SSBT 584. Diversity, Discrimination and Oppression
Instructor Jeffrey Longhofer, Ph.D., LISW
Intensive Weekend
Summer 2007
Office Phone: 368-0160 | Office location: 309Mailing Address: |
Course Description
This course is aimed at understanding the complex relationships among race, ethnic, class, sexual, and gender inequalities. We will consider how these categories are often accepted as givens, even sometimes natural. We will focus our attention not only on how inequalities are produced. We will also look at how cultural factors play a role in their intractability and also how they affect those with privilege. Overall, our task will be to explore the connections between power and powerlessness, wealth and poverty, confidence and despair, pride and shame. Finally, we will examine how they affect the ways we engage in practice, form policy, conduct research, and develop programs.
Course Objectives
Students completing this course should possess the following:
- A practice model that reflects the integration of culturally competent techniques, research and theory (SWP; CT).
- Ability to identify how inequalities affect access to opportunity within U.S. society (SWP; CT).
- Understanding and knowledge of strategies used to ameliorate the effects of inequality (CT; C).
- Understanding and knowledge of social work contribution to the amelioration and perpetuation of the effects of inequality (CT; SWP).
- Understanding and knowledge of institutional practices that perpetuate inequality and related conflicts (CT; VE).
- Understanding and knowledge of the effects of inequality on life chances (SWP).
- Understand the different conceptualizations of sexual citizenship.
- Understand what is meant by sexual rights, obligations and identities.
- Understand the claims of different identity communities to ‘sexual justice’ and the principles and models of citizenship upon which such claims are founded.
- Understand the problematic aspects of the expansion of a concept of sexual citizenship.
- Understand the implications of these debates for social action.
- Understand how panics are fueled by the media and become the basis for political, religious, and ideological reaction.
Required Readings
Books
Bourgois, P. 1996. In Search of respect: selling crack in el barrio. New York: Cambridge University Press. You will need to order this book—it is not available at the Case Bookstore. Please purchase the most recent edition, 2002.
Articles and Chapters (Readings below are available as PDF files on Blackboard)
Andrews. K. and Edwards, B. 2004. Advocacy organization in the u.s. political process. Annual Review of Sociology, 30: 479-506.
Bernstein, M. 2005. Identity politics. Annual Review of Sociology, 31: 47-74.
Brandzel, A. 2005. Queering citizenship. Gay and Lesbian Quarterly.
Hartigan, J. 2000. Remembering white detroit: Whiteness in the mix of history and memory. City and Society, 12: 2, 11-34.
Krysan, M. 2000. Prejudice, politics, and public opinion: understanding the sources of racial policy attitudes. Annual Review of Sociology, 26: 135-68.
McDermott, M. and F. Sampson 2005. White racial and ethnic identity in the united states. Annual Review of Sociology, 31, 245-61.
Morgan, S. and M. J. 2003. The anthropology of welfare reform: new perspectives on u.s. urban poverty in the post-welfare era. Annual Review of Anthropology, 33: 315- 38.
Townsend, E. 1998. Good intentions overruled: a critique of empowerment in the routine organization of mental health services. University of Toronto Press. Chapters 1 and 8.
O’Connor, A. 2000. Poverty research and policy for the post-welfare era. Annual Review of Sociology. 26: 547-62.
Westervelt, D. 2001. National identity and the defense of marriage. Constellations (8)1: 106-126.
.
Recommended Readings:
Gamson, Joshua and Dawne Moon. 2004. The Sociology of Sexualities: Queer and Beyond. Annual Review of Sociology, 30, pages 47-64.
Richardson, Diane. 2001. Extending Citizenship: Cultural Citizenship and Sexuality. London: Sage.
Assignments and Attendance
You are expected to attend all class sessions (on time), to actively participate, and to complete reading assignments prior to class. An attendance sheet will be circulated during each class. Excused absences (illness with a doctor’s note, documented family emergency, and religious observance) will not be counted against you. Unexcused absences will have a negative effect on the final grade. You are responsible for finding out about any assignments if you were absent. If you must miss a session, you will need to let me know in advance and you will be required to write a 15-20 page paper that addresses the range of questions and issues covered for that day.
I advise that you purchase a binder for the readings. And please make sure you bring the readings to class, always.
1. Synopses, Reading Summaries (20 points) Due on May 11, after lunch. You must prepare detailed notes (see guidelines posted on blackboard) for the following articles: 1. O’Connor, A. 2000. Poverty research and policy for the post-welfare era. Annual Review of Sociology. 26: 547-62 and 2. Morgan, S. and Maskovsky, J. 2003. The anthropology of welfare reform: New perspectives on u.s. urban poverty in the post-welfare era. Annual Review of Anthropology, 33: 315-38.
Thoughtful and timely reading of the assigned articles is essential! You will be held accountable for the reading, each day! They require your close attention. These two synopses will count for 20% of the grade. You will be expected to effectively use the synopses and participation will be measured by your willingness to contribute to the discussion during this afternoon session.
The purpose of the synopsis is to identify the central thesis or controlling ideas of the reading and to briefly examine the evidence and ideas used in their development. In addition to summary, it is the purpose of the synopsis to evaluate. You will be expected to pose questions regarding the logic of the work, its merits and shortcomings. Where the author uses data or cites evidence, you must examine the evidence and the conclusions drawn. They must be no more than three pages, typed, and single-spaced (12 pt, 1” margins): no exceptions. See Case Blackboard for a more detailed description of what is expected from the synopses. Please bring to class two copies of the synopses, one for me and a second for your use in class. Synopses will be used in organizing our discussions.
2. Book Review. 40 points (due on May 11). You will also be expected to write a book review (not a report or summary) of a book by Philippe Bourgois, In Search of Respect (you’ll need to order this—it is not available through the Case bookstore). See Blackboard for instructions.
3. Film Analysis (40. points, due on June 10th)
You will also be expected to write a film analysis (not a report or summary). The analysis, 10-12 pages in length, should compare and contrast films from the list below using concepts developed in the readings, class discussion, and with the use of at least three outside, scholarly sources. The final paper is due on the last day of class. See Blackboard for additional guidelines: Film Analysis: Some Guidelines. You must use APA style (see , MSASS, http://msass.case.edu/harrislibrary/LibStudents/write/apa.htm. Also, you might find the Harris Library tutorial on writing research papers useful: guidelineshttp://msass.cwru.edu/harrislibrary/LibStudents/Steps/default.htm).
Film Viewing: Make arrangements to view—in Kelvin Smith or available in local video stores—the following films before June 9.
American Beauty
Talented Mr. Ripley
Brokeback Mountain
Course Schedule
Friday, May 11
Morning
Introductions
Overview
Key Concepts
Theory and Practice
Social Relations
Thinking about Social Inequality
Power
Conflict Theory
Power Elite Theory
SES
Marx and Weber
The Underclass
Deindustrialization
Culture and Class
Social Reproduction Theory
Gender, Sex, Class and Race: How do they relate?
Readings:
Bourgois, P. In Search of Respect. (read all of this book for Friday and prepare book review, see Blackboard Guidelines).
Townsend, E. Good Intentions Overruled, Chapters 1 and 8 (Blackboard, Townsend)
Lunch: 12:00-1:30
Afternoon
Assignment: For the afternoon session, you will be expected to prepare two reading synopses (bring two copies) for the seminar discussion. You will be expected to participate in leading some part of the discussion.
Poverty and the Welfare State: Reading Discussion
Before coming to this first weekend, you should arrange to watch the Ken Loach film: Lady Bird, Lady Bird
Required Readings:
O’Connor, A. 2000. Poverty research and policy for the post-welfare era. Annual Review of Sociology. 26: 547-62.
Morgan, S. and Maskovsky, J. 2003. The anthropology of welfare reform: New perspectives on u.s. urban poverty in the post-welfare era. Annual Review of Anthropology, 33: 315-38.
Saturday, May 12
Film: Race: The Power of Illusion: The Difference Between Us
Discussion
Scientific Racism
Culture and Racism
Race, Class, and Schooling
Required Reading:
Krysan, M. 2000. Prejudice, politics, and public opinion: understanding the sources of racial policy attitudes. Annual Review of Sociology, 26: 135-68.
Sunday, May 13
Morning
In Search of Respect
Film: Nuyourica.
Discussion
Lunch 12:00-1:30
Afternoon
Media, Race, and Ethnicity
Whiteness and Whiteness Studies
Modes of Representation
The Problem of Identification
The Politics of Fear
Film: Ethnic Notions
Discussion
Required Reading:
McDermott, M. and F. Sampson. 2005. White racial and ethnic identity in the united states, Annual Review of Sociology, 31, 245-61.
Hartigan, J. 2000. Remembering white detroit: Whiteness in the mix of history and memory. City and Society, 12: 2, 11-34.
Exercise: White Identity Scale (you will need to look at this on Blackboard, answer the questions, and bring them to class)
Recommending Reading:
Andrews, Kenneth, T. & Bob Edwards. 2004. Advocacy organizations in the u.s. political process. Annual Review of Sociology, 30: 479-506.
Saturday, June 9
Morning
Identity Politics
The Fordist Compact
Postfordism
The Civil Rights Movement
Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Religion
Required Reading:
Bernstein, M. 2005. Identity Politics. Annual Review of Sociology, 31: 47-74.
Lunch, 12:00-1:30
Afternoon
Film: Celluloid Closet
Discussion
Sunday, June 10
Morning
Conceptualizations of sexual citizenship.
Sexual rights, obligations and identities.
Identity communities to ‘sexual justice’
Seminar Discussion
Required Reading:
Westervelt, D. 2001. National identity and the defense of marriage. Constellations (8)1: 106-126.
Brandzel, A. Queering Citizenship.
Afternoon
Discussion of films, Brokeback Mountain, American Beauty, and The Talented Mr. Ripley
Recommended Reading:
Gamson, Joshua and Dawne Moon. 2004. The Sociology of Sexualities: Queer and Beyond. Annual Review of Sociology, 30, pages 47-64.
Richardson, Diane. 2001. Extending Citizenship: Cultural Citizenship and Sexuality. London: Sage.
Recommended Readings:
Alexie, Sherman. 1994. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist-Fight in Heaven. New York:
Harper Perennial.
Anderson, Ellijah. 1990. Street Wise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community.
Chicago. University of Chicago.
Anderson, Ellijah. 2000. Code of the Streets: Decency, Violence and the Moral Life of the Inner City. New York: W. W. Norton. Inc.Anderson, Margaret L. and Patricia Hill Collins. 2001. Race, Class, and Gender: An Anthology. 4th edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Atkinson, D. R., Morten, G., & Sue, D. W. (1998). Counseling American Minorities, 5th Ed. Boston: McGraw Hill.
Auletta, K. (1982). The Underclass. NY: Vintage Books.
Blank, R. (1997). It Takes a Nation: A New Agenda for Fighting Poverty. NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Blee, K. 1991. “100% Cooperation: Political Culture in the Klan.” In Women of the Klan. Berkeley: Univ. of Ca. Press. pp.154-74.
Bogle, Donald. 2001. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films.
Chachere, B., Smith, R. C., & Walters, R. W. (1987). Causes for alarm. Society, 24(2), 22-28.
Chau, K. L. (1991). Social work with ethnic minorities: Practice issues and potentials. Journal of Multicultural Social Work 1(1), 23-39.
Cornelius, L. J. & Altman, B. M. (1995). Have we succeeded in reducing barriers to medical care for African and Hispanic Americans with disabilities? Social Work in Health Care, 22(2), 1-17.
Cumming, Scott. 1998. Left Behind in Rosedale: Race Relations and the Collapse of
Community Institutions. Boulder: Westview Press.
Curtis, C. M. (1996). The adoption of African American children by whites: A renewed conflict. Families in Society, 77(3) 156-65.
Dalton, H. (1995). Racial Healing: Confronting the Fear Between Blacks and Whites. NY: Doubleday.
Davis, Angela. 1983. Women, Race and Class. New York: Random House.
Davis, L. E. & Proctor, E. K. (1989). Race, Gender, & Class: Guidelines for Practice with Individuals, Families, and Groups. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
DeMott, B. (1995). The Trouble with Friendship: Why Americans Can’t Think Straight about Race. NY: The Atlantic Monthly Press.
Dhopper, S. S. & Moore, S. E. (2001). Social Work Practice with Culturally Diverse People. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folks. 1999. New York: New American Library.
Duneier, Mitchell. 1999. Sidewalk. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Ehrenreich, Barbara. 2001. Nickel and Dimed: On (not) Getting by in America. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
Edsall, T. B. & Edsall, M. D. (1991, May). Race. The Atlantic Monthly, 53-86.
Ethnography Unbound. Berkeley: UC Press.
Feagin, Joe R. 2001. “Systematic Racism: A Comprehensive Perspective,” in Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations. New York: Routledge Press
Feagin, J. R. & Vera, H. (1995). White Racism: The Basics. NY: Routledge Press.
Films Among American Indians and Anglos.” ASR, 57:725-34.
Friedman, Lester D. Unspeakable Images: Ethnicity and the American Cinema. Urbana: Illinois, 1991.
Galster, G. C. & Hill, E. W. (Eds.) (1992). The Metropolis in Black & White: Place, Power, and Polarization. New Brunswick, NJ: Center for Urban Policy Research.
Gevinson, Alan. Within Our Gates: Ethnicity in American Feature Films, 1911-1960. Berkeley: California, 1997.
Hacker, A. (1992). Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal. NY: Scribner’s Sons.
Hall, R. E. (1992). Bias among African-Americans regarding skin color: Implications for social work practice. Research on Social Work Practice, 2(4), 479-86.
Harrington, M. (1962). The Other America: Poverty in the United States. NY: Macmillian.
Harvard University Pres.
Howe, N. & Longman P. (1992, April). The next new deal. The Atlantic Monthly, 88-99.
Harden, Jacalyn D. 2003. Double Cross: Japanese Americans in Black and White Chicago. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Haynes, Bruce. 2001. Red Lines, Black Spaces: The Politics of Race and Space in a Black Middle Class Suburb. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Jackson, John H. 2001. Harlemworld: Doing Race and Class in Contemporary Black America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (hardback)
Kennedy, R. (1997, May). My race problem--and ours. The Atlantic Monthly, 55-66.
Kennedy, Randall. 2002. Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word. New York: Pantheon.
Kozol, Jonathan. 1991. Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools. New York: Crown Publishers.
Massey, D. S. (1994). America’s apartheid and the urban underclass. Social Service Review, 68(4) 471-487.
McMahon, A. & Allen-Meares, P. (1992). Is social work racist? A content analysis of recent literature. Social Work, 37(6) 533-539.
Miller, Randall M. The Kaleidoscopic Lens: How Hollywood Views Ethnic Groups. Englewood: Ozer, 1980.
Nagel, Joane. 1994. “Constructing Ethnicity: Creating and Re-creating Ethnic Identity and Culture.” Social Problems 41: 152-183.
Newman, Katherine S. 1999. No Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner-City. New York: Russell Sage Publications.
O’Brien, D. and S. Fugita. “The Concentration Camp Experience.” in The of 'Dirty Work' by Central American Immigrants." in Burawoy, M. (ed) Palmer, S. & Cooke, W. (1996). Understanding and countering racism with First Nations children in out-of-home care. Child Welfare, 75(6), 209-25.
Patillo-McCoy, Mary. 2000. Black Pickett Fences: Privilege and Peril among the Black Middle Class. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Pease, Donald E. National Identities and Post-Americanist Narratives. Durham: Duke, 1994.
Phillips, K. (1990). The Politics of Rich and Poor: Wealth and the American Electorate in the Reagan Aftermath. NY: Random House.
Pinderhughes, E. (1989). Understanding Race, Ethnicity, & Power: The Key to Efficacy in Clinical Practice. NY: The Free Press.
Rhodes, Jewell Parker. 1997. Magic City. New York: Harper Perennial.
Ricourt, Milagros and Ruby Danta. 2003. Hispana de Queens: Latino Panethnicity in a New York City Neighborhood. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Pardo, Mary S. 1998. Mexican American Women Activists: Identity and Resistance in Two Los Angeles Neighborhoods. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Romero, Mary. 2000. Maid in the U.S.A.: 10th Anniversary Edition. New York: Routledge. 1992.
Roschelle, Anne. 1997. No More Kin: Exploring Race, Class, and Gender in Family Networks. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publication.
Rocchio, Vincent. 2000. Reel Racism. Continuum Press.
Roediger, D. R. (1991). The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class. London: Verso.
Roediger, D. R. (1994). Towards the Abolition of Whiteness. London: Verso.
Shively, JoEllen. 1992. “Cowboys and Indians: Perceptions of American
Sociological Inquiry, 63: 64-83.
Spence, S. A. (1993). Rural elderly African Americans and service delivery: A study of health and social service needs and service accessibility. Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 20(3/4), 187-202.
Steele, C. M. (1992, April). Race and the school of Black Americans. The Atlantic Monthly, 68-78.
Steinberg, S. (1995). Turning Back: The Retreat from Racial Justice in American Thought and Policy. Boston: Beacon Press.
Swigonski, M. E. (1996). Challenging privilege through Africentric social work practice. Social Work, 41(2), 153-16.
Szumski, B. (Ed.) (1996). Interracial America: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press.
Tidwell, B. J. (Winter 1990-91). More than a Moral Issue: The costs of American racism in the 1990s. The Urban League Review, 14(2), 9-27.
Toplin, Robert Brent. Hollywood as Mirror: Changing Views of "Outsiders" and "Enemies" in American Movies. Westport: Greenwood, 1993.
West, C. (1993). Race Matters. Boston: Beacon Press.
Wilson, W. J. (1987). The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, The Underclass and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wilson, W. J. (1980). The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wilson, William J. 1996. When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor.
New York: Random House.