Introductory Sociology (SC110: 3 CRDTS)
Thematic Node: The Violence of Social Reproduction
Minnesota State University Moorhead Spring 2015
Thought Leader: Dr. Lee Garth Vigilant
“I believe that when sociology remains at a highly abstract and formal level, it contributes nothing. When it gets down to the nitty
gritty of real life, however, it is an instrument that people can apply to themselves for quasi-clinical purposes. The true freedom that
sociology offers is to give us a small chance of knowing what game we play and of minimizing the ways in which we are
manipulated by the forces of the field in which we evolve, as well as by the embodied social forces that operate from within us…
When you apply reflexive sociology to yourself, you open up the possibility of identifying true sites of freedom, and thus building
small-scale, modest, practical morals in keeping with the scope of human freedom which, in my opinion, is not that large.” –Pierre
Bourdieu (1992: An Invitation to a Reflexive Sociology. University of Chicago Press, pg. 198-199).
“At the risk of shocking sociologists, I should be inclined to say that it is their job to render social or historical content more
intelligible than it was in the experience of those who lived it. All sociology is a reconstruction that aspires to confer intelligibility on
human existences which, like all human existences, are confused and obscure.” Raymond Aron, Main Currents in Sociological
Thought, vol. 2, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1970, p. 207
“The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for inner life and
the external career of a variety of individuals…The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the
relations between the two within society. That is its task and its promise.” C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination, London
and New York, Oxford University Press, 1959, pg. 5-6
TEXTS:
1.
Jay MacLeod. 2009. Ain’t No Makin’ It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low-Income Neighborhood. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press.
2.
Joel M. Charon and Lee Garth Vigilant. 2009. The Meaning of Sociology, 8th Edition. NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
3.
Joel M. Charon and Lee Garth Vigilant. 2009. The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
DOCUMENTARIES: 1. Missionaries of Hate
2. Sex is Cheap
3. Story of Stuff
COURSE CONTEXT & OBJECTIVES:
This course introduces the discipline of sociology by examining the concepts and methods used by sociologists to study social
interaction, social structure, and social change. Students will gain practical understanding of the conceptual tools employed to
assess “social things,” and learn about the historical foundations of sociological thought by appraising the works of classical
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theoreticians such as Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Comte, Simmel, Martineau, and others. The course also considers the power of latemodern culture over social institutions and over our very actions, choices, and cognitions. And finally, we will evaluate the scope of
human agency in the face of (often) oppressive social conditions and the violence of social reproduction.
LASC AREA 5: HISTORY AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES:
This course addresses several of our LASC objectives in Area 5: History and the Social Sciences. First, it introduces students to
sociological approaches to the study of social interaction, social structure, and social change, with the goal of understanding and
framing human social behavior.
(a.) Students learn about the scientific foundations of sociology, why sociology is a science, and how sociologists employ the
scientific method to answer questions on human social behavior.
(b.) Students learn about competing theoretical perspectives in sociology on human social behavior.
This course considers various research methodologies that sociologists employ to study human social behavior, and as such,
students learn to differentiate objective (scientific) information from subjective (conjectural) opinion.
(a.) This course introduces students to the methods of sociological research: ethnography, interviews and life histories,
participant observation, and survey inquiries. This course uses a reader (Charon & Vigilant’s The Meaning of Sociology: A
Reader) that contains original research articles from many of the aforementioned methodologies.
This course examines the complexity of human social behavior and social problems from a variety of theoretical perspectives.
(a.) This course approaches the complexities of social interaction, social structure, and social change from some of the major
epistemological standpoints in sociology today: Conflict theory, Rational Choice theory, Functionalism, Symbolic Interaction, and
Feminism. Moreover, lectures in this course show how each theory interprets central problems of social structure.
Finally, this course examines the historical foundations of sociology by focusing on the Industrial Revolution and its role in the
development of the discipline. It assesses the unique historical events and social problems that gave rise to the science of sociology.
(a.) From the first week of class, students will learn about the historical roots of sociology in the Industrial Revolution, and
about the great social transformations that occurred as a result. They acquire this through lectures on -and readings by- the
“founding fathers/mother” of sociology: Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, Auguste Comte, Georg Simmel, and Harriet
Martineau.
COURSE STRUCTURE & POLICIES:
Assigned readings are to be read before each session. The expectation is that students will be fully prepared to answer questions
and participate in discussions on texts. At each class session, the instructor will present a lecture that explicates the broader
analytical and sociological frames of the issue under study. Ideally, this lecture should take-up about 2/3 of the class session. The
other 1/3 will be directed toward discussions and questions on assigned readings. I expect academic honesty in your writing
assignments and testing procedures: see your Student Handbook.
GRADES:
(Student-Driven) Midterm Exam (11th March M/W or 12th March T/TH)
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(Student-Driven) Final Exam Due May 4 (M/W) or May 5 (T/TH)
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40%
40%
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Essay Reflection for Ain’t No Makin’ It (April 7 (T/TH class) April 8 (M/W Class)
20%
I encourage your informed participation in discussions on assigned readings. Feel free to submit written questions before class (esp.
if you feel uncomfortable talking in large groups), or to express your thoughts & views during my lectures. You can stop me at ANY
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TIME during my lecture if something is unclear. Your questions, comments, and standpoints about the information that I will
present are the very catalysts for our sociological discourse.
Each participant will read Jay MacLeod’s Ain’t No Makin’ It and provide (1) a brief summary of the book’s findings, (2) a critique of
its research methodology, and (3) provide an evaluation of MacLeod’s findings on the social reproduction of inequality (and the
(sociological) factors accounting for the current SES and life-chances of the Brothers & Hallway Hangers). This succinct (3 pgs.)
meditation & reading will constitute 20% of your final grade, and it should be typed. You have tremendous leeway in writing this
paper in terms of format and style, but I strongly recommend you take it to the Write-Site to have it checked for grammar and
spelling infractions since I will take these elements into account when grading. I require a bibliography for all scholarly sources you
use in your paper including the MacLeod text. (There is a group option for writing this paper. The minimum page length per group is
6 pages.)
Exams are open-notes, short answers/essays. Student-driven exam questions are formulated during the lecture period and posted
to my website (web.mnstate.edu/vigilant). Students are strongly urged to form study groups. Each exam is worth 40% of your final
grade. (There is a group option for the exams.)
Students with disabilities who need an accommodation in this class are encouraged to contact Greg Toutges, Director of Disability
Services at 477-4318 (voice) or 1-800-627-3529 (MRS/TTY), Flora Frick 154 at your earliest convenience so that accommodations
are implemented in a timely fashion. Find information on Disability Services at web.mnstate.edu/disability. I am pleased to make
these arrangements on your behalf.
THEMES AND READING ASSIGNMENTS
(Jan. 12 – 30 )
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The Emergence of Sociology
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“Without distorting the meaning of this expression, we can, in fact, call all beliefs and all modes of behaviour instituted by the
collectivity ‘institutions’; sociology can then be defined as the science of institutions, their genesis and the functioning.” Emile
Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Methods (first published in French 1895); in Kenneth Thompson (ed. and trans.), Readings from
Emile Durkheim, London: Routledge, 1985, pg.67.
1.
The Meaning of Sociology. Chpt. 1 (The Discipline of Sociology, pg. 1) & Chpt. 2 (Sociology as a Perspective, pg.
17)
2.
The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. (C. W. Mills’ The Sociological Imagination, pg. 8)
(Feb. 2nd – 6st)
Culture
“Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior, acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the
distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional
(i.e., historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the on hand, be
considered as products of action, on the other as conditioning elements of further action.” A.L. Kroeber & C. Kluckhohn, Culture: A
Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions, New York, Vintage Books, 1963, pg. 181
1.
The Meaning of Sociology. Chpt. 6 (Culture, pg.81)
2.
The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. (McNamee & Milller’s The American Dream, 236)
3.
Documentary: The Story of Stuff
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(Feb. 9th – 20th)
Socialization & Social Organizations: ‘Learning to be Human’
“Social exchange differs in important ways from strictly economic exchange. The Basic and most crucial distinction is that social
exchange entails unspecified obligations.” Peter M. Blau, Exchange and Power in Social Life, New York, Wiley, 1964, pp. 88-114
1.
The Meaning of Sociology. Chpt. 3 (Humans Are Embedded… pg.31)
2.
The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. (Kelman & Hamilton, The My Lai Massacre, pg.76)
3.
The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. (Erickson, Collective Trauma at Buffalo Creek, pg. 49)
(Feb. 23rd – 27th)
Social Order, Social Control, and Social Deviance
“Society is merely the name for a number of individuals, connected by interaction… If society is conceived as interaction among
individuals, the description of the forms of this interaction is the task of the science of society in its strictest and most essential
sense.” Georg Simmel, Fundamental Problems of Sociology: Individual and Society (first published in German, 1917); ed. and trans.
Kurt H. Wolff, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, NY: Free Press, 1950, pg. 10-11.
“It’s all about the Benjamins!” –P. Diddy
1.
The Meaning of Sociology. Chpt. 9 (Social Order… pg.31)
2.
The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. (Berger’s Society, Social Control, and the Individual, pg 61)
3.
The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. (Meyer, If Hitler Asked You to Electrocute a Stranger, Would You? Probably,
pg.71)
(Mar. 2nd – 6th)
Inequality in Society
“CEO compensation in the United States has skyrocketed in recent years. Executive pay has more than quadrupled since 1993, and
today the average CEO of a large company takes home 364 times the income of his or her average employee (a ratio that is ten
times higher than when I started in the working world in the late 1970s). The numbers are astonishing. In 2006, the average takehome for the chief of a Forbes 500 company was 15.2 million, but a number of individuals made vastly more than that.” –David
Rothkopf, , Super Class: The Global Power Elite and the World The Are Making, NY: FSG, 2008: 72.
1.
The Meaning of Sociology. Chpt. 5 (Inequality in Society, pg. 63)
2.
The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. (Purrucci & Wysong’s The New American Class Structure, pg. 108)
3.
The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. (Gans’ The Uses of Poverty: The Poor Pay All, pg. 117)
(Mar. 9th – 13th)
“R/A/C/E”: Rituals of Blood/Rituals of Place
“Race, as a meaningful criterion within the biological sciences, has long been recognized to be fiction. When we speak of ‘the white
race’ or ‘the black race’, or ‘the Jewish race’ or ‘the Aryan race’, we speak in biological misnomers and, more generally, in
metaphors. Nevertheless, our conversations are replete with usages of race which have their sources in dubious pseudo-sciences of
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.” Henry Louis Gates, Jr. ‘“Race” as a Trope of the World’ in H.L. Gates (ed.), ‘Race’,
Writing and Difference, Chicago University Press, 1986.
1.
The Meaning of Sociology. Chpt. 4 (Social Structure, pg.47)
2.
The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. (Lee’s Yellow Face: Asian Americans in Popular Culture, 160)
3.
The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. (Orozco’s Children of Immigrants: Adaption and Identity, pg168)
EXAM # 1: 11th March (M/W Class) & 12th March (T/TH Class) 2015
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(Mar. 23rd – 27th)
The Sociology of Gender (in a ‘Post-Feminist’ Context)
“I am distinguishing between two forms of patriarchy: private and public. They differ on a variety of levels: firstly, in terms of the
relations between the structures and, secondly, in the institutional form of each structure. Furthermore, they are differentiated by the
main form of patriarchal strategy: exclusionary in private patriarchy and segregationist in public patriarchy. Private patriarchy is
based upon household production, with a patriarch controlling women individually and directly in the relatively private sphere of the
home. Public patriarchy is based on structures other than the household, although this may still be a significant patriarchal site.”
Sylvia Walby, Theorizing Patriarchy, Oxford, Blackwell, 1990, pg. 178
1.
The Meaning of Sociology. Chpt. 10 (Social Power, pg.139)
2.
The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. (Hochschild’s The Working Wife as an Urbanized Peasant, pg. 190)
3.
The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. (Faludi, The Betrayal of the American Man, pg. 210)
(Mar. 30th – April 2nd)
The Transformation of Intimacy: Family, Sex, and Love in Late-Modernity
“We are living, I believe, through a transitional and contested period of family history, a period after the modern family order, but
before what we cannot foretell. Precisely because it is not possible to characterize with a single term the competing sets of family
cultures that co-exist at the present, I identify this family regime as post-modern. The post-modern family is not a new model of
family life, not the next stage in an orderly progression of family history, but the stage when the belief in a logical progression of
stages breaks down. Rupturing evolutionary models of family history and incorporating both experimental and nostalgic elements,
‘the’ post-modern family lurches forward and backward into an uncertain future.”
Judith Stacey, Brave New Families, NY: Basic Books, 1990, pg.18
1.
The Meaning of Sociology. Chpt. 13 (The Family in Society)
2.
The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. (Edin & Kefalas, What Marriage Means, pg. 200)
3.
The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. (Skolnick & Skolnick, Family in Transition, 2007, pg. 286)
4.
Documentary: Sex is Cheap
April 7th (T/TH class) April 8th (M/W Class) Meditation (3 pgs.) and Discussion on Ain’t No Makin’ It (Papers due at the
beginning of class)
(April 7th - 10th)
The Social Meaning of Learning
“[E]ach family transmits to its children, indirectly rather than directly, a certain cultural capital and a certain ethos. The latter is a
system of implicit and deeply interiorized values which, among other things, helps to define attitudes towards the cultural capital and
educational institutions. The cultural heritage, which differs from both points of view according to social class, is the cause of the
initial inequality of children when faced with examinations and tests, and hence of unequal achievement.” Pierre Bourdieu, ‘The
School as a Conservative Force’ in J. Eggleston (trans. and ed.), Contemporary Research in the Sociology of Education, London,
Methuen, 1974. Pg. 32-28.
1.
The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. (Hallinan’s The Culture of the School, pg., 329)
2.
The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. (Kozol’s The Shame of a Nation, pg. 321)
(April.13th - 17th)
Religion, Society, and the Individual: Where are you, spiritually?
“The term ‘religion’ is derived from religio, the bond of social relations between individuals; the term ‘sociology’ is derived from
socius, the bond of companionship that constitutes societies. Following Durkheim (1961), we may define religion as a set of beliefs
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and practices, relating to the sacred, which create social bonds between individuals. We may define sociology, naively, as the
‘science of community’. Sociology in general and the sociology of religion in particular, are thus concerned with the processes which
unite and disunite, bind and unbind social relationships in space and time.” Bryan S. Turner, Religion and Social Theory, London,
Sage, 1983, pg. 8
1.
The Meaning of Sociology. Chpt. 14 (Religion, Society, and the Individual, pg. 197)
2.
The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. (Durkheim’s The Meaning of Religion, pg. 311)
3.
The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. (Withnow’s Religious Diversity in America, pg. 313)
4.
Documentary: Missionaries of Hate
(April 20th – 24th)
Health Care & Social Welfare as Dynamic Social Institutions
“Medical sociology centers on the social construction of health and illness—that is, a construction shaped by the many elements of
the social order and often independent from biomedical phenomena.” Phil Brown ‘Themes in Medical Sociology’, Journal of Health
Politics, Policy and Law, Vol. 16, No. 3, Fall, 1991.
The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. (Skopol’s Government Programs and Social Cohesion, pg. 269)
1.
2.
The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. (Karp’s American Culture: Individualism & Community, pg. 227)
(April 27th - May. 5th)
Social Change: Globalization and Social Movements in an Era of Uncertainty
“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by
themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations
weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.” Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Loius Bonaparte [1852]; Moscow,
Progressive Publishers, 1954, pg.10
1.
The Meaning of Sociology. Chpt. 8 (Globalization) and Chpt. 12 (Social Change)
2.
The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. (Zirakzadeh’s Social Movements and Social Change, pg. 347)
3.
The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. (Harper & Leicht’s American Social Trends, pg. 353)
Final Exam:
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Due May 4 (M/W) or May 5th (T/TH)
Thought Leader:
Dr. Lee Garth Vigilant, Professor of Sociology
Education:
A.M. & Ph.D., Boston College
Electronic Mail:
vigilant@mnstate.edu
Website:
http://web.mnstate.edu/vigilant
Telephone:
218/477-2034 (Office)
Office Location &Hours:
Lommen Hall 212-J (Soc/CJ Department): M 3-4:00p.m.; T 3-6:00pm; W 3-6:00pm; TH 3-6:00pm;
F (by appointment)
Cover: From the New College of Sociological Pataphysics: “The Air That Inhabits” (Photographic Collage, ’13).
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