Urban Sociology in Theory and Practice

Assignments

Weekly Response Papers

(9 Responses Out of 12 Weeks)

These response papers are intended to help you prepare for class each week. We want you to practice concise, cogent analysis of and commentary on the readings. We will draw from your writings during in-class discussions and lectures.

Your response papers should:

1. Analyze key ideas or debates that cut across readings, as well as how the readings challenge and / or build upon each other within these debates.
2. Identify questions the readings prompt you to ask or important questions that the readings left unanswered.
3. Raise insights or questions about the methodology of the research, the conclusions drawn from the data, or other variables or theories that you believe are relevant, but overlooked.

There are several ways to approach this assignment. You can always choose to directly engage with the readings on their own terms. If you’re having trouble finding a place to start, however, consider trying one of the following:

• Relate the readings to current events.
• Relate the readings to your own lived experience. Are their contradictions in what you have seen in your own life and work versus the theories put forth by the scholars we read? Have you noticed that there are constraints in practice that aren’t fully captured by scholarship?
• Sometimes a particular passage in one reading can aid in analyzing other readings. Pick an excerpt from one of the readings that intrigues you, and analyze what it means. Think carefully about what led the author to write it the way he / she did. Tell us how it relates to the larger issues covered that week, and what the other readings have to say about both those issues in general and this passage in particular.
• Was there something that surprised you about the readings? Is there something that still confuses you? This is a great place to work through such puzzles.

Response papers should be approximately 500 words (absolutely no more than 700 words). You do not need to use formal citation practices in these papers (though you should cite authors and pages for quotes or ideas so we can quickly find them) and you are allowed to skip one week of your choice.

Weekly Presentation

On the first day of class, each student will sign up for one week of the course’s readings that are of interest to give a 15-minute presentation about the assigned material. The idea is to have 1 MIT student and 1 BU Met Studies student sign up for the same set of readings. The duo will give the presentation together, and should use the break time in the middle of class the week before their presentation to plan. The students will also have 15 minutes at the start of class right before their presentation on the assigned week to touch base before they present.

On the day of the presentation, the MIT student presenter and the BU Met Studies presenter should come to class with one discussion question each about the readings. Everyone in the class will spend the beginning 15 minutes writing and discussing these two questions while the two presenters prepare for their presentation.

Each weekly presentation should incorporate at least one current event to help frame the readings. We are interested primarily in how you collaborate with one another to lead and start a thoughtful discussion among your fellow classmates. Below are questions you should aim to address in your presentation:

1. What did you see as the most important insight or idea from the assigned readings?

2. What are your critical reactions to the readings? What were their strengths and weaknesses?

3. What can we learn about the readings from the current event(s) you have selected to share?

4. What unanswered questions do you have for your classmates about these readings?

   Please note, the week you are presenting, you do not need to write a response paper.

Ethnography Group Presentation

Week 5 is our class on Ethnography. This session will run a bit differently than the other classes. We have selected four different ethnographic works to review.

3 MIT students and 3 BU Met Studies students will sign up for one of the selected works (see Week 5 readings):

• Elijah Anderson’s Code of the Street / Wacquant v. Anderson Debate
• Eric Klinenberg’s Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago / Dunieier v. Klinenberg Debate
• Mary Pattillo’s Black on the Block
• Mario Luis Small’s Villa Victoria

The team of 6 students will each have 30 minutes to present their selected ethnography and 10 minutes to answer questions. As with weekly presentations, you will touch base with your group during week three, during the break in the middle of class and you will also have time before class (15 minutes) to meet with your group before you present. Please answer the following questions when you present:

• What was the research question(s) the author aimed to answer?
• What was the theoretical dilemma?
• What methods were used to conduct this research? Describe the ethnographic process in this book.
• What were the author’s main findings and arguments?
• How would you relate Wilson and Chaddha’s article to this work?
• What were the strengths and weaknesses of this ethnography?
• What would you have done differently if you were the ethnographer?

Reflection Paper

The purpose of this assignment is to better understand your experience learning about urban sociology in this course.

How, if at all, has your understanding of inequality changed thus far through the course? How, if at all, has this learning environment enhanced your understanding of key sociological readings? Please draw on the readings and your class lecture notes as you write this essay.

This paper should not exceed 1200 words. You do not need to use formal citation practices in this paper.

Final Paper

We would like this final assignment to be useful to you in your academic or professional careers. You can choose a topic of your choice relevant to your future goals and endeavors to address in a research paper of 3,500 words or fewer. The main requirement is that you draw from the class readings. Everyone is required to submit a two-page proposal explaining their project.

Students need to submit this proposal by Week 8, and the final paper is due Week 13. Please use APA style citations in this paper.