Readings: Week 1

1. Malcolm Gladwell. 2009. Offensive play. October 19, New Yorker Magazine.(for Tuesday)
2. Safi Knafo. 2012. Occupy Wall Street” What happened? Sept 12, Hufffington Post.
3. Ronald Kessler. 2008. Peter Schweizer: Liberals are more selfish than conservatives. June 2, Newsmax.com.
4. William Gale and Donald Marron. 2012. Five myths about the 47percent. Sept 21, Washington Post.
5. Michael Norton and Dan Ariely. 2011. Building a better America: One wealth quintile at a time. Perspectives on Psychological Science 6:9-12.
6. Tables:
   1. Mean family net worth over time
   2. Top 1% income share, 1913-2008
7. C. Wright Mills. 1959. Sociological Imagination. New York: Pelican (chapter 1, ‘The Promise’).

Online lecture pages

Course resources: Thinking about social problems

• Causes
• Consequences
• Who benefits?
• How are problems framed, and by whom?
• What to do?

Week 1

• What is a social problem?
• More on social problems
• Structural and individual explanations
• Some basic questions to ask
• Outline