text: Ok ladies... Now is that time of year I am building my christmas wishlist...!! YAY!! I have for a while now wanted a 12x12 printer (mostly 13x17 but will print my 12x12 pics) and I have not heard much as to whether this is a good thing to get or not. A lot of gals I know that do digi just order from persnikity prints or shutterfly. Which is fine but I am not one who has much patience and I want the flexibility to print and do what I need when I need. What do you think about a personal printer vs ordering prints?


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"Big Brother" tackled the controversy surrounding some of its contestants head-on on Sunday's episode, airing the controversial racist comments that had previously aired only on the show's online live stream.
A segment of the episode focused on contestant Aaryn Gries, showing a montage of her derogatory comments made about African American, Asian American and gay members of the house.
Fellow contestant GinaMarie Zimmerman was also shown making similar comments while talking with Gries. A third contestant, Spencer Clawson, was also heard making racist comments on the show's live feed.
In the clips, Gries is shown mocking Asian accents, saying a fellow contestant should "shut up and go make some rice" and claiming that, in the matter of who will get house MVP, "no one will vote for whoever that queer puts up," referring to openly gay housemate Andy.
The offensive comments first came to light last week when fans who monitored the show's round-the-clock live feed began discussing them online. Gries and Zimmerman have both lost their jobs, at a modeling agency and a beauty pageant, respectively. Clawson's employer, Union Pacific, has released a statement condemning the contestant's comments. He is currently employed, however.
CBS also released a statement last week distancing itself from the comments of the "Big Brother" contestants. The statement read: " 'Big Brother' is a reality show about watching a group of people who have no privacy 24/7 — and seeing every moment of their lives. At times, the Houseguests reveal prejudices and other beliefs that we do not condone. We certainly find the statements made by several of the Houseguests on the live Internet feed to be offensive. Any views or opinions expressed in personal commentary by a Houseguest appearing on 'Big Brother,' either on any live feed from the House or during the broadcast, are those of the individual(s) speaking and do not represent the views or opinions of CBS or the producers of the program."
The network had previously recieved criticism from a former contestant who urged CBS to not cover up the comments and deal with the issue head-on.
While things may be looking dire for the contestants in their personal lives, the controversy paid off for CBS, which saw an increase in ratings for the episode, making it the most-watched network show on Sunday night.

subset: commoncrawl


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Wednesday, November 25, 2009
A Hermeneutics of Passion
A word of explanation. A few decades ago Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza described a hermeneutics of suspicion as one feminist strategy for engaging the Bible (among others). She meant that feminist readers may safely assume the biblical authors downplayed the contributions of women. A hermeneutics of suspicion, then, looks for signs of women's agency and history where it's not emphasized. I've oversimplified things, but a hermeneutics of suspicion, properly speaking, is primarily a creative strategy -- not a destructive one.
Apparently some people (and I'm not naming them out of charity) feel a need to defend the Bible from its supposed attackers. They invoke "hermeneutics of welcome" or "hermeneutics of sympathy" to suggest that they're open to biblical truth -- while those who differ from them employ the more hostile "hermeneutics of suspicion." It's a specious argument, cowardly even, because it suggests that only one mode of interpretation really values the Bible.
The real truth is, relatively few interpreters set out to find negative things to say. Many more of us, however, find ourselves passionately engaged with scripture -- to the point that the Bible continually surprises us. Sometimes it says things we wish it wouldn't. Sometimes it confronts us with questions we'd never thought to ask. Sometimes signs of hope, grace, and correction leap from the page and into our hearts. Rather than a hermeneutics of suspicion, let's call this a hermeneutics of passion (copyright right here). What about it?
"Passion" in its truest sense means the capacity to be acted upon. I don't mean primarily the passion of desire, often eroticized (more below), but the passion of wild openness to the encounter of the text. I'm talking about a deep engagement, one in which we readers make ourselves vulnerable to the encounter. I'm talking about the possibility that we cannot predetermine interpretive outcomes. I'm talking about passion.
And yes, I'm talking about the passion of desire, eroticize it if you will. We come to the Bible from a lack, a deficit, a need. We come from a world that keeps selling us petty things all glittered up. Music overproduced. Food overportioned. Bodies over-Photoshopped. We lust for something that calls us beyond ourselves, a reality that fills us truly, a set of relationships that lead to transformation. We read passionately.
So... my resolution for today. When someone dismisses another interpretation with the "hermeneutics of suspicion" label, I'm gonna call them out as they cowards they are. It's a hermeneutics of passion, people!
9 comments:
- Carolyn Sharp said...
What an amazing term: "hermeneutics of passion"! It gives me, a Christian ideological critic with feminist and postcolonial interests, a conceptual orientation that is not as 'cold'-sounding (or faux- objective) as ESF's famous "hermeneutics of suspicion," a term whose influence I appreciate but which never sat entirely right with me. Passion: wild opennness, indeed -- and eager desire for connection, and holy curiosity about knowing the beloved in every dimension (that is, knowing the text), and insistent love that will not allow conflict or mystery to impede relationship. Potential drawbacks to the term would be related to our current culture's flaws, not the classical history of "passion": folks might hear solipsistic or narcissistic self-interest veiled in the term (as with "crime of passion," a crime that has nothing to do with love and everything to do with acting out one's egoistic desire with no attentiveness to actual consequences for others). Or they might read "passion" as many media in North America would want, viz., aggressively sexualized, hyper-fetishistic focus on genital sexuality -- rather than the broader and deeper understanding of eros and of libidinal energy that has long been available to us via Hellenistic culture and (via Carter Heyward's _Touching Our Strength_) second-wave feminism. "Hermeneutics of passion": I shall start to use the term, always crediting it as yours, Greg! Thank you.
- November 27, 2009 at 9:11 AM
- bimshire68 said...
Um...so if creating "hermeneutics of sympathy" is "cowardly" [your word, not mind], then how is "hermeneutics of passion" brave.
Coming from a people who were turned into forced and migrant labor because of what "the Bible says," I --who am very passionate about the text--am not about to abandon "hermeneutics of suspicion."
But that's just me.
- November 30, 2009 at 5:38 PM
- Greg Carey said...
You're welcome to your hermeneutics of suspicion. One if often well founded, though that's not my orientation.
But I think you misread my post. I didn't call a hermeneutics of sympathy cowardly. What's cowardly is accusing those who read differently of a hermeneutics of suspicion, as if they had nefarious motives.
- December 2, 2009 at 5:26 PM
- Matt Skinner said...
Your explanation of your soon-to-be-copyrighted term, Greg, is really important. The capacity to be acted upon, the wild openness to an encounter, the acknowledgment of a lack or a deficit--these are crucial things that leave room for suspicion and even sympathy to also be present. But they are also things that demand that we don't walk away from an encounter with a text (along with, perhaps, encounters with a text's history of interpretation and with the God to which a text might bear witness whether well or feebly) without being changed, without experiencing some sort of connection, or without having our outlook on reality brought to the fore and sometimes rearranged
I've sometimes used Genesis 32, where Jacob wrestles by the Jabbok, as a kind of metaphor for such an engagement with scripture. We might really grapple with a text, maybe even a really nasty text that deserves to be held down and given a noogie or two, but we do so in the expectation (the demand, really) that we leave the encounter with a blessing. I'm not saying we always walk--or limp--away from such an encounter feeling affirmed or pleased with our cleverness. The blessing can take a variety of forms. But the underlying motivation of the interpretive enterprise is that something will happen to us--that we will encounter God, either in the text, behind the text, in spite of the text, etc. To do so is to receive some kind of a blessing, even if it might knock us out of joint.
If what you're looking for is a hermeneutic that may very well include suspicion, sympathy, or other dispositions but nevertheless reaches toward an encounter with life, God, the self, the other, etc., then count me in. Of course, those who employ various "hemrmeneutics of [insert term here]" are often seeking the same thing you describe, but your language may have the potential better to point to the reason why many of us even bother with the Bible in the first place.
- December 3, 2009 at 3:48 PM
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StudioPage address: http://www.mnsu.edu/artdept/studio.html
The ceramics studio is a large space with a central clay storage and preparation room. The adjacent kiln room has three gas-fired kilns and five electric kilns. An open courtyard can be used for raku, pit, and salt firing. New Salt and Raku kilns have been installed and we have recently rebuilt a 60 cubic foot downdraft car-kiln.
The drawing studio is a large multi-purpose room on the lower level of the art complex that can be configured in a variety of ways to suit the formats of drawing workshop or life drawing.
Graphic Design
There are two design labs equipped with a total of 56 state-of-the-art Macintosh computers with current software for print and interactive work. Final print output is through a Xerox Phaser color printer in the critique and production space conveniently positioned between the two labs. A large format archival inkjet printer is also available for special applications. There is 24-hour access to the labs through a card swipe system and the labs are monitored for safety during evening hours by web cameras.
We have a large painting studio which serves all levels of painting students. The painting studio was recently remodeled with improved lighting, ventilation, and fire protection systems. The painting studio occupies the top floor of the Nelson Hall complex. An adjacent critique space provides a setting in which to evaluate work individually or in class reviews.
Our photography studio is equipped for both color and black-and-white print work. Digital photography, which is taught primarily in our new computer lab, exposes students to multiple techniques for still and video image production. Visit the Photography area on this web site.
The printmaking studio was recently remodeled with improved lighting, ventilation, and fire protection systems. New equipment includes a large format exposure unit for photomechanical printmaking. Our print studio houses two presses for lithography, and three presses for intaglio, and is equipped for silkscreen printmaking and various experimental printing processes.
Our sculpture studio is well-equipped for a variety of activities from wood cutting and shaping to welding. We have an outdoor courtyard for sculpture students and visiting artists working with large scale forms.
Graphic Design computer lab (NH203).
Graphic Design computer lab (NH202).
Graduate studio space.
Printmaking classroom.


text:
A nationwide recall was issued for a medical device used during cardiac surgery. Learn More »
Recall Notice
Atrioventricular Canal Defect
Nemours Cardiac Center at Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children
1600 Rockland Road, Wilmington, DE 19803 | Get Map & Directions »
Note: To view heart animations, you'll need the latest version of Adobe Flash Player.
Children's heart conditions can't be prevented, but a lot can be done to improve and often completely repair their hearts at any age. Thanks to advanced technology and the pediatric heart experts at the Nemours Cardiac Center (based at Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children), most children born with a heart problem — even newborns only hours or days old — can be quickly diagnosed and treated right when it matters the most. At the Cardiac Center, we specialize in early detection and repair of congenital heart defects (also often called, "congenital heart disease").
If your child's been diagnosed with an atrioventricular canal defect, we're here to ease your concerns, answer your questions, and give your child the best possible chance for a healthy future.
Atrioventricular canal defect (also known as "complete atrioventricular canal defect," "complete atrioventricular septal defect" or a "common atrioventricular valve") is a:
- lack of separation of the atria (the top two chambers of the heart) and the ventricles (the heart's two lower chambers that receive blood from the atria) into separate right and left chambers
- lack of separation between the mitral and tricuspid valves (The mitral valve is the valve between the left atrium and the left ventricle. Consisting of two flaps, or "cusps," it prevents blood from flowing back into the atrium from the ventricle. The tricuspid valve is the heart valve that controls blood flow from the right atrium into the right ventricle.)
The lack of separation of these two valves results in a single or "common" atrioventricular valve. The lack of separation of the atria results in a hole between the upper chambers of the heart (called an "atrial septal defect"), and the lack of separation of the ventricles results in a hole between the lower chambers of the heart (called a "ventricular septal defect"). Atrioventricular canal defects are also sometimes called "endocardial cushion defects," because in the developing heart it's the endocardial cushions that usually create the separation between the various chambers and valves.
In children with atrioventricular canal defect, the single atrioventricular may not close properly, resulting in leakage of that valve (called "atrioventricular valve regurgitation"). The atrioventricular valve and the ventricles also may be "unbalanced" — meaning, they're not evenly divided between the left and the right.
Effects of an Atrioventricular Canal Defect
The lack of separation between the two sides of the heart in atrioventricular canal defects results in blood moving from the left side of the heart (which pumps blood out to the body) into the right side of the heart (where it's pumped to the lungs).
This causes too much blood flow to the lungs and two main problems:
- The excess blood has to be pumped again by the heart to make it out to the body, which forces the heart to work harder than it should.
- The blood vessels in the lungs respond to the excess blood flow by tightening, which — if left untreated — may cause high blood pressure in the lungs (this is called "pulmonary hypertension"). The amount of blood moving from the left ventricle to the right ventricle and then to the lungs is determined by the size of the holes between the left and right side (the atrial septal defect and ventricular septal defect). A larger hole will allow more blood flow and will cause symptoms sooner, and the size of the ventricular septal defect is most important.
Types of Atrioventricular Canal or Atrioventricular Septal Defects
Because of this, atrioventricular canal defects are divided into categories, depending on the presence and size of the hole between the lower chambers of the heart (the ventricular septal defect, or "VSD"):
- Partial AV canal (primum ASD). When there's no VSD (or when the VSD closes by itself), it's called a "partial AV canal defect." In these cases there's a hole between the upper chambers of the heart. There's also an abnormal atrioventricular valve. But without the hole between the lower chambers, the surgical repair is simpler and the long-term outcomes are better.
- Transitional AV canal. When the VSD is small and limits the amount of blood able to move across it (called "restrictive") the defect is called a "transitional AV canal defect." Because the small VSD limits the amount of blood flow between the ventricles (and, therefore, the extra work that the ventricle must do), children with transitional AV canals may take longer to develop symptoms.
- Complete AV canal. When the VSD is large and doesn't restrict blood flow then the atrioventricular canal is called a "complete AV canal defect." In these cases, symptoms usually develop early (within the first few months after birth).
How Does the Heart Normally Work?
When your child has a congenital heart defect, there's usually something wrong with the structure of the heart. In order to understand your child's condition, it can help to know how the heart should work normally.
Learn More About Normal Cardiac Anatomy »
Nemours' experts at KidsHealth.org also offer these helpful resources to help both you and your child understand how the heart works:
Our Nemours Cardiac Center team can diagnose atrioventricular canal in utero (in the womb) during a fetal echocardiogram ("echo"). Or the defect may be diagnosed after birth due to either a murmur or signs of heart failure.
The murmur results from blood moving through the atrial septal defect (ASD) and ventricular septal defect (VSD), and sometimes from atrioventricular valve regurgitation. The movement of blood across the ASD and VSD and the leakage of the valve cause the heart to have to pump extra amounts of blood. This may cause the heart to become enlarged, or may lead to signs that the heart is struggling, including poor growth, rapid breathing and rapid heart rate. We can confirm the diagnosis with an echocardiogram (or "echo") — a completely safe and painless test that uses ultrasound (sound waves) to build a series of pictures of the heart.
A baby with complete atrioventricular canal defect will need to have surgery within the first two to six months after birth.
Usually, the operation involves:
- carefully separating the single atrioventricular valve into two valves, including repairing the valve to correct any leakage
- sewing a patch (or patches) over the atrial septal defect (ASD) and ventricular septal defect (VSD)
Surgery may be delayed longer in children with either a transitional or partial AV canal. But all children will need surgery to repair the defect.
In children with an "unbalanced" atrioventricular canal, one of the ventricles may not be large enough to support this type of repair and the child may require a series of procedures, over time, called "single ventricle palliation."
Learn More
Following surgery, the blood flows normally through the heart, and the excessive amount of blood being pumped by the ventricles is reduced. Most children won't need additional operations or have any activity limitations. But, as children grow, the abnormal atrioventricular valve may not grow appropriately — and, over time, this may cause either leakage or obstruction ("stenosis") of either the left or right side of the valve. The most common reason for another operation, this happens in about 10–20 percent of children after repair of a complete atrioventricular septal defect.
Also, because of the abnormal structure of the heart, children with partial atrioventricular septal defect are at risk for developing left ventricular outflow tract obstruction or subvalvar aortic stenosis in the years following surgery. For these reasons, after repair, we routinely monitor children with atrioventricular canal defects using an echocardiogram to monitor valve function and growth.
If your child has atrioventricular canal defect, know that at the Nemours Cardiac Center we're here to give your child the very best, most comprehensive and compassionate care. Our goal is to guide your family, from start to finish, through your child's heart defect journey — and to help your child live the healthiest, most fulfilling life possible.
Heart Murmurs
A heart murmur is an abnormal sound (like a blowing or whooshing) that's usually detected by a doctor who's listening to the heart with a stethoscope during a routine exam. Learn More »
Why Choose Us
From our outcomes to our family-centered care, find out all of the reasons why your child's heart will be in good hands at the Nemours Cardiac Center. Learn More »
Make an Appointment
(800) 416-4441
Information for Patients
Outpatient Services and Inpatient Units: (302) 651-6660
After 5 p.m. and Weekends:
Cardiac Intensive Care Unit: (302) 651-6644
General Inpatient Unit, 2B: (302) 651-6690
+1 (302) 651-4993
Stories From the Heart
Meet children treated in the Nemours Cardiac Center who know what it's like to live with a heart problem.


text:
Updated 4:58 p.m.
• Google Back On Track In Q2, Beats The Street With Over $9 Billion In Revenue and Larry Page On Google+: Over 10 Million Users, 1 Billion Items Being Shared Per Day – Google's earnings beats expectations, as do the crowds on Google+.
• Microsoft says it will have a 'single ecosystem' for PCs, tablets, phones, and TVs… and is 'Windows' dead? – Sources say Microsoft is considering ditching the Windows brand, but that wouldn't happen for several years.
• 24,000 Pentagon files stolen in major cyber breach, official says
• Apple Shuts Down OS X Downloads Page – Now, when you click on the link that previously would have led you to OS X software, it will bring up the Mac App Store.
Original post
• New Service Offers Music in Quantity, Not by Song and Spotify launching in the US at 8AM tomorrow, open to all pre-registered users – Spotify is expected to launch in the U.S. this morning. You'll need an invitation to try the service.
• OS X Lion Not Going to Launch This Week? – Latest Lion rumors: It may not launch today, and indeed may not come until next week.
• Job posting points to iPhone 5 launch on 16 August – Stores in the U.K. are looking for temporary sales help from mid-August to early October.
• Apple Soars to Third Place in U.S. PC Market With 10.7% Share – According to numbers from both IDC and Gartner.
• Alternative Tablets: The Next Big Thing Or Dead On Arrival? – A nice roundup of the current state-of-the-art of non-iPad tablets. Why aren't these selling better?
• Motorola working on 10-inch 2048 x 1536 tablet – It reportedly has the same 4:3 aspect ratio as the iPad, and will run Ice Cream Sandwich, the version of Android that will merge the phone and tablet interfaces.
• Reed Hastings Doesn't Want You To Pay More For Netflix. He Wants You To Stop Using DVDs. – The price increase was designed to kill Netflix's DVD-by-mail service as quickly as possible, an analyst suggests.
• Netflix managers prepared for backlash to price hike – They reportedly warn customer service employees that they'd start receiving angry, emotional phone calls.
• Twitter for Android – Now with Push Notifications and Multiple Accounts – Twitter's official Android client gets some important upgrades.
• Nuance's Dragon Go is a Voice-Powered Search App that Knows Where To Look – Depending on what you search for, it will open a specific page, rather than search results. It's similar to Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" button.
• France Tracks Down 18 Million File-Sharers – So far, 470,000 warnings have been sent out. No one has been disconnected from the Net.
• Sony VAIO Z Series (VPCZ216GX/L) review – This is My Next reviews Sony's high-end, high-powered, thin-and-light notebook.


text:
The U.S. cotton, rice, and corn crops may not break last year's records for production, but they'll come close — the second largest — if USDA's Sept. 12 supply and demand estimates prove correct.
On the other hand, USDA's forecasts surprised many who believed damage from drought and/or hurricanes had taken U.S. crops down a few notches.
Cotton production is forecast at 22.3 million bales, up 5 percent from the August forecast but 4 percent below last year's production. Yield is expected to average 782 pounds per acre, 34 pounds above last month. If realized, both the yield and production will be the second highest on record.
Dry weather has had an impact on the Mid-South crop. Forecast yields decreased for every state except Louisiana, where USDA projected a 106-pound increase from last month.
Harvested area is expected to total 13.7 million acres, up less than 1 percent from August and 5 percent above 2004.
Worldwide, USDA raised cotton production significantly in India, based on continued reports of excellent crop development. Production is reduced in China, due to excessive rain in the southeastern cotton-growing areas.
U.S. corn production is forecast at 10.6 billion bushels, up 3 percent from last month but 10 percent below 2004. If realized, this would be the second largest crop on record.
Based on conditions as of Sept. 1, yields are expected to average 143.2 bushels per acre, up 4 bushels from August but 17.2 bushels below the record high last year. Farmers expect to harvest 74.3 million acres of corn for grain, down 50,000 acres from August but up 1 percent from 2004.
Projected 2005-06 corn exports are up 50 million bushels due to increased imports by Mexico and Egypt.
Estimated corn ending stocks are up 179 million bushels from last month but are 46 million lower than the previous year.
Corn prices in 2005-06 are projected to average $1.70 to $2.10, down 10 cents on each end from last month, compared with $2.06 for 2004-05.
Soybean production is forecast at 2.86 billion bushels, up 2 percent from the August forecast but down 9 percent from the record crop of 2004. Based on Sept. 1 conditions, yields are expected to average 39.6 bushels per acre.
Soybean exports are raised for September due to lower prices and reduced competitor supplies.
Soybean ending stocks are projected at 205 million bushels, up 25 million from last month.
Adequate moisture across most of the Corn Belt and the Great Plains by the end of the month was a relief for many dry areas, including most of the drought-stricken areas of Illinois and Missouri. The Delta and Southeast also received favorable moisture, maintaining good yield potential in most areas, including a record high forecast in Louisiana and a record-tying forecast in South Carolina.
Season-average soybean prices for 2005-06 are projected at $5.15 to $6.05 compared with $5.50 to $6.50 per bushel last month.
U.S. rice production in 2005-06 is forecast at 228.3 million hundredweight, 1.6 million hundredweight above last month and the second largest on record.
Harvested area is projected at 3.34 million acres, up 2 percent from last month. The average yield is estimated at 6,830 pounds per acre, down 67 pounds per acre from last month.
Ending stocks of all rice are projected at 33.9 million hundredweight, 4.3 million hundredweight above last month. The season-average farm price is projected at $7.25 to $7.55 per hundredweight, unchanged from last month.
Global 2005-06 rice production and imports are raised slightly from last month while consumption and ending stocks for 2005-06 are projected at 65.6 million tons, about 800,000 tons below last month.
The decrease in stocks is due mainly to smaller stocks projected for India.
Grain sorghum/wheat
Grain sorghum production is projected at 18 million bushels above last month. Projected 2005-06 grain sorghum exports are up 5 million bushels (due to increased imports by Mexico) and feed and residual use is up 5 million.
Grain sorghum ending stocks are up 7 million bushels. Grain sorghum prices in 2005-06 are projected to average $1.50 to $1.90, down 10 cents on each end from last month compared with $1.78 for 2004-05.
Projected U.S. 2005-06 ending stocks of wheat are down 10 million bushels from last month due to higher food use, partially offset by larger imports. The projected 2005-06 price range is $3.00 to $3.40 per bushel, up 15 cents on the low end and up 5 cents on the high end from last month.
e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
Sociology As A Discipline Essay On Respect
College–Level Sociology Curriculum For Introduction to Sociology
Prepared by the American Sociological Association Task Force on a College Level Introduction to Sociology Course
The Course * Summary Course Outline * Course Narrative
The Course
The College-Level Sociology course is designed to introduce students to the sociological study of society. Sociology focuses on the systematic understanding of social interaction, social organization, social institutions, and social change. Major themes in sociological thinking include the interplay between the individual and society, how society is both stable and changing, the causes and consequences of social inequality, and the social construction of human life. Understanding sociology helps discover and explain social patterns and see how such patterns change over time and in different settings. By making vivid the social basis of everyday life, sociology also develops critical thinking by revealing the social structures and processes that shape diverse forms of human life.
Overall Goals:
· Show the relevance and reality of structural factors in social life
· Place an issue in a larger context (identify systemic elements; identify stakeholders; list unintended consequences)
· Describe, explain, and predict aspects of social problems
· Debunk individualistic explanations of behavior and identify social patterns
· Recognize the difference between dispositional and sociological explanations
· Recognize the difference between empirical and normative statements
· Identify and offer explanations for social inequality
· Analyze labor force issues
· Perform a content analysis of texts or news to identify possible sources of bias
· Critique the media
· Transform a topic of interest into a researchable, sociological question
· Describe the elements of the scientific method in the social sciences
· Understand basic elements of an ethical code of conduct for social scientists
· Unpack the "causal nexus", e.g., correlation, time order, elimination of alternative explanations
· Interpret descriptive statistics
· Evaluate the methodological processes and limits of research (e.g., bias, generalizability)
· Critically assess web sites and electronic resources
· Set up a data table properly and read and interpret a table correctly
· Distinguish levels of analysis
· Posit intervening factors and spurious relationships in social life
· Show awareness of probabilities and contingencies
· Recognize that counterfactual anecdotes do not invalidate sociology
· Understand the intersection of biography and history
· Take the role of the other
· Describe various career trajectories for sociologists at different degree levels; where sociologists work and what they do
· Position personal life choices and chances in a demographic context
· Compare and contrast one's own context with those in other parts of the and the world
· Describe the tension between generalization and stereotyping; social forces and determinism
· Appreciate the role of human agency in social change
Summary Course Outline
I. The Sociological PerspectiveII. Research Methods
III. CultureIV. Socialization
V. Social OrganizationVI. Social Inequalities
VII. Deviance and ConformityVIII. Social Institutions
IX. Social Change
|I. The Sociological Perspective
A. Sociology as a field of inquiry
1. Sociology as the study of social behavior
2. How is sociology different from other social sciences?
B. The Sociological Perspective
1. The empirical basis of sociology
2. The debunking tendency
C. Central Sociological Concepts
1. Social interaction
2. Social structure
3. Social Change
D. The Emergence of Sociology
1. The influence of the Enlightenment
2. Classical sociological theory (Durkheim, Marx, Weber)
3. The emergence of American sociology (Addams, Park, DuBois, Cooley, Mead, Thomas, Znaniecki)
E. Sociological Theory
1. Functionalism
2. Conflict theory
3. Symbolic interaction
4. Exchange-rational choice
5. Feminist theory
|II. Research Methods
A. The Research Process
1. Scientific method
2. Stages of research
3. Qualitative and quantitative research
4. Inductive/deductive reasoning
B. Methods of Inquiry
1. Survey Research
2. Interviews
3. Participant observation
4. Content Analysis
5. Comparative and historical analysis
C. Probability and Statistical Analysis
D. Research Ethics
|III. Culture
A. Group influence
1. Social basis of belief – Asch experiments on social influence
2. Authority and domination – Milgram experiments: obedience to authority
3. Attribution theory – "fundamental attribution error" (bias towards attributing responsibility to individuals), accounts and accountability (Garfinkel)
4. Interpersonal attraction – homophily (tendency to choose similar partners
B. The Social Construction of the Self
1. The modern "self" as historical product of Christianity and the Enlightenment
2. Cross-cultural variation in selves (Nisbett; Shweder)
3. Selves as constructed out of situations – (Michels; Goffman, Collins)
4. Rational choice – as socially constructed
C. Characteristics and Elements of Culture
1. Scripts, schema, and typifications
2. Language
3. Norms and Values
4. Beliefs
D. Cultural Diversity
1. Ethnocentrism
2. Subcultures and countercultures
E. Culture in Society
1. Culture as cohesive, functional
2. Cultural as source of improvisation, diversity, innovation
3. Popular culture and the mass media
|IV. Socialization
A. The Social Construction of the Self
B. Theories of Socialization
1. Freud and the psychoanalytic perspective
2. Social learning theory
3. Cooley, Mead and symbolic interaction
C. Agents of Socialization
D. Socialization over the Life Course
1. Rites of passage
2. Adult socialization
3. Conversion
|V. Social Organization
A. Building Blocks
1. Roles and Statuses
2. Institutions
3. Social networks
a. Depicting networks
b. Dimensions of networks
c. Using network analysis, e.g. Getting jobs, Fighting the AIDs epidemic
B. Social Differentiation
1. Size, scale, and differentiation
2. Differentiation and specialization
3. Changing bases of solidarity (mechanical and organic solidarity)
4. Problems of cooperation and coordination in complex social systems
C.Ways of organizing cooperation
1. Kinship as a basis of organization
a. Historical and contemporary examples
b. Weaknesses of kinship-based systems
2. Bureaucracy as a solution to weaknesses of kinship-based structures
a. Characteristics of bureaucracy (formal roles, specialization based on expertise, clear duties and obligations, hierarchical command and information structures, compliance based on career incentives, and formal records for control and planning)
b. Advantages of bureaucracy (efficiency; expertise; control)
c. Limitations of bureaucracy (flexibility; adaptability; power concentration)
d. Varieties of bureaucracy (e.g., typical western manufacturing firm; Japanese firm; professional nonprofit service organizations; "new economy" firms)
3. Markets as social organizations (economic sociology)
a. What is a market and how sociologists differ from economists in looking at them
b. Markets as groups with roles and statuses
c. Markets as institutions (relation to law and government)
d. Virtues and limitations of markets as ways of organizing
4. Informal networks
a. The persistent importance of informal networks
i. in bureaucracies
ii. in markets
b. Informal networks and "social capital"
c. The dark side of informal networks (e.g., criminal networks)
|VI. Social Inequalities
A. Social Class and Social Stratification
1. Defining and measuring social class
2. The consequences of class inequality
3. Models of social class
a. Marx and class conflict
b. Weber's multidimensional model of class
c. contemporary class analyses
4. The class structure of the United States
a. the distribution of wealth and income inequality
b. social mobility and status attainment
c. intersections of race, class, gender, and age
5. Class consciousness
6. Poverty and welfare
7. Global stratification
a. rich and poor nations
b. world systems theory
c. international poverty
B. Race and Ethnicity
1. Definitions of race and ethnicity
2. The social construction of race
a. racialization
b. racial formation theory
3. Prejudice, discrimination and institutional racism
4. Consequences of racial stratification
a. racial segregation
b. race, ethnicity, and life chances
5. Diverse group experiences
6. Intersections of class and race
C. Gender
1. Distinguish sex and gender; the social construction of gender
2. Patterns of gender socialization
3. Gender and sexual identity
4. Gendered Institutions
a. gender and work
b. gender segregation
5. The women's movement
D. Age
1. Social significance of aging
2. Age stereotypes and age discrimination
3. Ageing and the life course
4. Age cohorts
5. Age stratification
6. The demography of aging
|VII. Deviance and Conformity
A. Sociological Definitions of Deviance
1. Positive deviance
2. Negative deviance
3. Deviance and the Deviant
4. Types of Youth Deviance
B. Costs and Benefits of Deviance
1. Functionalism
2. Social Control
3. Structural Strain
a. Anomie
b. Innovation
c. Ritualism
d. Retreatism
e. Rebellion
4. Conflict Theory
5. Labeling Theory
C. Deviant Identities
1. Deviant subcultures/communities
2. Deviant careers
3. Stigma
D. Measuring Crime
1. Crime
a. Juvenile Crime
b. White Collar Crime
2. Crime Control
a. Deterrence
b. Retribution
c. Incarceration
d. Rehabilitation
e. Recidivism
3. Terrorism
E. Race, Class, Gender, and Crime
F. Criminal Justice System
1. Criminal Justice System
2. Courts
3. Law Enforcement
4. Prisons
|VIII. Social Institutions
A. Family
1. Forms of kinship
2. Diversity in family forms
3. Marriage and divorce
4. Family violence
5. Families and social policy
B. Education
1. the rise of public education
2. Education and social mobility
3. Inequality and education
a. teacher expectations
b. tracking
c. educational segregation
d. inequality and educational testing
e. school funding and facilities
f. the digital divide and information technology
4. Education and social reform/social policy
C. Religion
1. Measuring religiosity
2. Influence of religion on social and political attitudes/behavior
3. Forms of religion
4. Diverse world religions
5. Religious organizations/institutions
6. Religion, secularization, and social change
D. Work/Economy
1. Influence of the Industrial revolution
2. Comparative economies
3. The occupational system
a. the division of labor
b. occupational distribution
c. occupational prestige
d. earnings
4. Work and de-industrialization
a. the rise of contingent labor
b. growth of the service sector
c. unionization
5. Worker alienation
E. Power, Politics, and Government
1. Power and authority
2. Theories of power
3. Political participation
4. Government: who rules?
5. Courts and the law
6. Military
F. Media and Culture
1. Media conglomerates
2. Studies of media effects (violence, etc.)
3. Popular culture
4. "High" culture
G. Health
1. Inequality and access to health care
2. Structure of health care institutions
3. Delivery of health care
4. Death and Dying
|IX. Social Change
A. Population, Urbanization and the Environment
1. Demographic processes
a. birth rate/death rate
b. migration
c. population growth and composition (illustrate demographic transition theory)
2. Urbanization
a. the evolution of cities
b. suburbanization and urban decline
c. segregation
d. megalopolis
e. the rural turnaround
3. Environment and Human Ecology
a. environmental racism
b. ecofeminism
c. environmental policy
B. Collective Behavior and Social Movements
1. Theories of collective behavior
a. emergent norm theory
b. competition theory
c. convergence theory
2. Types of collective behavior
a. Crowds
i. Mobs and riots. Contagion and emergence theories.
b. Mass Behavior
i. Rumor
ii. Public opinion and propaganda
iii. Panic and mass hysteria
iv. Fads and fashion
3. Social Movements
a. How movements develop
b. Organization of social movements
c. Strategies and tactics
d. Theories of social movements: resource mobilization, political process, new social movement theory.
C. Causes and Consequences of Social Change
1. Demographic changes
2. Collective behavior/social movements
3. Technology and science
4. Cultural diffusion
5. War
6. Modernization
D. Theories of Social Change
1. World systems theory
2. Dependency theory
3. Evolutionary theory
Course Narrative
I. The Sociological PerspectiveII. Research Methods
III. CultureIV. Socialization
V. Social OrganizationVI. Social Inequalities
VII. Deviance and ConformityVIII. Social Institutions
IX. Social Change
I. The Sociological Perspective
This section of the course introduces students to the discipline of sociology, focusing on its history, the questions and scientific methods that characterize it as a field, and what distinguishes it from other social science disciplines. Included in this definition is the ongoing evolution of sociology as a discipline that is both basic science and applied science. Important in this perspective are the elements of sociological practice and possible careers in sociology at all levels of academic preparation.
Specific topics include: the definition of sociology as an empirical discipline, careers that persons prepared in sociology may undertake, the central concepts of social interaction and relationships, social structure, social contexts, and social change, the significance of diversity and human variation (such as in race, gender, age, and social and economic class), and the debunking character of sociology.
The first two units of the course introduce students to the dynamic interplay between theory and the logic of the scientific method in sociology. Learners will become aware of the core theoretical perspectives and the process of developing theory. They will recognize that sociology is a science: it is a creative and, simultaneously, disciplined activity with a bit of serendipity!
The history of sociology is grounded in social and ideological changes in Western Europe and America, specifically the Enlightenment and American pragmatism. Contributions of classical sociological theorists such as Durkheim, Marx, and Weber are examined in combination with major scholars prominent in the emergence of American sociology.
Sociological theory attempts to explain in a coherent manner the varieties of societal organization and of social behaviors. Students should understand that though it is posed at an abstract level, sociological theory is continually being refined as it is made to confront empirical reality.
Students should become familiar with the major sociological approaches --functionalism, conflict theory, symbolic interactionism, exchange theory, and feminist theory -- to the explanation of social life. Beginning with the question "What makes society possible?" students should be introduced to approaches that explain the formation of groups, their behaviors, the nature of social organization, and attendant variations.
With functionalism (Durkheim, Parsons), students should be aware of the analogy of society to an organism, the assumption of consensus that underlies social life, and ways that society organizes itself to sanction deviance so that it may return to equilibrium. Students should also be aware of the criticisms of functionalism regarding its difficulty in dealing with social change.
Conflict theory (Marx, Weber) introduces students to the notion that societal stability may come from stable power relations rather than from an underlying consensus. Students should become aware of the multiplicity of conflicting interests in society as well as how changes in resources may, among other factors, lead to major social change. The difficulty of conflict theory in predicting precisely where the fissures in a given society are and when they may erupt is a recurring criticism.
Symbolic interactionism (Blumer, Goffman) focuses the student's attention on how human interaction creates rules and meanings that then structure further interactions. An inductive, qualitative approach to the understanding of individual and group interaction in a variety of contexts is the common orientation of symbolic interactionists. Students should understand that symbolic interactionism's social-psychological focus often prevents its understanding of the larger structural contexts in which its actors operate.
Exchange theory (Blau, Homans, Coleman) brings issues of rational choice to the fore. Students should understand the ways in which relationships of trust and power may develop as people pursue their self-interest. The degree to which exchange theory is relevant largely to interactions among individuals (rather than groups) and is contextually based in the larger culture should be understood.
Feminist theory (Gilman, Rossi, Millett) focuses on the ways that gender systems structure our daily interactions as well as larger systems of power in society. Many feminist theorists focus not only on how patriarchal societies are set up in ways that disadvantage women but on how the effects of patriarchy articulate with other systems of domination, such as class- and race-based domination. From theories of sexual politics to sociobiology to economic and materialist approaches, feminist theory provides a variety of perspectives on relations of power in society. Feminist theories differ radically in how they incorporate other approaches to the study of social life.
II. Research Methods
Learners will connect the use and construction of theory with the application of diverse research methods to answer sociological questions. Over the years, philosophers, religious leaders, journalists, and many others have speculated about human society. Students will learn how sociology differs from these other enterprises because sociology applies relevant theories and scientific methods to the study of society. The methods are not pre-determined; they depend upon the question being asked. Sometimes the endeavor is exploratory; sometimes it is to test a specific theoretical proposition; it is always systematic. Students will learn how the theory-method process develops and uses a strategy that requires stating a clear question or hypothesis, developing data to address the question or test the hypothesis, and then judging whether the question is answered or the hypothesis is supported. They will learn further that a scientific approach requires that the methods be stated clearly so that other sociologists might repeat the study to confirm the results.
Coverage includes both qualitative and quantitative research, basic and applied research contexts as well as review of different methodologies, including survey research, interviewing, participant observation, content analysis, historical and comparative research. Basic concepts of statistical analysis are also included, along with discussion of probability and measurement. In addition, the course will examine the questions of ethics in research and the role of values in sociological analysis. The scientific method operates in an ethical context. As such, it does not permit the sociologist to conceal or ignore information that fails to support the hypothesis. It also requires that sociological researchers safeguard the human subjects who are a part of their research. Also included is the use of the internet in research, with a focus on judging the reliability and validity of information found on the internet.
Students will learn how hypotheses are formulated using concepts and relevant sociological theory. For example, a sociologist might develop the hypothesis, "The rate of juvenile delinquency in a neighborhood is inversely related to the predominant social class of the neighborhood." The root of this hypothesis lies in one or more key sociological theories. To put this hypothesis more concretely, the rate of juvenile delinquency will be higher in low-status neighborhoods and it will be lower in high-status neighborhoods. The rate of juvenile delinquency can be measured from publicly available information on juvenile convictions and census data on the number of teenagers in a neighborhood. The rate of juvenile delinquency is a variable, because its value will differ from place to place. Students will learn how a concept such as "social class" is often not easy to measure, and so sociologists must "operationalize" the variable, which means to designate a measurable indicator that approximates the concept. So, for example, a sociologist might measure social class or status with the variables annual income and occupational prestige. In testing this hypothesis, the sociologist is expecting that neighborhoods with more high income and high occupational prestige residents will have lower juvenile delinquency rates, while neighborhoods with more low income and low occupational prestige residents will have higher rates.
Hypotheses are often tested using a sample of the population of interest. Students will learn how sociologists have developed careful techniques for drawing mathematically accurate samples of the population. Administering a questionnaire to a sample of the population is much less expensive and more accurate than trying to question everyone within a population.
In developing explanations, students will learn how sociologists are careful to distinguish the types of variables they are investigating. In general, a dependent variable is the variable being studied. An independent variable is a variable believed to vary with the dependent variable; the independent variable is often relatively fixed (such as one's gender), or it occurred earlier than the dependent variable (such as childhood experience). In the example in the preceding paragraph, the dependent variable is juvenile delinquency rate, and the independent variables are family income and the occupational prestige of workers in the family. Notice, however, that high parental income may be associated with a low juvenile delinquency rate, but it does not necessarily cause a low juvenile delinquency rate. Instead, the relationship may be mediated in various ways. For example, wealthier parents may be able to provide more activities for their teens, or they may be able to hire better lawyers if their teens do get into trouble. Drawing on theoretical foundations, students will learn that to assess a causal relationship between variables, it is necessary 1) to establish the time order of the variables (with the independent variable coming before the dependent variable), 2) to establish that the variables are correlated, and 3) to rule out any competing hypotheses. Suppose, for example, that a researcher finds that ice cream consumption is inversely related to juvenile delinquency rates. This finding does not prove that ice cream prevents juvenile delinquency. Instead, this hypothesis may be misspecified because the wrong independent variable has been named. Perhaps parents with higher income can buy more ice cream, so that higher income co-varies positively with more ice cream and also co-varies negatively with the juvenile delinquency rate.
Students will learn that sociologists collect their data through a number of research methods. One of the most common is the social survey, in which a sample of people respond to a questionnaire that is administered on paper, in a personal interview, by telephone, or over the internet. Sociologists may also engage in a participant observation, in which they become part of a group they seek to understand. Some sociologists, like psychologists, conduct experiments, while others rely principally on historical or archival data to test their hypotheses. The choice of data collection methods depends upon the kind of data that are needed to test a hypothesis. Some hypotheses may be tested through multiple methods. Students will learn how sociologists tabulate their data using statistical methods, some of which are highly sophisticated. It is common to report measures of central tendency for each variable, for example, the mean or median values. It is also common to report a measure of the spread from the mean, such as the standard deviation or interquartile range. Measures of association indicate whether and/or how closely two variables are related to each other. A measure of association such as chi-square can show if the relationship of two variables might have happened by chance or if it is a significant relationship; it is also possible to calculate the strength of an association through the use of a correlation coefficient. When sociologists measure one variable taking into account the effect of a second variable, they are said to "control" for the second variable, and multivariate statistics are sophisticated means to control simultaneously for the effects of many independent variables.
Students of sociology will learn how to assess the adequacy of research reported in newspapers, websites, and other places. In general, it is important to be able to tell how the research was done, whether competing hypotheses were adequately examined, and whether the appropriate variables were controlled. Studies that contain little information about how the data were collected and analyzed – in particular, studies that cannot be done again by another researcher – are suspect.
III. Culture
This section of the course introduces students to the concept of culture as the realm of socially constructed and, to varying extents, shared ideas, understandings, mental models, modes of categorization, values, speech forms, and traditions. Culture-making is a fundamental human capacity: Cultural phenomena can be observed at any level of analysis, from small groups of short duration to large-scale national societies to the world system as a whole. Culture includes the shared belief systems, rituals, and conversational styles of small groups, as well as societally pervasive ways of seeing that are passed from generation to generation. Although many people, including high school students, may see culture as an unyielding part of their environment, at any scale it is a human creation, and sociologists understand it as such.
This section begins by looking at culture in small groups, with examples from classic social psychological experiments of how group pressures can influence (and thus shape culturally) such phenomena as beliefs about the natural world (for example, assessments of the length of a line) or deeply held moral values (for example, against inflicting pain). Small groups both produce culture (as in minimal-group experiments, where randomly assigned groups create elaborate beliefs about themselves and others based on trivial cues) and reflect it (as in research experiments demonstrating how cultural stereotypes shape the interpretation of behavior of members of a task group). Examples are considered that show how culture arises from situational contexts, how it changes, and how it influences human behavior.
A particularly important aspect of culture deals with the social construction of individuality and the modern "self." This section focuses on this issue because it is related to one of the greatest challenges facing teachers of introductory sociology: the challenge of convincing students that social environments have causal force and that not everything can be explained by reference to individual choices, human error, personal heroism, or moral deficiencies. In part, people everywhere tend to favor such interpretations, but especially so in Europe and the Americas. At least from the Reformation and the Enlightenment onward, the western cultural tradition has placed a strong emphasis on the autonomy of the individual as a moral actor with organized preferences and goals and a coherent personality and system of values. Social psychologists have discovered that this emphasis leads people to favor interpretations of events and behaviors that highlight the coherence of the individual personality and the causal force of individual choice and action --- even when experiments are rigged to make outcomes random, or evidence of individual inconsistency is abundant. The tendency of people to overestimate the causal importance of individual choice and to minimize the effects of environmental constraint is so strong that psychologists have coined a special term, "the fundamental attribution error," to describe it.
The next part of this section describes various elements of culture that sociologists study. Just as students of "social structure" break down their topic into more elementary units in order to study it, students of "culture" address different kinds of cultural "stuff" in their research. Some elements of culture are so deeply institutionalized and so much a part of elementary socialization that they shape the very ways in which people think: examples include mental models (pre-conscious scripts and schemas that structure perception and action), or categorical schemes that people use to divide up the world and sort people and things into categories. Other elements of culture – especially norms, values, or moral tenets – can be more readily articulated and serve as yardsticks for evaluating oneself and others. Still other aspects of culture, like rituals and language, are performative, embedding meaning in human action.
Sociologists inherited the notion of culture from anthropologists who studied relatively small-scale, structurally simple, societies where most people shared similar beliefs and participated in the same rituals. At first, sociologists, too, viewed culture as a source of societal unity and cohesion, a kind of social "glue" that held groups and nations together. More recently, sociologists who study culture have focused on the ways in which group and national cultures may be varied and inconsistent. Rather than seeing culture as a source of constraint and unity, they view culture as a source of creativity and innovation, a "toolkit" of ideas, resources, and ways of seeing that people deploy in varied ways. This change reflects some developments in scholarship: for example, new work in social and cognitive psychology that suggests that people's beliefs are less consistent and more complex than we had previously thought, as well as research in sociology on phenomena (for example, the rapid emergence in many places of religious or ideological or artistic countercultures) that call into question the traditional view. The change also reflects developments in the real world, especially multiculturalism and globalization. With respect to multiculturalism, a dramatic increase in transnational migration has men and women raised in many places and in many cultural traditions living side by side throughout the world. Meanwhile, the emergence of global media of communications has rendered the voices, ideas, music and art of people from every continent and civilization nearly as available as those from one's own village or metropolis. In such a world, sociologists increasingly must ask not "what is these people's culture?" but rather, "how do these people balance and navigate among the variety of cultures with which they come into daily contact"? This section of the course enables the instructor to explore with students the ways in which different aspects of culture serve, at different times and in different ways, as sources of cohesion, as springboards for innovation or creativity, or as bases of social conflict.
IV. Socialization
Socialization is learning to become a member of the groups and society in which one lives, and is one way that societies continue through time. The course considers such key questions as: Who or what are the primary agents of socialization? What happens when infants receive very little human contact? When does socialization occur, and how does it differ at various stages of the life cycle? What role do "rites of passage" play in transitions through the life course? How do sociologists analyze the contents and context of socialization? How do various sociological perspectives illuminate socialization processes? What do sociologists mean by resocialization and desocialization?
V. Social Organization and Social Networks
Human societies routinely accomplish what, when one thinks about it, are remarkable feats of coordination: providing food and shelter, waging war, producing rituals and spiritual meanings, fostering technological innovation, and governing, all of which require the participation of many people in a complex set of interactions. The study of social organization provides the tools for understanding the range of forms and processes that enable people to accomplish such routine miracles of social choreography.
This section begins with some basic ideas. Statuses are the more or less formally acknowledged positions that constitute any social system, and roles represent the stereotyped behaviors that go with those statuses. Because many roles fit with other roles into complementary relationships, they constitute basic building blocks of larger collectivities. Institutions are larger complexes of purposive activity, oriented around particular tasks that most societies share: for example, educating the young, providing religious services, or coordinating trade in goods and services. In between are social networks, an increasingly prominent concept in all the social sciences. This section will introduce these ideas and illustrate ways in which sociologists use them to analyze concrete social groups and societies. (Because "social networks" may be less familiar than the other terms to many teachers, we provide more detail in the outline, calling attention to research showing how robust social networks help people get desirable jobs and how social network analysis has cast light on the HIV epidemic.)
A central idea in the study of social organization since Durkheim has been the notion that as groups and societies increase in scale, the tasks of fulfilling basic and not-so-basic social needs become ever more challenging. Over the long haul, the challenges associated with increases in scale (the population of a tribe or community, the number of employees of a business) lead to increasing differentiation as people, groups, and role systems specialize around particular tasks or functions. As societies go through this process, we see the emergence of specialized institutions. We also see changes in the basis of social solidarity, from systems in which most people share strong identities and values to ones in which cohesion comes as much from cooperation in a complex division of labor as from shared culture.
In the largest-scale and most complex societies – those that include millions of people within modern nation-states – the challenges of providing the necessities of life and maintaining political order require truly extraordinary feats of coordination. The rest of the section examines the social technologies available to people in complex societies for collective activities. In pre-modern societies, the fundamental basis of social organization is kinship, and kinship remains an important basis of organization and solidarity in contemporary societies, as well. But it has been supplemented, as Max Weber wrote, by bureaucracies, a form of organization that solves some of the problems of coordination and effectiveness that vexed the earliest large-scale societies. This section describes the key characteristics of bureaucracy as a form of organization, contrasting it to pre-modern conditions and considering both its strengths and its disadvantages. It also describes the variety of ways in which people have modified conventional bureaucracies to match specific cultural values or to adapt to rapid environmental change.
Even modern societies, however, rely only partially on bureaucracies. A second important form comprises different kinds of economic markets, in which large-scale activity is organized through exchanges directed by prices. Although Max Weber pioneered the sociological study of markets (placing them alongside bureaucracy as powerful modern forms of organization), many sociologists left the study of markets to economists, until returning to it with new interest and energy with the renewal of "economic sociology" in the 1980s. Unlike contemporary economists, whose approach to markets is almost always abstract and mathematical, sociologists use a variety of approaches and tools – ethnographic and historical as well as mathematical-- to study markets, in all their variety, as ways of organizing production and trade.
Finally, informal social networks based on different forms of interpersonal trust, remain a central part of the social organization of modern societies. Some networks lubricate the operation of bureaucracies and markets. Examples of these are the informal ties that bind members of some successful small-business associations, or that produce the "social capital" evident in effective local governments or social movements. In other cases, informal social networks--- for example, the ones that bind together organized crime families or international terrorist organizations--- may pose grave economic and political threats to the societies in which they operate.
VI. Social Inequalities
This section of the course explores how rewards and opportunities are differentially distributed to individuals and groups. Students of sociology understand that patterns of inequality are based on a variety of sources. The course examines how sociologists define and measure social class, race and ethnicity, and gender (age, region, and other variables may be added). Importantly, students learn how these variable affect one's access to different resources and opportunities. The course explores how resources and opportunities are connected to larger patterns of power and privilege in a given society. A key aspect of the study of social stratification is an understanding of how these patterns of inequality are maintained and challenged. Students should understand that societies differ based on the degree of inequality they exhibit and that different dimensions of inequality intersect and reinforce one another; thus, the course will examine how race, class, gender, and age intersect in the structure of a given society.
Several questions are discussed, including "Why is there inequality?" What are the different dimensions of inequality? What different explanations of inequality are there? Why does inequality persist?" Inequality both within the United States and globally are examined, along with discussion of the impact that inequality has (its impact on access to the information economy, health care, the environment, and patterns of wealth and income differentials, for example).
A. Social Class
The course will include detailed analysis of the significance of social class and the class system in determining life chances. Definitions and different models of social class are presented, as well as research on social mobility, poverty, and trends in inequality within the United States and beyond. The course includes an analysis of the global system of stratification, including discussion of cross-national differences in the standing of different nations in the global stratification system.
B. Race and Ethnicity
The component of this section on race and ethnicity covers the sociological definition of race as a social construction, as well as discussion of the significance of ethnicity--both as a source of identity and stratification. Brief histories of the experience of diverse race and ethnic groups are included. Important concepts reviewed in this section, with current research, are prejudice, discrimination, and institutional racism. Research on patterns of racial segregation and the interaction of race and class is included.
C. Gender
The study of gender includes the study of gender as a source of stratification, as well as sociological research on the social construction of gender. The concept of gendered institutions is included, along with analysis of gender segregation and the sociological frameworks for studying gender that have been developed. Also discussed is the development of the women's movement and social policies for gender equity.
D. Age
The section on age includes age as a source of stratification, but also covers the study of aging and the life course. Age stereotyping is analyzed as well as the social factors that influence the aging process. Important concepts that are included are age cohorts and age norms. The significance of the demographic structure of age is also reviewed, especially the current "graying of America." Age prejudice, age discrimination, and ageism are also reviewed.
VII. Deviance and Conformity
This section of the course distinguishes sociological definitions of deviance from biological and psychological definitions of deviance, emphasizing the importance of social reaction in its definition. When patterns of daily life are disrupted on a systematic or long-term basis, social order is in peril. Students should understand what forces in a society allow for or encourage the breakdown of social order and/or the disorganization of social control (e.g. socialization, the criminal justice system, etc.). When a corporation that employs a large percentage of a town's adults decides to leave town resulting in considerable out-migration, social order is potentially threatened. When individuals or groups are fundamentally excluded from access to the resources necessary to live according to the ideals of the society, they are more likely to engage in actions that are not sanctioned. Students will learn to ask: which actions are defined as threatening to the social order or deviant and who makes that determination? When do such actions lead individuals to "deviant careers" and when might they be part of a "deviant subculture"?
Students should understand that when terms such as "mentally ill," "juvenile delinquents," or "criminals" are applied to individuals who have violated some usual ways of behaving, agents of social control are labeling them. The specific behaviors that are characterized in these ways are historically variable and who gets so labeled is dependent on the characteristics of the person (say, their race, class, and gender). Thus, alcohol purveyors were "criminals" during Prohibition (between 1920 and 1933) but not at other times. Also, individuals from subordinate social groups are more likely to be labeled as "criminal" than those from dominant groups, for example. Students will understand how having power in a society is related to the capacity to label behaviors or individuals as deviant. The course will examine how, after a person is labeled as deviant, the organization of the judicial or youth welfare system ensures that the deviant is publicly judged and, if found guilty or wanting, ultimately punished.
The course will examine the various sanctioning rituals that reinforce the social order, and analyze their relationship to the interests of dominant groups.
In this context, students should explore empirically patterns of crime, arrest rates, and prison sentences as well as patterns of "mental illness" or "juvenile delinquency." They will be able to say how such rates vary by race, class, and gender.
VIII. Social Institutions
This section of the course reviews the social structure of major social institutions, including the family, education, religion, the economy and work, government, and health care. Major questions asked include how institutions are organized, how inequality is reproduced and/or challenged in institutions, how institutions change, and how institutions vary across and within different societies/cultures. Students will understand what sociologists mean by social institutions, and will understand examples of major social institutions in Western societies. The course will analyze how social institutions develop as they do in different societies.
A. Families
Material included on families will include study of the diversity of family forms now common in the United States, a comparison of different kinship systems, sociological theories of family structure and family experience, data on marital status and living arrangements, social changes affecting patterns of marriage and divorce. Also included is a discussion of family violence and the social problems affecting contemporary families.. Major questions asked are: What are the major types of families -- in the US and in other societies? How has the form of the family changed over time? How do families adapt over the life cycles of its members? How does power operate within families? Are there social class and race differences in family organization? How do gay and lesbian families organize themselves? How does sociological research inform social policies about families?
B. Education
Material on education includes the study of inequality and education, including patterns of tracking, race and class segregation, the connection between education and social mobility, inequality and educational testing, and the sociological study of school reforms. Questions asked include: What is the difference between education and schooling? Why were schools formed in various societies? When, where, and why did formal schooling become required? What are schools asked to do in various types of societies? What is home schooling, and where and why does it occur? How is education supported (funded) in different types of societies? Have the purposes of education changed during the course of U.S. history? What about in other countries around the world? Who decides the content of education, and how is this done? What is the "hidden curriculum" of schools? Who decides the educational processes that occur? How and where are decisions about educational structures made? What is "tracking"? What are some of the ways and places that education occurs besides in schools? How does the institution of education relate to other social institutions? How is education related to social stratification? What data can be used to analyze that relationship?
C. Religion
The study of religion includes comparative discussion of diverse religious forms, including the classical study of religion from Durkheim, Weber, and Marx. Patterns of religious belief are reviewed, as well as the influence of religion on social and political attitudes and behavior. The structure of diverse religious institutions (churches, sects, and cults) is reviewed, as well as processes of religious socialization. The role of religion in influencing and being influenced by social change is also covered. Questions asked include: What are the major religions in given societies and how are they organized? What is the difference between a church and a sect? How do people understand their religious behavior? What is fundamentalist religion? Evangelical religion? What is the cause of religious conflict? How do religious behaviors vary by race/ethnicity, social class, and gender? How do religious organizations interact with other organizations in the society, e.g., the state?
D. Economy and Work
In studying the economy and work, the influence of the Industrial Revolution is discussed, as well as contemporary patterns of change that are affecting the organization of the economy and work. Thus, the course discusses deindustrialization and the role of changed technology in influencing work institutions and patterns of work in the United States and globally. Patterns of occupational distribution and segregation by race, class, and gender are covered, as well as discussion of worker alienation and issues of power in the workplace. Questions asked include: How do societies differ in how they organize the production and distribution of goods and services? How is a corporation organized? What are the various roles and relations of authority within corporations? Under what conditions do workers unionize? What is a profession? How are processes of globalization influencing the social organization of work?
E. Government: Power and Authority
The section on government and the state reviews patterns of power and authority in society, as well as analyzing the structure of the following institutions: government, the courts and law, the military. Different theoretical models of the state are reviewed, as well as patterns of political participation and political process. Questions asked include: How do different societies organize their political systems? How are interests aggregated and expressed in different types of political systems? What are political parties and how do they operate? How do we study power in a given society or community? How do we understand patterns of disenfranchisement and enfranchisement? Who participates in politics and how do they do so? How do voting patterns differ by race/ethnicity, social class, and gender?
F. Media and Culture
The growth of media conglomerates, the study of media effects, the influence of popular culture, and the distinction between "high" culture and other culture are all aspects of the institutions of media and culture. Sociological analysis of these important institutions in society are included.
G. Health Care
In the section on health care, the structure of health care institutions is covered, with a focus on patterns of access and inequality. Sociological analysis of current issues facing health care institutions are also included, as well as discussion of the sociology of death and dying.
IX. Social Change
This section of the course introduces students to various processes that lead to or constitute change. Urbanization, globalization, social movements, and diffusion are some of the ways that particular societies and, indeed, the world change.
A. Population, Urbanization and the Environment
Materials for this section include conditions under which groups move from rural to urban areas or from one country to another and the impact this has on the sending and receiving areas. It also considers how groups adapt in the new environment and what the receiving areas do, if anything, to accommodate them. Questions asked include why do some areas have high birth and death rates? What are some factors which push people to migrate? What is the Demographic Transition Theory? What are some processes of urbanization? Why are some urban areas highly segregated? What are some factors which contribute to suburbanization? How does the population impact on the environment? What are some factors which contribute to environmental racism and ecofeminism?
B. Collective Behavior and Social Movements
Materials for this topic include a discussion of emergent forms of social behavior, that is, collective behavior and the mobilization of social groups through social movements. Questions the section addresses include: What are theories of collective behavior? What are some types of collective behavior? What are social movements? Under what conditions may social movements form?
C. Causes and Consequences of Social Change
Students will examine causes as well as consequences of social change, and the macrolevel patterns of change that sociologists have analyzed as significant over time, such as the movement to an increasingly rationalized, bureaucratized form of society.
D. Theories of Social Change
Students focus on the major theories of social change such as Modernization, World Systems, and Dependency theories.
A college education leaves the graduate better prepared for career and citizenship. Certainly we must believe that if we continue to value college enough to spend the time and money that goes into a four-year baccalaureate. But what precisely are the new attainments that the college curriculum makes possible for the student?
Consider sociology. There were 26,500 sociology baccalaureate degrees awarded in 2009 in U.S. universities, and certainly many times that number of students who were taking courses in sociology or pursuing a major or minor in the field. Forty three percent of those degrees were awarded to students of color -- up from 30 percent in 1995. (These data are reported on the website of the American Sociological Association.) So there are a lot of sociology graduates. But why is this a good thing? In what ways is it valuable for undergraduates to major in sociology? What does this discipline contribute to the undergraduate's knowledge and skills when it comes to preparation for a productive career and life as a citizen and leader in a rapidly changing world?
The most basic justification for a liberal education is the idea that these disciplines help students gain important qualities of mind that lay the foundations they will need for productive and innovative lives -- rigor, critical reasoning, creativity, communications skills, ethical capacities, respect for human diversity, and the like. Martha Nussbaum describes these ideals in Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education. So how does sociology fit into that idea? What are the qualities of mind that a sociology education cultivates?
One good way to address this question is to ask a sociology professor. What do sociology professors expect their graduates to have gained from the experience? I asked this question of Alford Young, chair of the department of sociology at the University of Michigan. Al is a talented and productive sociologist whose research concerns the experience of young African-American men. His recent book, The Minds of Marginalized Black Men: Making Sense of Mobility, Opportunity, and Future Life Chances, is an important contribution to the fields of cultural sociology and the sociology of race and poverty. (Here is a post on this innovative book.) And Al has thought long and hard about what he hopes that undergraduate sociology students will learn from the experience.
Al begins with the fact that sociology students learn some of the organized and rigorous methods that contemporary sociologists use to understand the contemporary social world. They learn about statistical reasoning, qualitative research, and sociological theory, and these skills provide them with a foundation for understanding the social world around them throughout their lives. But there is more to it than this. Al argues that the contemporary social world is one in which patterns of power and hierarchy are constantly changing, and it is very important for well educated young people to have the tools to piece together their own understandings of how these social forces work. Here is Al's summary:
Sociology is the discipline that gives the greatest attention to social difference -- social hierarchy, the relevance of social power in everyday life. Sociology allows for consideration of things that are not immediately visible in our ordinary lives, and often not neatly understandable. These things are relevant to how social life is structured and organized. We need to look beyond people's individual motivations or their psychological foundations and gain a better understanding of how people's social location with regard to gender or race influences their thinking and behavior. We often don't notice those factors and how they influence us and the opportunities we have. These matter very much in ordinary life.
This comes down to several convincing points. First, sociology is a scientific discipline. It teaches students to use empirical data to understand current social realities. And sociologists use a variety of empirical research methods, from quantitative research to qualitative methods, to comparative and historical studies. Students who study sociology as undergraduates will certainly be exposed to the use of statistics as a method for representing and analyzing complex social phenomena; they will also be exposed to qualitative tools like interviews, focus groups, and participant-observer data. So a sociology education helps the student to think like a social scientist -- attentive to facts, probing with hypotheses, offering explanations, critical in offering and assessing arguments for conclusions.
Second, the content of sociology is particularly important in our rapidly changing social world. Sociology promises to provide data and theory that help to better understand the human and social realities we confront. Moreover, the discipline is defined around the key social issues we all need to understand better than we currently do, and our policy makers need to understand if they are to design policies that allow for social progress: for example, race, poverty, urbanization, inequalities, globalization, immigration, environmental change, gender, power, and class. We might say that an important part of the value of a sociology education is that it gives the student a better grasp of the dynamics of these key social processes.
So sociology is indeed a valuable part of a university education. It provides a foundation for better understanding and engaging with the globalizing world our young people will need to navigate and lead. It provides students with the intellectual tools needed to make sense of the shifting and conflictual social world we live in, and this in turn permits them to contribute to solutions for the most difficult social problems that we face.
Follow Daniel Little on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dlittle30


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Now that Saints interim head coach Joe Vitt has returned from his six-game suspension at the start of the season and gotten a couple of games under his belt, there are some things he wishes had been handled differently in his absence. And one is the use of the deep group of running backs.
In a conference call with the Atlanta media before the Saints' game with the Falcons, Vitt said that he believes Pierre Thomas, Chris Ivory and Mark Ingram didn't get involved enough in the offense while he was gone, and he made a point of changing that in the Saints' Monday night win over the Eagles.
"For the first time this past week, we really dedicated ourselves to finding a role for these guys and [did some] game-planning to their strengths," Vitt said of Ivory and Ingram. "To be quite frank, they were underutilized early in the season."
Vitt may not have meant that as a criticism of Aaron Kromer, who ran the show during Vitt's suspension for the Saints' bounty program, but it does suggest that he wasn't totally on board with the way Kromer handled things. And Vitt may be right, especially about Ivory and Ingram: Ivory didn't play at all in the first seven games of the season, but he had 10 carries for 48 yards on Monday night. And Ingram was averaging just 25 rushing yards a game and had caught only one pass all season heading into Monday night, but he had 54 rushing yards, plus two catches for 23 yards, against the Eagles.
Of course, Monday night was also the first game this season when the Saints didn't have Darren Sproles, which is a big part of the reason they needed to get Ivory and Ingram more involved. But a couple of weeks after Ivory indicated that he felt underutilized, his coach is now agreeing with that assessment.