Challenges in Minimizing Teacher Authority While Facilitating a Student-Owned Activism Project

Abstract

Students who take critical sociology courses often report feeling discouraged about their ability to change large-scale social-structural problems. To redress this perceived lack of agency and control, we modified an upper-division sociology of popular culture course to include a student-owned activism project that would entail minimal teacher direction. In this paper we describe our efforts through two iterations of the activism project and reflect on the obstacles and successes of the project.