• Syllabus - Spring 2026.
• Links to readings
  • Old links to readings (might not all work)

This seminar introduces students to the field of community sociology. We do three things: (1) We review the literature in the field, including subfields, (2) we review multiple methods of research in the field, and (3) students write a final paper, which may be based on their own research project or may be a literature review of material we cover in the class.

Substantive areas in our literature review include theories of community and social capital from the early 19th century to the present. Subtopics include questions of democracy, civic engagement, participation, and community organizations; disaster studies; neighborhood change; crime; health; intergroup relations; community and national development; and other questions.

Methodological topics include how to combine quantitative, ethnographic, organizational, geo-spatial, content analytical, photo and video, comparative-historical, multi-level, & other methods in community research – including issues in data collection (incl survey sampling), in-depth interviewing, and image-making – to derive a fuller picture. The instructor will walk students through the methodological steps taken in his research on the transitions to democracy in Germany after Hitler and the fall of communism, as well as transitions in other countries; recovery from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and other disaster studies; community response to the Covid 19 pandemic; photographic neighborhood portraits in New Orleans; as well as studies in intergroup relations and prejudice, crime, health, and other topics.

Students write a final paper, which may be on a research project of their own choosing (in consultation with the instructor) and/or a literature review based on the class readings. The literature review can also serve as a first step in developing a student's own research project. Students will present their developing project to the class at several stages, and will receive help and comments from class members. The instructor may make his own data available to students for their projects, with limitations. Data include the instructor's large quantitative and ethnographic datasets on community recovery from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, his dataset of qualitative interviews on community response to Covid 19, as well as his ongoing photographic neighborhood portraits in New Orleans. Numerous projects begun in this seminar have gone on to become journal publications and conference papers.

This seminar complements other quantitative and qualitative methods classes in the department, including survey, multi-level, geospatial, photo/video-ethnographic and standard ethnographic, and comparative-historical methods.

Seminar sessions include the following topics:

• Concepts of community: Social capital, inequality, power, solidarity, organization, leadership, culture
• Preparation & design of questionnaires for surveys:
  • Background ethnographic exploration.
  • Operationalizing theoretical constructs for quantitative measurement.
  • Multiple levels of data collection: community members; community leaders; organizations.
• Working with community organizations, nonprofits, & others
• Issues in field methods of data collection & strategies of sampling
• Engaging with the community: issues in participant observation & action research; the role of the researcher
• Introduction to photographic and video ethnography: field work, post-production, & editing
• Quantitative data preparation & analysis:
  • Introduction to mapping data & geospatial analysis
  • Introduction to merging & managing data; combining one's own survey data & government data; multilevel analysis
• Content analysis of qualitative data: Grounded theory; transcript coding & emergent categories; theory development
• Comparative historical context and the logic of analysis
• Combining multi-method materials to develop and test hypotheses, and tell a complete story and structural analysis

This class builds on and was inspired by the instructor's research on
Disaster recovery in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, here,
Community Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic, here,
Photographic Neighborhood Portraits in New Orleans, here,
Grassroots Mentoring, here,
and Research on Democracy and Antisemitism, here.