KEENE STATE COLLEGE
Introduction to
Sociology - SOC 101
Topics and Schedule
of Readings
Kathleen R. Johnson, Ph.D.
IMPORTANT
NOTE: This is a tentative
schedule. The actual due dates for all
readings, quizzes, and reaction papers will be announced in class.
Introductions
(First Week):
Review Syllabus; sociology as science versus common sense; What
is the "sociological
imagination"?
Students should
prepare questions about course.
Readings: Text, ch. 1 (Take "quiz");
(crossword puzzle)
Topic 1 Research Methods and
Perspectives
Readings: Essentials
Text, ch. 1 (continued)
“In
Disasters Panic is Rare” (on-line from my webpage)
Reader, ch. 1 "Invitation to
Sociology"
Also, “The
Last Sociologist”(on-line from my webpage)
Topic 2 Culture
Readings:
Essentials Text,
ch. 2
Reader,
ch. 2 "The Fierce People"
Topic 3 Socialization
Readings:
Essentials Text, ch. 3
Reader, ch. 3 "Anybody's Son Will
Do"
Topic 4
Social Structure and Social
Interaction
Readings: Essentials
Text, ch. 4
Reader, ch. 4 "Secrets of Selling
Cars" and ”Want to Try Out for College Sports? Forget It.”
(On-line from my webpage)
Topic 5
Social Groups and Formal
Organizations
Readings:
Essentials Text, ch. 5
Reader, ch. 5 "Just Another
Routine
Emergency"
Topic 6 Deviance and Social Control
Readings:
Essentials Text, ch. 6
Reader ch. 6 "Becoming a
Prostitute" and
“Father Steals Best: Crime is an
American
Family” (on-line from my webpage)
Topic 7
Global Stratification
Readings: Essentials
Text, ch. 7
Reader, ch. 7 "One World, Ready or
Not" and
“In a Battered Taxi, a Nurse to India’s
Poorest” (on-line from my webpage)
Topic 8
Social Class in the U.S.
Readings: Essentials Text,
ch. 8
Reader, ch. 8 "The Uses of
Poverty: The
Poor Pay All" and
“Census Shows Bigger Houses and
Incomes, but
Not for All” (on-line from my webpage)
Topic 9
Inequalities of Race and Ethnicity
Readings:
Essentials Text, ch. 9
Reader ch. 9 "Invisible Man" and
“The Nation: And Then There was
Light…” (on-line from my webpage)
Topic 10 Inequalities
of Gender and Age
Readings: Essentials
Text, ch. 10
Reader, ch. 10 "Sick Societies" and
Reader, ch. 12 "When Work Becomes
Home
and Home Becomes Work" and
“Mutilation Seen as Risk for the
Girls of Immigrants”
(on-line from
my webpage)
Topic 11
Social
Change
Readings:
Essentials Text, ch. 15
Reader, ch. 15 "Social Change and
the
Amazon Indians"