Gened 0853/0060 -
Sec 001 -
Fall 2007
Purpose: What You Will Learn, What
You Will Not Learn
Purpose
The instructor(s) hopes that by
the end of the course you will know more about the connections between justice
agencies and the fundamental fabric of society; how these have changed but also
remained the same over the last eighty years and the ways they are likely to
remain the same in the near future; how this has played out in the Philadelphia
region since your great-grandfather’s or great-grandmother’s time; and how
social scientists collect and evaluate evidence related to these themes, and use
that evidence to test ideas. In addition, it is hoped that you will become
somewhat more familiar with the fundamental fabric of society in and around
Philadelphia.
What you will learn: skills.
You will become acquainted with three basic forms of data used in social science:
maps, words, and numbers. You will understand how these data can be
used to describe situations, trends, institutions, and locations. As you learn
about these data you will strengthen your ability to make informed (i.e.,
data-based) judgments about the topics at hand, and, in addition, you will
develop a deeper understanding of Temple’s urban setting, and the surrounding
region. Looking even further abroad, you will learn about how many of the
developments described here were and are typical of broader developments in the
national political arena.
There will be some assignments or exercises where you also will
be working with these data. You will learn how data can be used to test ideas
about why things are (or were) the way they are (or were). This is called the
scientific method. It comes in two basic flavors: hypothesis testing, and
grounded theorizing. You will learn about both. In short, you will become better
at evaluating, analyzing and interpreting data, and seeing how those data link
to broader theories and broader questions.
Perhaps
most importantly, you will learn that data “are” something, because data means
more than one datum. A single piece of data is a datum, and is singular. If
you have more than one datum, you have data. You will learn to never, ever say
“data is.”
What you will learn: content. This
course looks at the intersection of U.S. society, and how justice agencies do
their work. To organize these dynamics we are going to rely extensively on one
particular theory about the sociology of law, Donald Black's The Behavior of
Law. We will then see how the connections he describes have played out, and
continue to play out, in Philadelphia and elsewhere.
There are some things this course is not.
This is not a
course on urban crime in the early 20th Century. For that take History 0279
Historical Roots of Urban
Crime (highly recommended).
This course is
not about the geographic, social, demographic, economic, cultural
structure of cities or urban regions. For that take History 278
(Development of the Modern
American City) or Geography and Urban Studies C055
(Urban Society).
This course is
not a detailed history of Philadelphia. For that, take History 0167
(History of Philadelphia).
This course is
not an introduction to the criminal justice. For that, take Criminal
Justice 0050 (Introduction to Criminal Justice).
This course is
not about national politics and how those matters connect with law and
order and criminal justice. For that take Political Science 0126 (American
Public Opinion).
This course is
not about the structure of American (or other) societies. For that, take
Introduction to Sociology.