GUIDELINES FOR THE "SOCIOLOGICAL SCRAPBOOK"

These guidelines are based on Paul Baker, L. E. Anderson, and Dean S/ Dorn, eds., SOCIAL PROBLEMS. A Critical Thinking Approach. CA., Wadsworth Publishers, 1993, ch. 2.

Social issues are constantly discussed in the mass media. Once you have selected a topic (remember you have to have my approval, so do come during my office hours), proceed as follows:

1. Collect between 7 and 10 relevant newspaper and magazine articles.
2. Identify the level of analysis:

a. Micro level: small social groups, small social settings, concern with private affairs, events.
b. Macro level: large social groups, large social settings concern with public issues, events

3. Identify the degree of generality:


a. Concrete: accounts about specific individuals and events.
Emphasis on WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE.
b. Abstract: analytical statements exploring general topics that affect many people in different places and times. Emphasis on WHY, HOW.

4. Once you have established these dimensions, go on to determine the possible combination represented in the material you are about to analyze. You have four possibilities:

Micro-concrete: description of a specific event affecting a specific small group of people, or a family, or a couple, in a given place at a given time; e.g., Kimberley Mays adopted by her stepmother.

Micro-abstract: analysis of specific events or private affairs, interpersonal conflicts; e.g. the wider implications of the Mays case, which allows a child to reject her biological parents.

Macro-concrete: stories about public issues, important news of sociological relevance; e.g., Supreme Court decisions, legislation affecting child custody, rights of single mothers.

Macro-abstract: analysis of public issues, interpretations of social trends, diagnosis of problems and proposals for solutions; e.g., analyses of current changes in household composition and warnings about the negative effects of single parent families.

5. Once you have determined the combination most suitable to characterize a given article, proceed to read it with the goal of identifying the main ideology the author uses to frame the issues;e.g., egalitarian, authoritarian, functionalist, feminist, conflict theory, conservative. It could be the article supports only one perspective or compares more than one to defend one as the most adequate to understand the issues. Be sensitive to the values the article as a whole supports.

Your texts and class lectures are useful sources of sociological theoretical insights and information about the dominant theories and ideologies within which contemporary debates about social issues take place. Use this sources to assess the extent to which the views expressed in the articles and/or the data it presents coincide or challenge sociological research findings and/or sociological thinking.

6. Present an overview of each article.

7. Evaluate each article. What did you learn from it? What was its most important contribution to your study of the issue you have chosen? What did you enjoy the most? What did you find lacking? If you did not agree with its main objectives, express your disagreements clearly, indicating whether you disagree with the information it provides or with its ideology. Support your disagreement with alternative data and/ or with alternative sociological analysis. If the article deals with micro-concrete events, assess whether the events in question open new directions for sociological research. Be specific.

8. Once you have finished this work for each article, write a conclusion bringing together the contributions of all the articles. If the articles you collected do not lend themselves to this final synthesis, write a cogent summary of the main points you have learned.