Battered women, work, and welfare: A research seminar
Fall Semester 2000: Wednesdays, 2:30 pm to 4:55 pm, 2J51
Posvar Hall (formerly FQUAD)
Dr. Lisa D. Brush
Office: 2J28 Posvar Hall (formerly FQUAD)
Office Hours: Mondays and Wednesday 11:00 am to 12:00 noon and by appointment
Office phone: 412-648-7595
Email address/electronic office hours: Talk Back To Dr. Brush
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This is a research-oriented course on battered women, work, and welfare. Seminar participants will use readings, consultations with guest speakers, and our collective resources to contribute to a qualitative project on the costs of taking a beating in the context of welfare reform.
The shared readings will include:
Discussions and written work will address the theories, methods, and substantive examples from the readings, but the main focus will be on participating in the research project and writing up results.
Graduate study means learning to learn from every possible source -- from your readings, your peers, your life experience, your professor, your research. Participating in seminar discussions is one of the best ways to learn. You are expected to contrib ute your questions and insights to the class. The culture of the seminar will, I hope, be a congenial one for self-expression. I will work to maintain such a culture by swiftly countering displays of contempt and by practicing principles of pedagogical eq uity to the extent possible. I cannot help you learn if you don't participate in discussion, however. Doing excellent written work is not enough to demonstrate adequate performance in graduate school. So show a little backbone, organize yourselves in what ever way you need in order to ensure broad participation in the discussion, and whatever you do, don't suffer in silence. Say anything you can defend against reasoned argument. Treat your colleagues' contributions with respect (which means taking them ser iously and challenging them as well as extending basic courtesy).
This should go without saying, but attendance at each seminar meeting is required. More than one absence that is not due to extraordinary circumstances will result in a lowered grade.
In addition to participating in seminar discussions, everyone enrolled in this seminar is expected to complete the following assignments:
Before 9:00 am on Wednesdays (that is, the day of the seminar meeting), submit to the seminar distribution list an analytical abstract of not more than 300 words. Summarize the purpose, framework, sources, findings, and significance of the reading. Com ment succinctly on what you found most interesting, important, puzzling, infuriating, fundamental, etc. about the readings. Distributed over email in a timely manner, these abstracts will not only help you organize your response to the readings but will a lso serve as a guide for discussions. Altogether, these short written assignments contribute ten percent to your final grade. Submit three abstracts over the course of the term.
Each student must write a publication-length (800 words) formal review of the text for one week. Most disciplinary journals include examples (I suggest you look over the most recent issue of Contemporary Sociology, the journal of reviews f or sociology, American Journal of Sociology, or Gender & Society, the journal of Sociologists for Women in Society). Your review should respond to the text in an evaluative way by placing the work in scholarly context, assessing th e methods and findings of the research, and identifying controversies. You will present your review and be responsible for facilitating discussion in the first hour of our session in that particular class. Your presentation should set out what you see as the context, key concepts, and controversies from the readings. At the minimum, presenters should identify particularly problematic passages in the text and help the group engage with them, either by providing and then eliciting alternate readings of the text, contextualizing the debates implicit or explicit in the text, or preparing specific questions for discussion.
During the final session (or perhaps two) of the semester, you will present the results of your portion of the research project to the seminar group. The final written version of this work is due at the last class session. You must submit a draft of yo ur text to another seminar participant for comments (see below). This is your opportunity to present your own work in a supportive-yet-critical setting. The presentation and written project together count for 45 percent of your grade.
Each participant will be responsible for reading, and providing written and oral comments on, the draft project text of one fellow participant. This will be your opportunity to provide supportive-yet-critical feedback to your colleagues at a crucial st age in the development of their projects. You will receive drafts by the third-to-last class session and must return comments by the beginning of the following class to allow time for revisions. You may also serve as commentator on final presentations. Ha nd in your colleague's comments with the final version of the paper. These comments count toward five percent of your grade.
Grades will be assigned on the following scale:
A: Truly exceptional and outstanding work
B: Solid, acceptable graduate-level work
B- or below: Below acceptable level for graduate work
All texts should be available at the Book Center. Most are also available on reserve in Hillman library.
Course participants will work individually and collectively to design, conduct, document, and interpret a qualitative research project on battering, work, and welfare, and will contribute data and analysis to a Reporting of Findings. During the first three to four weeks of the term, seminar participants will read and evaluate similar research, consult with guest speakers, and generate precise research questions. During the following three weeks, they will decide on the research design, subjects, procedures, and instruments they will use. An IRB application will also be submitted before this point in the semester. The next three weeks will be devoted to data collection and entry and to trouble-shooting (seminar meetings may be abbreviated as participants devote time to the research). Two weeks of analysis and interpretation will be followed by the final two weeks of write-up, including both documentation of the research process and drafts of individual contributions to the Report of Findings.
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