Syllabus for Sociology 423/American Culture 421- Social Stratification Instructor Kerry Ard Email kerryjoy@umich.edu Office LSA 4225 Office Hours Tuesdays 2:30pm-3:30pm Course Description Human beings use social constructions, such as race and class, to define themselves and others. This has profound consequences for people s well-being and for the broader social structure. This course will look at how the social structure of industrial societies propel and limit the individuals within it, creating and perpetuating social inequalities. The course is organized as such, we will be learning about the theories that attempt to explain the persistence of inequality in industrial societies. You will use these perspectives to understand the social stratification that you see in your volunteer job and develop a paper that you will submit to a conference at the end of the semester. On Tuesdays we will have lecture and discussion on a selection of readings from the literature. To facilitate these discussions you will be required to submit a weekly response paper due the Monday before class at 10am. These due dates are noted in the syllabus in a gray box. Please note the exception for next week (July 5 th ). On Wednesdays you will be given two hours to volunteer at an organization of your choosing that addresses issues of social inequality. Through your volunteer position you are expected to see the real world effects of social stratification, the implementation of governmental policies, as well as community organizations that endeavored to change these patterns. On Thursdays you will work in your paper groups to merge the theoretical and empirical literature we discuss on Tuesday with the real world experiences you have on Wednesdays. In your paper groups you will develop a paper that you later will submit to a conference of your choosing. This is an advanced level undergraduate seminar designed to acquaint you with some of the major topics in contemporary research on social stratification. The course is not designed to achieve complete coverage of the existing literature; instead, we will delve more deeply into a selection of topics central to the field.
Assignments You will be evaluated in this course on the basis of your reading and engagement with course materials, apparent in your active class participation, involvement in your volunteer position, response papers, and a final written assignment. Please contact me by email with any questions about the assignments. All your written assignments should be typed in 12 point font, preferably Times New Roman, emailed to me as an attachment in Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF format (at kerryjoy@umich.edu). 1) All students are expected to complete the required readings (before the class period for which they are assigned) and to come to class prepared to discuss them. Preparation and participation is essential to your learning, the progress of your classmates, and the success of the course, and will account for a significant portion of your grade. 2) Beginning in Week 2 (July 5th), you will be required to turn in a one-page response paper each week. That is, you will turn in a total of five response papers. Details: o I will provide guiding questions for these response papers in class the week before they are due. o You may exceed the one page requirement as desired but please make sure you provide at least a page of thoughtful work. o Response papers will be due by 10:00 am on the Monday before class, and should be emailed to me at kerryjoy@umich.edu as an attached Microsoft Word or PDF document. Late assignments will not be accepted. o I will collate the responses and send to the entire class by Monday evening. You should look over your classmates response papers before we meet and to bring a copy to class. o These response papers will be the basis for the literature review sections of your final paper. 3) Position o In order to facilitate your understanding of the real world consequences of social stratification, and programs currently in place attempting to find solutions to these problems, you will be expected to volunteer at a non-profit organization one day a week. Wednesday classes will be dedicated to this endeavor, giving you at least two hours a week which you can use to volunteer at your chosen organization. o The second week of classes you will be contacting an organization in class and arranging a schedule with them. o You will be handed out forms in class that your volunteer supervisor will need to sign every time you go in to volunteer. This completed form will be due the last day of classes.
4) The final requirement is a writing assignment (about 10-15 pages), due at 4pm on August 16th, 2011. This work should reflect your own interests in a social stratification topic, as well as being submittable to a conference that you will choose the second week of classes. o Most conferences are held at cities of interest to tourists around the globe. They often offer funding for student presenters which you can tap into if your paper is accepted, as well as applying for funding opportunities provided by the department and the university. o Each week you will be meeting with a group of your peers in class to discuss and work on your paper. In these groups you will be creating an outline for your paper which you will turn into a draft to pass back to the group to have them comment on. Based on these revisions you will complete a final paper and submit it to a conference of your choosing. o We will discuss this assignment in more detail in class. Policies Reading Load: According to the sociology department s Undergraduate Program Team in a spring or summer halfterm, reading should be double what students would be assigned during a full 15-week fall or winter semester. In a full semester students are expected to spend 2-3 hours a week outside of class (reading, writing, and studying) for every course credit. This translates into 4-6 hours a week per credit hour in the half term. Most Sociology classes in the summer term are 3 credits, so 12-18 hours of reading, writing, and exam preparation outside of class is not inappropriate. In a half term, students should be prepared to read 100-200 pages per week in 100 level courses, and between 150-300 pages per week in 300 and 400 level courses. Academic Misconduct: Examples of what the school and this class considers academic misconduct can be found at: https://www.lsa.umich.edu/lsa/cg/bulletin/chap4/conduct/ This course will strictly adhere to the policy that anyone in violation of these guidelines will be reported to the Dean, without exception. Please pay particular attention to the section on plagiarism. Evaluation Grades will be calculated as follows: Class participation = 20% Response papers = 20% ing = 20% Final written assignment = 40% Please Note: Late assignments will not be accepted and incompletes for the course will not be given; they are bad for instructor and student. Please plan to have your final written assignment completed and emailed to me by Tuesday August 16th, at 4pm. COURSE SCHEDULE
Wednesday, June 29th: Class overview & introductions to each other Thursday, June 30: Lecture & Discussion Introduction to stratification via Functionalism and Marxism Davis, Kingsley, and Wilbert E. Moore. Some Principles of Stratification. (Grusky 55-62)*** Tumin, Melvin M. Some Principles of Stratification: A Critical Analysis (Grusky 65-72) *** refers to Grusky, David. (2001). Social Stratification: in Sociological Perspective. Cornell: Westview Press. Details on how to obtain this book are given in class. Monday, July 04: Response Paper on 7/5 readings due on 7/5/11 at 10 am because of holiday Tuesday, July 05: Lecture & Discussion - Structuralism & Social Networks Durkheim, Emile. The Division of Labor in Society. (Grusky 178-183) Granovetter, Mark S. The Strength of Weak Ties. (Grusky 447-451) Piore, Michael. The Dual Labor Market: Theory and Implications. (Grusky 435-438) Computer room - Contact volunteer organizations - Identify conferences Wednesday, July 06: Lecture & Discussion- Education & Aspirations Carter, Prudence, 2005. Keepin It Real: School Success Beyond Black and White. Chapter 2. New York: Oxford University Press. MacLeod, Jay. 1995. Ain t No Making It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low- Income Neighborhood. Westview Press. (Grusky 421-434) Movie- Waiting for Superman Thursday, July 07: Lecture & Discussion- Education & Aspirations part II Monday, July 11: Get Form Filled out this Week at Job
Tuesday, July 12 th -Thursday, July 14 th Begin volunteering Monday July 18: Response Paper on 7/19 readings due at 10 am Tuesday, July 19: Lecture & Discussion- Race & Ethnicity Noel, Donald L. 1968. A Theory of the Origin of Ethnic Stratification. Social Problems. 16(2): 157-172 Brodkin, Karen. 1998. Chapter 2: How Jews Became White Folks. IN How Jews Became White Folks. Rutgers University Press Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. 2000. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. IN The Idea of Race. Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Movie- Race the Power of an Illusion Wednesday, July 20: Thursday, July 21: Lecture & Discussion- Segregation & Income Inequality Sugrue, Thomas. 1996. Introduction IN The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Massey, Douglas. 1990. American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. American Journal of Sociology. 96(2): 329-357. Quillian, Lincoln. 1999. Migration Patterns and the Growth of High-Poverty Neighborhoods, 1970-1990. American Journal of Sociology 105: 1-37. create outline of paper Monday July 18: Response Paper on 7/26 readings due at 10 am Tuesday, July 26:
Crime Pager, Devah. 2003. "The Mark of a Criminal Record" American Journal of Sociology, 108 (5): 937-975. Bourgois, Philippe. 1996. In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in the Ghetto. New York: Cambridge University Press. pgs: TBA Uggen, Christopher & Jeff Manza. (2002) "Democratic Contraction? The Political Consequences of Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States." American Sociological Review, 67(6): 777. Movie- Gang Wars Part I Wednesday, July 27: Thursday, July 28: - First draft due to group Movie- Gang Wars Part II Monday August 01: Response Paper on 8/2 readings due at 10 am Tuesday, August 02: Lecture & Discussion- Power Elite Mizruchi, Mark S. 2004. Berle and Means Revisited: The Governance and Power of Large U.S. Corporations, Theory and Society. 33:579-617. Guest Speaker Wednesday, August 03: Thursday, August 04: - Comments due to group Movie- The Corporation (145 minutes) Monday August 01: Response Paper on 8/2 readings due at 10 am Tuesday, August 09: Lecture & Discussion- Consequences
Mohai, Paul. Byoung-Suk Kweon, Sangyun Lee and Kerry Ard. 2011. Air Pollution Around Schools Is Linked To Poorer Student Health And Academic Performance. (2011). Health Affairs. 30(5):852-862. Cole, Luke and Sheila Foster. 2001. From the Ground Up; Environmental Racism and the Rise of Environmental Justice Movement. New York: New York University Press. pgs: TBA Rachel Morello-Frosch and Russ Lopez. 2006. The riskscape and the color line: Examining the role of segregation in environmental health disparities. Environmental Research. 102(2):181-196. Wednesday, August 10: Thursday, August 11 - Revisions and discussions Movie- PBS Frontline coverage of Cancer Alley Sheet Due in class Tuesday, August 16: no class-final PAPER DUE at 4pm