Year: 2020/2021. Spring semester

Thursday 10:10-12:10.

Reims Campus

Like many disciplines, sociology is hard to define. There is no single canon and no dominant paradigm. However, we still find within sociology a sense of continuity and community. One basis of this feeling may be the importance of empirical inquiries on which sociological knowledge relies. Compared to other social science disciplines, sociology has the particularity of conducting –and sometimes combining– very diverse types of inquiry. It observes social milieu in situ. It constructs questionnaires. It uses administrative databases. It relies on in depth interviews. It digs in dusty archives. It set up experiments. It collects internet data.

This course will present a variety of important sociological inquiries, ranging from different periods and using different methods. These inquiries are not necessary “big” by their time-length, the size of the team or the amount of data collected. But they had, or they could potentially have, a “major” impact on the construction of sociological knowledge.

The aim of this course is to enable students to discover a variety of inquiries, and, beyond them, sociology itself, its logic, its knowledge, its reflexivity and its imagination. They will also discover the logic, the methods, and the pleasures of inquiries. Beyond academia, in public administrations, in private organizations, in the media, in the police, inquiries are the tools through which people get to know things. They are at the heart of the knowledge society.

During this course, students are asked to prepare two collective oral presentations of two different research papers. One presentation will be a 15-minutes summary of the key points of a paper, and students are asked notably to insist on the methodology and the type of inquiry. The other will be a 10-minutes criticism (both positive and negative) of a research paper (no need to summarize as it will be done by the other group). Students are notably asked to evaluate whether the empirical research design enables to answer correctly the research question. As the class is online, students are free to pre-record their presentation or to do it live during the class. I assigned randomly students to presentations. If a student is not totally happy with the random draw, she or he can try to swap with another student. I will accept such bilateral swaps.

The evaluation of the presentations and class participation will count as one third of the grade of the Methods conference.

A 2-hours final exam will follow the course. Students will be asked to propose a research design in order to understand a given social phenomenon.

This course comes with a method conference supervised by Katherina Tittel. Under her guidance, students will study different aspects of the COVID health crisis.

1. Thursday 28 January 2021. The logic of inquiry

2. Thursday 4 February 2021. Accessing and observing a milieu difficult to approach

Hoang, Kimberly Kay. Dealing in desire: Asian ascendancy, Western decline, and the hidden currencies of global sex work. Univ of California Press, 2015.

- Introduction (p. 18-24) and Appendix

- Chapter 6.

3. Thursday 11 February 2021. Standardizing observations through questionnaires

Inglehart, Ronald, and Wayne E. Baker. 2000. “Modernization, cultural change, and the persistence of traditional values.” American sociological review 65(1): 19-51. +Questionnaire World Value Survey

4. Thursday 18 February 2021. The administrative tools of the social sciences

Durkheim, Emile. Suicide: A study in sociology. Routledge, 2005. Introduction and Book 2. Chapter 5 (I-III) p. 201-219 .

https://archive.org/details/DurkheimEmileSuicideAStudyInSociology2005

In French: Durkheim, Émile. Le suicide: étude de sociologie. Alcan, 1897.

5. Thursday 4 March 2021. Exploring the past

Einwohner, Rachel L. 2003. "Opportunity, honor, and action in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943." American Journal of Sociology 109 (3): 650-675.

6. Thursday 11 March 2021. Experimenting

Milgram, Stanley. 1963. “Behavioral study of obedience”, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67(4): 371-378.

7. Thursday 18 March 2021. Making people talk

Lamont, Michèle. 2000. The dignity of working men: Morality and the boundaries of race, class, and immigration. Harvard University Press. Chapter 6 and Appendices.

8. Thursday 25 March 2021.Follow the network

Papachristos, Andrew V., David M. Hureau, and Anthony A. Braga. 2013. “The corner and the crew: The influence of geography and social networks on gang violence.” American sociological review 78(3): 417-447.

9. Thursdays 1 April 2021. Mix Methods I

Jahoda, Marie, Paul Lazarsfeld and Hans Zeisel. 2002. Marienthal: The sociography of an unemployed community. Transaction Publishers. Introduction, Chapter 1 and 8.

In french: Lazarsfeld, Paul Felix, Marie Jahoda, and Hans ZeiselLes chômeurs de Marienthal. Minuit, 1981. Introduction Chapitre 1 et 8.

Bourdieu, Pierre, Alain Darbel, and Dominique Schnapper. 1991. The love of art: European art museums and their public. Cambridge: Polity Press. Chapter 4+Chapter 2 and appendices

In french: Bourdieu, Pierre, Darbel, Alain, and Dominique Schnapper. L'amour de l'art: les musées d'art européens et leur public. Minuit, 1969. Chapitre 4+ Chapitre 2 et annexes

10. Thursdays 8 April 2021. Mix Methods II

Calarco, Jessica McCrory. 2011. "“I need help!” Social class and children’s help-seeking in elementary school." American Sociological Review 76(6): 862-882.

Desmond, Matthew. 2012. “Eviction and the reproduction of urban poverty.” American journal of sociology 118(1): 88-133.

11. Thursday 15 April 2021. The survey 2.0

Flores, René D. 2017. “Do anti-immigrant laws shape public sentiment? A study of Arizona’s SB 1070 using Twitter data.” American Journal of Sociology 123(2): 333-384.

12. Thursday 22 April 2021. Revisiting, replicating

Levitt, Steven D., and John A. List. 2011. “Was there really a Hawthorne effect at the Hawthorne plant? An analysis of the original illumination experiments.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 3(1): 224-38.

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