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 This course is intended to provide non-sociology majors a fundamental acquaintance; a literacy in, sociology.  We will learn sociological concepts and how they relate in the perspectives of sociologists.  The course is also intended to provide sociology majors with the basic knowledge of their field which underlies, and is prerequisite to, all of the rest of the sociology courses and seminars they will ever take, and ultimately the very practice of sociology.  Again, the emphasis will be on sociological concepts and ways of thought.  One of the primary methods by which we will accomplish our purposes will be to study the history of sociology, not only in terms of thought, but also in terms of examining what sociologists have done, and now do.

 Web Site: http://www.ucs.louisiana.edu/~gpw4993/
 
 CBS Evening News (5:30pm)

 Jim Leherer’s News Hour (PBS 6:00pm)

 Introduction to Sociology, by Anthony Giddens, Mitchell Duneier, and Richard Appelbaum

Readings in General Sociology, by Sarah Brabant, Craig Forsyth, Robert Gramling and Linda Mooney.

Suggested Readings:

 The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith - skim

 Capital, by Karl Marx - skim

 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas Kuhn - skim carefully

 Suicide, by Emile Durkheim - read for scientific method

 The Mis-Measure of Man, by Steven J. Gould - read completely

 "The Saints and the Roughnecks", by William Chamblis, 1973. Society, 11 pp. 24-31. - read completely

 The Power Elite, by C. Wright Mills - read quickly

 "Convicted Rapists' Vocabulary of Motive: Excuses and Justifications."  by Diana Scully and Joseph Marolla, 1984 Social Problems 31:530-44 - read completely

 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, by Max Weber, 1905 - skim - make sure you get all the high points - take notes

 Foundation, by Isaac Azimov

Course Requirements:

 The course is calculated as a total of one hundred regular points and a few (very few) extra credit points for class participation.

 If your course credit is:
   > 90% then...................................."A";
   not < 80% and < 90%, then .........."B";
   not < 70% and < 80%, then .........."C";
   not < 60% and < 70%, then .........."D".

There will be four (4) comprehensive exams, one of which may be dropped at the discretion of the student (the lowest grade).  Questions will be multiple choice, on scantrons.  There will be 50 or fewer questions on each exam.  These together will comprise nine tenths of regular class points. The other tenth will be awarded for competent completion of miscelaneous, small class assignments as will arise during the semester.

All exams and assignments are scored on a one hundred scale. The exams are averaged and multiplied by 0.9. The class assignments are also averaged and multiplied, but by 0.1. Final grades are computed by adding the test and assignment measures and the extra credit - if any:

0.9Exam average + 0.1Assignment average + Extra credit = Final grade

Makeup exams will not be given.  Those who arrive at exams after the first student in the class has finished and turned in her or his exam - will not be admitted.

Class attendance is required.

Academic Integrity:

 Tests may not be removed from the class.  Students caught with old tests or any test outside the class room will be subject to the most severe academic penalties.

 Any breach of honesty in academic conduct will be discouraged by the most severe academic penalties.  These may include dismissal from the University.  Students who are unclear about the general rules of academic integrity are welcome to come to office hours for an explanation, or to consult page 406 - 407, section V of the 1999 - 2001 Undergraduate Bulletin.

 Sociology 100
 First Study Guide

 - What is a meritocracy?

 - What is determinism?
 -  What are the primary issues of the genetic/experience debate, and which position do sociologists take?
 -  What is the accomplishment of Adam Smith in his book The Wealth of Nations?
 -  What inspired Marx to disagree with Smith?
 -  How did Weber disagree with both?
 -  What does Steven Gould have to say about intelligence testing?
 -  What is the evidence (Durkheim) that Suicide is not so much a personal phenomenon as a social one?
 -  What does C. Wright Mills have to say about the power, and the powerful, in America?
 - What is the basic assumption of all consensus theories?
 - What is the basic assumption of all conflict theories?
 - What is the basic principle of symbolic interactionism?
 - What is the Hobbesian question?
 - What is the sociological imagination?
 - How did the industrial revolution and the progress of the other sciences contribute to the birth of sociology?
 - Who was Comte?
 - What is the central principle of all social Darwinist theories?
 - What three criteria to scientists ask be met before causation is conceded?
 - What are the characteristics, procedures, problems, and advantages associated with each research method?
 - What is intersubjectivity?
 - Who is Stanley Milgram and what did he do?
 - Who is Tamotsu Shibutani and what did he do?
 - Who is Laud Humphreys and what did he do?
 - What is correlation and what concept does it measure?
 - What is randomness?
 - What is representativeness?
 - What is the implication of Rosenhan's findings?
 - What is the point of the Gramling, Forsyth and Mooney article?
 - What are the common patterns in gender role stereotyping in the Sunday comics?

Second Study Guide
 -  When cultures are separated from each other what happens?
 -  What are assimilation, amalgamation, and pluralism?
 -  What is ethnocentrism?
 -  What is cultural relativity?
 -  How long have Homo sapiens sapiens been on the earth?
 -  Describe the typical system of hunting and gathering, of swidden
agriculture, of terraced rice farming.
 -  Trace the trends in the division of labor (by sex and by specialty),
through those forms of subsistence.  Do similarly for the trends in
polarization of wealth.
 -  Trace the trends in land productivity and human labor through those forms
of subsistence.
 -  What is sustainability?
 -  What forms of subsistence are sustainable, which are not?
 -  What is capturing the peasantry?
 -  What are the two kinds of surplus?
 -  What was accomplished by the enclosure movement of the industrial
revolution and the vagrancy laws of that time?
 -  Why do governments and others want to capture the peasantry?
 -  Describe bureaucracy.
 -  What is a bureaucratic personality?
 -  What is an innovator?
 -  What are the dysfunctions of bureaucracy?
 -  What is a role?
 -  What is a status? (Tell about the work on the concept.)
 -  What is an ascribed status?

Third Study Guide
 -  What is the labeling theory definition of deviance?
 -  How could deviance be defined in relation to the concept of norms?
 -  What were the assumptions and basic premises of the positivists?
 -  What were the assumptions and basic premises of the positivists with
particular regard to crime and punishment?
 -  What were the assumptions and basic premises of the classical school?  
 -  What were the assumptions and basic premises of the classical school with
particular regard to crime and punishment?
 -  What are the assumptions and basic premises of cultural transmission
theories?  Name and describe one of these theories and its implications for
policy.  Use all appropriate terms.
 -  What are the assumptions and basic premises of structural strain
theories?  Name and describe one of these theories and its implications for
policy.  Use all appropriate terms.
 -  What are the assumptions and basic premises of control theory?  Name and
describe one of these theories and its implications for policy.  Use all
appropriate terms.
 -  What are the assumptions and basic premises of rationalization theory? 
Describe the theory and its implications for policy.  Use all appropriate
terms.
 -  What are the assumptions and basic premises of labeling theory?  Discuss
the theory and its implications for policy.  Use all appropriate terms.
 -  Who applied labeling theory to issues of mental illness?  How does the
model fit the data?  
 -  What seems to be the biggest reason for teenage pregnancy?
 -  Discuss rape with particular attention to acquaintance and date-rape.
 -  What is social stratification? (Use North/Hat, and Duncan. Specify
assumptions from the classical school.)

 -  Draw a graph of the distribution of wealth in the U.S..
 -  How is the distribution of wealth linked to the distribution of
opportunity in the U.S.?
 -  How might the structure of wealth be separated from the structure of
opportunity?
 -  Who are the poor?
 -  Which uses of the term "race" might be sensible?  Which are not?
 -  What is the single most ironclad characteristic of a "minority group" as
sociologically defined?

 -  Draw a model of, and explain the "economics/bigotry/discrimination
complex".  Give examples of how the three elements work together.
 -  Describe a case of the above mentioned "complex" where the economic
component was missing, weak and or reversed.
 -  What are the low, and high estimates of how many people lived in the "new
world" on the day Columbus landed.  Give the low and high estimates of how
many were left by about one hundred fifty years later.
 -  What were the characteristic patterns in ethnic relations with immigrant
groups before about 1964 or 1965?
 - What were the characteristic patterns in ethnic relations with immigrant
groups after about 1964 or 1965?
 -  What accounts for much of the change in those patterns?
 -  What is a "model minority?"
 -  What is a "middleman minority?"
 -  The greatest weight of the evidence suggests what; about the biology vs
culture debate on the difference between men and women?
 -  Draw and explain the population growth curves of yeast in a fermentation
vat, the snowshoe hare, wild sheep, and humans.  Include a discussion of
carrying capacity for each case and in general.
 -  What did Thomas Malthus say about all of this?
 -  What is a "faith in the technological fix"?  Where is there actually a
chance of a technological fix?  Where is there not?
 -  Other than a Malthusian scenario or a lucky technological fix, what are
our options?
 -  How is Human Ecology in sociology, different from Ecology and
Environmental Sociology?

Testing dates: TBA.

If you have comments or suggestions, email me at gpw4993@louisiana.edu

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