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University of Southern California Professor: Paul Lichterman

Sociology 250gmOffice: KAP 356;

Fall 2012Hours:Th. 12:00-1:50pm & by appt.

Lecture: Tues-Thurs 2:00-3:20pmTA: Sean McCarron

Grassroots Participation in Global Perspective

Course description

This course introduces you to different forms of citizen participation. We will learn about volunteer and community service groups, social movement organizations, community-organizing campaigns, and nonprofit organizations that produce public goods. We will ask: How and why do ordinary people get involved in organizations that address local, national or global problems? What are the different forms of participation trying to accomplish? What counts as “success”? What the benefits and drawbacks of different forms of citizen participation?

The course does not aim to say which form of participation is “better.” The goal is not to survey all social problems. The point is to investigate very different ways of addressing social problems.

We focus mostly on forms of participation in the contemporary U.S., engaged by people of different social and cultural backgrounds. International comparison cases help us put U.S. citizen participation in a broader context and show us more about what participation is or could be. Contextualizing U.S. civic life globally helps us avoid assuming that American-style civic engagement is natural or logical for a democracy.

Many public organizations, and many nations, want to increase citizen participation. This class takes a scholarly, dispassionate look at citizen participation. It does not suppose that any kind of participation or volunteering is always “good for the community.” There are heated debates inside and outside academia about citizen participation. The class teaches you about them and encourages you to try out different sides in your own thinking.

While introducing you to different forms of citizen participation and debates about participation, the course also introduces you to ethnographic research. Los Angeles is a fabulously diverse city with many different kinds of citizen participation, and many, many problems that citizens try to address. Everyone will need to attend at least three meetings or events of a “grassroots” civic group, organization, coalition, or project: an activist group, volunteer group, local political party organization, or non-profit organization working on some social problem, or else a government-sponsored forum that involves average citizens. The course presents at an introductory level what professional ethnographers do. If you are not interested in this kind of research experience, or if you do not like the idea of going out to observe groups, you need to find a different course.

In short, this course’s goals include:

•introducing you to enduring scholarly questions about citizen participation

•introducing different kinds of participation, their potentials and limits

•giving you concrete, introductory research experience

•using research findings (from readings and your own research project to think critically about citizen participation, beyond the usual clichés

Readings

These books all are required for our course. All are available in paper at the USC bookstore.

•Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Harper Perennial edition).

•Doug McAdam, Freedom Summer. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

•Photocopied reader, available at the university bookstore. You need to get it right away since it contains our first reading. A few required readings will be posted on Blackboard.

Requirements

Lectures: All classes are mandatory. Some lectures will present new material that is crucial for exams and not available in the readings. Some discussion section periods will present new material or explain material in ways you would not know from readings or lectures alone. You will not do well in the course if you do not take good lecture notes, every lecture, and attend discussion section regularly too. Lectures are not available online. We need you in class, and you will benefit from hearing students (including yourself) participate.

Exams: There is one midterm exam and one final exam, as scheduled on this syllabus. We will discuss the contents of the midterm and the final exam in class.

Make-up exams: There will be, at most, one make-up time for the midterms, set at the professor’s or TA’s discretion. There will not be multiple make-up times; the class is far too large for that. We will not consider requests for alternatives to the single make-up time. Of course it is best to take the exam on the day it is scheduled. Make-up exams will not necessarily have the same questions as original exams and may be harder. There will be no make-up for the final exam.

Submitting your exams and field assignments: Exams will take place in class and you will need to bring a completely blank blue book. You will submit some or all of your field assignments on the university’s Blackboard system. If many are unfamiliar with using the Blackboard system, it will be explained in class. Don’t worry; it’s easy. Assignments will have strict time deadlines, after which Blackboard will not accept your assignment.

Field research for this course: As the USC course catalogue promises, this course draws you into associational life in Los Angeles. All students will attend at least three meetings or events of a local association, write observations in notes and a memo to go with the notes for each field session, and turn in the three field assignments.

**You need to have contacted potential field research sites by the end of the third week.**

Field assignment 1: Proposal, first field notes and memo (due by the start of class, Sept. 27)

Field assignment 2: Second field notes/memo (due by the start of class, Oct. 30)

Field assignment 3: Third field notes/memo (due by start of class, Dec. 4)

Explanation of field assignments: Separate handouts will explain the three field assignments. See the end of the syllabus for a short, practical guide to starting your field research. We will discuss and practice doing the assignments in class: You need to be in class to understand how to do the assignments.

Quizzes: We will have onequiz each week in lecture, on whichever day your professor thinks is best for that week. Quizzes will ask questions that depend on having completed the reading for the day; answers will be roughly one or two sentences. Quizzes help us see if you are understanding the reading and keeping up with it. Class is much more interesting for everyone when you keep up with the reading, participate in class and ask questions that help other students as well as you. Always bring some notebook paper with you to each class.

Attentiveness and participation: We actively encouragequestionsand participation, in lecture as well as discussion section. We hope it goes without saying, but we will say it: Respecting fellow students, your professor, your TA and yourselfis essential for everyone. Please turn off all cell-phones and put away all communication devices other than a laptop for note-taking if you choose to take notes that way.

**Use of laptops for anything other than note-taking is rude, detracts from your work in our course, and will be penalized when we tally up course grades. If we cite you more than once for inappropriate use of laptops or other technology in class, you lose the privilege of taking notes on a laptop. If you persist in using a laptop or other devices after that you will lose more points, and we will urge you to drop the course immediately. Please just do the right thing to begin with.

If you miss a day of lecture or discussion section, you need to be responsible for any handouts, announcements (including announcements of make-up dates or other deadlines) and the content of instruction that day.

Attentiveness in lecture and section is worth 10% of your total grade; this includes scores on in-class quizzes and participation in discussion section. You may be penalized—that means losing grade points—for rudeness, inappropriate use of communication devices in class, disrespectful attitudes, or failure to contact a potential field site by September 7. If you use up all your participation points on penalties and continue to earn penalties, they will be taken off the rest of your point total. We hope not to talk further about classroom inappropriateness since it takes time away from education and penalizes the majority. Please respect your fellow students. Please respect your instructors; we have worked hard on designing a valuable course for you.

Grading

Quizzes:2 points each (2 x 15 weeks)30 points

Midterm: 40 points

Field assignment 130 points

Field assignment 230 points

Field assignment 330 points

Attentiveness and

participation:20 points

Final exam:80 points

Lateness: The policies are simple.

Field assignments will be lowered one grade for every class day they are late. A “class day” is a day with either a lecture or a discussion section. (Lowered one grade means losing a grade’s worth of credit, i.e., going from a ‘B’ to a ‘C’.) If your assignment isnot turned in by the exact time as well as day that it is due, it is LATE. If you skip class to work on an assignment and e-mail it to us during class or hand it in at the end of class, it is late. If you turn it in later than the start of the very next class day, it is “two class days late,” and will be lowered two grades’ worth of credit, and so on. For field assignment 3, papers received after the start of lecture, Nov. 30, count as late and will be lowered a grade. Every two days they will go down another grade. If you miss the final exam, you get a zero for the exam. There will not be exceptions.

•There will not be extensions on due dates for field assignments. Observing people in everyday life requires flexibility and time. Late field assignments really hurt your chances of doing well in the field research part of our course. They do not get better by being later; if anything the opposite is true. If you are having trouble with field research even after reading handouts and attending carefully to discussions, talk to your T.A. or professor.

•Your TA will give you a schedule for discussion your projects in section. Once set, you may not change your discussion day unless you (not us, you) have arranged a switch with another student. If you miss your day to discuss your project and do not arrange a switch with another student, you lose the opportunity to get valuable help with your project! You also hurt your fellow students, who will have prepared to discuss your project and will have wasted their time. Please be respectful and help make this a fascinating, not frustrating, part of our course.

Plagiarism: Plagiarism is theft. It is absolutely against university as well as class policy. We are very strict about plagiarism. It is punishable with penalties including expulsion from the university. It also is unfair to your fellow students and cheapens university life. It is easy to recognize copied material and we also use the Turnitin program to help us.

We follow the professional academic standard: If you copy a phrase or sentence from ANY source, you must put the phrase or sentence in quotation marks, and cite your source. If you closely paraphrase anything, even if not a word-for-word copy, you must cite your source. If you use secondary sources not assigned in this class (books or articles from library for instance) you must give each of your sources credit, with a footnote that makes it clear exactlywhich ideas you have quoted or paraphrased from the source. Often, Internet sources are unreliable, sometimes laughable. You already know not to lower yourself to stolen or shoddy information; stick with your ethical intuition and your own good ideas.

Schedule

R marks reading in the course reader

B marks reading or website access available on Blackboard

F marks reading with concepts you can try applying to your field project if appropriate

Week 1

Aug. 28Introduction to course: What is grassroots participation and why

care about it?

Understand the course requirements, decide whether or not this course is

for you.

Aug. 30What do you think about associations?

read in time for today: R Amy Gutmann, “Freedom of Association: An

Introductory Essay,” pp. 3-7 only.

Week 2

Sept. 4A classic theory of grassroots participation: introducing Alexis de

Tocqueville’s Democracy in America

read in time for today the following selections from Tocqueville

(roughly 43 pages total), and pleasebring the book to class with you.

"Author's Introduction,” (9-12),

Vol. 1, Part II, Ch. 7, “The Omnipotence of the Majority” and 8, “What Tempers the Tyranny of the Majority” (246-256, 259-270 [skip 257-259])

Vol. 2, Part I: Ch. 2, “Principal Source of Beliefs Among Democratic

Peoples” (434-436)

Vol. 2, Part II: Chapter 2, “Of Individualism in Democracies” (506-508) Ch. 14, “How…the Taste for Physical Pleasure is Combined With Love of Freedom and Attention to Public Affairs” (539-541); Ch. 20, “How an

Aristocracy May Be Created by Industry” (555-560)

Vol. 2, Part III:

Ch. 15, “On the Gravity of the Americans…” (609-611)

Vol. 2, Part IV:

Ch. 6, “What Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear” (690-695)

Sept. 6Tocqueville on the conditions for democracy; introduction to field

research

read in time for today the following selections from Tocqueville

(roughly 28 pages total), and please bring the book to class with you.

R=course reader; B=on Blackboard; F= can apply to field project if appropriate

Vol. 1, Part II: Ch. 4, “Political Association in the US” (189-195)

Ch. 6, “Public Spirit in the US, “ (235-237), “Activity Prevailing in

All Parts of the Body Politic…” (241-245)

Ch. 9, “The Main Causes Tending to Maintain a Democratic

Republic” (286-287, 301-315)

AND

B Photocopied packet of information on how to begin field work and take

fieldnotes, on Blackboard

Week 3

Sept. 11Tocqueville’s argument about associations in American life

read in time for today the following selections from Tocqueville

(roughly 23 pages total), and please bring the book to class with you.

Vol. 2, Part II: Ch. 4, “How the Americans Combat the Effects of Individualism by Free Institutions;” Ch. 5, “On the Use…of

Associations;” Ch. 6, “On the Connection Between Associations and

Newspapers;” Ch. 7. Relationships Between Civil and Political Associations;” (509-524)

Ch. 8, “How the Americans Combat Individualism by the Doctrine

of Self-Interest Properly Understood (525-528); Ch. 18, “Why

Americans Consider All Honest Callings Honorable” (550-551)

Vol. 2, Part III: Ch. 1, “Mores Become More Gentle…” (561-564)

You need to have contacted potential field sites by Sept 13, class time. We will ask you in lecture and discussion section about this. We will help if you have sincerely tried. If you have not seriously tried contacting (realistic) potential field sites, you shoulddrop the course now.

Sept. 13 Global perspective: applying Tocqueville’s ideas to inter-war

Germany

read in time for today: R Sheri Berman, “Civil Society and the collapse of

the Weimar Republic.” World Politics 49(3):401-429, 1997.

Week 4

Sept. 18What’s so great about civic associations today? Scary news and a

viewpoint

read in time for today:

R F Robert Putnam, “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital,” Journal of Democracy 6: 65-78 (1995).

R=course reader; B=on Blackboard; F= can apply to field project if appropriate

Sept. 20What’s so great about civic associations? Two more viewpoints and

controversy

R F Michael Foley and Bob Edwards, “Escape from Politics? Social Theory and the Social Capital Debate,” The American Behavioral Scientist 40:550-561 (March-April 1997).

R F Berger, Peter, and Richard Neuhaus, selections from

To Empower People: From State to Civil Society (AEI Press, 1977).

Week 5

Sept. 25“Volunteering”: a recent invention

read in time for today: R F Wuthnow, “The Changing Meanings of

Involvement,” pp. 31-57 in Loose Connections (Harvard U Press, 1998).

Sept. 27Volunteering in a loosely connected society

read in time for today: B F Wuthnow, “Porous Institutions,” pp. 58-82 in

LooseConnections.

Field assignment 1 due by the start of class, 2:00pm, September 27

Week 6

Oct. 2Global perspective: volunteeringgoes to France

read in time for today: R Agnes Camus-Vigué, “Community and civic

culture: the Rotary Club in France and the United States,” in M. Lamont

and L. Thévenot, Rethinking Comparative Cultural Sociology. (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000).

Oct 4Global perspective: German students meet volunteering in the U.S.

R Martin Kaiser, “Volunteering as a Topic of Intercultural Learning. Experiences from German-American Exchange Programs.” Pp. 203-212

in A. Liedhegener and W. Kremp, Civil Society, Civic Engagement and

Catholicism in the U.S. (Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2007).

Week 7

Oct. 9MIDTERM 1 in class

Oct. 11What are social movements, why do people participate in them?

read in time for today: F McAdam, Freedom Summer, pp. 3-66.

R=course reader; B=on Blackboard; F= can apply to field project if appropriate

Week 8

Oct. 16How social movements define social problems, and a classic example

read in time for today:

R F Joel Best, “Typification and Social Problems Construction,” pp. 3-10

in Images of Issues (Aldine de Gruyter, 1995).

B The Port Huron Statement of the Students for a

Democratic Society, 1962, excerpts, website access

Oct. 18How the personal became political in U.S. social movements

read in time for today: F McAdam, Freedom Summer, 77-101, 126-145, 186-198, 208-228.

Week 9

Oct. 23Global perspective: The personalized style of participation today

read in time for today:

B World Social Forum website access: “What the WSF is” and “Charter

of Principles (2002)”

R F J. Juris and G. Pleyers, “Alter-activism: emerging cultures of

participation among young global justice activists.” Journal of Youth

Studies Vol 12 (2009), read pp. 57 to top of p. 59, then pp. 62-73.

Oct. 25The Occupy Movement: grassroots movement on the left

read in time for today:

R FJames Miller, “Is Democracy still in the streets?” Pp. 173-183 in Jane Byrne, ed. The Occupy Handbook. New York: Little, Brown and Co,2012.

R Occupy Wall Street. “Declaration of the Occupation of New York

City.” Pp. 49-51 in A. Lang and D. Lang/Levitsky, Dreaming in Public: