“If we truly believe sociology is a valuable tool for making sense of the world, then we should trust that it can thrive beyond traditional academic spaces.” See the full blog post on sociology major career paths by Yolanda Wiggins via Contexts.
Teaching theory next semester? Check out this Teaching Sociology piece by Dromi and Stabler on an exercise that “aims to facilitate a deeper appreciation of the relationship between sociological theorizing and the pursuit of the common good.”
When I first stepped into my high school classroom as a marketing teacher, it felt like an ironic turn. I had spent my early university years studying business administration, only to leave it behind for sociology—a discipline that offered a critical lens on the very world I had once aspired to join. The corporate sphere, with its relentless pursuit of profit and efficiency, had lost its appeal. Sociology, with its ability to interrogate power structures, social relations, and cultural dynamics, provided a far more compelling framework for understanding the world.
Yet here I was, back in business—teaching marketing, no less. But from the outset, I saw my role not as training the next generation of marketers but as equipping students with the tools to see through the industry’s illusions. I make it clear to my students early on that I am trained as a sociologist, and that I approach marketing not just as a business function, but as a social institution embedded in systems of power, identity and inequality.
Marketing, at its core, is about social engineering. It is the study of how people make choices, how messages shape behavior, and how identities are constructed and commodified. In other words, it is applied sociology. Traditional marketing education frames this as a neutral or even benevolent process—companies merely responding to consumer needs, creating value, and driving innovation. But as a sociologist, I teach my students to ask: Who defines those needs? Who benefits from this system? And at what cost?
One of the first things I did was integrate concepts from sociology into my lessons. When discussing segmentation and targeting, we explored class, race, and gender—how marketers don’t just respond to social divisions but actively reinforce them. When covering branding, we examined how corporations appropriate social movements and identities, turning resistance into marketable aesthetics. And when looking at consumer psychology, we interrogated the ideological assumptions embedded in marketing discourse—assumptions about rational choice, individualism, and happiness as consumption.
Students were quick to pick up on the implications. A lesson on advertising techniques led to discussions about the social construction of beauty. A case study on influencer marketing turned into a debate about authenticity and self-branding in the age of social media. Even the driest topics—like pricing strategies—became a launching point for talking about precarity, monopoly power, and the financialization of everyday life.
Rather than training students to be better marketers, I encourage them to be skeptical ones. If marketing is, as its practitioners claim, about storytelling, then students should learn to interrogate whose stories are being told—and whose are being erased. If marketing is about persuasion, they should understand not just how it works, but to what ends it is used. And if marketing is about creating consumer demand, they should ask whether the world truly needs more demand—or if it needs a different way of thinking about economic and social relations altogether.
This approach does not mean rejecting marketing outright. Teaching marketing is not the same as teaching students to be marketers. There is no necessary connection between explaining the existence, origins, and function of something and endorsing it. This distinction is obvious in many other fields—a history teacher explaining the causes of Hitler’s rise does not imply moral approval. Why should marketing education be any different? If anything, the best way to teach it is by subjecting it to the same scrutiny as any other social institution. Through the lens of sociology, students can see marketing not as a neutral tool, but as a force that both shapes and is shaped by the economic and cultural structures in which it operates.
The initial reactions from students to my approach have varied, but most are receptive. Some express surprise at how marketing can be analyzed in this way, but many are relieved to discover a framework that gives them language for their discomfort with certain industry practices. A few are skeptical at first, especially those expecting a more traditional or career-focused marketing curriculum. But over time, they often come to value the critical tools the sociological approach provides, particularly as they navigate the contradictions of branding in an era of media saturation and economic precarity.
By teaching marketing as sociology, I am not simply preparing students to navigate the business world; I am preparing them to critically engage with it. In an era when branding permeates politics, social movements are commodified, and consumer culture shapes personal identity, critical marketing literacy becomes more than a professional skill—it is a form of resistance and a means of reimagining the social world. I cannot predict how this approach will influence students’ career paths. Some may go on to work in business with a sharper critical edge; others may reconsider their aspirations altogether. But my aim is not to moralize or prescribe a particular direction. It is to foster a capacity for critical reflection, so that whatever paths students choose, they do so with greater awareness of the structures they operate within—and the potential they hold to change them.
Sam Chian teaches marketing and social studies at an upper secondary school in Oslo, Norway. He holds a master’s degree in sociology from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). His research has appeared in outlets such as Review of African Political Economy and Journal of the History of Ideas Blog.
In the Fall of 2024, I attempted to give students a “research day.” assuming they would appreciate the extra time to work independently. My goal was to provide enough time for them to dive deeper into their individual research projects. However, instead of relief, my announcement was met with awkward hesitation. One student quipped, “Can we still come to class if we want to?” Another added, “Yeah, this one of the few places where I actually get to talk to people. I’d still like to meet.” I was surprised and humbled by their reaction. I was also reminded that for many of these students, the classroom had become a place of connection and community.
Consequently, I quickly adjusted the plan and turned the day into an informal working session. Students were invited into the classroom to brainstorm research ideas, ask questions, and collaborate in a low-pressure environment. The result was one of the most fulfilling sessions of the semester. Students worked in small groups and seemed energized by simply being together. That day reinforced for me that teaching isn’t just about imparting knowledge, but also about creating a space where students feel grounded, supported, and part of something larger than themselves. In a society that is increasingly defined by isolation, the classroom remains a vital place for human connection.
As the digital world and online communication replaces in-person interactions, people are looking for real-world connections. However, many of us just do not have the time. Many of my students must manage their studies while also navigating work and family responsibilities. There is little time left for organic social interactions. The classroom offers one of the few real-world, tangible spaces where they can engage in meaningful discussions, collaborate, and build relationships with others.
To support this, I integrate small group discussions into nearly every class session. After a lecture, I divide students into groups to discuss key concepts, share their perspectives, and ask questions they might not feel comfortable posing in front of the whole class. For example, following a lecture on the Battle of Wounded Knee, students discuss how the historical events and their implications reflect in contemporary Native American communities. Similarly, after discussing the Haymarket Riot, students discussed how labor movements shaped worker rights today and how the riot and its aftermath influenced public perceptions of immigration and activism. These discussions are meant to clarify concepts, reinforce course material, and help students form connections with each other.
In addition to small-group discussions, I incorporate a collaborative group project at the end of the semester, which I call the “Creative Project.” Students form groups of 3 to 5 and decide how they want to approach the project. As the name suggests, they have a broad range of options to choose from. They can select a traditional research presentation, a film screening/discussion, a podcast, a documentary, a long-form social media post, a workshop, a multi-page blog, or any original project they design. This format has offered me valuable learning experiences as well. For instance, one semester, a group of athletes produced a short documentary that explored the history of racial dynamics in our university’s sports program. In another semester, a group of students, children of Cambodian immigrants, created a project about the Khmer Rouge and how it impacted their families’ immigration stories. This gave the class a deeply personal perspective on the historical trauma of war and migration.
I have discussed how to foster connection between students, but how do I maintain connection as an instructor? I believe that clear and intentional communication is key to maintaining a connected classroom environment. In my in-person courses, I start each session with “Reminders.” I aim to summarize essential tasks, deadlines, and the upcoming agenda. The goal is to help students stay organized and to ensure they feel encouraged and supported – while also making them aware of important upcoming dates.
I also make it a priority to provide students with personalized feedback on their assignments. Yes, it can be time-consuming. Fortunately, I have been able to work with a graduate student who understands my goals while helping me with grading. Students should feel the instructor has thoughtfully engaged with their work. In my experience, when students feel seen -through the curtains of routine, formality, and technology that dominate the academic space- they are motivated and inspired to produce more meaningful, higher quality work.
As we move forward, we should ensure that the sociological classroom is more than a space for academic learning – it is a sanctuary. The simple act of showing up, having important conversations on course content, while creating opportunities for connection can have a profound impact.
That “research day” I tried to cancel? It taught me that fostering a sense of belonging can be just as important as covering course material. My students reminded me that sometimes, just being present is enough to create a meaningful learning experience. Those students turned out some phenomenal papers—not just because they had the extra time to research, but because they felt supported, connected, and part of something bigger than themselves.
JoAnna Boudreaux is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the Department of Sociology at the University of Memphis. She also serves as the coordinator of the internship program. Her pedagogical approach is centered on creating a collaborative learning environment and exploring innovative teaching methods, including the integration of AI tools. She teaches courses such as Marriage and Family, Gender and Society, Medical Sociology, and Racial and Ethnic Minorities.
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 4th 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.
I’ve recently reimagined an introductory sociology course into a digital sociology course that introduces students to social science research methods and foundational sociological concepts. In this class, students conduct a digital auto-ethnography of their social media feeds on platforms like Instagram and TikTok and use theories like C. Wright Mills’ “sociological imagination” to better understand how their individual identities, attitudes, and behaviors are shaped by social media algorithms. In another project, students conduct a content analysis of posts on varying subreddits on the aggregate platform of Reddit to get a pulse on hegemonic and counterhegemonic attitudes and practices on everything from contemporary dating culture to sports. And each week, students post to our discussion board hosted on Padlet, a site that mirrors social media platforms to make content visually engaging and interactive. Students can heart-react comments, upvote or downvote, or even insert a gif to complement their post. I’ve felt comfortable, excited even, digitizing many elements of my course, from discussion boards to annotation software and even gamification through platforms like Menti and Kahoot.
And yet, despite teaching an introductory course with a digital sociology structure and foundation, I still struggle with what it looks like to invite and incorporate generative artificial intelligence into my classroom ethically and responsibly. I worry about integrating AI without contemplating AI. During that roundtable session, we explored what it meant to teach sociology during the digital revolution. I vividly recall the litany of conflicting emotions that characterized the seemingly explosive emergence and accessibility of generative artificial intelligence technologies in higher education. Instructors collectively panicked, rejoiced, and feared the impact of these rapidly evolving and expanding technologies in their classrooms. In essence, my desire is to critically engage with AI in the classroom to increase my students’ prospects in this world that they need to survive in. One of the most persistent and pervasive questions for me has been: how is the proliferation of generative artificial intelligence going to impact my pedagogy and curriculum? Most importantly, how is this going to impact my students?
While there remains pedagogical and curricular stratification in the deployment of AI knowledge and literacies, I am also concerned about the implications and outcomes of generative artificial intelligence on broader society within structural and intersecting oppressions of classism, racism, and ableism. While I may be entertained by asking ChatGPT to generate a recipe for dinner with the three expired ingredients in my pantry or plan a weekend excursion in Philadelphia for under $200, I am worried about my own professional disposability. I worry even more about the disposability of economically dispossessed folks, people of color, and people with disabilities within a racialized neoliberal landscape where AI radically replaces and displaces humans from so many industries, such as healthcare, media, entertainment, and now education, while the mostly white and male titans of tech reap obscene profits. Will I be teaching my students to be complicit in their own demise? What about my own? AI brings with it existential and structural questions in a society where work is tethered to our being and sense of self and there are worries that AI will limit the need for university. In light of these concerns, I’ve arrived at a paradoxical point in my teaching. While I understand the utility of having my students develop AI literacy, I don’t feel comfortable, willing, or prepared enough to bring AI into my classroom in a material way. This is likely informed by my most pressing concerns: where and how does AI fit into racial capitalism? And if I bring it into the classroom, what exactly am I complicit in contributing to?
In Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning, authors José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson guide instructors on how to think, teach, and learn with artificial intelligence. There’s a genealogy to the evolution of AI, though its ubiquity is a relatively recent phenomenon accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of pushing AI out of the classroom, Bowen and Watson suggest that educators embrace the change that is already here by reimagining creativity, assessments, and assignments. But while attending national disciplinary conferences and teaching at a public college where the student body is predominantly first-generation college students and/or students of color, I’ve noticed a discourse that concerns me. At private colleges and universities, instructors are inviting AI use into their classrooms and integrating platforms like Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini directly into their curriculum. In these classrooms, instructors teach students how to create effective prompts to generate desirable outcomes and results. They also teach students critical AI literacy that includes how to discern what is useful in outputs relative to what ought to be questioned, changed, or modified and why. Instead of policing AI use, instructors teach students how to use, leverage, and develop AI skills that would prove advantageous in a future labor market where an estimated 40-60% of jobs will require AI literacy, and a projected 300 million jobs will be replaced by AI.
This sits in stark comparison to the role of AI in some public colleges, especially ones that are predominantly working class and of color. In these classrooms, AI use is often met with at least skepticism and, sometimes, outright derision. Fears that students will outsource critical thinking and plagiarize their assignments inform the policing, restricting, and regulating the use of AI in many classrooms. Instead of moving forward, many classrooms implemented seemingly archaic curricular changes that included a return to classrooms of yesteryear, like in-class examinations and essays–even oral exams–to assess students’ acquisition of topical content. This remodeling, which is often punitive and fear-based, is suggestive that institutional culture holds a not-so-quiet belief that working-class students and students of color are duplicitous and not to be trusted with emergent technologies, and it also leaves these students underprepared to navigate an increasingly digitally oriented world. As an economically dispossessed mixed-race, first-generation college student myself, I refuse to have internalized classism and racism guide how and when I introduce AI into my classroom. There are some public colleges that offer hope, such as City College CUNY where courses are being offered on the intersections of AI and society. These courses teach students how to “critically examine the cultural, economic, and social impacts of AI, considering topics like ethics, power dynamics, automation, and the future of work.” And while I’m comfortable discussing and debating AI with my students, I’m not ready to bring AI to life in my classroom.
Alyssa Lyons earned her PhD in sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her teaching and research interests revolve around education, racism, sexuality, social class, and gender. She has published in Contexts and the Journal for Ethnic and Migration Studies. She currently blogs for Everyday Sociology.
Teaching social theory is just plain fun. For me, it’s an opportunity to see our world in a multidimensional way. Who needs a comic book multiverse when you can look at social phenomena through different perspectives? Inspired by sociologist Arthur Stinchcombe, one of my favorite things to prompt theory students with is to present them with a news item and ask them to discuss it through different perspectives: “A good sociologist can find three plausible explanations for why they see a particular social phenomenon.” I like to remind students that ‘three’ works particularly well because it syncs up with the three big umbrellas of social theory (Conflict Perspective/Marxism, Structural Functionalism, and Interpretive), but it doesn’t have to be so simplistic.
Why do we have a housing crisis in a country with such great prosperity? Why do people shirk vaccinations and accept other drugs so readily? Why do we have such a massive incarcerated population in the United States when crime has decreased? These are complex questions that demand nuanced answers.
‘Multiverse’ as a term wasn’t coined by Marvel impresario Stan Lee but by the sociologically-attuned American philosopher William James in 1895. In his essay, boldly titled “Is Life Worth Living?” James offered the term to remind us of the “plasticity” of what we see, and to suggest how we can see a world that God has created but also one that sciences like evolutionary theory can reveal. (It’s actually quite a fun read.) Today, we know the “many worlds theory” as a problem of quantum mechanics and, as I often tell my students, “I’m not that kind of doctor.”
For sociology, James is one of the key figures who helped lay the foundation for one of the cornerstone theories of contemporary sociology: Symbolic Interactionism. James’ philosophy, called pragmatism, was based on the concept of the “social self” as a social construction, arguing that human nature arises from real-world social interactions and that these interactions are a worthy unit of analysis. He proposed that our thoughts are generated as a “stream of consciousness” and that meaning is constructed through experiences. Pragmatism lives on through George Herbert Mead and symbolic interactionism. James’ philosophy asserted that there was not a single self but multiple ones that arise from interaction—an idea that lived on through Charles Cooley’s ‘looking glass self’ and Erving Goffman’s The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. (Read more, here.)
Of course, as fun as it is on the big screen (and maybe less fun in physics books), I do not think it’s sociologically useful to imagine that there are multiple universes floating out there with multiple versions of myself teaching math or literature instead of sociology. What I do think is sociologically interesting is just how much people from different life experiences can have very different interpretations of the same phenomenon. The idea of the multiverse as a sociological concept—which I assuredly wasn’t taught in graduate school—does not mean the many worlds depicted with multiple comic book heroes and villains.
I see the sociological multiverse as a potential intervention. Are we increasingly seeing the world in a more uni-versal, or one-dimensional, way? Alas, I think so. The social media filter bubbles through which we see the world are algorithmically-tweaked to reflect back to us the world we expect to see. This much we know. Written in the early 1960s—exactly midway between where James was writing and where we sit today—social theorist Herbert Marcuse could not have imagined a social media-infused world when he warned that mass media technology and modern consumerist life were repressing critical thought and freedom. And yet, Marcuse’s fear of the death of critical thinking is even more important today.
Students, reflecting the population at large, seem to be quick to answer the sociological puzzles I offer above. “There is a large unhoused population because people are lazy and don’t want to work.” “People don’t take vaccines because they are stupid.” “People are in jail because some people are just inherently bad people.” Maybe folks aren’t willing to say such callous things in class, but you get the idea. These are not just problems for students. Sociologists, perhaps rewarded via social media, are disturbingly too quick to find one-dimensional explanations for complex social phenomena. It’s class. Race. Sexism. In the words of one sociologist, “Fuck Nuance.”
But nuance is where multidimensionality exists. Nuance is where people of divergent opinions find commonality. For William James, “Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs ‘pass,’ so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them” (read more, here). The philosophical—rather than comic-book—multiverse challenges us not to let our own truth pass without challenge. In a call-out age, challenges come with heightened social repercussions. The need to “Call In” (please see Loretta J. Ross’ brilliant short TED Talk on the subject, or read this New York Times article) is a profound invitation from the multiverse.
Teaching theory—not one theory, but all of them—with equal passion and vigor—is the way to get students to think in that multidimensional way. A clever reader might notice that I cite sociologists who are inspired by three different perspectives: Marcuse (from a more Marxist background), Stinchcombe (from a more economic and organizational sociology), and James (who helped shape the interactionist perspective). I think this is how I see teaching not as a means of teaching students what to think, but as a way of teaching them how to think.
Jonathan Wynn is professor and department chair of sociology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His most recent book was The City & the Hospital: The paradox of medically overserved communities and his novel, The Set Up, lands in May 2025.
As an academic, I am driven by the following commitments: liberatory knowledge, sharing power, and critical application. These values inform my teaching and relationship building with students. In the spring of 2023, as a PhD student, I was approached with the opportunity to teach sociological theory at a private Catholic university. I was both excited and terrified about the prospect. Throughout my academic journey, I have been intentional in selecting academic communities and spaces that value an emancipatory sociology. Therefore, I was a bit nervous, and had been warned by the department chair, about the possibility of pushback from students if I chose to teach “charged” theoretical perspectives such as critical race theory and intersectionality. Despite the warning that my pedagogical approaches might be “too radical” in the more conservative-leaning institution context, this classroom became a place of engaged and energized learning. I believe this was primarily the result of setting classroom norms of thoughtful disagreement and by creating opportunities for reflection and application. The students who I thought might push back against these charged theoretical topics, instead ravenously leaned in and engaged with them.
On the first day of class, I conducted a poll with students asking them what they hoped to get out of the class. The overwhelming response from students was that they felt that theory was intimidating and complicated, so they hoped the class would help them understand theory in a more accessible and relevant way. While I had a syllabus crafted at this point, in honoring my commitment to sharing power, the students and I reviewed their feedback, concerns, and hopes for the class and made some changes. Through this first conversation with the students, we collectively set the tone for the semester, something that I believe set us up for success.
One of the most pivotal conversations in this early discussion was on the purpose and presence of disagreement, both between social theorists and between the theorists and students’ lived experiences. In keeping with my values and commitments as a scholar, I included theorists who challenge systems of power, such as Frantz Fanon, David Roediger, Judith Butler, and more. I also chose several clusters of theorists who directly conflicted with one another. For instance, we spent several weeks discussing early racial theories in the U.S., comparing the Chicago School with the Atlanta School of Sociology and comparing Booker T. Washington with W.E.B. DuBois’ belief on racial progress of Black Americans. Through intentionally choosing theorists that were in conflict with one another, I was able to set the norm at the beginning of class that there would be disagreement. By setting and discussing this norm, I emphasized how conflict and disagreement has shaped the development of sociological theory. Once set and agreed upon, I wrote the following into our class policies:
“This class covers topics which will challenge your thinking and ask you to critically examine society in new and different ways. You may find certain topics difficult given your unique intersectional identities and lived experiences. You certainly will not agree with all of the authors nor perspectives we cover in the class. My expectation is that you see the sociological perspective as a tool. It is an analytic and a framework that you are expected to understand and apply to various social problems.”
In setting the expectation of disagreement throughout the course, I believe, students came in with an open mind, willing to challenge and be challenged. This disposition toward learning the sociological tools and engaging in thoughtful dialogue, allowed for immensely engaging, interesting, and passionate in-class discussions. Many students, energized by these discussions, shared that this space made them think differently about their own lives and the world around them. For example, one group, in engaging with Fanon, argued that gentrification is a form of colonialism, pointing to examples of it happening in the neighborhood around the university.
Further, I wanted to pay the utmost attention to making theory learning public sociology. To me, theory is meant to help us solve social problems, and therefore the learning of theory should never be done in a classroom vacuum. In this course, I continually asked students to make connections between the theories and social reality. For example, in their final projects, students had to analyze two theorists/theories and apply their contributions to a social problem. In doing so, they also had to posit what these theorists might say are the merits and challenges to a potential solution. One student applied Horkheimer & Adorno and Herbert Marcuse to social media influencers, discussing that due to the lack of regulation and transparency around paid ad content, consumers’ needs and spending habits are manipulated. Another student in applying Patricia Hill Collins and Judith Butler looked at racialized gender bias in the legal profession and examined how a policy of universal pre-K might reduce discrimination for women of color. Through formal assignments and regular in-class discussion, I persistently emphasized theory’s role as both emancipatory and public.
In this course, wanting to challenge the students to think differently and critically about their own privilege and the social world around them, I used much of the safety and privilege of my own identities to push students out of their comfort zones. For example, in multiple weeks of discussing race and decolonial theory, I challenged white students to examine the multitude of privileges associated with whiteness and recognize the current ways their own lives maintain racial capitalism and neocolonialism in the U.S. As a white sociologist, I believe it is my responsibility to challenge all students, but especially white students to think in this way. Given the surprisingly positive and engaged response of students in this more conservative institutional context, I wonder how often their worldviews have been challenged like they were in this class.
Despite coming in with some fear and reservation regarding the student population and their reception to my teaching style and content, I was, simply put, blown away. The students engaged thoughtfully with the content, contributed very real and honest reflections of their own positionality, and applied their learning to social issues that mattered to them. In an end of course survey, I asked students to tell me one takeaway from this course. One student wrote, “this was my favorite class… I liked how comfortable the class felt to speak their mind. The classroom environment felt very welcoming and like there was no judgment. So, I felt challenged and learned so much and also, I feel like I can take what I learned and actually do something with it.” Thus, despite directly engaging with ideas which were politically charged and conflictual in nature, by approaching the class with an established norm of openness to engage in sociological inquiry through the conflict, students reported walking away with learning that was challenging and actionable.
Tess Starman (she/they) is a PhD Candidate in Sociology at Howard University. Her research specializes on intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and power at the nexus of religion and politics. She studies progressive Christian attitudes, religious exiting, and religion’s impact on political attitudes and engagement. Her dissertation, entitled, “A Corrupted Faith: The Role of Power in the Process of Christian Disaffiliation and Rise of the Religious Nones,” examines the religious exiting process and non-religious identity formation of ex-Christians. She serves as the Research Assistant for Howard University’s Initiative on Public Opinion. Tess is the co-chair of the American Sociological Association’s Student Advisory Board and serves on the Pedagogy Committee of Sociological Forum.
Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are rapidly transforming the current educational landscape, with students far outrunning faculty in their use of these tools. Current research highlights a cultural lag in higher education, a phenomenon Sociologist William F. Ogburn described in 1922. This term refers to the gap in adaptation between material (physical artifacts) and nonmaterial culture (ideas, values, etc.). Cultural lag has historically been observed during periods of technological change, like with the current shift toward AI technology. Students are embracing AI’s potential while many instructors remain hesitant due to their own biases and concerns about academic integrity (Coffey, 2023). We argue that it is incumbent upon sociology instructors to experiment with, observe, and document the use of AI in the classroom, as we are in a discipline founded on understanding cultural and societal change. Moreover, as social scientists, we are well-suited to address and experiment with AI use and adoption in our pedagogical practices.
In our classrooms, we have begun developing assignments for upper-division Sociology students that implement the use of AI technology. For instance, students in a Social Theory class were tasked with requesting a ChatGPT summary of a prominent sociologist’s theories. After completing assigned readings and participating in a class discussion on the topic, the students identified and corrected inaccuracies, omissions, and superficial interpretations within the ChatGPT summary. Students in a Medical Sociology class used ChatGPT to create an initial research outline on the “social determinants of health and their impact on healthcare access.” The students then revised and refined the outline. Afterward, the class wrote a brief reflection about the changes they made to the original outline and why. They were asked to explain what additional information they added or omitted, how they adjusted the original structure, and what the exercise taught them about the value of human judgment in using AI technology for academic work- particularly when engaging with sociological topics!
These assignments were followed by class discussions where students reflected on the process of working with AI technology. Many students reported that these assignments helped them identify limitations and potential pitfalls in overreliance on AI technology. They agreed that AI is useful for brainstorming but not as a replacement for good writing. They noted that ChatGPT tends to be repetitive, obtuse, and includes extraneous superficial information while omitting important details. In some instances, AI included information that students could not verify.
Overall, students found ChatGPT to be useful in organizing information but lacking in the critical analysis that comes from human insight. Students expressed more confidence in the value of their own writing skills and the expertise they developed to discern important and truthful information. They also expressed appreciation for the novelty of these assignments. For almost all students, this was the first time they were assigned to use AI in an academic classroom. Many explained they had previously viewed AI tools like ChatGPT as shortcuts that “lazy students” might rely on to avoid putting any thought or effort into their own work.
Moving forward, we believe it is crucial for sociology instructors to embrace and integrate AI thoughtfully and intentionally into our teaching methods. AI is reshaping many areas of society including industries, media, and education. As a result, developing ethical and responsible ways to work with it has become as essential as any other professional skill. Additionally, experimenting with AI as a teaching tool can be fun and enjoyable for instructors. It provides an opportunity for creativity, helps us remain relevant, and enables us to bridge the cultural lag in higher education.
Read more: Most students outrunning faculty in AI use, study finds (insidehighered.com)
JoAnna Boudreaux is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the Department of Sociology at the University of Memphis. She also serves as the coordinator of the internship program. Her pedagogical approach is centered on creating a collaborative learning environment and exploring innovative teaching methods, including the integration of AI tools. She teaches courses such as Marriage and Family, Gender and Society, Medical Sociology, and Racial and Ethnic Minorities.
Kendra Murphy is an Associate Professor of Teaching Coordinator and Undergraduate Advisor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Memphis. Professor Murphy’s teaching is focused on helping students develop critical thinking and writing skills that they can use throughout their lives. She is best known for her creative lectures on social deviance and teaches a variety of classes including Introduction to Sociology, Methods of Social Research, Sociology of Poverty, and Sociological Theory. Whether by discussing statistics or bringing furries into the classroom, Professor Murphy is committed to helping all of her students in developing their sociological imaginations.
Lessons from the pandemic: when students feel supported and connected, learning happens. See Senter’s Teaching Sociology article for convincing evidence.