• Sociology is the study of society and social problems. Sociology gives students a lens through which to understand social practices in their family, institutions, and social policy. It provides students with the tools to analyze, critique, and transform social structures, institutions, communities, individuals, and themselves. Seattle university seeks to cultivate the “sociological imagination,” the ability to contextualize daily life in the broader patterns of social forces. 
  • Sociologists are fascinated by the fundamental question: why do people do what they do? Sociologists describe and explain the ecological foundations of society, major institutions, and the ways in which people interact, organize their lives together, and bestow meaning on the world. In so doing we seek a wider cross-cultural and multi-cultural understanding, striving to make people's lives intelligible across the boundaries of culture, class, race, and gender.
  • Students are invited to develop their abilities to apply the sociological perspective to the study of social life. Seattle university seeks to build a learning environment that will bring each student to a level of understanding and skill needed to apply that knowledge to furthering one's career and bettering one's life and society. Seattle university help prepares students for careers in human services, for graduate study in sociology, education, and law. Internships match theory with practice by providing opportunities for on-the-job training.
  • Seattle university strives to help students make sense of their own lives and the world in which they live. They also want to empower students to see the possibilities and limits of social change and of service to others.
  • Sociology major learning goals:
    • Articulate, apply, and explain the “sociological imagination” and an intersectional understanding of social power, especially race, class, gender, sexuality, nationality, religion, ability and age.
    • Explain the social construction of reality and its implications for the individual and social structures.
    • Articulate methodological principles of ethical research.
    • Apply sociological theory and principles to practice, including research, activism, and/or social justice activity.
    • Articulate socially just alternatives to current social realities in research, activism, or institutional processes.