SOC 3301W is also offered in Fall 2024
SOC 3301W is also offered in Spring 2023
Fall 2013 | SOC 3301W Section 001: Politics and Society (30942)
- Instructor(s)
- Class Component:
- Lecture
- Credits:
- 3 Credits
- Grading Basis:
- A-F or Audit
- Instructor Consent:
- No Special Consent Required
- Instruction Mode:
- In Person Term Based
- Class Attributes:
UMNTC Liberal Education Requirement
Delivery Medium
- Times and Locations:
Regular Academic Session
Mon,
Wed 01:00PM - 02:15PM
UMTC, West Bank
Blegen Hall 425
- Also Offered:
- Course Catalog Description:
- Ideas of citizenship. Relationship between politics and society. Public sphere, civil society. Research practicum volunteering at policy-relevant site using participant observation methods.
- Class Description:
- Politics and society go together like a horse and carriage, but its hard to tell which is the horse and which the carriage! This course approaches politics from the standpoint of society. Accordingly, it does not focus on the details of the formal political institutions such as voting, legislatures or the presidency. Rather, it focuses on how society organizes around and pushes political questions. For instance, society is divided by social categories such as race, class, gender, age, education, religion, associational membership, wealth. The systemic relations among these categories, equal or unequal, exploitative or cooperative, and so forth, determine the allocation of "goods" and "bads" in society, and therefore many political dynamics. In addition, people and groups have different levels of social capital (connections) and cultural capital (for instance, levels of education and tastes about music, theater, literature, news, sports and alcohol). These different factors help create ideological values such as group and nationalist beliefs. They bear upon how individuals and groups think about the issues that face them and how they do or do not translate these into political issues demanding governmental action. These social factors interact with the type of local and national regime and its placement in global systems to channel conflicts and outcomes. Depending on the openness of the regime, popular pressures can lead to peaceful democratic change, open protests, or revolution. The course explores these issues from the perspective of three case studies: one case of severe ethnic conflicts in a giant democracy (India), one case of revolution against dictatorship (the Arab Spring) -- and within that, the role of the internet communications in popular mobilization and what it presages for the future--, and one case about welfare politics in a conservative capitalist democracy (the US--the politics of the recent Affordable Care Act).
- Grading:
- 15% Midterm Exam
15% Final Exam
45% Reports/Papers
5% Quizzes
18% Written Homework
2% Class Participation
- Exam Format:
- essay
- Class Format:
- 60% Lecture
40% Discussion
- Workload:
- 30 Pages Reading Per Week
30 Pages Writing Per Term
2 Exam(s)
1 Paper(s)
6 Homework Assignment(s)
5 Quiz(zes)
Other Workload: This is a writing intensive (W) course. It requires that you develop your term paper in four stages, each of which is submitted for feedback and improvement.
- Textbooks:
- https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/30942/1139
- Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
- 17 July 2013
ClassInfo Links - Fall 2013 Sociology Classes Taught by Jeffrey Broadbent