Where are the lecture notes stored?
Canvas
Where are student generated content summarizing and discussing the readings and lectures stored?
Files –> canvas
What is the defintion of community?
Process of learning social norms
Sociology definition
study of society
Community definition
Collection of people with shared norms
What kind of “community” are we building in this class?
A learning community
What was the topic of our first class discussion, our ice-breaker?
Banning cell phones in NY state schools
Why is there a tension between the legal laws of this topic and the sociological norms of this topic?
Because phones are very engrained in society, so when you take them away, you aren’t preparing kids for the real world. Also, you taking are a freedom or right in a way
What is the title of the title of “Chapter 1” of C. Wright Mills’ book The Sociological Imagination?” What does the title mean?
The Promise. It’s called this because if we learn the sociological imagination, we gain the quality of mind to understand the intersection between the human biography and history of society
Forest-tree metaphor
To understand society, you cannot look at one individual or one tree, you must look at the forest as a whole
Sociological Imagination defintion
The quality of mind essential to understand the intersection between human biography and the history of society
Why do people feel confused and trapped in their lives, according to Mills?
The lack of understanding that their personal troubles are rooted in the issues of social structures that no individual can solve alone according to Mills.
What happened to the insurance salesman and his wife and his son?
He goes to war and becomes a rocket launcher, he dies, wife is alone, son is left without a dad.
We can be furious with congress over war, but no individual person stops/starts a war so anger is counterproductive
What makes a classic a classic?
It remains relevant and useful across time
What did Mills’ “classic social analysts” do?
They all ask the same fundamental questions about society
What is first question in the first set of questions?
What happened in Lakewood in the early 1990s?
A gang of youth student athletes that had a superiority complex, and arrested on charges of sexual violence.
How did the community find out they had a problem in their community?
There was pipe bomb leading to sheriffs speaking to parents about the issue
Then what happened in the community?
The boys were detained for four nights, the cops decided there wasn’t strong enough evidence for sexual violence charges
Why is this important?
People were in denial of the violence in their community, and they cared more about maintain their “perfect” society rather than the community itself
How did members of the community describe the community?
American dream, ideal community
How did members of the community explain what had happened in the community?
They blamed the school for encouraging sexual behaviors by saying they distributed condoms
They also said the media blew this issue out of proportion and sex is normal amongst teens
What do ordinary people feel confused according to Mills in the opening paragraph of The Sociological Imagination?
Morals have changed but we’re still abiding by them
How did Joan Didion learn about the Trouble in Lakewood?
The spur posse had a superiority complex that led to this behavior