Weber State University Department of Sociology and Anthropology Sociology 3000 Brenda Social Psychology SS 126 TTh 10:30 11:45 PM Office hrs 9:30 AM TTH & by appointment SS 44 801 626 7893 Fall 2009 bkowalewski@weber.edu http://faculty.weber.edu/bkowalewski Course Objectives To understand a variety of social psychological perspectives, the differences between them and their application to real world observations. Enable students to learn how reality is socially constructed and entice students to question and challenge the existing realities. To learn and apply sociological social psychological knowledge through a joint service learning project with Mount Ogden Junior High students serving various populations in need at Catholic Community Services. Learn the group processes framework and use it to analyze the group interaction of the project planning group consisting of WSU and MOJH students. Understand the social psychology of stratification. In other words, learn how a person's gender, social class, age, ethnic group, family background, position or status in a group affects how they think, feel, act and define their situation. Learn the processes of the development of self and identity and the role the larger social structure plays within that process. Likewise, understand the influence one s concept of self and identity has on interactions with others. Learn, better understand and further develop a sense of social responsibility and prosocial behavior. Learn how attitudes and values influence our behavior and how the positions and statuses influence our attitudes about people and our interactions with them. Become aware of and better understand the emotion work involved in doing and receiving service. To hone writing and critical thinking skills. 1
Required Text: Rohall, Milkie and Lucas (2007). Social Psychology: Sociological Perspectives. Pearson Education Inc. Allyn and Bacon: Boston, MA. Required Readings on e reserve: Chapter 2 Primary Socialization (e reserve) Posted August 19 September 17 Chapter 9 Altruism and Moral Development (e reserve) Posted September 18 Course Evaluations The evaluation for this course will be based on four exams and a service learning project which includes assignments for taking field notes, two papers, an oral presentation and in class reflection exercises (see full descriptions on subsequent pages). The exams will consist of both multiple choice and short essay questions. All exams are cumulative, (which will cover all readings, lectures, films, guest speakers, etc.). Class attendance and participation will be taken into consideration and will be especially influential when a student has a borderline grade. And finally, the service learning project is a group project; therefore, each member of the group will have the opportunity to rate the performance of all group members according to the following criteria: a) an above average contributor, driving force behind the project, b) an average contributor, or c) below average, just doing enough to get by. You are expected to turn in assignments on or prior to the due date. Late assignments will be accepted only if: (1) I am notified in advance (in person, by phone at my office 801 626 7893, or by leaving a message in the main sociology/anthropology office 801 626 6241); and (2) your reason is valid, (i.e., you are sick, in an accident, there was a death in the family, etc.). Extra Credit There will be NO extra credit assignments in this class. Grades Exam I 35 points Exam II 35 points Exam III 35 points Exam IV 35 points Service Learning Project 3 in class reflection exercises 15 points Reflection Papers (10 points each) 50 points 2 Written S L Papers 60 points total Service Learning Presentation 20 points Group Contribution Rating 15 points Total 300 points 2
The final grades will be determined as follows: 270 300 = A to A 240 269 = B to B+ 210 239 = C to C+ 180 209 = D to D+ below 180 = E Note to Students with Special Needs: Any student requiring accommodations or services due to a disability must contact Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) in room 181 of the Student Service Center. SSD can also arrange to provide course materials (including this syllabus) in alternative formats if necessary. Special Note on H1N1 Flu this Fall: The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Utah Public Health Department are anticipating a resurgence of the H1N1 flu this fall. This could result in significant disruption to normal on campus (and online) classes. I would like to reinforce the following guidelines for this class: If you are ill, stay home. If you become ill (fever, chills, cough) while at school, go home. Exposing others to the virus can potentially result in serious complications and even death in high risk individuals. See the WSU website at http://weber.edu/flu for specific recommendations. While on campus, use the hand sanitizer provided throughout the College of Health Professions. Notify me if you have any concerns or you are sick or have a sick family member you must care for. I am committed to finding mutually acceptable ways for you to complete your coursework. Always wash your hands and cover your mouth if you cough. In the event of an extended campus closure, I will continue to provide instruction by utilizing the Blackboard online course system (WSU Online). I will provide text based mini lectures three times each week and will expect you to login to the system on a regular basis to keep up with course work if you are able. Assignments will be provided through the online system with clear due dates and expectations. Discussions will be made available to allow you to interact with other students and me about course material, but participation in these will not be required. I will check email within the Blackboard course on a daily basis should you need to communicate with me personally. If you are not familiar with the Blackboard system, please review the student orientation available at http://wsuonline.weber.edu/students/orientation.asp. Please let me know by the end of the first week of the semester if you do not have access to a computer and/or the Internet from your home. I do understand that if you are incapacitated by the flu, because either you are sick or you are caring for someone who is sick, that other arrangements will need to be made for you to complete the class work. 3
Service Learning Project This assignment requires that you commit yourself to: a) serving at least 25 hours at Catholic Community Services and Mount Ogden Junior High School b) recording in the CIC the completion of at least 25 hours of service; c) completing 5 reflection papers (dates listed on the course schedule); d) completing in class reflection assignments (dates listed on the course schedule); e) completing written service learning group papers designed to guide your group through processes of discovery, integration, and evaluation; and f) preparing and orally presenting your service learning experience to the class, MOJH students and CCS staff at the end of the semester. This project is 53% of your overall grade in this course so you should be very thoughtful about your choice of project and your service learning assignments. All components of the service learning project must be typed. The following outlines the requirements for this assignment. A. Hours and Service Learning Site and Contract 1. Hours This assignment requires that you commit yourself to work at least 25 hours at Catholic Community Services and Mount Ogden Junior High School over the course of the semester. Your hours must be spread over the course of the semester. Thus, you can NOT do all 25 hours in just one or two weeks, nor all at one time. Additionally, you must complete the minimum 25 hour requirement to be eligible for full credit on all service learning related assignments and exercises. If you only complete 50% of the minimum required hours, you are only eligible to achieve 50% of the total 160 points associated with the servicelearning assignments for this course. The 25 hour requirement does not have to be split evenly between the two organizations, CCS and MOJH; however, you must spend a minimum of 10 hours at each organization. The additional five hours needed to meet the requirement of the assignment can be served all at one of the two organizations or distributed between the two. Serving more than a total of 25 hours is always encouraged and welcomed. 2. Service Learning Site This project requires you to serve two organizations simultaneously. You will be engaged in a service project for Catholic Community Services with students from Mount Ogden Junior High School. Expect to spend hours at MOJH with the students planning and reflecting on this service project in addition to the hours you will spend at Catholic Community Services learning about their needs, this specific project and serving in that organization. All students are expected to participate in a joint service day with the MOJH students on October 24, 2009, our national Make a Difference Day. 4
3. Service Learning Contract Each student is required to complete a service learning contract with their agency. You can obtain a copy of this document from the course web page by using the service learning link. This contract will need to be signed by both the student and the site supervisor and must be on file in your professor s office in order to receive a grade in this course. Signed contracts are due at the same time as the first service learning paper described below. B. Register with WSU s Community Involvement Center and Record Service Hours First, you must register as a Service Learning Student with WSU s Community Involvement Center. Do this by going to: http://weber.edu/communityinvolvement and click on Register in the bubble labeled Students. Once you successfully register, the Center will set up a file for you in their database to track your service hours. Note: This will be beneficial to you for this class but also for future employment and/or graduate school admission. The center will record your service hours for the duration of your college career and can submit a letter verifying the service you ve completed in the community to future employers and/or graduate programs upon your request. Second, you will submit a timesheet signed by your site supervisor verifying the hours worked each month. You can access the time sheet at: http://weber.edu/communityinvolvement/register_service_hours.html Timesheets must be submitted to the Community Involvement Center located in room 327 of the Shepherd Union building at the end of each month. Your hours of service will be recorded in this WSU office and reported to me at three different times during the semester. If you do not record your hours of service with the Community Involvement Center each month, you will not receive credit for the service learning project. Due: at the end of each month C. Reflection Papers 2 3 pages each There are a total of five reflection papers assigned over the course of the semester. These papers are designed to help you apply your sociological social psychology knowledge to the everyday life experiences you are having in the assigned servicelearning project. Each paper is worth 10 points. Answer the questions thoroughly and thoughtfully. Each paper should be approximately 2 3 pages. Do not include in your reflection papers the real names of the people with whom you are interacting. Protecting the anonymity of the agency s clients is professional and ethical; I am expecting you to be both. The following are the assigned questions that are required for each paper: Reflection Paper #1 Social Psychology of Stratification Due: September 17 th Using what you know about basic stratification processes (pp. 85 90), what role do gender and/or race and ethnicity play in the lives of the individuals served at Catholic Community Services? 5
Do you think the individuals served at Catholic Community Services experience stereotype threat (referred to on page 90 of your text)? If so, why and how? If not, why not? Reflection Paper #2 Self and Identity Due: October 1 st Go to page 132 in your textbook. Take the Twenty Statements Test listed there. (If you record your responses by hand in your textbook or elsewhere, please type them for this assignment). Answer the questions at the bottom of the page and record your answers in this reflection paper. How does knowing this information about yourself help you in the servicelearning project this semester? Explain. Reflection Paper #3 Altruism Due: October 22 nd What is altruism? (consult p. 243 of Chapter 9: Altruism on e reserve) What does altruism mean to you? Are your actions in this service learning project altruistic? Why or why not? Explain. Social psychologists argue that one explanation for why people help lies in social norms (p. 261 266 of Chapter 9: Altruism on e reserve). Your assigned reading outlines four norms or principles guiding helping or prosocial behavior. Which of these norms or principles best explain your helping behavior in the assigned service learning project? Explain. Reflection Paper #4 Attitudes and Values Due: November 12 th Using Status Construction Theory (p. 248 250), analyze your interaction with the individuals you are serving at Catholic Community Services. Describe your interactions with these individuals. Is it any different than the way you would treat or interact with other individuals in your life? Why or why not? In what ways does your status or the status of the individual influence this interaction process? Reflection Paper #5 Emotion Work Due: November 24 th Using the Social Structure and Personality framework, analyze the emotion work (p. 267) involved in your service experiences at Catholic Community Services. Your Emotion Work Are you expected to feel and display certain emotions toward the individuals you are serving at Catholic Community Services? Explain. 6
Where do these expectations come from? Are the feeling rules associated with this emotion work similar or conflicting with your true feelings? What is the effect of this consistency or inconsistency? Emotion Work of Those Being Served Do you think the people you are serving are doing emotion work? Why or why not? Are individuals receiving services expected to feel and display certain emotions toward the people who are serving them? Explain. Where do these expectations come from? Feelings of gratitude for receiving assistance may be inconsistent with the true feelings of some of the individuals you are serving at Catholic Community Services. Reflect on this comment. What is your reaction to this idea? Can you explain why or how this could be the case? D. In Class Reflection Exercises There will be 3 in class reflection exercises. The dates of these in class reflection exercises are listed on the course schedule. You are expected to attend the reflection session and complete the assignment during the class period. Class attendance is required for completion of these exercises. Each exercise is worth 5 points for a total of 15 points. E. Service Learning Papers 1. Discovery Paper (worth 30 points) Due: September 24 th 4 6 pages This paper requires you to answer a series of questions regarding the agency and your job within it. In order to answer some of the assigned questions, you will need to go on the scheduled tour of Catholic Community Services and meet with your team members (both WSU and MOJH members). You may also need to interview your site supervisor or some other site administrator to get more clarification and details on your specific project. Answer the questions as thoughtfully and thoroughly as you can and support your answers with observations from your field notes. a. About the Agency What are the goals or objectives of the organization? How long has the agency been operating? Who does the agency serve? How many volunteers serve the organization? What is the structure of the agency? How is it funded? How does the agency interact with the surrounding community? Who benefits from what this organization does? Is anyone harmed by its efforts? 7
Describe your scene at your site people, rooms, sounds, smells etc. Is this what you were expecting? Why or why not? Why are people involved in this work? b. About the specific project on which you are going to work What is the community organization s need? What is the goal of this project? What are the specific outcomes you are hoping to achieve? Why is this an important project? How is this service project connected to social psychology? c. Evaluation of Assets and Challenges What are the talents, skills and/or knowledge you bring to this project? What are the assets of your project team members (WSU team members as well as MOJH team members)? Identify any challenges you see in pursuing and completing this project. What are some potential solutions to these challenges? d. Plan of Action Describe the plan of action your group has developed to complete this project. This means you need to identify the steps with assigned tasks that need to be taken and accomplished in order to achieve your intended outcomes/goals. Provide a timeline with specific dates for which tasks will be accomplished. Identify the roles and responsibilities of all team members, including the MOJH students. Use the table below to help you organize your group s action plan. Action By Whom By When 8
2. Final Project Paper (worth 30 points) Due: December 1 st 6 10 pages The purpose of this paper is to give your group an opportunity to collaborate on applying the three sociological social psychology theoretical frameworks to your servicelearning project this semester. Each of the topics listed below can be addressed individually in approximately 2 to 3 pages. Using the Symbolic Interaction framework, analyze how the individuals served at Catholic Community Services by your particular service project make meaning of their situation. Using the Social Structure and Personality framework, discuss how the larger social structures of education, family and social class are impacting the lives of the individuals served at Catholic Community Services. Using the Group Processes framework, analyze the group interaction of the project planning group consisting of WSU and MOJH students. Identify the different statuses and roles of individuals within the group. Apply Status Characteristics Theory (p. 102) in an analysis of your project planning group and its interaction. Provide an overall evaluation of the service learning project and how well it taught you about sociological social psychology. F. Oral Presentation of Service Learning Experience (worth 20 points) Due: November 19 th At the end of your service learning project, your group will need to summarize your experience in a 7 minute oral presentation. 1) You should address the following: What? o Provide a description of the organization in which you served, the project in which you participated, and your role within that project. o You must document your service learning project. What you did who, what, when and where? Video and/or photos are preferred methods of documentation. So what? o Why was this service important? o Who benefited? o What did you learn about the community in which you live and/or study? o And what did you learn about sociology and social psychology through the service learning experience? Now what? o What are you going to do with the knowledge you have gained? 9
2) The presentation should be about 7 minutes in length and must have some visual aids: o Power point presentation o Pictures that are large enough to be seen at the back of the room o Video o Other visual aids Course Schedule (subject to change) August 25 Welcome to Social Psychology, Syllabus and Intro to Service Learning Part I. Perspectives and Methods August 27 September 1 8 Introduction to Catholic Community Services Projects Introduction to Sociological Social Psychology Readings: Chapter 1 (Rohall) Three Faces of Social Psych (handout) Perspectives in Sociological Social Psychology Readings: Chapter 2 (Rohall) Chapter 2 Primary Socialization (e reserve) September 8 In class Reflection: What is service? What are your assets? What do you have to give to this project? What do you hope to get out of this project? September 10 Studying People Readings: Chapter 3 (Rohall) September 11 September 11 16 Tour Catholic Community Services Meet at MOJH at 11:30 AM bring sack lunch Board Bus at 12 noon Return to MOJH at 2:30 PM Exam I (take in WSU testing center) 10
Part II. The Individual in Society September 15 17 September 17 September 18 September 24 The Social Psychology of Stratification Readings: Chapter 4 (Rohall) Reflection Paper #1 Due Meet at MOJH at TIME????? 1:20 PM or 2:05 PM WSU students get MOJH students into groups Get to Know You Exercise (WSU students lead Assets reflection exercise) Define projects (complete goal/output worksheet from Meredith) Assign tasks to all group members (be specific and identify deadlines) Discovery Paper Assignment Due September 22 Self and Identity October 1 Readings: Chapter 5 (Rohall) October 1 October 2 October 6 8 October 9 14 October 13 October 15 October 16 Reflection Paper #2 Due Meet at MOJH Project planning day Socialization Over the Life Course Readings: Chapter 6 (Rohall) Exam II (take in WSU testing center) Do not meet in class (Service Learning project day) In class reflection Connecting your S L project with Social Psychology Meet at MOJH Project planning day Part III. Areas of Social Life October 20 22 October 22 Altruism and Moral Development Readings: Chapter 9 Altruism and Moral Development (e reserve) Reflection Paper #3 Due 11
October 24 Make a Difference Day Service learning project day Day of service with MOJH students October 27 In class Reflection On the Fence, Off the Fence October 27 29 The Social Psychology of Deviance Readings: Chapter 7 (Rohall) October 30 Meet at MOJH Project reflection and presentation planning day November 3 Mental Health and Illness Readings: Chapter 8 (Rohall) November 4 10 November 10 Exam III (take in WSU testing center) Do not meet in class Last day to take Exam III November 5 12 Attitudes, Values and Behaviors Readings: Chapter 9 (Rohall) November 12 Reflection Paper #4 Due November 13 Meet at MOJH Project reflection and presentation planning day November 17 24 The Sociology of Sentiment and Emotion Readings: Chapter 10 (Rohall) November 19 Meet in class to practice S L Project Presentations Service Learning Project Presentations at MOJH during their class time (2:05?) November 24 Reflection Paper #5 Due December 1 Final Service Learning Project Paper Due December 1 3 Collective Behavior Readings: Chapter 11 (Rohall) December 5 9 Final Exam (take in WSU testing center) 12