GDEV 3700

Comparative Social Inequalities

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2025-2026 Catalog.

This course offers a sociological understanding of social inequality and the social construction of difference. Designed from the perspective of comparative historical analysis, we will examine the ways in which class, gender, race/ethnicity, religion, and sexuality differences work across place and time within a shared set of global dynamics. The course will pay special attention to how difference is constructed, institutionalized, and experienced. Thus, the course will not only address inequality based on economic and labor relations, but also emphasize complicated notions of difference and identity to offer an analysis that links inequality to power and forms of rule.

Prerequisites introductory social science course.

Distribution Requirements (D-AG, SBA-AG), (OCE-IL)

Last 4 Terms Offered 2025SP, 2024SP, 2022FA, 2022SP

Outcomes

• Explain systems of social inequality from different sociological perspectives.
• Assess different assumptions about the determinants of inequality.
• Apply an understanding of inequality and difference to everyday current events.

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