Sociology Course Notes: Objectives, Policies, and Weekly Topics

Course Objectives and Approach

  • Globalization, Urbanization, and Polarization: Examine the processes and implications of these phenomena.
  • Nationalism and American Identity: Analyze their formation as social constructs and discuss their implications for pluralism (diversity).
  • Role of Religion: Analyze religion's influence as a social institution on individual behavior (micro-level) and collective action (meso and potentially macro-level).
  • Civility and Respect: Goal is to maintain civility and respect for diverse opinions.
  • Objectivity: Instructor aims for objectivity, acknowledging inherent subjectivity, by designing an open and neutral course.
  • Teaching Philosophy: Focus on teaching how to think, not what to think; not recruiting students to any ideology or religion.

Procedures and Policies

Accommodations

  • Students with documented disabilities or those anticipating struggles should contact appropriate entities for accommodations.
  • All accommodations will remain private and confidential between the student and instructor.

Tardiness

  • Strongly discouraged.
  • If late, students should enter as unobtrusively as possible to avoid disturbing the lecture.

Class Structure

  • Lecture Time: Typically 25-45 minutes.
  • Slides: Accompanied by approximately 15-25 slides, walked through methodically.
  • Exercises: Following lectures, prompts will be uploaded to a Canvas folder titled "exercises by Thursday" for small group, large collective, or individual work.
    • These exercises apply course material to students' lives and facilitate discussions.
    • The format varies (e.g., big group projects, splitting into teams, private work).
  • Lecture Limit: Max lecture time is 45 minutes as a matter of principle, incentivizing class attendance.
  • Questions During Lecture: Students are asked to save questions until the end of the lecture to maintain timing.
    • However, the instructor will actively ask students what they think of the material during lectures, encouraging participation, questions, points, and personal experiences.
  • Active Participation: Highly encouraged to make the class dynamic and foster dialogue.

Readings

  • Frequency: At least one assigned reading per lecture.
  • Content: Includes peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and sometimes less heavy, non-academic material.
  • Engagement: Students are encouraged to engage with readings before each class to enhance understanding.
  • Supplementary Nature: Readings are supplementary to the lectures, which are the main focus, but still important for success.
  • Quizzes and Exams: Will address readings at a high level, focusing on main issues and arguments, not "nitty gritty details."
  • Accessibility: All readings are available via hyperlinks on the syllabus; there is no separate readings folder on Canvas.

Discussion of Critical and Controversial Topics

  • Respect: Individual viewpoints are respected, and students are asked to respect classmates' viewpoints, even those disagreed with.
  • Conduct: Name-calling, yelling, and condescending remarks are not tolerated.
  • Tone: Engagement should be civil and respectful.

Electronics

  • Purpose: Computers or other note-taking tools are expected for note-taking.
  • Disruptions: Avoid unnecessary disruptions to maintain focus.

Discussing Course Material

  • Encouragement: Students are encouraged to discuss class material and readings with peers, roommates, parents, or friends.
  • Benefits: Helps retain material, makes it relevant to personal lives, and aids in self-assessment of understanding (e.g., realizing gaps when trying to explain concepts to others).

Canvas Usage

  • Minimal Use: Not frequently used for course communication.
    • Communication will primarily be in class or via email.
  • Primary Use: For in-class exercises.
  • Primary Document: The syllabus is the main source document, containing all readings and instructions.

Office Hours

  • Schedule: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM during the semester.
  • Appointments: No drop-ins; students should request to meet.
  • Location Flexibility: Meetings can be in the office (for privacy), or a more relaxed setting like Proxy or a college.
  • Scope: Available for sociology-related questions, as well as assistance with internships and career development.

Grading Scale

  • Traditional: Uses a traditional grading scale.
  • No Rounding: Grades are not rounded up (e.g., 92.5 or 92.6 remains 92).

Assignments and Grading Breakdown

  • Engagement (25\%):
    • Critically important for success.
    • Expected to attend class regularly and be active in classroom activities, discussions, and exercises.
    • Includes active listening, attentiveness, and reaching out via email to discuss material or connections to other topics/current events.
  • Pop Quizzes (20\% total, four quizzes at 5\% each):
    • Unannounced: Administered without prior alert to incentivize class attendance.
    • Content: Basic, ensuring students capture and digest "big picture" concepts.
    • Format: Variety of formats including true/false, multiple choice, short answer.
    • Non-Cumulative: Each quiz covers material after the previous quiz up to the current one.
    • Administration: At the beginning of class, lasting no more than 20 minutes.
    • Absences: Missing for unexcused absence results in a zero.
    • Make-ups: Only with legitimate documentation from a credible, validated source (e.g., not just a "believable story" or "being busy").
  • Midterm (25\%):
    • Format: Similar to quizzes (true/false, multiple choice, fill in the blank, short answer) but includes longer, essay-style answers.
    • Purpose: Designed for students to reflect on their identity and personal experiences, applying course material to lived experiences.
    • Administration: At the beginning of class during the whole 75 minute window.
    • Timing: Week 7 of the semester (lecture will start on Thursday).
    • Absences: Excused absences with legitimate reasons are accommodated; unexcused are problematic (e.g., an immigration official interview is legitimate).
  • Final Exam (30\%):
    • Format: Same as the midterm.
    • Administration: On the last day of class, December 4^{th} (Week 15), occupying the whole 75 minute class period.
    • Schedule: No separate exam scheduled during the official finals window.
    • Absences: Follows the same procedure as quizzes and midterm regarding excused vs. unexcused absences.

Weekly Subject Overview

Week 1: Introduction to Sociology

  • Key Questions: How do sociologists define the field of sociology?
  • Distinctions: How does sociology differ from other social sciences (e.g., political science, anthropology, psychology)?
  • Levels of Analysis: Pinpoint differences between micro, meso, and macro sociology.
  • Sociological Tools: How to use sociological methodology to understand the world.
  • Agency vs. Structure: Examine the relationship between individual agency (our ability to exert will) and social structures (external factors that might hinder goals).
  • Challenging Common Sense: How sociology challenges common sense understandings of human behavior and social life.
  • Ethics: Ethical challenges and the role of informed citizens; importance of civics.

Week 2: The Sociological Imagination (C. Wright Mills)

  • Foundational Theory: Establishment of sociology as an academic discipline in the 1960s.
  • Core Concepts: What is the sociological imagination, and how does it distinguish personal troubles from public issues?
  • History and Biography: Explore the relationship between history and biography within the sociological imagination.
  • Impact of Lack of Imagination: How a lack of sociological imagination contributes to misinformation, prejudice, and personal struggles.
  • Empathy: Cultivating comfort and understanding for others who are struggling.

Week 3: Theorizing Sociology and Ethics

  • The Importance of Theory: Theory is crucial for all academic work; simplified explanations will be provided.
  • Distinctions: Differentiate between an opinion (personal, subjective), a claim (based on opinion but with substantial backing), and a theory (lenses/concepts to approach a claim from different angles, not just proving a point).
  • Theoretical Frameworks: Differentiate between sociological theory and sociological perspectives.
  • Paradigms: Explore differences and similarities between functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism.
  • Comprehensive Understanding: How using multiple sociological theories (frameworks) creates a more nuanced understanding of the social world (e.g., instructor's three-theory framework for Christian and Muslim relations in "Beyond Dialogue").
  • Sociology with Ethics: Discuss the code of ethics sociologists follow in research, including informed consent and Institutional Review Boards (IRB). Emphasis on the "do no harm" principle, applicable across disciplines.
  • Sociological Methodology: How sociologists collect data and design studies (comparing to a painter using various tools for art).
  • Positionality/Reflexivity: (Reading: "The Space Between") Explores why sociologists must speak about themselves in their research; how the researcher's identity (e.g., Craig's PhD thesis studying young Pakistani Muslim and non-Muslim men in Dublin and Boston) impacts the research dynamic.

Week 4: Networking and Social Capital

  • Networking Concepts: Examine strong ties (family, close friends, neighbors) vs. weak ties (outside immediate circle).
  • Theory of Weak Ties: The theory that weak ties are often more influential in the 21^{st} century than strong ties.
  • Social Capital: Define and explore the concept of social capital.
  • Influence on Life: How networking influences everyday experiences, finding jobs, and gaining access to information.
  • Living Alone Phenomenon: (Reading: "The Singleton Society") Discuss the trend of Americans preferring to live alone over the past 20-30 years.
    • Connects to the sociological imagination: explains personal decisions (going solo) through external, broader societal factors (e.g., how external factors influence individual choices).

Week 5: Civics and Polarization

  • Civics I (September 18^{th}):
    • Definition: What is a civic society and how does it differ from purely political or economic entities?
    • Importance: Why is civics education important for a healthy democracy?
    • Consequences: Social consequences of a decline in civic literacy for individuals and communities.
  • Civics II (Lack of Civics & Unhealthy Democracy):
    • Concern for Democracy: A poll from the Mount Vernon Ladies Association indicates deep concern among Americans about democracy.
    • Instructor's Hypothesis: Posits that a lack of civics education contributes to this concern.
  • Polarization (Second Lecture in Week 5):
    • Causes: Explore why American society (and people in America) is so polarized, recognizing its gradual development over years.
    • Solutions: Focus on finding solutions to political polarization (a key solution-oriented theme in the class).

Week 6: Authoritarianism and Midterm Review

  • Authoritarianism: Key features of authoritarian societies; how they come to power, maintain power, and decline.
  • Macro-sociology Link: Connects to macro-sociology, examining institutions like authoritarian governments.
  • Midterm Review I: (October 2^{nd}).
  • Midterm Review II: (October 7^{th}).

Week 7: Midterm Exam

  • Midterm examination takes place during this week.

Week 8: Globalization (October 23^{rd})

  • Definition and History: What is globalization and its historical trajectory?
  • Winners and Losers: (Reading) Who benefits and who is disadvantaged by globalization?
  • Narratives: Dissect different narratives surrounding globalization.

Week 10: Human Rights

  • Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948):
    • Focus on this foundational document, largely developed after the Nuremberg trials.
    • Explores a scientific code of ethical conduct that most academic fields adhere to.
  • Institutional Influence: How different social institutions at micro, meso, and macro levels either promote or hinder human rights (e.g., family dynamics, religion).

(Closer to Halloween) Religious Themes

  • Freedom of Religion: Focus on the First Amendment and religious tolerance.
  • Religious Pluralism: Discuss religious pluralism as diversity, but also as a method for engaging with religious diversity (Diana Eck's concept of "energetic engagement").
  • Karl Popper's Paradox of Tolerance: Explores how seemingly tolerant societies can be undermined by tolerating intolerance (e.g., pre-Nazi Germany).
    • Concept: "Tolerant societies, the more they tolerate intolerance, the more likely it is for the intolerant people to devour the tolerant society."

Week 11: Interfaith Work and Education

  • Interfaith Work: Engaging in interfaith collaborations.
  • Education I (Pierre Bourdieu):
    • Inequality Reproduction: How educational systems can reproduce social inequality.
    • Cultural Capital: Examination of Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital – the tools needed to operate successfully in a given educational system.
    • Unequal Access: Discussion on how unequal cultural capital upon entering school can disadvantage students.

Week 12: Ivy League Admissions

  • Gladwell's "Getting In": (Reading) Malcolm Gladwell's article on the history of Harvard's admissions process (dating back to the 1920s) and its influence on national admissions practices.
  • Relevance to Rice: Applicable to universities like Rice, considered an "Ivy of the South."
  • Key Issues: Examine meritocracy, affirmative action, and the impact of alumni networks on college admissions and the overall college experience.

Week 13: Rice Context

  • Application: Condense and apply much of the semester's material through the lens of Rice University.
  • Format: Typically involves no slides, but rather open dialogue and exercises to foster understanding of course concepts within the Rice context.

Final Sessions

  • Exam Reviews: The last four sessions are dedicated to exam reviews, with a break for Thanksgiving recess.
  • Duration: Reviews usually last about 45 minutes, not the full class period.
  • Final Exam: On December 4^{th} (last day of class, Week 15).