John Turner Essay

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John Turner Essay
Whats distinctive about taking a sociological
point of view in talking about John Turner or
just about anything else? Whats sociology all
about, after all?
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John Turner Essay Some Sociological Pointers

• The story of John Turner sheds light on the
  social situation of the young black inner-city
  male.At present it is clear, many of these young
  men and their female counterparts are being
  written off by mainstream society, a truth they
  know full well. And the world is poorer for
  their loss. (p. 289)
• Think about the ways the features of Turners
  life are not unique to him

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One good starting point The Sociological
Imagination by C. Wright Mills
The sociological imagination enables its
possessor to understand the larger historical
scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life
and the external career of a variety of
individuals.
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History and Biography
The sociological imagination enables us to grasp
history and biography and the relations between
the two within society. That is its task and its
promise No social study that does not come back
to the problems of biography, of history and of
their intersections within a society has
completed its intellectual journey.
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Personal Troubles and Public Issues
Perhaps the most fruitful distinction with which
the sociological imagination works is between
the personal troubles of milieu and the public
issues of social structure. This distinction is
an essential tool of the sociological imagination
and a feature of all classic work in social
science.
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Personal Troubles and Public Issues
Troubles occur within the character of the
individual and within the range of his immediate
relations with others.A trouble is a private
matter values cherished by an individual are
felt by him to be threatened.
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Personal Troubles and Public Issues
Issues have to do with matters that transcend
these local environments of the individuals and
the range of his inner life. They have to do
with the organization of such milieux into the
institutions of an historical society as a
wholeAn issueoften involves a crisis in
institutional arrangements
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Personal Troubles and Public Issues
In these terms, consider unemployment. When, in
a city of 100,000, only one man is unemployed,
that is his personal trouble, and for its relief
we properly look to the character of the man, his
skills, and his immediate opportunities. But
when in a nation of 50 million employees, 15
million men are unemployed, that is an issue, and
we may not hope to find its solution within the
range of opportunities open to any one
individual.
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Using Mills concepts to make a sociological
reading of John Turners life

• How does history and biography intersect for
  John Turner? How would his life have been
  different if he had been born twenty years
  earlier? What historical social changes lie
  behind his biography?
• How are John Turners personal troubles related
  to public issues? What institutional
  arrangements are called into question by his life?

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The New Urban Poverty For William Julius Wilson,
what one single factor is the defining feature of
both the new urban poverty and John Turners
life? How does it play itself out?
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For Wilson, the new urban poverty changes all
sorts of things

• family structure
• class and racial identity
• the whole structure of opportunity
• the nature of community

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Wilson insists on placing the behavior of the
John Turners of the world in a larger social
context
Given the current policy debates that assign
blame to the personal shortcomings of the
jobless, we need to understand their behavior as
responses and adaptations to chronic
subordination, including behaviors that have
evolved into cultural patterns. The social
actions of the joblessincluding their behavior,
habits, skills, styles, orientations,
attitudesought not to be analyzed as if they are
unrelated to the broader structure of their
opportunities and constraints that have evolved
over time. (p. 144)
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What has caused the joblessness that Wilson and
others see as devastating poor black communities?

• Deindustrialization (less demand for low skilled
  labor)
• Suburbanization of jobs
• The shift to a service economy
• Government policies
• An inadequate war on poverty

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Collins and Yeskel provide a broader context the
increasing inequality within U.S. society and
around the globe.

• How is John Turners life shaped by such factors
  as
• shifts in who holds policy-making power?
• the rise of neoliberalism, with its hostility to
  government, its indifference to inequality, and
  its faith in market solutions?
• changes in the rules of the domestic and global
  economy?

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Discuss What is the relevance for Domhoffs book
for understanding John Turner? (Be sure to
address this in your paper.)
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Other Questions...
Does John Turner lack what Bourdieu calls social
and cultural capital?
Is Turners hustling an example of what Scott
calls weapons of the weak? Does Turner
encounter non-merit barriers to mobility that
McNamee Miller discuss?
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• How does Andersons notion of code of the
  street help us understand John Turner?
• What do we learn from the story of Robert
  about the difficulties of leaving the world of
  the street behind?

Elijah Anderson
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• Reminders
• These are suggestions for ways to approach John
  Turners story--youre not expected to follow up
  on all of them
• Read the assignment carefully before you start
  outlining or writing
• Integrate those aspects of the readings you find
  most useful to make an argument about John
  Turners life and what needs to be done to stop
  this sort of tragedy
• Review the checklist after you have written a
  draft of your paper to make sure youve met the
  requirements.