Contemporary Social Issues:
The City and the Suburb in Comparative Perspective
Course Hours: 12:30-1:45, T, Th
Room: 300 Crosley Tower
Office: 1008 Crosley Tower (Tenth Floor)
Office Hours: T, Th 2:00-3:00
Email: Robert.Garot@uc.edu
Phone: (513) 556-4708
Course Objectives
Much of the history and contemporary thought about the
United States has been shaped by the dichotomies of black/white,
urban/suburban, and their consequent extrapolations. This course will trace such thinking historically, and as it
is manifested in numerous contemporary social issues: ghettoization, segregation, suburbanization, education,
violence, and the streetlife of cities. Students are strongly encouraged to bring their
own perspectives to bear on these issues, and to be open to changing these perspectives by means of a thorough reflection
on the readings, and by conducting original research.
Required Readings
Readings are available for pick-up at Du Bois Bookstore, 321 Calhoun Street. Be sure to complete each weekıs readings PRIOR TO coming to class. Additional background readings are available for students who wish to read further on the weekıs topic. Also, be sure to check the class website frequently for announcements.
Attendance/In-Class Presentations
Attendance and participation in lecture is integral to this course. Because there will be discussion of materials not included in the readings, it is essential that you make every class meeting. Lecture notes will not be available. Although this is a large class, efforts will be made to encourage participation from students during the lectures – so come prepared.
Paper Assignments
Written assignments for the class consist of one 2-3 page personal reflection and one 10-15 page term paper. The journal assignment involves a personal reflections on the area in which you came of age. Would you call it a suburb, an inner-city, a combination of the two, or something else? What would lead you to make that designation? You may wish to include childhood experiences, a description of the area, the attitudes and perspectives of your friends and family members, or other ³data² as evidence for your claims. Try to make connections to the course readings as appropriate. You will not be asked to conduct outside research for these papers.
The term paper will build off of your personal reflections. Just as you considered what in your experience brought you to understand your historic social ecology as you do, you will then be called on to ask others (strangers or acquaintances) to make similar reflections, as prompted by your queries, and captured by a tape recorder. After you have interviewed two individuals in similar ecological niches, one in a ³suburb,² and another in an ³inner-city,² you will need to transcribe and then analyze your interviews in terms of the themes of this course. Further details about the journal and paper assignments will be discussed as we proceed.
Exams
There will be two exams for this course, one midterm and one final, which will be composed of a variety of question types (multiple choice, true false, short answer, etc.). Exams will be based on lectures and readings. No make-up exams will be given – so you must conform to the times as scheduled for the midterm and final. Further details about the midterm and final exams will be discussed in class.
Grading Policy
You will not be graded on a competitive basis, so in theory everyone can do well in the class. However, in order to gets a top grade, students will be expected to achieve standards of excellence in their work. If you are dissatisfied with any grade you receive, you must submit a written request for a review of the grade, including a defense, no later than one week after the work is handed back to the class. By requesting a review of the grade you receive, you invite the possibility that the new grade will be lower than the original grade, as well as the possibility that it will be higher. Please read the Grading Policy posted to the class website for more details. Points will be distributed as follows:
Personal Reflection: 10%
Term Paper Evidence: 20%
Term Paper: 20% A+ 98-100 B+ 88-89 C+ 78-79 D+ 65-69
Mid-Term: 25% A 93-97 B 83-87 C 73-77 D 55-64
Final Exam: 25% A- 90-92 B- 80-82 C- 70-72 D- 50-54
Any cases of cheating or plagiarism will be referred to the Office of the Dean of Students. For guidelines on avoiding these offenses, please see the University Of Cincinnati Student Code of Conduct at: http://www.psc.uc.edu/pp/PP_Code_Of_Conduct.htm
Weekly Topics and Readings
Please note that the following schedule, including project and exam dates, is tentative, and may change based on how quickly we cover the material.
Part I:
9/26:
Introduction, Overview
Massey, Douglas
S. and Nancy A. Denton. 1993. Segregation and the Making of the
Underclass. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University
Press. Pp. 1-16.
Jackson, Kenneth
T. 1985. Crabgrass Frontier:
The Suburbanization of the United States. New York, Oxford University Press. Pp. 3-11.
Week 1 (10/1, 10/3): A History of the Suburb
Jackson, pp. 12-30, 45-61, 73-76,
116-120, 138-156.
Week 2 (10/8, 10/10): A History of the Ghetto
Massey and Denton, Pp. 17-82
10/10: Deadline for choosing an occupational niche for your
interviewees.
Week 3 (10/15, 10/17): The Suburb and the Ghetto: A View from Los Angeles
Davis, Mike. 1990. City of Quartz.
New York: Vintage
Books. Pp. 151-220; 265-322.
10/17: Personal Reflections due
10/17: Deadline for finding respondents for
interviews.
Week 4
10/22: Mid-Term Exam
10/24: Conducting Interviews
Whyte, William F. AInterviewing in the Field.@
Kleinman, Sherryl; Barbara Stenross and Martha McMahon. 1994. "Privileging Fieldwork Over Interviews: Consequences for Identity and
Practice." Symbolic
Interaction 17(1)37-50.
10/24: Deadline for composing interview
schedule.
Week 5
10/29, 10/31: Education: Funding Mechanisms
Kozol,
Jonathon. 1991. Savage Inequalities. New York: Crown. Pp. 1-6, 83-132, 206-237.
10/31: Deadline
for conducting interviews.
Week 6
11/5, 11/7: Education: Socialization for What?
Fine, Michelle.
1991. Framing
Dropouts: Notes on the Politics of
an Urban Public High School.
State University of New York Press. Pp. 1-62.
Wooden, Wayne S.
1995. ³Kicking Back at
Raging High.ı² From Renegade
Kids, Suburban Outlaws. Pp.
41-69.
11/7: Deadline for transcribing interviews
Week 7
11/12, 11/14: Face Work
Erving Goffman. 1967.
³On Face Work² Pp. 5-46 in Interaction Ritual. New York: Pantheon.
Anderson, Elijah.
1999. Code of the Street. New York: WW Norton and Company.
Pp. 66-106.
11/14: Deadline for coding interviews
Week 8
11/19, 11/21 (Professor Garot at
AAA Conference): Youth Violence
Katz, Jack. 1988.
Seductions of Crime:
Moral and Sensual Attractions in Doing Evil. New York: Basic Books.
Pp. 114-163
11/21: Deadline for preparing three analytical sections
Week 9-10
11/26, (11/28, holiday) 12/3: Enduring Prejudice, Student
Presentations
Duneier, Mitchell. 1999. Sidewalk. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Pp. 157-317.
12/5: Review Session; Term Paper Due
Tuesday, 12/10, 1:30-3:30: Final Exam
Paper #1: Personal Reflective Essay
What constitutes an inner-city or a
suburb? What is the experience of
coming of age in one area or the other?
Rather than providing responses for such questions for you, my hope is
that you will supply them to us, and in turn enliven the course with your own
awareness, as you enliven your own awareness with what the course has to
offer. Possible bases for your
essay could be:
● A description of the
characteristics of your neighborhood
● A description of the
schools you attended
● A description of
actual or imagined violence
● A description of the
localsı fear of crime
● How you first came
to understand that the area where you live is a ³suburb² or an ³inner-city²
● A description of
local shopping options
● A description of
local churches
● A description of the
entertainment options available to adults and/or children
● A description of
available after-school or summer programs and how these are funded
Your essay should be 2-3 pages
long. Your tone may be informal in
style, but do not become sloppy, and be sure to abide by standard rules of
spelling, grammar, etc. Include
your name, student ID number and date in the upper right hand corner of the
first page. Do not use a title
page, or any sort of binder. Pages
must be stapled, not paper-clipped.
Be sure to number your pages, and include your name and ID number in a
footer in the bottom center of each page, by the page number. Half of your grade will be based on
your description; the other half will be based on your incorporation of
readings and ideas from class as you reflect on your description.
Paper #2: Comparing/Contrasting Urban/Suburban
Experiences
Writing a paper based on interview data
may be different from papers you have written for other courses, in that the
paper will be inductive. In other
words, you will not be trying to test a hypothesis, or prove a theory, but you
will develop your thesis based on the data. This is often called a ³grounded² approach, meaning that
your analysis will be grounded in your data, and you will work from data to
theory, rather than working top down, from theory to data. This does not mean that your data
collection will not be theoretically informed. It does mean that you will not quite know what your paper
will be about until after you have conducted, transcribed and coded, and
analyzed your interviews. Even
then, your data may still present surprises.
Since so much work will be put into the process of writing this paper, you will need to
follow a schedule, and document your progress. In fact, half of your paper grade (20% of your course grade)
will be dependent on such progress, as documented on your interview progress
sheet, and supported by attached evidence. Be sure to turn in this material with your final paper, with
the progress sheet attached on top.
Each portion of this evidence will be worth 3 points. The other 50% of your paper grade will
be based on your actual term paper.
Half of this grade (10 points) will be based on your selection of and
use of data, the other half will be based on your use of readings and materials
from the course.
1. Choose a Niche (Deadline, 10/10)
In your second paper assignment, you
will be asked to compare the life and work experiences of respondents in
similar ecological niches in the suburb and in the inner-city. Depending on your background and
aspirations, you may choose two individuals from among the following
categories, or find a category of your own to explore.
Business Owner
City Planner
Day Care Worker
Gang Member
Homeless Person
Maintenance Worker
Newspaper Journalist/Editor
Parent
Physician
Police Officer
Recreation Supervisor
Retired Person
School Principal
Social Worker
Teacher
2. Find Respondents (Deadline, 10/17)
Once you have chosen the niche in
which you are interested, you need to begin to make contact with individuals in
the city and in the suburbs who embody that niche. You may not choose pre-existing friends or family
members, nor individuals with whom you maintain a business relationship, such
as your family physician, or your current teacher. You may choose acquaintances with whom
you have come in contact through community involvements, and others you have
met briefly, and would like to get to know better. You may begin by asking friends or family members for
contacts, by opening up a phone book, or by talking with people on your daily
rounds.
Once youıve found a potential
respondent, tell them that youıre a sociologist conducting a study on life in
the modern metropolis, and youıre wondering if theyıd like to be
interviewed. If they assent, make
sure they are over the age of 18 (those under 18 need parental permission, so
you would have to make up a form for that), and willing to be tape
recorded. If they agree, arrange
to conduct the interview at a mutually agreeable quiet location where you are
not likely to be disturbed or interrupted. Schedule at least two hours for the interview.
3. Write up an Interview Schedule (Deadline, 10/24)
Although your interview should proceed like an informal conversation, you should put considerable thought into the sorts of questions you would like to ask. Below areas I focused on for my dissertation research:
· Where
informant has lived over the life course
· Reasons
for moving
· Family
structure, siblings and place in birth order
· Neighborhoods
lived in, how they liked them
· Experiences
in schools attended
· Fights,
what happened, reasons for, how felt about
· Revenge
fantasies; regrets
· Fights
avoided, why, how, how felt about
· Girlfriends,
how feel about multiple partners, domestic abuse
· Hobbies
· Drug
use
· Places
avoided; fear of crime
· What
it means to be a "man"
· If
they alluded to the fact that they were involved in a gang, I asked what this
involvement consists of, how they were recruited, how they got out, etc.
· If
they alluded to the fact that they were not involved in a gang, I asked
what they think about gangs, how they avoided gangs, their thoughts about gangs
and others who are involved in them, etc.
Please do not simply copy these questions! You will need to put time into developing questions that merge your own personal interests with the topics from this course.
4. Conduct the Interviews (Deadline, 10/31)
Make sure to talk as little as possible during your interview. Begin by turning on the tape recorder (!), and reintroduce yourself and your reason for the interview. Assure your respondent that everything they say will be strictly confidential and anonymous. Then conduct your interview, maintaining eye contact throughout. Nod your head often, and use many continuers (³Mm, hm,² ³Tell me more about that,² ³Really? And then what happened,² etc.). Try to follow the general pattern of the questions you laid out in advance, but do not hesitate to deviate from them. Think of the interview as a mental challenge, in which you are working to unearth the details of your informantıs life. Stay attentive for any lapses, inconsistencies, or areas for further questions; it will be much more difficult to ask about such matters after the interview is over, than in the heat of the moment. Once you think you have run out of questions, then, and only then, look down at your ³cheat sheet² of questions, and ask any that remain. At the close of the interview, thank your respondent effusively, ask them if it would be OK to call for a follow-up, and ask if theyıd like to see the transcript and the final paper.
5. Transcribe Interviews (Deadline, 11/7)
Transcribing interviews is not easy work. A good rule of thumb is to set aside 3 hours of transcribing for each half-hour of interview. Try to find a transcribing machine to use. Make all margins one inch, except for your right margin, which should be about 3.5 inches. Try to transcribe as much of your interview as possible, but if you are short of time, you may limit your transciption to the most useful parts of the interview (though this is hard to know ahead of time). You may want to listen to your interview tapes a number of times before transcribing. However much you transcribe, remember that it will be turned in and used to compute your final grade.
6. Code your Data (Deadline, 11/14)
In class, we will discuss and practice two types of coding: open coding and focused coding. You will work with a partner to code and recode your papers, and highlight the data which is most relevant for building an argument.
7. Prepare Three Analytical Sections (Deadline, 11/21)
After you have thoroughly coded your data, find good quotes from your two informants which would provide a useful basis for comparison. You may wish to compare and contrast their sense of safety, their sense of optimism, their sense of efficacy at work, or some other point which may be exemplified by the readings. Once you have accomplished this with three data fragments from each informant, you are well on your way to writing your paper!
8. Write the Actual Paper (Deadline, 12/5)
Begin with an introductory paragraph, bringing your reader into your essay with an intriguing ³hook² or ³lead.² Be sure to include a thesis statement, telling your reader your conclusions, and what they should expect to find along the way. Then take 2-3 pages to describe the historical creation of the ghetto and the suburb. Next, proceed with your three (or more) analytical sections. This ³data² section should compare and/or contrast three relevant pairs of excerpts from your interviews. Be sure to bring in course readings where relevant! Finally, conclude by stating what you have learned about suburbs and inner-cities, and providing policy recommendations.
Do not skip lines between paragraphs (like Iım doing here). Use an easily legible font, 12-point size works in most types. Papers should be typewritten, double-spaced with approximately 1" margins. Number all pages. Papers should be stapled. This means no plastic binders, no folding the edges together and no paper clips. The following information should appear in the upper right-hand corner of the first page: name, student ID#, date, paper topic number, and title. A bibliography is a necessary part of a research paper (see Citation, below), and should be attached at the end.
You should make sure that you read the paper assignment instructions and follow them closely. The most important feature of your paper is that you have answered the question you have chosen. No matter how good your ideas are, if canıt demonstrate your understanding of the question, and give an answer to it in your paper, then you will not do very well.
Academic papers have introductions, bodies, and conclusions. An introduction should be simple and explicit, and describe what you are going to do, and in what order. It should provide a complete "road map" for the rest of the paper. Tell your reader something about the study you are conducting, what you will focus on in the paper, what points you will be making, what you will argue, and what you will conclude. It is perfectly acceptable to use the first person voice and say, "I will focus on ...", after all who is writing this paper, anyway?
The body of the paper must be well organized. You must use paragraphs to divide your thoughts. A paragraph is a set of sentences with one common idea. Each paragraph should have a topic sentence and make one main point. Your argument should flow logically from one paragraph to the next. Please use subheadings if they are appropriate or help the reader navigate through different sections of the paper. I should be able to make sense of your paper, in a general way, by reading the introduction, the first sentence of each paragraph, and the conclusion.
In your analysis, you will need to make explicit links between your "data" and the relevant course material. You will need to organize your paper around a description of the data you are analyzing and a review of the course material that helps to make your points. You should address all of the analytical issues I have proposed in the question. You may find that these do not exhaust the points you need to make, and answering your own additional questions may help further your analysis. Donıt overlook a review of the course material (even though you know that I already know it). That way I can determine how fluent you are with the concepts, and how well you are able to apply them to your subject matter. There are various strategies for integrating the course material with an analysis of your data, but these are indispensable.
For your conclusion, restate the paperıs highlights and take the opportunity to tie things up neatly. You may restate ideas from your opening paragraph. Repeat your thesis and briefly summarize the main evidence you have included. After reviewing your main points, you may speculate, include personal reactions, pose additional questions or suggest avenues for future research, and the like. If you have some doubts about whether your format will work effectively for the assignment, please feel free to consult with me about it first.
This is sometimes tricky, but by this point in your academic career, it is essential that you do it correctly. It is expected that you will use material from the texts and lecture to analyze your subject. Thus, whether you use direct quotes or paraphrases, you must give credit to the authors of those words, when they are not your own.
If you cite a lecture, do it this way: (Lecture, 9/9/02). However, relying solely on lecture citations for material that is also in the readings reveals to me that your familiarity with the readings is inadequate. So you should be sure to prioritize. Where appropriate, always cite the original source and not my delivery of it in lecture.
Directly quoted course materials from the reader should be cited in one of the following ways.
"Self-absorption is consistent with the emphasis on self-satisfaction fostered by capitalism in general and advertising in particular² (Karp, 1996:176).
Or alternately:
David A. Karp (1996:176) suggests that, "self-absorption is consistent with the emphasis on self-satisfaction fostered by capitalism in general and advertising in particular.²
Also, be sure to cite any ideas that you borrow, not just quoted text. For instance:
Many analysts have noted how self-absorption may be fostered by capitalism (Karp, 1996:176).
Any direct quotation that is longer than three lines needs to be set off from the body of the paper by indenting and single-spacing. Since your papers will be double-spaced and indented only to begin paragraphs, you will see the contrast. Be careful to differentiate between what the textbook authors are saying themselves, and the other authors that they may in turn quote. Cite accordingly. Do not string quotes together without putting them in context with your own prose. When you use a direct quote, place it in the context of a sentence that includes an explanation of what the quote means and why it is useful in service of the point you are making.
A full reference, including the authorıs name, book or article title, publishing information and page numbers will appear in a separate, alphabetically organized bibliography at the end of the paper, under the heading, ³References.² Refer to your syllabus and/or the reference sections of our articles as examples.
In general, write as simply as possible. Never use a big word, when a little one will do. Big words donıt necessarily convey intellectual prowess – especially when they are awkwardly used. Your word choice should be appropriate to formal writing: no slang, and no contractions ("canıt", "donıt"), unless you are quoting others or it somehow better helps you to make your point. You must use words that actually exist, and words must be used correctly. Look up definitions and spellings if you are unsure. Spell check often misses words.
Avoid using the indefinite "you". You will notice that I am addressing these instructions to you; that is, I am using the second person. That is because I am giving these instructions to a definite person or set of persons. In your papers, unless you mean to address the reader directly, do not use "you" when you mean to use "one" or ³we.² Refer to yourself as "I" instead of the royal "we." It is perfectly acceptable to use the first person singular in papers – it is not too informal. Use "we" for the author and the reader together: "We have seen how breaching experiments disturb our taken-for-granted notions about reality." Never refer to ³society² as an active agent (thatıs my pet peeve), as in, ³Society requires that people follow norms.²
Avoid "a lot" (and by the way itıs not spelled "alot"), and "very". Hemingway and Morrison do not need them, and neither do you. Donıt confuse "their/there/theyıre" or "itıs/its", or "to/two/too", or were/weıre/where", etc. Also please differentiate between "suppose" and "supposed" – these are not interchangeable, and are almost always improperly applied. These are sets of words that give students trouble, so please be careful.
Try to avoid using "he", "his", or "mankind" to mean anyone or all in general. If for some reason you have a strong ideological commitment to using "he" as the generic, you may do so, but it is not accurate, and there are other options available.
Make sure that nouns and verbs agree in number. Avoid sentence fragments. Make sure that the sentences you write have subjects and predicates. Verbs are also necessary. Do not leave a clause hanging without these necessary components. Avoid run-on sentences. Make sure that if you link things together in a sentence that you do so by using the proper connective words or punctuation marks. These kinds of mistakes can often be caught by reading your paper aloud. If it sounds wrong, it probably is.
Always follow the parsimony principle. That is, use as few words as possible to make your point.
One way to start is by saying your ideas out loud, and writing them down. Just get the words out of your head and onto the page where you will be able to work with them more easily. I strongly suggest that you write more than one draft of your paper. Most successful papers are begun well in advance of the night before the assignment is due. The best way to start is to just spew out a messy first draft, getting all of your ideas and facts down on paper (if you write long-hand) or your computer screen (if you prefer to word process). Then, a second draft will help you to organize the sections, focus your argument, and refine the content and style.
You must be at this point before you come to see me about your paper. Although we will be unable to read entire drafts, we may be able to discuss with you specific parts of your thesis or analysis, and/or help you with difficulties in transitions between ideas or sections of your argument. A final draft is useful for correcting spelling and grammatical errors, and for formatting the paper. You must proofread your own paper. It is not acceptable to turn in a paper with typographical errors, misspellings, nouns and verbs that do not agree, misused words, run-on sentences, sentence fragments, etc. You may want to rewrite the beginning or end of your paper in the last draft. Often in composing your paper, you will have changed your focus or ideas somewhat by the time you finish. You will want to make sure that these changes are reflected in a new version of your introduction or conclusion.
Finally, re-read your own paper and imagine that someone else wrote it. Does it make sense? Fix it, if it doesnıt. You may also want to get someone else to read your paper and give you comments. It is often hard to be objective when you are so close in the writing process. If you have trouble with your writing, get help. For further suggestions on writing, I suggest:
Richlin-Klonsky, Judith and Ellen Strenski (Eds.). 1994. A Guide to Writing Sociology Papers. New York: St. Martinıs Press.
Becker, Howard
S. 1986. Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish
Your Thesis, Book, or Article.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Also, please feel free to visit during office hours for personal assistance.
Good luck, and start writing now!
*This document adapted with thanks from Dr. Kerry Ferris' Case Study Essay Guidelines.