California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Latest update: January 13, 2000
Faculty on the Site.
Site Index

Back to Sociology of Women Exercises, Answers, and Readings
BACK to Dear Habermas Home

Sociology 334-01
Jeanne Curran, Ph.D., Esq.
M-W 2:30-3:45 p.m., SBS D 225
Fall 1998

Course Objective: To review the literature of women from both the critical and the connservative perspectives. To establish some format for definitions of feminism, for feminist methodology, and to review a broad rage of recent studies.

Course Teaching Style: We use narrative teaching, which emphasizes interaction in learning. Narrative teaching means:

1. Taking the time to tell the stories of our lives as they affect and are affected by what we are learning, in this case, gender.
2. Listening to the stories of other lives , and sometimes, other peoples, (men, too) and the effects that what we are learning has on them.
3. Drawing conclusions that take into consideration the context and the situatedness of the story.
4. Remembering that other stories may be entirely different from ours, and that ultimately our stories are all interdependent.
5. Recognizing that our conclusions will be different one from the other, as are our belief systems, and the stories of our lives that reflect those beliefs. And remembering that we often assume that all our stories are the same. (Wicked little unstated assumptions.)
6. In some theories we say that reality is socially and culturally defined, and that may be so, according to your beliefs. Or it may be that you have other beliefs, based on other experiences in your life. Our stories still interdependently define the social responses and the social relationships of our everyday lives against the background of whatever reality there is, according to your beliefs.
7. Narrative teaching simply sets our learning within a framework that encourages telling and listening to narrative in good faith, the better to hear the validity claims behind those narratives and the better to incorporate our learning into our lives.

Course Requirements:

• Texts and Resources:

  • Required: Goldberger, Nanncy, et al., Knowledge, Difference, and Power. Basic Books. 1996.
  • Required: Information and resources from the Dear Habermas site.

• Assessment Techniques:

  1. Feedback and practice
     Feedback from material, so that we are all clear you understand it: Multiple choice and 25 words or less answers in tests on the Web site. E-mail or use Web Board.
     Creative responses against a contextual background. Questions like: What does Marilyn French mean when she says that feminism challenges men in their self-definition. Answers short. But critical thought required.

  2. Midterm and Final Taken from Exercises Already Completed by Class.

  3. Individualized, Interactive Project for the Course: The Project allows you to define the needs you have for including this learning in your reading, college work, and more general lifetime learning. You need to establish with the teacher what directions you would like to take in your learning and how that will be measured to both your and the teacher's satisfaction.

  4. Component Parts that must be in the Project or in your assignments:

     1. Citation and inclusion of sources from Knowledge, Difference, and Power.
     2. Citation and inclusion of sources from Dear Habermas.
     3. Citation and inclusion of sources from the Internet, with accompanying evaluations.
     4. Citation and innclusion of a library source.

  Grading:

  1. Continuity of evidence of performance. Whatever else you do, you must submit your work in some continuous pattern over the course of the semester. There are no late penalties on assignments. This is a course in which you will need to adapt the materials to your own pace. But there must be a pace! I will not accept a mass of work turned in at the last minute. That approach does not encourage narrative learning and discourse.

  2. Assignments and tests. These will be posted on the Web site for this class. So will the answers after a reasonable period of time. Anyone who does the work, as required, over the course of the semester, can correct any incorrect submissions, and can consequently earn maximum points. That provides a base of a C+ for the course.

  3. Projects. Project grades will provide that extra evidence of learning that will earn As and Bs. Choose one that will let you do what you want to do. Begin it early. Get teacher approval for what will give you the grade you want to earn. Then work on it over the semester until you have earned the grade you want.

  Office: SBS B 326, Telephone: 310-243-3831

  Monday, Wednesday - 10:45 to 11:30 a.m., 12:45 to 2:30 p.m., and by appointment.

  Because we are still largely a commuter college, and because most of our students have family and job commitments, these hours will not meet all our needs. We will discuss within the first couple of weeks patterns of additional possibilities that will work for all of us.

  It is important for both teacher and student that we find the time to continue our dialog outside the classroom and the assignments. Narrative teaching requires that I know you, that I know your story. That helps me to teach you, and it will expand your opportunities to make the teaching fit you. It is through this dialog that you will be able to define a project that works for you, share in process texts, and move more effectively toward your goals.

  Readings and Assignments:

  Assignment 1 - August 31, 1998
  Sign up for e-mail, since you will need to communicate with me through e-mail.
  Read Introduction to Knowledge, Difference, and Power.
  

  Discussion questions:

  1. Do the five perspectives on knowing described in Woemn's Ways of Knowing (WWK), form stages, each one a little higher than those preceding it?
  2. Habermas speaks of tension in the law between norms and facts. How is this tension reflected in the self-community problems of knowing?

     Next reading: "Reconfiguring Teaching and Knowing in the College Classroom"
     

     Discussion: Why should we need to think about how we think? See p. 33.

     ---

     Faculty on the Site.
     

     ---

     ---

     Back to Top of Page
     BACK to Dear Habermas Home