health in research today.
For more information, contact the course instructor, Amy Bailey at akbailey@uw.edu