Seton Hall University
Department of Sociology/Anthropology

SOCI 1101 Fall, 2002
Professor Philip M. Kayal
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
e-mail: kayalphi@shu.edu

Course Project Assignments

Class Participation:

Class participation will take several forms. In-class discussions and contributions between you and the teacher (raising hand, asking questions, commenting on lectures, observations, responses to other students, commentary on newspaper articles/movies/TV shows/books/radio programs, etc. Questions about and commentary on articles read are highly valued. News commentary from The New York Times are especially valued.

There will be constant interchanges (some collective and some individual) between yourself and the teacher via e-mail, discussion groups and web assignments. I will lay the groundwork for most of these interactions, but you are free and encouraged to take the initiative yourself. Generally, these interchanges should be limited to professional discussions of sociological interest, but can be personal on your part. At all times, I will respond to you sociologically, that is, I will interpret your "problem," or question sociologically. Sociologists can solve, (or at least explain) problems as well as psychologists by linking "your problem" to a social circumstance. If you need therapy, however, there is a counseling center in Mooney Hall.

When requested, the following assignments should be completed by all students. We will work on them together continuously, throughout the semester. Some, however, will be due sooner than others. We can do most of the discussion of the project via e-mail. This will allow me more time with you to informally evaluate your development as a partner in learning. You will see what I mean when you begin engaging this process which could be, if you wish, as early as tonight.

There are several assignments with outlines included. As we discuss them, I will further add on instructions and examples to help you.

  1. Thinking about your Group Membership 

   B:    Reading Assignment And Application

    Read the article on cutting class on reserve by Gary Wyatt listed in the syllabus. Identify his findings by making a brief list of them. Write a brief report in your notebook on why you agree or disagree with his explanations, paying strict attention to how he did research. Did you follow the procedures outlined in class and in your readings regarding research methods! We will eventually be using his research outline on various projects we discuss in class. Think about his assumptions, suggest alternative explanations, and think of questions you would ask to test his hypotheses and any other hypotheses we may come up with here at Seton Hall. Make note of his independent and dependent variables.

As you can see, Wyatt does what we call EMPIRICAL Research, that is, he collects information from a questionnaire and has findings backed up by DATA. I would like you to do the same, but time constraints will make this impossible, so we will only review the literature on some topic of interest to you and collect some information on this topical area. Hopefully, some articles you find will have DATA in them. This way we can see how sociologists do research and interpret their findings.

C:    Some Internet Assignments:

Project I: Research Project (Topic Required Shortly)

    After reading the material on sociological research and methods in Charon and Footnotes, think about a topic of interest to yourself or to a group of no more than three other students of your choosing. By TWO WEEKS FROM TODAY submit your topic of study to me. It has to be something that we can study sociologically or is rooted in a social situation. A question about behavior is what we are looking for. Indicate what it is about this topic that attracted you and what you wish to find out about it.

    Submit a topic (topical area) and research question that matches the expectations given your readings in Henslin articles 2 & 4 and in the text, Pp. 23-36. These articles will indicate the difference between a sociological question and that of other disciplines. Indicate what it is you want to study and why! Find 2 articles and 5 websites that closely approximate your research question. Identify and contrast the information on the websites (read each website) and read 1 article on the topic. Critically summarize the article with an eye towards evaluating and understanding how they did the research in question. Identify, a hypothesis, variables used, sample method, research method and findings, etc. Using what you know about research is it good research or not!

    All our librarians will help you and will introduce you to sociofile and teach you how to search out a topic. Don’t be shy or hesitate! Ask them! In addition to the five traditional sources, I would like each of you or each group to find 5 WEBSITES on the Internet which deal with your topic. Each of you or each group member is to summarize one of the articles you submit as part of your library search by the end of the fourth week of class.

    There are many search engines to help you with this important project. Click on the library link on the SHU homepage. You can choose PROQUEST and follow the directions there. Also use the virtual library sites indicated on your professor's homepage. These will send you to many academic sources and, in fact, often give you the hardcopy visual to read right there on your computer. Another research source is Infotrac available for free from the library homepage. These sources are good, but not always academic or professional. Also, check the NY TIMES for uptodate news on various topics. These articles are available for you to read right on your computer. Check with the following librarians (or any librarian anywhere) for help: Beth Bloom. and Sr. Anita Talar.

    Throughout the semester, various Internet search assignments will be given. . Others will be derived from readings. For example, by Weiss "The Clustering of America" on reserve in the library (and on e-reserve) is about zip codes. I will be asking you below to check out your own zip code area via the Internet to garner demographic characteristics about your neighbors and then compare them with South Orange.

    Project II: Zip Code Assignment

    The following Internet sites are taken from the Federal Census. Follow the directions in each site and contrast and compare your hometown zip code and that of So. Orange in terms of some sociological variables. (You identity them). While doing this, it might be wise to get a visual schemata in your mind of the layout and demographics of your own home town and So. Orange. You do this by taking a ride around town, either by bike, foot or car. What groups do you see, how do they act, what distinguishes them from others?, etc. Indicate how the data about and your experience of the town's population differ from your original mental image or stereotypical impression of the area. In other words, what did you discover about "reality" from both the empirical data and your observations. Read article above by Weiss on ZipCodes and chapter 4 on Population and Demography in book by Johnson, The Forest and the Trees before beginning.
    Zip Code Sites:

     

    Census information is available every 10 years. Some of these sites (above) are for the 1990 census. A sites for some of the 2000 data are  listed as well, and are also on the Syllabus. They cover the same thing, though in a different format. A librarian will help you find the data.  Make sure you check for income, race, gender, education, etc.  Choose other variables that interest you.

Project III: Outlined

(Do ONE of the following, either A, B, or C)

The Concepts listed on the Syllabus are to be used in whatever project you choose.

Project A: Film, Book, Commercial Review or Sport Event (use concepts)

Obviously by now you understand that the personal is political and the political, personal and that there is a "political economy" affecting what you think, how you dress and see yourself, etc.? You should be able to look at the sociological content of any event going on around you or any situation a person finds themselves in. You should be able to analyze everyday events sociologically.

Discuss some phenomenon in American society (athletic event, movie, book, athletic event, commercial) sociologically. Draw on your readings for help or seek the professor's guidance. Describe its structure, the roles played, the message or meaning, the interactions and interconnections, etc. Look, for examples, at the images created by the media of different groups in society. Your looking for the point behind the obvious point being made. For example, apply as many of the above concepts as possible to a review of a movie or book.

Project B: Sociological Autobiography (Use at least 25 concepts)

This assignment is designed to help you utilize sociological concepts in the examination of your own life. You are being asked to explain how your membership in specific groups (your family, religion, social class, school, work environments, etc) have shaped you. In a word: Illustrate the concepts below by making reference to your own life and experiences. What groups do you belong to? How are they organized? WHAT ROLE DID YOU PLAY IN THEM? HOW DOES THIS ROLE FIT INTO THE STRUCTURE OF THE GROUP, I.E., RELATE TO OTHER ROLES? WHAT HELD THESE GROUPS TOGETHER? HOW WAS DEVIANCE HANDLED?, HOW WAS MEMBERSHIP ESTABLISHED? HOW WAS AUTHORITY AND LEADERSHIP ESTABLISHED AND EXERCISED? How were these groups organized and what position did you hold in them, what roles did you play?

You could begin by describing the groups in your life which have affected the development of your attitudes, beliefs, and feelings. Describe them. How were they organized? How did they affect the social being that you are? Which INTERACTIONS affected you the most? What determined who was a significant other in your life? How did your sibling order in the family, your ethnicity, religion, neighborhood, etc., affect you options, etc. How did the groups you belonged to, your position in them and their composition, affect how you came to see and understand the world and yourself. Use sociological jargon throughout your report because you are being asked to analyze your life, that is, interpret life events from this perspective.

You are being asked to outline and analyze who you are. "Who are you" sociologically is the question, and how did you get that way? What were the experiences, the structure of the experiences you have been through which affected you the most. What roles have you played and how were they assigned you? How did they differ from one another? Where they compatible? How did you learn them, how did you integrate all the different ones?

This assignment is designed to utilize sociological concepts in the examination of your own life. You should begin by describing events and experiences in your life which have affected the development of your attitudes, beliefs, goals, feelings, and perceptions of reality. Your concern is to determine and describe how and why these events and experiences have shaped you. How did you come to be the social being that you are?

Your objective is to describe which social factors influenced and shaped your life. Some of these social forces are broad and general, like cultural values and expectations. Others are more specific, like institutions (schools, families, etc)., and your membership in certain groups (neighborhoods, clubs, etc). How did you develop your goals and self-identity? Who were role models in your life? How has exposure to senior citizens affected you or how were your attitudes about property, material goods, money, death, life, success develop? How have you come to manage role conflicts?

Most likely, you have come to have very strong opinions about certain things: drugs, sex, rock and roll, marriage, patriotism, god, religion, your own bodies, etc.? How are your opinions influenced by your group memberships (family, religion, social class, education, etc.? Or do you still think you are simply unique and only an individual?)

The above are some of the questions or ways you can approach this assignment.  Another approach might be to ask how your life would be different if you were born into a different ethnic group, religion, social class, race, or sex.

To do this assignment successfully, you should be familiar with sociological jargon. So be sure you know the definitions of the terms you are using to describe yourself through. Be sure your use of them exemplifies their meaning. Use these terms (concepts) in the context of your own life in such a way as to make them comprehensible to the listener or reader. Use the terms in full sentences as exemplified below.

Procedure: After you write your story, go back again and translate each sentence into sociology. For examples do not speak about your large family, but rather your extended family!

  1. Wrong Way: Because my family is rich, my parents threw a party for me to celebrate my graduation to the second grade. My friends were invited and this was the first time that I was allowed to mix with them at home together with my relatives.

    2. I was promoted to the next grade, but felt out of place. Lots of different people were there and I did not know how to act. We did not get along because I thought they were ill-behaved and because I thought everyone agreed on what was right or wrong and how to act. I soon learned that there were a lot of differences between people.

  2. Right Way: My nuclear family is well-situated in the upper-middle class because my parent's education and occupation permit us to have a life-style commensurate with those people considered professionals. I did not realize it but this meant living by a certain set of norms and cultural expectations, like acting and dressing a certain way. The graduation was the first formal event I remember attending. My peers were there and were invited to my home where they met my extended family. Unfortunately, their backgrounds were different from my own family's and there was a great deal of culture conflict at the party.

    3. Part of it was generational and part of it was ethnically based. This "rite of passage" was difficult for me because the scripts were not that clear and I experienced both anomie and role conflicts when I tried to act correctly. I did not know which group (family or friends) should be my reference group. When I changed my social location, I had to break into a group which already had its own boundaries. It was difficult finding out what they expected of me and to become part of their system of relations. Through frequent interaction with them, I learned the norms I would have to live up to for me to become an insider. I had to learn to be less ethnocentric. Going to school without a supportive primary group was difficult and it became harder without them as guides to help me figure out how the social system of the school operated, that is, who mixed with who, under which circumstances, and for which reasons. etc. And of course, who had power?

Project C: Sociological Concepts  (Use at least  25 concepts to explain your life)

Like both assignments above, this project is designed to help you utilize sociological concepts in the examination of your own life.  You are being asked to explain how your membership in specific groups (your family, religion, social class, school, work environments, etc) have shaped you.  In a word: Illustrate the concepts below and those indicated in class by first defining them correctly and then using them to express a complete thought in a sentence.

The objective here is to see how well you can explain sociological concepts to others, yourself, and to me. I want you to demonstrate your ability to use the concepts. You should read for the definition in the sociological literature. Ideally, find reference to the concept in the literature that you are readings rather than merely copying the definition from the text.. Give me the official definition from the literature. Indicate the source of your definition after you enter it. Then, redefine correctly in your own words in a way that illustrates and demonstrates the concept. Make sure you just don't repeat the concept in a sentence, but use it in a way that conveys its meaning.

You can experiment with this before you do it. Pick any one of the concepts listed on the next page and explain it to one of your parents, relatives, or friends. Watch your reaction and theirs. Who was more cooperative? Who learned it faster? Why? Remember, you know or understand something when you can teach it to someone else. Use full citation first time and shorter version henceforth. You can also find definitions and examples of concepts on the web. Feel free to give them, but indicate the site you took them from.

For example:

Concept 1: Anomie

When John went to Vietnam, the situation was so new to him and the rules so unclear that he suffered from anomie. During the war, the rules were suspended. There was no authority to obey. No one knew what he was doing? It was hard to tell wrong from right? In the absence of norms, he created his own, but they lacked legitimacy. How would he know that he was right? He still did not know how to act, who to obey, what rules applied. He solved the problem by identifying with his field unit and doing what was expected of him in his reference group, whether or not it was right or wrong.
Again, here are some topical sites on web that may be of interest to you:

See sites by topic in Surfing Sociology


Back to Syllabus.