SOCIOLOGY 100

Introduction to Sociology

The introduction to sociology too often is conceived in disciplinary terms in which the aim of the course is to make the student familiar with key concepts and approaches in the field. Generally, a text book is used, the topics are neatly divided up: “Sociology as a Science,” “Construction of Self,” “Socialization,”  “Social Change,” etc. Each section has a crisp glossary and set of questions pertaining to the topic. After completing the course, the student can then go on to upper-division courses in various sub-disciplines: “Deviance and Social Control,” “Stratification,”  and, ideally, become a sociology major!

By contrast, I conceive of the introduction as a General Education course and make the assumption that the student will probably not become a soc major—indeed, that she will probably will take no other courses in sociology.  The aim is give more than lip service to C.W. Mills’ idea that students need to cultivate “a sociological imagination” and learn to think in terms of the links between personal biography and social structures, locally, nationally and internationally. Moreover, disciplinary lines between the social sciences are not held to be sacrosanct: Thus, for example, politics and economics must enter into discussions of the situation of the family or of crime or of poverty. 

This is a large lecture class (of some 150) and use of the internet (via Blackboard software: www.blackboard.hawaii.edu) is a critical aspect of the course. This very much supplements lectures and reading in required paperback books. It becomes possible to offer students via the net especially written short documents which explain key concepts and structures reading. Asynchronous discussion via Blackboard is also very much encouraged.  In the syllabus which follows this page, the items available to the class on Blackboard are hyperlinked.

Since my students are in Hawai’i, I begin with Hawai’i as the locus of our inquiry. I begin with a short novel or play, set in Hawai’i. The idea here is that concrete persons with names (rather than abstractions) engage concrete (and familiar) local issues. The fundamental theme of the course is set: people make history, but not with materials of their own choosing. In the course of our reading, critical concepts are introduced, e.g., the construction of ethnicity, class and gender; along with other concepts which cannot be assumed, e.g., capitalism, Gross State Product, real wage, regressive tax, entitlements.  The student is also introduced to quantitative measures and how to use them, e.g., ethnic distribution, average household income and social characteristics of households, cost of living indices, occupational distribution and average salaries. Developing skills in the critical use of these materials (from, for example, the Bureau of Labor) and materials in The New York Times (and other sources made available on the net) is emphasized throughout the course  

Four short papers are assigned, the first entitled “How to Get Ahead in Hawai’i,” is due in the second week and is meant to get students thinking about Hawai’i and their place in it  All papers are graded and returned (with comments and corrections), and students are invited to rewrite essays—after they have seen the instructor or TA (if the TA graded the essay.)

Go to Syllabus