In his 2004 presidential address to the American Sociological Association, Michael Burawoy called on professional sociologists to recognize that, “as teachers, we are all potentially public sociologists.” Doing public sociology, he argued, entails engaging our students in collaborative dialogues about their lived experiences, the conditions that give rise to those experiences, and what all that says about the nature of (U.S.) society. 

Burawoy’s call to teaching as public sociology is imperative as a means for addressing the recurrent tension between political engagement and political apathy among young people today. For almost a decade, we have seen expanding waves of youth protest and direct-action led, in notable instances, by students.  But at the same time, we see exhaustion and apathy. Youth activists report high rates of burnout, and young people in general are less likely to engage in electoral politics than their older counterparts. 

Research suggests that lower rates of political participation (among young people and others) can be linked to low feelings of political efficacy – a belief that one’s voice or vote or actions do not matter. To me, one call of teaching as public sociology is to address feelings of political inefficacy by modeling the problem-solving potential of sociological inquiry in the classroom. In my courses, I endeavor to do this by repeatedly returning to three questions: How did things come to be this way? How can we imagine them to be different? How can we get there? These are questions we can ask of any social arrangement.  Returning to the question of political apathy: how did we get to a place where so many feel that neither major political party represents their needs and desires? What would real representation look like? What steps can we take to build a political system where more people feel included, represented, and engaged? Teaching as public sociology means asking these big questions and then walking alongside students as they develop their own answers.

Allowing students to develop their own answers entails prompting them to take on the work of problem-solving and organizing themselves.  In my political sociology course, for example, students engage the issue of political apathy and disengagement by designing their own get-out-the-vote campaigns. Working at a rural-serving institution with a large working-class and first generation student population, many of my students are intimately familiar with the resource and educational disparities that researchers emphasize to explain inequalities in political participation. As a result, their plans often focus on addressing these underlying disparities. For instance, students in my fall 2024 course proposed partnering with local nonprofits and businesses to sponsor a “resource day” where students and residents can get a free meal, pick up food staples and personal care necessities, and learn about services in the community. Students suggested there could also be a booth where attendees could register to vote and learn about upcoming election dates and polling locations. Others proposed new civics education programming in area schools, programming they did not have access to.  After working in groups, students present their plans to their peers, and we discuss the merits and viability of each plan based on existing research.

We conclude the sequence by comparing students’ campaigns to those of the two major political parties in the most recent election. This concluding conversation opens a space for students to explore possible explanations for why nearly one-in-four voting age adults feel neither party represents them well. Reflecting on this question, many students emphasize a lack of political organizing in rural communities, an absence of meaningful civics education, and the disconnection they feel between partisan platforms and the needs and desires of their communities.  Thus, students engage broad questions of political apathy and political disengagement, but they do so in a way that centers their own problem-solving capabilities and invites them to creatively reimagine what is politically possible. My hope is that, by engaging in this conversation, students recognize their capacity to affect social change and address the issues they care about. I am writing this not long after learning of Michael Burawoy’s tragic death on the evening of February 4^th 2025. Reflecting on his legacy, it seems that the stakes of taking up his call for teaching as public sociology have perhaps never been higher, at least not in my lifetime. Flurries of executive orders and memos are testing the bounds of executive authority while fueling confusion and overwhelm in their wake. Efforts to erase transgender and nonbinary persons from public life are rapidly advancing, as are efforts to delegitimate and roll back diversity and inclusion in education, employment, and public service. Immigrant communities report fear to attend work, school, or religious gatherings as deportation operations accelerate. I don’t think it is my job as an instructor to tell my students what to think about these developments or what to do about them. But I do believe it is my responsibility – all of our responsibility – to help them find the curiosity, critical-mindedness, and courage to forge their own answers.

Dr. Johnnie Lotesta is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Appalachian State University. She is a political, comparative-historical, and cultural sociologist specializing in political parties, labor and social movements, and American political development. Her research has appeared in outlets such as Research in Political Sociology, American Journal of Cultural Sociology, and Journal of Community Psychology. Dr. Lotesta teaches courses in political sociology, social movements, and stratification, as well as introductory sociology.