Community Studies is an applied sociology course that introduces students to the methods of ethnography through a series of case studies and empirical research. Drawing upon classic ethnographies of other towns and places, we will begin investigating our own communities and those of Steelton, PA. How do people make a living, raise a family, educate children, and sustain faith in small town America at the beginning of the twenty-first century? How has the evolution of Steelton from an industrial steel mill town to one hit hard by de-industrialization affected the town, the mill, the union, labor-management relations, school taxes, cultural and social life? How has it affected\u00a0 people=s lives and livelihoods? Using a life course perspective, we will examine the changes and continuities across the generations, exploring what inheritances have been passed on, and what new social relations, technologies, and social organizations have been created or recreated.<\/p>\n
With a theoretical and methodological focus on community and life course studies, we will explore how individual, social, and historical time and conditions interact and shape people=s life choices and chances in terms of: work, sleep, health, longevity, fertility, family formation and dissolution, religious belief and practice, leisure. How were 4 years olds brought up in various eras? What was life like for an 18 year old coming of age in Steelton in the 1920s, the 1950s, 2001? How was it similar or different for their parents if they were Irish-, German-, Croatian- Serbian, Mexican-or African-American? How stratified were jobs and neighborhoods by race, ethnicity, nationality, class, and gender? And what difference did it\/does it make in terms of how much one is paid, when one works, how long one works, where one works – how dangerous or self-directed the job may be? How does it affect one=s relationships with neighbors, who one marries, how old one is likely to be at first marriage, whether one=s children are likely to work in the mills or as domestic servants or in the cigar factory? How does it affect what one eats? Where one sleeps? Whether and where one takes vacations?\u00a0 And ultimately, where and how one is buried and remembered?<\/p>\n
These and many more questions that emerge from students= interests and fieldwork will be explored as we now, five years later, return to Steelton to continue our collaboration with the community. Using a grounded theory approach, we will begin by reading transcripts of oral histories initially collected as part of the first American Mosaic in Steelton in 1996. This will enable us to familiarize ourselves both with individual life stories and community narratives, to begin a comparative analysis across interviews, and design our own research projects . Simultaneously, we will be reading literature on ethnography, work, family, steel and company towns, the interacting systems of race, class, and gender, etc, and begin to develop our own interview protocols. Throughout the semester, we will be moving back and forth between reading the literature (non-fiction, memoirs, and fiction), conducting empirical research, and writing our own analyses.<\/p>\n
TEXTS:<\/strong> FILMS:<\/strong> Reference Books on Reserve in the Community Studies Center:<\/strong> On Reserve in the Library:<\/strong> Transcripts:<\/strong> Week 1 Intro –<\/strong> Week 3<\/strong> Week 4<\/strong> Labor Conditions and Relations<\/strong><\/p>\n Th:<\/strong> Using Race and Ethnicity in Labor Relations – Multi-Ethnic Coal Mining Towns Week 5\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong> Week 6<\/strong> (Kim\u2019s class is over and our oral history workshops begin here too) Week 7:<\/strong> Rivethead<\/em> Starting Week 6-7<\/strong> Shift to Rogers and Rose \u2013 Doing Oral History and Ethnography Community Studies: Work, Family, Education, and Religion American Mosaic 2001 – Prof. Rose Community Studies is an applied sociology course that introduces students to the methods of ethnography through a series of case studies and empirical research. Drawing upon classic ethnographies of other towns and places, we will begin investigating our own communities and those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":9,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-19","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/steelton2001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/steelton2001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/steelton2001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/steelton2001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/steelton2001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/steelton2001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20,"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/steelton2001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19\/revisions\/20"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/steelton2001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/steelton2001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAgar, The Professional Stranger<\/em>
\nBell, Out of This Furnace: A Novel of Immigrant Labor in America<\/em>
\nBodnar, Steelton<\/em>
\nFulop and Raboteau, African-American Religion: Interpretive Essays in History and Culture<\/em>
\nKelley, Race Rebels<\/em>
\nLiebow, Tally\u2019s Corner<\/em>
\nLynds, Middletown<\/em>
\nHamper, Rivethead<\/em>
\nMills, The Sociological Imagination<\/em>
\n??Simon, David. The Corner<\/em>
\nSlim and Thompson, Listening for a Change<\/em>.
\nLabor?? Zinn?? Ethnograpy of a Strike<\/em>?? – ask Chuck to go w\/his lecture
\nWallace, Rockdale<\/p>\n
\nEven the Heavens Weep<\/em>
\nThe Language You Cry In<\/em>
\nWe Shall Overcome<\/em>
\nHomestead<\/em> – with photographs – here or in R&R?- Modell, Frisch, web sites\/assignm
\nRoger and Me<\/em>
\nThe Corner<\/em> if it’s out & NYT piece on Simon and Film producer – Studies in Race in America
\nHoop Dreams<\/em>
\nStruggles in Steel<\/em> – African-American Steelworkers<\/p>\n
\nShopes et.al, The Baltimore Book.
\nR&R Thompson, Voices of the Past
\nR&R Portelli…<\/p>\n
\nFoxFire Collection
\nExcerpts and articles on E-Journal
\nThompson, Voices or the Past
\nAll Souls<\/p>\n
\nClayton Carelock
\nLiz Hrenda-Roberts<\/p>\n
\nBegin reading\/browsing through Bodnar, Steelton
\nWeek 2\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>
\n1\/30 Tu:<\/strong> Oral Histories from Steelton – Workshop (Smart classroom or CSC?)
\nA) Some of what we know
\nE-Reserves:: Read one of the transcripts on electronic reserves or in the CSC archives:
\nClayton & Charles Carelock
\nB) Take clear notes, highlighting important, interesting data and post
\nC) Read through one or two more transcripts.
\nWhat more we want to know….?
\nD) Pick one of the transcripts and indicate 2-3 things (dates, events, processes, figures…) that you would want to follow up on and learn more about.
\nE) Does Bodnar have anything useful to reveal here re: the community context in relation to the individual narratives you=ve been reading?
\n1\/31 W:<\/strong> Town Tour of Steelton
\nBegin your fieldnote journal with your impressions and a one-page thick description of the Steelton
\n2\/1\u00a0 Th:<\/strong> Sociological Imagination
\nRead: C. Wright Mills
\nMiddletown \u2013 Select one area (work, religion, schooling\u2026 and be ready to report on what the Lynds found and the methods they used)
\nDiscussion of Transcript Postings – Life Course Contexts
\nOne Page Thick Description: Steelton<\/em>
\nE-Reserves Excerpts: Liebow\u2019s Tally\u2019s Corner<\/em>
\nGod of Small Things: pp:1-3…?<\/p>\n
\n2\/4 Su:<\/strong> Church Service in Steelton (9-2) Meet with Barbara Barksdale, Clayton Carelock,
\nCemetery Tour (depending on weather)
\nAssignment for next Tuesday: Write a 2-3 page thick description of the church service you attended.
\nTu:<\/strong> Reading and Writing Religion
\nBring two copies of your thick descriptions of the church service you attended to class.
\nHandout: Studying Religion
\nMiddletown, intro and Ch on Religion
\nWe:<\/strong> Free
\nTh:<\/strong> We Shall Overcome<\/em> Video Doc
\nGo Tell It??? when are we showing it?
\nRead in Fulop and Raboteau:
\nLong, Perspectives for a Study of African-American Religion<\/em> 21-
\nRaboteau, Black Experience in American Evangelicalism<\/em> 89-
\nGravely, The Rise of African American Churches in America<\/em> 135
\nE-Reserves: Millhands and Preachers<\/p>\n
\nTu:<\/strong> Diaspora and Community Building
\nAfricanisms in America: Change and Continuity
\nMaking Music and Doing Ethnography
\nThe Language We Cry In<\/em> Video Doc
\nRead:<\/strong> in Fulop and Raboteau:
\nLevine, ASlave Songs and Slave Consciousness@ 57-
\n??Kelley AWe are Not What We Seem: Pleasures and Politics of Community@<\/p>\n
\nEven the Heavens Weep<\/em> Video Doc
\nMethods:<\/strong> Documenting History through artifacts, oral histories, music, and video
\nRead:<\/strong> in Kelley xi-34 AShiftless of the World Unite@<\/p>\n
\nTu:<\/strong> Company Towns
\nProf. Torres, National University of Patagonia Ethnic and Labor Relations in Company Towns: A Comparative Perspective<\/em>
\nRead: Prof. Torres Dissertation is on reserve in CSC archives
\nTranscripts – references to Company Towns
\nWe:<\/strong> Bethlehem Tour
\nTh: <\/strong>Steelton,
\nRead:<\/strong> Bodnar
\nBell, Out of This Furnace<\/p>\n
\nTu:<\/strong> Struggles in Steel – Chuck Barone – lecture
\nRead:<\/strong> Transcripts – African-American Steelworker OH from Steelton
\nFrisch
\nKelley?Zinn? Something good on labor history
\nTh:<\/strong> Struggles in Steel: African-American Steelworkers<\/em> Video Doc<\/p>\n
\nRoger and Me\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n
\nYow, Recording Oral History<\/em>
\nAgar, Professional Stranger<\/em>
\nThompson, Voices Excerpts
\nMiddletown, Ch On Making a Living and Raising a Family
\nProposals Due + Oral History Interview Schedules\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>
\nBegin Oral History Interviews<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"