{"id":73174,"date":"2021-08-31T10:24:43","date_gmt":"2021-08-31T15:24:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=73174"},"modified":"2021-08-31T10:24:45","modified_gmt":"2021-08-31T15:24:45","slug":"back-to-basics-selling-sociology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2021\/08\/31\/back-to-basics-selling-sociology\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to Basics: Selling Sociology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo courtesy Letta Page<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Despite, well, everything, we are trying to get back into the classroom as much as we can at the start of a new academic year. I am scheduled to teach Introduction to Sociology for the first time this coming spring and planning the course this fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether in person or remote, I will be ecstatic to introduce our field to a new batch of students \u2014 to show them what sociologists do, how we work, and how we think about the world. Thinking about those foundations, the start of an academic year is a great time to come back and ask \u201cwhat, exactly, are we doing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been thinking a lot about that question in our current chaotic moment and in the context of sociology’s changing role in higher eduction. This chart made by Philip Cohen keeps coming to mind: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Source: Philip Cohen – original post at\u00a0Family Inequality<\/em><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There are a lot of reasons for the decline in sociology majors, and reflections on our purpose as a field are not new at all (examples\u00a0here<\/a>,\u00a0here<\/a>,\u00a0here<\/a>, and on the social sciences in general\u00a0here<\/a>). We all bring different ideas about our common methods and missions, and our field has plenty of room for many different sociologies. I like\u00a0big-tent approaches<\/a> like the one here at The Society Pages. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For newcomers, though, that range makes it hard to grasp what sociologists actually do, and that makes it tough to do right by our students. At some point, someone is going to ask a new sociology major the dreaded question: \u201cwhat do you do with that?\u201d I think we have a responsibility to model ways to answer that question clearly and directly, even if we don’t want to lock students into narrow careerist ambitions. A wonky answer about ~society~ doesn’t necessarily help them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s why I love these recent podcast episodes with Zeynep Tufekci<\/a>. In each case, the hosts ask her how she got so much right about COVID-19 so early in the pandemic. In both, her answers explicitly show us how insights about relationships, organizations, and stigma helped to guide her thinking. These interviews are a model for showing us what sociological thinking actually can do<\/em> to address pressing issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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