As a socio-legal studies major or minor, you'll study law and society from interdisciplinary perspectives. You'll take classes in sociology and criminology, political science, philosophy, environmental science, media, film and journalism studies, and other disciplines. You'll learn how law shapes society and how society shapes the law.
This multidisciplinary approach prepares students for futures in the law, whether that's law school and the legal profession or a different pathway. You'll get a chance to apply what you're learning outside the classroom through internships. To help you make your choices, we offer academic and pre-law advising.
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Learn How Law Operates in Our Lives
Explore Law From All Sides
In Socio-Legal Studies, you'll consider legal and ethical questions through an interdisciplinary approach. Your studies in philosophy will offer a unique ethical foundation for your exploration of the legal debates in environmental studies, and your understanding of media law will inform your studies of the First Amendment in a constitutional law course. By exploring law across a wide range of subjects, you'll develop new approaches and transform the way you think about law.
Featured Courses
Media Law
Introduction to freedom of expression and media law. Students learn how the American legal system works and gain an understanding and appreciation of the philosophical foundations of free expression. In addition, students confront many of the issues facing professional communicators today.
Learn MoreVirtue Ethics
Virtue ethics purportedly provides a distinct approach to moral deliberation, moral reasoning, moral decision-making, and moral justification. This course is a systematic study o the nature of virtue ethics, the nature of a virtue, and the alleged superiority of virtue ethics over its more familiar consequentialist and deontological alternatives.
Learn MoreDeviance and Society
Examines some behaviors often called deviant, such as mental illness, substance abuse, governmental crime and unconventional lifestyles, and asks what groups call them deviant, why and how behavior affects community.
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Is Socio-Legal Studies Right for You?
We're motivated by the energy and passion our students bring to the socio-legal studies program, and inspired by the difference they make in their communities through careers in law and other professions. If you are curious, care about your community and want to seek solutions to society's toughest problems, then socio-legal studies may be right for you. We hope you'll join us in Socio-Legal Studies.
