Activity 4

There is an old saying that good sociology sometimes requires wearing out a bit of shoe leather. For Activity 4 we will return to our census tracts and do a little detective work. Our recent readings have been drawing attention to the potential of subcultures and identities to intensify or heighten the sense of community among groups living in an area. For your activity, return to your census tract and look for evidence of this kind of intensified or heightened sense of community.

1. Bring photos, first hand descriptions, or other evidence of this sub-cultural or identity based community you find.

2. Consider how your discovery coincides with the arguments of Fischer, Portes, or Brown-Saracino. Given our readings, how would you characterize your finding?

Wait! What if I can’t find any signs of sub-cultural or identity based community in my census tract?

Well, look harder… But maybe you want to suggest it isn’t present. In that case, make your argument relying on some of our earlier readings.

For Monday, bring your evidence and a 300 word (typed) summary that describes your findings and links it to a reading from the course.