Category: Sociology

Focus on Social Problems

Linda Darling-Hammond, “Inequality and School Resources: What It Will Take to Close the Opportunity Gap”

What was the Williams v. California case about?

How are public schools funded in the U.S.? What is the primary form of funding?

In most states what is the ratio between per pupil spending in the richest and poorest districts?

What is Title  and why does it reinforce funding inequalities?

In California how much do high-poverty and low-poverty districts spend per pupil?

In California how much do high-minority and low-minority districts spend per pupil?

In the U.S. how many children live in poverty? How does that compare to most European nations?

What are U.S. schools asked to do that those in European countries do not?
In Finland what percent of children:

are enrolled in government-subsidized day care programs until they go to school at seven years?
attend tuition-free preschool at the age of six?

In the U.S. in 2000 what percent of Black students attended predominantly minority schools? When was the low point in that measure?

What percent of African American and Latino students attend schools with a minority enrollment of 90 to 100 percent?

What did the 1966 Coleman Report find?

What does the phrase “concentrated poverty” refer to?

What is an “apartheid school”?

What was the core principle in the Supreme Court’s Plessy v. Ferguson ruling?

What did the experimental study of African American high school youth who attended suburban and city schools reveal?

What role do upper-class parents play in securing quality education for their kids?

What is the most unequally distributed school resource in the U.S.?

In California in 2001 students in the most intensely minority schools were how much more likely to have uncertified teachers than those in predominantly White schools?

In California what percent of schools serving almost exclusively students of color had more than one-fifth of teachers who were uncertified?

At Oakland High School the students had not spent the entire year without a certified teacher in which subject? (Take a moment to think about the impact of that in today’s world.)

In Massachusetts in 2002 students in predominantly minority neighborhoods were how much more likely to have uncertified teachers than those who attended schools in the bottom quartile of schools with students of color?

In the study of high school students in North Carolina what did researchers find out about the effects of highly qualified teachers relative to students’ race and parental education level on achievement levels?

Why did parents of low-income, minority students sue the Department of Education after No Child Left Behind was passed?

What did Robert Dreeben find out about the causes of differences in reading achievement among Black and White first graders in Chicago?

What does it mean to say that schools serving large numbers of African American, Latino, and Native American students are “bottom heavy”.

In California in 2005 what percent of highly segregated schools serving African American and Latino had a sufficient enough number of college prep classes for their population?

What is “tracking”? How is tracking racialized?

From your perspective, what are the 3 most effective changes that Massachusetts implemented to reduce the opportunity gap?

From your perspective, what are the 3 most effective changes that New Jersey implemented to reduce the opportunity gap?

Douglas Downey and Benjamin Gibbs, “How Schools Really Matter”

What is the traditional tale of schools?
Why do schools located in areas with expensive homes tend to have more resources?
What is the biggest problem the current authors have with the traditional stories of schools?
What does it mean to have a “contextual perspective”?
What is the standard deviation in black/white math and reading skills at the end of high school? What is it at the beginning of kindergarten?
What did sociologist Annette Lareau find out about the difference between upper-middle class parents and low-SES parents?
What was the conclusion of the Coleman Report? What turned out to make the biggest difference in the development of academic skills?
What is the seasonal comparison approach to research?
How did Barbara Heyns set up her study of kids in Atlanta schools? What was the key finding of this study?
Why do the authors believe “if we lived in a world no schools at all, inequality would be much worse”?
Why are the authors critical of the ways that schools are categorized as “failing”? What do they think that current methods of school evaluation make teachers serving disadvantaged children look ineffective?
What is the policy lesson learned from Von Kippel’s “summer setback” study?
In addition to school reform, what do the authors think we need to focus on to improve students’ academic performance?

Laura Hamilton and Elizabeth Armstrong, “The (Mis)Education of Monica and Karen”

What kind of school is MU? What was the allure of attending MU for Karen and Monica?
What are most four-year residential colleges and universities designed to do? Who are they intended to serve?
What is the “great mismatch”?
Why do many students from modest backgrounds aim to attend state flagship universities?
What were public universities developed to do? How has dwindling public funding changed the way schools like MU function?
What did Mitchell Stevens hear a small, private school admissions officer say about an applicant?
What are party dorms?
What percent of the MU student body is in a fraternity or sorority? How big of an impact does the Greek system have on a campus like MU?
Why is a party culture potentially more harmful for students who don’t have a lot of money?
What is an easy major? Where are these majors often housed, in comparison to those housed in traditional colleges or arts and sciences?
In many easy majors, what is vital to career success?
Why did Karen switch to sports broadcasting from education? Why were her parents frustrated by this switch? How did her working class background impact her ability to succeed in this field?
What did Monica do when she left MU? How much student loan debt did she have when she left?
What did Karen do after she left MU? Why did it take her 6 years to finish her degree?
What were the academic outcomes for the majority of the in-state leavers the authors followed?
How did those who went to regional or community colleges fare relative to those who stayed at MU?
What was the best predictor of college success?
What is a party pathway? What is a mobility pathway?
What should students and parents with limited financial resources look for in a college or university?

Yasmeen Qureshi, Sarah Gross, and Lisa Desai, “Screw U: How For-Profit Colleges Rip You Off”

What is ITT? How much did its profits rise from 2007 to 2014?
What strategies would ITT “enrollment counselors” use to get people to enroll? What pressures do they face from ITT management?
What percent of all college students in the U.S. are enrolled in for-profit, private colleges?
Why was ITT singled out in the Harkin Report?
What populations do for-profit schools target?
What percent of students at these institutions take out student loans:
Private, for-profit
Private, non-profit
Public college/university
Community college
What percent of all defaults on college loans are on students who attend for-profit colleges?
How much of all federal loan money is directed toward for-profit schools?
How much of the revenue of the 15 publicly-traded for-profit colleges is based on federal money?
Why are the authors critical of PEAKS?
What kinds of jobs did the ITT graduates find?
How much would going to a Michigan state or community college cost relative to ITT?

(NOT IN TEXT – CLICK ON LINK FOR ACCESS TO ARTICLE)

Jackie Mader and Sarah Butrymowicz, “Pipeline to Prison: Special Education Too Often Leads to Jail for Thousands of American Children”

Pipeline to Prison: Special education too often leads to jail for thousands of American children

What disabilities does Cody Beck have? How have these disabilities made it difficult for him to succeed in school? How has the structure of the Mississippi school system made it difficult for him to succeed?
What are other disabilities that kids face?
How many kids who are arrested have a disability?
How much more likely are kids with emotional disabilities to be arrested before leaving high school than the general population?
How much has the U.S. prison population grown since 1970?
What does federal law require schools to provide?
Why do kids whose disabilities are not treated often act out in school?
In Mississippi in 2011, what percent of the state’s students qualified for special education? What is the rate of students with disabilities in the Oakley Youth Development Center? In the Rankin County Detention Center?
In Mississippi in 2011-12 how many special education students received a regular diploma?
Why is access to pre-K education so vital for kids with disabilities?
Why has Utah been more effective at reducing the number of special education students getting suspensions?

NOT IN TEXT. CLICK ON LINK FOR ACCESS TO ARTICLE

Jason Blakely, “How School Choice Turns Education Into a Commodity” From The Atlantic Magazine April 17, 2017

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/04/is-school-choice-really-a-form-of-freedom/523089/

Who is Betsy DeVos? Where is she from? What is the main focus of her political activism? Why does DeVos think the public education system is not capable of being truly innovative like a Google, Facebook, or Amazon?
What does Arizona’s “school of choice” law allow for?
What is neoliberalism? What is its goal? What is the neoliberal view of public institutions and private markets?
What two models of freedom are at odds with each other in our political system?
What is a positive outcome of “creative destruction” in markets?
What happened in Detroit after two decades of marketization of schools?
What does the introduction of market choice in Nevada schools tell us about which groups are most poised to benefit from neoliberalizing schools?
How can school marketization start a vicious cycle?
What is the logical conclusion of individualism?

What kind of good is education?
What is the one kind of individual choice neoliberalists reject?
What is KIPP?

Why are school choice advocates critical of centralized education? What are they in favor of?

What does the author think debates about “freedom” in education ought to focus on?

Health & Healthcare

Activist Interview: Elba Saavedra

Who is a comadre?
What role do Latino cultural values play in the Comadre a Comadre program?
What do we know about Latinas and:
Rates of mammography utilization?
Length of time to access care after abnormality is discovered?
Types of tumors they have?
Death rates due to cancer?
4. How does the Comadre a Comadre organization help women navigate the health care system?

5. Why does Elba Saavedra think it is good the women she works with move beyond the role of “passive patient”?

“They’ve Got a Pill for That: The Medicalization of Society”

What does “medicalization” mean?
What are some benefits of medicalization?
What are social problems?

What do critics of medicalization point out? What do they see as some of the downsides of medicalization?

Who are some of the key claims makers associated with medicalization?

What happened to guidelines about direct-to-consumer advertising in 1997?

What condition was Viagra originally designed to address? How did that change over time?

What was the process of and which parties were involved in medicalizing erectile dysfunction?
What are life-style drugs?

What is diagnostic expansion? What happens to the notion of normalcy?
How is the example of ISS an illustration of diagnostic expansion?

What does it mean to say that “pharmaceutical companies turn “difference into illness”?

Why is the author concerned with the diffusion of Western medical interpretations in other world regions?
Between 1987 and 1996, what happened to the use of psychotropic medications among youth?

What is “black box” warning? Why was it put on medications for youth?

Why can medicalization lead to increased medical costs?

How much money is estimated to be spent each year on unnecessary medical services?

What percentage of doctors have financial ties with a drug or medical device company?
What was the total of payments to doctors in 2013?

How does the pharmaceutical industry’s profit margin compare to other industries? What was the profit margin in 2013?
From 2000 to 2011, what percentage of new therapeutic products were directed toward diseases such as malaria and Ebola?

What is the relationship between ADHD drugs and school funding? Why is the author critical of the “failing schools” narrative to explain children’s medical conditions?

What connections does the author draw between standardized testing and ADHD rates? What was the rise in sales of stimulants after No Child Left Behind was passed in 2002?

How is homosexuality a model case of demedicalization? What happened in 1973 that signalled its demedicalization?
“Selling Sickness: How Drug Ads Changed Health Care”

Where does prescription drug spending rank in terms of overall health care costs? In the year before this chapter was written, Americans received how many prescriptions a year? How many did they receive in 1992?

In a decade and a half (1992-2008), how much did the use of prescription medication increase? How much has that added to our medical spending?

In the 1980s what did FDA regulations require in ads for medications? How did the Seldane campaign get around the 1980s regulations?How much do drug companies spend on ads today?
What did the 1997 FDA changes allow for?

On average, how many ads for drugs are aired every hour of every day on American tv?

How many consumers who’ve seen a drug ad talked to their doctor about it?
“Paying till It Hurts”

What is the annual health care bill for the U.S.?
How much do all colonoscopies cost each year in the U.S.?

How much of the nation’s GDP is spent on health care? How much more is that than most other developed countries?

How is the private fee-for-service system in the U.S. distinct from that in other industrialized nations? How do these other countries approach the rates for health care?

Why do insurers have little interest in bargaining forcefully with doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies?

If the American health care system were a true market, the increased volume of colonoscopies would have likely led to what?
What is an ambulatory surgery center? When they first came about, why were they seen as a cost saver?
Aside from gastroenterologists, what kind of doctor has a vested interest in performing colonoscopies in ambulatory surgical center?
“Big Pharma Comes of Age”

When did the pharmaceutical industry become the most profitable in the U.S.?

How much of the pharmaceutical industry’s spending is put into research and design? How much for marketing?

How much do American citizens spend per year on prescription drugs?

What atmosphere did the federal government promote in the 1980s?

What is lobbying? Where does pharma rank in terms of lobbying?

What did new laws allow federally funded researchers to do that they couldn’t do before? Why did that help pharma companies?
What did new laws allow companies to do in terms of drug patents?

What is a “me-too” drug? What percent of new drugs are “me-too” drugs?

How did the passage of the Medicare drug benefit program help pharma companies?

What restrictions do pharma companies put on university-based researchers in terms of publications?

What did researchers find out about the link between individuals who received pharma research money and authors of medical journal articles? Why did the FDA’s power decline?

What do pharma companies have to prove about the effectiveness of new drugs?

How much does the pharma industry spend for advertising per doctor per year?

Why is the example of high blood pressure and hypertensive disease relevant in this chapter? What is the example supposed to illustrate to us?

“The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” [ACA]

When was the ACA passed?
What was its central goal?
How was the ACA different from what Canada has in place?
What are state-run health exchanges? What were they intended to do? What was the hope for them?
Which employers are required to offer for-profit insurance? Which businesses receive tax credits to provide employees insurance?
What are insurance companies prohibited from doing under the ACA?
1)

2)

3)

7. What must insurance companies do under the ACA?

1)

2)

3)

8.Why does the ACA still leave millions without insurance?

What about the ACA kept huge administrative costs and inefficiencies with the health system in place after its passage?
What was the difference in who the for-profit insurance companies targeted for coverage? Who was responsible for covering the rest?

From 2010 to 2019 the ACA was expected to increase federal government spending by how much?

“What’s Killing Poor White Women?”

Who is Crystal Wilson and what was her life like? Where did she grow up? What obstacles did she face? What was her relationship with her husband like? Any other aspects of Crystal’s life that you think are important to consider?

Which group of women has seen their life expectancy rates decline in the last 18 years? How many years did they lose compared to the women in the previous generation?

From 1990 to 2008 how many years did white men without high-school diplomas lose?

At what ages are women dying such that their average age of death has declined from 79 to 73 years?
What have researchers believed education level can be a “proxy” for?

What did Adriana Lleras-Muney find about the relationship between education and duration of life?

What is the poverty rate in Cave City?
What kinds of jobs are available in that area?

What percentage of county residents have a Bachelor’s degree?

Why does James Jackson of the University of Michigan think people like Crystal Wilson have been lagging behind since the 1990s?
How do the rates of labor force participation vary for better educated women and women without high-school diplomas?

What kinds of jobs are women without high school diplomas likely to have?

What is the general trend of black women without high school diplomas relative to their white counterparts?

Which areas saw the largest spike in women’s death rates from 1990 to 2008 (Olshansky’s years)?

Why might African American women without high-school diplomas be better off than their white counterparts?
Which state ranks #1 in teenage births?
“How We Do Harm”

Who is Edna Riggs? What is something about her story that you think is important to remember?

What kind of hospital is Grady? Where is it located? What populations does it serve?

How were black and white patients treated differently in the 1950s and ‘60s?

What happened at Tuskegee? How did these events affect how African Americans view the health care system?

What was Edna reluctant to use the insurance that her employer provided?

What did the American Cancer Society [ACS] find out about people who were diagnosed with cancer who had no insurance or were insured through Medicaid versus people who were diagnosed with cancer who had private insurance?

How many Americans are estimated to die annually due to lack of insurance for cancer treatment?

Why would poor breast-cancer patients opt for a mastectomy over a lumpectomy?

Why are the words gluttony and famine relevant to the health care situation in the U.S.?

What does it mean to have triple-negative cancer? What percent of breast cancer in Black women is triple-negative? What is that rate for white women?
To what degree does the author believe there are biological reasons for black and white women having different cancer outcomes?
What role does having children after age 30 play in cancer incidence? Why is this a protective measure (of sorts) against breast cancer (of a sort)?
Which group of women is more likely to delay childbearing to 30? Why?

What is HRT? What impact does it have on breast cancer? Who is more likely to receive HRT?

What difference does onset of menstruation play in breast cancer later in life? What percent of black and white girls menstruate by their thirteenth birthday?

What kind of diet are poor people more likely to have than people with more economic means?

What are produce deserts?
“Environmental Inequalities”

What did the 1983 General Accounting Office study reveal about the placement of the four major landfills in the South?
How is environmental justice defined?

What is the “Toxic Doughnut”? Where is it? Why is the area considered toxic? Who lives closest to it?

What ailments do the residents of the Toxic Doughnut report in high numbers?
What is Executive Order 12898?

Per year, ____ premature deaths, ____ heart attacks, and ____ asthma attacks could be attributed to pollution from the Fisk and Crawford plants.

Why did residents of Pilsen and Little Village create the Clean Power Coalition? What did they accomplish in 2012?

What is the treadmill of production thesis?

What qualities or characteristics have been ascribed to people of color historically? How do those images contribute to environmental racism?

In terms of politics, why might polluters choose a minority area to place hazards?

Why were immigrant women disproportionately impacted by Silicon Valley development?

What does the global South refer to? Who lives in the global South? How are they impacted by climate change?

What percent of the world’s CO2 emissions come from the global North?

Why are women in Bangladesh more likely to be impacted by extreme weather than men?

“U.S. Electronic Waste Gets Sent to Africa”

What is the primary mineral the kids in Ghana are trying to gather? On a good day, how much can they earn?
How does exposure to pollutants affect the kids’ health?

What U.S. government agencies have sent electronic waste to Ghana?

What is the Basel Convention? Which countries did not sign onto the Basel Convention?

What are CRTs? Why were those expected to be a new wave of e-waste?
“Why Beef Is What’s for Dinner”

What is the main difference between how children and adults are portrayed on the Biggest Loser?
What is food policy?

What is the irony about the foods that we are told to avoid?

What are the 3 categories that receive the highest amount of economic incentives? What are those incentives called?

What has been the major trend in U.S. agriculture in the past century? How has this trend impacted small farmers?

What is the relationship of the food industry and the fossil fuel industry?

Which 3 crops have received the most agricultural subsidies? What impact did that have?
What is a CAFO?
What is a Farm Bill? What would the author rather we call the Farm Bill? Why?

How do states with a lot of agriculture benefit from the way U.S. Senators are elected?

Where is cane sugar cheaper to produce than the U.S.?
How does the U.S. corn industry stay competitive?

Why did the WHO report on sugar consumption get rejected by U.S. trade groups?

What is the largest category of commodity subsidies?

Why are cows fed grain?

What are some of the concerns about animal welfare in CAFOs?

What are GMOs? How are they different than traditional selective breeding?
What are GE crops?

What was the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990?

What is the main change of labeling that went into effect in 2014 and 2016?

In what 3 ways does what food producers are doing today replicate what tobacco companies were doing prior to the 1990s?
Which producers in the U.S. are actually profitable without subsidies?

Why does the author think full-service grocery stores and schools should be distributed similarly?
What is food security?

“The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food”

In 1999 how many American adults were considered overweight?

Who is Stephen Sanger? What role did he play in getting food industry leaders to be more attentive to the content of their products?

When this chapter was written how many adults are considered clinically obese? How many kids are clinically obese?

How many Americans are living with Type 2 diabetes? How many live with pre-diabetes?

What does “optimization” of food products mean? What does it entail?

In many Prego sauces, what is the 2nd largest ingredient behind tomatoes?

What did Philip Morris want to “reposition”? How did Lunchables allow that to happen?

Which group did Oscar Mayer focus on most heavily when the product was being developed?

What was the “supply and demand” argument about junk food made by industry managers?

Why couldn’t they put fresh ingredients in the first Lunchables?

What psychological strategy did the Lunchables marketers use to get kids to eat their product?

What was Coca-Cola’s goal? What did it strive for?

What country is mentioned here as being a new target audience for Coke and Nestle?

What was the chief reason Dunn was fired from Coca-Cola?

How did Dunn market baby carrots? What was the tagline?
#34 “Constructing Crime”

Generally speaking, how does the author view the relationship between the reality of crime and the media messages about crime?
What % of the U.S. population has no direct experience with crime?

What is the main difference between the traditional means of disseminating information compared to the newer technologies?

What are some benefits mass media producers gain from focusing on crime?

What has happened to crime rates since the early 1970s? What kind of crime is highlighted in mass media? What do they overreport on?

What did the local television news study find about the composition of average 30 minute news programs?
How are crimes against children and white women portrayed?

To what degree does the news media cover topics such as satanist murderers, serial killers, etc.?

How do the news media portray African American and Hispanic offenders? What are the 3 ways that the race of victims is distorted?
What does the study of the “phantom offender” reveal?

To what degree are young people portrayed as offenders? How does that match up with their actual criminal activities?

What did the study of introductory criminal justice students reveal about their perceptions of violent crime? How does that match up to actual crime statistics?

What is “cultivation theory”? What is the “mean world syndrome”? How is it related to television news viewership?

What are the crime policies that follow from these distorted news representations?
What is a “moral panic”?

In the 1980s how did the use of crack cocaine get portrayed in news media? How did these portrayals match up to actual use surveys?

What are the policies that followed from these distorted news representations of the crack epidemic?

How were Chinese immigrants associated with opiates?

What % of missing children were runaways or abducted by parents in custody disputes in the 1980s?

How do the news media report on white collar/corporate crime?

How is the coverage of rape distort the reality of the violent crime? What kinds of rape are highlighted more? What kinds of rape get little coverage?

How is the coverage of battering distort the reality of the violent crime?

What is significant about the coverage of school shootings in the 1990s?

What is ideology? To what degree does ideology affect newsmakers and the reporting they produce?

What does crime coverage promote in terms of laws and criminal justice?

What is a “preferred reading”? What is a negotiated or oppositional reading? Which does the author encourage audiences to do?

Tristan Bridges and Tara Leigh Tober, “Mass Shootings and Masculinity”

What is the single most patterned fact associated with mass shooters?

What was the Bushmaster campaign based on? What was the link the company was trying to make?

Follman, et. al. found that how many mass shootings happened in the past 3 decades were committed by boys or men?

Why do countries like Switzerland and Israel have in common? What is their homicide rate?

What is the homicide rate in the U.S.?

What does Jennifer Carlson believe about the relationship between gun ownership and gun culture?

In 2009 how many handguns, rifles, and shotguns were available to American civilians?

What is the NRA retort when mass shootings occur?

What is social identity threat?

10.What does Michael Kimmel say will get a playground fight started?

What is the masculinity overcompensation thesis? What role does violence play in this process?

How have researchers created a masculinity threat in experimental settings?

What did Munsch and Willer find out about college men who’d had their masculinity threatened? How did this affect their views on sexual coercion?

In what way is violence a masculinity resource?

What does Kimmel say about boys and young men involved in extremely violent behavior?

What was the most common form of teasing that were mentioned in random school shootings between 1982 and 2001?

How does this tie into Pascoe’s study of boys and young men in high school?

How does a cultural analysis differ from a social psychological analysis? How does the focus change from social psychology to culture?

What is aggrieved entitlement? Who is most likely to hold these beliefs? What leads people to feel this way?
Mark Follman, “More Guns, More Mass Shootings”

In the U.S. in 1995 how many guns were estimated to be in private hands? What is that rate today? What is the bump in ownership? How does this compare to the rise in population?

[Based on when this chapter was written] What percent of U.S. households had guns in the past decade? How did that change since the 1980s? What does this suggest to us about gun ownership?

As of 2012 how many states allowed firearms in bars?

What did Virginia do to its gun laws?

What did the Colorado Supreme Court rule in 2012?

Why is Virginia becoming known for its gun safety training?

What percent of states recognize handgun permits from other states?

What would a reciprocity bill allow for?

What percent of the killers the author analyzed acquired their guns legally?

How does the FBI define a mass murder?

When did the Federal Assault Weapons Ban expire? What has happened to it since?

How does Hargarten of the Medical College of Wisconsin believe we should view mass shootings?

Erin Thomas Echols, “Inequality in Life and Death: The Death Penalty in the United States”

In Georgia, courts condemned to death defendants who killed white people at ____ rate that a defendant who killed a black person.

African Americans are ____ of the total population and ____ of the prison population.

African Americans are ____ of the people on death row.

What are the characteristics of states that have the death penalty?

From 1930 to 1967 what percent of the executions that took plac