SOC 115: Wealth and Poverty
Department of Sociology

Professor Cynthia Ganote, Ph.D.

E-mail:

Office: Garaventa 315

Office Phone: (925) 631-4185

Office Hours: varies by semester

Course Description

This course offers an in-depth study of wealth, poverty, and the economic system in which they are grounded in the United States. Toward this end, students will apply various theoretical frameworks on economic inequality to current social problems in order to evaluate each framework’s explanatory power. Further, students will critique past and current programs for lessening the impacts of poverty and use this knowledge to imagine and critique possible future policies.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, students will:

  • Use various theoretical frameworks on economic inequality to explain current social problems and evaluate their explanatory power.
  • Examine and critique the capitalist economic system in the U.S., understanding its mechanisms and implications for people in different social locations. (Social location is a person’s place in the social structure based on his/her configuration of class/race/ethnicity/gender/age, etc.)
  • Critique past programs for lessening the impacts of poverty and evaluate

current and possible future policies for lessening or ending poverty.

Required Course Materials

Conley, Dalton, Ed. 2003. Wealth and Poverty in America: A Reader. Malden, MA:

Blackwell Publishing.

Lareau, Annette. 2003. Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. Berkeley,

CA: University of California Press.

Zweig, Michael, Ed. 2004. What’s Class Got To Do With It? American Society in the

Twenty-First Century. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Besides these books, other required readings will be uploaded onto our course’s Moodle site.

Course Format

I will use a variety of formats to enhance your learning, including discussions, mini-lectures, and group exercises. Generally speaking, the topics addressed in this course will be examined through active learning approaches.

Course Requirements

Course grades will be based on two take-home exams (one midterm and one final exam), one

10-12 page paper, several unannounced short assignments, and class participation. Each of these elements is explained further below:

  1. Two take-home examinations will be given in this course (one midterm and one final exam). These exams will ask you to apply theoretical frameworks to analyze current social problems and synthesize course material. The final exam will contain some longer essay questions that ask you to integrate the broader themes in the course using the full range of texts from the beginning of the course to the end. The take-home final will be due at the regularly scheduled exam time, and our final exam time will be used to conduct one final class dialogue on the course material.
  1. In a 10-12 page paper, you will link a particular social problem of your choice that stems from economic inequality (e.g. lack of access to quality healthcare, food scarcity, homelessness) to a policy or program that is designed to address this specific social problem. As part of the paper, you will include at least two different theoretical frameworks that explain the problem, analyzing the root cause(s) of the problem from each theoretical framework’s perspective. After analyzing the problem’s root causes from different theoretical perspectives, you will critique a past or current policy or program that is designed to address this problem, then recommend your own policy or program designed to address this social problem, integrating parts of existing interventions with your own ideas. Note: In the second part of the paper, you should clearly incorporate the ideas of others and your own ideas in order to creatively address the problem of poverty alleviation or elimination.

I would be glad to accept rough drafts up until a week before the paper is due in order to offer feedback, although a draft is not required. The papers must be handed in on time, except again in case of an extreme circumstance, in which case I should be contacted prior to the due date.

  1. Throughout the course, several short assignments will be given, and they will be unannounced. They will often involve an application of or reaction to the material covered in class or the readings. These assignments should be near a page in length. The short assignments will either be due by the end of the class period, or at the beginning of the next class period. I will specify at the time whether the assignment should be hand-written or typed (depending on whether it is to be turned in immediately or in the next class period).
  1. Class participation and attendance are required for this course. Participation in discussions, group exercises, and films is essential for your understanding of the material. In addition, some material on the exams will be drawn from items covered in class that are not in the assigned readings. Finally, if any changes are made to the syllabus throughout the course, those will be announced in class and it will be important for you to find them out. For all of these reasons, if you have to miss class, please alert me to this fact and get the notes from a classmate. It is your responsibility to keep up with any changes in the schedule.

Honor Code

All work in this course is governed by the Saint Mary’s Honor Code. It can be found at the following url:

All of the work in this course must be your own work, unless I have specified otherwise. If you have questions about how the honor code applies to a specific assignment, please do ask me.

Classroom Etiquette

Respect and Dignity

We will discuss some controversial issues this semester. You may disagree with other students, your texts, or me. When you do disagree, I ask that you do so in a respectful and open-minded fashion. This does not mean you have to employ “political correctness” in speech, but it does mean that all points of view must be expressed with due respect for the differing opinions of others.

On the same note, I expect for students to listen to the opinions and analyses of their classmates, since we will create a learning community together. If you are talking while a classmate is speaking in class, I will address that violation immediately. In addition, I do not expect you to talk, write notes, or send text messages while I am teaching or at any point during class.

Cell Phones

Please turn off your cell phones when you come into class. If you have a personal or work emergency for which you need to keep your phone on, please turn it to vibrate or speak to me before class starts to notify me that you will need to keep your ringer on.

Tardiness

Please make every effort to be on time for class. I find it very disruptive to have students walking in late after class has started, so if you foresee difficulty in getting to class promptly, notify me ahead of time.

SOC 115: Wealth and Poverty

Tentative Schedule of Readings*

Week / Dates / Topic / Required Readings
1 / Introduction to Course
Theoretical Frameworks on Economic Inequality / Tues.
  • No readings required before first class meeting
Thurs.
  • Smith, “Of the Division of Labour,” Conley reader
  • Marx, “Absolute and Relative Surplus Value,” Conley reader

2 / Theoretical Frameworks on Economic Inequality / Tues.
  • Davis and Moore, “Some Principles of Stratification,” Conley reader
  • Frank and Cook, “Winner-Take-All Markets,” Conley reader
Thurs.
  • Jencks, “Inequality,” Conley reader

3 / Social Class and Family Life / Tues.
  • Lareau, Chapters 1 & 2
Thurs.
  • Lareau, Chapters 3 & 4

4 / Social Class and Family Life / Tues.
  • Lareau, Chapters 5 & 6
Thurs.
  • Lareau, Chapters 7 & 8

5 / Social Class and Family Life / Tues.
  • Lareau, Chapters 9 & 10
Thurs.
  • Lareau, Chapters 11 & 12

6 / Intersections: Social Class and Race / Tues.
  • Conley, “Being Black, Living in the Red: Race, Wealth, and Social Policy in America,” Conley reader
  • Fletcher, “How Race Enters Class in the United States,” Zweig reader
Thurs.
  • Lustig, “The Tangled Knot of Race and Class in the United States,” Zweig reader

7 / MIDTERM EXAM WEEK / Tues.
  • Synthesis of course material up to this point
Thurs.
  • MIDTERM EXAM DUE
  • “People Like Us” film in class

8 / EASTER RECESS!!! / Tues.
  • NO CLASS
Thurs.
  • NO CLASS

9 / Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous: Understanding the Wealthy / Tues.
  • Domhoff, “The American Upper Class,” Moodle
  • Kendall, “Class: Still Alive and Reproducing in the United States,” Moodle
Thurs.
  • Larew, “Why Are Droves of Unqualified, Unprepared Kids Getting Into Our Top Colleges? Because Their Dads Are Alumni,” Moodle
  • Brooks, “Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class,” Conley reader

10 / Life in the Middle Class
Life in the Working Class / Tues.
  • Patillo-McCoy, “Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril Among the Black Middle Class,” Conley Reader
Thurs.
  • Tokarczyk, “Promises to Keep: Working Class Students and Higher Education,” Zweig reader
  • Jensen, “Across the Great Divide: Crossing Classes and Clashing Cultures,” Zweig reader

11 / Lifestyles of the Poor and Anonymous: Understanding the Poor / Tues.
  • Stack, “Swapping,” Conley reader
  • Anderson, “The Code of the Streets,” Conley reader
Thurs.
  • hooks, “Class and the Politics of Living Simply,” Moodle

12 / Social Class and
Social Movements / Tues.
  • Cobble, “When Feminism Had Class,” Zweig reader
  • DeFreitas and Duffy, “Young Workers, Economic Inequality, and Collective Action,” Zweig reader
Thurs.
  • Quan, “Global Strategies for Workers: How Class Analysis Clarifies Us and Them and What We Need to Do,” Zweig reader

13 / What Can We Do? Wealth, Poverty, and Public Policy / Tues.
  • Katz, “In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America,” Conley reader
  • Wilson, “The Hidden Agenda,” Conley reader
Thurs.
  • Ackerman and Alstott, “The Stakeholder Society,” Conley reader

14 / What Can We Do? Wealth, Poverty, and Public Policy
Course Overview / Tues.
  • hooks, “Living Without Class Hierarchy,” Moodle
  • Shiva, “How to End Poverty: Making Poverty History and the History of Poverty,” Moodle
Thurs.
  • No new readings
  • Synthesis of course material

15 / FINALS WEEK /
  • FINAL EXAM

*I reserve the right to make changes in the syllabus whenever necessary to meet learning objectives or to compensate for unforeseen circumstances.

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