Sociology 571
Fall 2010

143 Grise Hall
 

Professor:  
Douglas Smith
104 Grise Hall Phone:  (270) 745-2152
Department of Sociology Email:  Douglas.Smith@wku.edu
Western Kentucky University Webpage:  www.wku.edu/~Douglas.Smith/
1906 College Heights Blvd. #11057
Bowling Green, KY 42101-1057
Office Hours:  By appointment.

COURSE DESCRIPTION: 

Rural schools formally and informally shape the boundaries of communities and the identity of community members. This course will investigate the interrelationships between rural communities and rural schools. Several recurring questions will be orienting our work for the semester. In what ways do schools shape (or reshape) the structure of communities? How do communities shape (or reshape) the structure of education? How does being "rural" affect the relationships among communities and their educational institutions? What are the challenges that confront the vitality of both rural schools and communities? How have these challenges changed over time, and what are the implications for educators, residents, and public policy makers? This seminar will provide a solid foundation for students interested and/or engaged in educational leadership, and/or research on the relationships between community and education across multiple contexts. The basis of the course is strongly interdisciplinary with material drawing from education, sociology and rural sociology, economics, anthropology, geography and demography. This course is designed as a graduate seminar in which students will take a major responsibility for guiding the class discussion.

COURSE FORMAT: 

This course is a reading-and-discussion course.  Discussions will focus on primary source materials. Each student brings a wide variety of experiences, assumptions and theoretical starting-points and are encouraged to bring thoughtful comments to class and listen to those of others. Students are required to attend all class meetings and come to discussions having already read and thought about the texts.

REQUIRED READING:  

Students are required to purchase Carr, Patrick J. and Maria J. Kefalas. 2009. Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What it Means for America. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. All other readings will be posted to Blackboard.

STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES: 

In compliance with university policy, students with disabilities who require academic and/or auxiliary accommodations for this course must contact the Office for Student Disability Services in Downing University Center, A-200.   The phone number is 270 745 5004.

Please DO NOT request accommodations directly from the professor (Dr. Smith) without a letter of accommodation from the Office for Student Disability Services.

EVALUATION CRITERIA:

I.  Attendance and Participation (15% of final grade): 

Class attendance is mandatory. 

II.  Reading Responses (30% of final grade):

Students should prepare a brief written response (1-2 pages typed, single-spaced) to the weekend's readings for three weekends (of the student’s choosing) out of the four. The written responses are due at the end of the class meeting in which the readings are discussed. I’ll return them the next weekend with brief comments.

I don’t expect these responses to be fully developed essays, but rather my hope is that you will use them to consider the contributions the readings make in advancing our understandings of the relationships between rural schools and rural communities. What are the central issues raised in the various selections and how do they enhance our ability to examine organization and change of rural schools and communities? What are the broader theoretical and/or intellectual connections to readings in other weeks? Where are the points of convergence across the readings? How do the readings challenge each other? In which ways do they suggest areas for needed additional research? These are just suggestions for how you might approach the reading responses. Ultimately, I’m interested in your using these writing assignments to grapple with the content of the course, our discussions, and the connections to your own personal, professional, and academic interests.

Last, please identify at least one discussion question raised by the readings that you would like to see addressed during the class. We will use these questions as our guide for discussion each week.

III. Final Paper (45% of the final grade)

Your final assignment is designed to tie the semester’s readings and discussions together through the development of an paper on a topic of interest to you that enables you to both synthesize the readings of the semester as well as focus on an area related to the topic of rural schools and communities that you find of particular interest or importance. The final paper may also take the form of a prospectus for a research proposal. A paper proposal (1 page) should be submitted to me at the beginning of class on October 30. I also recommend that you talk with me outside of class to discuss this assignment. Your paper should not exceed 20 double-spaced pages (charts, figures, tables and references not included). A hard copy of your final paper will be due Friday, December 17, 2010. Papers may be placed in my mailbox or emailed to me at Douglas.Smith@wku.edu..

IV.  Self-Evaluation (10% of final grade)  

During the last weekend, the student will be asked to perform a self-assessment of their participation in this course. This assessment will be due November 20, 2010.

 

Schedule:

NOTE:  Dates and Course materials may be changed at the professor's discretion.
Weekend I (Sept. 24-25):  Defining the Scope
    What is Education?
Weber, Max. [1946] 1974. "The 'Rationalization' of Education and Training." Pp. 240-244 in From Max Weber, edited by  H.H. Girth and C.W. Mills. New York: Oxford. 

Meyer, John W., David Tyack, Joane Nagel, and Audri Gordon. 1979. "Public Education as Nation-Building in America: Enrollments and Bureaucratization in the American States, 1870-1930." American Journal of Sociology 85: 591-613.

Rubinson, Richard. 1986. "Class Formation, Politics and Institutions: Schooling in the United States." American Journal of Sociology 92:519-48.

Berry, Wendell. 1987. "The Loss of the University." Pp. 76-97 in Home Economics. San Francisco: North Point Press.
Berry, Wendell. 1993. "Preface: The Joy of Sales Resistance." Pp. xi-xxii in Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community. New York: Pantheon.
Epstein, Joyce L. 1996. "New Connections for Sociology and Education: Contributing to School Reform." Sociology of Education Extra Issue:6-23.
Baker, David P. 1999. "Schooling All the Masses: Reconsidering the Origins of American Schooling in the Postbellum Era." Sociology of Education 72:197-215
What does Rural mean anymore?

Atkin, Chris. 2003. "Rural Communities: Human and Symbolic Capital Development, Fields Apart." Compare, 33(4):507-18.

Bell, Michael M. 1992. " The Fruit of Difference: The Rural-Urban Continuum as a System of Identity." Rural Sociology 57(1): 65-82.

Hart, John Fraser. 1995. "'Rural' and 'Farm' No Longer Mean the Same." Pp. 63-76 in The Changing American Countryside: Rural People and Places, edited by E.N. Castle. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.

Berry, Wendell. 2005. "Local Knowledge in the Age of Information." Pp. 113-125 in The Way of Ignorance. New York: Shoemaker and Hoard.

Theobald, Paul and Kathy Wood. 2010. "Learning to Be Rural: Identity Lessons from History, Schooling, and the U.S. Corporate Media." Pp. 17-33 in Rural Education for the Twenty-First Century: Identity, Place, and Community in a Globalizing World, edited by K.A. Schafft and A.Y. Jackson. University Park, PA: Penn State Press.

    Theories on Educational Stratification 
Randall Collins. 1971. "Functional and Conflict Theories on Educational Stratification" American Sociological Review 36(6):1002-19.
DiMaggio, Paul. 1982. "Cultural Capital and School Success: The Impact of Status Culture Participation on the Grades of U.S. High School Students." American Sociological Review 47(2): 189-201.
Nash, Roy. 1990. "Bourdieu on Education and Social and Cultural Reproduction." British Journal of Sociology of Education 11(4):431-47.
Bowles, Samuel and Herbert Gintis. 2002. "Schooling in Capitalist America Revisited." Sociology of Education 75:1-18.
Bozick, Robert, Karl Alexander, Doris Entwisle, Susan Dauber, and Kerri Kerr. 2010. "Framing the Future: Revisiting the Place of Educational Expectations in Status Attainment." Social Forces 88(5):2027-52.

Sidorkin, Alexander M. 2004. "In the Event of Learning: Alienation and Participative Thinking in Education." Educational Theory 54(3):251-62.

    What is Rural Education?

Cubberley, Ellwood P. 1922. Rural life and education: A study of the rural-school problem as a phase of the rural-life problem. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. [Pp. 83-129; 226-235]

Miller, Bruce A. 1993. " Rural Distress and Survival: The School and the Importance of 'Community'." Journal of Research in Rural Education 9(2): 84-103.

Wotherspoon, Terry. 1998. " Education, Place, and the Sustainability of Rural Communities in Saskatchewan." Journal of Research in Rural Education 14(3):131-41.

Bushnell, Mary. 1999. " Imagining Rural Life: Schooling as a Sense of Place." Journal of Research in Rural Education, 15(2): 80-89.

Kannapel, Patricia J. and Alan J. DeYoung. 1999. " The Rural School Problem in 1999: A Review and Critique of the Literature." Journal of Research in Rural Education 15(2): 67-79.

Bauch, Patricia A. 2001. "School-Community Partnerships in Rural Schools: Leadership, Renewal, and a Sense of Place." Peabody Journal of Education 76(2):204-21.

Edmondson, Jacqueline and Thomas Butler. 2010 "Teaching School in Rural America: Toward an Educated Hope." Pp. 150-72 in Rural Education for the Twenty-First Century: Identity, Place, and Community in a Globalizing World, edited by K.A. Schafft and A.Y. Jackson. University Park, PA: Penn State Press.

 

Weekend II (Oct. 15-16):  Looking at Teaching and Learning Sociologically

The Teaching Profession

Apple, Michael. 1983. "Teaching and Women's Work." Occasional Paper No. 25. University of Alberta Department of Secondary Education.

Horn, Jerry G., Patricia Davis, and Robert Hilt. 1985. "Importance of Areas of Preparation for Teaching in Rural/Small Schools." Journal of Research in Rural Education 3(1):23-9.

Ingersoll, Richard M. 2007. "The Status of Teaching as a Profession." Pp. 106-118 in Jeanne H. Ballantine and Joan Z. Spade (Eds.) Schools and Society: A Sociological Approach to Education. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thompson Learning. 

Relationships in Schools
Williams, Trevor. 1976. "Teacher Prophecies and the Inheritance of Inequality." Sociology of Education 49(3):223-36. 
Payne, Rebecca S. 1994. "The Relationship Between Teachers' Beliefs and Sense of Efficacy and Their Significance to Urban LSES Minority Students." Journal of  Negro Education 63(2):181-96.
Ungetheim, Brandon H. 2000. High School Teachers' Perceptions of School-Related Violence: Effects on Fear of Victimization and Perceived Risk. WKU Department of Sociology. Unpublished M.A. Thesis.
Ryan, Allison M. and Helen Patrick. 2001. "The Classroom Social Environment and Changes in Adolescents' Motivation and Engagement During Middle School." American Educational Research Journal 38(2):437-60.
Singh, Kusum and Sandra Dika. 2003. " The Educational Effects of Rural Adolescents’ Social Networks." Journal of Research in Rural Education 18(2):114-28.
Israel, Glenn D. and Lionel J. Beaulieu. 2004. "Laying the Foundation for Employment: The Role of Social Capital in Educational Achievement." The Review of Regional Studies 34(3):260-87.
Jussim, Lee and Kent D. Harber. 2005. "Teacher Expectations and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies: Knowns and Unknowns, Resolved and Unresolved Controversies." Personality and Social Psychology Review 9(2):131-55.

The Structure of Educational Organizations

Jacobson, Stephen L. and Beth Woodworth. 1990. "Preparing Rural Administrators: What Do They Need? What Do They Want?" Journal of Research in Rural Education 6(3):33-42.

Hurley, J. Casey. 1992. "The Organizational Socialization of Rural High School Principals: Teacher Influences." Journal of Research in Rural Education 8(2):20-31.

Friedkin, Noah H. and Slater, Michael R. 1994. "School Leadership and Performance: A Social Network Approach." Sociology of Education 67:139-57.

Ingersoll, Richard M. 1996. "Teachers’ Decision-Making Power and School Conflict." Sociology of Education 69(2):159-76.

Attewell, Paul. 2001. "The Winner-Take All High School: Organizational Adaptations to Educational Stratification." Sociology of Education 74(4):267-95.

Spillane, James P., Tim Hallett, and John B. Diamond. 2003. "Forms of Capital and the Construction of Leadership: Instructional Leadership in Urban Elementary Schools." Sociology of Education 76(1): 1-17.

Brown-Ferrigno, Tricia and Lawrence W. Allen. 2006. "Preparing Principals for High-Need Rural Schools: A Central Office Perspective about Collaborative Efforts to Transform School Leadership." Journal of Research in Rural Education 21(1):1-16.

 

Weekend III (Oct. 29-30):  The Impact of other Sociological Contexts
    Equality of Educational Opportunity 
Coleman, James S. 1967. "The Concept of Equality of Educational Opportunity." 
Nash, Roy. 2004. "Equality of Educational Opportunity: In Defence of a Traditional Concept." Educational Philosophy and Theory 36(4):361-77.
Schutz, Gabriela, Heinrich W. Ursprung, and Ludger Womann. 2008. "Educational Policy and Equality of Opportunity." Kyklos 61(2):279-308.

    Inequality and Class 

Alexander, Karl L., Entwisle, Doris R., and Horsey, Carrie S. 1997. "From First Grade Forward: Early Foundations of High School Dropout." Sociology of Education 70(2): 87-107.

Khattri, Nidhi, Kevin W. Riley, and Michael B. Kane. 1997. " Students at Risk in Poor, Rural Areas: A Review of the Research." Journal of Research in Rural Education, 13(2), 79-100.

Reeves, Edward B. 2003. "Disentangling the Effects of Nonmetro Location and Student Poverty on School Performance/Improvement: Implications for Equitable Excellence in Kentucky Public Schools." Journal of Research in Rural Education 18(1):17-30.

Downey, Douglas B., Paul T. von Hippel, and Beckett A. Broh. 2004. “Are Schools the Great Equalizer? Cognitive Inequality during the Summer Months and the School Year.” American Sociological Review 69(5):613-35.

Smith, D. Clayton. 2006. "Appalachian and Rural Student Performance Differences on Kentucky's Educational Assessment: 8th Grade Results." Southern Rural Sociology 21(2):47-64.

Southern Education Foundation. 2010. The Worst of Times: Children in Extreme Poverty in the South and Nation. Atlanta, GA: Southern Education Foundation.

Howley, Craig and Aimee Howley. 2010. "Poverty and School Achievement in Rural Communities: A Social Class Interpretation." Pp. 34-50 in Rural Education for the Twenty-First Century: Identity, Place, and Community in a Globalizing World, edited by K.A. Schafft and A.Y. Jackson. University Park, PA: Penn State Press.

Schafft, Kai A., Kieran M. Killeen, and John Morrissey. 2010. "The Challenges of Student Transiency for Rural Schools and Communities in the Era of No Child Left Behind." Pp. 95-114 in Rural Education for the Twenty-First Century: Identity, Place, and Community in a Globalizing World, edited by K.A. Schafft and A.Y. Jackson. University Park, PA: Penn State Press.

Inequality and Race 

Ogbu, John U. 1990. "Minority Education in Comparative Perspective." The Journal of Negro Education 59(1):45-57. 

Ainsworth-Darnell, James W. and Douglas B. Downey. 1998. "Assessing the Oppositional Culture Explanation for Racial/Ethnic Differences in School Performance." American Sociological Review 63(4): 536-53. 

Orfield, Gary and John T. Yun. 1999. "Resegregation in American Schools."  

Downey, Douglas and Shana Pribesh. 2004. “When Race Matters: Teachers' Evaluations of Students' Classroom Behavior.” Sociology of Education. 77:267-82.

Neal-Barnett, Angela, Robert Stadulis, Nicolle Singer, Marsheena Murray, and Jessica Demmings. 2010. "Assessing the Effects of Experiencing the Acting White Accusation." Urban Review 42:102-22.

Inequality and Gender 

Durbin, Nancy E. and Lori Kent. 1989. "Postsecondary Education of White Women in 1900." Sociology of Education 62(1): 1-13.

Mickelson, Roslyn A. 1989. "Why Does Jane Read and Write So Well? The Anomaly of Women's Achievement." Sociology of Education 62(1):47-63. 

Felson, Richard B. and Lisa Trudeau. 1991. "Gender Differences in Mathematics Performance." Social Psychology Quarterly 54(2):113-26.

Ding, Cody S., Kim Song, and Lloyd I. Richardson. 2006. "Do Mathematical Gender Differences Continue? A Longitudinal Study of Gender Difference and Excellence in Mathematics Performance in the U.S." Educational Studies 40(3):279-95.

 

Weekend IV (Nov. 19-20):  Where do we go from here?

    Coming Trends: Hispanic Immigration
Fry, R. 2003. Hispanic Youth Dropping Out of U.S. Schools: Measuring the Challenge. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center.
Bohon, Stephanie A., Heather Macpherson, and Jorge H. Atiles. 2005. "Education Barriers for New Latinos in Georgia." Journal of Latinos and Education 4(1):43-58.
Stamps, Katherine and Stephanie A. Bohon. 2006. "Educational Attainment in New and Established Latino Metropolitan Destinations." Social Science Quarterly 87(5):1225-40.

    Human Capital, Migration and the Survival of Rural Communities

Hektner, J.M. 1995. "When Moving Up Implies Moving Out: Rural Adolescent Conflict in the Transition to Adulthood." Journal of Research in Rural Education 11(1):3-14.

Howley, Craig B., Hobart L. Harmon, & Gregory D. Leopold. 1996. "Rural Scholars or Bright Rednecks? Aspirations for a Sense of Place among Rural Youth in Appalachia." Journal of Research in Rural Education, 12(3):150-60.

Carr, Patrick J. and Maria J. Kefalas. 2009. Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What it Means for America. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

McDonough, Patricia M., R. Evely Gildersleeve, and Karen McClafferty Jarsky. 2010. "The Golden Cage of Rural College Access: How Higher Education Can Responde to the Rural Life." Pp. 191-209 in Rural Education for the Twenty-First Century: Identity, Place, and Community in a Globalizing World, edited by K.A. Schafft and A.Y. Jackson. University Park, PA: Penn State Press.

    School Accountability and School Mobilty
Astin, Alexander W. 1992. "Educational 'Choice': Its Appeal May be Illusory." Sociology of Education 65(4): 255-260.
Coleman, James S. 1992. "Some Points on Choice in Education." Sociology of Education 65(4): 260-62.
DeYoung, Alan J.and Craig B. Howley. 1992. " The Political Economy of Rural School Consolidation." 
Witte, John F. 1995. "Three Critical Factors in the School Choice Debate." Social Science Quarterly 76:502-505.
Lyson, Thomas A. 2002. " What Does a School Mean to a Community? Assessing the Social and Economic Benefits of Schools to Rural Villages in New York." Journal of Research in Rural Education 17(3):131-7.
Woodrum, Arlie. 2004."State-Mandated Testing and Cultural Resistance in Appalachian Schools: Competing Values and Expectations." Journal of Research in Rural Education 19(1): 1-10.

Beck, Frank D and Grant W. Shoffstall 2005. " How Do Rural Schools Fare Under a High Stakes Testing Regime?" Journal of Research in Rural Education 20(14): 1-12.

Goetz, Stephan J. 2005. " Random Variation in Student Performance by Class Size: Implications for NCLB in Rural Pennsylvania." Journal of Research in Rural Education, 20(13): 1-8.
Renzulli, Linda A. and Lorraine Evans. 2005. "School Choice, Charter Schools, and White Flight." Social Problems 52(3):398-418.

Paige, Rod. 2006. No Child Left Behind: The Ongoing Movement for Public Education Reform. Harvard Educational Review 76(4):461-73.

The Future of Rural Schools and Communities 

Arnold, Michael L., John H. Newman, Barbara B. Gaddy, and Ceri B. Dean. 2005. "A Look at the Condition of Rural Education Research: Setting a Direction for Future Research." Journal of Research in Rural Education 20(6):1-25.

Gruenewald, David. 2006. "Resistance, Reinhabitation, and Regime Change." Journal of Research in Rural Education 21(9):1-7.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

All students are expected to act with civility, personal integrity; respect other students' dignity, rights and property; and help create and maintain an environment in which all can succeed through the fruits of their own efforts. An environment of academic integrity is requisite to respect for self and others and a civil community. Academic integrity includes a commitment to not engage in or tolerate acts of falsification, misrepresentation or deception. Such acts of dishonesty include cheating or copying, plagiarizing, submitting another persons' work as one's own, using Internet sources without citation, fabricating field data or citations, "ghosting" (taking or having another student take an exam), stealing examinations, tampering with the academic work of another student, facilitating other students' acts of academic dishonesty, etc. Students charged with a breach of academic integrity will receive due process and, if the charge is found valid, academic sanctions may range, depending on the severity of the offense, from F for the assignment to F for the course.


© 2010, Douglas Clayton Smith
Last Revised: 09/09/10.