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A Quarterly Publication of
The American Sociological Association
ABSTRACTS
Volume 34, Number 3, July 2006
Although all of us must teach against the text at times, I find myself doing this most often when teaching about qualitative methods in the context of a general introductory methods course. Myths about the nature and practice of qualitative research are both embedded in the folklore of mainstream sociology and supported by the textbooks that we use in our classrooms. However, many students resist instructors' attempts to question textbooks, which they regard as "gospel truth". How can we get our students to go beyond both textbook myths and mainstream folklore to grapple with misleading and inaccurate statements? In this article I suggest several strategies to raise awareness of myths about qualitative research, explain why several common statements about qualitative methods are myths, and suggest classroom strategies for engaging students in challenging these myths. I end with an evaluation of my own efforts to teach against the text in an undergraduate methods class.
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Civic Engagement through Civic Agriculture: Using Food to Link Classroom and Community
The maximization of productivity and labor efficiency has been a hallmark of the American agricultural and food system. The result of these twin processes is an industrial, concentrated, and consolidated provisioning system that produces cheap and plentiful food. Many view this model as a panacea for providing food to a modern industrial workforce, yet, increasingly, others are identifying cracks in this system. Research shows that an abundant food supply from an industrial model of agriculture has hidden costs to farm family stability, rural community well-being, and human and ecosystem health. A recent turn in this research has shifted away from the identification of weaknesses toward the exploration of viable options to redesign the food system in a manner that ensures long term sustainability. Civic agriculture is one such model that includes community-embedded initiatives to re-localize agriculture in communities of place, while enhancing food security, literacy, safety, and rebuilding rural communities. In this paper, I detail an exercise to teach the concept of civic agriculture through the development of community-based learning in the form of global and local public learning communities, service-learning advocacy, and international exchange. To demonstrate the comparative nature of agriculture and food system changes, as well as emerging models of sustainability, I developed a partnership with a Hungarian class which allowed students to compare and contrast approaches to sustainable development and probe the role of history and culture as causal forces in these endeavors. I describe my efforts to develop this partnership and weave opportunities for service-learning advocacy into the curriculum.
Course Preparation Assignments: A Strategy for Creating Discussion-Based Courses
Although many of us would like to get beyond lecturing, we often lack concrete strategies for doing so, particularly in our larger classes. This paper suggests one such strategy for creating a discussion-based course. The success of such a course is predicated on students reading and thinking about the course material (receiving “first exposure”) prior to attending class so that class time can be devoted to more substantively engaging activities grounded in guided discussion. The vehicle I propose for achieving this first exposure to the course material is the “Course Preparation Assignment” (CPA). This article explains the rationale for discussion-based courses, describes the development and use of CPAs, and assesses a discussion-based course by comparing it to a traditional lecture course on several outcomes. The assessment reveals that the use of these assignments to create a discussion-based course has been a great success, allowing me to foster student engagement with the course material by spending the majority of class time coordinating, facilitating, and leading discussions, rather than constantly lecturing at the students.
Group Quizzes: An Extension of the Collaborative Learning Process
Research has documented that collaborative learning groups improve student learning and increase the likelihood that students will have positive attitudes about both the subject matter and their peers. However, researchers know much less about how collaborative learning groups may influence student behavior and the extent to which their utility extends to testing as well as projects and papers. In an effort to address these gaps, we used quasi-experimental and survey data to examine the effects of collaborative testing on Introduction to Sociology students’ learning, behavior, and attitudes. Findings indicate that collaborative testing improved students’ behavior and attitudes. In comparison to a control group, students who participated in collaborative testing reported completing more of their assigned readings and had improved attitudes toward their learning, the testing process, and sociology.
Learning to Understand Inequality and Diversity: Getting Students Past Ideologies
In this paper I present a pedagogical method called Writing Answers to Learn (WAL) which combines Problem-Based Learning (PBL) and Exploratory Writing to address the interrelated pedagogical problems of misconceptions, resistance, retention, and transfer. I analyze the use of this combined method in a course on racial and ethnic relations and provide examples to suggest that students commonly use four ideologies to understand racial and ethnic inequality: blaming the victim, justification, naturalization, and colorblind racism. I describe how I helped students identify and unlearn these ideological misconceptions and replace them with a sociological conceptual framework. I analyze the results of a pre-test, post-test, and follow-up test showing that students’ use of ideology declined on each subsequent exam while their use of sociology increased during the semester and was partially retained months later. Finally I discuss the study’s limitations and the utility of students learning the falseness of ideology.
Mask Making: Incorporating Service Learning into Criminology and Deviance Courses
Teaching the social construction of deviance and sociological theories of crime can present a challenge due to students’ individualistic assumptions. This article describes a unique way to incorporate service learning into criminology and deviance classes that helps overcome resistance to a sociological perspective. Students are given the opportunity to visit a juvenile detention facility and engage in activities with the inmates. One particularly effective activity-- a mask making project—is described in detail but other activities can easily be substituted. The article includes a brief discussion of the philosophy and efficacy of service learning as well as comments on the mask-making project in terms of student learning, classroom dynamics and student engagement.
Assessing Student Learning: A Case Study
In this article we present findings from an embedded assessment conducted in 2004. The first author, Patricia Jennings, worked with Beth Rienzi (former Director of Assessment at the California State University, Bakersfield [CSUB] Teaching and Learning Center [TLC]) and Laramee Lyda (a former Graduate Assistant at the TLC). Our goal was two-fold: to assess students’ knowledge of sociological theory and to analyze faculty responses to the assessment process. We achieved the first goal by embedding two different assignments in two capstone courses. In general, our findings suggest that students in our program have some difficulty retaining knowledge of sociological theory. We analyze this finding in relationship to the instrument used in the assessment process and in relationship to our program goals and objectives. A five-point “agenda for change” emerged through faculty discussion of the assessment results. We discuss each of these points in detail. Analysis of faculty response to the assessment process, our second goal, revealed that reaction to assessment at our university is in line with national trends. Work load issues and concerns about autonomy were barriers to faculty involvement. Yet, by the end of the task, faculty reported that they felt engaged in the process, and they possessed a sense of ownership over the assessment outcome.
Using a Research Article to Foster Moral Reflection and Global Awareness n Teaching about Religion and Politics, Theory Testing, and Democracy in the Muslim World
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