Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 19:15:25 -0400
From: Thomas F Brown <tombrown@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>
Subject: Re:  Tracking
To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu
Message-id: <97Jul7.191535edt.412-2@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>
>Although I think most of you are sick of this topic, there are still a
>couple of questions that haven't been addressed (IMOHO).  If institutions
>are patterns of behavior, repeated through time, why can't we argue that
>gendered interactions are institutions?  If we accept a more diffuse
>conceptualization of tracking, isn't it possible that gendered
>interactions are one mechanism through which institutionalized tracking
>takes place (within sociology and elsewhere)?  It also seems odd to me
>that many of us were confining our questions about tracking to sociology,
>specifically.  Our community of sociologists exist within the context of a
>wider society, and it seems likely that our patterns of behavior are
>influenced by that larger context.  We know that gendered tracking exists
>in this wider context, so the question seems to be whether sociology is an
>exception to that pattern.

Stipulating all the above, do you see tracking as a social problem?
If so, what would be your policy recommendations?