SOCI 210: Sociological perspectives

Welcome

Administrative, syllabus review, motivation

  1. Course mechanics
    (requirements, resources, etc.)
  2. Course structure
    (syllabus review)

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McGill University is located on land which has long served as a site of meeting and exchange amongst Indigenous peoples, including the Haudenosaunee and Anishinabeg nations. McGill honours, recognizes and respects these nations as the traditional stewards of the lands and waters on which we meet today.

https://www.mcgill.ca/fph/welcome/traditional-territory

see also:

Chelsea Vowel. “Beyond Territorial Acknowledgments.” Âpihtawikosisân (blog), September 23, 2016. https://apihtawikosisan.com/2016/09/beyond-territorial-acknowledgments/.

Land acknowledgement

What do land acknowledgements do?

  • What is the intendended purpose, generally?
  • What is the intended purpose at an institution like McGill?
  • What are some unintended consequences?

What might do it better??

  • What kinds of practices can we as a university undertake to do a better job of subverting Indigenous erasure?
  • What can we as a McGill sociology class do?

Course mechanics

Course mechanics: Online syllabus

Screenshot of the course syllabus

Syllabus is online

  • Available at https://soci210.netlify.app
  • Contains schedule, assignments, assessment, and other important information
  • Updated with links to slides and lecture recordings, and with any schedule changes regularly

Course mechanics: class period

Class period: hybrid of lecture and group work

  • Readings and small-group discussions are the foundation of the course
  • Most classes will begin with ~30 minutes of lecture (streamed and recorded), followed by ~40 minutes of structured, small-group worksheets

Small-group discussions

  • Groups of 3–4 students, membership fixed starting Sept. 18
  • Discussions will focus on drafting responses to worksheet prompts
  • Each of worksheets will cover one week
  • Instructor and TA will rotate through groups during class
  • Groups may work outside of class (e.g. online), but you are not expected to spend more than ~1 hour per class period covered

Course mechanics: class period

Photo of Legault putting on a Habs mask but seeming to have difficulty as the mask is covering his eyes.

Attending in person

  • Wearing of masks is not required, but is greatly appreciated while in the classroom
  • If you have any symptoms of COVID-19 or have been in contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 you please stay home (this will not affect your grade in this course)
  • It is up to us to make a safe and welcoming learning environment for everyone!

Course mechanics: readings

a pile of open books

Perusall for online reading/evaluation

  • Collaborative reading environment
  • To register for this class's Perusall, see MyCourses
  • Each reading is automatically scored 0 points or 1 point
    If you did the reading but were not given credit, send me a message on Teams!
  • Scores based on active engagement with the readings and the annotations https://soci210.netlify.app/pages/perusall.html
  • Can miss 4 readings over the semester without penalty

Texts

  • (About) 3–4 readings per week
  • Textbook (Connerly et al. 2021; Little 2016) for background info and terminology
  • Articles and chapters examine a particular case / position / method / topic

Course mechanics: groups

Forming a group

  • Groups will have fixed membership starting January 18
  • Before then, sign up for one group on the shared spreadsheet that will be linked from MyCourses
    (maximum 4 members per team)
  • Use these first couple of weeks to find group members who have similar preferences to your own (online/offline, language, …)
    E.g. “Peter McMahan (strongly prefer English and online meetings)”
Screenshot of Microsoft Teams, showing the embedded "Group sign-up" tab

Course mechanics: Worksheets

Photo from aboveof three people interacting with a laptop. All threee hands are pointing at different parts of the computer.

Group worksheets

  • Each week, groups will complete one worksheet, covering material from both class periods.
  • Worksheets will consist of 4 to 6 prompts
  • Responses should be about 300–500 words each

Individual worksheet

  • At the end of the term, each student will complete an individual worksheet, covering material from the entire semester
  • Students will have the full class period to complete the work

Course mechanics: Assessment

Peer assessment and feedback

  • Peer assessment will be used to give/get feedback on group discussion worksheets, using FeedbackFruits
  • With peer assessment, multiple other students assess your work.
  • Provides more feedback on your work than would otherwise be possible.

Instructor assessment and feedback

  • TAs will provide feedback and scores for approximately half of of the worksheets, chosen randomly
  • TAs will provide feedback and scores for the final individual worksheet
Screenshot of judges from Dancing with the Stars all holding up signs awarding 10 points

Course mechanics: Assessment

an IBM selectric typewriter

A note on "generative AI"

  • Large language models (ChatGPT, Google Bard, etc.) can generate convincingly fluid text.
  • Turning in text written by an LLM as your own work is a violation of McGill's policy on plagiarism.
  • LLMs can be a useful tool for generating ideas and structuring arguments only if the output is regarded with a sharply critical eye. Generally, I do not recommend them for academic work.
    Never rely on an LLM to provide factually correct information!
  • Keep in mind: LLMs are inherently exploitative in terms of data acquisition, resource consumption, and labour practices.

Course structure

Course structure

The Archipelago of Sociology

Aerial photo of an archipelago of small, plant-covered islands in a deep blue ocean.

Course structure

The Archipelago of Sociology

Aerial photo of an archipelago of small, plant-covered islands in a deep blue ocean.

Islands of highly specialized topics

  • E.g. gender in the workplace
  • E.g. _social movements and language use

Hard to describe the "boundary" of sociology

  • Any topic has a sociological aspect

Hard to slice into distinct pieces

  • There is no obviously correct way to divide sociology into smaller subdisciplines

Sociology is bound by a perspective

  • Sociology is not what topics are studies, but how those topics are studied

Course structure

One way to slice it
a.k.a. our syllabus

  • Foundations
    Methods overview
    Classical (European) social theory
  • The individual in society (bottom-up)
    Ethnicity, race, and nationality
    Disability
    Gender and sexuality
    Class and culture
  • Populations and publics (top-down)
    Inequality and stratification
    Demography
    Politics and economy
    Social movements
  • Social systems (middle-out)
    Interaction
    Institutional change
    Organizations and groups
    Media and technology

Next class

Making sense of the social world

Required:

  • Erikson (2017)
    The View from the Fourteenth Floor

Image credit

Photo of Legault putting on a Habs mask but seeming to have difficulty as the mask is covering his eyes

Photo by Ryan Remiorz/ The Canadian Press via AP

a pile of open books

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Photo from aboveof three people interacting with a laptop. All threee hands are pointing at different parts of the computer.

Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash

Screenshot of judges from Dancing with the Stars all holding up signs awarding 10 points

Screenshot from “Dancing with the Stars (ABC), via the Baltimore Sun

an IBM selectric typewriter

Photo by Wikimedia user Etan J. Tal

Aerial photo of an archipelago of small, plant-covered islands in a deep blue ocean.

A scattering of islands in Palau. Photo by flickr user LuxTonnerre

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Live tour of syllabus

Live tour of Perusall