Soc 1a: Order and Change in Society
M, W, Th 1-1:50pm
Fall 2012
Prof. Carmen Sirianni
Pearlman 210, x62652; sirianni@brandeis.edu
Office Hours: TBD
Meredith Bergey, TA
bergey@brandeis.edu
This course analyzes patterns of social organization and change in a variety of different arenas of
social and institutional life: work, family, gender, community, poverty, wealth, race,
environment, social movements, politics, organizations. It focuses on the contemporary United
States, though it also examines longer patterns over the course of the twentieth century and into
the twenty-first. Broad normative questions of democracy and equality run throughout all topics.
The required reading will be discussed most intensively in your discussion sections, and
everyone is required to attend these and do all of the readings beforehand. Assigned sections will
be developed within the first 2 weeks or so of the course.
Two sets of take-home essays, plus participation in section, will determine final grades. ALL
essays are due in hardcopy, stapled, paginated, double-spaced, 12-point or so font.
1. Midterm take home essays, 2 essays, 10 pages total: DUE Oct 15 (35 percent of grade).
2. Final take home essays, 3 essays, 15 pages total: DUE Dec 17 (50 percent of grade).
3. Participation/preparation in section: 15 percent of grade.
4. Service Learning Option: Students engaged in community service, social action, or
campus leadership projects may opt to write one of their essays for the final on their
experiences. This may require supplemental reading appropriate to the nature of the
student’s active engagement. Students wishing to choose this option should discuss it
with their TAs and/or the instructor as early in the semester as possible, present a short
written proposal (1 page), and must receive formal approval by Oct 31.
Disabled students requiring specific arrangements in completing course work should see their
TA and/or instructor.
Required readings: books are all paperback and at the Brandeis Bookstore and will be on
reserve; other readings will be posted on LATTE):
Required books:
Arlie Hochschild, The Second Shift (Penguin, 2003 or 2012 edition).
Thomas Shapiro, The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates
Inequality (Oxford University Press, 2005).
Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson, The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican
Conservatism (Oxford University Press 2012).
Katherine K. Chen, Enabling Creative Chaos: The Organization Behind the Burning Man Event
(University of Chicago Press 2009).
Prof. Sirianni, Soc 1a: Order and Change, Spring 2012 - 1
August 30: Introduction: Overview of course topics, readings, assignments.
Sept 5-Sept 20 (a Brandeis Monday): Family, Gender, and Work
Inequality and gender at the intersection of work, family, children. Negotiating equity and
flexibility. Networks of care. The challenges of work-family policy.
Reading:
Arlie Hochschild, The Second Shift (whole book).
Mindy Fried, Taking Time, chapter 3 (pages 29-62: “The Decision to Take Time”) LATTE
pdf.
Karen Hansen, Not-So-Nuclear Families: Class, Gender, and Networks of Care (Rutgers
University Press, 2005), chapter 5 (“The Beckers,” pages 98-123) LATTE pdf.
September 24-Oct 11: The Changing Nature of Work: From Industrial to Postindustrial
Society
The organization and meaning of work; scientific management and industrial work;
recognition and power in service workplaces, gender, race; postindustrialism and information
technologies.
Readings:
Frederick Taylor, “Scientific Management,” in Fischer and Sirianni, Critical Studies in
Organization and Bureaucracy (second edition1994), pages 44-54. LATTE pdf.
Rachel Sherman, Class Acts: Service and Inequality in Luxury Hotels (University of
California Press, 2007), chapters 3-5 (pages 110-222). LATTE pdf.
Susan Eaton, "'The Customer is Always Interesting': Unionized Harvard Clericals
Renegotiate Work Relationships," in Cameron Macdonald and Carmen Sirianni, eds.,
Working in the Service Society (Temple University Press, 1996), 291-332. LATTE pdf.
Oct 15: Midterm essays due, in class (10 pages, double-spaced, paginated, stapled, etc.)
Oct 15-25: Community and Urban Politics: Religion, Race, Youth
How do people act through religious congregations and civic associations to build social
capital and revitalize their communities? Faith-based and race-based community organizing
in urban regimes. Youth civic engagement in cities (youth commissions, youth planners, etc).
Readings:
Richard Wood, Faith in Action: Religion, Race, and Democratic Organizing in America
(University of Chicago Press, 2002), chapter 1: “Faith-Based Organizing in Action: The
Local Organizing Committee at St. Elizabeth’s Catholic Church” (pages 23-52) LATTE
pdf.
Dennis Shirley, Community Organizing and Urban School Reform (University of Texas
Press 1997), chapter 3: “Morningside Middle School” (pages 97-116) LATTE pdf.
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Carmen Sirianni and Diana Schor, “City Government as Enabler of Youth Civic
Engagement,” in Policies for Youth Civic Engagement, edited by James Youniss and
Peter Levine. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2009), pp. 121-63. LATTE pdf.
Carmen Sirianni, “Neighborhood Planning as Collaborative Democratic Design: the Case of
Seattle,” Journal of the American Planning Association 73:4 (December 2007), 373-87.
LATTE pdf.
Oct 29-Nov 8: Political Sociology and Social Movements:
Power and politics in society; social movements and political parties; how can we understand
recent movements and the polarized turn in American politics? The Tea Party. Occupy Wall
Street.
Readings:
Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson, The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican
Conservatism (Oxford University Press 2012).
Nov 12-19: Racial Inequality: Income and Wealth
What are the dynamics of race, wealth, and income in the U.S., and what might these entail
for public policy? What have been the effects of the financial crisis on equality and strategies
for equity?
Readings:
Shapiro, The Hidden Cost of Being African American (whole book)
Nov 26-Dec 6: Community, Ecology, and Environmental Health
Ecological systems and civic action; the strengths and limits of command-and-control
bureaucracy; new forms of collaboration and consensus building to protect and restore
ecosystems, watersheds, environmental and community health. The organizational field of
environmentalism and the environmental movement. Politics, markets, and civil society. The
challenge of global warming at the community level.
Readings:
Carmen Sirianni and Stephanie Sofer, “Environmental Organizations,” in Lester M. Salamon,
ed., The State of Nonprofit America, second edition (Washington, DC: Brookings Press
2012), pp. 294-328, pdf.
William Shutkin, “Oakland’s Fruitvale Transit Village” (chapter 5 of The Land that Could
Be, MIT Press, 2000), pages 167-87. LATTE pdf.
Jason Corburn, “Tapping Local Knowledge to Understand and Combat Asthma” (chapter 4
of Street Science, MIT press, 2005), pages 111-44. LATTE pdf.
Guest lecture Dec 5: Meredith Bergey (Sociology/Heller Ph.D. candidate and public
health researcher and practitioner): “Thinking Sociologically about Community
Health”
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Dec 10-12: Bureaucracy and Beyond?
Why has bureaucracy been such a powerful force in society and economy? What happens in
the ideal type, as well as in street-level practice? In what ways is bureaucracy being
reinvented and transformed?
Max Weber, “Bureaucracy,” in Fischer and Sirianni, Critical Studies in Organization and
Bureaucracy (second edition1994), pages 4-19. LATTE pdf.
Michael Lipsky, “The Rationing of Services in Street-Level Bureaucracy,” in Fischer and
Sirianni, Critical Studies in Organization and Bureaucracy (second edition1994), pages
264-81. LATTE pdf.
Katherine K. Chen, Enabling Creative Chaos: The Organization Behind the Burning Man
Event (whole book).
Final Essays Due: DEC 17, 12 noon
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