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SOC 531: Community Organization

SOC 531: Community Organization. Comparing DuBois and Lynds. 7 th Ward and Middletown. Different times (1890s: Gay Nineties, versus 1920s: Roaring Twenties Different Places Pennsylvania versus Indiana Big cities and small cities Different Authors DuBois Lynds. Different Methods.

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SOC 531: Community Organization

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  1. SOC 531: Community Organization Comparing DuBois and Lynds

  2. 7th Ward and Middletown • Different times (1890s: Gay Nineties, versus 1920s: Roaring Twenties • Different Places • Pennsylvania versus Indiana • Big cities and small cities • Different Authors • DuBois • Lynds

  3. Different Methods • DuBois uses a housing/dwelling unit census • Occupied DUs • Residential survey • Business survey • Lynds interview housewives • 124 working class families • 40 business class families • Lynds use questionnaire for high school students

  4. Lynds Methods • Started with 18 month participant observation • Observing “six main life categories” • Then developed research plan • 1890 snapshot • 1924 snapshot • Mixed methods • Participant observation • Archival/documentary: gov, clubs, churches, newpapers

  5. Compare Samples • DuBois • Focused on blacks • 39,000 people in 1890 Philadelphia • 3.76% of population was black • Area sample of Seventh Ward • 8,861 persons • 42% black

  6. Comparing DuBois and Lynds • DuBois more spatial and population oriented • More political • More conflict • More materialist • Social problems focus • Lynds more social and cultural • Consensus • Still see material base • More social constructionist

  7. Lynds • No social problems in Middletown • Individual troubles: C. Wright Mills, Sociological Imagination (1959) • Problems limited to adjustment to change • Technology • Work • Leisure • mobility • work and home • Decline of local work and neighborhood • Growth of voluntary, de-centered social life (Robert Wuthnow and Robert Bellah on secularization and civil religion)

  8. DuBois vs. Lynds • Lynds wrote about majority (>80% WASP) • Ignored minorities • Ignored neighborhoods • Focused on WASP nuclear families and businesses • Dubois wrote about a minority (<5% of population of Philadelphia) • Focused on minority neighborhood • Largely ignored religion

  9. Evaluating their Work • Prof. Harris, “Lynds were blind” • But white bread world of 1920 came crashing down • Middletown in Transition (1937) was equally racist/blind but much less cheery • Not until the Sixties (Civil Rights Movement, Great Society, and Equal Opportunity laws) did white color blindness (or blindness) change

  10. Major Problem • Generalizeability • From 7th Ward • To Southside Chicago • To Philadelphia • To black community (1890-2010) • From Middletown white working class and business class families • To Muncie • To Indiana • To West Lafayette • To Kokomo

  11. Community Studies Serious reliability problems • Can results be reproduced? • Generalized to other times and places? Often claim validity • Really capture something essential • Provide valuable, largely descriptive data

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