Sociology of the Family
University of Pennsylvania
Sociology 524-001
Spring 2011
Annette Lareau
288 McNeil, 215 898-3515
Office hours: Wednesdays 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. or by appointment
The family is a key institution in American society. Family processes intersect and overlap with many other important dynamics of social life. Hence, people who are interested in many other fields including race and ethnic relations, work, education, gender, social-psychology, and social stratification find the study of the family to be useful to them.
This is a graduate course in sociology of the family. The course is a “survey” course in the sense it seeks to provide an overview of key issues in the field. It also seeks to situate the literature on the family in a broader context. Whenever possible, I have used “classic” readings that are likely to surface on lists for comprehensive examinations in a variety of fields. (There is quite a bit of overlap, for example, with the literature on gender.) The course also covers readings in the field of social stratification as we examine the ramifications of poverty and unemployment for family members. Thus, even if you do not see family as a major area of your future research, it is possible that the course could be useful.
Although this is a graduate course, advanced undergraduate students are also members of the course. The expectation, however, is that the “pace” of the course will adhere to graduate standards.
Our class is a seminar– its purpose is to explore together the ideas and themes we are reading about. Each person is an important member of the seminar. For a seminar to work well, it is important that each person complete the reading before class, share his or her thoughts and ideas with the group, help to keep the discussion on track, and monitors the flow of conversation to help produce a discussion where everyone has a chance to speak and no one person dominates the discussion.
One of the hallmarks of a successful graduate student is her or his ability to synthesize knowledge. This course is designed to give students an opportunity to hone their skills of analysis and synthesis. Students will demonstrate their abilities to think synthetically in class discussions and in the writing assignments for the course.
Seminar discussions of the readings:
I will usually begin class with a ten or fifteen minute overview of the field. Then we will discuss the material for about 90 minutes. In the discussion, we will seek to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the argument, the contribution to the field, the nature of the empirical work, and the relationships of the reading to other course materials. To facilitate discussion, each week you will write some discussion points/ reactions to the reading. During five weeks you will write a memo which is not an essay. You may state three questions in bullet points followed by a few sentences of your thoughts. You might include a quote from the reading. What questions are raised by the reading? For the other five weeks you will write a reaction paper where you first summarize the major findings/results/methods/ of the reading. Then you will offer an analysis or interpretation of themes. What contribution do you think that these readings make to the field? What are the weaknesses? Ideally you should organize your discussion around a broader question raised by the readings. These papers are due 24 hours before class (i.e., 3:30 on Sunday). You will email you memo to me. You will do this 10 times during the semester. You may choose which weeks to skip. On the remaining weeks, of course, you will need to complete the reading.
Twice in the semester each of you will have a role of coming prepared with three to five issues, questions, or items that warrant discussion that week. You will help to facilitate the discussion by posing your questions to the group and helping to keep the discussion on track. You do not need to meet ahead of time with the other discussion facilitator. You can think of your role here as helping to move along the conversation so that it stays focused on the key issues, is not derailed, provides a comprehensive discussion of the main issues, and connects with discussions we have had in previous weeks. You will simply ask questions for discussion. You might summarize what others say and raise a tension or conflict that has surfaced in the discussion.
Graduate seminars do not usually have midterms or quizzes; instead the assessment of students’ performance is based on the final paper. Many professors simply assume that student know how to complete all of the steps involved in writing a graduate-level paper. In this class, by contrast, we have a series of small steps that we will do as a group. All of these steps are routinely taken in the process of writing a graduate-level paper. By working through them as a group, however, I believe that you will gain additional insight about the process. In addition, you will have the benefit of getting feedback from your peers. This effort to provide “scaffolding” or social support is intended to provide a role model for professional development. Senior scholars also benefit from informal peer review of their work at all the stages of development. Hence, it is appropriate and helpful to develop social systems so that you have a forum to discuss your ideas with colleagues who can listen carefully and offer constructive suggestions. It is also helpful to be in a writing group to gain feedback on drafts of your work.
There are various aspects of workshops:
Approximately one-third of your class time will be run as a workshop. In the workshop you will discuss your paper project. You will complete a series of exercises designed to help you think through the key elements in a review of the literature. As I explain below, the review of the literature is not a summary of the material. Instead, you will craft an essay where you highlight the intellectual weaknesses in a field of study. Thus, the class is intended to help you develop the skills that are involved in writing the “front part” of a journal article. Good research projects grow out of a careful analysis of the weaknesses of the literature. It is only through the presentation of a critique that readers can see the need for a new study. Thus, an important part of this class is reading and giving feedback to your peers just as they will read your work and give you constructive criticism. These peer interactions help to prepare you for a crucial aspect of future work in the academy: all studies go through peer review.
All important original studies grow out of the current literature. In other words, almost all significant social science studies seek to correct an existing gap, hole, or weakness in the current literature. Sometimes the contributions are focused. Scholars argue that the conceptualizations currently are too rigid, static, incomplete, distorted, and narrow. Other times scholars reject the ways that questions have been framed. They seek an alternative conceptualization.
Another important skill that students need to develop is the capacity to frame a researchable problem. Sometimes students frame problems that are interesting but lack sufficient focus. Other problems are too broad; some intellectual problems are too narrow. An outstanding sociological research problem will focus on a social issue that can be used as a springboard to understand enduring sociological issues. In other words, the focus of the study should be interesting in its own right, but it should also have the potential to make a conceptual contribution to important sociological questions. We will critically assess all of the readings to analyze the strengths and weaknesses in the ways that the authors framed their research problems. We will also frequently revisit the elements of a strong research question.
Required readings:
Risman, Barbara J. (ed). Families as the Really Are 2010. W. W. Norton & Company: New York.
Blair-Loy, Mary. Competing Devotions 2003. Harvard University Press.
Reich, Jennifer A. Fixing Families: Parents, Power, and the Child Welfare System
2005. Routledge: New York.
Stack, Carol. All Our Kin. 1997 Basic Books.
Furstenberg, Frank. Destinies of the Disadvantaged: The Politics of Teen Childbearing
2007. Russell Sage Foundation: New York.
Lareau, Annette. Unequal Childhoods. 2003. University of California Press.
DeParle, Jason. American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation’s Drive to End Welfare 2004. Penguin Books.
Course requirements:
Write a 15-20 page “review of the literature” paper. You will write the paper twice. The paper is due on March 30th. This version needs to be a real paper. It needs to have an argument, a complete citation list, and a full discussion of the issues. This paper will be read by two students. It also will be graded. Based on detailed reviews, you will then do a thorough revision of the paper. You will collect additional sources, recast your argument, and solve problems that the reviewers identify in the piece. The final revised paper is due on May 4th. You also will complete a class presentation of your review of the literature for about 25 minutes; it will be followed by 25 minutes of discussion.
The final paper is worth 55% of your grade. The first draft is worth 25% of your grade. The memos/reaction papers are worth 10% of your grade. The exercises (which are almost all intended to provide support and assistance as you move towards the paper writing process) and class engagement are worth 10%.
Your paper is due on March 30th. You will get feedback from me and from two of your classmates. You will then seriously revise your paper, adding new readings, changing the argument, and clarifying your thesis. Your revised paper is due on May 4th. With the revised paper you will turn in a letter discussing the changes you made according to the feedback of the reviewers. If you are unable to address one of the reviewer’s concerns, you need to discuss this piece too.
** Please Note: Readings are to be completed for the week they appear in the syllabus, but will not be discussed until the following week**
Ex: Parson’s The Social System should be read during Week 1 (January 24th), but will not be discussed until Week 2 (January 31st)
Week / Readings / Topic of course (note: we will discuss the reading for the previous week in class). / Discussion / Workshop activityJanuary 24th
Week 1 / 1) Parsons, The Social System, Chapter 5, Pattern Variables
2) Marx, “The German Ideology,”
3) Nakano Glen, Chapter 5
4) Collins, Weber on the Family / Introductions,
Exercise 1
Steps in the research paper process
January 31st
Week2 / 1) Degler, “The Emergence of the Modern American Family”
2) Uhlenberg, Peter, “Death and the Family”
3) Greven, Philip, “Family Structure in 17th Century Andover, Mass”
4) Mintz, Huck’s Raft 33-52; 133-184
5) Selected statistics / What role does the family play in the larger society? / Exercise 2
Roundtable discussions
Guest speaker: Librarian from Van Pelt
February 7th
Week 3 / 1) Moynihan Report
2) Guttman, Black Family in Slavery and Freedom
3) Steinberg essay Boston Review / Family History / Exercise 3:
The search for role models
February 14th
Week 4 / 1) Becker, “Terrorized by the Literature”
2) Risman, Families as they really are
Pp 1-119
3) Swartz and Mare / Family History:
The Moynihan Report, the Black Family,
And the role of culture in poverty / Exercise 4:
Roundtable discussions
What path to take?
Preliminary sources
February 21st
Week 5 / 1) Edin, et al chapter
2) Cherlin, Future of Family
3) LaRossa
4) Walzer Thinking about Baby
5) Living with Abusive Men
6) Risman, Chap 16, 17,18-24 / Marriage / Exercise 5:
Terrorized by the literature: how to narrow?
February 28th
Week 6 / 1) Blair-Loy, Competing Devotions
2) Risman, Chap 33-35;36-38 / The shock of children / Exercise 6:
High quality and low quality reviews of the literature (bring in two sample articles to be discussed in class)
Spring Break!
March 14th
Week 7 / 1) Reich, Jennifer
Fixing Families / Work-family conflict / Presentations begin
March
21st
Week 8 / 1) Cooper, Securing Strategies
2) Newman, Falling From Grace ppix to 41; 95-142 / Families and the State
March 28th
Week 9 / 1) Lareau, Unequal Childhoods
2) Risman, Chapters 25, 27
3) Hart and Risley, Chapter 3 / Emotional management of poverty and financial insecurity / Paper due March 30th / Paper due Wednesday March 30tht at 5 p.m.
April 4th
Week 10 / 1) Furstenberg, Frank,
Destinies of the Disadvantaged / Class and child rearing / Exercise 7: Feedback to others
April 11th
Week 11 / 1) Stack, Carol All our Kin
2) McClanahan, Sarah chapter
3) Risman, Chap 19 / Understanding the long-term impact of life events
Guest: Frank F. Furstenberg / Exercise 8:
Turn in list of the reading you will complete on the last week of class.
April l8th
Week 12 / DeParle, American Dream / Poverty and the Family / Exercise 9:
Design a study
April 25th
Week 13 / Reading selected by each student: additional articles for your paper or a book or set of articles that you have always wanted to read / The Family in Context: Public Policy and Family Life
May 4th final revised paper due by 4 p.m; please turn in the first version of the paper, the reviews, and your letter explaining how you responded to the reviews as well as the final paper. Please turn in a hard copy and an a electronic copy. Please have a title page with an analytic title that highlights your thesis. The paper should be between 15 and 20 pages in length.
Exercise 1: