Sociology of the Family
University of Pennsylvania
Sociology 524-001
Spring 2011
Annette Lareau
288 McNeil, 215 898-3515
alareau@sas.upenn.edu
Office hours: Wednesdays 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. or by appointment
The family is a key institution in American society. Family processes intersect and
overlap with many other important dynamics of social life. Hence, people who are
interested in many other fields including race and ethnic relations, work, education,
gender, social-psychology, and social stratification find the study of the family to be
useful to them.
This is a graduate course in sociology of the family. The course is a “survey” course in
the sense it seeks to provide an overview of key issues in the field. It also seeks to
situate the literature on the family in a broader context. Whenever possible, I have used
“classic” readings that are likely to surface on lists for comprehensive examinations in a
variety of fields. (There is quite a bit of overlap, for example, with the literature on
gender.) The course also covers readings in the field of social stratification as we
examine the ramifications of poverty and unemployment for family members. Thus, even
if you do not see family as a major area of your future research, it is possible that the
course could be useful.
Although this is a graduate course, advanced undergraduate students are also members of
the course. The expectation, however, is that the “pace” of the course will adhere to
graduate standards.
Our class is a seminar– its purpose is to explore together the ideas and themes we are
reading about. Each person is an important member of the seminar. For a seminar to work
well, it is important that each person complete the reading before class, share his or her
thoughts and ideas with the group, help to keep the discussion on track, and monitors the
flow of conversation to help produce a discussion where everyone has a chance to speak
and no one person dominates the discussion.
One of the hallmarks of a successful graduate student is her or his ability to synthesize
knowledge. This course is designed to give students an opportunity to hone their skills of
analysis and synthesis. Students will demonstrate their abilities to think synthetically in
class discussions and in the writing assignments for the course.
Seminar discussions of the readings:
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I will usually begin class with a ten or fifteen minute overview of the field. Then we will
discuss the material for about 90 minutes. In the discussion, we will seek to highlight the
strengths and weaknesses of the argument, the contribution to the field, the nature of the
empirical work, and the relationships of the reading to other course materials. To
facilitate discussion, each week you will write some discussion points/ reactions to the
reading. During five weeks you will write a memo which is not an essay. You may state
three questions in bullet points followed by a few sentences of your thoughts. You might
include a quote from the reading. What questions are raised by the reading? For the other
five weeks you will write a reaction paper where you first summarize the major
findings/results/methods/ of the reading. Then you will offer an analysis or interpretation
of themes. What contribution do you think that these readings make to the field? What
are the weaknesses? Ideally you should organize your discussion around a broader
question raised by the readings. These papers are due 24 hours before class (i.e., 3:30 on
Sunday). You will email you memo to me. You will do this 10 times during the semester.
You may choose which weeks to skip. On the remaining weeks, of course, you will need
to complete the reading.
Twice in the semester each of you will have a role of coming prepared with three to five
issues, questions, or items that warrant discussion that week. You will help to facilitate
the discussion by posing your questions to the group and helping to keep the discussion
on track. You do not need to meet ahead of time with the other discussion facilitator. You
can think of your role here as helping to move along the conversation so that it stays
focused on the key issues, is not derailed, provides a comprehensive discussion of the
main issues, and connects with discussions we have had in previous weeks. You will
simply ask questions for discussion. You might summarize what others say and raise a
tension or conflict that has surfaced in the discussion.
Graduate seminars do not usually have midterms or quizzes; instead the assessment of
students’ performance is based on the final paper. Many professors simply assume that
student know how to complete all of the steps involved in writing a graduate-level paper.
In this class, by contrast, we have a series of small steps that we will do as a group. All of
these steps are routinely taken in the process of writing a graduate-level paper. By
working through them as a group, however, I believe that you will gain additional insight
about the process. In addition, you will have the benefit of getting feedback from your
peers. This effort to provide “scaffolding” or social support is intended to provide a role
model for professional development. Senior scholars also benefit from informal peer
review of their work at all the stages of development. Hence, it is appropriate and helpful
to develop social systems so that you have a forum to discuss your ideas with colleagues
who can listen carefully and offer constructive suggestions. It is also helpful to be in a
writing group to gain feedback on drafts of your work.
There are various aspects of workshops:
Approximately one-third of your class time will be run as a workshop. In the workshop
you will discuss your paper project. You will complete a series of exercises designed to
help you think through the key elements in a review of the literature. As I explain below,
the review of the literature is not a summary of the material. Instead, you will craft an
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essay where you highlight the intellectual weaknesses in a field of study. Thus, the class
is intended to help you develop the skills that are involved in writing the “front part” of a
journal article. Good research projects grow out of a careful analysis of the weaknesses of
the literature. It is only through the presentation of a critique that readers can see the need
for a new study. Thus, an important part of this class is reading and giving feedback to
your peers just as they will read your work and give you constructive criticism. These
peer interactions help to prepare you for a crucial aspect of future work in the academy:
all studies go through peer review.
All important original studies grow out of the current literature. In other words, almost all
significant social science studies seek to correct an existing gap, hole, or weakness in the
current literature. Sometimes the contributions are focused. Scholars argue that the
conceptualizations currently are too rigid, static, incomplete, distorted, and narrow. Other
times scholars reject the ways that questions have been framed. They seek an alternative
conceptualization.
Another important skill that students need to develop is the capacity to frame a
researchable problem. Sometimes students frame problems that are interesting but lack
sufficient focus. Other problems are too broad; some intellectual problems are too
narrow. An outstanding sociological research problem will focus on a social issue that
can be used as a springboard to understand enduring sociological issues. In other words,
the focus of the study should be interesting in its own right, but it should also have the
potential to make a conceptual contribution to important sociological questions. We will
critically assess all of the readings to analyze the strengths and weaknesses in the ways
that the authors framed their research problems. We will also frequently revisit the
elements of a strong research question.
Required readings:
Risman, Barbara J. (ed). Families as the Really Are 2010. W. W. Norton & Company:
New York.
Blair-Loy, Mary. Competing Devotions 2003. Harvard University Press.
Reich, Jennifer A. Fixing Families: Parents, Power, and the Child Welfare System
2005. Routledge: New York.
Stack, Carol. All Our Kin. 1997 Basic Books.
Furstenberg, Frank. Destinies of the Disadvantaged: The Politics of Teen Childbearing
2007. Russell Sage Foundation: New York.
Lareau, Annette. Unequal Childhoods. 2003. University of California Press.
DeParle, Jason. American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation’s Drive to End
Welfare 2004. Penguin Books.
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Course requirements:
Write a 15-20 page “review of the literature” paper. You will write the paper twice.
The paper is due on March 30th. This version needs to be a real paper. It needs to have
an argument, a complete citation list, and a full discussion of the issues. This paper
will be read by two students. It also will be graded. Based on detailed reviews, you
will then do a thorough revision of the paper. You will collect additional sources,
recast your argument, and solve problems that the reviewers identify in the piece. The
final revised paper is due on May 4th. You also will complete a class presentation of
your review of the literature for about 25 minutes; it will be followed by 25 minutes
of discussion.
The final paper is worth 55% of your grade. The first draft is worth 25% of your grade.
The memos/reaction papers are worth 10% of your grade. The exercises (which are
almost all intended to provide support and assistance as you move towards the paper
writing process) and class engagement are worth 10%.
Your paper is due on March 30th. You will get feedback from me and from two of your
classmates. You will then seriously revise your paper, adding new readings, changing the
argument, and clarifying your thesis. Your revised paper is due on May 4th. With the
revised paper you will turn in a letter discussing the changes you made according to the
feedback of the reviewers. If you are unable to address one of the reviewer’s concerns,
you need to discuss this piece too.
** Please Note: Readings are to be completed for the week they appear in the syllabus,
but will not be discussed until the following week**
Ex: Parson’s The Social System should be read during Week 1 (January 24th), but will not
be discussed until Week 2 (January 31st)
Week
Readings
January
24th
1) Parsons, The Social
System, Chapter 5, Pattern
Variables
2) Marx, “The German
Ideology,”
3) Nakano Glen, Chapter 5
4) Collins, Weber on the
Family
Week 1
Topic of course
(note: we will
discuss the
reading for the
previous week
in class).
Discussion
Workshop
activity
Introductions,
Exercise 1
Steps in the
research
paper process
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1) Degler, “The
Emergence of the Modern
American Family”
2) Uhlenberg, Peter,
“Death and the Family”
3) Greven, Philip, “Family
Structure in 17th Century
Andover, Mass”
4) Mintz, Huck’s Raft 3352; 133-184
5) Selected statistics
What role does
the family play
in the larger
society?
February 1) Moynihan Report
7th
2) Guttman, Black Family
Week 3 in Slavery and Freedom
3) Steinberg essay Boston
Review
Family History
Exercise 3:
The search
for role
models
February 1) Becker, “Terrorized by
14th
the Literature”
Week 4 2) Risman, Families as
they really are
Pp 1-119
3) Swartz and Mare
Family History:
The Moynihan
Report, the
Black Family,
And the role of
culture in
poverty
Exercise 4:
Roundtable
discussions
What path to
take?
Preliminary
sources
February 1) Edin, et al chapter
21st
2) Cherlin, Future of
Week 5 Family
3) LaRossa
4) Walzer Thinking about
Baby
5) Living with Abusive
Men
6) Risman, Chap 16,
17,18-24
Marriage
Exercise 5:
Terrorized by
the literature:
how to
narrow?
January
31st
Week2
Exercise 2
Roundtable
discussions
Guest
speaker:
Librarian
from Van
Pelt
February 1) Blair-Loy, Competing
The shock of
th
28
Devotions
children
Week 6 2) Risman, Chap 33-35;3638
Exercise 6:
High quality
and low
quality
reviews of
the literature
(bring in two
sample
5
articles to be
discussed in
class)
Spring
Break!
March
14th
Week 7
1) Reich, Jennifer
Fixing Families
Work-family
conflict
March
21st
Week 8
1) Cooper, Securing
Strategies
2) Newman, Falling From
Grace ppix to 41; 95-142
1) Lareau, Unequal
Childhoods
2) Risman, Chapters 25, 27
3) Hart and Risley,
Chapter 3
Families and
the State
March
28th
Week 9
Emotional
management of
poverty and
financial
insecurity
April 4th 1) Furstenberg, Frank,
Week 10 Destinies of the
Disadvantaged
Class and child
rearing
April
1) Stack, Carol All our Kin
th
11
2) McClanahan, Sarah
Week 11 chapter
3) Risman, Chap 19
Understanding
the long-term
impact of life
events
Guest: Frank F.
Furstenberg
April
l8th
Week 12
April
25th
Week 13
Poverty and the
Family
DeParle, American Dream
Presentations
begin
Paper due
March 30th
Paper due
Wednesday
March 30tht at
5 p.m.
Exercise 7:
Feedback to
others
Exercise 8:
Turn in list of
the reading
you will
complete on
the last week
of class.
Exercise 9:
Design a
study
Reading selected by each
The Family in
student: additional articles Context: Public
for your paper or a book or Policy and
set of articles that you have Family Life
always wanted to read
May 4th final revised paper due by 4 p.m; please turn in the first version of the
paper, the reviews, and your letter explaining how you responded to the
reviews as well as the final paper. Please turn in a hard copy and an a
electronic copy. Please have a title page with an analytic title that highlights
your thesis. The paper should be between 15 and 20 pages in length.
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Exercise 1:
Come to class prepared to answer these questions verbally
1)
2)
3)
4)
I am interested in learning more about …………
I am interested in this area because……..
A book or article that I admire that touches on the study of the family is……….
One of the most important areas of family life to understand is…………….
Exercise 2:
Write a memo where you answer the following questions (which you will share in a
roundtable discussion in the class and with the entire class).
1) In this class the topic I’d like to study is……………
2) The research question I am interested in learning more about is………….
3) My (superficial) impression so far is that the literature does a better job of
……………than of ………………………………………
4) Broadly conceived, I think that my topic falls under these areas of the
family…………………………………..
5) Potential search words might be ………………………………..
Exercise 3: Finding a role model
The purpose of this week’s exercise is to find an article that might serve as a role model.
You will find an article and read it. (It doesn’t have to be a perfect role model. It just
needs to be an example of one approach.)
Here is what you will do:
1) Find an article that you would like to read (ideally it will be on the family, but it is
not essential that it focus on the family)
2) Read it
3) Post it on blackboard for others to see
4) Write a one-page memo where you state the thesis of the piece and the intellectual
positions that the author was challenging.
5) You will share this information with the class.
Here are some possible sources:
Jerome Karabel and A. H. Halsey, Introduction to Power and Ideology in Education
Annual review of Sociology
New York Review of Books
An essay written by Malcolm Gladwell or David Brooks in The New Yorker or other
articles in The New Yorker
Other sources where someone writes a review of a series of articles or books while
making an argument.
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Exercise 4:
1) Submit key words
2) Look up the words in the thesaurus and find other key words
3) Generate a list of ten possible sources you could read for your paper
4) Write a one-page memo where you state your key works, restate the topic you are
interested in studying, and restate your understanding of your research question
and the competing arguments or answers to your research question
Exercise 5:
Discussion of Howard Becker’s book Writing for the Social Sciences, Terrorized by the
Literature
How do you focus?
Draw a diagram where you try to describe the different bodies of literature you are trying
to discuss. What is more interesting to you? What is core? What is periphery?
Exercise 6:
Bring to class two sample articles. One should be a high-quality article. One should be a
low-quality article. You will present these articles. What are the components of quality in
a review of the literature?
Exercise 7:
Read two papers written by members of the class. Write a summary paragraph as well as
marginal comments. (I will give you a handout guiding your feedback.) Email me your
summary comments and track changes that you provided to each author.
Exercise 8:
Turn in a list of articles or a book you will read in the last week of class that would be
helpful for you to read.
Exercise 9:
Design a study that you would like to complete on the family. State a general research
question. State a general research design. This should be only 2 pages single-spaced. You
should not spend a lot of time on this exercise.
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