Tools of Sociology

Our week is cut in half this week, so we're discussing the readings for the tools of sociology on Monday and Tuesday. This week's class was interesting. On Monday morning the lively discussion took us to a place where we took up Weber's challenge of discovering inconvenient facts. We engaged in the preliminary process of this by hypothesizing about the various reasons why higher education may in fact not be "beneficial." The purpose of doing this, as Babbie states in the second reading, is becuase this is where solutions to social problems lay.

I've also asked students to find a sociological journal article and to make a photocopy of it (sociology journals are housed in the library-- go online and search for articles in sociology journals or ask a librarian to help you). Study the methods section. You will be asked to share the methods section of this article with one of your classmates. You will also find a New York Times article related to the topic culture. You will turn the journal article and the newspaper article in with your regular answers. Everything is due next week on either Wednesday or Thursday, depending on which class you are in.

Today's recomended reading is a New York Times article about the lack of pain medication in developing countries despite its cheap cost. Its interesting to read about how cultural ideas about addiction lead to government policies prohibiting doctors (many of whom are also prejudiced) from prescribing narcotics to those who are in severe pain.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/health/10pain.html?_r=1&ref=health&oref=slogin