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University Southern California Sociology 250gm Fall 2009 Lecture: Mon.-Weds. 2:00-3:20pm
Professor: Paul Lichterman Office: KAP 352; [e-mail] Hours: Weds. 3:30-5:00 and by appt. T.A.: C. Brady Potts
Grassroots Participation in Global Perspective
Course description How and why do ordinary people get involved in organizations that address local, national or global problems? What are different ways of participating? What are the benefits of drawbacks of each? This course introduces you to different forms of citizen participation. We will learn about volunteer and community service groups, social movement organizations, nonprofit organizations that work for the social good, and governmental bodies that invite citizen participation. We will treat some religious as well as secular organizations. We will focus primarily on the contemporary U.S., with comparison cases from other countries and periods that can help us contextualize current U.S. realities we would take too much for granted otherwise. Many public organizations, and many nations, want to increase citizen participation, in order to become more democratic, more fair, or more seemingly legitimate. There are heated debates inside and outside academia about citizen participation, what is good about it, why it has been declining, what can be done to increase it. This course introduces you to these important conversations and gives you tools for making your own decisions about the virtues and drawbacks of different kinds of participation. While introducing you to different forms of citizen participation and big 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. Using Los Angeles as a case, everyone will need to attend at least two meetings or events of a grassroots civic group or organization--that is, any kind of activist group, volunteer group, or government-sponsored meeting that involves average citizens in discussion. You will learn some basic skills of social science research: listening closely to everyday conversation, taking detailed notes on what you observe, writing memos that apply or challenge social science concepts in light of your observations. In other words, you will see at an introductory level what professional ethnographers do in order to write books and scholarly articles. In short, this courses goals include: introducing you to enduring scholarly questions and themes regarding citizen participation introducing different kinds of participation, their potentials and limits giving you concrete, introductory research experience sharpening your ability to think and write critically and comparatively about citizen participation, beyond the usual clichs
2 Readings These books all are required for our course. All are available in paperback. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Harper Perennial edition). Smith and Lipsky, Nonprofits for Hire: The Welfare State in the Age of Contracting. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993. Mark R. Warren, Dry Bones Rattling. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. Paul Lichterman and C. Brady Potts, The Civic Life of American Religion. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. Doug McAdam, Freedom Summer. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. *Robert Wuthnow, Loose Connections: Joining Together in Americas Fragmented Communities. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. *This book is NOT available in the bookstore because it is out of print, but available online. You need to check an online bookseller and buy a copy; many should be available used, at a discount. A photocopied course reader also is required. It is available at the university bookstore. Requirements Lectures: All classes are mandatory. Be advised that 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. Exams: There are two midterm exams and one final exam, as scheduled on this syllabus. We will discuss the contents of midterm and final exams in class. For grading procedures, see below. Make-up exams: There will be only one make-up time for each of the midterms, and each will be set at the professors or TAs discretion. There will not be multiple make-up times; the class is far too large for multiple make-up times and we will not consider requests for alternatives to the single make-up time for each midterm. 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: You will submit exams and assignments on the universitys Blackboard system. If many are unfamiliar with using the (easy) Blackboard system, it will be explained in class. Assignments will have strict time deadlines, after which Blackboard will not accept your exam or assignment. (On the small chance that Blackboard proves too cumbersome for your instructors, we will revert to the old system of using bluebooks for exams.) 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 two meetings or events of a local association, make careful observations, write them in notes, and turn in three
3 written assignments for a grade. Field assignment 1: Proposal (due by the start of discussion section, Week 5) Field assignment 2: First field notes and memo (due by start of discussion section, Week 8) Field assignment 3: Second field notes and commentary (due by start of the last day of lecture, Dec. 2) Explanation of field assignments: Separate handouts will explain the three field assignments and will offer you plenty of advice. See also the end of the syllabus for a short, practical guide to starting your field research. We will assume you have read and know this and all other material given to you regarding field work. Check-ups: Your lecturer and discussion section instructor may give you quizzes or quickresponse questions any day, anytime. These help us see if you are understanding, as well as attending to, readings and lectures. Attentiveness and participation: We actively encourage questions and 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 yourself is essential for everyone. Please turn off all cellphones 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 noted as such. 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 grade includes scores on any in-class quizzes and participation in discussion section. You may be penalizedthat means losing grade pointsfor rudeness, inappropriate use of communication devices in class or disrespectful attitudes. Your instructors have worked hard on designing a valuable course for you; we expect you in turn to treat the course seriously and respectfully. Grading First midterm: Second midterm: Final exam: Field assignment 1 Field assignment 2 Field assignment 3 Attentiveness and participation (includes quizzes) 30 points 40 points 50 points 20 points 20 points 20 points 15% 20% 25% 10% 10% 10%
20 points
10%
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You may drop your lowest midterm grade. That means I will count your highest midterm grade. You may not drop the final exam or any field assignment grades. Lateness: The policies are simple. Each midterm exam will have exactly one make-up day/time, as described above, and the final exam will have no make-up. 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 grades worth of credit, i.e., going from a B to a C.) If your assignment is not turned in on Blackboard by the start of class on the due date, it is LATE. If you skip class to work on an assignment and send it to Blackboard during 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, Dec. 2 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. Please do not ask for an extension on field assignments for any reason. Late field assignments only diminish 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 sense you are having trouble with field research even after reading handouts and attending carefully to discussion in lecture and discussion section, talk to your T.A. or professor. The due dates are listed above and set on the schedule below too. 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: The policy is simple. Plagiarism is theft. It is clearly and 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 will 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 cite your source. If you closely paraphrase anything, even if not a word-forword copy, you must cite your source. It is fine to use secondary sources (that is, textbooks, internet sources, Marx for Beginners type books) as long as you give each of your sources credit, with a footnote that makes it clear exactly which ideas you have quoted or paraphrased from the source. Often, Internet sources are unreliable, sometimes laughable. The teaching staff of the other Sociology 250gm course and this course will collaborate in upholding a noplagiarism policy; this courses policy is inspired in part by the others. You already know not to lower yourself to stolen or shoddy information; stick with your ethical intuition and your own good ideas.
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Schedule R designates material in the course reader Week 1 August 24 August 26 Introduction to course: What is grassroots participation and why care about it? Read and understand the requirements of this course; decide whether or not this is the course for you. read for today: R Amy Gutmann, Freedom of Association: An Introductory Essay, pp. 3-7 and 23-32 only. A classic theory of grassroots participation: Alexis de Tocquevilles Democracy in America and introduction to field research read in time for today all of the following: "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 Vol. 2, Part I: Ch. 1, Philosophical Approach of the Americans (429433), Ch. 2, Principal Source of Beliefs Among Democratic Peoples (434-436) Vol. 2, Part II: Chapter 2, Of Individualism in Democracies (506-508) Ch. 13, Why the Americans are Often So Restless the in Midst of Prosperity and Ch. 14, Howthe Taste for Physical Pleasure is Combined With Love of Freedom and Attention to Public Affairs (535541); Ch. 20, How an Aristocracy May Be Created by Industry 560) Vol. 2, Part III: Ch. 15, On the Gravity of the Americans (609-611), Ch. 17, How the Aspect of Society in the US Is at Once Agitated and Monotonous,(614-616) Vol. 2, Part IV: Ch. 6, What Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear (690-695) (roughly 52 pages of reading for August 31) September 2 read in time for today all of the following:
Week 2 August 31
257-259])
their (555-
6 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 (277-315) Vol. 2, Part II: Ch. 4, How the Americans Combat the Effects of Individualism by Free Institutions; Ch. 5, On the Useof 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 (547-551) Vol. 2, Part III: Ch. 1, How Mores Become More Gentle (561-564) (roughly 76 pages of reading for September 2) Week 3 September 7 September 9 A comparative view: associations in inter-war Germany Labor Day, no class 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
Whats so great about civic associations? A debate and continued introduction to field research September 14 read for today: R Robert Putnam, The Strange Disappearance of Civic America, The American Prospect, Winter 1996, and R 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). September 16 read for today: R Berger, Peter, and Richard Neuhaus, selections from To Empower People: From State to Civil Society.Washington, DC: AEI Press. Volunteering in a loosely connected society read for today: Wuthnow, Loose Connections, pp. 9-57.
Week 5 September 21
7 September 23 week. Week 6 September 28 Varieties of volunteering Guest speaker read for today: Loose Connections, pp. 83-109, 157-178. Field assignment 1 due by the starting time of your discussion section this
September 30 read for today: R Susan Eckstein, Community as Gift-Giving: Collectivistic Roots of Volunteerism, American Sociological Review 66:829-851 (Dec. 2001), and R Agnes Camus-Vigu, Community and civic culture: the Rotary Club in France and the United States, in M. Lamont and L. Thvenot, Rethinking Comparative Cultural Sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000.
Week 7 October 5 October 7 Week 8 October 12 October 14
What are social movements and why do people join them? MIDTERM 1, due (on Blackboard) by 3:20pm. No class today. read for today: McAdam, Freedom Summer, pp. 11-66 How do social movements shape citizens and citizenship? read for today: McAdam, Freedom Summer, 126-145,186-232 read for today: Paul Lichterman, Crying Out: Social Critics, Pp. 99-127 of Elusive Togetherness. Princeton: Princeton University Pres, 2005. Field assignment 2 due by the starting time of your discussion section this
week.
Week 9 October 19 October 21 Week 10 October 26
Community organizing: the power of who you know and how you talk to them read for today:Warren, Dry Bones Rattling, pp. 3-39, 98-123. read for today: Warren, Dry Bones Rattling, pp. 124-155, 191-210. What does community organizing accomplish? read for today: Warren, Dry Bones Rattling, Ch 9 pp. 239-264; review.
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October 28
MIDTERM 2 due (on Blackboard) by 3:20pm. No class today.
Week 11 November 2 November 4 Week 12 November 9 November 11
Non-profit organizations: doing good for a living and issues in field research read for today: Smith and Lipsky, pages to be announced read for today: Smith and Lipsky, pages to be announced Non-profit organizations: practical change or buying out radicalism? read for today: Smith and Lipsky, pages to be announced read for today: Paul Kivel, Social Service or Social Change? In INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, editors, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2007. Debates: Are some kinds of civic engagement better than others? read for today: Schudson essay in Lichterman/Potts collection. read for today: Debra Minkoff, Producing Social Capital: National Social Movements and Civil Society, The American Behavioral Scientist 40:606-619. Debates: Is religion good or bad for civic life? read for today: Introduction (pp. 1-10 only) and Chaves essay (pp. 69-81) in Lichterman/Potts book. read for today: McRoberts essay (pp. 82-99) and Moon essay (pp. 123139) in Lichterman/Potts book. Conclude our course with new questions read for today: selected student memos on fieldwork read for today: review material you have found difficult or puzzling and come prepared to ask questions Field assignment 3 due at the starting time of lecture (2:00pm), December 2. FINAL EXAM: Friday, Dec. 11, 2-4 p.m.
Week 13 November 16 November 18
Week 14 November 23 November 25
Week 15 November 30 December 2
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How to begin and carry out field work on associations in Los Angeles
Many thanks to Professor Nina Eliasoph, who precedes me in teaching Sociology 250 and developed these highly sensible guidelines. You will be attending a group as a typical participant, and should act like one. You will enter an organization as a typical member, do tasks that typical members do, and try hard not to stick out or disrupt the organizations normal process. How to get started If going around the city of Los Angeles seems intimidating, feel free to make an on-campus organization into your fieldsite, but beware that it is much harder to get a useful, reflective distance on people (students) who are so close to you in so many ways. On-campus groups may be HARDER for you to study, not easier, because a lot will seem obvious and uninteresting. We (the TA and professor) will offer suggestions for fieldsites, on and off-campus. The offcampus ones will mainly be relatively close to campus. If you already have a site you want to study (an organization in which you already participate, for example), please run your idea past the professor and the TA first. For some possibilities for on-campus research sites, go to http://sait.usc.edu/stuorgs/. You can learn about grassroots activist groups in small, local weekly or monthly newspapers that cover them and report events of interest to activist groups. Asking permission to study a group, organization, network, collection of people Whoever you study, you need to ask permission first. It is best to phone or e-mail before a meeting of the group, organization, etc. that you hope to study, and introduce yourself briefly and simply. Almost no one wants to read long notes or hear a long run-down on why you need to write a paper. Simply say you are a USC student learning about citizen participation in Los Angeles. There are many different kinds of participation and you find this group interesting. Then ask if you may observe a couple of meetings or events for a course paper. Very few people say no. I assume you have no plans to publish your course paper; it is an educational exercise for a course. In the unlikely event that you really do hope to publish this paper, other rules apply and you should talk to the professor first. How to act while observing your group
It is very important not to disrupt the organization you study, for three reasons: one is that if you disrupt it, you are not observing what it would do without your presence. The second is a simple matter of grace and politeness. Third, it would give USC a bad name. It is also important to stay safe, of course. Do not talk too muchtry to talk less than other members do. DO do something helpful for your group. For example, if the group is handing out leaflets, you should offer to help. If you are studying an organization with which you disagree (on one side of a political controversy), this might cause you moral problems. For example, a sociologist in the 1970s started to study a racist organization, to learn about how people become racists and stay racist, but she gave it up as soon as she realized that she was doing a lot of work raising funds on
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behalf of this organization! You have probably never been told, dont be a leader; be a follower, but in this case, being a follower is, indeed, the best approach. Do not argue with the groups basic premises (for example, if you are studying a religious organization, do not argue about its form of prayer). However, acting slightly dumb is often a good way to get people to explain activities that seem obvious and common sense to them, but might be fascinatingly strange to you. Do not waste other members time with arguments like the above, or make members repeat things that are obvious to them. Be safe. We assume you are mature, but some pointers include: Do not walk around in unfamiliar places at night; avoid big empty parking lots and parking structures. Well-lit does not necessarily equal safe, but can provide a false sense of security. If something feels creepy, just leave right away (and write about it in your fieldnotes!). Metro busses and subway stations are generally very safe, but getting to them might not be. Know your route before you go (if you are taking public transportation, try www.metro.net trip planner or look at a map). After your observations in the group setting Take your fieldnotes in an inconspicuous place, or immediately upon getting home, or right after a good nights sleep (studies show that memory/ability to recall conversations and actions degrades rapidly, except when one is sleeping, when ones memory stays on hold). Do not gossip about or criticize other members. Avoid getting embroiled in any disputes or animosities between group members; stay friendly and neutral, if possible. In some cases, there is a big conflict in an organization. In that case, people will try to make you take sides, and you will either have to dodge the conflict or leave. A few ideas, in no particular order, for groups you might consider researching AIDS Project Los Angeles (contact person: Jim Williams, 213.201.1379, at www.apla.org) Korean Immigrant Workers Association (3465 West 8th Street, LA about a fifteen minute bus ride straight north of campus) Rebeca Ronquillo, Tel: [phone] x104) The Asian Pacific American Legal Center (contact person: Lulu Amadore, 213-977-7500 x217). Amnesty International (contact person is Keith McAleer, [e-mail], [phone], but meetings are quite farnear UCLA). League of Women Voters: Students might observe and/or participate in these kinds of activities: First Tuesdays of the month, Board and committee meetings are held in the office; some days there are volunteer activities scheduled irregularly. You might observe a local chapter of a Democratic or Republican Party, or Green Party, or any other party or activist group, as long as it is not dangerous or violent, or city council meetings in which the public participate. You may study any Los Angeles Neighborhood Association (http://www.at-la.com/@la-comm.htm) (the closest one to USC is NANDC; check it out online. These are all-volunteer organizations; this one meets twice monthly: the 1st Thursday of each month (the "regular" meeting to vote, make policy decisions, etc.) and the 3rd Saturday of each month (the "town hall" meeting to discuss policies, issues, etc.) (See www.nandc.org for more info) You could find an after-school program that has meetings for staff, parents, and/or volunteers.
You can study organizations ranging from The Red Cross, to an animal shelter to a religious charity, to a
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union. One easy, common possibility is a religious organization that sponsors volunteer projects or discussion groups about social issues; they exist all over the city.
A COURSE HANDOUT WILL DESCRIBE HOW TO LISTEN IN YOUR FIELD SITE AND WHAT KINDS OF THINGS ARE GOOD TO WRITE IN FIELDNOTES. Await this handout and make sure you have it before you begin field observations.