Undergraduates majoring in Early Childhood Education (Birth to Grade 2) must select a 30 to 32 credit academic specialty from the Liberal Arts and Sciences curriculum. Such study complements the Early Childhood Education courses and provides you with specialized knowledge in one particular discipline. This adds depth and breadth to your level of teaching expertise. As a teacher, you can transmit your enthusiasm for the focused subject to young learners, helping them to grow intellectually and socially. You may select Sociology from among the Liberal Arts and Sciences curriculum. Sociology is a broadly based discipline that focuses on understanding human behavior through a holistic view of society, its functions and dysfunctions. The goal is to enable students to liberate themselves from a narrow perspective of place, time and circumstances, while at the same time strengthening an awareness of the relationship between society and the individual. In this program you will receive a thorough grounding in the basic concepts and methods of sociological research, including statistics. As a future teacher you will gain a deeper understanding of today's multi-ethnic American culture and its institutions – including the family, religion, education, the state, and the economic order – and you will develop tools to communicate this understanding to young students at an appropriate content level.