SYLLABUS FOR SOC 143   			PROF. D.P. PHILLIPS   

Course materials are available on http://weber.ucsd.edu/~dphillip.
Attendance at the lectures will be crucial to your understanding of the
material.  To encourage attendance, we will distribute grades as follows:

	Attendance: 12.5%
	Homework:   12.5%
	Midterm:    25.0% (or  0% if you consider the midterm just as practice)
	Final:      50.0% (or 75% if you took the midterm just for practice)

Office Hours: Social Science Building #472, Tue, Thu 8-9 a.m.
Contact Information: 
	Prof:       email: dphillips@ucsd.edu; telephone: 534-0482.

I. Approaches to the study of suicide

	A. Study of groups

		1. Statistical techniques used in studying group rates

			a. Informal techniques for finding patterns in data
			b. Formal techniques for finding patterns in data

		2. How to measure the propensity to suicide

			a. number of suicides  		b. crude suicide rate
			c. age-specific suicide rate 	d. age-adjusted sui rates

		3. Biases in the calculation of suicide rates

		4. Demographic variation in suicide rates

			by sex, race, age, marital status, occupation, region

		5. Temporal variation in suicide rates

			by day of week, month, time of month, year,
			around holidays, and after suicide stories

	B. Study of individuals

		1. Case histories of suicides

			a. ordinary suicides  (read the cases in The Final Months).

			b. famous suicides (read several biographical sources
			   				on your chosen subject)

			c. fictional suicides (read play, novel, etc. and also
			   commentary on the fictional work you have selected)

		2. Suicide notes

			Characteristics of real vs. simulated notes

		3. Psychological characteristics associated with suicide

		4. Calls to suicide prevention centers

	C. Sociological theories of suicide

		1. Durkheim on social integration (read Suicide, Book II)
		2. Copycat suicide

	D. Some Non-sociological theories of suicide

		Terminal illness and physician-assisted suicide