Law and Society Minor

Law and society, as a term, refers to an interdisciplinary effort on the part of scholars from the fields of law and various social sciences to understand not only official legal doctrines (‘law on the books’) but also to understand, analyze, and predict how those legal doctrines are carried out (‘law in action’), focusing especially on how non-legal social variables, such as race, class, gender, institutional structure, management styles, etc., produce legal outcomes that cannot be fully explained via legal doctrine alone.

What Will I Study?

Students pursuing this minor will complete required courses in Sociology as well as an additional course in history, philosophy, political science, or psychology, based on their interest in specialized areas such as legal analysis.

Who Can Benefit?

This minor will allow students to explore Law and Society in an interdisciplinary program that trains them to think critically and engage in issues related to legal doctrine and how its formation, application, and outcomes are influenced by social scientific variables.

Students will:

• Be able to speak and write about historical and current legal doctrines
• Be able to speak and write about the influence of social scientific variables in the formation and application of law and its outcomes
• Be able to demonstrate knowledge of legal doctrines and social scientific concepts.
• Use social scientific methodologies to examine and evaluate legal operations and outcomes.