Sociology Newsletter
Winter 1997
I am delighted to greet the UM-St. Louis sociology community as 1996 comes to its
close. I am equally delighted to report that "the department is thriving." Our
faculty has been extraordinarily productive. Our undergraduate enrollment continued its
steady path of growth since 1986 - with a percentage change doubling that of the combined
College of Arts and Sciences (58% vs.29%). Our graduate program attracts more and
better-qualified students.
1995-96 has been a busy, complex, successful time. We were vigorously involved in curricular changes, examining our undergraduate "advising" program, rethinking emphasis areas of the department in light of ongoing changes in the Social Sciences within the Arts and Science College. Other members of the department will report about some of these activities in detail.
The growth in student interest in sociology in recent years has been supported to some
extent by the introduction of new courses and a joint Baccalaureate Degree with
Engineering. One such course is the Social Psychology of Disability, others are Society
and Technology, and Leadership and Management in Nonprofit Organizations. Sociology
continues on the cutting edge of extending service to the community. Our courses on The
Sociology of Health, Social Gerontology, and the Sociology of Minority Groups continue in
this spirit to bring sociological insight to future professionals in the helping services.
The department also continued its collaboration with sociologists staffing the departments
of Criminology and Criminal Justice and Social Work through offering cross-listed courses.
See Chair's Message on pg. 5
The Department of Sociology has been developing a dynamic presence on the World Wide
Web. We were one of the first in College of Arts and Sciences to publish a web page, and
our work has been used as model for many others. Over the past six months we have had over
2400 visits, and many of our faculty play host to even more "virtual guests."
Highlights on the web page:
Visit our HomePage at http://www.umsl.edu/~sociolog/ and watch us grow!
How Can A Paroled Inmate Go Straight?
July 8, 1996
Imagine, if you can, that you have just been released from prison on parole. During your incarceration you did everything you possibly could to rehabilitate yourself. For example, you obtained a bachelor of science degree [in sociology through UM-St. Louis], became computer literate and enrolled in and successfully completed any and all rehabilitative and therapeutic programs offered at the prison where you were incarcerated.
You are "free" now. You feel you possess some marketable skills. But every job you really want - the ones that offer meaningful pay and opportunity -- is out of reach. Eventually you find a job that uses your skills but does not offer what you feel is adequate compensation or opportunities for advancement. You are stuck.
The scenario I have described, while not entirely fictional, illustrates the predicament ex-offenders find themselves in once they are paroled. Actually the illustration is somewhat atypical since most parolees do not possess a college degree or marketable skills. However, the same process, on another level, holds true.
Ex-offenders at whatever educational or job-skill level are told by their parole officers that they must find work. A few are fortunate enough to have family or friends who will hire them. The overwhelming majority will find jobs but these jobs can in no way be described as meaningful, and once there the parolee will find that he or she will confront not a glass ceiling but a concrete one. It will make no difference if the parolee is educated, possesses marketable skills or has none. He or she is stigmatized for life.
As soon as a potential employer reads a job application and finds that a person has a prison record, the applicant all too often is reduced in the employer's mind from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one. I maintain that a person's reaction to people possessing a stigma of some find is influenced by the common theories we have regarding the nature of that stigma. We come to believe that the ex-offender, then, is not quite human. This assumption causes us to indulge in various discriminating actions, through which we effectively, sometimes unthinkingly, reduce his or her life chances.
Many of us, whether consciously or unconsciously, go on to construct a theory, an ideology if you will, to explain and justify the stigmatized person's perceived inferiority and account for the danger he or she represents. we justify our actions by telling ourselves that this or that person is a criminal who is worthy of our contempt and wariness.
Stigmas based on defects in character are like all other types. The person who has acquired a spoiled identity--the one with the character defect--is forced to develop strategies to manage or minimize his or her spoiled identity.
Let us assume that the person I am describing is an ideal type, i.e. he has not repeated his mistakes and seriously wants to go straight. Let us further assume that he has the education and marketable skills necessary to find meaningful employment. This person however, is still frustrated whenever he attempts to advance beyond whatever meager job he has been able to obtain. A stigma does not determine the type of performance required of the person having it, but it does help determine the extent to which a person will have to accept whatever role is given. The likelihood, then, is great that this person will be coerced into a social performance that sets him or her at a disadvantage.
Such a person will be confronted with a fundamental contradiction: He has paid his debt to society yet society will not forget. He is told by the authorities that he must work, but that the only jobs available are those that are either beneath his abilities or those that make use of them but exploit him. At this point, many will revert to crime, but for those who choose to pursue the American dream, a cruel set of options then begins to emerge: McJob vs. No Job, frustrated aspirations vs. the recidivistic impulse, and the seemingly never ending debt to society vs. one's debt to oneself.
I recognize, of course, that many people will say that the ex-con deserves whatever he gets. Unfortunately, our society is rife with people who hold such sentiments. Even more unfortunately is the fact that our streets are filled with ex-offenders. Many of them would like nothing better than to put the past behind them and move on to a positive life style. The vast majority will, however, fail.
Their failures may be because of their criminal practices, i.e., they are truly committed to a criminal lifestyle. However, there will be others who truly want and deserve a break. society may pay ultimately for the frustration these people feel.
What happens to a dream deferred? Langston Hughes posed this questions in the context
of racial oppression, yet the answer suggested by him, it seems to me is quite relevant.
Does it wither and die or fester and explode? It is my belief that until society provides
equal opportunity to all qualified individuals, all too often it will be the latter.
Harry Little
BS Sociology 1989
Student Reaction
Being a registered nurse and a returning student majoring in Sociology, Social Psychology of Disabilities interested me as I plan to continue my education in some area of Medical Sociology in graduate school. this course also offered me the opportunity to complete a practicum in sociology while obtaining a closer examination of attitudes and behaviors affecting persons with disabilities.
Using two texts, Goffman's classic Stigma (1963) and Mithaug's Equal Opportunity Theory
(1996), along with various other social psychological theories, our class explored the
myths of stereotypes surrounding the disabled person. Social perceptions influence our
attitudes toward the disabled; and our class used Affect Control Theory, with the aid of
INTERACT, a computer program, to predict various aspects of studying and gaining a better
understanding of social interactions.
Alynna Fricke
current student BA Sociology
Gretchen Arnold, adjunct assistant professor of sociology taught during the winter
semester a graduate coursing in Political Sociology using the new interactive video
technology on campus. This system enabled six UM-Kansas City graduate students to
participate simultaneously with eight UMSL graduate students in the course taught on the
St. Louis campus.. In spite of the few instances in which the technology did not work
quite as planned, in the end it not only enabled us to offer the course but also gave the
students at the two campuses the opportunity to get to know one another. Dr. Arnold also
reports that the UM-St. Louis graduate students compared quite favorably to our own.
Chikako Usui, assistant professor of sociology, obtained her Ph.D. in sociology from
Stanford University in 1988. Her research interests include comparative government
policies, including the analysis of the nature and structure of government, its linkages
to the market, the nexus of policy and legislation, and the social consequences of
government policies. Some current publications are: "Corporate Restructuring:
Converging World Pattern or Societally Specific Embeddedness?" (with R.A. Colignon)
in The Sociological Quarterly, vol. 37, no. 4, 1996; "Social
Policies for the Elderly in the Republic of Korea and Japan: A Comparative
Perspective" (with H. Palley) in Social Policy and Administration,
vol. 29, no 3 (pp. 241-257), 1995: "Government Elities and Amakudari in Japan,
1963-19092" (with R.A. Colignon ) in Asian Survey, vol. 35, no. 7
(pp. 682-698), 1995; "The Social Structure of Japanese Intellectural Property
Law" (with D. Rosen) in U.C.L.A. Pacific Basin Law Journal, vol. 13,
no. 1 (pp. 32-69), 1994; and "The Origin and Development of Modern Welfare-State
Policies Among 60 Countries, 1880-1975" in Research in Political Sociology,
vol. 6 (pp. 39-69), 1993.
Also Dr. Usui recently spoke on the issues of women and aging in Japan at an
invitational symposium sponsored by the City of Mobile and the University of South Alabama
on November 8, 1996.
A new program is offered at the University for professional staff, board members, and
other leaders of nonprofit and voluntary organizations, as well as students wishing to
explore a future in the field. The courses in this program can be applied toward a new
undergraduate certificate in Nonprofit Organization Management and Leadership or graduate
concentration within the Masters in Public Policy Administration. In addition to credit
courses, a wide range of noncredit continuing education workshops and seminars are
available covering topics in volunteer recruitment and involvement, fundraising, board
development and board-staff relations in nonprofit organizations, etc. In the Winter
Semester.
Soc 308 Leadership and Management in Nonprofit Organizations -- 3 sem
hrs.
The course addresses the role and scope of the independent sector in the United States,
as well as the leadership and management of NPOs within that sector.
For information on any of these courses or other program offerings, please contact
Kathy Burney Miller at 516-6713.
The passing of the old year has brought to our hallways the strains of "Auld Lang Syne," as a few of our previous M.A.s touched the department in various ways.
Mary Hutchinson (M.A., 1992) is teaching several of our undergraduate courses this year while completing her Ph.D. dissertation with Southern Illinois University - Carbondale.
Another former Sociological Quarterly editorial assistant -- Teresa Guess (M.A., 1993) --took time off from her doctoral studies at UM-Columbia to visit the department over the Thanksgiving break.
Martha Scarpellino (M.A., 1996) won second place this fall in UM-St. Louis's
campus-wide Distinguished Masters Thesis competition, with her work "Parting the
Waters, Dividing the Fish: The Social Construction of the East Coast Fisheries."
Martha has recently begun doctoral study at the University of Iowa, with support from a
National Science Foundation fellowship.
George McCall
Director of Graduate Studies
The high level of faculty accomplishments was also documented in the review process for promotion to associate professor and tenure for two of our assistant professors. The departmental tenure committee unanimously recommended to the University that Professors Nancy Shields and Chikako Usui be advanced. The review of their teaching, academic and service records revealed their high standing in the professional community which reflects most favorably on our department and its contributions to the growing reputation of the University of Missouri - St. Louis. Numerous letters from most distinguished authorities -- among them the past president of both the Political Science and Sociological Associations -- confirmed the high estimation that their students, and of course, departmental fellow sociologists have of them.
Professor Herm Smith had barely returned from his year as distinguished Fulbright Professor to Japan when he assumed office as Presiding Officer of the UM-St. Louis Faculty Council - indeed a high honor both for the department and display of faculty confidence in him. Congratulations are in order.
Within the larger community, alumns also continued to connect visibly with their departmental home. University of Missouri Curator Dr. Malaika B. Horn was pleased to receive the departments' Distinguished Alumn Award at a recent gathering and Alderperson Marit Clark, candidate for Mayor of the City of St. Louis, reminded your chairman that she had been a student in one of his classes. The department, indeed, is anxious to hear from all alumns about their professional accomplishments so that we may function as a communication "node" for those wishing to be in touch with one another. To this end, we invite you to respond to our survey.
Members of the faculty represented the department at sociological meetings of the American Sociological Association, the Western Social Science Research Association, and The Midwest Sociology Society.
Let me thank colleagues, students, and our wonderful staff, Alice Canavan and Tara Dahane, for their contributions to all these departmental efforts.
K. Peter Etzkorn
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