Semester I 2018/2019

Sociology Programme
School of Social Sciences
Nanyang Technological University

HS1003 Social Problems in a Global Context

Instructor Office hours: By appointment

Assoc. Professor Sulfikar Amir Office: HSS-05-31
Email: sulfikar@ntu.edu.sg Tel: 6316-8839

Tutor
LEE CIMING DANIEL
DLEE019@e.ntu.edu.sg

Lecture Time: Tues 13.30-15.30 (SPMS-LT1)

Tutorial 1 Wed 09.30-11.30 (LHS-TR+54) Tutorial 5 Wed 15.30-16.30 (LHS-TR+54)
Tutorial 2 Wed 10.30-11.30 (LHS-TR+54) Tutorial 6 Wed 16.30-17.30 (LHS-TR+54)
Tutorial 3 Wed 13.30-14.30 (LHS-TR+54) Tutorial 7 Wed 17.30-18.30 (LHS-TR+54)
Tutorial 4 Wed 14.30-15.30 (LHS-TR+54)

COURSE DESCRIPTION AND SCOPE

In the contemporary society, globalization is generally understood as the era marked

by a massive proliferation of information and the expansion of the borderless
economy. While globalization may bring about benefits to some people, it
simultaneously heightens the spread of social problems from one place to another
caused by extended structures of today’s networked society. This course introduces
students to sociological concepts to understand how social problems are locally
originated and produced and globally reproduced by the social, economic, and
political processes of market-driven globalization.

Social problems can broadly defined as sets of conditions, arrangements, and

practices that social actors perceive as the cause of inconveniences, direness, and
insecurity. In sociological analyses, a problem emerging in society is considered
“social” because it is constituted through a myriad of interactions between social
actors and made durable by social institutions. In this light, social problems are
socially defined in that the significance and meaning of a problem in society is
determined by various social factors.

While social problems appear to be locally situated, many of their causes are
engendered by the circulation and transmission of goods, capital, information,

1
images, and human labors that constitute globalization. Thus understanding how
social problems emerge is best achieved with a lens that allows us to observe the
impact of social activities in one specific locality to the life of those living in other
localities. This subject provides a number of sociological tools to capture global
factors that contribute to producing social problems in different places at different
scales with different implications. In this course, we will examine ten areas of social
problems from poverty and inequality, to war and violence, to environmental
degradation and climate change. In each of these areas, students will be exposed to
sociological theories suitable to examine the problem and learn how globalization
plays a role in its production.

READINGS

Two readings are assigned every week. These readings discuss a same topic but
analyze it in different perspectives and in different ways of explaining how the social
problem emerges. All reading materials are available on edventure. Please make
sure you have access to the course website in edventure. You should read the
assigned articles beforehand. In comprehending these materials, I suggest you to
take four steps as follows: First, read through the article continuously. Second, read
once more at a slower pace and highlight the points you think important. Third,
identify the main argument presented in the article. And finally, raise some questions
and relate to your own everyday life and what you learn from your surrounding and
current affairs.

COURSE EVALUATION

Two Essays (30%)

As part of the exercise in this course, students are required to write two short (1,500
to 2,000 word long) essays each worth 15 points.. One of these essays will be
presented in the class (see below). The essays should reflect your thoughts
regarding a specific topic in social problems. For the first essay, you may choose any
topic from Week 1 to Week 7, for example poverty and inequality, women and the
family, or war and terrorism. The first essay is due one week after recess. The
second essay is written on any one topic discussed after the recess week, for
example identity, urbanization, or energy and environment. It is due on the last
tutorial of the semester (except those assigned for the topic of energy and
environment). There are no rules of thumb on how to write your essays. It fully
depends on your own writing style. But it is recommended that your essay comprises
of three sections. First, your essay should illustrate a specific social problem in any
part of the world, for example poverty in Uganda, woman workers in Mexico, or
shooting spree in the United States. To describe this problem, you may rely on data
and information from newspaper, online media, books, and journal papers. The
second part is a conceptual explanation of how the problem has emerged. In this
part you should bring in one or two social science concepts, either from lectures or
other credible sources such as academic papers and books that would help to
explain the root cause of the problem. The third section links the problem to
globalization. In this part, you should demonstrate how globalization factors such as
institutions, politics, economy, technology, information networks, and so forth have
contributed to the production or escalation of the social problem. Please submit your
essays in hardcopy. Email submission is not accepted. In addition, a softcopy is
submitted through turnitin on NTULearn.

2
Presentation (10%)

Every student will give a 10 to 15-minute presentation on the topic assigned by the
tutor. Presentation schedule will be arranged in the first tutorial week (second week
of the term) and will follow the weekly schedule below. The presentation discusses
your assigned topic to be written for one of your essays. For example, if you write a
topic on poverty and inequality, you will present it in the tutorial session for the topic
(see weekly schedule below). This presentation is your opportunity to get feedback
from the instructor/tutor on your assigned essay. Your presentation should
specifically address the topic of essay, explain a relevant case study, and draw an
analysis by referring to the concepts elaborated in the lecture. To make your
presentation more engaging, you may use multimedia such as video, pictures, and
music but no longer than 2 minutes.

Class Participation (10%)

Participation in the class is compulsory. Your tutorial attendance does not count if
you fail to actively engage in discussion. The tutor will make a note on your
attendance and participation. Being a good listener only is not advisable. You are
strongly encouraged to comment on your peers and respect their views.

Final Exam (50%)

A final exam will be administered at the end of the term. This will assess your
general understanding of the whole material covered in the course. Please keep in
mind that some of the exam questions are likely drawn from tutorial discussions.

Media and Email

Once in a while, we will use TurningPoint in lectures. Your participation in this

exercise is recorded but not graded. Make sure the app is installed in your device.
Information about TurningPoint is here: http://www.ntu.edu.sg/cits/lsa/clickers/For-
Students/Pages/default.aspx or google “NTU Turningpoint”

ACADEMIC DISHONESTY (MUST READ THROUGH)

Warning: Plagiarism
Plagiarism means presenting someone else’s work as if it were your own work. In
academic life, this is a serious offence, because it compromises scholarly integrity. At
NTU, it is considered a violation of the University’s Honour Code.
(See:http://www.ntu.edu.sg/sao/documents/ntu honour code and pledge.doc.) All
work presented in your classes must be the product of your own effort. None of your
work should be copied without appropriate citation from any source, including the
Internet. Any student caught presenting work that is not his or her own without
identifying it as someone else’s will face disciplinary action. This could include the
award of a failing grade or zero marks for the assignment (or the course), or
expulsion from the University. This policy applies to all work submitted, including oral
presentations and/or written work (essays, theses, reports, reviews, field notes,
interview data, statistical tables, etc.) You should not submit the same paper for
assessment in more than one course. Should there be any overlap in the use of
materials for more than one course, seek the permission of the respective instructors.
Consult course instructors if you have questions concerning the meaning of
plagiarism or whether a particular use of sources constitutes plagiarism. For
referencing guidelines refer, for example, to the ASA (American Sociological

3
Association) Style Guide – a link is provided in the Division’s website – or consult the
Sociology Librarian at the HSS Library.

Plagiarism and the Internet

In recent years, plagiarism has become easy, through the simple device of cutting-
and-pasting text from Internet websites. Moreover, since anyone can ‘publish’
anything they like on a website, such material (including entries in Wikipedia) has not
usually undergone the rigorous peer-review that scholarly material is normally
exposed to. From this point of view, printed materials are still the preferable source.
(This proviso does not apply to refereed journal articles made available legitimately
through NTU’s electronic library resources. However, any such articles must still be
properly cited.) Even if you do include appropriate websites among your sources of
information, it is still wrong to present that material as if it were your own. In other
words, you are allowed to make only short quotations from websites, which must
then be properly sourced. Longer passages and unsourced passages are not
allowed. Except for short citations – properly marked as such – materials taken from
websites (or any other source) must be re-cast into your own words.

Monitoring by the Sociology Division

It is very easy to discover plagiarism, either by using special software (including
SafeAssignment, an NTU-wide web-based detection tool) or simply by feeding any
suspicious sentences into an Internet search engine. The Sociology Division keeps a
record of all plagiarism cases. Repeated offences will be subject to even more
stringent disciplinary action, as noted above. For more information, see:
https://edventure.ntu.edu.sg/webapps/login/index_frame.jsp
(Home > eLearning@NTU > Plagiarism Deterrence and Detection in NTU)

WEEKLY SCHEDULE

Week 1: 14 August
Introduction: Social Problems and Globalization

Robert Heiner “An introduction to the Sociology of Social Problems” in Social

Problems. Oxford University Press. 2002.

A. Giddens. “Globalization” in Runaway World: How Globalization is Reshaping Our

World. Routledge. 2002

Week 2: 21 August
Poverty and Inequality

Teo, Y., 2016. Vignettes of poverty versus stories of inequality. Media Asia, 43(3-4),
pp.138-144.

Thomas Pogge “Why Inequality Matters” in Global Inequality: Patterns and

Explanation edited by David Held and Ayse Kaya. Polity. 2007.

Suggested reading:
Georger Ritzer “Social Class” in Encyclopedia of Social Theory. Sage. 2007.

4
Week 3: 28 August
Labor and Trade (ONLINE LECTURE)

D. Harvey “Freedom’s Just Another Word.” In A Brief History of Neoliberalism

Oxford, 2005.

N. Klein. “The Discarded Factory.” In No Logo. London: Harper Perennial. 2000.

Week 4: 04 September
Migration and Population

Stephen Castles “Development and Migration—Migration and Development What

Comes First? Global Perspective and African Experiences”. Theoria: A Journal of
Social & Political Theory. December 30, 2009.

Huang, S. and Yeoh, B.S., 2016, February. Maids and ma'ams in Singapore:
Constructing gender and nationality in the transnationalization of paid domestic work.
In Geography Research Forum (Vol. 18, pp. 22-48).

Week 5: 13 September (Lecture moves to Thursday) Venue to be confirmed.

Global Crime

Manuel Castells “The Perverse Connection: The Global Criminal Economy.” In End
of Millennium. Wiley-Blackwell, 2000.

Week 6: 18 September
War and Terrorism

Julie Chernov Hwang (2018) “The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of Jemaah
Islamiyah” in Why Terrorists Quit: The Disengagement of Indonesian Jihadists.
Cornell Univ Press.

Meyer Kestnbaum. “The Sociology of War and the Military.” Annual Review of
Sociology. 2009. 35:235–54

Suggested reading:
Turk, A. T. (2004). "Sociology of Terrorism." Annual Review of Sociology

Week 7: 25 September (First essay due)

Democracy and Freedom

Fareed Zakaria “Illiberal Democracy” in The Future of Freedom. Norton. 2003.

A. Giddens “Democracy” in Runaway World: How Globalization is Reshaping Our

Lives. Routledge. 2002.

Week 8: Recess (1 – 5 October)

5
Week 9: 9 October
Identity and Violence

Manuel Castells “Globalization, Identity, and the State” Social Dynamics Volume 26,
Issue 1, 2000, Pages 5 – 17

Arjun Appadurai “Fear of Small Numbers” in Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay of

Geography of Anger. Duke University Press. 2004.

Week 10: 16 October

Globalized Cities

Sassen, S., 2002. Locating cities on global circuits. Environment and urbanization,
14(1), pp.13-30.

Köhler, B. and Wissen, M., 2003. Glocalizing protest: urban conflicts and the global
social movements. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 27(4),
pp.942-951.

Week 11: 23 October

Science and Technology

Helbing, D., Frey, B.S., Gigerenzer, G., Hafen, E., Hagner, M., Hofstetter, Y., van
den Hoven, J., Zicari, R.V. and Zwitter, A., 2017. Will democracy survive big data and
artificial intelligence. Scientific American, 25.

Sebastian M. Pfotenhauer, Christopher F. Jones, Krishanu Saha, Sheila Jasanoff

“Learning from Fukushima” Issues in Science and Technology. Volume XXVIII Issue
3, Spring 2012. Available: http://issues.org/28-3/pfotenhauer/

Week 12: 30 October

Environmental Crisis

John Bellamy Foster, “The Vulnerable Planet,” in Leslie King and Deborah McCarthy,
Environmental Sociology: From Analysis to Action. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and
Littlefield, 2005), pp. 3-15.

Daniel Faber, “The Unfair Trade-Off: Globalization and the Export of Ecological
Hazards,” in Leslie King and Deborah McCarthy (eds.), Environmental Sociology:
From Analysis to Action, 2nd Edition (New York: Rowman & Littlefield).

Week 13: 6 November

No Lecture due to Deepavali

Week 14: 13 November

Course Review