I. Introductions

A. Who am I? My home page.

B. Who are you?

C. Syllabus, schedule and assignments

1. How to access readings, including Library Reserve

2. Reading Guidelines

2. CLA computer lab in Humanities 484 vs full access ITSS labs: Computer access: SPSS

II. Groups: How have you learned what you "know" (or think you know) about the homeless?

III. Everyday knowledge(Joan and I meet Eddie, the homeless teen) vs. journalism vs. sociology. Do begin with your own experience--it's often how we get interested in an issue--and it's a good beginning point, but also be aware of:

A. Everyday Errors

Earl Babbie, Chapman College: "I don't value your opinions." Where do our opinions come from and are they usually the result of systematic and logical investigation?

1. Overgeneralization.... I know one homeless person quite well; they must all be like that.

2. Selective observation. Herbert Spencer's theories, as critiqued by Beatrice Potter

3. Illogical reasoning: the student who believed that panhandlers are never homeless.

4. Resistance to change

a. Ego-based commitments... the limited value of arguments and even new evidence. For example, the Stanford study on capital punishment. Are we rational or are we rationalizers???

b. Authority and tradition

5. Common sense, culture, and community... how many of our beliefs are really the shared beliefs of people like us?

6. Politics and vested interest: "Promises to Keep"-- President Reagan vs. Mitch Snyder and the Community for Creative Nonviolence (CCNV) on their respective assessments of the number of homeless people in America in the mid-1980s

A lot of this applies to the opinions of sociologists and criminologists just as much as anybody else: we are people

B. Journalism: WHAT ARE THE SHORTCOMINGS? deadlines, editors, owners, advertisers, fads and fashions... example, the rate of domestic violence on Super Bowl Sunday: is it 40% higher than on the average day?

1. Role of newspapers in the life of a sociologist/criminologist... see my bookmarks

2. TV and radio documentaries: PBS, Minnesota Public Radio

3. Role of mass media of entertainment

C. Science

1. Science

My definition: the process of inventing and systematically testing theories

Schutt's definition: "A set of logical, systematic, documented methods for investigating nature and natural processes; the knowledge produced by these investigations."

2. Sociology: the science of social forces

3. Social forces: the pressures and expectations generated by our relationships with other people

4. Theory: a statement or set of statements linking concepts, usually in causal relationships

5. Concept: a definition that singles out some aspect of social reality that a the sociologist believes will be significant to her/his theory

6. Example of a mini-theory: Durkheim, Suicide: Groups whose cultures are very individualistic will have higher rates of suicide. Diagram

Notice that some concepts are quite abstract (individualism) while others are relatively concrete (suicide rate)... but even those that are concrete are not necessarily easy to measure, as we will see in a reading assignment about measurement

7. The role of the scientific community and its system of incentives

a. Systematic and documented methods: the role of refereed journals

b. Replication

c. Ongoing debates on key issues. e.g., Wallerstein and Blakesley(Second Chances) vs Cherlin and Furstenberg(Divided Families)

8. The ethics of science.

a.Treatment of values and biases

b. Max Weber: the willingness to face facts that are inconvenient to your politics or values