Population & Society (SOC 3020)

This course counts for Liberal Studies Area III credit.

Professor Carlson / Summer B 2014 / BEL 023 / M-T-W-Th-F 09:30 - 10:45
Instructor Office Hours M-T-W-Th-F 8:30 AM to 9:30 AM in BEL 609 / Email to ecarlson@fsu.edu

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Special Needs:
Students with disabilities needing academic accomodation should: (1) register with and provide documentation to the Student Disabilities Resource Center; (2) bring a letter to the instructor during the first week of class, indicating the need for and type of accomodation requested. The student is responsible for informing the instructor of any such needs, and accomodation is not retroactive to weeks prior to such notification.

Honor Code:
Students are expected to uphold the Academic Honor Code published in the Florida State University Bulletin and the Student Handbook. The Academic Honor System of the Florida State University is based on the premise that each student has the responsibility (1) to uphold the highest standards of academic integrity in the student's own work, (2) to refuse to tolerate violations of academic integrity in the university community, and (3) to foster a high sense of integrity and social responsibility on the part of the university community. Violations of these principles, including giving, taking or stealing answers to in-class essays or other test questions, clandestine use of electronic devices, notes or texts during test questions, and other cheating in our classroom may lead to a failing grade on an assignment, to a failing grade in the entire course, or in egregious cases to formal disciplinary action by the university, up to and possibly including expulsion from the university.

Courtesy in the Classroom:
To insure that all students have the opportunity to learn without distractions, the following activities MAY NOT take place during class sessions:

Learning Objectives:
Learning objectives for this course are listed specifically for each week of the course as shown below on the course schedule.

Organization and Grading:
The class meets according to the regular university calendar except as announced. Because this is an intense summer course, we will cover each "week" of the course syllabus shown below in TWO DAYS; this includes all readings and other assignments for each course "week." Wherever you read "week" below, think TWO DAYS! This course has no hard-copy textbook or other paper readings. All required readings and assignments for the course appear on line through links below. Students should read all readings, answer study questions through independent study, and complete all assignments prior to the class sessions in which they are due. Students who enroll in the course are expected to be present for every course meeting. Seating is assigned alphabetically and students must be in assigned seats to be counted as present. Each absence from class is either excused or unexcused. This difference affects how grades and scores are assigned, as noted under each part of the grade described below.

Components of Course Grade:
Students should read all readings, answer study questions through independent study, attend class to complete in-class essay questions, respond to in-class oral follow-up questions, and complete all spreadsheet assignments as antecedents for learning objectives noted below.

  • Short in-class essays and oral follow-up questions on assigned articles and books and class discussions count for approximately one-half of the course grade. Study questions for readings appear as links for each weekly topic. In-class essay questions come from this list of study questions.
  • Problem sets assigned for syllabus-"weeks" 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 combined (available on-line on appropriate days) count for approximately one-fourth of the course grade. Problem set scores reflect a degree of mastery of learning objectives specified for each week below. All problem sets are assigned, submitted and scored through the Blackboard "Assignment" feature; work submitted in any other way (such as email attachments) will not be considered or scored.
  • A cumulative final examination scheduled for Friday, June 22nd (the last regular class day of the summer session) at 9:30 AM counts for approximately one-fourth of the grade. The score on the final examination reflects ability to retain central ideas and arguments from all weeks of the course, and to integrate them in the exam. No exceptions are permitted to this time and date of the final examination--students must NOT schedule early departures from campus that would interfere with this final examination date. Only documented medical excuses will be accepted for missing the final exam. You may bring to the final exam all returned in-class essay questions you have written, any class notes you have taken IN YOUR OWN HANDWRITING (including notes written on printed study question pages), and a copy of your problem sets and/or course readings as desired.
  • Points appear in the Blackboard "Grade Book" feature as they are earned. Students may estimate their grades at any time during the semester by consulting this record. The grade distribution for the course will be: A = miss less than 1/8 of all possible points (rounded off); B = miss less than 1/4 of all possible points; C = miss less than 3/8 of all possible points; D = miss less than 1/2 of all possible points; F = miss half or more of all possible points. The width of these grade intervals reflects the fact that most of the grade involves written essays, oral responses and spreadsheets, and the fact that "plus" grades are included in the next-higher letter grade category (no "plus" grades are given). Students should have taken a prior introductory course in a social science prior to enrolling in this course.

    READING LIST INSTRUCTIONS: A few of the assigned readings listed below appear with titles as direct links (in color). For these readings, you may click on the highlighted title to see the assigned reading on your screen. However, most of the readings are available through a web archive called JSTOR, to which FSU has an expensive annual subscription. Your visits to the JSTOR site to read course assignments will help to demonstrate the importance of this valuable resource (already paid for with your tuition dollars) to the university. To find each reading in JSTOR, go to the FSU web site (www.fsu.edu) and choose "libraries" from the Key Links item near the middle of the page. On the Libraries main page, choose "Find a Database" from the left-side menu and type JSTOR into the field on the right. When you click "Go" you should see an entry highlighted in yellow for JSTOR. (You may have to log into the FSU site with your FSU username and password at some point.) Clicking this highlighted entry should take you to the JSTOR "advanced search" page. Type in the name of the author (first name and then last name, no punctuation) in the first blank field, select "author" from the pull-down box to the right of this field, click on "articles" in the "NARROW" section below, and type the date of the publication in both the "From" and "To" boxes to the right of the "articles" option. Then click on the SEARCH button to find all articles by that author from that year. The assigned reading should be one of the displayed options. Click on "Article PDF" below the correct citation to open the article as an Adobe Acrobat PDF document. (If you do not have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software on your computer, you can download it from the Adobe web site without charge.) Rather than try to read this document directly from the web, it often is much faster to download and save this document on your computer, on a removable flash drive, or in some other location. Then you can return to the document and read it conveniently at any time, and also review it later for the final exam.

    Part One - ORIGINS OF POPULATION STUDY

    Part Two - DYNAMICS OF POPULATION PROCESSES

    Part Three - DETAILS OF GLOBAL POPULATION PATTERNS

    FINAL EXAMINATION

    This page maintained by Professor Carlson.