{"id":99,"date":"2011-04-18T16:19:48","date_gmt":"2011-04-18T16:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/2011\/04\/18\/no-dad-youre-an-alcoholic\/"},"modified":"2015-08-25T17:06:19","modified_gmt":"2015-08-25T17:06:19","slug":"no-dad-youre-an-alcoholic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/2011\/04\/18\/no-dad-youre-an-alcoholic\/","title":{"rendered":"No Dad, You’re An Alcoholic"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cDid you ever think that all this talk about me being an alcoholic led me to start drinking in the first place?\u201d \u201cNo dad1<\/a>, you\u2019re an alcoholic that\u2019s why we are always talking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Every semester at one point or another a student will raise their hand or send me an email to ask, \u201cDid you ever think that things aren\u2019t really this bad? Maybe sociologists create the problem by telling us things are so bad. Like the self-fulfilling prophecies we talked about in class.\u201d When pressed these students typically state that, \u201cthe world is not as bad as you make it sound, so maybe the problem is you looking in the first place.\u201d If you\u2019ve taught for any period of time, you\u2019ve heard this and you\u2019ll hear it again very soon, so having a prepared response on hand will pay dividends.<\/p>\n

Your Temporal Order is Backwards Dad<\/h2>\n

Talking about dad\u2019s drinking didn\u2019t make him start drinking. Dad started drinking and then we all started talking about it. Sociologists talking about social problems didn\u2019t make them exist in the first place. Social actors made decisions, the consequences of those decisions created evidence then sociologists collected it, reported it, and then we talked about it in class. While this may be obvious to you, it\u2019s not always to our students. As they learn I\u2019ve found the alcoholic dad metaphor really helps them.<\/p>\n

Social Location and Your World View:<\/h2>\n

Why do students say \u201cthings aren\u2019t as bad as sociologists say they are\u201d? Simple, because in the world they walk in things aren\u2019t that bad. Typically, but not always, the students who say __<\/strong> social problem isn\u2019t a big deal are enjoying being a member of the dominant group in regards to the social issue in question. So Whites are prone to disbelieving racism, middle & upper class students discredit institutional explanations of inequality, and heterosexual students question if homophobia is really a big deal. <\/p>\n

I use a set of socratic questions to address this. I ask my class, \u201cLet\u2019s say that I was totally sexist toward the men in my classes. Who would be the first to notice this fact?\u201d \u201cMen,\u201d half the class says in unison. \u201cOkay, so imagine that a male and a female student are talking after class and the female students says, \u2018I just love Professor Palmer\u2019s class!\u2019 to which the male student replies, \u2018Are you crazy? I hate him. He\u2019s so unfair.\u201d Heads gradually start nodding as I go into the story. \u201cIs it possible that the female student might say, \u2018you\u2019re making a big deal out of nothing. He\u2019s always been fair to me.\u2019?\u201d Lots of heads nodding now. \u201cYeah and maybe the female student might say, \u2018I can\u2019t believe you\u2019d pull the gender card. You\u2019re either seeing something that\u2019s not there or you\u2019re just too sensitive, but I think your real problem<\/em> is your approach to the class not Professor Palmer.\u2019\u201d As you know, this is a common reaction when a minority person claims that they\u2019ve been discriminated against. Creating a straw man out of this argument and then knocking it down in class typically inoculates the class from using this argument later in the semester. Furthermore, student who use this logic later in the semester find that their peers jump all over them with the tool kit they picked up from this discussion.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t sociologists\u2019 opinions<\/h2>\n

I also reinforce that students aren\u2019t making social problems happen because they aren\u2019t making up these ideas in their heads. I remind students that the sociological research we read in class is empirical and peer reviewed, not simply the opinions of some ivory tower jerks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy Don\u2019t You Move To Europe if You Hate the US so Much!\u201d<\/h2>\n

If you discuss the social problems facing the United States well enough you are likely to hear an angry student tell you to kick rocks. Hear again the alcoholic dad metaphor can help. Saying \u201cwell if you don\u2019t like the problems this country has than you can leave\u201d is akin to saying, \u201cwell if you don\u2019t like my drinking so much why don\u2019t you just go find another family.\u201d When I feel I am about to incur my students ire I bring up this metaphor and say, \u201cI could leave or dad could go to rehab. Just saying.\u201d My students laugh and typically the tension is released. I tell my students that I love this country enough to do something about the social problems. And then I belt out a version of \u201cI\u2019m proud to be an American\u201d and all is well again.<\/p>\n

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Footnotes:<\/p>\n

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1.<\/a> My dad is not, nor has he ever been an alcoholic. He is, however, a great sport about letting me use him in metaphors. Thanks dad!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cDid you ever think that all this talk about me being an alcoholic led me to start drinking in the first place?\u201d \u201cNo dad1, you\u2019re an alcoholic that\u2019s why we are always talking about it.\u201d Every semester at one point or another a student will raise their hand or send me an email to ask, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1982,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30650],"tags":[30603,30722,30732,30728],"class_list":["post-99","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-resources-for-teachers","tag-class-management","tag-classinequality","tag-in-class-activities","tag-raceethnicity"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1982"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":422,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions\/422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}