Alumni Speaker Series: Dr. Reuben Miller Friday February 17th 6-7pm

Be sure to attend Loyola Sociology’s 2023 Eleanor Fails Alumni Speaker Series event!  This year, Sociology PhD alum Reuben Jonathan Miller will be giving a lecture titled “Guilt.”  Dr. Miller is a 2022 MacArthur Fellow and Associate Professor at the University of Chicago.  His recently published book, Halfway Home: Race, Punishment and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, won the Herbert Jacob Book Prize from the Law and Society Association, two PROSE Awards from the Association of American Publishers, and was a finalist for a PEN America/John Kenneth Galbraith Book Award and the LA Times Book Prize.

 

See the attached flyer for more details about the event, including the date, time, and location.  The Fails lecture will follow the graduate student symposium.

Dr. Miller was the keynote speaker at the 2022 New Student Convocation last fall!  He is a Loyola Sociology alum, and currently a professor at University of Chicago. 

Dr. Miller highlighted the many ways that the criminal justice system creates obstacles for those who enter it.  His work is published in his book,Halfway Home; Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration.  You can read more about Miller's work from NPR here,

...those who leave incarceration are in many ways never truly free. They instead become members of the "supervised society" — and it is this uniquely disenfranchised population that is the focus of his book.

This indictment of the criminal justice system should trouble the soul of the nation. Miller writes in prose that is at once powerful and engaging — and combines an abundance of data with the lived experiences of the people the numbers represent. A sociologist, criminologist, social worker, and former chaplain at Chicago's Cook County Jail, his insights are partly drawn from having spent 15 years interviewing nearly 250 people caught up in the prison industrial complex. This work included a research project during which he spent three years engaging with 60 men and 30 women after their release from incarceration in Michigan. Miller can also claim far more experiential expertise, because he was "born black and poor in the age of mass incarceration" and, like every Black person he knows, "was stopped by the police a number of times." He is a scientist armed with statistical information, and he is the son and brother of incarcerated men.

In October of 2022, Dr. Miller was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellow Genius Award! Here is an article in the Chicago Sun Times profiling him.

1.4 Introducing Emile; The Structural Functional Founding Paradigm

 As we wait for students to join class, please read the following:

Sociology can be emotional (and today's lesson involves the topic of suicide)

Sociology as an academic discipline examines all parts of society - to be clear, 

Sociology is the study of how society/social groups influence the individuals within it.  

This makes the discipline a very relevant subject.   Students will find just about any topic that interests them has sociological research about it.  However, some topics of everyday life can be emotional.  Just watching the evening news reveals many topics in everyday life that might create a visceral response: murder, environmental pollution, racism, sexual assault and sexism are just to name a few.  All of these are an emotional part of everyday American society.  Sociology as a discipline examines all of these areas.  The researchers studying these topics do not want to be morbid or grotesquely critical of our society out of spite.  Instead, they want to shed light on aspects of society that we might not like to talk about;  with proper academic attention, we can understand these emotional events better and perhaps even improve our society.  I know that talking about suicide or racism or sexual assault all can be emotionally wrought experiences.  But in the end, sociology will help us all understand these and other social ills better and hopefully, help us to strengthen society against them so that we all may live in a more peaceful and content society and be true to ourselves.   

During our first few lessons, we have been learning how sociologists think about the world - especially thinking with a sociological imagination and with the social construction of reality.  

Review from last lesson:

Social Construction of Reality - people on the boat had a very specific experience because society has created a way of thinking based on each person's statuses: such as physicist v. author. 

Sociological Imagination - the results of the simulation might be very different depending on where or when the simulation is conducted.  In the 1920s, 1860s or in Japan or India or elsewhere the results might be very different.

Macrosociology - studying the large groups that influenced the group.  For example, everyone on the boat was from LUC, lives in America, is a young adult.  These large groups shape how you view the world.

Microsociology  - studying how the group was influenced by their face-to-face interaction.  For example, the dynamics on the boat may have been influenced by who spoke up and when and how they talked and what they talked about.

 

 

Today: we shift the focus to where this way of thinking came from.  So, for your note-taking, here is what you should be focused on for today's lesson:

How did Emile Durkheim influence the creation of sociology? 

What does his Structural-Functional paradigm focus on? 

How can you apply this to your own life?

Three scholars were very influential in the studying of industrial society during the 1800s.  Each scholar created a paradigm that became a foundation for the discipline of sociology.

Founding Paradigm 1:

Emile Durkheim's Structural-Functional 

The first paradigm we will consider is called Structural-functional.  This paradigm was created by Emile Durkheim.  Durkheim studied suicide and found that within industrial Europe, the rate of suicide varied from country to country but it also stayed stable within each country.   So, something that seemed like an individual choice, such as suicide, was really a product of the country a person lived in.  Someone living in Britain was much more likely to commit suicide than someone living in Italy.  In other words, something was happening in British society that was creating a problem for the individuals living there.  Suicide was not an individual problem, it was a social one.  Durkheim called these social problems dysfunctions.  

Durkheim said that societies have a structure made up of different systems that function to keep order in society.  Just like a body has different systems such as a respiratory, circulatory, digestive and nervous system, a society has different systems like family, education, economy, religion and government etc…  These systems serve a function of keeping order in society by creating a structure for stability and continuity.  Therefore, Durkheim's paradigm becomes known as structural-functional.  Durkheim says that when the structures help to make life healthy for individuals, the structures are functional, whereas structures that are not healthy for individuals are called dysfunctional.

In sum, The institutions/structures provide stability and continuity for individuals - like helping individuals survive and thrive. The structures help us understand what is expected of us and provide an identity and a purpose. This is functional.

Dysfunctions are when these institutions do not meet those needs and instead individuals are harmed by the institutions. 

Any questions so far about the beginnings of sociology and Durkheim and his structural-functional paradigm?

Reminder -

One of the best ways to learn something is to have to teach it to someone or explain it.  This is the philosophy behind small group discussion.  Please try to explain your example.  If you have trouble, call me over:

How might you use the Structural-Functional paradigm to analyze the Lifeboat activity that we did?


How might the paradigm apply to college?  In other words, how are the large institutions of society connected to college?

Applying Structural-functional to your life

Revisit the demographic survey that you filled out at the beginning . Look at the structures of society that you wrote about in part 1 (especially family, school, work)

3.  How do they provide stability or structure in your life?  

4.  What function do the structures provide - in other words, what purposes do they serve in your life?

5.  What are some ways that these structures interact or depend on each other?

6.  Realize that the individual way that you personally are influenced by these structures is not sociology - instead, the ways that these structures affect unrelated individuals similarly are sociological.  With that in mind, are these similar to the other students at your table?


Names as an example of Durkheim's structural-functional paradigm

As an example of the structural-functional paradigm,  names, like people, seem individual and unique.  For example, when someone calls your name, you probably look up automatically and assume they are talking about you.  And, indeed, for many of us, we are the only person who we know with our exact name.  I don’t know anyone named Christopher Joseph Salituro other than myself.  

However, names are not a unique trait unto ourselves.  Instead, names are our first connection to community.  Desmond Tutu, the Archbishop of South Africa once said, “A solitary individual is not possible.  We come into being because a community of people came together.”  That community of people gives you a name and sees to it that you survive.  We would not be alive if it wasn’t for their influence and nurture.  So, names are a great way to examine how sociologists look at the world.  Many aspects of our lives that seem like individual choices or individual traits are actually guided by social forces that are larger than us.  Our families, schools, religions, governments and other social institutions all influence who we are, including in ways that we don’t even realize.  The sociological perspective examines these influences from different perspectives.

List any ways that your name: 

• connects to family 
• connects to religion 
• represents morals or values 
• transmits cultural preferences and popular ideas

Do you see how your name reflects the influences that come from families, schools/peers, religions, popular culture?  

And do you understand that when people are given a name it can impart values or traditions that connect you to family, religion, or other social structures?  

Another way of applying this to your life is thinking about how you ended up at college. 

What are the ways that all of the social structures have influenced your decision to attend college?

Think in terms of all of these systems:  family, school (high school), peers, media, government, economics

The structural-functional paradigm is one perspective that sociologists use.  Can you explain it?  Can you use it to examine your own life?  

Continue to the next foundational paradigm.

Lifeboat Activity Debrief

Here are the results of 20 years of doing this activity:

Out of 71 times, here are the totals:

1.Sailor Jones:                 22

2.Ship’s Officer:                2

3.Quarter Master :           56

4.Self-Made Millionaire:   54

5.College Student:           60

6.Nobel Prize Literature:  35

7.Nobel Prize Physics:        0

8.Football Player:             15

9.Cheerleader:                   6

10.Army Captain:             15

11.Draft Evader:               59

12.Peace Corps:                 5

13.Med Student:                 0

14.Elderly man:                65

15.Elderly woman:            62

16.Travelling Poet:            41

Macrosociological perspective
On the macro level, sociologists look for the influences of large-scale forces on groups or individuals.  So, for the simulation, let's examine the similarities for who your class kicked off the boat compared to the other classes that I have taught.  

Our class is made up of different people than any other class - including mine.  In fact, this class is so different that students are from a different generation!  For example, I have been doing this activity long enough that two of my students married!  They met in my class as the football player and cheerleader in 2002, and then after continuing to date after college, they got engaged in 2012 and asked me to marry them!  Even though they are old enough to be a different generation than my current class, patterns still emerge.  Why do these patterns emerge across generations?  There are social forces that lead to/construct similar results.

Social Construction of Reality 

How are the experiences of those on the boat shaped by the larger society? What are the meanings that each person's status holds on the boat?  The statuses on the boat create a very real experience for the people in the simulation.

Students consistently save the characters who they believe are useful, especially the medical student and the Nobel prize winner in Physics.  And, students consistently reject the elderly and the sick (quartermaster, college student).  There are macro-sociological forces that shape these decisions.  Despite the differences, what does our class share in common with all of the other classes that I have done this with?  All of the students participating in this simulation are Americans.  I believe they are shaped by cultural values.   

Sociological Imagination

How might this activity play out in a different place?  How might different cultures approach the decision of who to set adrift?  

How might this play out in a different time?  How might Americans from a different time, such as 1920s, approach the decision?

Microsociological Perspective
On the microsociological level, sociologists study how groups interact in face-to-face conversation. In face-to-face interaction the words we use matter - they hold shared meaning and values.  Additionally, how we use the words matters, such as: who makes eye contact, how loud people speak, where they sit, who is the leader, etc... So, the microsociological data from each time that the activity is done, might be different based on the interaction.  This includes the words students use.  For example, if the poet focuses on being a poet, people might see that as undesirable and kick him off.  But if the poet reinforces that he is useful because of his sailing skills, that might save him because usefulness is a shared value in our culture. 

Applying this to your own life
This activity is a metaphor for any group that you are a part of; all of the groups that shape you are governed by both macro-sociological forces and micro-sociological forces.  For example, apply this to college.  If we examined these two levels in college, there are certain macro-sociological values that one would expect to find no matter where the school is located: grades, expectations of learning, homework, rules etc... So as you move from one course to the next, you will see these macro-sociological values present. On the other hand, each individual class is different because of the micro-sociological dynamics present in that class: some teachers are more casual, some teachers use rows vs. a horseshoe shape, some classes have a few loud boisterous individuals and other classes might be mostly girls or mostly guys etc...

Can you see these two levels at play in your own life? Perhaps in your family, your classes or with a group of friends, or at your job?  

How is one of your groups shaped by larger forces such as the influence of culture?

How is the group shaped by the interaction of its' members?  For example, how do they treat each other based on the statuses each person has? 

Conclusion: 

What is the difference between micro and macro sociology?

How does micro and macro apply to the boat simulation?

How do these micro and macro forces shape you in some of your groups?

Book Talk: Sorting Sexualities by Stefan Vogler

 

From U Chicago Press:

In Sorting Sexualities, Stefan Vogler deftly unpacks the politics of the techno-legal classification of sexuality in the United States. His study focuses specifically on state classification practices around LGBTQ people seeking asylum in the United States and sexual offenders being evaluated for carceral placement—two situations where state actors must determine individuals’ sexualities. Though these legal settings are diametrically opposed—one a punitive assessment, the other a protective one—they present the same question: how do we know someone’s sexuality?

In this rich ethnographic study, Vogler reveals how different legal arenas take dramatically different approaches to classifying sexuality and use those classifications to legitimate different forms of social control. By delving into the histories behind these diverging classification practices and analyzing their contemporary reverberations, Vogler shows how the science of sexuality is far more central to state power than we realize. 

Here is a previous book talk on Youtube. 

Here is an interview of Dr. Vogler.

1.3 Lifeboat Simulation

 The Bell:  Listen for the silence

For this simulation, we are going on an around-the-world cruise!  How fun, right?

That is, until the boat hits a mine leftover from WWII and the cruise ship sinks really fast.  

Luckily, you survive!  There was one life raft that was saved.  

You and 15 others climb aboard or cling to the outside of it.  (Here is a printable copy of this activity.)  

Here are the people aboard the boat:

_______________  1.  Sailor Jones:  It is somewhat questionable how I was able to get from my assigned position below deck to the lifeboat when no other sailor assigned to the lower decks managed to escape from the ship.  I am in excellent health.  Not married, and no close relatives.

 

_______________2.  Ship’s Officer O’Malley:  I was the only high ranking officer aboard the ship that was able to get to the lifeboat.  It is the boat that I was assigned to in all of the emergency practice drills.  I was a capable leader on the boat, has navigational skills, and was well-liked by passenger and crew members aboard the ship.  Excellent health.

 

_______________3.  Quarter Master MacDonald:  Little is known about me. I did serve in the regular navy.  When the ship sank, I suffered injuries to both of my wrists.  At the present time, I cannot use either hand.  I am married and has four children in the U.S.

 

_______________4.  Self-Made Millionaire Douglas:  I own and manage one of the U.S.’s largest garment industrial complexes, which employs hundreds of factory workers.  I have dedicated so much time to making the business successful that I am out of shape due to lack of exercise.

 

_______________5.  College Student Parsons:  I am a college student who has been on a limited budget European vacation.  I am a grand mal epileptic.  Unfortunately, while abandoning the ship, all of my medication was left behind.  I am single—age 22.

 

_______________6.  Nobel Prize Winner in Literature, Dr. Lightfoot:  I am a minority race and questions have been raised whether the Nobel Prize was awarded to me due to my race or my ability.  Dr. Lightfoot is 48 years old and is in good health.  I am married, with two daughters who have families of their own.

 

_______________7.  Nobel Prize Winner in Physics, Dr. Singleton: It has been said that I am about to release information to the world that will essentially bring about the solution to the world’s ecology problem.  I am 62 years old and is in excellent health.  I was born and raised in a small town in Arkansas.  I come from a very wealthy family and have remained single.

 

_______________8. Football Player, Mr Small  and  

 

_______________9.Cheerleader,  Mrs. Small:  We are in our late twenties.  Mr Small was a star football player at Ohio State.  Mrs. Small, who also attended Ohio State, was the Homecoming Queen.  Mr. Small now a running back for a semi-pro football team in New York. Mrs. Small is eight and one-half months pregnant. The couple is interracial; Mr. Small is a minority race and Mrs, Small is not.

 

_______________10.  Army Captain Thomas:  I was recently decorated for bravery and valor above and beyond the call of duty.  I am on the way to the U.S. to personally receive the Medal of Honor from the President.  I am married, with two children, and am about 35yrs old.  While engaged in the action, which resulted in receiving the Medal of Honor, Captain Thomas lost a right leg.  Other than this condition which I recovered from, I am in good health.  

 

_______________11.  Draft Evader Samuels:  I left the United States two years ago in order to avoid the military draft.  I then spent two years in Sweden, from which I was recently deported for dealing in illegal drugs.  I am in my early twenties and in good health. Single.  

 

_______________12.  Peace Corps Volunteer Davidson:  I am a Peace Corps Volunteer who has recently completed 2 years of work in India.  I have a Master’s Degree in Chemical Engineering and am on the way back to Boston where Davidson is to be married in two months.  I am 27yrs old and in excellent health.

 

_______________13.  Med Student Ryan: I am a medical student who has been vacationing in France.  I am 26 years old, single, and in excellent health.

 

_______________14. Elderly man, Mr. Eldridge and 

 

_______________15.Elderly woman, Mrs. Eldridge:  We are an elderly couple, both in our late 60’s and on our way back to our native New Jersey after a one month tour of Spain.  Mr. Eldridge is suffering severely from arthritis and is not capable of walking without the aid of a cane.  We will celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary next week.  We have 8 children and 29 grandchildren and are all living in New Jersey.  

 

_______________16. Traveling Poet Carpenter:  I am a 30-year-old traveling poet in excellent health.  I have never had a permanent home since running away from a New York orphanage 15 years ago.  I spent 4 years in the Navy and acquired a taste for sailing and since leaving the Navy has made several solo sailing voyages in the Caribbean.  I have been divorced three times and am currently separated from my 4th spouse who resides in Paris.

The boat is crowded :-(  but This should be sufficient as long as a storm does not develop. 

 

Uh-oh! Guess what? [THUNDER!  LIGHTNING!]  Yep - a storm.  

Part 1:

This overcrowded lifeboat will not survive unless 7 people get life preservers and are set adrift from the lifeboat.  Your job is to choose who stays and who goes.  You must choose 7 people to be set adrift and save the other 9 people.  Mark your choices on the packet.

Part 2:

If you are not on the boat, you should read part 2 of the handout.

Part 3:

After the simulation is over, answer part 3 on the handout.

Once everyone has finished responding to the prompts on the packet, I will tell you  

What really happened

This activity is based on the real-life events that were portrayed in the movie Abandon Ship! (1957).

The real story of what happened was based on the movie Abandon Ship, also known as Seven Waves Away.  Here is the full movie on youtube.

In the real-life incident, all of those aboard turned to the highest-ranking person (ship’s officer) to take command.  He had a sidearm on him.  When the sea got too rough, he called everyone’s attention and he chose who would go/stay.  He kept only the strong, able-bodied who were strong enough to survive a long row.  On the last day, they were rescued and the captain was put on trial for murder.  He was declared guilty, but received a minimum sentence of only 6 months in prison because of the unique circumstances.

Individual Reflection: 

I have been doing this activity since 1999, which means students have done this more than 70 times. 

1. Who do you think has never been kicked off the boat ever?  Why?

2.  Who do you think has been kicked off the boat the most?  Why?

3.  Were your individual choices different than who you answered in questions 1 and 2 above?  If so, how and why? What criteria did you use to make the choices that were different?

Once you have finished, click on the data analysis of this lesson here.