Sociological FocusPub Date : 2023-12-10DOI: 10.1080/00380237.2023.2291368
Angela M. Adkins
{"title":"Vignettes for Social Justice Learning","authors":"Angela M. Adkins","doi":"10.1080/00380237.2023.2291368","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2023.2291368","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":39368,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Focus","volume":"630 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138982859","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sociological FocusPub Date : 2023-12-05DOI: 10.1080/00380237.2023.2283627
Sarah McGill Brown
{"title":"Community-Engaged Field Trips: An Accessible Technique for Community-Based Learning in an Era of Education Austerity","authors":"Sarah McGill Brown","doi":"10.1080/00380237.2023.2283627","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2023.2283627","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":39368,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Focus","volume":"123 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138599623","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sociological FocusPub Date : 2023-11-30DOI: 10.1080/00380237.2023.2285321
Carly Elizabeth Schall
{"title":"Course Co-creation: On the Transformative Power of Letting Go of Power","authors":"Carly Elizabeth Schall","doi":"10.1080/00380237.2023.2285321","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2023.2285321","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This critical commentary describes the author’s experience with a course-co-creation process inspired by the popular education approach championed by Paulo Freire and bell hooks in a course on race and ethnicity in America. This process ceded control over certain parts of both the content and form of the class to students, who were positioned as experts in their own lives and meaningful contributors to knowledge about the racial order of the United States. The author found that this process increased students’ sense of mattering in the classroom and decentered her own privileged experience without sacrificing academic or intellectual rigor. However, there are limitations and difficulties with the process, which are outlined here with suggestions on how to overcome them.","PeriodicalId":39368,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Focus","volume":"349 ","pages":"27 - 30"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139204219","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sociological FocusPub Date : 2023-11-20DOI: 10.1080/00380237.2023.2283629
Rebecca D. Christensen
{"title":"Sociology in Action: The Experiential Pedagogy of Project Community","authors":"Rebecca D. Christensen","doi":"10.1080/00380237.2023.2283629","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2023.2283629","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Established by student activists in the 1960s, Project Community in the Department of Sociology at the University of Michigan (U-M), Ann Arbor, is one of the longest-running community-engaged learning programs in the country. Community-engaged learning courses like Project Community have been identified by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) as a high-impact educational practice because they allow for simultaneous learning in the classroom and community (AAC&U 2022). This paper explores how Project Community utilizes various pedagogical approaches grounded in liberatory and social justice education to provide U-M students with the opportunity to learn how to engage in mutually beneficial, respectful, and ethical relationships with community members. The structure of this two-course sequence is described and examples of experiential activities are provided so that instructors can gain insights into how students can apply their sociological lens to real world experiences. Data from teaching evaluations and post-course surveys from Fall 2019–2022 are included to explore how Project Community has increased students’ awareness of their positionality in society, deepened their understanding of social inequalities, and strengthened their commitment to social responsibility.","PeriodicalId":39368,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Focus","volume":"13 6","pages":"57 - 61"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139257745","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sociological FocusPub Date : 2023-11-20DOI: 10.1080/00380237.2023.2283723
Nicolas P. Simon, Emma James Burke, Tyler Fairbanks
{"title":"Renewable Assignments: Or How to Use OER-Enabled Pedagogy to Respond to Generation Z’s Educational Needs","authors":"Nicolas P. Simon, Emma James Burke, Tyler Fairbanks","doi":"10.1080/00380237.2023.2283723","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2023.2283723","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The new generation of students, Generation Z students, have different expectations of their education. They value inclusivity, social consciousness, and hands-on learning experiences. To meet their expectations, we argue that educators should use renewable assignments. These assignments add value beyond the course by creating Open Educational Resources (OER), openly licensed with the 5R: retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute. In this article, we first present renewable assignments, OER-enabled pedagogy, the assignments that students used to develop openly licensed educational material and the products they created. Then, we offer step-by-step guidance on crafting effective renewable assignments. Finally, the two students who coauthored this paper examine how OER-enabled pedagogy follows the learning skills of Generation Z: independence, collaboration, and engagement.","PeriodicalId":39368,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Focus","volume":"6 3-4","pages":"15 - 20"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139256769","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sociological FocusPub Date : 2023-11-19DOI: 10.1080/00380237.2023.2283726
Colleen E. Wynn, Elizabeth Ziff, Allison H. Snyder
{"title":"“It’s a Process:” How Faculty Develop and Adopt Empathetic Practices","authors":"Colleen E. Wynn, Elizabeth Ziff, Allison H. Snyder","doi":"10.1080/00380237.2023.2283726","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2023.2283726","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Empathy and empathetic classroom practices are a pillar of good pedagogy. These approaches create a learning environment that is adaptable and supportive for all. Building on a small but growing body of literature on the role of empathy in higher education, we explore the genesis of how faculty, across a range of disciplines, began to incorporate empathetic practices into their teaching. Our data come from interviews with 29 faculty members collected between the Spring of 2021 and the Spring of 2022. Our findings indicate that some faculty trace their empathetic practices back to their own educator models, or to their upbringing, while others espouse that their empathy is “naturally” occurring, and still others have had experiences in the classroom that led them to change their pedagogical approach to be more empathetic. Understanding how faculty learn about and implement empathy is important for sociologists because empathy is socially constructed. Empathy has been shown to help students embrace difficult content and have tough conversations. Empathy also helps students connect to faculty and improves student retention.","PeriodicalId":39368,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Focus","volume":"38 3","pages":"9 - 14"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139259888","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sociological FocusPub Date : 2023-11-17DOI: 10.1080/00380237.2023.2283722
Michel Estefan
{"title":"Deliberative Interdependence: A Durkheimian Approach to Promoting Collaborative Learning in Diverse Classrooms","authors":"Michel Estefan","doi":"10.1080/00380237.2023.2283722","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2023.2283722","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT As institutions of higher education have become more diverse over the past several decades, building a strong sense of community in the classroom has emerged as a core moral and pedagogical imperative to make students from all backgrounds feel welcome and promote their academic success. In this paper, I argue that the pedagogy underlying the impetus for community building in the classroom is premised on a problematic understanding of the type of bonds that connect students in a genuinely diverse classroom. In Durkheimian terms, these bonds are more akin to organic solidarity (bonds by virtue of mutual reliance) than mechanical solidarity (bonds by virtue of shared cultural and moral beliefs). Instead of community building, I propose deliberative interdependence as a more effective model for generating collaborative learning in diverse classrooms. I illustrate how to apply this model through innovative learning and assessment methods and draw on student course evaluations to document their effectiveness.","PeriodicalId":39368,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Focus","volume":"9 2","pages":"21 - 26"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139264973","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sociological FocusPub Date : 2023-10-30DOI: 10.1080/00380237.2023.2233927
Ryan A. Smith, Matthew O. Hunt
{"title":"Race Preferences at Work: How Supervisory Status, Employment Sector, and Workplace Racial Composition Shape White Americans’ Beliefs About Affirmative Action","authors":"Ryan A. Smith, Matthew O. Hunt","doi":"10.1080/00380237.2023.2233927","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2023.2233927","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThis study examines how white Americans’ beliefs about affirmative action intersect with three important workplace factors: supervisory status (supervisors vs. subordinates), employment sector (public vs. private), and workplace racial composition. Using data from the 1996–2018 General Social Surveys, we first examine trends over time in three beliefs: (1) the perception that whites are hurt by affirmative action, (2) attitudes toward the preferential hiring and promotion of blacks, and (3) opinions regarding special treatment by the government for blacks. We then examine how the three workplace factors shape support for (or opposition to) such race-targeted policies. Our analyses reveal declining opposition to affirmative action over time, though a majority of whites, regardless of authority level, still hold conservative stances on race-targeted policies. Further, results for our three key predictors (supervisory status, employment sector, workplace racial composition) provide support for group position, new governance, and intergroup contact theories, respectively. We conclude by discussing implications of our findings for intergroup relations with special focus on understanding barriers to the implementation of antidiscrimination and diversity policies aimed at ameliorating racial inequities in U.S. workplaces.KEYWORDS: Affirmative actiongroup position theoryintergroup contact theorynew governance theorypublic/private sector Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Notes1 In their study using 1994 Los Angeles survey data, Bobo et al. (Citation2000) observed that white supervisors were significantly more opposed to affirmative action than their subordinate counterparts. We keep this finding in mind but forward our expectation of “no differences” across the supervisory divide in light of (1) our broader set of outcomes, (2) our nationally representative data source, (3) our larger set of workplace and other covariates, and (4) the overall set of findings reported by Bobo et al. (Citation2000), alongside those of more recent tests of group position theory that analyze the relationship between supervisory status and whites’ racial attitudes (e.g., Smith and Hunt Citation2021).2 Extrapolating these scope conditions to the U.S. workplace illuminates why anti-black prejudice and discrimination remains such a prominent problem. For example, few workplaces in the United States have racial/ethnic representation throughout all ranks of the organization proportional to the population. Thus, the absence of a critical mass of minority representation throughout all levels of the organization precludes by default the prospect of equal status between groups.3 We explored possible creation of a composite measure (e.g., index) of whites’ beliefs combining these three measures, though this proved impossible since all three items never appear on the same GSS ballot in any of the years we examine. In addition, since","PeriodicalId":39368,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Focus","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136069561","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sociological FocusPub Date : 2023-09-27DOI: 10.1080/00380237.2023.2219110
Chadwick L. Menning, Erica Dee Fox, Lex K. Nunn
{"title":"Blaming the Victim, the Bystander, the Perpetrator, or the Institution: Student Allocation of Responsibility for Sexual Assault when Programming Hypothetically Varies","authors":"Chadwick L. Menning, Erica Dee Fox, Lex K. Nunn","doi":"10.1080/00380237.2023.2219110","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2023.2219110","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTGuided by theories of socialization and just policy theory, we explore how students allocate blame when sexual assault prevention programming hypothetically varies, net of the effects of evaluators’ traits. Using a survey instrument containing a series of vignettes, we ask whether university students’ (N = 254) perceptions of responsibility attributed to victims, perpetrators, bystanders, and university administrators varies by hypothetical program trainee and also by the hypothetical implementation of any program versus no program. Findings indicate that students allocate more blame to bystanders and perpetrators when hypothetical programming includes bystander training but that programs that train victims are not associated with increased victim blaming. Administrators are blamed less when bystander intervention is included in programming. However, compared to when no training is hypothetically implemented, students allocate more blame to victims and bystanders when any programming is present and less to administrators. Among respondent-level controls, victim blaming is consistently predicted by evaluators’ rape myth acceptance. Implications for future work, theoretical development, and policy are discussed.KEYWORDS: Interventionjust policy theorypreventionsexual assaultvictim blaming AcknowledgmentsThe authors wish to thank Dr. Mellisa Holtzman, Dr. Ellen Whitehead, Meagan Brant, Tom Henry, and Olivia Anderson for their assistance with this project.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Additional informationNotes on contributorsChadwick L. MenningChadwick L. Menning is professor and chair of the Department of Sociology at Ball State University. His research focuses on risk reduction among youths and young adults, including sexual assault and its consequences. He is interested in the application of empirical findings to the development of programming and social policies.Erica Dee FoxErica Dee Fox is a graduate of the Department of Sociology at Ball State University. She works as an adjunct instructor and academic advisor at Ivy Tech Community College in Muncie, Indiana, and a research assistant at Portland State University. Her research interests include disability studies, sexual assault prevention, and regional studies.Lex K. NunnLex. K. Nunn is a graduate of the Department of Psychology at Ball State University. His research focuses on death and dying, pet ownership, and gender and sexual minority diversity issues.","PeriodicalId":39368,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Focus","volume":"266 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135537200","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sociological FocusPub Date : 2023-08-10DOI: 10.1080/00380237.2023.2245368
M. Barringer, B. Savage, Caroline Howard
{"title":"Signs, Songs, and Dr. Seuss: The Activism of LGBTQ College Students Challenging the Hostile Messages of Campus Preachers","authors":"M. Barringer, B. Savage, Caroline Howard","doi":"10.1080/00380237.2023.2245368","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2023.2245368","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT LGBTQ youth participation in activism on university campuses helps students to build resiliency and thrive as college students. Campus preachers are a catalyst of such activism among LGBTQ students and their allies. Sociological research has largely overlooked LGBTQ activism aimed at localized conditions such as campuses. Additionally, the phenomenon of campus preachers is largely absent from the social science literature. The current study targets this gap by examining the tactics college students use to contest the anti-LGBTQ messages of campus preachers at their universities. The dataset consists of articles drawn from online student newspapers at four-year, public universities in the United States, published between 2010 and 2020. Centered in the framework of contestation, intentionality, and collective identity, our analysis reveals the LGBTQ students asserted their agency and visibility by challenging the anti-LGBTQ messages of campus preachers through intentionally selected tactics, and in doing so, they often built solidarity with non-LGBTQ students. We conclude that by engaging in such activism aimed at the localized campus culture, LGBTQ students used the visitations of the campus preachers as opportunities to engage the intrapersonal and interpersonal components of thriving, employing agency, creativity, resilience, and social connectedness to counter the messages designed to denigrate and oppress them.","PeriodicalId":39368,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Focus","volume":"56 1","pages":"497 - 515"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48201330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}