Week 1 - Seminar Discussion (49:27)

Greetings everyone and welcome to the first session, our first live session of Introduction to Sociology.

The last few days have been simply extraordinary in terms of the response and the discussion

on the course website which I’ve been following.

Although I have not been able to respond to each and every one of your postings,

I want you to know that I’ve been looking carefully at the many things that you have written

and I am so impressed with the level and quality of the discussion and the ways

in which you are all helping one another along to develop a better understanding of the material.

This is peer learning at its best and this a very impressive group of students from all over the world.

I want to begin today by thanking my own administration —

the President and the Provost, and the Dean of the faculty and the Dean of the college,

and the Associate Dean, and the people at the McGraw Teaching Center,

and the people working here in the broadcast center at Princeton University for making all of this possible.

It’s this university’s commitment to bringing courses like this to a wider public and being inclusive

that has made this possible,

and their decision to devote the resources to this kind of enterprise

makes me feel wonderful as a member of the Princeton faculty

and I know that my colleagues on the Princeton faculty feel as though very similarly to me

that this is a very special moment in the history of higher education that we are a part of,

that we have the privilege of being a part of.

And, I want to say also that, you know,

this is really part of a pretty long-standing tradition here at Princeton:

In our university we have a very generous financial aid package to students

who’ve come here from a very wide variety of backgrounds.

And one of the things that I think didn’t come across in the article by Malcolm Gladwell

is the extent to which that is significant in the ongoing life of Princeton.

We have certainly the best financial aid package in the world and it is something that we are very proud of.

Probably 60 percent of our students are on financial aid.

Our students are not required to take out loans to come here.

The financial aid is available to students not only from the United States but from all over the world,

and it extends from $5,000 to $50,000 depending on the needs of an individual family in a given year

and I have received questions over e-mail from students around the world asking

whether or not it’s possible for people from outside the United States to apply for financially aid.

And the answer is yes, there are no limitations on that,

and financial need is not taken into consideration when admissions decisions are made.

Over ten percent of our student body comes from outside the United States

and many of those students are on financial aid.

I want to talk today about the Malcolm Gladwell article but first I want to begin by discussing in some detail

the article that we read by C. Wright Mills which was written of course in 1959.

And I want to begin by welcoming the students from around the world

who are part of our seminar for today.

I should say at the outset that we invited a couple of more people to join us today and for technical reasons,

some of them are not up on the screen — they might pop up during the course of our conversation.

But for the time being, we are going to speak with the people that are there.

I’d like them to introduce themselves to us beginning with the person on the far left, Dipendra.

And then let’s go through each person.

And I’d like the each of you to say something about what you thought was most interesting,

something brief about what you thought was most interesting about Mills’s essay, “The Promise.”

Dipendra.

>> Hi, this is Di [from] Nepal.

And if you are wondering where Nepal is, we are in [inaudible] India [inaudible]. We’re a very small country.

I come from [inaudible]. My bachelors in rural development and I have a major in sociology as well.

Particular interested in this, today’s text by C. Wright Mills.

I’ve been very much fascinated for those examples of study relating to the institution of the society,

specifically at his out during the lecture regarding divorce and marriage.

That was one thing very much interesting to me.

Another thing we tried, at the last time, the text which is

that if you want to develop your socialism then you should plays very mean.

So, that, about the thing that have been striking…

>> Okay. Dipendra unfortunately the connection to you was not great

but I will summarize though that you thought that one of the most interesting things

has to do with the connection of the sociological imagination to marriage and divorce.

And, we will look forward to hearing more from you later, hopefully with a better connection.

Doug?

>> Yeah, hi, I’m Doug, I’m from Philadelphia.

I don’t know. “The Promise,” — I believe is the name of the paper —

my impression, it was really hard to understand — you know,

trying to put myself back in 1959 and trying to understand where it was coming from.

It seemed almost like he was just trying to focus on the psychology, I guess, of being trapped.

But I also want… I did understand the basic thing of where I was going with it.

>> Doug, could you tell us a little bit about yourself in Philadelphia.

>> Yeah, I’m a firefighter in Philadelphia.

34 years old which I think makes me the oldest member of the panel.

You know, I took a little bit of college.

After high school I was in the Navy most of the time.

And now I’m trying to get back in college.

>> And are you, are you talking to us from the firehouse right now?

>> No. No, (>> [laugh]) I can’t.

I can’t do that. [laugh] (>> [laugh])

Everything that I say is — what — my opinion; it has nothing to do with the Fire Department.

But no, I’m at my house and yeah, I’m excited to be here.

>> Okay. Thank you, Doug.

>> My name is Estela Diaz.

I’m a Princeton University student majoring in Sociology.

I’m originally from Los Angeles, California and currently living in Spanish Harlem in New York City.

One of the things I thought was most interesting is considering the sociological imagination

in context of the United States 2012 political campaign and the presidential election.

I’m just kind of considering how issues are framed —

Whether they are framed as personal issues or public issues, especially the economic downturn.

>> Fascinating. Is it Nana who’s next?

>> I’m Nana. I’m from Georgia.

It’s Caucasus not Georgia in USA.

>> [laugh].

>> I am working as a representative of Israeli delegation here in Georgia and Ukraine and in Belarus.

Also I have a travel company with my friend; we’re dealing only with incoming tourists,

And for me the most… I pay attention on the sociological imagination in the chapter one:

it was quite interesting for me how people can imagine the things in the world,

and also marriage and divorce, because in Georgia it’s quite complicated.

>> Thank you, Nana.

And then finally.

>> Hello, my name is Pavel [inaudible] University School of [inaudible]

and National Relations which is the case in Southwestern Russia.

I found this article very interesting because it’s referring to the effect

that our lives are just a moment in terms of historical change and even the…

so we have to think more, to think wider in this case.

>> That’s very interesting.

Okay, well, these are some very interesting ways of beginning our thinking

about what Mills was trying to say and what I’d like to do now with you guys is

to try to go through the essay in a little bit of detail —

from Kathmandu, to Siberia, to Georgia, to Spanish Harlem, to Philadelphia —

and talk about the meaning of some of these lines and how we should interpret them.

I want to begin with the first paragraph, the second line where Mills says,

“they sensed that within their everyday world, they cannot overcome their troubles

and this feel, and this feeling they are quite often correct.”

One question that I want to ask you is this:

is there some sense in which that line, and the essay as a whole, gives an impression to people

that if only they can develop a sociological imagination, that they can overcome their troubles?

And is that really realistic?

What are some of the dilemmas involved in thinking about this in such a way?

>> Yeah. I believe that was something that

had something to do a little bit more with this psychology of it, you know,

somebody kinda trapped in their own sometimes made-up shell.

It’s because they feel — I mean it’s almost like looking at this minute, you know, I was never able…

I wasn’t much of a person that was very smart coming out of high school, I guess,

so I didn’t take the college route.

And as I got older, I wanted to go to college but now this is a forwarding opportunity.

I feel like I’m widening now a little bit like from personal experience.

So that’s kinda like the way I look at it — like

instead of me [standing there] in my own shell, now I feel like I’m just through this course.

I’m feeling like I’m kind of getting over it.

>> And, is there a sense though — I’m curious to know — in which…

Does having a sociological imagination give us any legitimate reason to believe

that we are in a better position to overcome our personal troubles?

Or is that an unrealistic kind of thing to begin the essay with?

>> I didn’t personally interpret it as such. Instead I interpreted this repeated notion

of not being able to overcome one’s personal troubles —

I interpreted that as Mills arguing for a larger perspective, not necessarily saying

that having a sociological imagination will allow you to overcome troubles

but instead emphasizing that our troubles are not strictly derived from the individual.

So Mills is arguing that having that sociological imagination will give you a different perspective on your troubles

but it will not necessarily solve your troubles.

>> Very interesting. Would anyone else like to comment on this?

>> I think almost the same because I, I think it’s not depend to overcome the troubles,

it’s not coming from the sociological imagination.

You can you can solve your troubles and solve your problems without knowing it but it helps you quite a lot.

>> But are you sure about that, Nana?

Are you really sure that having a sociological imagination would help you in solving the personal troubles?

>> Eh. Like in Georgia [inaudible].

>> Oh, really? Could you say more about that?

>> Let’s say, in Georgia if you’re…

like, for people who are coming from abroad, it’s not easy to find some jobs.

If you are not an investor it’s not easy to find it.

If you know the sociological imagination, like to help

how people think about it, you will not come in Georgia and start your work here.

You will go to another country to find some job.

Let’s say, let’s say this example.

>> So, in other words, having the socio… that’s a really good answer.

Having the sociological imagination is going to perhaps one way of having a sociological imagination

is to know our probabilities, and understanding the probabilities means

that we can assess our chances and decide what we should try and what we shouldn’t try, right?

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. But let me ask you a question, Estela.

You’re a Princeton student, okay?

>> If you knew (>> Mhm.) the probabilities when you applied to Princeton of being accepted,

would you have ever tried?

>> I mean, I think I kind of did know the probabilities was less than ten percent acceptance rate.

And over, I think it’s, it was about 30,000 people who applied my year,

with only… with less than 2,000 of us being accepted, the probability was extremely low.

But you have to, in the case of applying to Princeton University,

I think there was something worth a lot more than… I think it was worth taking my chances.

>> But the thing is just: did having a sociological imagination and knowing the odds,

did that increase the chances of you applying? Or don’t you think

that there are some people who are having that knowledge might have said, “It’s not worth it to try at all”?

I mean, if somebody finds out that the chances of doing,

of succeeding in any field are small, does that knowledge necessarily help them in the end?

We’re assuming that it’s empowering to have that knowledge,

but I wonder if it could also be disempowering.

What do you… (>> I think it could…) Go ahead.

>> it could certainly be discouraging, especially if you consider Mills’ article in general,

he’s kind of taking away from the notion of individual agency and individual power.

So when you take that away, it does and can seem very discouraging.

>> Doug, what do you think about this?

>> Well, basically I think that Estela hit the nail right on the head.

That — you know — that sense of, you know, when like things are hopeless,

people are going to say, “Why am I going to put the effort in?”

But, if you realize, like Estela did, that you know, that doesn’t just define who you are,

that, you know, that 10%, if you’re going to part of that 10%,

you’re part of that ten percent like what are you going to do about it?

It is what it is, and that really, I think that could really be freeing for somebody

because that’s not going to really upset them if they turn around and get rejected.

They’ll say, okay, whatever, you know, although I was ready for that.

It’s kinda like a you know, “expect the”… “expect the worst,”

or “hope for the best and expect the worst” kind of thing, I guess.

And I don’t know if I am missing that point.

>> Let’s move on to the next part of the paper.

At the very beginning of the second paragraph, Mills says, “Underlying this sense of being trapped

are seemingly impersonal changes in the very structure of continent-wide societies.”

There were some discussion on the discussion boards

over the last few days about what Mills meant by impersonal changes.

And I thought that you guys did a very good job

of clarifying the issue for those who were confused, but what does this mean to you?

What are some of the kinds of impersonal changes

that affect you in the society in which you live as a way of conceiving of what Mills is talking about?

Dipendra, could you start?

>> I was very much interested in the previous paragraph

so I was about to speak but I lost my connection.

So, maybe I would rather go back to that paragraph and I’ll jump to this paragraph at the end.

>> Sure, why don’t you do that. (>> So, in the previous thing.) Go ahead, please do.

>> So, I have a different I have a, I have a different perspective on

that it does say, it is said that within the everyday works they cannot overcome the troubles.

I want to keep myself in this example.

I have my parents divorced.

So in this actually when my parents, then was suddenly, the problem that I’m facing in the world.

So, I, believe is facing this kind of problem and I was so… I have a small sister

and I have my mom crying in front of me every day and my dad was with another woman.

So, how I felt, it was like I felt that this was only me. This is only “I’m the guy” problem.

But sociological imagination, I think that in a broader perspective,

when I look at my society then I see a lot of people who get who get divorced so then, then I do is,

I simply hiding myself and say that, okay boy, this is, this is not only the way you move ahead.

It’s not, spend your whole life regretting because your dad married to another woman or something.

So, when I look at only… when I think that is my problem only, I feel I’m trapped in that problem.

But when I come out of my family, when I come out, when I look at my society then I feel a lot,

this is the broader perspective that I should look into and that really motivated me.

>> Well, I think that, that is a really wonderful statement because what you’re saying

is that you feel as though the understanding that your experience was not a personal problem

but was part of a larger trend and a larger public issue inspired you to feel empowered.

And that you decided that you are going to rise above your social circumstances

with that knowledge knowing that was not your fault

or knowing that this was not the fault of your family —

and I actually, I think that’s a really excellent response to my concern

and it’s really a nice response because I think that in the case of divorce,

it’s true that many children feel as though they are themselves the cause of their parents’ divorce

so they feel as though they are responsible for it and certainly it’s true

that their family members blame themselves, and I think it is the case that

if you know that you’re part of something larger and wider, perhaps that is actually empowering

to be able to get beyond it and move beyond it.

And yet I must tell you that I feel still nevertheless a certain concern over these lines

and what they imply in the essay because for many people, you know, their lives are just really hard.

And, it is going to be hard for them whether they know that they’re part of a larger social trend or not.

And the ability to rise beyond their social circumstances,

I worry, takes a lot more obviously than any kind of knowledge or understanding of this kind,

but perhaps that’s just obvious and not worth being overly concerned with.

By the way, in our Princeton Seminars, there are moments, as Estela will tell you, of complete silence.

And I encourage those moments in my seminar. I believe in silence.

I think it’s great for people to be able to sit and think for a second.

Sometimes we’ll have silence for 30 seconds in the room before somebody talks.

We shouldn’t always feel pressured to fill in every gap at every moment,

and no more so just because we happen to be on the Internet for 30,000 other students right now.

Does anybody else have anything they wanted to add to that before we move on there, then?

>> Yes. May I add something? It will be kind of question.

When you were talking in your lecture about sociological imagination,

what we find was mortgage and divorce — situations and issues.

I remember the words of Soviet secretary-general Joseph Stalin ’cause he once said to Averill Harriman.

He said, “The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of million is statistic.”

I’d like to know that I am not a fan of Joseph Stalin, and my opinion, he was a dictator.

That was just the first thing that came to my mind,

whether there is an argument, whether he said it or not.

So I wanted to ask a bit political question.

I understand that in terms of historical change, as also Mills noted,

our lives are only a moment so today anything around us could be revealed as a statistic —

even our lives can be a statistic within this scope

of the population size, and then the scope of many other issues.

So our president tells about wages.

When he tells about wages, he cites average wages data.

Why doesn’t he cite the lowest [inaudible], for example Tatiana

who is which a school teacher in Siberia in who has four children and tries to survive with four kids.

How do you think, professor? Can the government treat its people just as a statistic?

And where is the border of statistic and the real life?

>> Well, I think that it’s very tempting to use a single statistic,

and of course what a sociological imagination is going to do,

is going to try to encourage people to look at the variation,

and to try to explain the variation in a society.

And, I think that there’s always a tendency to try to put the focus in one place or the other

but your job is as a sociologist is to move toward an understanding and grasping

of that variation in which you just did in your wonderful comment

and that’s a great quote which I’m sure that I’ll be using in the future when I give this lecture again.

I want to ask you guys to take a peek though at the notion of

that first line in the essay, and I want to get back to this issue of impersonal changes.

Could you guys try to think about what that means,

and try to help the students who were concerned about that all on the website to reflect on that a little bit more?

What are some of the impersonal changes in your society?

Nana has gone off, why don’t we go to Doug?

>> When I look at this line, as far as impersonal changes,

I felt like that was something that, you know,

in a time, I mean, it was brought up before about what’s going on with the housing crisis,

with the job crisis and everything else.

And in a time when jobs are, you know, so few and far between,

somebody can very easily think of themselves “Well there’s something wrong with me that’s why I’m not working,”

when, if they look at the, you know, the way that everything is in society,

it’s not a personal change that you need to make,

it’s the way that the society is that, you know, the…

the structure and, as it goes, the very structure of the continent-wide society

that if there’s, there’s change made to the system,

not something that has to do with this one person —

like I feel like that line is trying to give somebody a little bit of hope you know,

like “Look, it’s not you! You have the ability, you just need to understand

that there’s a problem out there right now.” I think we’re just going

to need to try a little bit harder and don’t let yourself down and don’t feel like you’re trapped.

>> Okay. Estela?

>> No, I think he saw that very well.

I’m trying to think.

I’m looking at what he says the structure of continent-wide societies and just contextualizing this

in nineteen…, I mean, if we consider the effect of the Internet now in our very discussion here today,

where we were discussing this with people on various continents, various countries.

So looking at impersonal changes, that’s something far beyond our what he says as personal troubles,…

>> Yeah. I think that one of the things that concerns me about this point as well is that, you know,

the emphasis on, obviously, the impersonal changes and that as if they are always trapping us.

And I think that we have to have more a nuanced view of it — at least I would propose that —

and the, you know, the impersonal change of today of the Internet

obviously is also leading to possibilities like the one that we have before us right now.

And, I think that our job as sociologists

is to look at the ways in which impersonal changes not only trap us,

but also liberate us and potentially make us more free.

And I wonder whether or not anybody could present an example other than the Internet

of any kind of impersonal change in their own society.

Or perhaps the internet is the best one for your society right now that you’d like to refer to,

but in which the actual impersonal change has been liberating rather than simply constraining.

Remember silence is fine. Silence is good in the seminar.

Everyone can think.

>> I think that was a good example, try to recover other issues.

>> Okay. Well maybe we can ask our online viewers,

the other members of the class, to think about that issue a little bit as we move forward in the class.

I want to move on now to a discussion of the New Yorker article

that was written by the great writer, the great non-fiction writer, Malcolm Gladwell.

And I saw some questions on the discussion boards

about why I would have assigned this article for the first class.

And in fact, the article was assigned

for exactly the reason that many of you proposed in your answers to the person who asked that question:

because I believe it exemplifies the sociological imagination.

Can you guys hear me right now?

Yes? Okay, good.

So, let’s begin now by talking a little bit about Gladwell’s article.

Gladwell being a Canadian who came to the United States

and was kind of intrigued by the culture of New York City

in which he found that there were many people who were obsessed with Harvard in particular,

and who seemed to think that if they had gone there

that there was nothing of greater importance that could have happened to them in their lives.

And he wrote this essay based on, as we know,

based on the research of sociologist Jerome Karabel largely,

about the nature of admissions at Harvard, Princeton and Yale,

and the way in which it moved in the direction that it is in today.

And, one of the things that I found very interesting about the responses on the Internet to this

was that, there were many people who saw the decision

of the Ivy League Schools to look at the “whole person” rather than a single dimension

as meaning — as implying — that, that was somehow a false promise,

or that people have been excluded

that people, that they themselves were being promised something that wasn’t really fair or obtainable

when they were given the hope that they one day could achieve or go to an Ivy League School.

And I’m just curious about that response because my own feeling about it in looking at the way

that the system of college admissions emerged is that,

while I think it’s good that the largest group of students in the university

has gotten there because of their academic achievement,

I think that it is also true that there are so many other qualities in life

that make for a deserving and an interesting human being.

And, would we really want a college to only include the people who have the highest scores

rather than a system like the one that has been designed

which actually looks at a much wider variety of personal characteristics?

And I’m just curious about what your response was to some of those comments

and how you would design a system like this if it was up to you.

Dipendra.

>> Actually when I was going through this text,

what I’ve felt was the education system the admission system

that was there and unfortunately, in Nepal, I’ve been practicing that now.

So, we have the, actually a brief background of

the admission system that we have here and then I’ll get back to my point.

So, here at Nepal, what [we have] there are typically two different kinds of colleges or universities.

The primary targets of all the university and all the college here in Nepal is you should get at least good marks —

at least, [inaudible] more than 60 percent or more than three GPA —

so that you can get into good college or something like that.

And very few, very few colleges and universities — we count in hands or fingers —

that they’ll look overall student or they look at overall characteristics of students.

So it would depend, but I would like to say seeing, to look at examples

that I have seen here in Nepal, what I have come to conclude is typically,

there are two different university here that I would like to mention in Nepal.

The Tribhuvan University which is government owned university and Kathmandu University

that is privately owned university.

So, why does Tribhuvan University does it?

They don’t have a proper definite system of taking in students.

So, every time they can have a ticket of admission in that college.

They have let’s say you have crossed 50 percent then you’ll get into that university — and where I am now.

And before coming to this university, I actually dropped the Kathmandu University

because private university and which required rigorous competition.

They had added a baseline for academics.

We need to get at least 60 percent in your high school, then

you should be astounding in extra curricular activities,

you should be astounding in sports, you should be social, and so many characteristics.

And where the products that come out after from the universities after four years,

we can see a clear distinction here in Nepal:

Kathmandu University, which has a system of looking a student from all dimension,

the students are… they are very practical, they know a lot of things, you know, they are outgoing.

And while we look at the students of Tribhuvan University,

what I see is students are very much confined to books —

not even in textbooks: we have these papers here that means the questions that, the exams.

So there are some predicted questions and you go through that question and you will get questions out of that.

It is sometimes… that’s really a very difficult task at Tribhuvan University.

So, what I feel is, for a college student to get admission, academics should be one of the primary criteria,

but we should have also look at the students in overall —

how good they [inaudible] in society, how good they [inaudible] in sports.

That’s what I [think].
>> Thank you.

Thank you for that interesting comment, Dipendra.

Would anyone else like to comment on this?

>> Yes, may I comment?
>> Yes.

>> Because getting in is a very pressing problem for me.

Now I’m graduating in a few days, and then I’ll be… I have to find an advocate’s masters program.

And while I was reading “Getting In” article, I have a feeling you know,

well, the situation that existed in the beginning of the twentieth Century in Harvard University and Yale etc.

With standardized tests now exists in Russia,

in the twenty-first century, in the beginning of the twenty-first century.

So, I think it’s not a good way to admit students just on the basis of standardized tests.

Academic records is a very is a very… is an important problem

but while admitting they should see…

they should see the person[’s] hope — hope as in hope —, his background, his experience,

what he can do, maybe… just not only his studies.

>> So, it’s interesting to hear your perspectives on this, and it is true that outside the United States,

that the standards are usually much more narrow for admissions decisions.

And I think that, that is what accounted for some of the surprise

that initially came on to the site about the way that it’s done here in the United States.

I want to, oh, I see we have another person that just joined us.

Another Princeton student named Dixon Lee.

Hi, Dixon.

>> Hi, Mitch.

>> So, we’re talking right now about the Malcolm Gladwell essay

and one of the interesting points that I want to sort of end by thinking about,

is something that came up a lot on the discussion boards

which was the study that was cited — and this is for everybody, not just for Dixon —

the study that was cited by Gladwell, by my colleague Alan Krueger, who did a study of the people

who were — let’s say “hypothetically,” as it’s described in the article —

accepted into a state university like Penn State, at a private university like the University of Pennsylvania.

And what was his point in making that comparison and what did he find?

Does anybody remember?

It certainly elicited a lot of response on the discussion boards.

>> Um. So they referred to it as comparing apples to apples.

And what they discovered is that both the person who decides to go to the more elite university —

“elites” — and the person who decides to go to the state school, both do well in the future.

With the finding of one exception, which is those from the lowest economic strata.

Those from this strata were seen as benefiting from the elite’s education.

And it didn’t say… it didn’t explain this in any way but that was the finding.

>> Can anybody explain — thank you Estela — Can anybody explain to us what was the logic of the article?

He used the words “selection” and “treatment”, and what was the exact way

in which he went about in doing his study, in which those words became so important?

What was he measuring? What was he comparing?

Does anybody have any memory of that aspect of the article?

What was Krueger doing there?

In the traditional — it’s just to jog your memory —

in the traditional measures of the impact of an Ivy League education,

comparisons have been made between the salaries of people

who graduated from Ivy League Schools and the salaries of people

who graduated from other schools, and what Kruger said was, “Let’s change the comparison.”

Instead of comparing it in that way, how did we do it?

He compared the people who were the same person.

He only took people who were graduated, who were admitted

both to private schools — to Ivy League Schools — and to other schools

and who chose, for some reason, to go to the other school instead.

And he compared those same people against the average people who came out of Ivy League Schools

and he found out that those people actually did just as well as the people who went to Ivy League Schools.

And so his point was, that it was not necessarily the treatment

of going to an Ivy League School that mattered — in terms of the success of people —

but it was instead the selection into the system from the very beginning

of certain kinds of people that were destined to be successful.

And he basically, despite the fact that he’s a Princeton professor

and has every reason to be biased in favor of the Ivy League,

he concluded that the impact of the Ivy League is not nearly as great

as it’s taken to be by the wider society and the wider world.

Now it seems to me that that kind of analysis that Krueger did,

is in the best tradition of the sociological imagination.

And it seems to me that, that kind of information should be empowering to many people,

regardless of whether or not they would even want to come to Princeton or some other Ivy League School.

Did you guys… did that information make a similar impression on you guys?

What effect did it have on you to read that part of the article?

>> Yeah, I understood. Yeah, I understand what you’re saying.

The one quote that he has here is “having Penn on your resume opens doors.”

And I do notice that there is that sort of the meanest attitude when it comes to society in general.

People turn and maybe look at certain people a certain kind of way — they put them up on a pedestal —

and you know, it can sometimes be a little unfortunate that they would do something like that

but you know, I understand; and

because there’s such an emphasis that’s been put on for so long about who’s coming out of where —

just, you know, how, also like what he said earlier in the article,

you know, when he… when somebody said they were from Harvard it was like everybody

in the room got quiet you know and they were like, “Oh, this guy is from Harvard!”

Just like I understand that’s what he was explaining.

And it kind of seems to me like — I’m not sure if I got [it] right,

but what he was saying was that some of the [students]

well, did really well in the lower-tiered school — like the state school — that they only did

as good as the people who were like average students in the Ivy League School.

>> No, no, no, no, no, no. It was exactly the opposite of that.

He is basically saying that if you took the same person who is admitted to both,

then it’s really ultimately the individual who mattered more than (>> Okay.) the social context.

>> Okay, so, yes. I, I just, I understood that what he was talking about with that, you know,

having Penn on your resume, that’s basically, you know, the whole, the general thing basically.

Your dream is what you’re looking at.

You know, when you’re coming out of that school, you’re grand and people look at

that and they think that when you’re coming out of Penn or Harvard, you’re like a Mercedes.

>> Right. But his… >> When you’re coming out of Penn State,…

>> But his point though is — and it’s important to clarify this

and make sure that we get on the same page on this point —

is that his point is that when you look at the statistical data for large numbers of people,

then those anecdotal stories actually don’t have as much explanatory value

as the analysis that he did would have.

Dixon, what do you think about this?

>> So, when I was reading over it, I was interested to see that he says that

the person who is accepted to Penn and the person who’s accepted to Penn State would do the same thing

but then I was wondering, so admissions factors don’t always account for everything that person is capable of.

So, I think it might have been just outside of the scope for his project.

But I think that I would have been interested at this project have continued and then look at —

so — what are the things that the [inaudible] students for and how did those affect people in the upper strata

that normally wouldn’t be affected by the treatment

that Princeton gives the, like the, really lower, lower strata that [inaudible] was talking about earlier.

>> Good. That’s very interesting.

So, basically, I hope that we can use Alan Krueger’s study

as a way of getting and thinking more about the questions that I raised

at the end of the first lecture of how it is that the individual makes a difference.

And the extent to which we are truly trapped by certain social circumstances.

Sometimes, we imagine that the social circumstances that are surrounding us

are trapping us in ways that they actually are not, and it takes constant sociological investigation

to know the difference between a real trap and an illusion of one.

So, I want to end today’s discussion by just saying a little bit about where we’re going next.

I want to say, first of all, that this was an experiment today.

I know that the discussion was by no means perfect

although it was as good as I could have ever hoped from a group of students around the world

and I thought that your comments in the seminar today were really great and interesting and a wonderful beginning.

But technically it could be improved and we will certainly work on that in the weeks to come.

I really appreciate the patience of everybody who’s watching

as well as your interest and I appreciate your support

and your understanding that we are part now of a really big experiment.

We’re trying to do something new and I suspect that we’re going to learn a lot along the way.

When we meet the next time in the online forum,

we’re going to include some new people that were not here today; we’ll also have some familiar faces.

We’ll try to substitute some new people in, to keep the conversation representing different parts of the world.

And, we will try to do some things to improve it each time

until we really get it to a point where it is something that is working really well and we are really happy with it.

But I must say that for a first time today, for a first effort, I’m really pleased with this.

I also, I wanted to say that I was really excited to see the large number of study groups

that had formed from around the world and I wanted to also give a special welcome to the people

that are clearly participating in the class from Iran and from Afghanistan —

two countries which do not have the greatest relationship officially with the United States today

but that is certainly not due to any ill feeling on the part of Americans

and we certainly all believe that these kinds of contacts are the ones that we should be having

and I hope that in our future online seminars

that we can have representatives from Iran and from Afghanistan with us as well.

So, I ’m going to say goodbye to you all now.

So, thank all of you online for participating in this wonderful experiment

and I look forward to seeing you this Monday with the second lecture,

in the discussion boards which I will be monitoring very carefully,

and of course, in our second online seminar next Wednesday.