Sociology 789b: Social Class

Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers

Our first meeting will be Wednesday evening at 6:30. I would like to use this meeting productively beyond the usual course introduction. We will discuss one of the required books for the course: Malcolm Gladwell's, Outliers: The Story of Success. This is a wonderful, soft introduction to many of the themes we will be emphasizing this semester. Gladwell is a journalist and frequent New Yorker contributor. He is one of the best interpreters of social science research to a public audience. Outliers is all about what determines "success" - from our point of view what are the causes underlying a person's location in the stratification system. You will find this a very enjoyable read.

Everybody should read the Introduction, and Chapters 3 & 4 "The Trouble with Genius" which we will discuss in the first part of the seminar. Then we will go through the remaining chapters one by one. Each of you will be responsible for "presenting" (more on that below) one of the chapters:

• : Ch. 1: The Matthew Effect
• Mark Gross: Ch. 2: The 10,000 Hour Rule
• Susan Hong: ch. 5: Joe Flom
• Jacqueline Iloh: ch 6: Harlan Kentucky
• Jeehye Kang: Ch 7: Plane crashes
• Steve Mobley: Ch 8: Rice Paddies
• Laura Yee: Ch 9: Marita's Bargain

Each of these chapters includes an engaging narrative (or two). Narratives are an important and sometimes undervalued part of social science. But our task will be to abstract from these stories causal propositions. When you present your chapter (and for the introduction and "Trouble with Geniuses" that we do together), you should try to summarize the main theme as a causal proposition: "X causes Y" or "the more of X then the more of Y". What are the Xs and Ys of each chapter? Because Gladwell's central theme is success, Y is usually some variant of personal success (what we will interpret as position in the stratification system). Once you have identified the main X and Y in the chapter, think about what a plausible counter-proposition might be. What is Gladwell arguing against?

For several of these themes, there will be additional concepts that explain why X causes Y. We will identify these as intervening or explanatory concepts. X causes Y because X causes Z which causes Y. If the chapter has this kind of causal chain, your second objective is to identify these intervening linkages (if present). hen, third, briefly summarize the evidence for this proposition. Two minutes max for each presentation: the point is to abstract the social science from the good stories, not to review all the stories.

Our goals for Wednesday will be:

• to develop the capacity to identify and articulate good causal propositions
• to understand how intervening variables help elaborate the causal analysis
• to identify and evaluate supporting evidence
• to develop an appreciation for public sociology and its special demands beyond the "normal science" we will focus on most of the rest of the semester.

See you Wednesday!