Sociology Research Methods Syllabus

Here's a syllabus for one of the semesters, Spring 2006, that I taught Methods of Sociological Inquiry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I used to post teaching and research materials on UW's website but didn't move those after I left. In the future, I'll re-create it, but I will post this syllabus for now in case someone is searching for some teaching ideas. Many of the links are no longer OK. (Not all of this is aligning correctly, so I'll try to fix it later.)

My version seems to be more hands-on with a variety of research activities and includes lots more historical examples, such as from The Philadelphia Negro by Du Bois because of his use of systematic observation and interviews in the study of race. Many of the readings in my sections of research methods ended up examining the topics of race and order using different methods. In addition to Du Bois on race, Duneier used mainly participant observation but also interviews, conversation analysis, a simple field experiment, and historical research. LaPiere ran a famous field experiment in the 1920s followed by a questionnaire, and there are the field experiments by Pager (black and white men, with and without criminal records, applying for jobs) and by Massey and Lundy (undergrads at Penn calling landlords about apartments).This Spring 2006 syllabus has less on order than what I assigned in previous semesters. That topic pops up in Du Bois, Duneier, as well as Zimbardo on street vandalism.

Sociology 357—Methods of Sociological Inquiry

Spring 2006, the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Lecturer: Chuck Ditzler

Office 7105 Social Science Building             Office Hours: Tuesday 11am-noon,

Office Phone:   262-7458                               Thursday 11am-noon, or by appointment

Email: cditzler@ssc.wisc.edu

Class Scheduled: TR   9:30am-10:45am        Class Location: 6232 Social Science Bldg.

Course Description

This is a hands-on course that introduces methods of sociological research. Two themes thread throughout much of this version of the course: recognizing facts inconvenient for one’s position and developing one’s imagination or ways of perception in research. 

The primary task of a useful teacher is to teach his students to recognize “inconvenient” facts—I mean facts that are inconvenient for their party opinions. And for every party opinion there are facts that are extremely inconvenient, for my own opinion no less than for others. I believe the teacher accomplishes more than a mere intellectual task if he compels his audience to accustom itself to the existence of such facts. I would be so immodest as even to apply the expression “moral achievement,” though perhaps this may sound too grandiose for something that should go without saying.  Max Weber “Science as a Vocation”

Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truth, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life, to compare it with such things as we know, would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments.  Henry David Thoreau “Where I Lived and What I Lived For” Walden

From the Undergraduate Catalog, 2003-2005:

357 Methods of Sociological Inquiry. (Crosslisted with Rur Soc) I or II or SS; 3-4 cr (I). Scientific methods and their application in the analysis of society; procedures in testing sociological theory: problem definition, hypothesis construction, collection and evaluation of data. P: So st; not open to stdts who have taken Soc 358.

Seckel Pears

Seckel pears are about two inches long and sweet. Even though their history stretches back to the 1700s in the Philadelphia area, they're not so common these days, probably because their size makes harvesting more costly for growers. Eating them seems easier, and the core is often so small that I can eat the whole thing except for the stem and the tiny end. They're my favorite pears, so I'm posting about them to encourage others to be on the look out for Seckel pears at farmers' markets and maybe to suggest that orchards grow these.

At the Dane County Farmers' Market in Madison, Wisconsin, Weston's Antique Apples sells them for maybe one Saturday in late August. I was lucky to be back this week to attend meetings and am trying to find out if any farmers sell these in the Baltimore/DC area.

For more information: 

http://usapears.org/seckel/

"The Pears of New York" by U. P. Hedrick published in 1921: https://archive.org/stream/pearsofnewyork00hedrrich#page/n7/mode/2up [Seckel appears starting on page 215.]

Purple sweet potato

Back in late May I bought this purple sweet potato at a farmers' market in Baltimore. It seemed to taste about the same as typical orange sweet potatoes but maybe with a smoother texture. That could be from how long I cooked it, though. I wish I'd clarified with the seller the specific name of this because there are different kinds of purple sweet potatoes and yams. I sometimes get purple potatoes, but I  don't remember eating  a purple sweet potato before this one.

Some nutritional advice has suggested trying to vary fruit and vegetable consumption by colors because of the different nutrients connected to the colors: green, red, yellow or orange, blue or purple, and white.

Some thoughts about illusions

"Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion." Tom near the beginning of "The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams.

on bike path in Madison, Wisconsin, along Old Middleton Road (The first word is Life.)
I wonder what led someone to write this.

When re-watching online today a scene from "Come Back, Little Sheba," I found out that Shirley Booth played the mother, Amanda, in a CBS Playhouse version of "The Glass Menagerie" in 1966. The video was thought to have been lost; however, the unedited video was recently discovered and pieced together to replicate what was originally broadcast. Hal Holbrook played Tom (the son) and Laura (the daughter) was played by Barbara Loden. This was finally re-broadcast exactly fifty years later by TCM on December 8, 2016. 

 Baltimore, lawn in Roland Park neighborhood. I liked the colors of the leaves.

I didn't have time to watch the full version I found online, so I skipped to the part that especially affects me, when Laura learns about the "gentleman caller's" prior commitment. Loden's reaction of pain was visible to the audience but hidden from her mother and brother as she kept her back to them. In what might still be my favorite version, Karen Allen seemed to conceal her feelings more. As I jumped to some other scenes, I realized that maybe I want to wait to watch this with someone else to talk about it. I used to think about that kind of thing more often in the past, of waiting not to do something because I don't want to do it alone. For some reason I had once set aside a documentary by Errol Morris for that even though it wasn't especially meaningful to me. When I finally watched it because UW was screening many of his films, it was very painful for me to realize I was watching alone and I was glad that the theater was dark. 

Many things come to my mind about what the Tom character, who was probably based on Williams, says about illusions.  In The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma,  Dr. Bessel van der Kolk quotes this favorably: "The greatest sources of our suffering are the lies we tell ourselves" (Dr. Elvin Semrad [former supervisor at Massachusetts Mental Health Center] 2014: 11). But at other times he says that a way to deal with trauma is through imagination. I forget how he reconciles those two ideas. I think I've often used day dreaming of the future as a way to get by, but the dangers are not to take enough action and to fool myself. 

Another thing I'm reminded of is when I returned home from my freshman year in college during the Labor Day weekend and watched some of "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" again on some television station.  The Willy Wonka character doesn't seem to completely believe it when he sings "Pure Imagination"--"If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it."

Baltimore, outside stores along Hartford Road. They were closed, so I couldn't ask anyone about the chalk. 

Learning about art history

Back on May 8 I replied to a comment on my post about Stephen King etc. that I'd post something about my favorite paintings.  I'll mention something close to that I started on Pinterest. So that I can figure out what I think of Pinterest and learn about art history, for one of my boards I decided to create an art museum stocked with whatever I wanted. A lot of the artworks I chose are to help create variety. Sometimes I see there is a hole in the collection and use that as a way to do some research. That's how I learned about abstract expressionist paintings by women and found that I prefer their works.  It's been months since I've added anything to the board.

Here it is:
https://www.pinterest.com/chuckditzler/my-art-museum/

A problem for someone in China is that I think you have to sign on with an account to see my full board.

If you have any suggestions, such as a hole I should fill, or want to know why I included something, please let me know.

I like this sculpture in Baltimore's Walters Art Museum because of how bronze and marble are combined and it probably is based on a famous African American actor of the 1800s, Ira Aldridge, who was known for portraying Shakespeare's Othello.  Museum's page on this artwork: http://art.thewalters.org/detail/98789/othello/

"Othello" by Pietro Calvi, modeled 1868, this executed in 1873

Thinking about some films made in Baltimore

One of my thoughts on "sat up all night reading it to each other" in my previous post was about movie scenes that have stuck to me. To get more familiar with Baltimore, last year I borrowed from the library DVDs of films by such directors as Barry Levinson and Matthew Porterfield. What saddened me while watching the Levinson films were scenes of emotional abuse, especially toward women. In Tin Men, the character played by Barbara Hershey once asked her husband, played by Danny DeVito, if they could go on a picnic. It was obvious that the meaning of this was important to her, but he dismissed this simple, romantic request. Maybe what occurred was mainly emotional neglect, but it felt like the contempt of abuse from how he responded. There was worse abuse than this, but the lack of care affected me.

In Diner, there's the scene when the wife of one character had listened to "his" records but not put them back in the slots he preferred. It was painful watching how he belittled her and showed so much contempt. I think it would instead feel wonderful if someone would take that much interest in another's musical tastes. Rather than attacking her, they could have talked about the music, whether any songs stood out for her and the feelings they evoked. The film felt more like tragedy to me than a comedy from the abuse and predator behavior of some of the men.  One of my biggest laughs during the movie was when a guy required a woman to pass an impossible trivia quiz on football before they got married. At the same time I was disturbed by the underlying message about focusing on trivial aspects of life and male control in some relationships. [Roger Ebert review of Diner]

The two films by Porterfield I've seen, Putty Hill and Hamilton, seem not so much about abuse as emotional neglect, listlessness, and disconnect from others. These were low-budget productions that received little attention. Their atmospheres felt like what is often depicted in good graphic novels about everyday life, such as Building Stories, the box of booklets by Chris Ware.

Watching these kinds of films is a good reminder of what not to do and what to value in life.

[Added on August 2: I mistakenly attributed the football quiz to Liberty Heights when it was in Diner. I should have mentioned that Liberty Heights did depict a more positive romantic relationship, which faced hurdles because it was between an African American teenage girl and a White teenage boy.]