About Sociology at NCCU

The study of global societies and cultural organization with emphasis on diversity in human behavior. The course includes a cross-cultural focus on families, economies, governments, values, beliefs, attitudes, and customs. (Laboratory work required).

Note: SOCI 2000 in the fall and summer sessions has been listed as Society and Human Behavior. This should be corrected because the same catalog number is being used for two different course titles. The correct course title should be listed for all sessions as Global Societies and Human Behavior. The Registrar states they are unable to correct in the system. 

In this course, students are introduced to sociological imagination and invited to practice the sociologist’s craft. A basic theoretical and methodological foundation is provided so that students can begin to test sociological knowledge claims. Throughout the semester, students will explore such issues as social structure, culture, socialization, deviance, stratification, the family, demographic processes, and social change. 

Prerequisites: SOCI 2100 or SOCI 2000.

This course introduces students to some of the major principles and concepts of cultural anthropology and ethnography. Topics covered will include the nature of culture, cultural change, ethnographic semantics, linguistic anthropology, culture and personality, non-industrial societies, marriage and family, and kinship. Students will also be introduced to several cross-cultural data sets. 

Prerequisites: SOCI 2100 or SOCI 2000.

This course will provide an in-depth analysis of the social consequences of the economy and modern societal behavioral trends on the natural and social environment. Specific emphasis is placed on issues relating to environmental health, toxic waste and cleanup, social and natural disasters and hazards, and to the social, political, and economic responses to these concerns. 

Prerequisites: SOCI 2100 or SOCI 2000.

This course emphasizes an understanding of the important methods, terms, micro-theoretical perspectives, and findings in the field of social psychology. Social psychology is the scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behavior and thought in social situations. 

Prerequisites: SOCI 2100 or SOCI 2000.

T                he cross-cultural study of the development and organization of the institutions of marriage and the family. 

Prerequisites: SOCI 2100 or SOCI 2000.

An examination of the demographic effect of aging on the family, work, health, recreation, religion, education, economic, and political systems. This course will focus on the aging process, and aspects of health, economics, and social support that older persons encounter. This course also will examine international and cross-cultural trends of aging. 

Prerequisites: SOCI 2100 or SOCI 2000.

A systematic study of the major classical theorists. Emphasis is placed on the development of a conceptual framework basic to an understanding of sociological literature and research. 

Prerequisites: SOCI 2100 or SOCI 2000.

A study of the distribution of power, wealth, and prestige within societies, and the social and cultural consequences of this distribution. The course examines from a global perspective why the categories of race, class, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality are socially constructed, maintained, and experienced. 

Prerequisites: SOCI 2100 or SOCI 2000.

This course focuses on the number, size, initial contact with America, and social characteristics of major American minority groups. The emphasis is on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and age as major sources of minority status. Emphasis is on the analysis of major problems of intergroup relations using techniques of small area demographic analysis. 

Prerequisites: MATH 1110.

A study of statistical concepts such as correlation, sampling, and probability. The student will learn to use statistics to test hypotheses using chi square, regression, and other techniques. (Computer lab work is required.) 

Prerequisites: SOCI 3600.

This course is an overview of the three primary sociological research techniques: qualitative, quantitative, and comparative historical methods. Particular emphasis will be placed on how sociological methods may be triangulated for greater depth of research on social phenomena. Students will be challenged to use such research techniques as sampling, developing questionnaires (including devising skip patterns), conducting interviews, use of SPSS, data set selection, collection, and analysis, and on dissemination of research findings. (Computer laboratory work is required.) 

Prerequisites: SOCI 2100 or SOCI 2000.

Religion is a major social institution, an agent of social change and a mechanism of social control. While cross-cultural differences in religiosity will be explored, an analysis of the U.S. religious economy is also provided. Issues addressed over the semester include: major classical and contemporary sociological paradigms, congregational analysis, religiosity, religious socialization, the sociology of the Black Church, secularization, and ecological analysis. 

Prerequisites: SOCI 2100 or SOCI 2000.

This course provides an introduction to major demographic concepts, processes, trends, and commonly used techniques on demographic analysis. The essential focus is on the United States, but the course will also improve the students’ perception of global population trends and their interrelatedness. 

Prerequisites: SOCI 2100 or SOCI 2000.

A study of basic law as it pertains to selected issues and environmental situations met by persons working in applied social science fields. The course will prepare students to recognize and question possible violations of client/patient rights. Law will be studied as an available resource to aid clients/patients in the helping process. Students will engage in a service-learning activity designed to address an identified local community issue using the information taught in this course. 

Prerequisites: SOCI 2100 or SOCI 2000.

The majority of humans in the world now live in urban settings. This course examines the city in its global setting, with a focus on the patterns of community development in the Durham region as an example of the economic, ecological, and behavioral consequences of globalization, population mobility, and density. 

Prerequisites: SOCI 2100 or SOCI 2000.

An examination of the relationship of socio-cultural factors in the nature, conception, and treatment of disease and illness; the institutionalization of the healing professions, and the impact of the doctor-patient relationship. The course also focuses on international examples of health care plans. This is a speaking intensive course. 

Prerequisites: SOCI 2100 or SOCI 2000.

This course is designed to encourage students to learn sociological ideas independently. A number of prescribed sociology textbooks are expected to be read and the contents mastered within a specified time period. Chairperson’s permission required. 

The Sociology program at North Carolina Central University began with one course taught by Dr. C. G. O Kelly in 1923. The next decade saw an addition of five new academic course offerings. Students were eager to study Social Pathology, Criminology, Population Trends in the South, and Social Psychology and to participate in a Seminar in Social Sciences. Most of the courses focused on social issues which are still relevant today.  

By 1939, the Sociology Department was organized and offered students a wealth of knowledge in the field at the undergraduate and graduate level. The late 1930s through the 1950s afforded great research opportunities and scholarly endeavors for our faculty. Students were fortunate to have scholarly professors such as Drs. Howard Odum, Joseph S. Himes, Jr., Edgar Thompson, Charles E. King, and Jane Leserman. Dr. King would often engage students in conversations about his studies as a graduate student at the University of Chicago and his dissertation writing days under Dr. Robert E. Parks, one of the trailblazers in the field of sociology. Afternoon and evening gatherings with faculty and students engaging in intellectual discourses were regular occurrences.  

Dr. Himes founded, with area sociologists, the North Carolina Sociological Association in 1969. He served as president of the organization from 1969 to 1971. In honor of Dr. Joseph Himes, the Himes Outstanding Student Sociology Papers Awards are given each year to an undergraduate and graduate sociology student at the state NCSA meeting. While at NCCU, Dr. Himes was the first recipient of the Martin Luther King Jr. Award. He served as a Fulbright lecturer at both Helsinki University in Finland and Machas University in India. NCCU was fortunate to have him as a professor in Sociology for 23 years (1946–1969). In our centennial year, he served as a shining example of the professionalism our students seek to accomplish. Although he was blind, Dr. Himes excelled as a scholar. His personal motto was "It is the mind that sees." 

The Gamma Chapter of Alpha Kappa Delta International Sociology Honor Society was founded in 1952. NCCU's Gamma Chapter has the distinct honor of being the first HBCU inducted into Alpha Kappa Delta in the state. The AKD organization has provided mentoring, academic tutoring and community activities for sociology students. Past advisors for the AKD honor society included Professors Charles King, Francis Scherer, Sandra Rogers, Charles Slappy, Chien Ju Hung, Miles Simpson, and James Davies.  

The Sociology Club was established as a community service club for sociology majors. The club over the years participated in feeding selected families in Durham, collecting school supplies for needy children. organizing blood drives and walk-a-thons for numerous charities, managing big sister/big brother projects, and collecting clothes and food for the homeless. Past advisors of the organization were Professors Marsha Goodwin Kee, Charles Slappy, Isaac Robinson, Gwendolyn Dixon, Gloria Drew, Annette Bailey, and Vickie Newsome.  

In the 1960s, Drs. William H. Howell, Jacqueline J. Jackson, Leonard H. Robinson, Charles E. King. Edwina C. Williams, just to name a few, continued to engage students in critical thinking and analyses of social issues in our society. A significant number of sociology majors continued their education by pursuing graduate studies. Social agencies dealing with societal issues were popular employment choices for those not continuing their education after graduation. 

In the '70s and '80s, many students engaged in research activities that helped create job opportunities in social agencies, public schools, and higher education. During the early '70s, Dr. Charles E. King and his then graduate research assistant, Sandra Rogers, along with UNC-Chapel Hill researchers, engaged in a pilot study of the desegregation process of the Goldsboro public school system in North Carolina. This research was used by the Department of Public Instruction to identify key factors that impacted the positive or negative progress of school desegregation. Faculty and students actively engaged in classroom and community issues involving race relations and relevant social issues of that era. 

Our faculty in the mid-'70s and '80s included Professors Charles King. Marsha Goodwin Kee, Charles Slappy, Isaac Robinson, William Howell, Francis Scherer, George Conklin, James Davies, Miles Simpson, Gloria Drew, Edwina Williams, Donald Addison, Sandra Rogers, and Gwendolyn Dixon. The department was a forerunner of today’s web-based course materials and received several grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE) and the Lilly Endowment to integrate the methods of sociology into various courses using personal computers.

Under a program sponsored by former Chancellor Julius Chambers, the department collaboratively shared the laboratory assignments developed under previous grants to create a course covering anthropology, sociology, psychology, and geography. A new service-learning course on Society and Law was created by Professor Rogers in Fall 2010, utilizing her juris doctorate and sociology backgrounds. 

NCCU’s sociology department was known for dealing with the life and works of Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois under the leadership of Dr. Wortham, who later became the associate dean of the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences now known as the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities. Our department had the distinct honor of having produced three NCCU Professor Emeriti: Dr. Leonard Robinson, Dr. Charles King, and Dr. George Conklin.  

As a result of restructuring and realignment, Professor Sandra Rogers was appointed director of the sociology student teach-out program, which signified the ending of the department in May 2014.