The primary purpose of the Sociology Program at Sacred Heart University is to encourage the analysis and understanding of the socio-cultural transformations, adaptations, and struggles that characterize the world we live in with particular attention given to their implications for the quality of human life. The Program places emphasis on the acquisition of the conceptual and methodological skills needed for the analysis of the causes and consequences of these transformations, adaptations, and struggles.
The Program also places special attention on an understanding of the social structures, conflicts, tensions, and dynamics that are central to change within society. At the same time, the Program focuses on explaining how and why traditional and small-scale forms of social organization have resisted, influenced, or been affected by the forces that have transformed or are transforming the world around them.
To achieve these ends, the Sociology Program encourages students to confront their ideas, actions, and being by objectively examining their lives, their society, and the world.
SOCIOLOGY PROGRAM GOALS
- Prepare majors who graduate with an understanding of the structure and dynamics of social life.
- Prepare majors who graduate with an understanding of the processes and consequences of social change.
- Prepare majors who graduate with an understanding of the relationship between individual life and social life.
- Prepare majors who acquire the ability to apply the scientific method and other critical and analytical skills needed to understand social reality in an unbiased way.
- Prepare majors who acquire the ability to conduct ethical analysis.
- Prepare majors who graduate with an understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity and complexity.
- Prepare majors who are more aware of social inequality and injustice.
- Prepare majors who are able to communicate and integrate ideas in both oral and written forms.
- The Sociology Program supports the curriculum needs of related disciplines.
The University, as any other social organization, has social responsibilities. The Sociology Program provides the University community sociological insights and methods to assist in meeting these responsibilities.