Sociology 115

Introduction to Social Research Methods

Neil Dryden Introduction to Social Research Methods Tue/Thur  220 – 340 IDC 209 Fall 2012 “George Eliot believed that there are answers to major intellectual and emotional questions, but that those answers remain elusive because we insist on asking the questions in the wrong way.”           – Edward Mendelson, The Things That Matter

pndryden@pipeline.sbcc.edu Office Hours T/R 1:20 to 2:20 – West Campus Café Electronic office hours: neilsociology (on most any IM program) “Progressive asked 11,000 of its auto insurance policyholders who reported accidents in 2001 how close to home they were when the accident happened. 52% reported they were five miles or less from home, and an astounding 77 percent reported they were within 15 miles”             – Some really stupid insurance company

Readings!

1. Tricks of the Trade, by Howard Becker

2. The Vulnerable Observer, by Ruth Behar

3. Sidewalk, by Mitch Duneier

4. Running With the Devil, by Robert Walser

5. Online readings as noted

Course Schedule:

Week 1 – August 28 & 30 Reflexivity & Epistemology 

Question of the week! “I began with the desire to speak with the dead...If I never believed the dead

could hear me, and if I knew that the dead could not speak, I was nonetheless certain that I could re-create a conversation with them. Even when I came to understand that in my most intense moments of straining to listen all I could hear was:

Song of the Week – “Tom's Dinner” by Suzanne Vega

 The Single-Sex Trick: The flaws in a new survey that praises girls-only and boys-only classes. 

Lise Eliot and Diane F. Halpern

 Choosing Self-Esteem Over Sex or Pizza By RONI CARYN RABIN

 Howard Becker – “The Epistemology of Qualitative Research” (the first 3 sections)

 Howard Becker – “How I learned What a Crock Was” 

Week 2 – September 4 & 6 – Ethics & Critiques!

Question of the week! Kai Erickson would like researchers to stop using deception. Why?

Song of the Week – “Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap” by AC/DC

Webpage of the Week – UCSB Human Subjects Training Module – login in as “guest” and read the

The Tea Room Study, The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, & The Milgram Studies. Test questions will

be more or less directly drawn from the test on this page, feel free to preview...

Media of the Week - Malcolm in the Middle, Season Five, “Malcolm Films Reese”

Test #1

Week 3 – September 11 & 13 – Sampling and Research Design!

 Howard Becker – Tricks of the Trade, Chapter 2, Imagery (10-66)

 Virgil Griffith “Musicthatmakesyoudumb” and here and here and more at the bottom of the page!

 Survey Terms Handout

Week 4 - September 18 & 20 – Survey Research

Question of the week! Why did my Mother lie to the stairmaster at her gym?

Song of the Week - “C is the Heavenly Option” by Heavenly ”

 Howard Becker – Tricks of the Trade, Chapter 4, Concepts (109-145)

 Howard Becker – Tricks of the Trade, Chapter 3, Sampling (67-108)

Week 5 – September 25 & 27 – Survey Research

TEST #2

Week 6 October 2 & 4 – Interviews

Question of the week! Is an interview a natural or an unnatural form of communication?

Poem of the Week - “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot

 Ruth Behar – The Vulnerable Observer, Chp. 1 p.1-33

 Kathryn Schulz “On Air and On Error: This American Life's Ira Glass on Being Wrong"

Week 7 – October 9 & 11 – Interviews cont.

Question of the week! In her book about Esperanza, a street peddler in San Luis Potosi, Ruth

Behar included a chapter called “Biography in the Shadow” about her experience getting tenure at the University of Michigan. Why did she include this chapter?

 Ruth Behar – The Vulnerable Observer, Chps. 2-3 p.34-103

Week 8 – October 16 & 18 – Interviews cont.

 Ruth Behar – The Vulnerable Observer, Chps. 5-6 p.136-177

Test #3

Week 9 – October 23 & 25 – Ethnography

Question of the week! What’s the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle? How does it apply to Social Research methods?

Movie of the Week - “Keep the River on Your Right”

Poem of the Week - “Having a Coke With You” by Frank O'Hara ( audio)

 Mitch Duneier, Sidewalk: Appendix & Part I, p.17-114

Week 10 – October 30 & November 1 – Ethnography cont.

Question of the week! Ethnography is both a process and a product, discuss!?

 Mitch Duneier, Sidewalk: Part III (but not the “Talking to Women” section)

Week 11 – November 6 & 8 – Ethnography cont.

Question of the week! What does Duneier mean when he talks about social position?

 Mitch Duneier, Sidewalk: Part Iv & V, from “A Christmas on Sixth Avenue to the Afterword

Test #4

Week 12 – November 13 & 15 – Content Analysis, Cultural Studies, Discourse Analysis

Question of the week! What parts of a heavy metal song does Rob Walser claim that fans respond most strongly to?

 Robert Walser, Running With the Devil: Introduction, Chapter 1 p.20-25, Chp 2

Week 13 – November 20 – Content Analysis & Cultural Studies, & Discourse Analysis

Question of the week! What's wrong with those “this is your brain on drugs” ads?

Movie of the Week – "The Celluloid Closet”

 Robert Walser, Running With the Devil: Chapter 3

Week 14 November 27 & 29–Content Analysis, Cultural Studies& Discourse Analysis

Question of the week! What can we learn from garbage?

 Robert Walser, Running With the Devil: Chapters 4 &5

 Other research sites for this kind of analysis we may look at:

1. Hipsters

2. http://www.zoilus.com/documents/general/2009/001688.php

3. http://revolutionaryboredom.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/through-being-cool/

4. http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html

5. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/features/meet-the-global-scenester-hes-hip-hescool-

hes-everywhere-894199.html

6. Media coverage of pornography

7. http://www.feminisnt.com/img/bingo-large.jpg

8. NPR's music

9. http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/browbeat/archive/2009/10/12/the-dorf-matrix-towards-atheory-

of-npr-s-taste-in-black-music.aspx

Week 15 – December 4 & 6 – Wrap-up and Review!

Snack of the Week – Gummi Candy, Bears, Worms, Sharks, & Brains

TEST #5 (final)

Tuesday, December 11th 2:00 p - 4:00 pm IDC 209

Projects

Survey – September 27th

Write short survey to measure the relationship between several variables and then analyze and write up the results.

Interview – October 18th Conduct a brief interview, and then produce a written account of the interview.

Ethnography – November 8th Pick a field location where you are comfortable both participating &

observing what happens there. Use the insights you gain to produce a written record of the place &

people.

Content Analysis – December 6th

Analysis the messages present in some sort of media, anything from t-shirts, to bumper stickers, to

movies or songs. Decide if you want to do a quantitative analysis or a qualitative one

Extra Credit – Experiment May 16th

In my Soc 101 classes, the basic pedagogical method is the lecture, with a perfunctory nod towards

discussion. I don't think that anyone, least of all me, thinks this is the best way to teach. Design an

experiment to test a new teaching strategy. Half the class will receive my normal lecture, the other half a 20 minute lesson based on an experimental treatment you design. Ask me for a list of topics.

Hmmm: Look at these two graphs put together by a dude names Virgil Griffith:

http://booksthatmakeyoudumb.virgil.gr/

http://musicthatmakesyoudumb.virgil.gr/

His motto is, "Life is a MMORPG. Grind. Level Up. Conquer the world." I was amused. THEN, read

this take on the graphs:

http://beatcrave.com/2009-03-03/music-that-makes-you-dumb/

And tell me what you think about their claim that the research is "somewhat unscientific"? Is it?

Sill A Bus

Sociology 101!

“When I talk of [any given] field, I know very well that in this field I will find ‘particles’ (let me pretend for a moment that we are dealing with a physical field) that are under the sway of forces of attraction, of repulsion, and so on, as in a magnetic field. Having said this, as soon as I speak of a field, my attention fastens on the primacy of this system of objective relations over the particles themselves. And we could say, following the formula of a famous German physicist, that the individual, like the electron, is an Ausgeburt des Felds:  he or she is, in a sense, an emanation of the field.”                        

Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992, pp. 106–7

“[When we talk about a structure of feeling] we are talking about characteristic elements of impulse, restraint, and tone; specifically affective elements of consciousness and relationships; not feeling against thought, but thought as felt and feeling as thought…specific internal relations, at once interlocking and in tension.  Yet we are also defining a social experience which is still in process, often indeed not recognized to be social, but taken to be private, idiosyncratic, and even isolating…”

Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature

What do these 2 quotes have in common?

a)    Both describe the way knowledge is produced

b)   Both are about the hard or physical sciences

c)    Both describe how individual lives are interwoven/interrelated to society

d)   Trick question, they have nothing in common but some vowels

Overview

“The best thing for being sad…is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder in your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then—to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you. Look at what a lot of things there are to learn—pure science, the only purity there is. You can learn astronomy in a lifetime, natural history in three, literature in six. And then, when you have exhausted a million lifetimes in biology and medicine and theocriticism and geography and history and economics—why, you can start on sociology.”

  -T.H. White (slightly modified)

Sociology!  As C. Wright Mills tells us, the most important quality of the mind that you can develop is a sociological imagination.   The sociological imagination requires us to engage in the study of an individual’s biography; but to place that biography in the wider context of the history and tradition of the society in which that individual lives.

Mills suggests that a useful way of understanding this 'imagination' is to use the 'fruitful distinction' between on the one hand 'the personal troubles of milieu[1]' and on the other, 'the public issues of social structure'. (Mills 1959: 14)

For Mills the all too common misperception on the part of many individuals is that they perceive their own biographies as just personal and private. Far too often there is a failure to see their own biographies as being interwoven and interrelated to the wider public and political 'stage' of society.  Each week we will explore a different topic from a sociological perspective, using the textbook as our the base, and further exploring each area through essays from the reader, films and videos, websites, songs, and whatever other material that Neil might feel appropriate! 

Student Learning Outcomes:

At the end of this course each of you should be able to:

1.Describe major sociological theories and concepts and apply them to an analysis of the social world.

2.Explain scientific research methods and apply them to an analysis of the social world.

3.Present, listen to, and discuss sociological ideas in classroom and small group settings.

4.Produce written work according to social scientific standards.

Course Policies:

All tests and quizzes will be given in class on the day assigned only.  No exceptions!  And while this is subject to review as circumstances warrant, tests and quizzes are gonna happen on the Thursday of the relevant week.  Many of the test questions will require you to apply the concepts and theories we’ve been studying, and to that end I love to collect the raw materials for test questions on the class website/blog so you can get a sneak peek. The final is not cumulative.

Course Requirements:

1. Quizzes.  There will be four quizzes, each worth 5% of your grade. 
2. Examinations.  There will be four examinations, each worth 15% of your grade. 
3. Paper.  You will be responsible for doing one short final paper, worth 20% of your grade.

Required Materials:

1. The Real World: An Introduction to Sociology by Stein & Ferris
2. Readings For Sociology, edited by Garth Massey
3. Additional internet readings as noted below
4. Four long scantrons & four short scantrons

Course Schedule:

Week 1 – August 28 & 30 – Sociological Imagination

Question of the week!  The sociological imagination is a QUALITY OF THE MIND.  What does it help you to do?

Song of the Week – “Marx and Engels” by Belle & Sebastian, “No Surprises” by 

Radiohead

READINGS

·    Chapter One—Sociology and the Real World (13-35)

·    C. Wright Mills, “From The Sociological Imagination,” Chapter 2 (13-18)

·    Karl Marx & Fred Engels, The Communist Manifesto, Chapter 2 (265-274)

·    Tom Ewing, “Poptimist #25”

·      Wikipedia entry on Historical Materialism

Week 2 – September 4 & 6 – Theory! Theory! Theory!

Question of the week!  Why do I think I would look better with a tan?

Song of the Week – “This World Is Not My Home” & “I Ain’t Got No Home”

READINGS   

·    Chapter One cont.—Sociology's Family Tree: Theories and Theorists

·    Max Weber, “From The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,” Chapter 40 (431-438)

·    We're reading a pieced together cutting from Weber's great work, but if you really need to, you can find most of the parts we're reading here:

·    http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/weber/protestant-ethic/ch02.htm especially the opening

·    http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/weber/protestant-ethic/ch05.htmmostly the second half

Week 3 – September 11 & 13 – Research Methods!

Question of the week!  What’s the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?  How does it apply to research methods?

Poem of the Week  - “Having a Coke With You” by Frank O'Hara (audio)

Media of the Week  - Malcolm in the Middle, Season Five, “Malcolm Films Reese”

READINGS

·    Chapter Two—Studying Social Life: Sociological Research Methods (all of it!)

·    Joel Best, “Telling the Truth about Damned Lies and Statistics” Chapter 6 (51-56)

·    Allan Brandt, “Racism & Research: The Case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study” Chapter 8 (64-78)

 QUIZ #1

Week 4  - September 18 & 20 – Globalization

Question of the week!  David Harvey argued that increases in production created a need for parallel increases in consumption, which were achieved through _______________

Song of the Week - Amadou & Mariam – “Senegal Fast Food,” Papa Wemba “Sad Song”

READINGS

l  Benjamin Barber, “Jihad vs McWorld,”

 TEST #1

Week 5 – September 25 & 27 – Culture and Nature (and nature)

Question of the Week!  What is nature?

Poems of the Week - “Trees” by Joyce Kilmer & “Poems” by Tom Disch

READINGS

·    Chapter Fifteen—Country and City: The Natural World and the Social World (Urban Legends; 463-4, The Environment; 465-78)

·    Robert Glennon, “Size Does Count” chapter 35 (380-389)

·    Michael Pollan, “America's National Eating Disorder” Chapter 12 (122-125)

·    Mike Davis - “Let Malibu Burn: A Political History of the Fire Coast”

Week 6 – October 2 & 4 – Social Groups (&week 5 cont.)

Question of the week! Historically, what has been the relationship between religion and terrorism?

READINGS

·    Chapter Ten—The Macro-Micro Link in Social Institutions: Politics, Education & Religion (Who Rules America, The Media and the Political Process, What is Education (ignore The Present andFuture of Education), What is Religion)

·    Troy Patterson, “The Satire Recession: How political satire got so flabby”

·   and if you wanna head start, watch this

Week 7 – October 9 & 11 – Deviance and Social Control

Question of the week!  Why do teenage girls shoplift?  What theory can explain this behavior?

Song of the Week – “Panoptikon” by Diamanda Galas (about)

READINGS

·    Chapter Six—Deviance and Conformity (all of it!)

·     William Chambliss, “The Saints and the Roughnecks” Chapter 29 (314-327)

·    Clifford Shearing & P. Stenning, “From the Panopticon to Disneyworld,” Chapter 32 (355-360)

  QUIZ #2

Week 8 – October  16 & 18 – Politics and the Economy

Question of the week!  According to Paul Krugman, an economist at MIT, why do Americans find overseas sweatshops particularly objectionable?

Songs of the Week - “Piss Factory” by Patti Smith (audio) & “Common People by Pulp 

(audio)

READINGS

·      Chapter Eleven—The Economy, Work and Working (The Nature of Industrial and Postindustrial Work, Individual and Collective Resistance Strategies, Globalization, Economics, and Work)

·      Barbara Ehrenreich, “Nickled & Dimed” Chapter 23 (245-264)

·      George Ritzer, “The McDonalds System,” Chapter 42 (453-459) 

               TEST #2

Week 9 – October  23 & 25 – Class

Question of the week! What is the American Dream? How does The American reinforce socioeconomic barriers? 

Poem of the Week – “America” by Allen Ginsberg (audio) (audio)

READINGS

·    Chapter Seven—Social Class: The Structure of Social Inequality (Social Class in the United States, Theories of Social Class, Defining Poverty, Inequality, Ideology, and the American Dream)

·    Chapter Three—Dominant Culture (try and figure out what hegemony is!)

·    Herbert Gans, “The Uses of the Underclass in America,” Chapter 31 (339-354)

Week 10 – October 30 & November 1  Race and Ethnicity

Question of the week!  According to Mary Waters, why might a black student get upset when a when white student asks questions about their hair?

           

Poem of the Week – Gloria Anzaldúa  - “To live in the borderlands means you”

            Media of the Week – PBS, “Race: The Power of an Illusion”

READINGS

·    Chapter Eight—Race and Ethnicity as Lived Experience (Defining Race and Ethnicity, Theoretical Approaches to Understanding Race in the United States, Race as an Interactional Accomplishment, Race in College Admissions)

·    Mary Waters, “Optional Ethnicities” Chapter 22 (232-244)

·    Julie Bettie, “Women Without Class: Chicas, Cholas, Trash, and the Presence/Absence of Class Identity” Chapter 20 (212-225)

·    Stuart Hall, “Old and New Identities, Old and New Ethnicities” (focus on p.52-57)

·    Eula Biss “No-man’s-land: Fear, Racism, and the Historically Troubling Attitude of American Pioneers”

Week 11 – November 6 & 8 – Gender

Question of the week!  Question of the week!  In 1913 Rebecca West said that whenever she expressed sentiments that differentiated her from a doormat or a prostitute she was called a:

Song of the Week – “Androgynous” by the Replacements (original) (Joan Jett 

 cover)

                Poem of the Week – Audre Lorde  - “Coal”

READINGS

Chapter Nine—Constructing Gender and Sexuality (What is Sex, What is Gender, Essentialist and Constructionist Approaches to Gender Identity, Gender Role Socialization, The Women’s Movement, Sexuality, “Hooking Up”, Homophobia)

Michael Messner, “Boyhood, Organized Sports, and the Construction of Masculinities,” Chapter 14, (137-152)

Laura Kipnis, “How To Look At Pornography”

Lisa Jervis, “Some Thoughts On Privilege, Agenda-Setting, and What To Do Next”

  QUIZ #3

Week 12 – November 13 & 15 – Sociology of the Family and the Economy

Question of the week!  According to Arlie Hochschild, why are workers at the company she studied not resisting the “speed up,” or for that matter, even complaining about it?

READINGS

Arlie Hochschild, “The Emotional Geography of Work and Family Life” Chapter 41 (439-452).

  TEST #3

Week 13 – November 20 – Recreation and Leisure (textual poaching)

Question of the week!  How do we interact with celebrities?

            Movie of the Week – “Darkon”

READINGS

Chapter Thirteen—Recreation and Leisure in Everyday Life (all of it!)

Darkon handout

"Quentin Tarantino's Star Wars?: Digital Cinema, Media Convergence, and Participatory Culture" By Henry Jenkins  (read at least the first half, up until “Dude, We're Gonna Be Jedi”)

Diane Werts, “Fan Fiction booms as modern folklore”

Week 14  - November 27 & 29  – Recreation and Leisure Cont.

Question of the week!  The limitless choice we now enjoy over the

information we get about our world has loosened our grip on?

Song of the Week – “Bound for Glory”  by Phil Ochs

 Readings

Chapter Three—Cultural Crossroads – starting with the High, Low, and Popular Cultur, 

“True Enough: Steven Johnson & Farhad Manjoo” (make sure you read all four entries)

Week 15 – December 4 & 6 – Wrap-up and Review!

Question of the week!  How is a gummi bear like a steak? 

Snack of the Week – Gummi Candy, Bears, Worms, Sharks, & Brains

READINGS 

Chapter Sixteen—Social Change: Looking Toward Tomorrow (Just the text box on John Robbins and Diet for a New America)

Quiz #4

Final Exam - TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11^th, 2:00PM

Grading Summary:

Examinations:                            60%

Quizzes                                       20%

Paper                                           20%

KEEP TRACK OF YOUR GRADE!

Points on quiz #1 = (multiple your percentage by .05)                           _________+

Points on quiz #2 = (multiple your percentage by .05)                           _________+

Points on quiz #3 = (multiple your percentage by .05)                           _________+

Points on quiz #4 = (multiple your percentage by .05)                           _________+

Points on exam #1 = (multiple your percentage by .15)                         _________+

Points on exam #2 = (multiple your percentage by .15)                             _________+

Points on exam #3 = (multiple your percentage by .15)                         _________+

Monday, May 14, Final Exam (multiple your percentage by .15)                _________+

Points on Paper = (multiple your percentage by .20)                              _________ +

                                                                                                            =_________ out of 100

Policy on Academic Dishonesty:

Plagiarism: copying or initiating the language, ideas and/or thoughts of another author and passing them off as one’s original work. (American College Dictionary, Random House, 1964)

The Department of Sociology will not accept or tolerate instances of academic dishonesty or plagiarism among its students or faculty.  Submitting others’ work as if it was yours, presenting the words or ideas of others without full and appropriate citation, and cheating on examinations are all instances of academic plagiarism and fraud.

Students who may be unsure as to whether or not their writing or other work may constitute academic fraud should seek the advice of their professor prior to formal submission or presentation.  Plagiarism and academic fraud are the most serious of offenses, but they are easily avoided with a modicum of care and forethought.

Office of Disabled Students/ Programs and Services

"Students with disabilities who are requesting accommodations should use the following SBCC procedure:  contact the DSPS office in SS160 (X2364), present documentation of disability for review by a disabilities specialist, discuss options for support through DSPS, and present a signed DSPS authorization for accommodation to your instructor."

Easter Eggs:

This syllabus has been updated to include helpful Easter eggs

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[1]     First person to e-mail a definition of the word milieu gets an extra credit point!