SOCIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF GUIDANCE

Instructor

My name is Bill Bailey, and my office is in room 321 of Harvey Hall. My phone extension is 2226; my home phone is 235-0510. My E-Mail address is BaileyB,

I have a Web site and the address is uwstout.edu/socsci/bailey, but it would probably be easier to find this site using the following directions.

Find UW-Stout's home page, uw-stout.edu (almost all campus computers available to students will be on this home page when you turn the computers on).

Click on Academics/Research.

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

Scroll down to the Department of Social Science and click.

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

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

Find our course, Sociology 387-710 and click on Outline or Questions

If you click on questions are looking for the topical study questions, you simply identify the appropriate topic and click on that topic.

Course Organization

The course is divided into three parts. The first part consists of a presentation of a sociological perspective called symbolic interactionism. This material will be presented in the typical lecture-discussion method, and student performance will be evaluated by a take-home test (see below) to be handed in at the end of the class. The second part will be a seminar with you, the students, reading, "logging" and presenting articles (see below). In the third part of this course, during the last class meetings, students, will give oral presentations of the short term papers. See the outline below for the schedule of these activities.

Requirements

Part I

As indicated above, the "first" part of the course will be capped by a test on the reading and lectures-discussions. This test, a take home test, will consist of identification items and will count about one-half of the course grade. The instructions for the test are as follows.

First select 8 of the concepts introduced in the lectures and the readings (at least 4 of these terms must have a reading reference) that you regard as the most important, treat them in descending order of importance. Indicate, in some theoretical detail and using examples where appropriate, (1)what the concept is; (2)what potential relevance it has for the practice of counseling.

You may write your answers satisfying both requirements together, defining the term and indicating its counseling-related significance. Or, you may discuss each concept and then, satisfy the second requirement in a separate, more general, essay.

Part II

For each of the selected seminar topics (see below and including deviance, youth and drugs, the "special" child, cross-cultural counseling, gender issues and counseling, counseling along the life cycle, death and bereavement counseling, and counseling and the family) you will select an article, read the article, "log" the article and be prepared to give an oral presentation of the article. Neither these articles or their presentation need have anything to do with symbolic interactionism, but it would be nice if the theory was occasionally incorporated. At the completion of the course you will turn in a log of the articles. This log should consist of the author, title, notes and/or summary of the article and a critique. Both the presentation/discussion and the logged article on which it is based will be graded, but, with significant lapses as an exception, the grading scheme will be generous. This will comprise about one-quarter of your grade.

You must select an article from the professional journals in the counseling and related disciplinary fields. For example, an article about gender roles that has no particular reference to counseling or related fields will be unacceptable. The selected article, of course, should pertain to the topic assigned for that particular day. The following journals would be those most likely to contain relevant articles. Of course, professional journals not on this list will also be accepted.

Counselor Education and Supervision

Counseling and Human Development

The Counseling Psychologist

Counseling and Values

Elementary School Guidance and Counseling

Exceptional Children

Gifted Children Quarterly

Guidance Clinic

Journal of Counseling and Development (previously, Personnel and Guidance Journal)

Journal of Counseling Psychology

Journal of Divorce

Journal of Employment Counseling

Journal of Learning Disabilities

Journal of Marriage and Family Counseling

Journal of Mental Health Counseling (previously, AMHCA Journal)

Measurement and Evaluation in Guidance

School Counselor

Vocational Guidance Quarterly

In general, more recent articles are to be preferred. If you have a question about the appropriateness of any particular article or journal, check with me.

Part III

Write a two-three page paper: The theme of this paper is how a topic in counseling can be informed by the symbolic interactionist perspective. First, choose a topic; the best topic would be your Plan B or Field Experience topic or something of interest to you. Failing that, any counseling topic will do; you could select one of the seminar topics as well. Simply, describe the topic, briefly discuss the relevant aspects of the theory, and apply the theory to the topic. This paper is not intended as a research paper requiring an extensive bibliography but some reading about your chosen topic is expected.

The last couple of times this course was taught selected topics included: Symbolic Interactionism and: social work, eating disorders, vocational rehabilitation, the counselor's role, adult transitions, teacher perceptions of school counselors, portfolios, touching, character building education, career education, and the importance of rituals in counseling interaction, teenage alcohol use, infidelity, poverty, adolescent depression, "alphabet child deviance", counselor-client interaction, emotional disabilities in children, career counseling, and death counseling.

Attendance

Much of the theory of Symbolic Interactionism will be presented in class and, in addition, over half of class time will be in seminar group discussions; therefore, its absolutely necessary that class be attended. Missing more than one class is likely to reduce your grade.

Course Schedule

TIME PERIOD LECTURE READING SEM.TOPIC

First Friday

October 16

6:00-10:00 Intro To Theory Chps 3,4,5

Symbols

First Sat.

October 17

8:00-10:00 Interaction Chps 8,9,10

10:00-12:00 Deviance

1:00- 2:00 Self Chps 6 &7

2:00- 4:00 Drugs,etc.

Second Fri

October 30

6:00- 8:00 Self

8:00-10:00 Special Child

Second Sat.

October 31

8:00-10:00 Stigma

10:00-12:00 Cross-Cult

Counseling

1:00- 2:00 Stigma

2:00- 4:00 Gender Issues

Third Fri.

November 13

6:00- 8:00 Deviance Chap 11

8:00-10:00 Life Cycle

Third Sat.

November 14

8:00-10:00 Deviance

10:00-12:00 Death

1:00- 2:00 Childhood HO

2:00- 4:00 The Family

Fourth Fri.

November 20

6:00- 8:00 Adulthood

8:00-10:00 Term Paper

Fourth Sat.

November 21

8:00-10:00 The Aged

10:00-12:00 Term Paper

1:00- 4:00 Gender Term Paper

READING

The chapters indicated under the head "Reading" refer to the text, Symbolic Interactionism: An Introductions, and Interpretation, and Integration, by Joel Charon. The reading assignments for the first weekend can, obviously, not be read ahead of time. The reading can be done any time prior to your completing the take-home exam. There is not a 1-to-1` correspondence between the readings and the lecture topics; the readings are to be regarded as a supplement and the text, as a future professional resource. HO refers to the reading handout, and you'll notice some lecture topics do not carry any reading assignment

CLARIFICATIONS: Seminar Topics

Below is an expanded description of seminar topics.

Deviance This is to include deviance that is not included

in the category drug and/or alcohol abuse; included would be deviance related to sexual orientation, juvenile delinquency, eating disorders, social consequences of psycho pathologies. The supposed pathologies involved in "conduct disorder", anger and aggression would also be appropriate.

Moral Reasoning I think moral reasoning and/or character building would make an interesting topic, but I'm not sure how widely its addressed in the literature and so am not assigning it as a seminar topic, but of any of you would want to take a stab at finding an article on this topic, go for it. It could, perhaps, be best discussed during our "deviance" session.

Drug and Alcohol Abuse Self evident

The Special Child Various "alphabet children", learning

disorders, gifted and talented children, etc.

Cross-Cultural Counseling Self evident

Counseling and Gender Issues Self evident

The Life Cycle This would include the special issues relating to counseling youth, adults, middle aged persons, or the elderly

Death This is basically bereavement counseling

Family This topic is to be about family issues such as changes in the family, non-traditional families, dual career families, adoptions, blended families, etc.