SOCL
390: Senior Seminar in Sociology

Thursday
5:00-7:30; SCHU 209

Fall
2007

Instructor:  Alex Thomas

Office:  416 Fitzelle

Office Hours: T 2:00-4:00 ;
Th 1:00-2:00; & by app’t

Phone:  436-2149

Email:  [email-masked]

Website:
http://webserver1.oneonta.edu/faculty/thomasa/

Course Description & Objectives

This is the senior level
capstone course for the Liberal Arts Sociology major.  By the end of this course, the student
will have a full understanding of the application of sociological theory to contemporary
issues.

Course Format & Policies

1.
You are expected
to attend all classes and read all assigned materials.  Participation is mandatory.

In the event that you miss one of your
presentations, you will be assigned a grade of zero (0), regardless of any
circumstances or notification of the instructor.  Any changes to the seminar
presentation schedule must be addressed in class at least one week prior
to the class at issue.  This
can be mitigated by finding a replacement to present your material, but
full credit will not be granted.

Assignments are considered due at the beginning
of class.  Late assignments are
lowered a grade for every class period late.  Missing a class and turning in an
assignment later the same day is still late.

Always save a copy of any work submitted for your
own records.

Grading

Assignment

% of Grade

Date Due

Presentation 1

15

TBA

Presentation 2

15

TBA

Paper Topic

5

September 13, 2007

Literature Review

10

October 18, 2007

Methods Section

10

November 8, 2007

Final Paper

25

December 13, 2007

Class Participation

20

Ongoing

Required Materials

PACKET: Packet of Readings; HUXLEY: Brave
New World; ORWELL: 1984

Class Presentations

Each member of the class will
present material from two of the readings to the class and lead the discussion
for both of those sessions.  Topics
will be decided in class.  Visual
aids are not necessary and presentations are to be informal.  However, each presenter should prepare
an outline of the readings for each respective day and make photocopies (at
their own expense) for each member of the class, including the instructor.  This assignment is worth a combined
forty percent of the final grade (20% each presentation).

Schedule

Begin Date

Read:

Aug. 30

Sep. 6

PACKET: Maryanski
& Turner; Leibowitz

Sep. 13

BREAK

PAPER TOPICS DUE SEPT. 13
IN CLASS

Sep. 20

PACKET: Blumer;
Freud

Sep. 27

PACKET: Goffman;
Durkheim

Oct. 4

PACKET: Berger & Luckmann; Collins

Oct. 11

HUXLEY: Brave New World

Oct. 18

HUXLEY – Brave New World

LITERATURE REVIEW DUE
OCTOBER 18 IN CLASS

Oct. 25

PACKET: Weber I; Marx

Nov. 1

PACKET: O’Conner; Domhoff

Nov. 8

PACKET: Granovetter;
Ormerod

METHODS SECTION DUE
NOVEMBER 8 IN CLASS

Nov. 15

PACKET: Weber II; Strauss

Nov. 22

BREAK

Nov. 29

PACKET: Herman &
Chomsky; Staples

Dec. 6

ORWELL – 1984

Dec. 13

ORWELL – 1984

PAPERS DUE DECEMBER 13 IN
CLASS

Dec. 20

FILM & Class Discussion

Class Participation

This is a seminar class.  A seminar class is only as effective as
it is lively.  As such, please note
that participation is a sizable portion of the grade.  I will be keeping notes during each
class.  The grade will be determined
by your overall participation in class during the semester as well as your
performance on weekly questions, as noted below.  As life is life, you can miss one week
of assignments – that is, one class – before penalty.

Weekly Questions:  Based on the reading, write a question
that addresses one or more concepts discussed.  The question should have background
information and/or an explanation of the relevant passages in the reading.  The question can also seek comparison or
any other intellectual (and sociological) theme as discussed in the
reading.  In other words, a question
is not a sentence but is rather a paragraph.  The idea is to generate a series of
questions that can be picked and address by the remainder of the class for
discussion.  You should keep your
name on the question when you submit it, but it will stripped from the question
when they are all compiled into one class sheet.

Submitting Questions:  Questions should be submitted via EMAIL
to [email-masked] by 10:00 PM on the Sunday night prior to
class.

Grading Questions:  Questions will be graded on the three
point scale: √ +, √, and √ -.  A √ + will be a question that is
intellectually challenging and/or probing of the material, and may or may not
reference past readings, current events, or other facets of social science
theory.  A √ will be a decent
question that simply does not warrant a √ +.  In order to receive these grades, the
question must be turned in on time.  Questions deserving of the above grades
turned in late will automatically receive a √ -.  An inferior (e.g., one or two sentences)
question received late or not at all will receive no
credit.

Learning Question Grades:  Questions will not be returned.  If you want a grade, you must ask during
office hours.  I will reply to late
emailed questions with the word “late” in the body of the
email.

Research Paper

Each member of the class is
required to conduct research on a topic of their own choice, but subject to
approval of the instructor.  The
research must be conducted on a sociological topic.  The paper must be written in a formal
style.  As a college senior, the
quality of research and writing should be of the same approximate quality that
would be expected of a professional sociologist.  The paper will be reviewed in three
stages, as shown below.  All papers
must be typed or word processed, double-spaced, and stapled or otherwise
secured.

Paper topic: Write a one to two page proposal of your research
topic, including the methods you plan to use, ethical issues, sampling issues,
and any other relevant information.
You are free to use any credible research method, but you should
remember that you are going to be required to actually conduct this
research.  As such, your project
must be doable, and you must have a plan for finishing this research during the
course of the semester.  It is
recommended that you consider a historical-comparative, secondary data
analysis, or content analysis study because they more readily lend themselves
to the permitted timeframe, but it is your choice.

Due: Sept. 13, 2007 in class

Literature Review:  Conduct a
thorough review of the research literature on your topic.  This should include a discussion of
relevant theoretical issues, past research, and possible public
policy/political debates centering on this topic.  You should cover all major angles and be
as non-biased as possible.  Lengths
will vary depending on your topic, but it is difficult to believe that a
credible research topic will lend itself to a literature review and theoretical
discussion of less than ten pages.
For certain research methods, such as Historical-Comparative research,
this will comprise the largest single portion of the final paper.  For others, this section maybe shorter
but that will be offset by the fact that the research itself must still be
conducted.

Due: Oct. 18, 2007 in class

Methods Section:  This assignment is required of all
students regardless of topic.  The
methods section is a statement of how the research is to be conducted.  This includes provisions of sampling,
sampling frames, database acquisition, and all other information relevant to other
researchers in terms of replicating your study.  For research oriented projects, such as
a content analysis or secondary data analysis, this section should be fairly
detailed, including such factors as where the data was obtained, relative
merits of the method over other methods, etc.  For historical-comparative research and
theoretical papers, this should include a discussion of sources and viewpoints,
but in practice the final paper may incorporate this material in a section
other than a method section.

Due: Nov. 8, 2007 in class

Final Paper: This is the complete account of your research.  The paper should be structured as
follows:

Introduction: Describes the project,
including any scientific, political, or policy debates surrounding the topic.

Literature Review: Overview of relevant
theories and past research regarding the topic.  In addition, debates taking place on
empirical grounds should be discussed in the section.

Method: This is required of papers that
are neither historical-comparative nor theoretical in focus.  This section describes in detail the
research methods utilized and the advantages or disadvantages.  This includes provisions of sampling,
sampling frames, database acquisition, and all other information relevant to
other researchers in terms of replicating your study.

Findngs: Again,
this section is most appropriate to research driven studies that are not
historical-comparative.  This should
include the basic findings of the study, including qualitative descriptions and
quantitative testing where appropriate.

Discussion & Conclusion: This
section should contain any conclusions from the study, such as interpretations
of the significance of the data and ramifications for future research.  Policy ramifications and social
implications can also be discussed here.
This is the one piece of the paper that can be used as a soapbox of sorts,
but your remarks must be grounded in the research literature and/or the
findings of this study.  Do not rely
on “common sense” as the arbiter of your remarks as things are
often not as obvious as we assume.

Due: Dec. 13, 2007 in class