Community Organizing

Social Problems: Hip Hop

Foundations of Applied Sociology

In the News Discussion Guides: February 2017

The Institute for Democracy & Higher Education at Tufts University is offering a series of resources that will act as framings for a few issues that developed over the past several weeks, including possible readings, sources, and discussion questions. Think of these as starting points for purposeful, educational classroom and co-curricular discussions. Read more about the importance of these conversations in our blog post on the power of these teachable moments Read More from the Institute for Democracy & Higher Education at Tufts University More on the In the News Discussion Guide Series from IDHE

Realizing Place-Based Strategies (Institute 1 – Princeton)

Steve Dubb, Senior Fellow at the Democracy Collaborative shared this presentation on place-based strategy at the Civic Action Planning Institute in Princeton, NJ.

History Course on Race Inequality in DC

Washington, DC is “a city where the American dream and the American nightmare, pass each other daily, on the street and do not speak,” wrote an anonymous American some time back. Today she could be speaking about the plight of many in the nation’s capital: African Americans, Latin Americans, the homeless, many of them veterans, and others who had not benefited from the American Dream, in this city. In fact, DC is only capital city in the world where voters do not select their own voting representative to the national Congress. In this course, we will explore the “other Washington”…

Sociology SL Course: US Poverty, Welfare & Social Justice

Student Course Learning Goals: Students will be able to define poverty and identify the underlying causes and consequences of poverty in the US. Students will gain an in-depth understanding of the impact of poverty on people’s lives, particularly in the Cleveland area. Students will learn to critically evaluate the effectiveness and fairness of social welfare policies & programs. Students will be able to discuss various strategies for reducing poverty, including the programs at Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry (LMM) Students will work together in research teams and learn how to conduct a program evaluation for LMM Connection to the Department Student Learning…

The Latino Community of the D.C. Metropolitan Area

Instructor: Marcy Fink Campos, Ed. S.                                                American University mfcampos@american.edu The Latino Community of the D.C. Metropolitan Area     Spring 2014      American Studies 340.001 CB   Course Overview and Methodology This course explores the Latino community of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, its history and origins, as well as current challenges and contributions. The DC/MD/VA (DMV) region is estimated to house about 805,000 Latinos, and over 250,000 are of Salvadoran origin. According to the 2010 census, 9.1 %…

Human Behavior and the Social Environment

Course Description: The course will examine individual, group, organizational and societal theories of human development and their relevancy for social work practice. Students will use the theoretical paradigms presented to examine individual and social issues arising in social work practice. Fifteen hours of field work are required as a context for applying class room learning and preparing a case study for class presentation.   Required Texts: Zastrow, C.H., & Kirst-Ashman, K.K. (latest edition). Understanding human behavior and the social environment. Belmont, CA: Brookes/Cole. NASW Code of Ethics, most recent edition. Other assigned readings will be provided from: Fine, M., Weiss,…

Black Literatures

Course Description This course explores literature from the African diaspora – particularly West Africa, the U.S., and the Caribbean. A range of questions will guide our discussion including: What constitutes the African diaspora? What is the relationship between diaspora and nation? What are the connections between the African diasporas in the construction of a black identity? We will read fiction and drama from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, Jamaica, Haiti, England, and the U.S. (among other countries) with protagonists who often look to Africa and/or the ancestors for renewal and empowerment. Among the themes we will explore are oral…

Urban Life and Culture

COURSE DESCRIPTION AND PURPOSE This applied anthropology course is a cross-cultural study of urbanization, urbanism, and human problems associated with metropolitan environments. Major emphasis is given to the ethnography of city life and its relationship to the practical applications of urban research, especially in the contexts of globalization and neoliberalism. Selected readings from recent, book-length urban ethnographies written by anthropologists will be used as models for presenting coherent and readable syntheses of theory, methods, and analysis of various urban issues and experiences of urban life. Documentary videos carefully selected to illustrate the diversity of urban life and culture will also…

Violence in Families

Course Description: This course explores various forms of violence in families including violence between spouses and violence of parents toward children. Factors contributing to the violence will be discussed as well as methods of preventing and/or ameliorating patterns of violence within families. Students in this course will develop an understanding of the reciprocal relationship between the family and society by exploring violence in families as a training ground for societal violence as well as how family patterns are influenced by the values and attitudes in larger society. (This course counts toward the CJS, NVS, & WGS minors.) Course Goals: The…

Connecting Families, Past and Present

Goals: This course will explore “the family” in relation to cultural identities and political policies in the United States and around the world, combined with a unique opportunity to reach out to and interact with diverse families nearby. With topics including the “Holy Family” to “Father Knows Best,” from Freud’s “Oedipal Complex” to current debates on “Family Values,” from children with AIDS to international adoption, students will analyze changing family socio-economic and psychological structures and the evolving representations of motherhood, fatherhood and childhood in the past and particularly in the present. We will compare public and private efforts to aid…

Social Foundation of Education

Course Overview The social foundations of education course is an exploration and analysis of the underlying issues within contemporary educational policies, practices, and theories. It is an attempt to ground the day-to-day realities of the classroom within a larger philosophical, historical, anthropological, political, and sociological context. Such an interdisciplinary perspective will allow students to begin to reflect upon the structures and practices of American education and provide a foundation from which to continue becoming reflective and critical educational practitioners and leaders. It is also an opportunity to investigate the role of schooling and education within a democracy. Through classic and…

Crime and Justice in America: The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program

Mission The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program is an opportunity for a small group of students from Cabrini College and residents of the Montgomery County Correctional Facility to come together as a class to study the American criminal justice system. We will share common readings and discuss our ideas and perceptions about issues of crime and justice, the criminal justice system, corrections and imprisonment. Through dialogue we will bring together our theoretical knowledge and our lived, practical experience to gain a deeper understanding of the criminal justice system. Objectives To create an environment that will facilitate the honest exchange of ideas…

Multicultural Issues in Urban Affairs

  URBAN SEMESTER PROGRAM Multicultural Issues in Urban Affairs HE470 Seminars are normally embedded in the site visits. 3 credits This course uses New York City as a classroom. The landscape, built environment, and people in it are our texts. A great teacher, Paolo Freire, once said that we need to learn how to “read the word and the world.” This is what we will do in this course with an emphasis on reading the world. Two parts direct our attention. The first part focuses us on the formation and development of this multicultural city. We will traverse lower Manhattan…

Community Involvement

Professors Jim Ostrow, Behavioral Sciences Department Maureen Goldman, English Department Readings Packet under course name sold in bookstore: Jonathan Kozol, Amazing Grace (New York: Crown, 1995) David Bollier, Aiming Higher (Washington, D.C.: American Management Association, 1996) Additional readings TBA In this course, students engage in public service within agencies or organizations in the Greater Boston area. In their written work and class discussions, they will reflect on both the purposes of that work as well as on its limits as a response to specific needs within the community and more general problems of social justice. Students will also explore issues…

Housing and Homelessness

Sociology 389: Project Community, Winter 2003 HOUSING and HOMELESSNESS SECTIONS GSI: Jessica Charbeneau Office: 4518 LSA Mailbox: 3009 LSA Office Hours: M & W by appointment Email (best way to reach me): Jcharben@umich.edu Program Assistant: Kim Love Email: klove@umich.edu Welcome to Project Community! Project Community is a unique learning opportunity that pairs sociological theory with community service. In other words, through your involvement in Project Community, you are constantly making the link between your “lived” experiences in the community and the concepts and theories presented in this, and other, courses. This, in a nutshell, is what C. Wright Mills means…

Gerontology

SOC 189: Gerontology Professor: Dr. Pam Haldeman Chair, Sociology and Gerontology Department Office: DH214 Telephone: (310) 954 4366 Email: phaldeman@msmc.1a.edu TEXT Aging, the Individual, and Society, 7th Edition, by Susan Hillier and Georgia M. Barrow COURSE DESCRIPTION A cross cultural exploration of aging as experienced in the United States. Ageism, societal attitudes regarding the elderly, and the process of aging itself is examined. Resource and service availability is also assessed. COURSE GOALS The purpose of this course is to gain a greater understanding of the range and nature of the bio psycho social responses to aging over the life course,…

The Community

Institution: Clemson University Discipline: Sociology Title: The Community Instructor: B.J. Vander Mey RS/SOC 459 The Community Dr. B. J. Vander Mey Office: 130 E Brackett Phone: 656.3821; 656.7988 Office Hours: 8:00 9:00, 11:00 noon TTH; 3:30 4:30 TH. Email: vanmey@clemson.edu Official Course Description: “Close analysis of the development of contemporary communities and their place in society. Continuing effects of industrialization, migration, and technological change on community location and structure are examined. Structural relations of social class, status, and the associations among institutions are examined.” Required Texts: Flora, Cornelia Butler, et al. 1992. Rural Communities: Legacy & Change. South Burlington, VT:…