Junior Tutorials

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I get into a Junior Tutorial?
Submit your preferences in the junior tutorial lottery. The lottery for 2024-2025 is open now. 

What is a Junior Tutorial?
Junior Tutorials are small research seminars offered by members of the department. Enrollments for junior tutorials are capped at 10 students and topics vary from year to year. All tutorials are assigned by lottery. Every effort is made to assign students in one of their top two choices.

When should I take a Junior Tutorial?
Sociology concentrators should take the Junior Tutorial during their junior year unless they have extenuating circumstance (e.g. junior year study abroad, switching into the concentration during junior year, etc.). Schedule an advising appointment with a member of our advising team as soon as possible if one of these circumstances applies to you.

How do I choose a Junior Tutorial?
As part of their junior tutorial, students design and conduct an independent research project. You should choose a tutorial that is topically related to your research interests.

What Junior Tutorials are available this year?
Junior Tutorials topics are listed on this website.

When will I hear back about my Junior Tutorial lottery results?
Students who complete the lottery by the priority deadline (Friday, March 29th, 2024 at 5:00pm!!!) will receive their placement results by the end of the day on Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024.

 

Fall 2024 Junior Tutorials

 

SOCIOL 98DB: Health and Illness

Caitlin Daniel, Wednesday, 3-5pm
Why do non-Hispanic Black babies represent one-third of all US births, but three-fourths of infant deaths? Why do we see body fat, but not social isolation, as a public health crisis? How can the pursuit of health be used to perpetuate social inequalities—and to contest them? Addressing questions such as these, this junior tutorial introduces students to a sociological approach to health and illness. We will focus on four areas: 1) the social determinants and social distribution of health—how social conditions and positions produce disease for some and wellness for others; 2) the social construction of health and illness; 3) the social experience of illness, including how our responses to illness are structured by social factors, and 4) health as a meaningful social practice that shapes social action and organization far beyond the individual body. Posing a research question of their choosing, students will conduct an original research project using qualitative methods such as interviews, observations, or content analysis.

SOCIOL 98HB: Online Communities

Sarah Halford, Monday, 9:45-11:45am
What is an online community? How are online communities similar to or different from offline communities? For what purposes do people form communities online, and how are group cultures constructed in online environments? In this junior tutorial, students will develop a research project that explores an online community of their choosing through digital ethnography. Students will also learn about innovations in ethnographic methods that account for the many ways in which digital technologies have become increasingly integrated into everyday social life.
 

Spring 2025 Junior Tutorials



SOCIOL 98M: Social Class in the United States

Rachel Meyer, Tuesday, 12-2pm
Class, one of the most basic analytical concepts in sociology, structures our social world in fundamental ways. Nevertheless, the extent to which social class is salient to people, and the specific content of class-based identities and class cultures, varies widely. This course is rooted in a comparison of the working class versus professionals and the upper middle class. The focus is on the United States while maintaining a comparative perspective on other national, historical, and cultural contexts. Reviewing a variety of contemporary studies and theoretical perspectives, we will pursue the following questions, among others: How do class-based identities relate to class structure? How are boundaries drawn between classes and among people of the same social class? What might undermine—or bolster—class consciousness in different contexts? And how is social class reproduced? In the U.S. case, how does class intersect with other aspects of American culture? Are class-based identities racialized? Throughout the course we will be attentive to the variety of research agendas on the topic and the various kinds of data that are brought to bear on these questions. After reviewing the relevant literature students will then design and execute their own original research projects that seek to elucidate some aspect of class identity or class culture. Students will have the opportunity to engage in each step of the research process, from question formulation and data collection to analysis and write-up. Along the way we will have workshops on the process of conducting primary research and on each student’s project. The methodological focus will be on interviewing, with an attention to how ethnographic data and surveys might also shed light on the subject.



SOCIOL 98WG: Social Ties and their Consequences

Joey Wallerstein, Wednesday, 9:45-11:45am
Social ties—the connections we have to other people—are characterized by a great degree of qualitative diversity. In this course, we will examine how sociologists have written about that diversity. What qualities make a tie “strong” or “weak,” “positive” or “negative”? What do sociologists mean when they describe ties as “disposable,” “elastic,” “appropriable,” or “toxic”? What distinguishes ties to other individuals from ties to, say, organizations? In addition, we will examine the consequences of different kinds of social ties. Why do some varieties of social tie help and others harm (and still others do both at the same time)? What roles do people we consider “frenemies,” people we feel ambivalent toward, or people we find difficult play in our lives? During the semester, students will learn to use qualitative methods to study social ties and will design and carry out their own original research projects.