Summer Course Highlight: Sociology of Pandemics
The current COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way our society functions. Are you interested in looking at a pandemic from a sociological point-of-view? This summer Dean College is offering SOC 399 - Sociology of Pandemics, to help you understand how social behaviors change in reaction to biological events.
On March 11, 2020 the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, which means that the virus had spread over several countries and infected large numbers of people. In this course, you will investigate how diseases are identified, how people respond to those new diseases and what the consequences of those responses may be.
Taking a deeper dive, you will look back at pandemics throughout the last century, examining the emergence and definition of each disease, the development of surveillance systems and data collection methods and the ways in which the media informed the public. You also will explore changes in social behaviors and the cultural differences that impact those behavioral changes. Finally, you will study how policies are developed in relation to pandemics and how social inequalities are complicated by and complicate the experience of pandemics.
SOC 399 – Sociology of Pandemics runs from 07/06/2020 through 08/13/2020 and is open to current Dean students as well as incoming students, transfers and non-matriculated students.