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-

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.

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 Afr

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 estimatin