Introduction
to Sociology (920:101:07-12)
Department
of Sociology
Spring
2006
Instructor: Paul McLean
Lecture location: Beck Auditorium, Mondays and Thursdays
10:35-11:30 a.m.
Recitation
location: varies by section—consult your
own timetable!
Office: Lucy Stone Hall, A336,
Office Hours: Mondays 1:00-2:30 p.m., and by
appointment
Phone: 732-445-3705
E-mail: pmclean@sociology.rutgers.edu
Website with course information, outlines and
readings: http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~pmclean/
Teaching Assistants:
Sourabh Singh: ssingh@sociology.rutgers.edu
Maria Malyk: mvm32@rci.rutgers.edu
Sociology is
the systematic, scientific study of the patterns and processes of social life,
touching on all of its major dimensions—economic, political, religious,
familial, and criminal, to name a few—and investigating it at both the level of
grand social and historical developments, and the level of everyday, mundane
interactions. It is concerned both with
individual actors, and with the informal groups and formal organizations that
populate the social landscape.
This course
cannot be comprehensive in its coverage of the discipline of sociology. However, it will introduce you to some basic
concepts in sociological analysis, some fundamental arguments about the
constitution of society and the individuals who comprise it, and important
substantive topics and problems in a variety of disciplinary subfields. What students should gain from the course is
a “toolkit” of sociological concepts to apply to their own experience of social
life—interactions with friends, relationships with family members, membership
in religious and political organizations, experience of the job market, and
life in an economically advanced but stratified society—in order to understand
that life more fully and experience it more richly. In
other words, my goal is to get you to think critically, and to help you begin
to discern, analytically, broad patterns in our lives with each other. I will pose some of the big questions we face
as social beings, and offer some of the most intriguing answers sociologists
have provided.
Grading will
be based on the following factors: attendance at lectures (10%); a midterm exam
during the semester (25%); a final exam during the examination period (40%);
and your participation in and testing during the weekly recitation sections
conducted by the teaching assistants (25%).
If you fail to show up for either test or the final exam, you will fail
the course. If you fail to attend
sections regularly and fail to do the assigned work, you will also most likely
fail, at my discretion and at the discretion of your recitation
instructor. Failure to show up regularly
for lectures will reduce your final grade by at least one whole letter
grade. You must sign in on the
attendance sheets posted before the beginning of each lecture. Each exam will feature multiple choice
questions and written answers, in the form of short essays employing key
sociological concepts. Bring a No. 2 pencil with you to each exam! Each exam will draw upon not only material in
the three assigned books and material provided on my website, but also material
that is presented in the lectures. I intend to lecture upon the ideas of a number
of authors that are not discussed in detail in the textbook, so be forewarned! I also expect you to know concepts and
arguments from the textbook that I do not explicitly touch on in my
lectures. I strongly encourage your
participation in recitation, and whenever possible, your questions during the
lecture sessions. Thoughtful and
energetic participation will enhance your enjoyment of the course, and also
improve your performance.
There are FOUR
sources of readings for this course, three of which are books available for
purchase at the Livingston Campus Bookstore, and the fourth of which is my
website. The books are:
1.
Rodney Stark, Sociology, 9th edition
(Wadsworth Publishing, 2004) (8th edition okay in a pinch)
2.
Eve L. Howard, ed., Classic Readings in
Sociology, 3rd edition (Wadsworth Publishing, 2004) (2nd ed.
okay)
3.
Mitchell Duneier, Sidewalk (Farrar, Straus
and Giroux, 1999)
The first of
these books is a general textbook, offering a detailed treatment of basic
sociological ideas, and touching on a variety of different themes in the
discipline. You will be tested directly
on a number of the concepts and arguments introduced there, and you will learn
to apply these concepts to the cases and situations that come up in the other
readings and your recitation discussions.
Studying the glossaries at the end of each chapter would be a good start
for exam preparation.
The second
book is a set of time-tested readings that comes packaged for free with new
copies of the Stark book. These readings will help you become acquainted
with some of the foundational authors and arguments in sociology, will help you
follow some of my lectures, and should be engaging material for discussion and
review during recitations.
The third book
is an ethnographic work—that is, a detailed, analytically informed description
of a particular social or cultural milieu.
The goal of ethnography is to inform the reader about the peculiarities
of a particular culture or social grouping and to draw the reader into an
understanding of that milieu by making the experience of it as rich and as
vivid as possible. Ethnographers aim to
render the strange familiar. The
chapters of this particular book are not organized according to the arrangement
of themes in this course, but many of our themes—social exchange, social norms,
the construction of meaning through social interaction, crime and deviance, the
life of the city, the importance of race and gender in America, the negative
effects of deindustrialization—are touched on at different points.
The fourth
source of readings is my website (again, that’s
http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~pmclean/).
Here you will find links to a few very short readings in Adobe
Acrobat format, arranged under the Sociology 101 heading and sorted by the week
they are required, as well as lecture outlines for the class, and a copy of the
course syllabus.
Week 1 Introduction to the Course
January 19: “A Fundamental Fact: Society Has a
Life of Its Own”
What
does it mean to “think sociologically?”
What examples can you come up with on your own of “looking behind” the
façade to see social facts more clearly?
What kind of individual motivations and/or large-scale forces can we
imagine at work shaping our lives?
Readings: 1.
Peter
L. Berger, “Invitation to Sociology,” in Classic
2.
Stark, pp. 1-8 {8th edition pages: 1-8}
Note:
Recitation sections do NOT meet this week (i.e., January 19)
Week 2 of RU
Semester
January 23: “Scientific Methods of Measuring and
Studying Social Life”
What
are some different techniques for making a scientific study of social
life? What are some of the problems
associated with studying social life scientifically?
2. Duneier, “Introduction”
January 26: “The Overarching Concepts of Structure
and Culture, Part 1: Distributions”
Over
the next three lectures we think about some of the different factors
constraining our choices or empowering us that work at the level of “social
structure” or “culture.” Social
structure may be understood, first, as the numerical balance between different
groups in society, and/or, second, as the pattern of social interactions in a
group. Culture may be thought of as sets
of rules, recipes, symbols, values, and so on, that shape our understanding of
the world; sociologists are concerned with how the cultural features of the
groups to which we belong determine social outcomes. How are culture and structure analytically
distinct? How are our individual life
chances a product of large-scale structural and cultural forces?
Week 3 of RU
Semester
January 30: “The Overarching Concepts of
Structure and Culture, Part 2: Networks”
What can we predict about a group based on the arrangement of and connections between its parts?
February 2: “The
Overarching Concepts of Structure and Culture, Part 3: Culture”
1.
Stark, pp. 39-62
{41-64}
2.
Horace
Miner, “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema,” in Classic
Week 4 Introducing
and Comparing Classical Accounts of Social Order
The next four lectures constitute a set,
introducing you in turn to four major theoretical perspectives for explaining
and predicting social outcomes by means of an overview of the arguments made by
four significant theorists of social life.
Adam
Smith argued paradigmatically that the market is an unintended but beneficial
collective consequence of self-interested, individually rational choices. Individuals are the basic units of society, exchange is the means of
self-improvement, and societies essentially are markets. Karl Marx offers
a classic critique of Smith’s ideas by stressing the pervasiveness of conflict and exploitation in social
relations, rather than simple exchange, with disastrous consequences for the
stability of society as a whole. These
are fundamental yet diametrically different ways of thinking about the basic
glue of society, the source of self-interest, and the direction in which
society is heading.
Emile
Durkheim, one of the founders of the science of sociology, stressed how society
is like an organism. He saw individuals
as followers of norms who are constituted by the society of which they were a
part, and he believed new social institutions arise to fulfill particular
social needs. George Herbert Mead and
the
February 6: “Adam Smith and Exchange Theory”
2.
“Adam Smith reading,” on my website
3.
Duneier, “The Magazine Vendors”
February 9: “Karl Marx and Conflict Theory”
2.
Marx and Engels, “Manifesto of the Communist
Party,” in Classic
3.
Duneier, “The Magazine Vendors” (re-read)
Week 5
February 13: “Emile Durkheim and Functionalism”
2.
Stark, pp. 110-112, 202 {112-114, 204(col 2)-205(col 1)}
3.
Duneier, “The Book Vendor”
February 16: “George Herbert Mead and Symbolic
Interactionism”
2.
G. H. Mead, “The Self,” in Classic
3.
Duneier, “The Book Vendor” (re-read)
Week 6
February 20: spillover session to conclude
discussion of major theoretical perspectives
February 23: “Structures and Techniques of Informal
Social Control: the Everyday Setting”
What
are we trying to accomplish when we engage in exchange or interaction with
others? Do power imbalances, and therefore
command relationships, arise in the course of exchange? What can we do to resist other people's
efforts at exercising control over us?
How is social proximity relevant to the power others have over us, and
how prone are we to being controlled?
2.
Erving Goffman, “The Presentation of Self,” in Classic
3.
“Peter Blau reading,” on my website
4.
Duneier,
“The Men Without Accounts”
Week 7
February 27: “Structures and Techniques of Informal
Social Control: the Experimental Setting”
What factors affecting the ability of one actor to control another can an experiment isolate? And how applicable are experimental findings to real-world situations?
March 2: “Theories of Crime and Deviance”
What
kinds of acts are regarded as deviant and why?
Is it possible to provide a general definition of crime? What kinds of people typically perpetrate
crimes? What various theories purport to
explain when and why crime occurs? How
does society punish crime, and what is the aim of punishment? What links exist between the punishment of
deviants, and the socialization of non-deviant persons? What kinds of punishment are the most
effective, and/or the most humane?
2. Duneier, “Sidewalk Sleeping,” and “When You
Gotta Go”
Week 8
March 6: “Epidemic Crime, and the
Meaningfulness of Punishment”
2.
“Michel Foucault reading,” on my website
March 9: MIDTERM EXAMINATION – Bring a
sharpened number 2 pencil.
SPRING BREAK MARCH 11TH-19TH – ENJOY YOUR HOLIDAY!
Week 9
March 20: “The Inevitability of Social
Stratification”
Today
we examine in more detail a topic we encountered a few weeks ago when we talked
about social structure.
Stratification--the tendency for society to become layered according to
the relative status of different groups--is one of sociology's key concepts. What accounts for this widespread
tendency? What criteria are important
for determining status, and how do they differ across societies? How can we judge whether or not people are
able to change their status? What are
the consequences of occupying a particular status for one's tastes, interests,
and opportunities?
2. H. J. Gans, “The Uses of Poverty: The Poor
Pay All”, in Classic
3. Duneier,
“Accusations: Caveat Vendor?”
March 23: “Changes in Social Stratification Across Historical Epochs”
Readings :
1. Stark, chapter 10
Week 10
March 27: “Analyzing Racial Tension in
To
many, the problem of race is the most sinister and pervasive problem in
contemporary
2.
“William Julius Wilson reading,” on my website
3.
Duneier, “A Christmas on
March 30: “Analyzing Racial
Tension in
Week 11
April 3: “Sex Ratios, Gender
Differentiation and Social Inequality”
The
difference between being male and being female is one of the core factors in
shaping how we are socialized and determining the opportunities we are
given. What structural and/or cultural
factors determine the nature of and/or degree of gender inequality in a given
society? How is the social difference
between being a woman and being a man—gender difference—related to the
biological difference between maleness and femaleness? How does our culture produce and reproduce
images of gender difference, how do these images change, and with what results?
2.
Duneier, “Talking to Women”
April 6: “A Culturalist View of Gender
Construction and Gender Relations”
Week 12
April 10: “The Changing Function and Significance of the Family Over Time”
We
take family as a fundamental social grouping for granted, but its meaning has
changed dramatically over time. In what
ways has this occurred, and for what reasons?
How do gender roles affect the practice and interpretation of the
interactions occurring between spouses, or the treatment of male versus female
children?
April 13: “The Protestant Ethic and the Importance of
Religion for the Conduct of Social Life”
Although
we imagine religious belief to be a deeply private experience and personal
choice, there are in fact important social determinants shaping the nature and
extent of religious belief in a given society.
Why is religious belief more powerful in certain periods and among
certain groups rather than others? How
do religious beliefs imprint themselves on the conduct of life in the
marketplace and other non-religious gatherings?
What are the cycles of religious belief?
2. “Max Weber reading,” on my website
3. Duneier, “A Scene from
Week 13
April 17: “Formal Organization and Its Consequences for
How We Live Our Lives”
A
vast part of the social landscape today is occupied by formal
organizations—state bureaucracies, large corporations, international
organizations—which impinge on our lives as consumers, workers, and citizens,
and which mediate our relations with each other. What accounts for the nineteenth century rise
of formal organizations? How do
different forms of organization arise in different environments? To what extent
does any formal organization operate according to its formal blueprint, and to
what extent is it prey to the natural behavior of those who populate it? Will the postindustrial age require a
different species of formal organization?
2.
begin Duneier, ch.4, “How Sixth Avenue Became a
Sustaining Habitat”
April 20: “A Toolbox of Concepts for Describing the
Mechanics of Formal Organization”
Today I will flesh out more of the tables of competing perspectives on formal organizations that I introduced last time.
Week 14
April 24: “The Traditional Sociology of
Urban Life”
At
least three out of four Americans live in an urban place, and urbanization has
been the essential handmaiden of industrial development in Western
civilization. How does living in urban
places affect our behavior and our relations with others? What kinds of dynamics characterize the flow
of people into and out of cities?
2. Lewis Wirth, “Urbanism as a Way of Life,”
in Classic
April 27: “The New Sociology of ‘the City’”
To
what extent does the geography and the built environment of the contemporary
city control the activities and mindset of its occupants? To what extent is the geography of the city
determined by private interests rather than social welfare?
2.
Duneier, finish “How Sixth Avenue Became a
Sustaining Habitat,” and read “The Space Wars: Competing Legalities”
Week 15
May 1: “What
do Social Movements Want?”
Social
movements are conscious, concerted efforts by groups of ordinary persons to
change some aspect of their society by using extra-institutional means. They are simultaneously extremely widespread
and oriented to a multitude of goals, and susceptible to the most modest
achievement of those goals. Why is this?
Why do they persist? What factors best
account for the success of a social movement in reaching its objectives, and
can those objectives be redefined to institutionalize the movement? How can social movement participation be
enhanced? How is the morality of social
life relevant to social movement participation?
2.
Duneier, “Conclusion” and “Afterword”
FINAL EXAMINATION: Wednesday, May 10,