Professor Dan Myers
Office: 735 Flanner Hall, 631-3839
Office Hours: M,W 10:45-11:35
Web Page for this course: http://www.nd.edu/~dmyers/courses/102au00/
 
Teaching Assistants:
 
David Ortiz
Jason Maki
 
Purpose of the Course:
 
Sociology is the discipline that attempts to understand how societies work. In this introduction to sociology we will address a variety of questions about the social world: Why is there inequality? How is the society we live in different from that of our parents or that of our grandparents? How did our social world come to be the way it is? How does it stay that way? How does it change? How do social relations shape our individual identities -- our ethnicities, genders, religions? The goals of this course are to convey basic substantive knowledge from several areas of sociological investigation and to familiarize you with the sociological perspective. Most broadly, the course aims to sharpen your ability to analyze, investigate, and understand the social world.
 
Required Texts:
 
1. David M. Newman. Sociology: Explaining the Architecture of Everyday Life. Pine Forge Press.
2. David M. Newman (ed.). Sociology: Explaining the Architecture of Everyday Life, Readings. Pine Forge Press.
 
Course Requirements:
 
1. Exams Midterm: 25%, Final: 35% Final exam focuses on the second half of the course but may also contain material from the first half.
2. Paper 25% Due November 22
3. Tutorial Component 15%
4. Research Participation/Credit
 
Grade Scale: A: 93-100% A-: 90-92
B+: 87-89, B: 83-86, B+: 80-82
C+: 77-79, C: 73-76, C+: 70-72
D: 60-69, F: Below 60%

 

Course Outline
 
I. THINKING SOCIOLOGICALLY
 
Week of Aug. 21 Introduction, Sociological Perspective
Newman, Ch. 1 & 2.
Reader: In Ch. 1: Chambliss Article
 
II. THE SOCIAL CONTEXT
 
Week of Aug. 28 The Social Context of Reality
Newman, Ch. 3 (skip "Appreciating the Art of Social Research")
Reader: In Ch. 3: Reinarman & Levine
 
Week of Sept. 4 Socialization and Identities
Newman, Ch. 5 & Ch. 6
Reader: In Ch. 5: Adler & Adler, In Ch. 6: Granfield

Week of Sept. 11 Culture
Newman, Ch. 4
Reader: In Ch. 4: Levine
 
Week of Sept. 18 Deviance
Newman, Ch.7.
Reader: In Ch. 7: Reiman
 
III. ORGANIZATIONS AND INSTITUTIONS
 
Week of Sept. 25 Organizations
Newman Ch. 9
Reader: In Ch. 9: Van Maanen
 
Week of Oct. 2 Sociology of the Family & Sociology of Education
Newman, Ch. 8
Reader: In Ch. 8: Weston
 
Week of Oct. 9 Sociology of Religion
Macionis, Ch. 17 (Copies On Reserve in Hesburgh Library)
 
October 9: MID-TERM EXAMINATION

 

*************** MIDSEMESTER BREAK *****************
 
 
IV. INEQUALITY
 
Week of Oct. 23 & Oct. 30 Stratification & Inequality: Class, Poverty, Global
Newman Ch. 10 & 11
Reader: In Ch. 10: Greider, In Ch. 11: Kozol
 
Weeks of Nov. 6 Inequality: Race and Ethnicity
Newman, Ch. 12
Reader: In Ch. 12: Anderson, Also in Ch. 12: Feagin, Vera, & Imani

Week of Nov. 13 Inequality: Sex and Gender
Newman, Ch. 13
Reader: In Ch. 13: Madriz
 
E. SOCIAL CHANGE
 
Week of Nov. 20 (no tutorials on Nov. 24) Population and Demography
Newman, Ch. 14
Reader: In Ch. 14: Howe & Schwartz
 
November 22: PAPERS ARE DUE AT THE BEGINNING OF CLASS
 
Week of Nov. 27 Crowds, Social Movements, and Protest
Newman, Ch. 15
Reader: In Ch. 15: Aho
 
Week of Dec. 4 Research Methods and Review (no tutorials)
Newman, Ch. 3 section on "Appreciating the Art of Social Research"
Reader: In Ch. 5: Adler
 
FINAL EXAMINATION December 15, 8:00-10:00am
 
 
 
Policies:
 
Office Hours: Although it is likely that you will have more contact with your TA in this course, please take advantage of my office hours to come in and discuss questions about class material or problems you having with the course. If you wish to meet with me but cannot during the regular times, please see me before or after one of the lectures to arrange a suitable time.
 
Attendance: Although I expect you to attend all classes, I will not take attendance in lectures. Failing to attend class regularly will be detrimental because I will not simply repeat material from the text and readings in my lectures. TAs reserve the right to assign grades for the tutorial component based in part on attendance and participation.
 
Reading: Reading assignments are an essential component of this course. Failing to do all the reading will detrimental because you will be held responsible for material in the reading that is not covered in class. Reading assignments should be completed prior to the week for which they are assigned. My lectures and the TA's tutorials will assume that you have already completed the assigned reading.
 
Academic Misconduct: Any suspected instance of cheating or plagiarism will be referred to the Honesty Committee. The course penalty for academic misconduct is a zero credit for the assignment and whatever disciplinary action is levied by the Honesty Committee/University. No opportunities to re-do assignments will be given. Two instances of academic misconduct will result in automatic failure of the course.
 
Tutorial Component: Beyond my lectures, the Teaching Assistant will provide additional experiences for you in your tutorial sessions on Fridays. These experiences will range from discussions of lectures and reading to quizzes to in-class exercises designed to enhance your understanding of the course material. During your first tutorial, your TA will discuss the format for the tutorial class and how grades will be assigned for the tutorial component. If you are ever having difficulty or problems in tutorials or with your TA that you feel you cannot resolve with the TA directly, please come to see me immediately.
 
Exams: Missed exams cannot be made-up except under extreme circumstances such as serious illness or a death in the family. The policies related to make-up exams are outlined in your Notre Dame student handbooks.

 

Required Research Credit

 
Sociological and psychological theories are developed through scientific studies of human behavior. In order for you to gain an appreciation of the critical role that research plays in the social sciences, you are required to earn 2 hours of research credit. Credit can be earned via two methods: (i) volunteering to participate a research experiment conducted by faculty and graduate students in the sociology department or (ii) reading published research articles on a particular topic (approved by the instructor) and submitting a written review of them.
 
Experimental Participation:
You will receive 1 research credit hour for each partial-to-full hour of experimental participation. That is, experiments requiring up to one hour to complete are worth 1 hour; experiments requiring between 1 and 2 hours to complete are worth 2 hours.
 
Those who wish to participate can indicate so by signing up on a sheet that will be circulated in class. If you decide later to participate, you can sign up on the sheet by the instructor's office door or by contacting the instructor. A research assistant will call you to schedule you for an experimental session at a time convenient for you. The research assistant will tell where your particular session will be held and give you additional information about the study in which you will be participating.
 
The study in which you will participate has been approved by the University Committee on the Protection of Human Subjects. This is an independent committee responsible for evaluating the ethics & safety of all research conducted at Notre Dame. You will be asked to read and sign a consent form at the beginning of every experiment. Experimenters must provide sufficient truthful information about the experiment before it begins so that you are capable of giving "informed consent."
 
Written Research Reviews:
If you choose this option to satisfy your research requirement, please see the instructor for details concerning the length of the paper, how it will be evaluated, and how research credit points will be determined.

 

PAPER ASSIGNMENT

 

Due Date: November 22 at the start of class

 
For your paper, you will observe a social environment, take notes on what you observe, and then subject your observations to a sociological analysis. First, you should select a social setting that you want to observe. You can select any setting you wish, but if you follow a couple of suggestions, you may find the assignment easier. First, it may be helpful to select an environment that is not overly familiar to you. For example, if you are Catholic, you might decide to visit a Protestant church service. If an environment is too familiar to you, some important aspects of the social context may blend into the background. Second, you may want to choose an environment in which some things change over time or visit two similar environments that differ on one important dimension. For example, you could observe a mall lobby during on a weekday when mostly adults are shopping and then during the weekend when the crowds are more mixed. Returning to our church example, you could attend one service in a predominantly White church and one in a predominantly Black church; or one in a rich neighborhood and one in a relatively poor one. You should plan to spend at least 4 hours observing your environment and taking notes on what you have observed. Depending on the environment you choose, you may have to wait until after you leave the environment to write down your notes. If you are having trouble selecting an environment, please talk to me or one of the TAs.
 
There will be many important things to observe in your environment. Among these are: the physical environment, important artifacts or objects, what kind of people are there, who interacts with whom, when do people arrive/leave, who says what, are there leaders/followers, and so on. Try to focus on what you think is most interesting sociologically.
 
Writing up your paper: Your paper should be made up of three parts. First, you should identify your environment and very briefly discuss why you chose it and why you thought it would be sociologically interesting. Second, you should give a synopsis of what you observed. Please give only the broad strokes of what happened—this should only take up a couple of pages. The idea is to make your reader familiar with the environment, not to give a blow-by-blow account of your field work. Finally, select two or three important sociological concepts we have discussed and talk about how they relate to what you observed. For example, you could discuss deviant behavior in your setting. Was the presence or lack or deviance important in your setting? Why do you think there was or was not any deviant behavior? Did deviant behavior suggest any underlying class/race/gender conflict in the setting? Try to give a sociological explanation WHY things occurred in the setting as they did and why other things did not occur. This third part should make up most of your paper and will be the most pivotal in determining your grade.
 
Format: Papers should be double spaced, typed, and stapled together. (I strongly recommend that you use a word processor to produce your paper. Not only will it be easier to update your paper should you choose to turn in a preliminary draft, but you will have a back-up copy of your paper on disk. If you choose to use a typewriter, you should save a photocopy of your paper.) When you turn in your paper, don not use a plastic theme cover or folder. The first page should be a title page that should include the title of your paper, your name, and the name of your Teaching Assistant. Start the text of your paper on the following page. Spelling and grammar count! Do not simply depend on your spell checker! Proofread your paper carefully.
 
Length: About 10 – 12 pages. This means 10-12 double-spaced pages of text; title pages and bibliographies do not count in the page total.. A page of text is generally about 250 words of 12 point type with standard 1 inch margins. Please do not try to play tricks with margins, fonts, line spacing, etc. in order to increase or decrease your paper's length. We are well aware of these tricks and they only make papers more irritating to read.
 
First Drafts: If you would like to turn in a preliminary draft of your paper prior to the final due date, we will review your paper and make suggestions how you can improve it for its final draft. It is not required that you turn in a first draft, but we strongly recommend it.
 
If you wish to take advantage of this service:
- Your draft must be turned in on or before November 8.

- Your draft must be written as if it is a final draft. Outlines, sloppy or incomplete drafts, hand written work, and so forth, is not acceptable.
- The purpose of our review is not to correct your grammar and spelling, but to give you suggestions on how you can improve the substance of your paper, i.e., how to better apply sociological concepts and so forth.
- When you turn in your final draft, you must turn in the rough draft as well.
 
Due Date: Papers are due at the start of class. Papers received after the start of the class will be considered late. Late papers are subject to a 10% penalty. No papers will be accepted after 4:00pm on Monday, November 27. Papers received after that time will receive zero credit. If you are going to turn in your paper late, it is your responsibility to make arrangements with your TA to deliver the paper to them. Exceptions to this policy will only be made in the case of serious illness or a death in the family and will require documentation as outlined in your student handbook.