Sociology

This course explores the successes, challenges, and failures of legal responses to domestic violence. Why has the legal system had difficulty responding effectively to domestic violence? Does it have something to do with the nature of law; the nature of gender; the nature of social science and social change? What happens when law is confronted by changing social conceptions of gender, of children, of the roles of men and women? Does culture matter? Do new multi-disciplinary, collaborative judicial initiatives offer promise or peril? Students will review legal cases and socio-legal research in order to search for answers to such questions.