Information Literacy Assignment
1
Introduction to Sociology (SOCI 100)
Information Literacy
)
. Constructing physical fights: An interactionist a
n
a
l
y
s
i
s
of
violence among affluent, suburban yout
h. Qualitative Sociology, 36, 2
3
–
5
2
–
Sc
hwadel, P
. (
2
0
0
8 )
. Poor t
e
e
n
a
g
e
r
s ‘ religion. Sociology of Religion, 69, 2, 1
2
5
–
1
4 9.
–
Shih, M., & S
a
n
c
h
e
z , D. (
2
0
0
9
)
. When race becomes e v e n more complex: Toward
understanding the l a n d s c a p
e of multiracial identity and e
x
p
e
r
i
e
n
c
e
s . Journal o
f
Social
Issues, 65,
1, 1
–
1
1
.
–
King, E. B.,
Knight, J. L., & Hebl, M. R. (
2
0
1
0
)
. T
h
e influence of e
c
o
n
o
m
i
c conditions
on a
s
p
e
c
t
s of stigmatization. Journal of Social Issues, 66, 3, 4
4
6
–
4
6
0 .
You can locate databases via the
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“
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”
Ë
My Learning
Ë
“
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”
‡
“
Find research sources
”
Ë
identify search engine
for
student
s
i.e
EBSCOHOST or
“
Proquest
”
Step 2: Evaluate the author
’
s argument
After reading and assessing this article, you will submit a written review of this article by
responding to the questions below. Your responses to the questions do not need to be integrated
into a single response paper. Rather, you may separately answer ea
ch question about your peer
–
reviewed article in paragraph form.
Please answer the following questions
THOROUGHLY and in COMPLETE SENTENCES with
CITED REFERNCES in APA STYLE
:
(
adapted from Paul & Elder, 2006 Foundation for Critical
Thinking)
1.
The main purpose of this article is __________________________________________
?
(State as accurately as possible the author
’
s purpose for writing the article.)
2.
The key question that the author is addressing is ___________________
?
(Figure out the key question in the mind of the author when s/he wrote the article.)
3.
The most im
portant information in this article is ____________________
?
(Figure out the facts, experiences, & data the author is using to support her/his
conclusions).
4.
The main inferences/conclusions in this article are ______________________
?
(Identify the key
conclusions the author comes to and presents in the article.)
5.
The key concept(s) we need to understand in this article are ______________. By these concepts,
the author means ________________.
2
?
(Figure out the most important ideas you would have to
understand in order to understand
the author
’
s line of reasoning).
6.
The main assumption(s) underlying the author
’
s thinking is (are) ____________
?
(Figure out what the author is taking for granted [that might be questioned]).
7.
If we take this line of
reasoning seriously, the implications are _______________
?
(What consequences are likely to follow if people take the author
’
s line of reasoning
seriously?)
8.
If we fail to take this line of reasoning seriously, the implications are ___________________
___
?
(What consequences are likely to follow if people ignore the author
’
s reasoning?)
9.
The main point(s) of view presented in this article is (are) ____________________
?
(What is the author looking at, and how is s/he seeing it?)
10.
Write 2
–
3 parag
raphs (minimum of 315 words) relating this article to specific sociological topics
and concepts you have learned over the course of the semester. You should explain how this article
supports or contradicts material learned in class. For example, you may wa
nt to discuss the
importance of social structures, using information learned in Chapter 4. Use at least 3 different
sociological
topics and /or concepts in your answer. Please correctly cite your article by referring
to the guidelines in Step 3 or using ou
tside resources such as the Writing Center at the Learning
Commons.
Step 3
:
Correctly cite your article
When referring to your article in Step 2, you should refer to the article using American
Psychological Association (APA) formatting, rather than Mod
ern Language Association (MLA).
After you have quoted or paraphrased another person’s work
you need to correctly attribute credit
to their ideas. This is done by citing. Some examples of citing in APA format include:
?
Direct Quotes
:
o
“Race is a socially
constructed category that is predicated on political, social, and
economic process
es
” (
Wegener & Petty 1992, p.
58).
o
Berndt (2002:67) argues that
“
race is a socially constructed category.
”
?
Paraphrasing
:
o
Res
earch by Wegener and Petty (1992
) supports
the view that
…
o
Some have argued that race is a socially constructed category (
Berndt, 2002;
Harlow, 1983
; Smith et. al., 2010).
o
Ethnicity is a different concept than race (Berndt, 2002).
¸
If you are still unclear on how to use in
–
text citations plea
se see:
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/02/
At the end of
this assignment, you will need to cite your peer
–
reviewed journal article using
APA
formatting.
Citation for a journal article:
Harlow, H. F. (1983). Fundamentals for preparing psychology journal articles.
Journal of
Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 55
, 893
–
896.
?
For more help on using APA citations see:
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
?
Also, if you need writing help on this portion of your assignment, please visit the Writing
Center at the Learning Commons.
Constructing Physical Fights: An Interactionist Analysis
of Violence among Affluent, Suburban Youth
Curtis Jackson-Jacobs
Published online: 13 January 2013
#
Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012
Abstract
Based on more than four years of ethnographic fieldwork and a dataset of 189
violent encounters, this article explores the social phenomenology of physical fights in a novel
setting. Although American sociologists have traditionally depicted violence as a distinctively
“
ghetto
”
phenomenon, the members of this sample were overwhelmingly white and affluent.
Since the usual explanatory background factors
—
race, poverty, and neighborhood
—
cannot
adequately account for their violent experiences, the dataset is especially valuable for analyzing
the generic interactional processes through which physical fights unfold. Furthermore, the
article suggests a model that runs counter to the prevailing sociological perspective that violence
is universally motivated by independent, preexisting conflicts. Oftentimes, the sample members
set out to
“
get into
”
fights for their perceived experiential rewards and only later instigated
disputes as a means to motivate and justify violent action. Using the method of analytic
induction, the article presents a generalizable theory of how fights unfold in interaction.
Three stages were necessary for achieving a fight: (1) agreeing to fight as a solution to a
challenge to
“
interpersonal sovereignty,
”
(2) transcending the ordinary fear of violence, and (3)
using competitive techniques of violence.
Keywords
Interpersonal conflict
.
Violence
.
Crime
.
Youth culture
.
Ethnography
.
Social phenomenology
Watching from a safe distance, physical fights can appear inhuman and animalistic, group
fights especially. It can be hard to tell who is fighting whom, much less why. Arms swing
and heads bounce. Projectiles fly. People run around frantically. And the noises
—
sounds one
never knew humans could make. Everyday language aptly conveys this sense of chaos and
disorder. Fights are called
“
free-for-alls,
”“
dust-ups,
”
and
“
knock-down, drag-out brawls.
”
They
“
erupt
”
and
“
break out,
”
like forces of nature, as if beyond the limits of social order
—
a
view sustained by many psychological and biological theories of violence, and only rarely
challenged by sociologists.
Qual Sociol (2013) 36:23
–
52
DOI 10.1007/s11133-012-9244-2
C. Jackson-Jacobs (
*
)
Department of Crime, Law, and Justice, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
e-mail: curtisjacksonjacobs@gmail.com
What to make of these beasts with four-fists?
Looking more closely, fights are prime sites for studying what is
most
human about
humans: social interaction that is thoroughly meaningful and organized at each moment
(Blumer
1969
; Garfinkel
1967
; Goffman
1967
; Katz
1999
; Mead
1934
/1962; Schutz
1962
).
To contribute to the sociology of interpersonal conflict and violence, I document a theoret-
ically strategic phenomenon: physical fights in a sample of overwhelmingly white, subur-
ban, affluent youth.
My sample members defined a
“
fight
”
much as the broader culture does: a stretch of
serious competitive violence (Jackson-Jacobs
2009
).
1
This definition served as both an
interpretive lens for defining situations and also a practical guide for organizing action
(Garfinkel
1967
; Polanyi
1958
;Sacks
1967
–
1968/1992; Schutz
1962
). In the cases I
describe, members specifically meant to do their violence
as
fights
—
rather than, say,
unilateral beatings
—
thus constructing themselves as competitive opponents rather than
sadistic predators.
American sociology, like popular culture, tends to depict youth violence as a distinctively
“
ghetto
”
phenomenon. Since the background factors usually presumed to cause violence are
absent in my sample, the data are strategically valuable for highlighting the general process
of constructing physical fights in face-to-face interaction. Thus, following the tradition of
“
interactionist
”
studies of violence (especially Katz
1988
; see also Collins
2008
), I seek an
explanation that lies closer to and within the moments of violence.
Although I make general claims about fighting, I report evidence from a single ethno-
graphic study for two reasons. First, I report on this sample to debunk the perspective that
violent youth cultures are exclusive to contexts of poverty. Second, I present the evidence as
an empirical contribution to the comparative backdrop of studies that have described
qualitatively similar fights across race, class, and gender lines, and in diverse neighborhood,
institutional, historical, and geographical contexts (e.g., Anderson
1999
; Athens
1997
;
Brown
2010
; Collins
2008
; Conley
1999
; Farrington et al.
1982
; Garot
2010
; Gorn
1985
;
Hagedorn
1988
; Horowitz and Schwartz
1974
; Jones
2010
; King
1995
; Monkkonnen
2001
;
Polk
1999
; Sanders
1994
; Short and Strodtbeck
1968
; Tomsen
1997
; Winlow and Hall
2006
). In the spirit of analytic induction (Znaniecki
1934
), grounded theory (Glaser and
Strauss
1967
), and the comparative method (Ragin
2008
), my purpose is to highlight what is
common across contexts without losing sight of what is unique.
Whether fights occur in settings such as those I describe or in impoverished, working-
class, or
“
gang
”
contexts, the actors often pursue them as an opportunity to experience
thrilling
“
action
”
(Garot
2007a
,
b
; Katz
1988
, chap. 4; see also Goffman
1967
), to
“
test
”
or
demonstrate one
’
s emotional and violent skills (Brown 2010, 186; Garot
2007a
; Sanchez-
Jankowski
1991
), and to achieve the narrative payoffs and prestige of storytelling (Collins
2008
; Jackson-Jacobs
2004a
; Katz
1988
, chap. 4; Morrill et al.
2000
).
To be sure, there are differences in the interactional repertoires for provoking fights,
the ways violent emotions are generated, and the bodily techniques of violence across
contests and categories of actors. Gang members may challenge other youth by demand-
ing to know the other
’
s affiliation (Garot
2007a
,
2010
). Young men and women living in
impoverished urban neighborhoods may be particularly sensitive to how their violent
performances will affect the
“
respect
”
they receive from their peers (Anderson
1999
;
1
I refer to the young people about whom I write as members in two senses of the term: as members of my
research sample, but also as members of a particular culture, with its own boundaries, practices, and shared
knowledge. As much as possible, I tried to organize my sample to follow natural categories of membership in
friendship networks.
24 Qual Sociol (2013) 36:23
–
52
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