Courses, Northwestern College Preparation Program | Northwestern University School of Professional Studies - Northwestern School of Professional Studies

View Courses

SOCIOL 206-0 : Law and Society

Description

Law is everywhere. Law permits, prohibits, enables, legitimates, protects, and prosecutes. Law shapes our day-to-day lives in countless ways. This course examines the connections and relationships of law and society using an interdisciplinary social science approach. As one of the founders of the Law and Society movement observed, "law is too important to leave to lawyers." Accordingly, this course will borrow from several theoretical, disciplinary, and interdisciplinary perspectives (such as sociology, history, anthropology, political science, and critical studies) in order to explore the sociology of law and law's role primarily in the American context.

The thematic topics to be discussed include law and social control; law's role in social change; and law's capacity to reach into complex social relations and intervene in existing normative institutions and organizational structures.