UNIT 1. Culture

Part A. Modern, Traditional, and Unusual Cultures

1. The Kindness of Strangers, Robert V. Levine, American Scientist, May/June 2003

Robert V. Levine examines one aspect of culture, the willingness to help strangers. From the perspective of many different places, he examines place characteristics that influence helping behavior. Density is a big factor as is area of the country.

2. The Mountain People, Colin M. Turnbull, Intellectual Digest, April 1973

Colin Turnbull tells the amazing story of the Ik tribe which had to move to a new environment and then disintegrated as a culture and society. This story reveals the degradation that can happen to societies and to humans.

Part B. American Culture and Cultural Change

3. More Moral, David Whitman, The New Republic, February 22, 1999

According to David Whitman, the much-discussed moral decline of America thesis turns out to be false, since numerous indicators of moral trends have been positive or steady for a decade or two.

4. American Culture Goes Global, or Does It?, Richard Pells, The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 12, 2002

Richard Pells challenges the thesis that the culture of America is Americanizing the world. He points out that much of American culture is imported. American culture has spread throughout the world because it has incorporated foreign styles and ideas.

5. What’,s So Great About America?, Dinesh D’,Souza, The American Enterprise, April/May 2002

As an immigrant Dinesh D’,Souza can see America both as an outsider and an insider so he is able to identify many wonderful aspects of America that amaze and attract foreigners. He emphasizes the sense of equality and the freedom of choice in addition to the wealth that even the poor have.

UNIT 2. Socialization and Social Control

Part A. Influences on Personality and Behavior

6. What Makes You Who You Are, Matt Ridley, Time, June 2, 2003

Matt Ridley reviews the latest science on the nature versus nurture debate. Both are important and we are slowly coming to understand how they interact.

7. The New Sex Scorecard, Hara Estroff Marano, Psychology Today, July/August 2003

As everyone knows, men and women are different. Recent research has greatly increased our understanding of the differences and Hara Estroff Marano reviews these differences including mental, sexual, health, emotional, and psychological.

Part B. Crime, Law Enforcement, and Social Control

8. The Criminal Menace: Shifting Global Trends, Gene Stephens, The Futurist, May/June 2003

Gene Stephens describes crime trends throughout the world. Overall crime rates in the United States were the highest in the Western world in 1980 but have fallen in the United States and increased in many other nations so that several Western countries now have higher rates. Nevertheless, the U.S. murder rate is still the highest. The author also reviews the competing explanations for the crime decline in the U.S.

9. Parents or Prisons, Jennifer Roback Morse, Policy Review, August/September 2003

A key role of parents is to help a child develop a conscience and self control. Two loving married parents do this job the best. Single parenthood increases the probability that a child will end up in the criminal justice system at some point in his/her life. This article shows that society pays serious social costs for the failure of many marriages.

10. Enough Is Enough, Clifton Leaf, Fortune, March 18, 2002

Clifton Leaf describes the prevalence, impacts, and punishment of white collar crime with an emphasis on securities and commodities fraud. The shocking facts are that few white collar criminals go to jail, when jailed they serve short sentences, and they steal hundreds of times what street criminals steal.

UNIT 3. Groups and Roles in Transition

Part A. Family, Marriage, and Divorce

11. The American Family, Stephanie Coontz, Life, November 1999

Stephanie Coontz explains that modern families are better than the way the media portray them and that the families of the past were probably worse. She corrects many myths about the modern family with many underreported facts.

12. Divorce and Cohabitation: Why We Don’,t Marry, James Q. Wilson, Current, June 2002

Despite its title, this article focuses on the shocking increase in the proportion of mothers who are unmarried. In explaining this phenomenon, James Q. Wilson examines the role of welfare which he argues is small. The big cause is cultural change which removes the stigma of welfare and of unmarried motherhood and weakens the moral underpinnings of marriage. He also shows how the children suffer from these changes.

13. The Parent Trap, Karen Kornbluh, The Atlantic Monthly, January/February 2003

Karen Kornbluh describes the time pressures that affect the 70 percent of families with children which are headed by two working parents today. Our society and its institutions and attitudes have not adjusted to the new family realities. Kornbluh discusses policies that are needed to address the resulting issues.

Part B. Sex, Gender, and Gender Roles

14. Now for the Truth About Americans and Sex, Philip Elmer-Dewitt, Time, October 17, 1994

The author reviews the findings of the most reliable large-scale survey of