Soc 210B: Contemporary Theory

Sociology 210B:  Contemporary Sociological Theory

Spring 2019

Time & Place:  Wednesday 1:30-4:20pm, SSPB 4206

Instructor:  Evan Schofer

Office Hours:  SSPB 4271, Wednesday 11:00-12:00 and by appointment

Course readings:  Available on Canvas.  Look under "files"

Introduction

This course offers an introduction to contemporary sociological theory for graduate students.  The course is not a systematic review of the literature.  Partly, it is difficult to cover the contemporary canon in a mere ten weeks.  Partly, the canon is not especially well defined.  Partly, some elements of the canon are not used very much.  And, partly, some key theoretical traditions are covered more thoroughly in other classes, such as Sociology of Culture.

If one did wish to cover contemporary theory in a more systematic way, I would suggest the following outstanding syllabi:  Kieran Healy:  http://kieranhealy.org/files/teaching/contemp-theory.pdf Links to an external site.  Or, Marion Fourcade:  http://www.marionfourcade.org/teaching/graduate-courses/ Links to an external site.

Instead, this course focuses on teaching students how to become theorists, themselves, drawing on selected theoretical traditions that are useful and central to faculty research here at UCI.  The course is about how to use, extend, and develop sociological theory that engages with contemporary literatures.  In sociology, theory is frequently divorced from the "ordinary" day-to-day work of empirical sociologists, a rarified topic that is addressed by a few specialists in the discipline.  Or, it ends up boiling down to a few ritualistic cites to Foucault or Bourdieu in the introduction of a paper.  This course focuses on integrating theorization with contemporary empirical research.  To accomplish this, the course explores the development of particular sociological perspectives, focusing on how recent scholars have applied, refined, and extended some key theoretical traditions, and/or examining some significant theoretical debates that animate current scholarship.

Readings

Complete reading assignments prior to the class in which material will be covered.  You will get much more out of class if you have already finished the readings.

Assignments and Evaluation

Assignments.  There will be five short assignments, collectively worth 90% of your final grade. Most are brief exercises, though some are a bit more involved.

Class Participation. You are expected to attend class regularly and contribute to class discussion. Class participation will count for 10% of your final grade.

This course does not have a miderm or final exam.

Assignments received late will be marked down one partial grade (i.e., and A becomes an A-, C+ becomes a C; numerically graded assignments decrease by one point) per day past the due date.  Extensions will be granted for legitimate reasons if requested in advance.

Your final grade will be computed based on the percentage weightings indicated.  In the event of a borderline grade, I may use my discretion in adjusting grades based on course participation, improvement, and effort (or lack thereof).  Incompletes will not be given, except in unusual circumstances.

Schedule & Reading Assignments

Spring Quarter 2019:  Instruction begins April 1, ends June 7, Holiday May 27

NOTE:  I may make modifications or updates to the readings and assignments.  If so, this will be done well in advance, and I will give you plenty of warning.

Week 1 (April 3):  Introduction

Collins, Randall.  1971.  "Functional and Conflict Theories of Educational Stratification."  American Sociological Review, 36:1002-1019.

Week 2 (April 10):  Developing sociological concepts

Bourdieu, Pierre. "The Forms of Capital." Excerpt from Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984.

Coleman, James S. 1988. “Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital.” American Journal of Sociology. 94:S95-S120.  http://www.jstor.org/stable/2780243 Links to an external site.

Short Assignment #1 Due

Contrast the theoretical development of an article published in a major sociology journal with one in a second-tier journal.  Pick a seminal AJS or ASR article and a second-tier journal article in the same field.  Discuss the theoretical contributions of each article.  Extra credit: speculate on how the second tier article could have been improved to become a first tier article.  Aim for 2-3 pages.

Week 3 (April 17):  Testing a theory

Lareau, Annette. 2002. “Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in Black Families and White Families.” American Sociological Review, 67: 747-76.  http://www.jstor.org/stable/3088916 Links to an external site.

Week 4  (April 24):  Thinking about competing theories

Wilson, William Julius. 1980. The Declining Significance of Race. 2nd Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Ch. 1.

Conley, Dalton. 1999. Being Black, Living in the Red. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chapters 1 and 3.

Pager, Devah, Bart Bonikowski and Bruce Western. 2009. “Discrimination in a Low-Wage Labor Market: A Field Experiment.” American Sociological Review 74(5):777-799.  http://www.jstor.org/stable/27736094 Links to an external site.

Short Assignment #2 Due

Reflect on the race versus class debate (2-3 pages).  Pick an phenomenon of interest to you, such as educational inequality, income inequality, residential segregation, friendship networks, etc.  Briefly summarize important issues that a scholar focused on race might emphasize in studying the phenomenon.  If possible, articulate concrete arguments or hypotheses one might develop.  How might a scholar focused principally on class analyze the same issue?  Again, be specific and try to articulate hypotheses.  For the purposes of this exercise, resist the urge to blend or merge the two perspectives; explore the possibility that each could be fundamentally more important than the other.

Week 5 (May 1):  Explain a Puzzling Case

Portes, Alejandro, and Min Zhou. 1993. “The New Second Generation: Segmented Assimilation and its Variants.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science530: 74-96.

Alba, Richard Alba and Victor Nee. 1997. “Rethinking Assimilation Theory for a New Era of Immigration.” International Migration Review. 31(4):826-874. FOCUS ON Extensions of the Conceptual Canon – pp. 833-841.  http://www.jstor.org/stable/2547416 Links to an external site.

Herbert J. Gans. 1999. “Symbolic ethnicity.” Making Sense of America. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Pp. 167-199.

Week 6 (May 8):  Apply theory to a new domain; Theories of social movements

Snow, David, E.B. Rochford, S. Warden and Robert Benford. 1986. “Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation.” American Sociological Review, 51:464-81.  http://www.jstor.org/stable/2095581 Links to an external site.

McAdam, Doug, John D. McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald.  1996. "Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Framing Processes."  Pp. 1-20 in Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements.  Cambridge, UK:  Cambridge University Press.

OPTIONAL.  Goffman, Erving. From Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974. Ch. 1 and 2: “Introduction” and “Primary Frameworks.

Short Assignment #3 Due

Analyze cultural frames in a new domain (2-4 pages).  Pick a social process of interest to you, such as political competition, gender inequality or immigrant rights.  Describe 2 frames that are dominant in the political/cultural discourse.  Drawing on Snow et al, analyze the use of these frames.

Week 7 (May 15):  Theorizing Gender

West, Candace, and Don H. Zimmerman. “Doing Gender.” Gender and Society, vol. 1, no. 2, 1987, pp. 125–151.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/189945

Collins, Patricia Hill. “Gender, Black Feminism, and Black Political Economy.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 568, 2000, pp. 41–53.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1049471.

Acker, Joan. 1990. “Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations.” Gender and Society, 4(2): 139-158.

Week 8 (May 22):  Developing a theory

Jepperson, Ronald and John W. Meyer. 2011. “Multiple Levels of Analysis and the Limitations of Methodological Individualisms.” Sociological Theory. 29(1):54-73.  http://www.jstor.org/stable/41057695 Links to an external site.

Schofer, Evan.  Forthcoming.  "The Growth of Schooling in Global Perspective."

Schofer, Evan, Ann Hironaka, David John Frank, and Wes Longhofer. 2012.  “Sociological Institutionalism and World Society.” In The New Blackwell Companion to Political Sociology,edited by E. Amenta, K. Nash, and A. Scott. New York, NY: Wiley-Blackwell.

Short Assignment #4 Due

Alternatives to methodological individualism:  Think of a specific paper or a general topic of interest that you are familiar with (educational inequality, immigration, social movements).  To what extent does the paper (or literature) tend to emphasize methodological individualism versus meso- or macro-level  processes?  If all levels are addressed, give examples of each. If only some levels are addressed, describe them and then suggest one or more potential arguments that might focus on a different level.

Week 9 (May 29):  Merge Two Theories

Granovetter, Mark. 1973. “The Strength of Weak Ties.” American Journal of Sociology. 78(6):1360-1380.  http://www.jstor.org/stable/2776392 Links to an external site.

Granovetter, Mark. 1983. “The Strength of Weak Ties: A Network Theory Revisited.” Sociological Theory. 1:201-233.  http://www.jstor.org/stable/202051 Links to an external site.

Ferguson, Ann Arnett. 1991. “Managing without Managers: Crisis and Resolution in a Collective Bakery.” Pp. 108-132 in Michael Burawoy et al. Ethnography Unbound. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Week 10  (June 5):  The Foucaultian tradition

Focault, Michel. [1976] (1998). The History of Sexuality Vol. 1: The Will to Knowledge. London: Penguin.  [excerpt]

Short Assignment #5 Due

Write a short (3-4 page) memo discussing the (potential) theoretical contribution(s) of your second year paper (or other project if you are not in the Sociology PhD program).  Your memo should start with an overview of the project.  You may draw on work from the Research Design class.  Include the research question, a brief rationale for its sociological importance, your basic arguments/hypotheses, and a brief summary of the research design and data (~2 pages).  (If some details are not worked out -- for instance you have not chosen your data -- indicate some hypothetical data that you might use.)  Use the remaining space to elaborate on the theoretical dimensions of the project.  What theoretical traditions or debates does your project address?  Do you engage in theoretical or conceptual development?  If your project does not have a strong theoretical contribution in its current form, that's OK... but use this space to think about how it might be developed in the future to have a larger theoretical contribution.  It is OK to be imaginative... for instance, you can discuss directions that may not be practical or feasible for your 2nd year paper but nevertheless have a theoretical payoff).

Finals week (June 12):  No class meeting

This class does not have a final exam

 

 

OLD

 

Developing and extending concepts:  performativity & reactivity

Kieran Healy.  2016.  “The Performativity of Networks.” European Journal of Sociology, 56:175–205.

Espeland, Wendy N. and Michael Sauder.  2007. Rankings and Reactivity: How Public Measures Recreate Social Worlds.  American Journal of Sociology, 113, 1:1-40.

Optional:  Donald MacKenzie.  2006.  An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets.  Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.  Chapters 1, 2, 9.

 

 

Course Summary:

Date Details Due