Literature Review

5

CULF 2321 Wright-Spring 2018

Deliberative Dialogue Issue Guide Literature Review

(5%-individual grade)

“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.”

- Zora Neale Hurston, novelist and ethnographer

OVERVIEW

Now that you’ve completed your group topic proposal form, it’s time to start digging into your own line of research into the social problem your group is focusing on and the different approaches people across the ideological spectrum take to solve that problem (or problems). Remember, with your proposal, I asked your group to both narrow your social problem (i.e. from racism to racism and housing, or racism and police actions, etc.) and to start thinking about some of the controversial solutions/policies suggested by stakeholders to address that social problem (i.e. cameras on cops, etc.). Hopefully your group-authored proposal gave you a chance to start researching and reviewing the background information and history of your social problem, as well as some of the ways stakeholders are attempting to ‘fix’ the problem(s). Now you can start to dig deeper into one aspect of the social problem via a literature review, otherwise known as an annotated bibliography.

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of your literature reviews, I’d like to review some key vocabulary with you and discuss how they relate to your next step in building your Issue Guide:

Social Problem: Contemporary American social problems are complex situations that negatively affect a large portion of the population, the solution to which large (and credible) groups of people debate passionately. As we have discussed in class, we are focusing on four major, overarching social problems that Americans face that are related to: income inequality, gender inequality, homophobia/heterosexism, and racism, as well as the intersections of these and other forms of identity-related issues, and each of your group’s projects relates to one or more of these overarching problems. However, the focus of your literature review and of the upcoming Research Outline will be on a more specific social problem related to these overarching problems, as well as more specific social problems imbedded within the major social problem on which the Issue Guide is focused. For instance, if your group’s overarching topic is racism, your group should have by now selected a narrower topic, such as racial profiling. Within that social problem, your group might look at several underlying social problems (stereotyping, corrupt or inadequately trained police departments, lack of prosecution for police offenses), or how this social problem manifests itself in different social settings (in airports, at borders, on the streets) or how it affects different populations (immigrant populations (or those presumed to be so), people of color, poor people, homeless people).

Approaches: These are the steps that various stakeholders suggest to address the social problem on which your group’s Issue Guide is focused. Examples of potential controversial solutions to the problems of the rising cost of higher education might include:

Reforming the FAFSA form so that it is easier for working class and middle class students to receive federal aid to cover expenses

Moving higher education more and more online, following the model of MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses)

Offer more affordable tuition by cutting expenses on luxuries for students

Offer more affordable tuition by cutting administrative costs

As you are researching the social problems, you also want to look for the possible approaches to solving those problems. Often these two elements are discussed in conjunction with each other so don’t go looking only for one piece of the Issue Guide content at a time. Let your research process be an organic one, and try to dig into your research sources with multiple goals in mind.

Stakeholders: Stakeholders are credible groups or individuals who have a real stake, or say, in the social problem and/or its various solutions. Stakeholders can usually be divided into two categories: general stakeholders, or loosely affiliated groups of people who share a stake in an issue. For instance, for the topic of rising cost of higher education and the approaches listed above, general stakeholders would include those affected—most students, many faculty, some administrators, most parents, some university officials, some politicians, etc. Specific stakeholders, or specific individuals or groups that can make a measurable difference in policy. Specific stakeholders for the problem of racial profiling might include President Obama, the Justice Department, the L.A. Police Department, the NAACP, etc.

LITERATURE REVIEW INSTRUCTIONS

This assignment is similar to an annotated bibliography; it asks you to summarize and reflect critically on at least 10 relevant, authoritative sources about your social problem(s) and approaches. Ideally, you will find this assignment to be quite valuable because it will help you contribute to your group’s Issue Guide. Once you write your literature review, you will also have completed the formatting of entries for your required Works Cited page.

Topic: Briefly describe your group’s topic—the controversy you are researching—and why this topic interesting to you. Why is it controversial? We’re discussing the pattern of black college graduates holding low wage jobs longer than other demographics. It’s understandable that your first job out of college is entry level and may be minimum wage, but we’re wondering if black people fresh out of college hold these types of jobs longer than other demographics and if they do, why? It’s interesting to us because we’re told that college opens doors for you and is a Segway into the job market, but it seems as though black people are held back from higher paying jobs longer than other demographics.

This is a great topic, particularly since there is such a high concentration of black women in higher education right now, more than any other demographic, yet we aren’t seeing a bridge of the racial or gender wage gap black women face.

SOURCES

Your literature review should contain at least 10 entries, and should meet the following criteria:

You must include a variety of types of authoritative sources (journal articles, newspaper articles, books, etc.).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4300995/

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2017/12/04/black-women-are-earning-more-college-degrees-but-that-alone-wont-close-race-gaps/

You must have at least one entry that is from a book (e-book is fine).

https://www.ncbcp.org/news/releases/5Black_Women_in_the_US_2016.pdf

A Woman's Wage: Historical Meanings and Social Consequences (Blazer Lectures) 2nd Edition, Kindle Edition

Opting Out: Losing the Potential of America's Young Black Elite Kindle Edition

You must have at least two entries from scholarly, peer-reviewed texts.

http://www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/workplace-fairness/fair-pay/african-american-women-wage-gap.pdf

https://cew-7632.kxcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/AfricanAmericanMajors_2016_web.pdf

You must have at least two sources from stakeholders seeking to solve the social problems.

https://nwlc.org/resources/equal-pay-for-black-women/

http://fortune.com/2017/07/31/serena-williams-black-women-equal-pay/

You must include sources that provide a variety of perspectives on the topic you have selected.

https://www.epi.org/publication/african-americans-are-paid-less-than-whites-at-every-education-level/

https://www.refinery29.com/2017/02/142505/black-women-gender-pay-gap-in-hollywood

https://www.epi.org/blog/low-wage-african-american-workers-have-increased-annual-work-hours-most-since-1979/

You will not be allowed to use general encyclopedia or dictionary entries or Wikipedia as sources. You may consult these to learn background materials about your topic, but they will not count as one of your 10 sources. You may, however, use scholarly encyclopedias (check out the Gale Research Library through Databases on the Library’s Research site). These are typically are very specific, such as the Encyclopedia of Social Activism, and scholars produce the entries.

FORMAT

For each of your sources, you should include a citation with relevant publication information in MLA format. Adhere carefully to the MLA guidelines, which may be found in any style guide, such as the Hacker Pocket Style Manual, the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, or online sites such as The Online Writing Lab at Purdue: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/

LITERATURE REVIEW INSTRUCTIONS

For each of your 10 sources, you should do the following:

Identify the type of source (chapter, book, article, website, etc.) and it’s main topic and focus.

Present the source’s argument(s) or main point(s).

Discuss the source’s strengths, weaknesses, and overall credibility. Discuss the author’s or source’s bias and purpose (to sell, to convince, to inform). Do you find the piece accessible to a general audience, or is it geared to a more specialized audience?

Include key information that might be useful for any section of the Issue Guide. (This is the makings of your major project for the semester, so really dig into those sources now to save tie later!!)

Tag how this piece might contribute to your project. For instance: social problem’s scope: stats on student debt; approach to problem: MOOCs (Be as specific here as possible to help you and your group members move forward.)

For this assignment, I will expect you to primarily rely on your own words and phrasing—use summary and paraphrase, as well as carefully excerpted direct quotations. Each entry in your literature review should be about 1/3 of a page, single-spaced; however, you may discover that some entries require more page space, some less. For more guidelines and to view a sample annotated bibliography/literature review, visit The Purdue OWL at: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/614/02/

SAMPLE ENTRY

Devinatz, Victor. "The Continuing Controversy over Right-to-Work Laws in the Early Twenty-First Century." Employee Responsibility and Rights Journal 23.4 (2011): 287-293. Business Source Complete. Web. 6 Feb. 2012.

This article examines the resurgence of Right To Work legislation in the wake of the 2008 economic recession. The author does a wonderful job highlighting the points in contention of the argument, and adequately presents both sides’ arguments.

Far from an unbiased view, this journal article argues--in language and tone--for the opponents of RTW laws. He argues that three main points--the elimination of free riders, the prevention of employer weakening of unions, and that union shops are democratic ideals--make up the opponents argument. RTW advocates, on the other hand, are governed by three conflicting points--closed shops are restrictions on freedom of choice of the NLRA, they infringe upon workers‘ constitutional rights, and they give too much power to union officials--which shape all of their

ensuing arguments. He further states that three historical hypotheses--state union “taste, free-rider, and bargaining power”--have governed the arguments on RTW laws’ effects. The article further claims that “research has found that the presence of RTW laws is one factor playing a role in” the significant drop in union membership and density from the 1950’s on (Devinatz 290). He concludes that these laws not only lower union rates in RTW states, but also effectively reduce unionism in non-RTW states, as “companies...elude unionization by relocating from highly unionized areas to RTW states” (Devinatz 290), thereby dropping union rates in union shop states. This article also gives evidence that RTW laws substantiate all three hypotheses, and cumulatively reduce union organizing drives and membership by 8% (Devinatz 292). Finally, the article finds that RTW laws do not, or have not, severely altered (either positively or negatively) total worker wages and also have not created significant job growth (however there is correlation with job growth and RTW laws).

Credibility: Devinatz is a PhD who specializes in labor history and labor relations. He has published more than one hundred articles in popular publications and sixty articles in academic journals on topics related to industrial relations and unionization.

Contribution: This article gives a great overview of the two sides of the debate, and offers three main points of each group’s argument. It also focuses on the three guiding hypotheses in relation to states with RTW laws. This will be used to help frame my discussion of the debate, and will ultimately give credibility to the opponents’ argument.

Scope/Arguments from Opponents of RTW laws/labor support

GRADING CRITERIA

Papers will be graded on thoughtful completion of each entry, quality and range of sources selected, clear and polished writing, and proper MLA format.

I will evaluate your annotated bibliography according to these criteria:

Completion of all requirements for annotation entries

Completion of all requirements for the type of sources required for the project

Careful analysis of your assigned research materials

Demonstrated ability to evaluate the quality and usefulness of the source and author’s credentials

Clear and precise sentence-level rhetoric (grammar and style)

DUE DATE: Thursday, March 8th by class time on Canvas (.doc or .docx files ONLY please).

HAPPY LITERATURE REVIEWING!

*Adapted from Shannon Baley’s Group Forum Project Literature Review Assignment