Experimental Sociology

Do employers discriminate against mothers when hiring? Will forced relocation of individuals through ‘Ghetto’ laws lead to better outcomes for those relocated? Do we swipe right or left based on the politics of a potential date? Can banning Instagram actually weaken censorship efforts of authoritarian regimes?

Our contemporary world presents many complex societal challenges and questions that sociologist and practitioners try to tackle. Interviews and observational methods are limited when these questions concern theorized mechanisms and causal relations. Therefore, sociologists were among the first social scientists to apply experimental methods to these problems. This course dives into the world of experimental sociology from its foundation to latest empirical evidence.

The course introduces students to the experimental method, its strengths and weaknesses, and its applications in sociology and related disciplines. We will review methodological developments that freed the method from the laboratory, such as survey and field experiments, and discuss how we can use the experimental logic even when intervening ourselves is not feasible or ethical. As we learn different experimental designs, we will study how their application to varied sociological questions has contributed to knowledge in many subfields of the discipline: including sociology of culture, the environment, and discrimination.

After successful participation, students will be comfortable reading current social science research using experimental methods, evaluate its strengths and weaknesses, and be able to identify potential research questions in sociology that can be answered using experiments. To this end, the course will include group work, debates, presentations, and guest speakers to create an engaging and interactive environment.