Professor: Martha E. Gimenez Office: Ketchum 205A EMAIL: gimenez@csf.colorado.edu Telephone: 492-7080 OFFICE HOURS: T 10 to 12 and by appointment. VIRTUAL OFFICE HOURS: All students are encouraged to ask questions using email. Questions and answers will be posted so that everyone benefits. All students are REQUIRED to join the class electronic network. HOME PAGE

Additional or substitute reading assignments, important deadlines, reminders, information and general discussion will be posted daily. READ YOUR EMAIL EVERYDAY TO KEEP INFORMED.

ONLINE RESOURCES:

SOCIAL STRATIFICATION HOME PAGE

Explore the course home page and adjacent pages, including the page currently in construction.

In these pages, yu will find previous syllabi, exams, study questions, and useful links to data and sources of information that supplement, in important ways, the required readings. Throughout the semester, I will be adding new links, including those you find and send me through email. Students who make good contributions to the course page, updating or submitting new links accompanied by comments (at most two screens in length) indicating their relevance to the course, will be awarded extra credit.

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The study of class, class power, race/ethnic, sex, and age stratification. Theories of social inequality will be examined to assess their relevance for understanding the intensification of social inequality in the United States and elsewhere, taking into account globalization and the global dimensions of social stratification.
Social stratification is not just a sociological concept; it is the reality that shapes everyone's life and the paramount characteristic of today's world. Understanding the sources and effects of inequality and the manifold ways it impinges on people's lives, on our lives, is one of the main objectives of this course.

General Course Objectives:

At the end of the semester, students should be able to

1. understand the key elements of the main classical and contemporary theories of social stratification
2. describe the historical conditions that generate and reproduce current patterns of social, economic and political inequality.
3. define social class and social stratification and describe some of the complex relationship between these different kinds of inequality.
4. to define gender, racial/ethnic, age and other systems of inequality and discuss their interconnections in modern societies.
5. describe the main characteristics of social stratification in the United States, placing it in a comparative context.
6. describe the effects of social stratification upon the life chances of people in different class and socio-economic locations.
7. contrast and compare the main theories of social stratification, identifying their strengths and weaknesses, and ability to illuminate the realities of social stratification in the United States.
8. develop an understanding of the global stratification system and the connections between the place of nation states within that system, and national stratification systems.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

This is a lecture and discussion course. Students will be expected to attend classes regularly, read all assignments and come prepared to participate in class discussions and structured debates. Class participation will be assessed by the quality of the comments made.

Guidelines to prepare for class participation:

I. Students should read the assigned materials, take notes, and ask and find answers to questions such as, for example: what are the author's main arguments? What new concepts does the author introduce? What am I learning from this author, or chapter, or article? How do these readings relate to my learning in previous courses and to what I know and experience as a member of this society? How am I reacting to these readings? Do they support or challenge my values, beliefs, knowledge? what do I find confusing, difficult to understand, wonderful, abhorrent, etc. in these readings? Bring your notes and answers to class everyday. Be prepared!

II. Every student IS REQUIRED to complete this response sheet and email it by 1 pm every Monday, starting on Monday, September 2nd. This assignment is GRADED

READING RESPONSE SHEET

Name:
Date:
Words for review:
Issues I found confusing:
Issues I found interesting:
Issues I'd like to discuss in class:

Lectures will be brief and focused on theoretical analysis and integration, establishing the connections between the theories, research findings and other information examined in the course, thus setting the background for students' participation. Lectures will be related to but WILL NOT necessarily cover every aspect of the assigned readings; they are designed to supplement, NOT to replicate the readings.

Grades will be based on the following:

1. Response sheets (20 percent)
2. Mid-term exam composed of short essay questions. Date: October 17 (25 percent of the grade)
3. Personal essay: 25 percent of the grade. First draft (at most two pages long) due September 12; revised assignment due: November 7. (Instructions to be given the first day of classes)
   OR
4. Group Project: 25 percent of the grade. Group Projects due November 12 (Instructions will be given the first day of class)
   IMPORTANT: Students must choose between assignments 3 and 4 before or on Tuesday, September 10.
   
5. Take home final exam composed of essay questions. Date due: DECEMBER 17 (30 percent of the grade)

Improve your learning skills following these very useful General Tips

IMPORTANT:
If you qualify for accommodations because of a disability, please submit to me a letter from Disability Services (DS) early in the semester so that your needs may be addressed. DS determines accommodations based on documented disabilities (303-492-8671, Willard 322, www.colorado.edu/sacs/disabilityservices)

A class missed to observe a religious holiday will not be counted as an absence. If you have to miss an exam because of a religious holiday, please notify me two weeks in advance, so that we identify an alterative date for fulfilling that course requirement.

"As a result of extensive discussions with and recommendations from faculty and students, a new classroom behavior policy and associated new procedures have been adopted. Students should read the information provided in http://www.colorado.edu/studentaffairs/judicialaffairs/code.html"

"Plagiarism (Portrayal of another's work or ideas as one's own), Cheating (Using unauthorized notes or study aids, allowing another party to do one's work/exam and turning in that work/exam as one's own; submitting the same or similar papers in more than one course without permission from the course instructors)" and other forms of academic dishonesty will not be tolerated. Please see additional information about academic dishonesty in http://www.colorado.edu/academics/honorcode/Code1.html
and learn about the new Student Honor Code System in http://www.colorado.edu/academics/honorcode/Home.html

CELL PHONES AND PAGERS MUST BE TURNED OFF BEFORE ENTERING THE CLASSROOM

REQUIRED READINGS:

Books:

Barbara Ehrenreich, 2001. NICKEL AND DIMED. On (Not) Getting By in America. New York: A Metropolitan/Owl Book.

Robert Perrucci and Earl Wysong. 2003. THE NEW CLASS SOCIETY. Goodbye American Dream? 2nd Edition. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

Michael Zweig. 2001. THE WORKING CLASS MAJORITY. America's Best Kept Secret. Ithaca, N.Y./London: ILR Press.

REQUIRED READINGS ON RESERVE AT NORLIN LIBRARY

Charles E. Hurst, SOCIAL INEQUALITY. Forms, Causes, and Consequences. Fourth Edition. Allyn & Bacon, 2001.

K. Marx and F. Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party: Section on Bourgeois and Proletarians

Max Weber, Class, Status, Party

Kingsley Davis and W. Moore, Some Principles of Stratification

Melvin Tumin, Some Principles of Stratification: A Critical Analysis.

IMPORTANT: You will find the readings by Marx and Engels, Weber, and Davis and Moore in these books:

Thomas M. Shapiro, ed., GREAT DIVIDES. Readings in Social Inequality in the United States

Rhonda Levine, ed., SOCIAL CLASS AND STRATIFICATION; Classical statements ad theoretical Debates

You will find Tumin's article ONLY in R. Levine's book

OPTIONAL READINGS

Denny Braun, THE RICH GET RICHER. The Rise of Income Inequality in the United States and the World. Nelson-Hall Publishers, 1991.

Dalton Conley, BEING BLACK, LIVING IN THE RED. race, Wealth, and Social Policy in America. University of California Press, 1999.

Barbara Ehrenreich, FEAR OF FALLING. The Inner Life of the Middle Classes. Harper Perennial, 1990.

Lynda Ann Ewen, SOCIAL STRATIFICATION AND POWER IN AMERICA. The view from Below. General Hall, 1998.

Louis Kushnik and James Jennings, eds., A NEW INTRODUCTION TO POVERTY. The Role of Race, Power, and Politics. New York University Press, 1999.

Andrew Milner, CLASS. Core Cultural Concepts. Sage, 1999.

Katherine Newman, DECLINING FORTUNES. The Withering of the American Dream. Basic Books, 1993.*

Kevin Phillips, THE POLITICS OF RICH AND POOR. Wealth and the American Electorate in the Reagan Aftermath. Random House, 1990.

Paula Rothenberg, ed., RACE, CLASS & GENDER IN THE UNITED STATES. An Integrated Study. St Martin's Press, 1992.

Maurice Zeitlin, THE LARGE CORPORATIONS AND CONTEMPORARY CLASSES. Rutgers University Press, 1989.

SCHEDULED READINGS

Important:
From the very beginning of the semester read all the assignments, particularly Marx and Engels, Weber, Davis and Moore, and Tumin; write down concepts which you do not understand, ideas and conclusions that you find unclear as well as the main issues and questions you think these and other sociologists contribute to the study of stratification. Keep those notes with you and bring up these questions and the authors' contributions every time you think they are relevant to the topics we are examining in class.

Weeks 1 - 2

Perrucci and Wysong, ch. 1 Class in America
Perrucci and Wysong ch. 2 Separate Realities: The Dream and the Iceberg
Zweig, Ch. 1 The Class Structure of the United States
Optional:
Hurst, Ch. 1 - An Introduction to the Study of Social Inequality.
Hurst, Ch. 2 - Economic Inequality
Hurst, Ch. 3 - Status Inequality

Weeks 3 -4

Zweig, Ch. 2 What We Think about When We Think about Class
Zweig, Ch. 3 Why is Class Important?
Zweig, Ch. 4 Looking at "The Underclass"

Weeks 4 - 5

Zweig, Ch. 5 Looking a Values - Family and Otherwise
Zweig, Ch. 6 The Working Class and Power
Zweig, Ch. 7 Power and Globalization

Weeks 5 - 6

Perrucci and Wysong, Ch. 3 The Global Economy and the Privileged Class
Perrucci and Wysong, Ch. 4 The Invisible Class Empire
Hurst, Ch. 7 - Political Inequality (ON RESERVE)
Zweig, Ch. 8 Power and the Government
Zweig, Ch. 9 Into the Millenium

Week 6 - 7

Hurst, Ch. 4 - Sex and Gender Inequality
Hurst, Ch. 6 - Racial and Ethnic Inequality
REVIEW

October 10-11 FALL BREAK

Week 7 - 8

Karl Marx and F. Engels, Bourgeois and Proletarians
Max Weber, Class, Status, Party
Optional: Hurst, Ch. 9 Classical Explanations of Inequality

Weeks 9 - 10

Hurst, Ch. 10 - Modern Explanations of Inequality
Davis and Moore, Some Principles of Stratification
Tumin, Some Principles of Stratification: A Critique

Hurst, Ch. 8 - U.S. Inequality in Comparative Perspective

Weeks 10-11

Hurst, Ch. 11 - The Impact of Social Inequality on Personal Life Chances
Ehrenreich, NICKEL AND DIMED

Weeks 11 - 13

Hurst, Ch. 13 - Trends in Mobility and Status Attainment: Openness in U. S. Society
Perrucci and Wysong, Ch. 5 The Information Industry
Perrucci and Wysong, Ch. 6 Educating for Privilege: Dreaming, Streaming and Creaming
Perrucci and Wysong, Ch. 7 The Pacification of Everyday Life

Weeks 13 - 14

Hurst, Ch. 8 - U.S. Inequality in Comparative Perspective
Hurst, Ch. 14 - Justice and Legitimacy: Assessments of the Structure of Inequality

Weeks 15 - 16

Perrucci and Wysong, Ch. 8 Class in the Twenty-first Century: Consolidation and Resistence
REVIEW

Credits:
Figure on Wealth from the article by Isaac Shapiro and Robert Breenstein, "The Widening Income Gulf
Writing Tips from Professor Mary Klage's English 2010 Page

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