TS Home Page

Mail for Editor

Editorial Board

Editor's Comments

Table of Contents

Subscriptions

Order Back Issues

Manuscript Submissions

Discussion Group

Content Guidelines

Notice to Contributors

Abstracts

ASA Home Page

A Quarterly Publication of
The American Sociological Association

ABSTRACTS--Volume 31, Number 1, January 2003

ARTICLES

NOTES

RETHINKING THINKING ABOUT HIGHER-LEVEL THINKING
(H. Reed Geersten)

Conceptual disagreements about higher-level thinking are prevalent in the education literature. The indiscriminate use of terms such as critical thinking, reflective thinking, and higher-level thinking has created unnecessary confusion. In my view, critical thinking and reflective thinking are distinctly different yet complementary forms of higher-level thinking. What, then, is higher-level thinking and why is it important? What is the proper attitude for this form of thinking? What are the most important dimensions and types of higher-level thinking, particularly in sociology? How should we teach higher-level thinking? These are some of the most important questions that will inform the teaching of sociology in the 21st century. This article addresses these questions with some examples from sociology and medicine.

Return to top of page.

THE CENTER HOLDS: FROM SUBCULTURES TO SOCIAL WORLDS
( James J. Dowd and Laura A. Dowd)

The concept of subculture has long been used routinely in sociology despite many criticisms about the contradictory manner in which it has been defined and applied. One particular problem concerns the untenable distinction often made by sociologists between subcultures and countercultures; another is the implicit characterization of subcultures as either deviant, marginalized groups or heroic resisters against the hegemonic culture of global capitalism. In this paper, we attempt to demonstrate a method of teaching the concept of subculture to undergraduate sociology students that would remedy these two difficulties. We do this by offering working definitions of several terms, including common culture, subculture, idioculture, and social world. We conclude the paper by developing a classroom exercise to help students grasp the main differences between these various terms.

Return to top of page.

INTEGRATING SERVICE LEARNING INTO THE RESEARCH METHODS COURSE
(Sharyn J. Potter, Elizabethe G. Plante, and Elizabeth M. Caffrey)

In the fall 2000 semester, an assistant professor and her graduate teaching assistant incorporated a service-learning project into their research methods course in an effort to engage more students in the course. The project allowed the students to apply their newly acquired research methods skills to a "real world" organization serving their immediate community, the university. This paper, which proceeds in four sections, discusses how we incorporated service learning into a research methods course. The first section reviews service learning and research that has examined the effects of service learning on students and their communities. Second, a detailed description of the service-learning project is provided which we as implemented in the research methods course during the Fall 2000 semester. The third section of the paper discusses the contribution that the students' work made to the organization they served. Finally, the paper concludes by examining different methods of evaluating students' learning in a course that uses service learning to meet course objectives.

Return to top of page.

IT'S UP IN THE AIR, OR IS IT?
(Linda A. Renzulli, Howard E. Aldrich, and Jeremy Reynolds)

In his observations about the sociological imagination, C. Wright Mills argues that people have difficulty seeing connections between individual outcomes and social structures. Inspired by Mills's observations, we developed a classroom exercise for stratification and organization courses that demonstrates how social structures can constrain individual actions and still produce outcomes that students often attribute to individual effort. Using the simple process of flipping coins, this exercise minimizes the importance of individual differences while producing an aggregate outcome that mirrors the skewed distributions of personal wealth, firm size, and corporate assets in the United States. Faced with this counterintuitive outcome, we engage students in a discussion that explores how changing the rules of the game or the equivalent social structures could change the overall outcome of the exercise or the distribution of valued goods and services in the United States. In this paper, we demonstrate our students' enjoyment of the game format, but more importantly, we demonstrate how this exercise is an effective way to teach students about the importance of social structure.

Return to top of page.

USING THE SYLLABUS TO DOCUMENT THE SCHOLARSHIP OF TEACHING
(Cheryl Albers)

This article addresses the problem of constructing a syllabus to function as a pedagogical tool and as an artifact of scholarship. Two approaches, based on the work of Shulman, are offered for using the syllabus to document the scholarship of teaching. Constructing a syllabus that conveys scholarly course development has three benefits. First, the syllabus can provide hiring and review committees with a picture of the research and of the reflection involved in a scholarly course design. Second, students benefit from a syllabus built on scholarship because it has the potential to organize, integrate, and direct learning. Third, teachers benefit from creating a syllabus built on scholarship because it aids them in planning classroom activities based on curricular, subject matter, and pedagogical knowledge.

Return to top of page.

"I'M GLAD I'M NOT GAY!'": HETEROSEXUAL STUDENTS' EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE IN THE COLLEGE CLASSROOM WITH A "COMING OUT" ASSIGNMENT
(Kristine De Welde and Eleanor A. Hubbard)

Specific discourses exist around "coming out" in gay and lesbian communities. Such discourses may help heterosexual students intellectually understand the dangers and delights of coming out, but do not enable them to experience related emotions. For heterosexual students to experience the fears of being identified as gay, an experiential written assignment was created for a Sex, Gender, and Society class in which heterosexual students write a "coming out" letter to a person of their choice. Although this letter is never actually sent, it becomes the "raw data" that the student uses to analyze his/her reaction to the assignment and pertinent issues related to it. We feel it is important for heterosexual students, as part of their assimilating knowledge about sexual orientation, to comprehend as closely as possible what the coming out experience might be like. We discuss how the assignment and ensuing discussions encourage heterosexual students to explore their homophobia and heterosexism and facilitates their empathy for GLBT students.

Return to top of page.

SOCIAL GERONTOLOGY WITH QUANTITATIVE SKILLS: A CLASS PROJECT USING U.S. CENSUS DATA
(Christine L. Himes and Christine Caffrey)

This note describes a project designed to incorporate quantitative and critical thinking skills into the sociology curriculum by using state-level U.S. Census data to examine the demographics and social forces of aging. The objectives of the project are to instill knowledge of aging-related demographics, emphasize diversity within the older population, teach quantitative skills, and foster critical thinking. The project illustrates the type of exercise that can easily be carried out with public web-based information systems. We believe that sociology courses of all types, not just methods and statistics courses, need to develop and reinforce the quantitative and critical thinking skills of students.

Return to top of page.

LIBERAL VALUES AND A LIBERAL EDUCATION: THE EFFECT OF A FAMILY SOCIOLOGY COURSE ON UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS' FAMILY VALUES
(Lynn Magdol)

In recent years, scholars of the family have been concerned that family sociology presents a biased view, one too liberal and too critical of traditional family values. In this study, I assessed the liberalizing effect of a family sociology course on undergraduate students by conducting surveys in a large family sociology class; a small, family sociology class; and a large introductory sociology class. I measured family values using a pre- and post-test at the beginning and end of the semester. Overall, I found that students became somewhat less liberal after taking a family sociology class. Students employed for pay were less influenced by course material than students who were not employed, suggesting that the university curriculum may compete with other socializing influence in many students' live. In the small discussion class, students became more liberal, suggesting that the classroom format is an important factor for effective teaching. Controlling for background characteristics, students in the introductory class became more liberal, suggesting that the family class constrains liberalization.

Return to top of page.

    BATHROOM POLITICS: INTRODUCING STUDENTS TO SOCIOLOGICAL THINKING FROM THE BOTTOM UP
    (Edgar Alan Burns)

This paper describes a simple classroom exercise that utilizes students' pre-existing knowledge of their own household bathroom protocols. This "universal" knowledge exists as largely unnamed and private. The class exercise dares to explicate some of the taboos and etiquette that surrounds this private aspect of daily life. Student reaction allows for some basic sociological orientation in the class; the humor generated by the exercise creates a safe learning environment while allowing insight into the generality of what students hitherto had believed were solely personal matters. The range of firmly held alternative views expressed by other students and the matrix of rules surrounding bathroom behavior is often surprising. Students learn that their own behavior is not simply "natural" as they have supposed but is socially constructed; this can be seen in the differences between class members. Important concepts such as gender norms, household types, and the bathroom as a site of conflict offer students an un-coerced entry into viewing life sociologically.

Return to top of page.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE TOP 1000!

[InterNIC Guide to the Internet - Selected Site]

The Editor of Teaching Sociology is Helen A. Moore.

For articles, notes, and conversations, send manuscripts to: Helen A. Moore, Department of Sociology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588-0324. Phone: 402-472-6081, Fax: 402-472-6070.

For book, video, and software reviews, send manuscripts to: Laurie Scheuble, Department of Sociology, 211 Oswald Tower, Penn State University, University Park, PA. Phone: 814-865-6949.

For questions about manuscript processing, contact Kathy Acosta, Department of Sociology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588-0324. Phone: 402-472-6081, Fax: 402-472-6070.

The Webmaster is Pauline H. Pavlakos. Observations on form and egregious spelling may be directed to Ms. Pavlakos.

The Teaching Sociology Web Page is located at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Le Moyne College, the Jesuit College of Central New York.

Page last updated: June 25, 2003