Soc 101 Fall 2005

Final Papers, Presentations and Pertinent Information

Great job on Tuesday with your peer reviews! Based on the conversations and feedback provided everyone’s papers should be more clear, better organized and importantly, sociological.

On to the information…

Analytic Papers are due on Tuesday at the beginning of class. You are required to turn in your paper (which will include a reference page) and two sheets from the peer review. If you want your paper back, also include a self addressed, stamped envelope when you submit your paper.

Presentations. Your presentation can involved the use of handouts, visual aids or just your creative self. You will have about 3-4 minutes to present your paper. Essentially, tell us the social problem you discussed, the sociology you used, and what conclusions you drew from your project. This counts toward your participation grade not your paper.

Citations. You are required to follow the American Sociological Association’s citation format. There are several links here to guide you. If you have questions about citing, please post your question to the website. I will respond until Monday at 9pm.
Cal State
University of Kansas
Purdue University

Quotations. Quote judiciously. In discussing your social problem, it may be appropriate to quote a document, an expert, or one of your texts. However, think twice before using a quotation, if you can state the main point of the quote in your own words, citing appropriately, that’s the better way to go. When quotations are used sparingly they are more effective.

For Tuesday

We will be taking the last quiz, talking about social change and reviewing drafts of papers.

Quiz 5: will cover Institutions (see posting from November 9), you should be able to define what an institution is, as well as provide some examples of institutions (i.e. economy, family, etc.) and what the institution does. You can expect to see a form of the grid that we completed last tuesday.
That grid contained: institution, status, roles, values, norms, social structure, and organizations. The addendum to the definition, an institution is an accepted and persistent constellation of statuses, roles, values, and norms that respond to important societal needs.
In addition, this quiz will cover deviance. You should know what it is, and that as a violation of norms there are these four points to remember:
1. Norms vary in seriousness
2. Norms vary across groups
3. Norms vary across time
4. Norms vary between subcultures
As usual you are responsible for knowing about the MSL readings.

Peer Review
Please bring 2 copies of your paper. The more complete your paper the more helpful this step will be. (Please do not use an incomplete paper as an excuse to miss class) Here is the peer review sheet if you'd like to take a look, I will bring copies of these to class.

*Website Notice*

The University will be upgrading the system used to maintain the class website on November 28 (the Monday after Thanksgiving). This will likely prohibit access to the website, please plan accordingly.

Be sure to take a look at the About Writing posting.

Happy Thanksgiving!

About Writing.

On Tuesday you received the Revisit on Thinking Paper #2, and comments on your Analytic Paper outline and abstract. As such, I’d like to draw your attention to a few items related to writing. Importantly, the goal of all this emphasis on writing is to reveal how writing actually works, that writing is both social and a process.

First, writing while seemingly a solitary process is actually social. The emphasis I place on writing is to make transparent (or more obvious) that writing is social, and to create a dialogue about writing, specifically your writing. The dialogue (or conversation) involves the writer (you) and the reader (me) and your classroom colleagues.

Second, writing and thinking go hand in hand. Clear thinking is demonstrated by clear writing, however clear writing cannot mask unclear thinking nor can unclear writing demonstrate clear thinking. Our writing reflects where we are in the thinking part, which is often not so clear – yet, the process of writing and thinking moves both aspects forward. It is the process of writing and thinking, thinking and writing that is essential. The writing and thinking can be helped through having others read drafts, outlines or even talking about our ideas. All of which you have done during this term. My undergrad advisor Lee Clarke, puts it this way “write, write, write, edit, edit, edit, share, share, share” (see Clarke's page ). I would say the order is write, edit, share, write, edit, share... but I think you get the idea.

Third, writing has moments of clarity and ease, as well as confusion and struggle. This aspect of writing is often the most frustrating, particularly if we have been fortunate to experience the clarity and ease part. This is why there are so many books about writing (Ann Lamott, Bird by Bird; Howard S. Becker, Writing for Social Scientists; Natalie Goldberg, Writing down the Bones, just to name a few), some more technically focused than others.

Importantly, the difficulty and frustration part of writing should not be confused with you or your abilities, try not to take it personally. Writing is a skill, an ongoing, ever improving skill – it is not a reflection of you as a person. This last point is the hardest to remember, because so much effort is often put into our writing. And anything less than success can feel like a personal failure, it’s not. Your writing is just that - writing, just like you learned how to tell time, and as frustrating as that could be (just look at kids struggle with it), which you may still have to figure out time zones and daylight savings, – but having eventually mastered time, you are now able to do many more things from this skill. Writing is similar, often frustrating, but a skill that will open up more possibilities.

Readings for Tuesday

The modified reading requirements for Tuesday are:

From Chapter 13, pp 377 -385,
pp388 - 400 begin at “Religion & Politics,” stop at “Challenges & Issues in Contemporary Education”
Read the Key Points on page 409

From Chapter 14, pp 413-424 stop at “The Relationship between Work & Society”
p 429 – 438 begin at “The Nature of Power & Authority,” stop at “Militarism and the Military”
Read the Key Points on page 442

From MSL:
#45 Abiding Faith (5 pages)
#53 Badboys (4 pages)

You choose one, either:
#26 Nickel & Dimed
or #51 Preparing for power

Revisiting Your Thinking Paper # 2

If you recall the purpose of revisiting your paper is to think about how your paper is organized, and how you would re-do your paper if were writing a second draft. Working from this, you are asked to revisit your thinking paper #2.

There are two steps for this revisit, which are due November 15:

First create an outline of your paper as it was written and submitted. This can be as simple as going through the paper and using the main point of each paragraph and converting that into your outline. Basically I want you to look at the skeleton of your paper; how you organized it. This is outline #1.

Second, working from the comments I provided (“Revisit” at the end of everyone’s paper) or some others that you've been thinking about, create an outline for what would be the next version of your paper. This should be a more clear and focused version of your paper. This outline, let’s call it outline #2, is to be more detailed than outline #1.

(Importantly this is also some of the information that I’m looking for in the outline for your Analytic Paper)

The example from the board:

Social Class, Power & Inequality

Reminder that on tuesday November 8 will be Quiz 4, and the Revist will be due November 15. (And don't forget to vote on Tuesday!)

During class we played the Sociologist's version of Monopoly. Be prepared to articulate how that activity demonstrated social class. Also, think about how social class, race, and gender all affect social life (see for example page 227).

Additionally, you should know the following terms; what the term means and how it is important to our sociological understanding:
SOCIAL STRUCTURE
OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURE
STRUCTURED INEQUALITY
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CLOSED & OPEN SYSTEMS OF STRATIFICATION
DISTINQUISH BETWEEN CASTE, ESTATE AND CLASS SYSTEMS
CLASS (SOCIAL CLASS)
SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS

How does Karl Marx explain social stratification? What does Max Weber ("Vay-ber") argue accounts for social stratification?

SOCIAL MOBILITY
VERTICAL MOBILITY (TYPES OF)
STRUCTURAL MOBILITY

*Family will also be part of the upcoming quiz.
Here are the power point slides on:
Work & Family
Family Graph

Family Readings

*There are two sets of questions to review for next week, this one and the one just before entitled "Work & Family".*

Please read through these questions and post a response to one question for each article. (for information on term usage surrounding "marriage", "gay" or "same sex marriage" see terminology)

Butler

Why do some gays & lesbians oppose marriage? Why do many gays & lesbians support marriage?

Why do some argue that marriage buys into the notion of a partiarchal model of relationships? Are there alternatives to marriage that would provide all the benefits without "buying into heterosexuality?"

How could marriage between LGBTi persons challenge traditional or historical notions of family? What factors might suggest that the traditional notion of family needs to be challenged?

Hochschild

What is the Time bind? Give examples of how advertisers have used the time bind to sell products to working parents?

Do you agree with Hochschild's theory on why parents choose not to spend more time at home? How universally could her theory be applied? (think about race, and social class differences)

Why has home become work and work become home? What theory of management has been significant in changing workplace atmosphere? What assumptions are used when the workplace is being described as "home?"

Work & Family

For next week, please come prepared to discuss these questions:

Think about the paid work patterns of your parent(s). What is their current situation? Move back 5 years, and another 5 years.

What , if anything, stands out about their paid work? In relation to managing family responsibilities?

Did the need for childcare generate conflicts or require strategizing within the family? What about transportation or when a child was sick? How are the housework responsiblities allocated (did housework get done)?

Has your parent(s) experienced your influenced your decisions about paid work & family? How?

If you are planning to combining paid work & family, how will you do so? (for some you are likely already doing this, what do you do?) If you are not going to do both, what has impacted your decision?

Class Update

An update about changes to the syllabus and few reminders.

* Your Thinking Paper # 2 "What's in the News" is due on tuesday at the
beginning of class.
* We'll take Quiz #2 again on tuesday without the research design, a few
application questions will be added instead.
* The course schedule is pushed back one week, this applies to only the
readings. Due dates for assignments, and quizzes do not change. On
tuesday, we will discuss Family. Instead of two weeks to discuss
institutions, we'll combine these into a single week (more specifics
to come).