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Several students presented research they conducted in sociology courses at the 73rd Annual Meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society in Philadelphia last semester.
The students participated in a roundtable discussion, “Organizational Responses to Images: Possibilities and Downsides,” led by David Shulman, assistant professor of sociology, who accompanied them to the conference.
The event was a major highlight of the school year for anthropology and sociology major Wendy Abrantes ’04 (Bethlehem, Pa.), who presented her research on the obstacles faced by single, divorced mothers.
“It was very empowering to sit down with other students and professors from some of the most elite universities and to know that I was among them,” she says.
The other Lafayette students were:
Abrantes wrote her paper, “The Single Mother’s Dilemma,” for the Class, Status and Power course taught by Thomas Norton, professor of sociology. The topic is an intensely personal one.
“I am a divorced, single mother, living on student loans while I get through college, which in the end is a divorced, single mother’s only real hope of survival — that, and a really supportive family,” she says.
The paper notes that divorced, single divorced mothers represent a sizable portion of the poverty bracket, and their chances for financial independence are slim. They have less potential for a living wage than their estranged spouses since women make an average of 70 cents for every dollar men earn, says Abrantes. A larger apartment is needed for mothers and their children than for men living alone, more money is spent on groceries, etc.
“In short, his income goes up 40 percent after the divorce, hers goes down 70 percent,” she explains. “Additionally, the support systems that are available to her, such as The Temporary Aid for Needy Families program, better known as welfare, are not sufficient to help remove her from poverty; rather it is designed to perpetuate the cycle.”
The Department of Public Welfare does not have sufficient money and resources to lift these women out of welfare, according to Abrantes.
“Instead, policy is structured so that it really can’t help, and to boot, public opinion tends to make these unfortunate women seem like society’s most vulgar pariahs,” she says. “My paper dispels some of the myths about so-called ‘welfare queens’ and exposes the hoop jumping show for what it is.”
”I have loved my Lafayette experience,” she adds. “I would be glad to be a college student forever. I chose this school because the courses offered here were just the best and the most creative of any of the schools in this area. The professors here, especially in the anthropology and sociology department, have really met my hopes and expectations.”
Railsback and Campbell led production of the Shawnee Jest as a service-learning project for the Contemporary American Society course taught by Shulman. The publication featured stories about a middle school basketball player about to turn professional, a dome to be constructed over Easton to protect against bird droppings, and zombies at a school dance from Area 51 in New Mexico, as well as an advice column and mock advertisements.
“It was really great working with the students on such a challenging assignment,” says Railsback. “Many of the students were unfamiliar with satire and its use in everyday life. The hardest part was getting them to understand the difference between slapstick humor and clever/satirical humor.”
“The class taught by Professor Shulman is one of the best I’ve taken at Lafayette because it deals with everyday issues,” she adds. “Everything we learned was relevant to our daily lives, including politics, working in America, and volunteerism. Professor Shulman is an excellent professor because he is always willing to put in extra time with his students and he makes class enjoyable with his humor and knowledge.”
Railsback is an admissions tour guide and student phonathon volunteer. She also served as a peer tutor and traveled to Ireland over the past January interim session for a Lafayette course, The Land and Landscape of Ireland, which she calls “an amazing experience.” She is working as a lifeguard and swimming instructor this summer.
A pastor with two graduate degrees in ministry, Moor is a church consultant specializing in issues of growth. Her five Lafayette courses in sociology and statistics over the past several semesters have provided wonderful opportunities to research and write papers focused on churches, she says.
“Most training in ministry is grounded in a ‘therapeutic model’ which involves understanding the way a church functions from insights about individual psychology,” says Moor, whose husband, Scott Moor, is an assistant professor of chemical engineering at Lafayette. “I think that this model lacks a great deal in its ability to understand groups of people. Therefore, my quest at Lafayette has been to get a basic grounding in sociological methods as a way to help churches by looking at them as systems.”
At the conference, Moor presented her study of membership trends at 21 churches of the United Church of Christ in Allentown between 1943 and 2000. She divided the churches into four geographic rings and demonstrated the effects of demographic changes on their memberships. Of the nine UCC churches that have been located in the ten-block area most central to Allentown, only six remain. The total membership of the churches went from 7,260 in 1943 to 2,308 in 2000, a loss of 68 percent.
“The churches in the three more suburban rings showed in a few cases excellent growth and in most cases, moderate growth,” says Moor. “But the increase in the suburban churches could not keep pace with the decline of the center city churches. By 2000, there was a net loss among the 21 churches of 2,346 members.”
Her paper discusses the demographic and institutional reasons for this decline, which Moor attributes to a failure by these churches to adapt to a changing context, largely for ethnic and other reasons of identity.
“This picture of what happened in Allentown is basically repeated in most urban areas in the U.S. today and has caused a crisis in the mainline Protestant church,” she says. “Helping churches deal with this crisis is the focus of the consulting part of my ministry.”
“Many people in my field are exploring these kinds of avenues,” adds Moor. “I have access to wonderful teachers who have been so kind and knowledgeable. Professor Shulman and others have taught me so much. I appreciate Professor Shulman’s going the extra mile for the Eastern Sociological Society meeting.”
Shulman is coauthor of the book Talking Sociology, fifth edition, published last year by Allyn and Bacon Press, with Gary Alan Fine. He has written a book-length manuscript, Clothing Naked Emperors: The Role of Deception in Workplace Culture, which is under review at a university press. He has also published or has articles forthcoming in among others, The American Sociologist, Field Methods, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Encyclopedia of Social Theory, Symbolic Interaction, Sosiologi Idag, Diversity, and Handbook of Services Management and Marketing.
Recipient of several grants and awards, Shulman earned a Ph.D. in sociology from Northwestern University in 1997, a master’s degree in sociology from Boston University in 1989, and a bachelor’s degree in sociology and psychology from Clark University in 1986.