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1 Soc. 3251W: Sociological Perspectives on Race, Class, and Gender Instructor: Eric Tranby Spring 2007 Office: 1046 Social Sciences Class Times: T,Th. 8:15am-9:30am Phone: 612-624-0081 Class Location: Blegen 150 Email: [email protected] Office Hours: Tue. 9:40am-11:30am Wen. 11:00 am-1:00pm or by appointment TA: Ryan Moltz Office Hours: Tue. 9:40am-11:10am Office: 1067 Social Sciences Thur. 12:15pm-2:45pm Phone: 612-624-5296 or by appointment Email: [email protected] Course Description and Goals Race, class and gender, and the inequalities associated with them, affect all of our lives but are often taken for granted and rarely confronted, challenged or contested. This course will do just that by examining the social construction of race, class and gender. We will start by examining race, class, and gender inequalities as individual aspects of social life. Then, we will focus our attention on how race, class, and gender shape societies and individual experiences in interaction with each other. We will spend a substantial amount of time examining how these inequalities shape and are shaped by social institutions, including cultural institutions, the economy, and the family. Throughout the course, the American experience will be compared and contrasted with societies throughout the world; however, there is also a section of the course explicitly devoted to social inequality in the comparative perspective. Finally, we will devote the last few weeks of the course to discussing possible approaches to addressing social inequalities. The goals for this course are for every student to: 1. Understand the importance of race, class, and gender as distinct aspects of social life and as interrelated social forces. 2. Understand the ways that race, class, and gender are socially constructed categories that have different content across societies and are transformed (and sometimes maintained) over time. 3. Explore the importance of race, class, and gender in social institutions and in individual experiences, interactions, and identities. 4. Improve your ability to articulate thoughts about course material during class discussions and in written assignments.2 Course Structure: Class time will be a mixture of lecture and discussion or other in-class activities. During lecture, which will typically take between half-hour an 45 minutes, I will review and discuss the readings and give additional information about the day’s topic. The remainder of class time will be spent in learning exercises, activities, or discussions. Required Reading: Most of the readings for the course come from two books, which are available in the University of Minnesota main bookstore (although you will be able to find them much cheaper online): Ore, Tracy E., ed. 2005. The Social Construction of Difference and Inequality: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality, 3rd Ed. Boston: McGraw Hill. Grusky, David B., ed. 2001. Social Stratification: Class, Race, and Gender in Sociological Perspective, 2nd Ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. If you get the books online, please make sure and get the correct editions. In addition to readings from these books, there are additional required readings on the syllabus; you can access these readings on the course website, by clicking on the “students only” link on the top right of the page and entering the username and password. The username is “soc3251” and the password is “tranby1046”. You can also download some readings from various article indexes, including JSTOR and Sociological Abstracts. Course Website: The course website can be found at: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/tran0410/soc3251. On this site there is a copy of this syllabus, interesting and helpful links, examples of reactions/discussion questions, media journals, and responses, copies of all course handouts, blogs for all course material, and the “students only” section, which contains the additional required readings for the course and copies of powerpoint lecture notes. Please check this site frequently as I will be posting class announcements and helpful material throughout the course. You will also be periodically required to post your thoughts and reactions to various aspects of the class on this site. Please contact me as soon as possible if you do not have readily available internet access or will have difficulty accessing the site regularly. Course Requirements and Grading: Class Participation (5% or 25 points) Readings Reactions & Discussion Questions (5% or 25 points) Media Journals (5% or 25 points)3 Responses (5% or 25 points) Midterm Exam (20% or 100 points) Final Exam (20% or 100 points) Paper Proposal (5% or 25 points) Annotated Bibliography/Outline (5% or 25 points) First Draft of Course Paper (10% or 50 points) Final Draft of Course Paper (20% or 100 points) Total possible points: 500 In general, you can expect a B grade if you attend class regularly, participate, contribute good reactions and discussion questions, do reasonably well on the exams, and produce a sound research paper. Especially insightful in-class participation, thoughtful exams, and excellent written work will increase your grade. Sloppy and/or late work, doing poorly on the exams and infrequent class attendance will result in a lower grade. I do not use a curve in calculating final grades; however, I will take into account improvement in your assignments throughout the course of the semester To receive a good grade on any of the course requirements, you do not need to try and reproduce the answer you think I want you to give or how I might answer the questions. Instead, you need to demonstrate a good grasp of the readings and lectures and advance a well-thought out, well-organized, and critical argument. Most importantly, you need to think for yourself. If at any time, you have questions about your grade, you should contact me or your TA and/or come to our office hours. Class Participation The readings are assigned for each class meeting and students are expected to be familiar with the material when we discuss it. Students are expected to be able to summarize and critique the assigned readings in order to facilitate in-class discussion and activities. Students are also expected to participate


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U of M SOC 3251W - SOC 3251W Syllabus

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