Links to group project web pages:
Fraternities, Sororities, and Christian Beliefs
Effects of Media on Society

And now the exam review.  Bring questions to our last class.

New:  All the questions from in-class worksheets 

Here's the link to the Max Weber homepage.  For those interested, take special note of the sections on bureaucracy, rationalization, and the irrationality factor. 

Here's the midterm review!  Good luck and bring questions to class on Tuesday. 

Assignment due Tuesday (2/22) - Fill in ranked strata system diagram for your high school- feel free to add more bubbles and different connections.  Label groups - if label not clear by name, then include a brief description of the group. 

The Course Outline has been updated!!  Please check it out to see new dates for readings and assignments! 

Look here throughout the semester for new resources for you to use - notes, web pages, and so on. 

Notes for Tocqueville are up. Also new notes on Suicide and balance theory are on the notes page. 

Introduction: 

This course is intended equally as an introduction to key issues in American society and as an introduction to fundamental sociological concepts and methods.  To deal with the former we will begin the course with a grounding in United States society of the 19th Century.  Instead of being overly concerned with the historical accuracy of representations of 19th Century U.S. (this is not a history course), we will primarily use them as a comparison to grasp contemporary American society.   That is, as we progress through the course, we will continually look back to the 19th Century to try to understand how things have changed and what this means for us.  We will ask questions such as: What do these changes mean for our identity and community?  How have they shifted the functioning of our democracy and our society? 

To take care of the latter – the intro to sociological concepts and methodologies, we will focus our attention for several weeks in the early part of the course on some of the methods and tools that sociologists use to study society.  During the remainder of the semester, we will use these tools, and our historical grounding in early America, to investigate major areas of sociological research such as stratification, education, race, freedom and democracy, bureaucracy, culture, and media technologies in the contemporary U.S. 

Many of the issues surrounding the broad areas outlined above are controversial.  Indeed, we will occasionally bring into question some of our most cherished values.  Let me be clear up front that I will not try to “convert” any of you to a particular ideology or viewpoint.  However, we will frequently challenge the basic beliefs of EACH of us.  The goal is to understand why we believe what we do and whether these beliefs hold up to logical and empirical critique. 

Not surprisingly given the content of the previous paragraph, a sizable proportion of classroom time in this course will be devoted to discussion and small group work (though I will frequently lecture, especially in the early part of the class).  Thus, it is important that you read assignments before coming to class and that you bring a copy of the day’s reading(s) to class.