As part of our Teaching Theory Special Series, First Publics spoke to Dr. Kyle Green about his podcast Give Theory a Chance. Dr. Green talked about his commitment to “flattening theory,” making sociological theory accessible and enjoyable to students. He also shared the joys and challenges of creating a podcast, and the many theoretical perspectives he had a chance to discuss with guests in each episode. 

First Publics: Tell us about the origin story of the podcast. 

Kyle Green: I think it still might have been when we were on the grad editorial board for Contexts at the time, as it was transitioning to The Society Pages. One of the things I realized was that as we were talking about the value of sociology, the part that was always removed was methods and theory. We didn’t talk about methods, and we didn’t really talk about theory, and I thought that was kind of funny because these are such core things to the discipline. But we were almost either subconsciously or consciously buying into the idea that those are the ideas that are not translatable, and those are the ideas you don’t share with a larger public. It doesn’t matter if it’s someone doing statistical analysis or ethnography — hearing how people connect to their participants, the challenges they face, and the joy they get from the research is exciting! Those are stories that can translate at all levels. So I started the Give Methods a Chance podcast, about putting ideas into practice and hearing what it actually looks like in the field, or on your computer, depending on your method. 

Then I left the University of Minnesota and got a job as a tenure-track professor at Utica College in a combined sociology and anthropology department. I was still teaching methods, but in addition, I was the department’s theory person, and that same revelation hit again: theory is the thing we don’t talk about in terms of public sociology. We talk about results and findings, but ignore the big ideas operating behind the scenes. Students are incredibly scared of theory, but it’s exciting. Methods and theory not only connect all the different topics in sociology, but they also shape how you see the world. So I thought: I can talk to sociologists, geographers, people in gender studies, critical race theory, a variety of disciplines, and say, “Tell me about a person or idea that inspired you and how you built on those ideas.” By putting theory into action, you can see what’s exciting about it.

FP: Was this inspired by your experiences trying to read theory as a graduate student?

KG: I was a double major in geography and philosophy, but the geography program was very traditional, focused on physical landscapes and the movement of people. We didn’t really read any theory as undergrads. Later, I was lucky enough to get into the University of Minnesota Geography Ph.D. program, which turned out to be one of the most theory-heavy programs around. First semester, I was barely reading any geographers. Instead, it was a lot of contemporary French theory and references to big names I had never heard of before, and I was pretty lost trying to process it all. I didn’t come from an academic background; my dad never graduated from college, and my mom was a nurse. So I would sit in seminars working through complicated texts, surrounded by people who seemed so incredibly smart, not just in what they said, but how they said it. I felt out of place. I would try to interpret the texts and say things that seemed meaningful, but there was often silence afterward that left me feeling like I had said something incorrect, too obvious, or just dumb. In retrospect, I think I was trying to express ideas simply rather than replicate the complexity. 

A lot of people, I realized, engage with theory by trying to reproduce how it sounds — but I was always asking, “What are we actually doing here?” And in part, I was doing this out of necessity rather than a profound insight. I struggled with theory, but I was drawn to it because it was exciting. When I grasped the ideas, they changed how I saw the world.

It took, and continues to take, a lot of work for me to get comfortable using that kind of language and claiming any expertise. My path definitely shaped what I’m trying to do here.

FP: How has your motivation for starting the podcast evolved over time?

KG: Once you start to see theory in practice, such as someone applying Lauren Berlant’s idea of ‘cruel optimism’ to her research on burnout among medical doctors, it becomes more understandable and exciting. That motivation remains: making theory more accessible and showing why it matters. I also love hearing people share how confused they were the first time they encountered a theorist. One of my favorite examples is Stefano Bloch talking about reading Henri Lefebvre as an undergraduate and not understanding a single word of it until another student in the class told him that the theory directly related to Stefano’s own experience as a member of the Los Angeles-based CBS graffiti crew and now he is publishing books built around those ideas. Especially for students without academic backgrounds, it’s important to hear those stories.

Also, I’ve found that people stick with the theorists they already know or only pick up something new for a specific research need. Of course, there are a lot of external constraints and reasons for this. But you rarely get to casually dive into theory, talk to experts, ask questions, and be a student again. That doesn’t happen enough at conferences either. I wanted to create a space where you can hear people talking through ideas and hear their excitement. I get to be the stand-in for the student/listener and have the guest help me understand why a theorist is worth reading through, explaining why it was worth it for them, instead of relying on disciplinary pressure or overly convoluted speak. 

This brings me to another thing I’m trying to do, which I didn’t realize was an intention at the beginning!, is what I would call the flattening of theory. Meaning: I don’t want to hold up Weber, or Durkheim, or Marx, or even Du Bois (who has by far the most episodes devoted to his ideas), or any theorist as the theorist you have to know. Rather, there are all these amazing ideas out there that can be incredibly transformative. I want you to hear how these are valuable to certain people based on their life experiences or the specific topics they’re interested in understanding. I also want listeners to see how important a theorist can be for the ‘expert’ who devotes their career to understanding them, and also for the researcher who finds and makes use of their ideas to answer a specific question.

I also want listeners to see how important a theorist can be for the ‘expert’ who devotes their career to understanding them, and also for the researcher who finds and makes use of their ideas to answer a specific question. 

– Kyle Green

We can get into debates about the canon and how you teach theory (and some of my favorite episodes are devoted to this!) but, for me, this is an important part of the project: I can record an episode about a theorist who’s still alive today, and then the next episode can be someone explaining Talcott Parsons to me who I had never read and who played such an important role in defining what the canon was and what contemporary sociology looks like. And then the next episode can be someone who’s an expert on Weber. And then the next one can be Stuart Hall. By putting all those people side by side, I am avoiding creating a hierarchy or ranking or order or prioritizing one over the other. 

FP: Who do you either imagine or know to be the audience for your podcast? Essentially, who is your public?

KG: I want it to be something that’s accessible to students, especially advanced undergrads and early grad students. For undergrads, I hope the podcast can demystify theory a little bit.  For grads, I hope to give them lots of different options, because it isn’t always easy to find a class that covers a theorist you might be interested in. As a side note, I’ll say that when I was going up for tenure, I put out a post on Twitter saying, “Hey, if anyone uses this podcast or listens to this podcast, can you just let me know and maybe send a few words I can use in my file?” It was incredibly rewarding, because I received emails from grad students and professors from around the country — people I’d never heard of or had the opportunity to meet — who were listening to it. It was such a nice moment of being like, “Okay, this thing is actually doing something!” 

About a year and a half ago, a professor at the University of Rhode Island emailed me to let me know that she structures her theory course for undergrads around the podcast in combination with Michele Dillon’s theory text. She is basically giving them an episode a week. I think this is such a cool idea and exactly what I imagine the podcast being used for! But I wasn’t confident enough to do it in my own class!  I’ve started restructuring my course, even if I am still getting over the hesitation. So, yeah, the audience is very much the classroom or the grad student who’s washing dishes or taking their dog for a walk and just has it on in the background, as they are starting to think about this stuff.

FP: So what makes a good podcast episode about theory? Do you have any favorite episodes?

KG: This is by far the hardest question since there are so many different ways that an episode can work.

Sometimes I’ve had someone who’s just such an expert on the person that they transform my understanding, and I really am a student again. The podcast I mentioned before, where Daniel Silver introduces me to Talcott Parsons, is an example of that. Dan was able to talk about the conversations Parsons was having at the time he was writing, and where Parsons was positioned in the field and in society. We also talked through the rise and fall of Parsons both in the discipline and as a public intellectual. That is exciting because not only was I introduced to a theorist that I have not read otherwise but I was able to get a more holistic understanding of them. This wasn’t my goal when I started the podcast! I always imagined real concise episodes. Same with Saida Grundy’s episode on W.E.B. Du Bois. I think we cut off at two hours because we both had to go to different meetings!  But the level of knowledge she had on Du Bois and his life and the arc of his research and the relationships he had with other intellectuals at the time was incredible. I would have been happy with that one going another two hours. 

But some of my favorite episodes are the opposite. Sticking with Du Bois, the episode with Angela Jones was twenty minutes long and I use it every semester in Theory. And I’ve got others where in the initial email exchange the guest will say some version of, “Are you sure I’m the right person?” because they are not an expert but rather read one piece by them and found it useful for a project. I love those ones and they work really, really well in the classroom! 

And then there are other episodes where people make arguments about what theory is. I had Seth Abrutyn on the podcast, and he really thinks about sociology as a social science. He wants to have empirical ways to test these big theories and see how they actually work (or don’t). It’s fun to see how he applies it, how he takes Durkheim’s ideas, and updates them rather than treating them like texts that can’t be changed. This is a great model for students. 

Another of my favorite episodes, and it’s fun because it’s completely different from what I do in my own class, is with Jocelyn Viterna. We recorded an episode called Teaching Our Ugly Roots. When she teaches classical sociology, she directly leans into saying, “Hey, if you look back at the early years of sociology, there was some horrifying stuff and a big chunk of it was based around evolutionary theory.” This is not a classic theory that also includes some racist or sexist language and ideas, but rather, these are instances where racism and sexism were actually built into the way sociology operated at the time. She says, “Don’t ignore those roots.” That’s completely different from what I do, completely different from what Seth does, and also completely different from someone like Fabio Rojas, who says, “Don’t even care about the names of the theorists. Just focus on the moves that sociological theories do.” It’s fun to hear people put forth these ideas, and again, Jocelyn taught me things about the field that I didn’t know myself. 

And finally, some of my favorite episodes just come down to there being a good rapport. And it is almost impossible to predict when that will occur! I had never met Hannah McCann before but I heard about her book Queer Theory Now so I invited her and her co-author Whitney on. I really enjoyed the conversation, and Hannah has returned for episodes on Sara Ahmed, perhaps my favorite episode (and I know I keep saying that!), and Judith Butler. And my conversation with Clifton Evers on Raewyn Connell went so well that we ended up co-authoring an article for Contexts. 

FP: Are there particular challenges in translating certain theorists into a podcast format, and how do you navigate those decisions?

KG: I don’t worry about whether it’s difficult to translate, because that’s part of what I want to explore. Even the most difficult theorists make some sense when you see how their ideas are put into action. Now, of course, there are some that are more difficult. I have two episodes on Deleuze, and those do end up being complicated episodes because that language takes a lot of work before we can get to the understanding. And just because someone uses a theorist doesn’t mean they can necessarily break it down to a simple explanation. 

I’m also not someone who believes, “Well, all these ideas are actually simple.” No, they are complicated, but I don’t think that means we have to make them complicated in how we explain them. I think those are two different things. So there’s no theorist that I am avoiding.

I do intentionally try to include a mix of theorists that are the big names, the ones that first come to mind when we think of sociology. But I also try to break down the disciplinary walls. Because I think in sociology, we try to maintain them way more than we should. So I’ll include someone like Yi-Fu Tuan, a geographer. I’ll include someone like Iris Marion Young, who is a philosopher and political scientist. I’ll include someone like Aimé Césaire, who transcends disciplines as a poet, essayist, surrealist writer, anti-colonial activist, and later a politician. These ideas can and should be very inspiring for sociologists, even if the writer isn’t doing social theory in the way our discipline might expect. 

FP: How does theory fit within the broader mission of public sociology?

KG: That’s a really good question. I struggle with this one a bit because I still haven’t really figured out what I think of public sociology and what the purpose is. Much like I’ve sidestepped some of the questions about how to teach theory itself, I almost sidestep a lot of the questions about what counts as public sociology because all of it seems exciting to me.  I also read Rahsaan’s critique of what we’re doing in public sociology, which I thought had an incredible amount of value, and I’m still working through some of the issues he raises.

For me, the thing that I turn to is something I say when I teach Marx, and I don’t even know if Marx actually said it, but my understanding is that theory works when you’re already feeling it – when the material conditions demand it, and theory is not going to have the same value if it is not related to the things you’re seeing around you and feeling on some level. It’s not the ideas that drive the experience; it’s the experience and material conditions that drive what theory emerges and what theory sticks. And I think you can see that both in the guests on the podcast and also with students. There is a reason that right now, when we introduce Durkheim’s ideas, students seem really compelled by them. It’s not a happy story about society, but they feel it. The fact that they connect to them so immediately – the sense of disconnect, the lack of integration, the lack of understanding why they’re doing certain things, or the feeling of drifting– the theorist can help put words to that. 

It might transform their understanding. It might set a foundation for some sort of action. Or it might even just be therapeutic, right? While that is not the goal of social theory, it can be therapeutic to realize you’re not the only one experiencing this. It’s part of larger systems. Which can be depressing because you’re like, “How do I change those larger systems?” But you can at least point to something, and you can start to ask better questions to understand it. And so that’s why I think theory really is one of the most important tools in public sociology because you find the theories that relate to what you’re experiencing and what you care about, and it can help you see them differently and decide what direction you want to go. It doesn’t matter if you’re interested in education, religion, food, sports, or crime; theories can have value. 

There is a reason that right now, when we introduce Durkheim’s ideas, students seem really compelled by them. It’s not a happy story about society, but they feel it. The fact that they connect to them so immediately – the sense of disconnect, the lack of integration, the lack of understanding why they’re doing certain things, or the feeling of drifting– the theorist can help put words to that. 

– Kyle Green

FP: Is there anything else that we haven’t asked you, or something that you want to be sure to communicate about your project?

KG: I’m trying to offer a very low-stakes entry into theory, which goes along with the title Give Theory a Chance. It’s just “give it a chance,” that is a modest request! And I’m also trying to explore theory without being prescriptive. So my goal as a host is to set the stage, ask questions, and have fun doing it. I never bring someone on with the goal of making them look bad or pushing an alternative perspective, “Yeah, but I’m in this camp, and I don’t think that’s right!” My goal is to be a curator. I want to be the person who shows you all this really cool art on the wall, but I want to let the art, in a sense, speak for itself. Which I guess is kind of a lie…because I do a lot of speaking around it…but my goal is always to stage it in a way that you can find joy and inspiration in it as well. 

Kyle Green is an Associate Professor of Sociology at SUNY Brockport. Kyle researches storytelling, intimacy, and the body with a particular emphasis on how groups construct meaning through shared physical practice. Kyle produces and hosts the Give Methods a Chance and Give Theory a Chance podcasts. He also co-authored a text of the same name (Give Methods a Chance, W.W. Norton, 2018). Kyle is the winner of the 2019 American Sociological Association’s Junior Theorist of the Year Award. Kyle is the Book Reviews Editor at Contexts Magazine.

Active learning is a growing trend in higher education for enhancing student engagement, but activities can take a lot of time to incorporate into your classes. If you are new to teaching, I have good news: you don’t have to create your own activities from scratch; many already exist and are available for your use. I’ve used activities from many sources: mentors and peers, online archives (like ASA’s TRAILS, or First Publics), open-source web pages, and textbooks. Since using others’ activities almost always requires modification, my goal with this note is to provide practical advice for incorporating borrowed activities into your classes.

In my experience, time is the most important factor to consider when planning any activity: time to prep for the activity, time in class to do the activity, and time to review the activity. Most activities aren’t “one size fits all,” and when planning, you should make modifications and update materials as you see fit. I’ve found incredible activities that were outdated or used information that isn’t relatable for my current students, so I’ve spent extra time bridging that gap. I’ve also had to create handouts (including activity instructions and possible discussion questions), print handouts and activity materials, or make presentations to accompany activities. 

You also have to think about your class size: Do you want students to work alone or in groups? Many smaller groups, or a couple of bigger groups? Do you want them to do part of the assignment outside of class, or all of it in class?  Doing an activity in a 50-minute class with 80 students is different from doing the same activity in a 75-minute class with 30 students. You’ll have more time for setup and discussion in the latter, but those parts may also take less time because there are fewer participants. When planning the activity, account for some students needing additional explanation, and for students potentially being quiet during the review of the assignment. 

Reviewing the activity and the important takeaway(s) is also important. If you do a fun activity but your students don’t know why they’re doing it, then it isn’t beneficial. Having a conversation afterwards and relating it back to your other class material is necessary for the activity to be worthwhile. In the early days of my teaching, I didn’t prioritize this phase enough. I wouldn’t leave enough time for discussion at the end, or I wouldn’t prepare the students for the discussion in advance. A way that I’ve tried to remedy this is by giving them discussion questions in advance, on handouts or in the presentation, and by taking my own notes throughout the activity. 

I also ask my students how activities could be improved, especially if it’s my first time facilitating it. If it didn’t go to plan, can it be salvaged and used again or is it a waste of time? Sometimes, it takes a couple of tries to figure out what works best for you, and other times, you may not find value in trying it again. I often confess to students if it’s the first time I have tried an activity and let them know that it’s an experiment that we are conducting together to see if it works—and sometimes it doesn’t. In those cases, I tell them how I hoped it would have gone and what I wanted them to get from it so that the time was not entirely wasted. 

I recognize that some instructors may not have much time or resources for planning activities, but the good news is that you can increase student engagement by seeking out existing activities and creatively adapting them to your circumstances! Students will appreciate your efforts to break away from traditional lecture-style teaching and those moments will stick with them.

Megan Y. Phillips is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Sociology at Mississippi State University. She received her MA of Social Science from Georgia Southern University. In addition to working on her dissertation, Megan is committed to engaging students in critical thought through feminist pedagogy. 

Many sociological topics provoke heated political debates that can affect classroom dynamics. A common narrative in the current political discourse centers on perceptions that sociology instructors lack “political neutrality,” framing sociology classrooms as spaces where sociologists impose their own personal political beliefs and opinions on students’ learning. In this environment, what is the “political responsibility” of sociology instructors? How should we engage in conversations with students about sociological research that inevitably invites normative and political engagement? During our Engaging Elections: The Politics of Teaching as Public Sociology webinar, this theme emerged in our conversation with panelists.

Edwin Ackerman, for one, argued that the role of a professor in the classroom is different from that of writing an op-ed. Instead, he stressed the importance of giving students the tools they need for analysis. One key piece of this is to teach students how to make arguments using falsifiable statements.

“I don’t think it’s possible, and I don’t think it’s desirable to be nonpartisan in the classroom. But in a deeper sense, of course, there’s no point in asking the questions that sociology poses if it isn’t in the service of justice in some sort of broad sense. Right? I think that the [responsibility of the professor] could be something like moving away from…statements that are opinions to statements that are, for lack of a better term, falsifiable in the sense that there’s evidence that can be brought for or against them.” (Ackerman, 46:57).

This is not to say that we should approach political topics as if we hold an objective standpoint, but rather that we should rely on our own expertise to help students arrive at conclusions that are rooted in sociological research. Indeed, Ackerman reminds us that our positions in the classroom come from research, and teaching what sociologists know is a political intervention in itself. 

Much of the time, however, students may be looking for the instructor to take a position. Students may enter the classroom primed with their own worldview and opinions that they hope the instructor will validate. Bradlow grapples with this: 

“[This can involve sitting] down with a young scholar and asking them: What do they think? What’s their vision? What do they want to do with their profession, with their life? How do they see the world? Even though that might not be overtly political… I think hopefully, I modeled a form of engagement with one’s students… that may have political consequences that we never see.” (de Leon, 50:49). 

Powerfully, de Leon inspired us to think about how to bring a politics of care into  teaching and mentorship and to consider the effects we may have on students in the years beyond when they are in our classrooms.

We want to hear from you! How have you come to understand your political responsibility as an instructor? What strategies have you implemented to approach inherently political topics in the classroom? Share your ideas and experiences with the First Publics’ community in a Reflection and Class Note!

“Well, you might say, this is all very well in ‘theory’ but what about ‘in practice’?”
(Burawoy, p. 219) 

This year at First Publics, we’ve given ourselves, our contributors, and our readers the task of thinking about the challenges and opportunities of teaching theory as public sociology. This task may sound odd, even to committed public sociologists and to instructors who have taken to heart Michael Burawoy’s assertion that students are our first and most captive public. 

Despite the fact that sociological theory anchors the research and practice of professional and public sociologists and theory courses are the cornerstone of sociology undergraduate and graduate curricula, discussions about public sociology have largely left theory out. The calls to do more and better public sociology that have swept through various corners of our discipline have, by and large, ignored theory as a target. Sociology instructors committed to service-learning and community-engaged courses do not often think of theory classes as appropriate or amenable to these public-oriented pedagogies. 

But why should this be so? As our readers may know, Michael Burawoy, whose invitation to public sociology encouraged an embrace of public-facing scholarship across the discipline and inspired so many of us, was also a masterful teacher of theory who, for decades, saw his theory students as an important public. For Burawoy, teaching theory was a form of public sociology. In what follows, we draw lessons from Burawoy’s reflexive writings on teaching we find useful for thinking through the mechanics, meaning, practice, and politics of teaching theory as public sociology. We share these lessons as an invitation to our readers to share their own ideas and experiences of teaching as public sociology. 

Lesson 1: Students are theorists in their own right

While formal sociological theory may be new to students, theorizing is not. As Burawoy reminds us, students engage in theorizing all the time by making sense of their realities. 

 “To treat teaching as public sociology is to think of students as a public, carrying a vision of who they are and how the world works. They are not empty vessels into which we pour pearls of wisdom, but living, sentient beings who are always thinking about the world around them and how they fit into it. Even if they don’t see it in sociological terms, they are always thinking about their place in the division of labor. I try to bring that thinking to the surface.” (Burawoy, p. 204-205)

To think of students as theorists in their own right is to think of theorizing as an everyday activity. Rather than a specialized, precious activity available only to professional experts, Burawoy invites us to think of theorizing as an activity available to all members of society: a kind of “common sense.” 

“As members of society, we share a common lens that we call “common sense.” Without that shared lens, that shared theory – of which language is its most basic form – we could not live together. In other words, we are all carriers of social theory. To be a social theorist is to reflect on that common sense, elaborate it, transform it.” (Burawoy, p. 198). 

Lesson 2: Theory instructors can and should challenge common sense (and doing so can be emancipatory!)

Taking students as theorists in their own right and thinking of theory as a daily activity akin to common sense thinking does not mean that students must remain unchallenged. Instructors can and should engage with students’ ability to theorize while challenging their common sense. 

Indeed, for Burawoy, teaching theory can mean helping students cultivate a new “common sense” language, one that helps them better understand and make sense of their own experiences and realities. 

“Sociological theory questions what we take for granted. It challenges common sense, showing the partiality of its truth, how in our daily lives we misrecognize what we are up to. Under the spell of sociological theory, “common sense” is transformed from something natural and inevitable into something socially constructed (and durably so), and thus artificial and arbitrary. Understood in this way, sociological theory is always public sociology, challenging the common sense we take for granted.” (Burawoy, p. 198)

When approached this way, learning theory can be emancipatory. It connects students’ ability to theorize their own experiences and realities with the language and tools to question and inquire further, looking for the public impact that different perspectives and explanations can have on how they perceive, experience, and act upon events within their lives. This is because sociological theory “is a special type of social theory. It sees the world as a problem, a world that is less than perfect, a world that could be different.” (Burawoy, p. 198). 

Lesson 3: Learning to theorize is like learning a new language 

But how should instructors teach? How can we challenge common sense and share sociological theory’s emancipatory potential with students? Here, Burawoy is again instructive. Sociology is unique in its particular attachment to the sociological canon, those 19th century “dead white men” that represent “the classics,” (Burawoy, p. 218). This makes teaching theory hard, but it need not be so:

 “Social theory is difficult. It’s not an assemblage of facts. Each theory is a language unto itself that can be learned only with discipline and practice. One learns by speaking, by applying theory to the everyday.” (Burawoy, p. 224) 

This suggests that we must focus not only on having students learn theory but also learn to use it, to talk in theory, to conjugate, and to dialogue. Our task is to teach theory like a language. We know that learning a new language is slow and can be tedious. We do it bit by bit, and by practicing with each other, through dialogue, and by relying on constant translation. Burawoy insists that Instructors can and should help students translate their own perceptions into the sociological and theoretical language, while encouraging them to build-up to a new way of thinking and talking. 

Buraowy’s classes “build theory” by working with “extracts from the original texts of each theorist, extracts that students can manageably study in the allotted time, forming “pieces of a jig-saw puzzle that are slowly assembled in the course of a dialogue between teacher and taught” (Burawoy, p. 222). These “extracts are read and reread as they are put in relation to previous extracts” while confronting them with data that comes from the “lived experiences of the students themselves.” (Burawoy, p. 222) 

Lesson 4: Engage in Dialogue (and the “Dialectics” of Public Sociology)

If theory is a language, then the goal should be dialogue. But with whom? For Burawoy, dialogue takes a number of forms between theorists, students, and instructors. 

The goal is to look for “crises,” internal and external contradictions that can showcase theories, their limitations, and allow for their reconstruction “on the basis of its core assumptions” (Burawoy, p. 223). This approach represents a pedagogy “organized on the basis of student participation, which follows its own rules, especially important when student enrolment gets into the hundreds.” “This is education for all, not just those well-endowed with cultural capital.” (Burawoy, p. 223). 

Moreover, Burawoy stresses putting theorists in conversation with each other and evaluating what each theorist offers and encouraging students to evaluate the instructor’s interpretations. 

This can infuse theory courses with a productive uncertainty, that encourages critical thinking, and gives students a space to take control over their own learning. 

“Indeed, they [students] discover flaws in my arguments, give alternative interpretations of the texts… [T]hey often have me on the ropes as I vainly try to defend each theorist in turn. The presumptively known endpoint is never reached; having learned how to think theoretically, students have collectively taken the course in new directions. Uncertainty of outcome draws students into creative engagement.” (Burawoy, p. 224)

From dialogue in theory and about theory, instructors and students can then circle back to political practice, problematizing the many and imperfect ways sociological thought can lead to social and political action. In this dialectical movement, theory emerges alive, porous to change and new ideas, and, therefore, capable of inciting transformation.  

“Here we confront the “dialectics” of public sociology: how theoretically informed political practice contributes to changes in the world that feedback into sociological theory, requiring further theoretical revision. The life of theory reflects its engagement with the changing world it describes.” (Burawoy, p. 202) 

This is a remarkable year for elections and democracy globally with about half the population of the world having the opportunity to vote in consequential national or local elections. But those of us that teach in the US might encounter students that are only thinking about the upcoming election here in November. During our recent webinar,  Engaging Elections: The Politics of Teaching as Public Sociology, we asked our panelist to address the question of how to teach about the US election and engage in what is most relevant and present for our students, while transmitting  a comparative and historical sensibility. That is, how we might bridge the pedagogical imperative to provide a comparative and historical perspective with the teaching as public sociology imperative to make content relevant and relatable in the lives of students. 

Benjamin Bradlow pointed out that our students are living in a time where “the mainstream press reports on American politics…basically as a series of unpredictable events that are just kind of playing out as a reality show” (Bradlow, 31:43). Cedric de Leon also noted the polarization between the two political parties. Together, both Bradlow and de Leon highlighted how these experiences with media and party politics often alienate students. When asked how to re-engage students in the conversation, our panelists focused on how the sociological classroom can help contextualize this seemingly unpredictable political climate by using a case study approach. 

Edwin Ackerman encouraged comparing the US to other countries as a way to help students answer questions like, 

“why is it that this happened here, and not somewhere else versus, when you’re just looking at something within one particular country [it may feel] like it just happens right? It’s just some sort of chronological sequence of history that produces it. And there’s no sense of social determinant. But comparison also allows us to pinpoint what is specific about the US” (Ackerman, 24:12). 

While using the US as a case study may make some theories more tangible to students, Bradlow noted that certain topics might provoke a sense of “alienation” for students from some backgrounds. In this case, de Leon suggested situating current events at an even more local scale – the campus.  

We want to hear from you! How have you brought students’ lived experiences into your classroom discussions about elections and current events? What are other strategies for contextualizing today’s politics? Are there other approaches that you’ve found fruitful for engaging comparative and historical perspectives with your students? Share your ideas and experiences with the First Publics’ community in a Reflection and Class Note!

From protesting against genocide in Palestine to demanding political responses on climate change, we are witnessing a surge of student activism across campuses. Yet at the same time, many students feel disengaged from politics and apathetic toward the political processes and institutions in the United States. During our Engaging Elections: The Politics of Teaching as Public Sociology webinar, we asked panelists how to make sense of “this combination of fatigue and anger,” and the tension between apathy and political outrage on their campuses. 

Johnnie Lotesta kicked off the conversation by reminding us that apathy is not universal among students. She discussed how a subset of the students at Appalachian State tend to be very politically engaged and organized around issues specific to the campus.

“One thing that I’ve noticed among my students is this sense of sort of a feeling of political efficacy around issues on campus or closer to home. But that doesn’t always translate into local, state or national politics. (…) Young people have their own ideas, and issues that they’re interested in. Sometimes they just don’t always make that immediate connection to how those local issues translate into broader political institutions.” (Lotesta, 10:15)

For Edwin Ackerman, engagement and disengagement are a result of the political moment. Students may exude more political interest and energy in moments that feel particularly precarious. For instance, during the Trump presidency, Ackerman’s students were more interested in contextualizing course content and present-day politics–something that has not been carried through to the Biden administration. He began to see complacency alongside political exhaustion as engagement decreased and students went “back to brunch.”

“I started teaching Fall of 2016, and I also noticed from the get-go … the interest that students had in the text that I was assigning, in the questions that were being posed, that lasted basically through the Trump years. In a sense, the sort of discussions of texts that can be a hundred years old but are talking about fascism or authoritarianism, or threats. It just seemed to be much more readily obvious why we were reading them. And then all of that…ended swiftly in 2020.” (Ackerman, 22:46)

For Cedric de Leon, if part of the tension can be tied to students’ perceptions of their political landscape, another part can only be seen as a result of current party politics and an overall disengagement from what the two national parties offer. Current institutional politics seems to provide no concrete response to the aspirations of students, especially working-class students. They find, however, solidarity, energy, and political efficacy in grassroots movements, even when engaging in national and global political debates. 

“A number of my students are labor studies students. They’re primarily rank-and-file Union members, right? Union staff. They’re working people, you know. And you ask them about the Democratic party and the Republican party, and you know, and for them, you know, they haven’t really attended to, you know, the needs, desires, and aspirations of working-class people for generations.” (De Leon, 12:52)

Benjamin Bradlow reminded us that students feel it is easier to organize and become politically engaged if they are aware of the many political organizations and initiatives that can catalyze their interests and ideas. When teaching about climate change and the coalitions at play who are needed to address the problem, Bradlow mentioned that labor unions and workers’ organizations, for instance, are often out of students’ purview but, through class discussions and assignments, become a central actor in understanding the political conflict, and ones that students really coalesce around by the end of the semester.

“This issue of ‘is climate change the issue to be organizing about?’ And something we talk about a lot in the class is the different kinds of social groupings that are involved in this issue, and the kinds of coalitions that are relevant for making change on this issue. And what comes out is the key actor that very few students, if any, bring up at the beginning of the class, but becomes quite central by the end is worker organizations and unions.” (Bradlow, 18:26)

How have you and your students experienced this tension between political apathy and increasing engagement in your school or campus? What other reasons do you see for this phenomenon? Are there ways to improve political engagement among the youth? 

We invite reflections and class notes from our larger community of instructors, teachers, and students to reflect upon these questions and our speakers’ ideas. 

It’s no secret that community-engaged learning boosts students awareness and sociological imagination. See Christensen’s piece for examples of how to implement CEL in your own classroom, as well as strategies for assessment.

Looking for more ways to center your students? Check out this piece from Schall on letting go of power and making students co-contributers in the classroom.

Struggling to engage Gen Z students? This paper discusses using “Renewable Assignments” to meet the needs of younger students through active learning, collaboration, and fostering independence.

Are you looking for a new classroom activity to engage students? Angela Adkins (2023) suggests using open-ended, non-directive vignettes to promote the discussion of sociological theory and address systemic issues and social justice.