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Syllabus Culture and Stratification - 53366
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Last update 07-11-2015
HU Credits: 2

Degree/Cycle: 1st degree (Bachelor)

Responsible Department: sociology & soc. anthropology

Semester: 2nd Semester

Teaching Languages: English

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Josh Guetzkow


Coordinator Office Hours: By Appointment

Teaching Staff:
Dr. Joshua Guetzkow

Course/Module description:
The course is meant to provide students with an overview of key research on the ways in which culture (for example, values, frames, repertoires, narratives, symbolic boundaries and cultural capital) is shaped by and, in turn, shapes social stratification along lines of class, gender and race/ethnicity. Lectures and class discussions will be in English.

Course/Module aims:
Course Requirements: Students are required to attend each class meeting and must e-mail prior to class if unable to attend. Active participation in discussions is strongly encouraged. Readings in the syllabus are subject to change, so check Moodle for changes and updates.

Reading reaction memos: You must write 4 memos during the course of the semester reacting to the readings for that week (all of the assigned reading). These memos should be about 500 words long (about 1 page) and can be written in Hebrew or English. The memos are thinking and writing exercises, rather than polished papers. Writing memos will allow you to check your understandings of readings, draw connections between readings, and/or raise criticisms about readings. Memos need to be uploaded to Moodle by 1700 on Monday morning. Late memos will not be accepted.

Final Papers:
Each student is expected to write a final paper for the course engaging in one or more of the topics of the class. The final paper should analyze some current or historical events using the analytic tools provided through class readings.

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
To be able to summarize and compare various definitions of “culture” and analyze theories of how these different concepts of culture affect and are affected by inequality. Students should also be able to offer illustrative examples of these different definitions of culture. Students should be able to utilize these concepts of culture to plan and formulate a research project specializing in the topic of culture and inequality.

Attendance requirements(%):
100%

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: Lecture

Course/Module Content:
CULTURAL CAPITAL
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1986. “The Forms of Capital.” Handbook of Theory of
Research for the Sociology of Education, Richard Nice, ed, pp 241-58.
29.10 BOURDIEU & DISTINCTION
Wacquant, Loic. 2006. “Pierre Bourdieu.” In Key Contemporary Thinkers,
edited by Rob Stone. (Especially starting on page 3 with ‘Central Issues’)
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste.
Introduction Pages 1-7 (entire)

Chapter 1 "The Aristocracy of Culture"
Pages 11-22 (from the beginning of the chapter until "The Entitlement
Effect.")
Pages 34-41 (from "Aesthetic Distancing" until "An Anti-Kantian 'Aesthetic'")
Pages 56-63 (from “The Aesthetic Sense as the Sense of Distinction” until
“Cultural Pedigree”)



BOURDIEU AND DISTINCTION (CONTINUED)
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste.
Chapter 2 "The Social Space and Its Transformations"
Pages 109-112 (from "Social Class and Class of Trajectories" until "Capital
and the Market"
Pages 114-115 (Two pages starting from "A Three-Dimensional Space")
Pages 126-131 (Start on the page after "Reconversion Strategies" until two
pages after the big diagram on pages 128-129)

Chapter 3 "The Habitus and the Space of Life-Styles"
Pages 177-200 (From "Form and Substance" until "The Visible and the Invisible.")

12.11 CULTURAL CAPITAL REVISTED
Lamont, Michele and Annette Lareau. 1988. “Cultural Capital: Allusions, Gaps
and Glissandos in Recent Theoretical Developments.” Sociological Theory, 6(2):153-168.


MORE CULTURAL CAPITAL

Article in Ha’aretz by Eva Illouz on applying the concept of cultural capital in
Israeli Academia (link provided on moodle).

Bryson, Bethany. 2002. “‘Anything but Heavy Metal’: Symbolic Exclusion and
Musical Dislikes. American Sociological Review, 61(5):884-899.

Lareau, Annette. 2002. “Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in
Black Families and White Families,” American Sociological Review, 67 (October): 747-776.

Recommended:
Lareau, Annette and Elliot Weininger. 2003. “Translating Bourdieu into the
American Context: The Question of Social Class and Family-School ` Relationships.” Poetics. 31:375-402.

Lareau, Annette and Elliot Weininger. 2003. “Cultural Capital in Educational
Research: A Critical Assessment,” Theory and Society, 32 (5/6): 567-606.
26.11 OTHER WAYS OF DEFINING “CULTURE”
Lamont, Michèle and Mario Small. 2008. “How Culture Matters: Enriching
Our Understanding of Poverty.” Pp. 76-93 in Lin and Harris (eds.) The Colors of Poverty: Why Racial and Ethnic Disparities Persist. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.


THE CULTURE OF POVERTY DEBATE
Wilson, William J. 2009. “The Moynihan Report and Research on the Black
Community.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science, 621: 34-46.
Here is a Wikipedia entry on the Moynihan Report:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Family:_The_Case_For_National_Action
Here is a Wikipedia entry on the Culture of Poverty:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_poverty

Recommended:
Here is a link to the text of the Moynihan Report:
http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/webid-meynihan.htm

Lewis, Oscar. 1963. “The Culture of Poverty.” Society 35(2): 7-9.

Massey, Douglas and Robert Sampson. 2009. “Moynihan Redux: Legacies and
Lessons.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 621:6-27.

Wilson, William J. 2010. “Why Both Social Structure and Culture Matter in a
Holistic Analysis of Inner-City Poverty.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 629: 200-219.

CULTURE IN POLICYMAKING I
Schneider, Anne and Helen Ingram. 1993. "Social Construction of
Target Populations: Implications for Politics and Policy." American Political Science Review 87: 334-347.

Schneider, Anne and Helen Ingram. 1990. "Behavioral Assumptions of Policy
Tools." The Journal of Politics52:510-529.

17.12 CULTURE IN POLICYMAKING II
Guetzkow, Joshua. 2010. “Beyond Deservingness: Congressional Discourse on
Poverty, 1964-1999.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 629: 173-197.







BIAS AND STEREOTYPES
Reskin, Barbara. 2000. “The Proximate Causes of Employment
Discrimination.” Contemporary Sociology 29(2):319-28.

Jost et al. “The Existence of Implicit Bias is Beyond Reasonable Doubt.”

** Before coming to class, students need to go on-line and complete an
Implicit Association Test at the website below. Choose either the Ashkenazim-
Sephardim test or the skin color test. Bring your results to class.
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/israel/selectatest.jsp


SOCIAL IDENTITY
Tajfel and Turner. 1979. “Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict.”
7.1 POST-COLONIAL STUDIES ON CULTURE/IDENTITY
Shenhav Yehouda (2007) "Modernity and the hybridization of nationalism
and religion: Zionism and the Jews of the Middle East" Theory & Society. 36:1-30.

Shenhav Yehouda (2002) “The phenomenology of colonialism and the
politics of ‘difference’: European Zionist emissaries and Arab-Jews in colonial Abadan” Social Identities. 8 (4): 1-23

Required Reading:
See Section on Course Content

Additional Reading Material:
None

Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 0 %
Presentation 0 %
Participation in Tutorials 10 %
Project work 90 %
Assignments 0 %
Reports 0 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 0 %

Additional information:
None.
 
Students needing academic accommodations based on a disability should contact the Center for Diagnosis and Support of Students with Learning Disabilities, or the Office for Students with Disabilities, as early as possible, to discuss and coordinate accommodations, based on relevant documentation.
For further information, please visit the site of the Dean of Students Office.
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