SOCIAL STRATIFICATION Sociology 430

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	Introduction to Sociology Sociology 101 Fall 2006
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"REDISCOVERING AMERICA" Learning Community

This is an introductory course in sociology—the scientific study of social life. The world is changing rapidly and those changes affect each of us as individuals and as social groups. How? Why? What role do individuals play in these new (and old) social structures and institutions? Can or should we resist those changes? These are among the questions we will address this semester using the theories, methods, and findings of sociology. We wish to develop and exercise the sociological imagination (see the quote on the last page!).

Textbooks

D. Stanely Eitzen & Maxine Baca Zinn. 2007. In Conflict and Order: Understanding Society. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.

Richard T. Schaefer and William W Zellner. 2006. Extraordinary Groups, Eight Edition. New York: Worth Publishers.

Course expectations

Readings, class discussions, and lectures are all important in understanding the subject of the course. Work we do in class will complement the readings but will cover different material. Faithful class attendance is required, as is careful and prompt reading as assigned.

There will be three in-class exams, each worth 25% of your course grade (for a total of 75%). These exams will include essay questions and some multiple-choice questions. The dates for exams are listed on the reading schedule.

There will be regular in-class group discussions. Together, participation in these will be worth 10% of your course grade. Several of these will be joint exercises with Political Science 100, part of our learning community, and will take place in Feinberg Library 105.

You will be asked to write three short papers (3-5 pages) on topics relevant to class discussion. Due dates for these papers are listed on the reading schedule. More detailed information will be given out at least a week before the due date for each paper. These papers will be worth 15% of your course grade.

Reading schedule:

Keep up! Notice that the readings are uneven and plan ahead! Finish the readings before the class meeting indicated. Come to class, even on dates when no new reading is assigned. (**: Days to meet in Feinberg Library 105)

Week	Date	Topic	Read/Due
1	8-29 8-31	The Sociological Imagination Sociology	In In Conflict & Order: Ch. 1: The Sociological Perspective Ch. 2: The Structure of Social Groups In Extraordinary Groups Introduction
2	9-5 9-7	Social Science Social Perspectives Social Theory/ies	In In Conflict & Order: Ch. 3: The Duality of Social Life: Order and Conflict
3	9-12 9-14**	Socialization, Norms, Sanctions Deviance Meet in Feinberg Library 105	In In Conflict & Order: Ch. 4: Culture Ch. 5: Socialization Ch. 7: Deviance In Extraordinary Groups The Old Order Amish The Gypsies
4	9-19 9-21	Social Structure & Power Self-Agency? Or Determinism?	In In Conflict & Order: Ch. 6: Social Control 1^st Written Paper Assigned
5	9-26 9-28	Examination #1 Social Structures & Power: Race	--- In In Conflict & Order: Ch. 8: Structural Sources of Change Ch. 11: Racial Inequality In Extraordinary Groups The Father Devine Movement 1st Written Paper DUE 9-28
6	10-3 10-5**	Social Structures & Power: Race Meet in Feinberg Library 105
7	10-10 10-12	BREAK Social Structures & Power: Class	--- In In Conflict & Order: Ch. 9: Social Stratification Ch. 10: Class

8	10-17 10-19	Social Structures & Power: Class Social Structures & Power: Gender	In Extraordinary Groups Jehovah’s Witnesses The Salvation Army In In Conflict & Order: Ch. 12: Gender Inequality In Extraordinary Groups The Mormons
9	10-24 10-26**	Race, Class, Gender Meet in Feinberg Library 105	2^nd Written Paper Assigned
10	10-31 11-2	Institutions: Work & the Economy Families Social Institutions: Education Social Institutions:	In In Conflict & Order: Ch. 13: The Economy Ch. 15: Families In Extraordinary Groups The Oneida Community 2nd Written Paper DUE 10-31 In In Conflict & Order: Ch. 16: Education
11	11-7 11-9**	Examination #2 Social Institutions: Polity Religion Meet in Feinberg Library 105	VOTE! In In Conflict & Order: Ch. 14: Power & Politics Ch. 17: Religion In Extraordinary Groups The Christian Scientists
12	11-14 11-16	Meet in Feinberg Library 105 Meet in Feinberg Library 105
13	11-21 11-23	Social Change BREAK	In In Conflict & Order: Ch. 18: Human Agency
14	11-28 11-30**	Social Change: Theories Meet in Feinberg Library 105	3^rd Written Paper Assigned
15	12-5 12-7	Social Change & Human Agency	3^rd Written Paper DUE 12-7
16	TBA	FINAL EXAM

**: Days to meet in Feinberg Library 105

The Promise

Nowadays, people often feel that their private lives are a series of traps. They sense that within their everyday worlds they cannot overcome their troubles, and in this feeling, they are often quite correct: What ordinary people are directly aware of and what they try to do are bounded by the private orbits in which they live; their visions and their powers are limited to the close-up scenes of job, family, neighborhood; in other milieu, they move vicariously and remain spectators. And the more aware they become, however vaguely, of ambitions and of threats which transcend their immediate locales, the more trapped they seem to feel.

Underlying this sense of being trapped are seemingly impersonal changes in the very structure of continent-wide societies. The facts of contemporary history are also facts about the success and the failure of individual men and women. Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both.

What is needed is a quality of mind that will help us to use information and develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within ourselves. It is this quality, I am going to contend, that we are coming to expect of what may be called the sociological imagination.

The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and external career of a variety of individuals.

The first fruit of this imagination is the idea that the individual can understand one's own experience and gauge one's own fate only by locating oneself within one's period, that one can know of one's own chances in life only by becoming aware of those of all individuals in one's circumstances. In many ways it is a terrible lesson; in many ways a magnificent one.

The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society. This is its task and its promise.

--C. Wright Mills
1959

Last Modified 07/31/2006
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