URBANIZATION & COMMUNITY Sociology 420 M/W 10:00 a.m. 11:50 a.m. SRTC 162 Instructor: Office: E-mail: Office hours: TA: Office: Office Hours: E-mail: Professor Alex Stepick 217J Cramer Hall stepick@pdx.edu Monday and Wednesday after class Shah Smith SOC 217X Monday 4pm-5pm shahs@pdx.edu COURSE DESCRIPTION Urbanization & Community is an introduction to the study of urban sociology and urban America, focusing on postwar urban America. We will study suburbanization, segregation, urban development, urban growth and change, gentrification and displacement, and urban organizations. Throughout the term we will use the political economy approach, highlighting the importance of political and economic institutions on the lives of neighborhood residents. Students will complete a final project applying urban sociology literature from course readings. This project will focus on a specific issue area in urban sociology and its manifestation in a particular area of Portland during a bounded time period. Given the importance of this project, students should only take this course if they are willing and able to conduct this research, including direct observation in and around specific Portland neighborhoods. Some of the benefits of taking this course include: We will read engaging scholarship about life in urban America. We will discuss topics that are likely to be relevant and compelling to your life. There will be many opportunities to exchange ideas in class. You will learn how to research urban issues and neighborhoods using qualitative and quantitative data. RESOURCES For help with D2L, contact PSU s Office of Information Technology (OIT) Help Desk, located in the basement of Smith Memorial Union: help@pdx.edu, 503-725-HELP (4357) 1
COURSE REQUIREMENTS & MAJOR CLASS ACTIVITIES Attendance and Participation (20%) Class attendance is essential to your successful completion of this course. Please only take this course if you are willing and able to attend class. Participation in class activities and group discussion is expected from all students. Please come to class ready to listen, reflect, and participate. There will be plenty of opportunities to speak in small groups and in the large group. o Another key component of your participation and grade is the online and in class discussion. o In participation, listening and being able to synthesize and form a thoughtful response (not just making sure you talk) is critically important. As some people say, 'throw glitter not shade.' In other words, try your best to add something to the discussion. If you criticize someone, make sure it is constructive criticism, how something might be rephrased to be clearer or to add nuance. Additionally, be sure to step up if you don t generally speak up, and step to the side if you find yourself often participating so that you make space for others to contribute. Technology Policy: Tablets and laptops are permitted for note-taking during lectures, but if your technology becomes disruptive to the class you will lose that privilege in order for all of us to better focus on course-related topics. Readings & Reflections (35%) Weekly readings will be available in the course content section on D2L. To maximize learning students must complete the assigned readings before class time and be ready to discuss them. Weekly writing assignments are designed to ensure this by asking you to reflect on and answer questions about the assigned readings prior to the start of class. In addition to facilitating participation, many of these assignments will directly relate to your neighborhood research project (see below). Each week, writing prompts will be posted to the discussion section of D2L pertaining to the following week s readings. Reflections should be posted by no later than 7 am before class each Monday (except in the first week of the term and finals week). Bring a copy of your answers to class for your reference during group discussion. o It is best to bring at least two readings into conversation with one another. This can be accomplished in several ways. For example: Ask how one author's conceptual categories could be applied (or not) to another author's empirical findings. You can then reflect on how this may be applicable to the data you are collecting for your final project on Portland. Relate the current week s readings to those of the previous weeks: How do the analytical and methodological approaches differ? What is added by the approaches in the current week s readings? What is missing/could be 2
added to strengthen the argument? How do the current week s readings extend our understanding of urban sociology? o Please avoid summarizing the readings and please avoid simply stating if you liked/didn t like a piece, though if you have strong feelings on a reading that is welcome so long as you connect it to your argument. Group discussions will be facilitated by students. Each week I will ask for student volunteers to lead the discussion for the following week. The volunteers will be expected to come to class with questions ready for the entire class to discuss. In introducing or prompting a discussion, volunteers will be expected to refer to specific statements that other students made in their reflections. For example, In talking about segregation, I saw that Jean said in her reflection that legal segregation is different from informal segregation. How is it different? And, volunteers will make every effort to be inclusive so that everyone in the class participates. Please read other students D2L discussion posts prior to class time as preparation for lecture and discussion. You are encouraged to post comments and provide feedback to other students posts but it is not strictly required. Any such participation in D2L discussions will be considered in the assessment of your overall class participation.] Student led discussions will take place on Wednesdays after the posting of reflections on Monday. Since it is vital that you complete the readings (and reflect on them) before class, no late reflection posts will be accepted. However, your two lowest scores will be dropped; it is recommended that you save these two drops for emergencies. See below for an example of a well-written reflection and guidance on how to provide feedback to others postings. Final Research Project and Evaluations (45% Total: 10% Proposal+10% Oral Presentation+25% Final Project Paper) Students will be assigned in groups to an urban issue area and collect empirical research pertaining to that issue area in Portland throughout the course, connecting their findings to relevant readings in urban sociology. Though there is likely to be considerable overlap, issue areas could include: o Housing o Racial and Ethnic Segregation o Ethnic Enclaves o Industrialization/Deindustrialization o Gentrification o Environmental Justice o Civic Engagement/Community Organizing Though each issue area is broad, students are encouraged to develop a more narrowly focused research question relevant to urban sociology readings, and focusing on their issue in a particular Portland neighborhood during a bounded time period. Each student will complete their own final project but they will collect data collaboratively and discuss their urban issue area with other small-group members. See details at the end of this syllabus. Also, an example of an excellent final project is posted 3
on D2L. Students will list their urban issue area preferences and the instructor will try to accommodate them. Students will submit a 1-2 page single spaced proposal for their final project. This should include a detailed description of the research question to be addressed, methods and data to be used, and at least 2 readings from class that will be relevant to the final project. o Students are encouraged to meet with the professor to discuss the development of their project. Students will also do oral presentations during week 10. Grading Attendance and Active Participation: 20% Weekly Reflections: 35% Final Project Proposal: Final Project Oral Presentation: Final Project Final Paper: 10% 10% 25% 4
Final Project Issue Area Groups: In a group of 4, you will research an issue area in urban sociology, documenting how it relates to relevant readings in urban sociology in a particular area of Portland during a particular time period. You will collaborate with other students in collecting data and discussing the issue. However, each student will complete their own final project. Your project will be roughly 15-20 pages long, double spaced. More details will be provided throughout the course. Focus of Issue Area: Each member of your issue area group will choose a specific dimension, or time and place, to collect data about your issue. You will compile data tables on this issue individually and share them with your group, but each student will complete their own analyses of this data. Going the Extra Mile: Besides incorporating ideas from course readings, movies, lectures, and other necessary neighborhood information (which will be detailed throughout the term), here are some ideas for additional data to make your neighborhood project dynamic: Supplemental Information: newspaper articles and other secondary materials. Interviews: You can ask residents and/or key stakeholders about your issue area. Warning: Regardless of what you do or do not include from the ideas above, all students projects must incorporate ideas from the course readings, movies, and lectures into your paper, citing references when appropriate. Identify which of the course s main concepts are most applicable to your issue area, and incorporate them into your analysis. 5
SAMPLE RESPONSE IN WEEKLY REFLECTION: Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City by Mary Pattillo Reflection Mary Pattillo s (2007) Black on the Block provides a thorough analysis of race and class through a historical and ethnographic analysis of the gentrification and politics in the black neighborhood of North Kenwood- Oakland. The book extends sociological theory of the growth machine by bringing the analysis of politics of power to the local level and examining how it is raced and classed, producing exclusionary processes and outcomes that benefit capital. She emphasizes the role of middle-class blacks, who play the role of middlemen in translating and mediating between the majority-white powers of the city and capital and black lower-income residents. Pattillo s discussion of middlemen and how they simultaneously participate in the growth machine and engage in various practices they perceive to be in racial solidarity and part of a project of racial uplift highlights the tensions inherent in race and class intersections and how capitalism and class stratification constrains racial solidarity. This theme, of neoliberal capitalism constraining the tools available to black middle-class blacks, relates to foundational sociological scholars. In The Housing Question Friedrich Engels (1872) argues that homeownership de-radicalizes workers as they come to share interests with small capitalists over those of the proletariat. Pattillo complicates this argument by demonstrating how black middle-class homeowners continue to share interests and identities with lower-income black residents. This also challenges Wilson s implication that the black middle-class completely abandoned poor black neighborhoods. Not only are black professionals returning to North Kenwood- Oakland, but many had maintained extensive ties in lower-income neighborhoods and much of their civic engagement is shaped by their extensive experiences in poor black neighborhoods including in public housing projects and under-resourced schools. The richness of Pattillo s data and analysis allows for a nuanced narrative in which racial solidarity and an ongoing project of constructing the black community through engagement is ongoing while at the same time revealing how power functions in urban development. Pattillo extends Drake and Cayton s (1945) analysis of boundary making by examining how middle-class blacks translate capital to power (Pattillo 2007, 225) and how capitalism and class interests constrain their actions. While this may seem deterministic, the agency of the actors involved in these high stakes negotiations is always apparent. Much of Pattillo s data comes from participant observation in contentious meetings in which residents organize and actively demand that their voices be heard. From this data she is able to analyze how exclusion happens through institutional settings and the micro-practices that result. Much of her analysis then centers on the distinction between intentions and outcomes, as good intentions are meaningful only in a limited way when larger forces structure the outcomes. This is most apparent in her discussion of the turning point where lower-income residents become the targets of gentrification s discipline instead of its beneficiaries. This is due to how gentrification is driven by a capitalist logic that empowers those with greater capital (in this case multiple forms of capital) and allows them to define who and what is undesirable and to discipline and control, or even displace those with less capital. Research building off of this work should examine how capital is translated into power. Specifically it should explore how the growth machine is centered on a politics of expertise that is a raced and classed project such that civic engagement with the growth machine is constrained by the interests of capital and moves increasingly away from racial justice and towards color-blind, neoliberal choices. This should be done in a systematic and datarich way as Pattillo did when she, for example, demonstrated how the Gautreaux case shifted from being explicitly focused on racial desegregation to one focused on class that was ostensibly color-blind in practice, supporting the middle-class and neoliberal prioritization of mixed-income development. [This write-up is strong because it (a) has accurate and complete information, (b) starts by providing correct general answers, (c) then supports the general answers with some examples, (d) it puts this reading into context of other readings, and (e) is well written.] ASSESSMENT OF FEEDBACK ON A PEER S POSTING (for participation credit): 6
Inferior: The peer either simply endorses or disagrees with the posting, or focuses on editing errors/skills as opposed to looking at the structure and content of the posting. Constructive questioning or feedback to the writer is non-existent. Acceptable: The peer may point to editing errors when they are repetitious or distracting, but the primary feedback focuses on ideas, concepts, and structure of the argument. Superior Feedback: The peer asks thought-provoking why/how questions to get the writer to push their analysis or argument further. The peer gives suggestions about where to go for more information and offers helpful feedback in how to make the argument stronger. 7