Credit Hours - 3

Family as basic social institution; the nexus between marriage, family and kinship; Importance of kinship, descent groups, descent systems; Inheritance and succession; Marriage: processes and forms; Marital stability, divorce and its Implications; Types of extended family in comparative perspective with reference to sub-Saharan Africa; Family in theoretical perspective: functionalist and conflict perspectives; Major key studies of the family; Social change and the family: emergence of the nuclear family and its implications for authority, power and interpersonal relations, decision-making, inheritance, welfare of members. Alternative family lifestyles in marriage of contemporary societies: singled; unmarried, cohabitation; single parenthood, blended families, gay couples, etc.

Credit Hours - 3

Health as a human value; Medical Sociology: Rationale and Scope; Culture, Health and Illness; Medical pluralism and hierarchy of resort; The doctor-patient encounter; Pharmaceuticals in the Developing World; Socio-cultural aspects of women‘s Health; The hospital as a social system; Technology and the Sociology of health care; The socio-cultural context of nursing in Ghana; Theoretical Perspectives in Medical Sociology/Anthropology.

Credit Hours - 3

Development and scope of political sociology; Power, domination and legitimacy; Authority patterns in society; Social stratification and political domination; Theories for analyzing the state and power: Structural Functionalism, Pluralism, Marxism, Neo-Marxism, and Weberian, Elite theory; Political socialization and participation; Politics in Africa: traditional political institutions, past and present; Colonialism and origin of the African state; Nationalism and postcolonial politics, political authoritarianism, corruption, military in politics; Economic and political elites in Africa; Economic liberalism and democratic governance in Africa; Class, ethnicity and political behaviour; Political parties, civil society organizations and the media.

Credit Hours - 3

Deviance as a universal phenomenon; Definitions; Development and scope of Sociology of Deviant Behaviour; Historical trends; Predisposition of individuals to deviate from social norms;  ―Causal‖  theories:  biological, psychological and sociological explanations (Functionalism, Marxism, etc. ), the positivists, measurement of crime, crime statistics, twins studies, somatotypes, theory of anomie, differential association, sub-cultural theories, principles of criminal law (concept of crime); white collar crime, victimless crime, etc.

Credit Hours - 3

Nature and field of the sociology of religion; Sociological, anthropological and psychological perspectives in religious phenomena; Mutual interaction of religion and other social institutions; Theoretical and substantive content of the sociology of religion. Theories of religious behaviour: Comte, Tylor, Frazer, Durkhein, Malinowski, Marx and Max Weber; Types of religious activity and modes of expression and organization in historical and comparative situations; religion in simple societies: totemism; ancestral veneration, magic, sorcery and witchcraft, myths and rituals; Religion in complex societies; Religious pluralism; Sectarianism, religious conflicts and accommodation; Traditional religion; Islam; Christianity and Asiatic religions; Scientific and technological development and secularization; ‗Post-modern‘ religious expressions.

Credit Hours - 3

The scope of population studies; History of world population, its growth and relation to development; Elements of demography; Population: composition, structure and characteristics; Population Theories: Malthusian Population Theory, Demographic Transition Theory, etc.; Population and development debate; Fertility and Reproductive Health, Family Planning and HIV/AIDS; Mortality; Urbanization, migration and its impact, Population growth and development in Ghana; Population policies.

Credit Hours - 3

Concept of sociology as applied to the urban society; theoretical perspectives; basic structure of urban life; Development of the city; Industrialization and urbanization; Urbanism as a way of life; Urbanism and Politics, Religion; Economics, Family; Education, Health; urban growth and the development of shanty towns; Urban social relations and associational lives and their integrative functions; Urban social problems: crime; juvenile delinquency, drug abuse, prostitution, over crowing, waste management, etc.

Credit Hours - 3

Imperatives of African rural development; Development and underdevelopment theory and comparative perspectives; Globalization and the political economy of rural poverty; Rural poverty indicators; The roles of the state in rural development; Social infrastructure and rural development; Women, children and rural poverty alleviation; The land question and rural development; NGOs and local initiatives in the rural sector; Environmental issues in rural development; A critique of selected rural development projects.

Credit Hours - 2

Historical overview of Rural Sociology; Conceptual problems in Rural Sociology; Basic structure of rural societies; Settlement patterns; Family arrangements; Politics; Religion; Health; Education; Economy; Migration and rural communities; Social change and rural communities; Agents of rural transformation: District Assemblies, NGOs/Civil Society Organizations, Faith Based Organizations, Community-Based Organizations; Conducting research in rural communities; linkages between rural and urban communities.

Credit Hours - 3

Populations and samples; frequency tables and graphs; measures of central tendency (mode, median, mean); describing the variability of distributions; Introduction to inference: the normal Curve; distribution of sampling means; standard error of estimates; Inference with the Normal Curve: hypothesis testing and interval estimation; confidence interval using the normal distribution; hypothesis testing with the normal curve; Inference with the ‗’t‘ Distribution: the ‘t‘ distribution and unbiased estimates; relationship between the normal and ‗’t‘ distribution; degrees of freedom when estimating parameters; when to use the ‗’t‘ distribution; confidence interval using the ‗’t‘ distribution; Inference with the Chi-Square Distribution: the chi-square test for goodness of fit; the chi-square test for independence; Predictive Techniques: the regression model; criterion of best fit; calculating the slope; calculating the Y intercept; estimating the regression line; using the regression equation for prediction; Correlation: correlation as a descriptive technique; correlation as an inferential statistics.

Credit Hours - 3

Importance of social research in the Social Sciences and Sociology; Proposal writing: statement of the problem, objectives, hypotheses, operationalization of key concepts, Literature Review; Types of research; quantitative and qualitative research paradigms, research design/plan; Sampling Procedures; Sources of data: primary and secondary; Methods of data collection: questionnaires and interview guides design, observation participant, observation, use of key informants, content analysis, focus-group discussions, advantages and disadvantages of the methods for data gathering, etc. Ethical considerations; Techniques for data presentation and analysis; Report writing: abstracts and executive summaries, referencing, sectioning, formatting, editing, etc.

Credit Hours - 3

Group dynamics from a social psychological perspective: intra-group process; the dimension of group structure; communication; role; influence and power structure; collective influence on individual behaviour; de-individuation and the spread of group effects; intra-group and inter-group conflict and its resolution; organizational behaviour; social influence processes and social exchange; environmental influence on social behaviour and the social developmental implications of social psychology.

Credit Hours - 3

The field and definitional issues; Strategies of enquiry: problems with social psychological research; Social learning: the humanizing process; Social perception: impression formation, social attribution; Social motivation: the achievement motive and its practical implications; Social cognition: cognitive consistency theories; Interpersonal attraction; Social attitudes: attitude measurement: attitude formation and attitude change; communication: persuasive communication; Dissonance: concept, nature, effects: Prejudice its causes, consequences and cure or prevention; Aggression: frustration-aggression hypothesis: modelling of aggressive behaviour; Prosocial behaviour: bystander intervention in emergencies: effects of altruism.

Credit Hours - 3

Meaning of perspectives in social theory; Structuralism versus agency/action debate in Sociology; Philosophies of positivism and phenomenology and their influence on sociological theories and research methods; Structural functionalism: from Durkheim, Parsons, Merton to Alexander; Marxism and Conflict Theory: from Marx, Neo-Marxism (Althusser, Lukacs, Gramsci) to Critical Theory; ―Non-Marxist‖ Conflict theory: Dahrendorf and Coser.; Historically-Oriented  Marxism (Dependency and  World  System  Theory) Symbolic Interactionism: Mead, Blummer and Goffman; Ethnomethodology: the works of Garfinkel, etc., Feminist Theory.

Credit Hours - 3

Nature of social thought and social theory; Context and development of Sociology; Founders of Sociology: Comte, social context, major ideas and evaluation of Comte‘s contribution to social theory; Herbert Spencer, social context, major ideas and evaluation of Spencer‘s contribution to social theory; Emile Durkheim, social context, major ideas and evaluation of Durkheim‘s contribution to social thought; Karl Marx, the context, major ideas: the notion of dialectics; historical materialism, social classes and their transformation, vision of a new society, Marx‘s analyses of political economy and Marx‘s contribution to social theory; Max Weber: context and major ideas: definition of sociology; methodology of the social science: categories of social action; patterns of authority, rationality and bureaucracy; the protestant ethic thesis and its critics and Weber‘s contribution to social theory; Vilfredo Pareto: elite theory; George Simmel- formal sociology and analysis of conflict; Sigmund Freud and the significance of his ideas for social analysis.