Loyola University Chicago

University Core

Core Knowledge Area: Societal & Cultural Knowledge

Learning Outcome: Demonstrate cultural, societal and self understanding.

The study of societies, cultures and self involves learning about the social sciences. Graduates should understand: the beliefs, rituals, structures and values that constitute the human condition and collective as a society; the political, economic, and social systems of states and societies; and the forms of expression that make them understandable to themselves and others as a culture. Knowledge of one's own development, self, identify, culture, and state, as well as a global and international perspective, are important to societal and cultural understanding.

Competencies: By way of example, Loyola graduates should be able to:

  • Demonstrate an understanding of the relationships among cultural, economic, political, and social forces, and their impact on human behavior.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of the processes and components of societies, states, and cultures.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of differences of class, gender, and race in societies, states, and cultures.
  • Demonstrate an awareness that human values and behavior, ideas of justice, and methods of interpretation are influenced by culture and time.
  • Differentiate among historical and contemporary perspectives about the world with a view to fashioning a humane and just world.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of how our individual self concepts form as a complex interaction of the biological, familial, societal, and cultural contexts in which we develop.  

Societal and Cultural Knowledge Courses (2 courses required)

ANTH 100: Globalization and Local Cultures (D)
 This course is a study of cultural diversity on a global scale, and investigates humans as cultural and social beings.

Outcome: Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of the historic and contemporary relationships between cultures and societies, and to understand how cultures change over time.
ANTH 102: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (D)
This course studies how many factors (beliefs, rituals, social structure, economic structure, political structure) integrate to define culture in the broad sense and how they vary in the context of different cultures (or societies) in a more narrow sense.

Outcome: Students will be able to demonstrate the skills necessary for the study of culture, including the completion of an ethnography.
ECON 201: Principles of Microeconomics
This course studies the economic environment's impact on the individual and on the firm.

Outcome: Students will be able to model the different economic orders of the society and how individuals are impacted by them, and be able to demonstrate understanding of global and international perspectives on trade, immigration and capital flows.
ECON 202: Principles of Macroeconomics
This course studies the economic environment of the nation and measures growth, unemployment, inflation, fiscal and monetary policies of the government to ultimately understand economic stability and the welfare of the individual citizen.

Outcome: Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of the numerous variables that lead to economic stability and the welfare of the individual citizen.
PLSC 101: American Politics
American national government and politics, including institutions, group and electoral processes, and public policy.

Outcome: Students will be able to demonstrate an understanding of the American political system, the patterns of political participation and behavior of diverse individuals and groups in American society, and evaluate the roles and processes of U.S. political institutions.
PLSC 102: International Relations in An Age of Globalization (D)
This course examines the interrelationships among nations, groups and peoples in the contemporary global system.

Outcome: Students will be able to to demonstrate understanding of the main ways of studying international politics; to compare and contrast major competing approaches to the field; to examine individual regions and countries from the perspective of these approaches; and to achieve an understanding of such major substantive issues as interstate war, terrorism, arms control, international political economy and sustainable development.
PSYC 100: Psychological Perspectives on the Experience of Globalization (D)
This course will explore globalization from a psychological perspective,  applying core psychological concepts, research and theory to cross-cultural issues of behavior and development. Topics may include human rights of children, human trafficking, immigration, moral issues of international trade, parenting across cultures.

Outcomes: Students will learn basic concepts and theories and apply them to real-world globalization problems.
PSYC 101: General Psychology
This course explores the scientific study of the brain, mental events, and behavior.

Outcome: Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of the foundation, methodology, theory, and phenomena of the fields of physiological, perceptual, cognitive, social, clinical and developmental psychology.
PSYC 238: Gender and Sex Differences and Similarities (D)
This course focuses on the development of cultural, societal, and self-understanding (societal and cultural knowledge) by exploring the complexity of culture-specific social constructions of gender and how these constructions influence our ideas about what it means to be a man or woman in contemporary society.

Outcome: Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of how historical context influences science, and how context-specific political forces shape what is thought of as "scientific knowledge."
PSYC 275: Social Psychology (D)
This course is an introduction to the field of social psychology, which seeks to understand human behavior by viewing it within its social and cultural context.

Outcome: Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of cultural and social group differences, which is critical to the development of inter-cultural understanding and the reduction of inter-group (or inter-cultural) conflict.
SOCL 101: Society in a Global Age (D)
This course is an introduction to the distinctively sociological perspective of analyzing people, societies and their structures and cultures.

Outcome: Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of themselves as human beings and how different forces and ideas affect their own society and culture.
SOCL 121: Social Problems (D)
This course is an opportunity to examine major issues facing society.

Outcome: Students will be able to critically examine the impact of a social problem and its possible solutions, to integrate knowledge gleaned from a variety of disciplines, to find and utilize relevant data and research in defining issues and solutions, and to view social problems from macro and micro perspectives as a means of applying workable solutions for the issues facing society.
SOCL 122: Race and Ethnic Relations (D)
This course examines the development of cultural, society, and self-understanding by exploring the social construction of race in the United States of America, and how these ideas of race affect interpersonal relations and, most importantly, influence laws, policies, and practices which differently affect racial and ethnic communities.

Outcome: Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of the conditions which have, historically, worsened racial tensions as well as when and how social movements have been successful at eradicating racially oppressive laws and working towards a just society.
SOCL 123: Mass Media and Popular Culture
This course examines the connections between the media of mass communication and multiple forms of popular art and culture.

Outcome: Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of the social relationships between mass media and the general population.
SOCL 125: Chicago: Growth of a Metropolis (D)
This course explores the development of Chicago region from the 1830s to the present day.

Outcome: Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of the geography, history and people of Chicago.
SOCL 145: Religion and Society (Formerly SOCL 245) (D)
This course examines how religion and society interact.

Outcome:
Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of how individual behavior, organizations, and society as a whole are affected by religious ideas and institutions, and how religion is itself changed by its encounter with changing social circumstances.
SOCL 171: Sociology of Sex and Gender (Formerly SOCL 271) (D)
This course explores the social organization of sex and gender.

Outcome: Students will be able to situate their pre-conceived experiences of the naturalness of gender in a particular historical and cultural context.
WSGS 101: Introduction to Women's Studies and Gender Studies: A Global Perspective (D)  (Effective Fall 2017)
This is an introduction to the interdisciplinary fields of both Women's Studies and Gender Studies which explore the ways that sex and gender manifest themselves in social, cultural, and political arenas. It draws upon scholarship in women's studies, masculinities studies, and queer studies which themselves draw upon a variety of intellectual perspectives, including historical, psychological, rhetorical, sociological, literary, and biological.

Outcome: students will demonstrate understanding of historical developments, key concepts, theories and themes in women's studies and gender studies, the impact that gender can have on social, cultural, political and economic material conditions.
WSGS 201: Contemporary Issues in Women's Studies and Gender Studies (D)
This course is an introduction to womens studies, exploring the nature, function and scope of the field.

Outcome: Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of the ideas that gender is a social construction, that gender is necessarily a critical factor in personal identity, human relationships, and social power, the historical subordination of women, the intersection of gender, race, and class, and the praxis of this knowledge and a commitment to social justice.

 +Course titles followed by (D) have been approved for the Values Area of Diversity.