Inquiry Seminar in the Social Sciences

These courses introduce students to key concepts, knowledge, and principles of the relevant discipline as they relate to the questions being studied in the individual section. They are not intended to be survey courses or broad introductions to the discipline, but should be content-rich, with the content revolving around and connected to the central questions being studied.

These courses engage students in studying questions about human behavior and social phenomena arising from a specific discipline in the social sciences. These courses all incorporate the direct study of human behavior or institutions through disciplinary-appropriate means (observation, experimentation, analysis of data, etc.); introduce students to developing hypotheses, research questions, and/or synthesizing qualitative data; and explore how knowledge of key social scientific principles provides explanatory insight into patterns of individual human and social behavior.

In addition, these courses teach the following skills: academic writing, argument construction and critical thinking, critical reading, quantitative reasoning, and oral presentations.

Sample Sections

Economic Inequality

Faculty: Al Eisenbarth

The United States is experiencing historically unprecedented levels of income and wealth inequality. This course begins by discussing the measurement of economic inequality, providing students both a historical and global perspective on current levels of inequality in the US. The course then introduces microeconomic explanations for economic inequality, focusing on the labor market. The course examines claims that inequality is detrimental to individual and societal well-being and to the political process. Finally, the course asks what, if anything, can or should be done to address economic inequality.

Engaging Seattle

Faculty: Tapoja Chaudhuri

This course will provide students with a robust introduction to Seattle from a race and economic justice perspective. The course will adopt a decolonizing lens to engage with Seattle's history of redlining and spatial discrimination. Through readings, neighborhood explorations, and mapping projects students will learn how both past and ongoing discriminations shape the experience of the city for its various residents. We will also learn how communities are creating spaces of resistance and opportunities, through the creation of new art, shared community spaces, and urban gardens. One of the main objectives of the course is to foster community-building among first-year students. This will be done through group explorations of Seattle's neighborhoods, guided tours of a CID museum, and even community-engaged projects in collaboration with the Sundborg Center for Community Engagement.

Mass Incarceration

Faculty: Sarah Cate

How did the United States become the world's largest jailer? This course addresses many questions that arise from the phenomenon of mass incarceration (the more than tripling of the incarceration rate in America since the mid-1970s). We compare the U.S. criminal justice system to other countries in the world and explore major topics like police violence, sentencing, white collar crimes, gangs, the War on Drugs, conditions of confinement, and life after prison.