2. Click on Academics/Research.

3. Click on Academic Units

4. You will now be in the College of Arts and Sciences home page

5. Scroll down to the Department of Social Science and click.

6. Scroll down to Sociology/Social Work (387) and click.

7. Scroll down to Instructor's Home Pages and click on my name

8. Find our course, Social Problems, and click on Outline or Questions

• •I have created a list serve for this course so that I can e-mail timely messages to the entire class. You must subscribe to this list serve sending and email; access your Stout e-mail account and then click on "New Message"; when the new message window comes up, insert in the "To" box the following address: join-socprobs@listserve.uwstout.edu and then click "Send".

Course Description

Social Problems is a sociological examination of selected social problems, primarily those found in and warranting concern in our society. Some of the selected social problems are more micro-level such as drug use and some are more macro-level such as social inequality.

Course Organization

The course will consist of about seven topics, an introduction, and six-seven selected social problem areas (see outline). We will spend approximately two weeks on each topic, and each topic will require you to read one chapter of the text (see outline)⁽¹⁾. On the last day devoted to a topic, you will participate in a group discussion assignment and then take a quiz.

Question Sheets

I have constructed "question sheets" to guide your reading assignments. Your use of these sheets is completely optional but your quizzes and discussion assignments will be based on these questions as well as material presented in lectures (and not covered by these question sheets). These questions are all based on your text and that part of the text I talk about in class; however, for each topic I do introduce new material in lecture and I don't as of yet of study questions for this material. You are, of course, responsible for this lecture material, as well These questions also form the basis for earning extra credit (see extra credit, below). The question sheets are available on my website for this course, listed under "Questions" and identified by chapter.

Requirements

• Quizzes. There will be seven quizzes, one for each of the seven topics, administered on the last day devoted to a topic/chapter. You will be given a quiz approximately every two weeks. Each quiz will consist of ten multiple choice and four short answer questions and will total forty points. These quizzes, of which the lowest will be dropped, will comprise about thirty percent of your grade.



• Group discussion assignments. Early in the semester the class will be divided into relatively permanent discussion groups of three or four students. These groups will be used in the bi-weekly discussion assignments. As indicated above, these groups will be used at the end of a topic to answer questions and discuss issues related to that topic. Discussion assignment sheet will be handed, completed by students in the discussion group, and turned in at the end of class. Some of these questions will be specific and based on the question sheets and will serve as a means of reviewing for the quiz to follow; some of the questions will be more general and will call for students to form and express informed opinions on some of the issues related to the topic. We will have about six of these discussions with the lowest being dropped. Students will receive a group grade and this assignment will comprise about ten percent of your grade.



• Research project. Each student will develop a project around a social problem topic that is not one of the focus topics discussed in class (see the course outline for a list of the course problem topics). These topics will be assigned/OK'D by me. During the first couple of weeks of the class, we will, as a class, discuss possible topics for this paper . The project report will include a social history of the problem, statistics about the current extent of the problem, the social policy debate (including specific information on opposing policy positions) surrounding the problem, and some future projections. Each report will include a list of references (including websites) relevant to the topic. The paper should be at least eight pages in length This project will comprise twenty eight percent of your grade. The sub-assignments leading up to the completion of the report will include: selection of the problem topic (week 2), a list of references (week 4), and an outline of the topic (week 7), and the completion of the written report (week 12, Friday, November 22). Depending on time, we may have some oral reports for this assignment.

• Write a letter to your representatives

I want you to get involved in addressing a problem you feel strongly about by writing a one page letter to your state and or federal representatives(s). Research the topic and include information in your letter as well as opinion. The American Civil Liberties Union online http://www.aclu.org/action/tips.html has a lot of information on social problems and also features designed to help you on writing government officials including finding your senator and representative at http://scorecard.aclu.org/.

The CQ Researcher is a database with a huge amount of information on social problems and will help you gain information about your issue; this database is available online through the Stout Library website.

• On the library website, click on Indexes, articles and database.
• Click on Alphabetical List of Databases
• Scroll down to databases beginning with the letter 'C'
• Choose CQ Researcher

This assignment will be worth ten points or about 2% of your grade.

• Extra credit

• Class discussion: participation in class through asking or answering questions or providing examples of material being discussed can earn a class member up to six extra credit points.
• Question sheets: Up to four completed question sheets can be turned in at the end of the semester, and these count up to a maximum of three points for each completed set of sheets, for a total of twelve extra credit points. Note: this opportunity is only available for those who have missed five or fewer classes.



• Attendance

Class lectures and discussions are an important part of the course and, for that reason, attendance will be taken and poor attendance may affect your grade. Specifically, if you miss more than seven classes, for whatever reasons, your course grade will be reduced one "level" (with levels being A, A-,B+,B, etc.). Note that "legitimate" absences must come from within the seven permitted absences.

• Final

A take home essay final exam will be assigned during the last week of the semester and will comprise ten percent of your grade

Grades

Distribution Quizzes(43%) Discussion(13%) Project(28%) Final(14%) Letter(2%)

(Each of 6) (Each of 7)

A 90% 36 9 142 72 11

B+ 85% 34 134 68

B 77% 31 7 122 62 9

C+ 72% 29 114 58

C 65% 26 6 84 52 8

D+ 60% 24 77 48

D 52% 21 5 67 42 6

Total Points 240 72 158 80 12

Course Outline

Weed Topic Reading/Chapters

1&2 Introduction 1&2

3&4 Prostitution, Homosexuality and Porn. 3

5&6 Alcohol and Other Drugs 4

7&8 Rape and Murder 5

9&10 Crime 6

11&12 Wealth and Poverty & Group Projects 7

13&14 Race and Ethnic Problems 8

Evaluation Week , Thursday, December 19, 8:00-9:50:

Text: All reading assignments are for the textbook, Social Problems, 5^th Edition, by James M. Henslin. There is a companion website for this textbook (www.prenhall.com/henslin) and at that website you can find materials to help you in this course; specifically: chapter objectives, online quizzes, essay questions, WWW resources including Web Destinations and Net Search tools, a chat room and message board.

1. The first topic, the Introduction, will require two chapters.