SYP4730:
SOCIOLOGY OF
AGING AND THE LIFE COURSE
Fall
2008
Class:
Tuesdays 11:45 a.m-1:40 p.m. and Thursdays 12:50-1:40 p.m. in 120
Fine Arts C
Instructor:
Monika
Ardelt, Ph.D.
Office:
3350
Turlington
Phone:
392-0251
ext. 247
E-mail:
Ardelt@soc.ufl.edu
Office
Hours: Tuesdays
and Thursdays 1:45-2:45 p.m. and by appointment
WWW:
http://web.soc.ufl.edu/faculty/ardelt.htm
Info about the undergraduate sociology program on the Internet: http://web.soc.ufl.edu/undergraduate.htm
Course Content
How and why do we age? Is
old age necessarily a period of decline? What are the benefits of old
age? Why
is it important to study aging? How is individual aging related to the
structure
of society? What are the problems of an aging society? These and other
questions are the topic of this course. We will examine aging from the
perspectives of sociology, psychology, social demography, history,
biology, the
medical sciences, and economics. In particular, we will start by
studying aging
from a developmental or life course perspective. Then we will discuss
health
care for the elderly and issues of death and dying. We will end the
course with
a social and economic outlook for an aging society.
Required
Course packet (abbreviated as “CP” in
the reading
list) available at Target Copy (
Recommended
Ram Dass. 2001. Still Here: Embracing Aging,
Changing, and Dying.
Egendorf, Laura K. 2002. An Aging
Population.
Opposing Viewpoints.
Maimon,
Elaine P., Janice H. Peritz, and Kathleen Blake Yancey. 2007. A
Writer’s
Resource. A Handbook for Writing and Research. 2nd Edition.
Requirements
For each of the ten controversies that we
will discuss in class, you will prepare one or more questions on the
issue at
hand and write down possible answers to those questions or issues that
should
be considered when attempting to debate the controversy. On the day
when the
particular controversy is discussed in class, you are encouraged to ask
your
question(s) to stimulate class discussions. You will receive 1 point
per Q
& A if you write at least 300 words.
Q & A entries for each controversy should
be submitted via E-Learning
after the file has been saved either as a Word document
(*.doc) or as a rich text format (*.rtf) file.
I will not be able to download, read, and grade any other file format. The deadline for submission is before
class on the day the respective Q & A submission is due.
To submit your MS Word file or *.rtf file in
E-Learning, go to the
Important: Before you log in to E-Learning for the
first time on
your computer, you should perform a browser and Java check to make sure
that
both are compatible with E-Learning. To do so, go to the
After you have successfully logged into
E-Learning, click on the link
for our course. To submit a Q & A entry via E-Learning, click on
the
“Assignments” tab in the tool bar and then on the link of the Q
& A entry you want to submit. The Submission screen for
that Q
& A entry appears.
Submitting a Q & A entry
involves two steps:
(1)
Upload
the file from your
computer to E-Learning:
·
To
locate the file, click on “Add Attachments” to open the “File
Browser” window.
·
Click
on “My Computer” to open the “Upload Files from Your
Computer” window.
·
Click
on “Browse” to open your computer’s browser.
·
Select
the file you want to upload by double-clicking on it (or click
on the file and then click “Open”).
·
You
are returned
to the “Upload Files from Your Computer” window. Click on “OK”.
·
The
Submission screen for that Q & A entry appears again. You will
see a hyperlink for your Q & A file. You can click on the hyperlink
to make
sure that it is the correct file.
(2)
Submit
the file for grading.
·
Click
on “Submit”. A screen appears asking you “Are you sure you want
to submit this assignment?” Click on “OK”.
·
The
submission confirmation screen appears. Click on “OK”.
If you want to revise and resubmit your Q
& A entry before the due date, click on “Assignments” in the tool
bar,
click on the “Submitted” tab, and then on the “Take Submission Back to
Inbox”
icon in the top right corner. This will move the Q & A entry back
to the
“Inbox” and you can click on the Q & A entry and repeat the above
steps to
submit a revised version of your Q & A entry. Before you do this,
however,
you should click on the “Remove” icon to remove the old version of your
Q &
A entry first.
To view your submitted Q & A entries,
click on “Assignments” in the tool bar and then click on the
“Submitted” tab.
All Q & A entries you have submitted and resubmitted, and Q & A
entries
for which you have missed the cutoff date will be listed. Once Q &
A
entries are graded, however, they are moved to the “Graded” tab. To
view your
grades, click on “Assignments” in the toolbar and then on the “Graded”
tab or
click on “My Grades” in the toolbar.
Attendance: Attendance of class is
required because non-attendance by several students at a time will
destroy the
dynamic of the class. If you attend class
regularly (i.e., not more than 3 absences – for all or part of a
class), you
will be rewarded with 1 extra credit point that will be added to your
grade at
the end of the term!
Debate Teams: At the beginning of the semester, I will
divide the class into debate
teams. Each debate team will be responsible for presenting relevant
material
and leading the class discussion on one of the controversies introduced
in the
Moody book. The debate team will conduct one class session (50 minutes)
on the
controversy. The team will research the issue at hand further by
including
material into the debate that is not already published in the Moody
book. Each
member of the team will contribute at least one additional empirical or
theoretical aspect to the debate. The particular format of the class
session is
open but it is required that all members of the debate team actively
participate, that they introduce several aspects of the controversy,
and that
they involve the rest of the class in the discussion. Grading will be
based on
the quality of the actual class session and the quality of the material
used to
prepare for the debate, including the bibliography.
Interview
Project:
As a class project, you will conduct and analyze 30-minute
qualitative
interviews with two older adults, age
55 or above, every week for a total of 8 weeks over the course of the
semester.
Preferably, you should interview one of your older relatives and one
nursing
home or assisted living facility resident. Those interviews and
analyses can be used as the basis of an optional
individual or group term
paper for extra credit that is due on December 2nd
after class.
The term paper should be 8-10 pages long for an individual paper and
15-25
pages long for a group term paper (double spaced) plus an appendix of
all
interview and analysis notes (one appendix per group member). Detailed
instructions for the interview
project and the term paper
can be found in the
course packet. We will talk about the interview project during the
section on “Techniques for qualitative interviewing”
and about the term paper
during the week after the 2nd exam.
Cheating: I define copying parts or all of an author’s
or another student’s
work, allowing another student to copy parts or all of your work, or
simply
duplicating parts or all of your interview or analysis notes as
cheating.
WARNING: Students who are caught cheating in
this way will fail the class immediately!
Exams: There will be 3 exams. The first
two exams will be on October 2nd and November 6th.
The
third exam will be during Final Exam Week on December 18th
between 8
a.m. and 9:30 a.m. All exams will consist of multiple choice questions.
The
exams will be based on the readings and material from class, including
class
discussions. The exams will not be comprehensive, i.e., they will cover
only
material presented in class or in the readings that were not covered by
the
previous exam(s).
I do not plan to give any make-up exams. If
you should encounter or anticipate any difficulties, please come and
see me
early!
Accommodations for Students with Disabilities: Students requesting
classroom accommodation must first register with the Dean of Students
Office.
The Dean of Students Office will provide documentation to the student
who must
then provide this documentation to the Instructor when requesting
accommodation.
Note: This section is
NOT a Writing Requirement section for the 24,000 word writing
requirement.
Grading
|
OPTION 1 |
OPTION 2 |
||
|
Requirements Questions for debates Debate team Interview project Three exams Term paper |
% of Final Grade 10% 20% 20% 33% 17% |
Requirements Questions for
debates Debate team Interview
project Three exams |
% of Final Grade 10% 20% 20% 50% |
Your
grade will be calculated according to the formula of either Option 1 or
Option
2, whichever results in a higher grade for you.
Plus,
you can earn 1 extra credit point that
will be added to your final grade points if you
did not miss all or part
of class more than three times during the semester!
I will not grade on a curve,
i.e. your grade will depend on your absolute performance, not your
performance
compared to other students.
The points that you will earn can be
translated into letter-grades as follows:
|
90.0 – 100.0 = A |
70.0 – <77.5 = C |
Three Tips for Staying Awake in Class (and make class more interesting to you):
1. Ask questions.
2. If you feel yourself falling asleep, ask provocative questions. Challenge your professor.
3. Read the assigned material before class to do #1 and #2.
|
Tentative Class Schedule |
||
|
Date |
Topic |
|
|
08/26 – 8/28 |
Differences between individual and population aging. http://www.agingstats.gov/Agingstatsdotnet/Main_Site/Data/2008_Documents/Population.aspx Theories
of aging |
Pp.
xxi-xxix Pp.
7-10 |
|
09/02
– 09/04 |
A
life course perspective on aging |
Pp. 1-7 & 10-25 |
|
09/09 |
Volunteer
orientation and techniques for qualitative interviewing. |
CP: Qualitative Interviewing |
|
09/09 – 09/16 |
Controversy 3: Does old age have meaning? |
Pp.
109-131 |
|
09/18 – 09/23 |
Controversy 2: Does creativity decline with age? |
Pp.
75-108 |
|
09/25 – 09/30 |
Controversy 1: Is biological aging
inevitable? |
Pp. 27-73 |
|
10/02 |
First exam: A life course perspective on aging. |
Pp. xxi-xxix and 1-131 |
|
10/07 – 10/09 |
Aging, health care, and society http://www.agingstats.gov/Agingstatsdotnet/Main_Site/Data/2008_Documents/Health_Care.aspx |
Pp. 267-298 |
|
10/14 – 10/16 |
Controversy 7: Should we ration health care for older people? |
Pp. 299-328; CP: Callahan vs. |
|
10/21 – 10/23 |
Controversy 8: Should families provide for their own? |
Pp. 329-362; CP: Kalb and Juarez, 2005 |
|
10/28 |
Controversy 9: Should older people be protected from bad
choices? |
Pp. 363-387 |
|
10/30 – 11/04 |
Controversy 10: Should people have the choice to end their
lives? |
Pp. 389-417; CP: Hardwig, 1997; Osgood
2000 |
|
11/06 |
Second exam: Aging, health care, and society |
Pp. 267-417 |
|
11/13 – 11/18 |
Discussion of term paper. |
Pp. 133-162 |
|
11/20 – 11/25 |
Controversy 4: Should
age rather than need be the basis for entitlement? |
Pp. 163-198 |
|
11/27 – 12/02 |
Controversy 5: Should
social security be privatized? |
Pp. 199-230 |
|
12/02 |
All sets of interview notes and (optional) term
paper due! |
|
|
12/04 – 12/09 |
Controversy 6: Is retirement obsolete? |
Pp. 231-266 |
|
12/18 |
Third exam (8:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.): |
Pp. 133-266 |
Note: All page numbers refer to Moody, Harry R. 2006. Aging. Concepts and Controversies. 5th Edition.