bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Military Service in the Vietnam Era and Educational Attainment
Authors: Teachman Jay
Published: December 2009

Using longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Study of Young Men for 1966–81, this study examined the effect of military service on the highest grade of schooling completed. Fixed-effects estimators were used to generate estimates of the effect of military service on the schooling trajectories of veterans and nonveterans that are independent of unmeasured household-specific and person-specific factors that may bias the relationship. The results indicate that veterans educational profiles differ from those of nonveterans. The veteran-nonveteran difference in schooling is substantial at the time veterans are discharged from the military (on average, a deficit of about one year) but diminishes thereafter (on average, to about a half year). The results also indicate that the effect of veteran status varies according to draft status, schooling prior to military service, and age at entry into the military but not race.
From “Middle Class” to “Trailer Trash:” Teachers' Perceptions of White Students in a Predominately Minority School
Authors: Morris Edward W.
Published: December 2009

This article explores how teachers perceived and interacted with white students in a predominately racial/ethnic minority school in Texas. On the basis of ethnographic data, the author found that different teachers expressed different views of the family and class backgrounds of white students in this setting, which ranged from “middle class” to “trailer trash.” These views of social class stemmed from how teachers interpreted the whiteness of students in this predominately minority context and influenced how they reacted to these students academically. An interesting finding was that the black teachers and the white teachers had different perceptions of these white students. The black teachers typically saw the white students as middle class and good students, whereas the white teachers tended to view the students as low income and unremarkable students. The results of this study clarify the processes of teachers' perceptions and white advantage.
Leveling the Home Advantage: Assessing the Effectiveness of Parental Involvement in Elementary School
Authors: Domina Thurston
Published: December 2009

In the past two decades, a great deal of energy has been dedicated to improving children's education by increasing parents' involvement in school. However, the evidence on the effectiveness of parental involvement is uneven. Whereas policy makers and theorists have assumed that parental involvement has wide-ranging positive consequences, many studies have shown that it is negatively associated with some children's outcomes. This article uses data from the children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 to estimate time-lagged growth models of the effect of several types of parental involvement on scores on elementary school achievement tests and the Behavioral Problems Index. The findings suggest that parental involvement does not independently improve children's learning, but some involvement activities do prevent behavioral problems. Interaction analyses suggest that the involvement of parents with low socioeconomic status may be more effective than that of parents with high socioeconomic status.
Assessing the “Mismatch” Hypothesis: Differences in College Graduation Rates by Institutional Selectivity
Authors: Alon Sigal , Tienda Marta
Published: December 2009

This article evaluates the “mismatch” hypothesis, advocated by opponents of affirmative action, which predicts lower graduation rates for minority students who attend selective postsecondary institutions than for those who attend colleges and universities where their academic credentials are better matched to the institutional average. Using two nationally representative longitudinal surveys and a unique survey of students who were enrolled at selective and highly selective institutions, the authors tested the mismatch hypothesis by implementing a robust methodology that jointly considered enrollment in and graduation from selective institutions as interrelated outcomes. The findings do not support the “mismatch” hypothesis for black and Hispanic (as well as white and Asian) students who attended college during 1980s and early 1990s.
Charter School Policy, Implementation, and Diffusion Across the United States
Authors: Renzulli Linda A. , Roscigno Vincent J.
Published: December 2009

This article applies theoretical and empirical insights on diffusion to a contemporary, important, and striking case in point: the groundswell of state legislation on and implementation of charter schools over the past decade. Drawing from several data sources and using event-history analyses, competing risks, and random-effects negative binomial regression, the analyses examine how interstate dynamics and intrastate attributes affect the adoption of legislation on and the creation of charter schools within states. The findings reveal a strong mimetic tendency among adjacent states to adopt charter school legislation and regional similarities in the creation of charter schools. Internal attributes of states, such as competition between the private and public school sectors, the relative strength of teachers' unions, the presence of racial competition, urbanization, and political party dominance likewise play a role, depending on whether the analytic focus is on the adoption of legislation or the implementation of policy. The authors conclude by discussing the implications of the results for understanding the forces underlying innovation and change in educational policy.
Gender Inequality in Schooling: The Case of Turkey
Authors: Rankin Bruce H. , Aytaç Işik A.
Published: December 2009

Drawing on recent research on education in developing countries, this article examines gender inequality in schooling in Turkey. Using a nationally representative sample of Turkish youths, it assesses the effects of macrostructure, family resources, and cultural attitudes and practices on primary and postprimary school attainment. The results show that while locality, family resources, and family structure and culture influence the education of both genders, girls' chances of postprimary schooling are greater if they live in metropolitan areas and in less patriarchal families. Birth-order comparisons indicate that older daughters are less likely to complete postprimary schooling than are their younger sisters. Girls' primary school attainment is facilitated by having other family members who help with child care. The findings are discussed in light of trends in Turkish society and their implications for future research.
Ethnic Inequalities and Educational Attainment in Taiwan
Authors: Jao Jui-Chang , McKeever Matthew
Published: December 2009

In this article, the authors examine educational stratification in Taiwan against the background of an ethnically based political economy. They investigate how educational attainment is related to ethnicity and other background factors, such as parental class and education, and if these relationships changed over time as Taiwan became a more industrial and democratic society. The findings reveal that while children from Mainlander families are overall more likely to achieve higher levels of education and make the crucial transition of graduating from secondary schools, this ethnic effect does not hold when parental class and education are taken into account. Parental class and education do matter, although they have diminished in importance over time. The authors relate these findings to theories of the relationship between industrialization and educational attainment.
Curricular Flows: Trajectories, Turning Points, and Assignment Criteria in High School Math Careers
Authors: McFarland Daniel A.
Published: December 2009

What do course trajectories look like? Do career paths intersect? Do courses assume distinct roles in educational careers? What factors lead students to adopt various curricular moves? This article addresses these questions by examining the structure and dynamics of participant flows across courses in two high school math curricula. Drawing on Markov models and network analytic methods, it examines the length, rate of progression, volume, and direction of multiple trajectories in math and identifies certain courses as important career turning points. The findings suggest that schools can design a variety of mobility systems by altering course offerings, prerequisites, and grading policies. Analyses of individual curricular moves show that nonsanctioned moves, such as leaving school, are guided by students' background characteristics, while sanctioned moves, such as course transitions, are guided primarily by structural constraints and adaptations to signals about classroom performance.
Beyond the Family: The Influence of Premigration Group Status on the Educational Expectations of Immigrants' Children
Authors: Feliciano Cynthia
Published: December 2009

Understanding how immigrants' children form educational expectations may yield insights into the causes of eventual ethnic disparities in socioeconomic attainments. This article examines how the average relative premigration educational status of the immigrant group and the immigrant group's average postmigration SES shape the educational expectations of immigrants' children. It analyzes a unique data set that was compiled from published international data and U.S. census data on 30 immigrant groups, combined with data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey. The findings reveal that higher group premigration educational status facilitates higher perceived parental aspirations, which shape the educational expectations of second-generation youths. Furthermore, as an immigrant group's premigration educational status increases, youths' educational expectations also increase. The results highlight the interaction between group and individual-level factors in that the effect of parents' socioeconomic status on students' educational expectations depends upon the premigration status of their immigrant group. These findings suggest that a premigration group-level characteristic influences second-generation adaptation beyond its association with family background and that greater attention should be drawn to the effects of premigration factors in shaping ethnic communities and the experiences of immigrant groups in the United States.
Why Are Some Academic Fields Tipping Toward Female? The Sex Composition of U.S. Fields of Doctoral Degree Receipt, 1971–2002
Authors: England Paula , Allison Paul , Li Su , Mark Noah , Thompson Jennifer , Budig Michelle J. , Sun Han
Published: December 2009

Using data on the number of men and women who received doctorates in all academic field from 1971 to 2002, the authors examine changes in the sex composition of fields. During thi period, the proportion of women who received doctorates increased dramatically from 14 per cent to 46 percent. Regression models with fixed effects indicate no evidence that fields with declining relative salaries deter the entry of men, as would be predicted by the queuing the ory of Reskin and Roos. Consistent with the devaluation perspective and Schelling's tipping model, above a certain percentage of women, men are deterred from entering fields by th fields' further feminization. However, the rank order of fields in the percentage of women changed only slightly over time, implying that, to a large extent, men and women continued to choose fields as before, even when many more women received doctorates. The finding
Contextual Explanations of School Choice
Authors: Lauen Lee Lauen
Published: December 2009

Participation in school-choice programs has been increasing across the country since the early 1990s. While some have examined the role that families play in the school-choice process, research has largely ignored the role of social contexts in determining where a student attends school. This article improves on previous research by modeling the contextual effects of elementary schools and neighborhoods on high school enrollment outcomes using population-level geocoded administrative data on an entire cohort of eighth graders from one of the largest urban school districts in the United States. The results of hierarchical multinomial logistic models suggest that the contextual effects of percentage black, poverty, and neighborhood concentrated disadvantage reduce the likelihood of students attending private or elite public high schools. Students in schools with high average achievement are less likely to attend selective-enrollment magnet schools, perhaps because of a “frog pond” effect. Finally, the study found evidence of peer effects on attending non-neighborhood schools. Together, these findings suggest a new way of conceptualizing the causes of school choice at a time when such programs are becoming more prevalent.
Gender, Obesity, and Education
Authors: Crosnoe Robert
Published: December 2009

Obesity is a health condition, but its consequences extend far beyond the realm of health. To illuminate an important route by which the experience of obesity can filter into the status attainment process, this study drew on nationally representative data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to test a social psychological model of the gendered link between obesity and education. Obese girls were less likely to enter college after high school than were their nonobese peers, especially when they attended schools in which obesity was relatively uncommon. Additional analyses revealed that increasing rates of internalizing symptoms, self-medication, and academic disengagement explained about one-third of the obese girls' lower odds of college enrollment. Obese boys, on the other hand, did not differ from their peers—no matter what their school context—in college enrollment.
“Kracking” the Missing Data Problem: Applying Krackhardt's Cognitive Social Structures to School-Based Social Networks
Authors: Neal Jennifer Watling
Published: December 2009

Social network analysis can enrich school-based research on children's peer relationships. Unfortunately, accurate network analysis requires near-complete data on all students and is underutilized in school-based research because of low rates of parental consent. This article advocates Krackhardt's cognitive social structures (CSS) as a solution to the problem of missing data in social network research. It compares CSS to other common strategies for dealing with missing data and shows how CSS can be used to yield more complete and precise network data. The article also uses an example of a sixth-grade classroom network to demonstrate the application of CSS and potential analyses.
Diversification and Inequality in Higher Education: A Comparison of Israel and the United States
Authors: Ayalon Hanna , Grodsky Eric , Gamoran Adam , Yogev Abraham
Published: December 2009

This article explores how the structure of higher education in the United States and Israel mediates the relationship among race/ethnicity, social origins, and postsecondary outcomes. On the basis of differences in how the two systems of higher education have developed, the authors anticipated that inequality in college attendance will be greater in Israel, while inequality in the type of college or university one attends will be greater in the United States. They found that students in the United States are more likely to attend college than are their Israeli counterparts. Contrary to their expectations, however, inequality in the chances of attendance is similar across these nations, if not slightly greater in the United States. Inequality in the types of institutions that students attend appears greater in the United States, but the contours of ethnic inequality in college destinations are markedly different across these two contexts.
Teacher Influences on Students' Attachment to School
Authors: Hallinan Maureen T.
Published: December 2009

Research has shown that students who like school have higher academic achievement and a lower incidence of disciplinary problems, absenteeism, truancy, and dropping out of school than do those who dislike school. Thus, one way to improve academic outcomes is to increase students' attraction to school. This study focused on the role of teachers in shaping students' feelings about school. The unique role that teachers play relative to students and the kinds of experiences that teachers create for students suggest that teachers may exert a powerful influence on whether students like school. Since attachment to school has been shown to affect students' academic performance, identifying the characteristics of teachers that have a positive effect on students' feelings about school is one way to increase students' academic achievement. The study estimated cross-sectional and longitudinal models of teachers' influences on students' feelings about school on data from 6th-, 8th- and 10th-grade students in public and Catholic schools in Chicago. It found that students who perceive that their teachers care about them, respect them, and praise them are more apt to like school than are those who do not, but that teachers' expectations for students' achievement have a negligible effect on whether students like school.
College Proximity: Mapping Access to Opportunity
Authors: Turley Ruth N. López
Published: December 2009

The process by which students decide whether and where to attend college has been based most commonly on a college-choice model that is independent of the students' geographic context. However, the ability to attend college close to home is often among the most important factors that U.S. high school students, especially minorities and the socioeconomically disadvantaged, consider. The study presented here mapped the place of residence of a national sample of high school seniors, as well as the location of all colleges within commuting distance of each student, and showed that seniors have a wide range of colleges in proximity. Furthermore, after taking account of important student and zip code-level factors, the study found that each additional college in proximity is associated with a small but significant increase in the odds of applying to college, especially a four-year college. These findings suggest that researchers should stop treating the college-choice process as though it were independent of location and start situating this process within the geographic context in which it occurs.
Interracial Friendships in the Transition to College: Do Birds of a Feather Flock Together Once They Leave the Nest?
Authors: Stearns Elizabeth , Buchmann Claudia , Bonneau Kara
Published: December 2009

Because of segregation in neighborhoods and schools, college may provide the first opportunity for many young adults to interact closely with members of different racial and ethnic groups. Little research has examined how interracial friendships form during this period. This article investigates changes in the racial composition of friendship networks in the transition from high school to college and how aspects of the college environment are related to such changes. Interracial friendships increase for whites, decrease for blacks, and show little change for Latinos and Asians. The habits of friendship formation that are acquired during adolescence and features of residential and extracurricular college contexts influence the formation of interracial friendships. The race of one's roommate, the degree of interracial contact in residence halls, and participation in various types of extracurricular activities are most strongly related to the formation of interracial friendships.
Organization by Design: Supply- and Demand-side Models of Mathematics Course Taking
Authors: McFarland Daniel A. , Rodan Simon
Published: December 2009

Prior work has proposed different theoretical mechanisms to explain students' course-taking patterns in schools. On the one hand, there are oversocialized accounts that claim that rules, social background factors, and supply-side factors shape observed career patterns. On the other hand, there are undersocialized accounts that claim that the decisions of strategic agents and demand-side dynamics shape course-taking careers. In this article, the authors use simulations to illustrate how these theoretical mechanisms can generate course-taking patterns. Grounding the simulations in empirical data on the mathematics course taking of students in two high schools, they assess the relative merits of these competing theories by testing how closely observed and predicted career patterns align. The results reveal that the characteristics of students and the organizational rules and requirements of course-taking career systems render certain allocation mechanisms more salient than others. In particular, highly competitive and structurally constrained systems are shaped by supply dynamics, while less regulated systems of diverse populations are shaped by agent-based decision making.
Another Way Out: The Impact of Juvenile Arrests on High School Dropout
Authors: Hirschfield Paul
Published: December 2009

This article suggests that contact with the legal system increased school dropout in a Chicago sample of 4,844 inner-city students. According to multilevel multivariate logistic models, students who were first arrested during the 9th or 10th grade were six to eight times more likely than were nonarrested students ever to dropout of high school and are about 3.5 times more likely to drop out in Grades 9 and 10. However, selection bias is a real concern. To improve causal inference, students who were first arrested in Grade 9 ( n = 228) are compared to 9th graders ( n = 153) who were first arrested a year later. Given this sampling restriction, the groups hardly differ on many observables. Yet early arrest still increases early school dropout in models with many relevant covariates. The 9th-grade arrestees are also compared to matched students who avoided arrest. Similar intergroup differences in the risk of dropout were observed. Thus, being arrested weakens subsequent participation in urban schools, decreasing their capacity to educate and otherwise help vulnerable youths.
Is There a Core in Sociology? Results from a Survey
Authors: Wagenaar Theodore C.
Published: December 2009

I report on a study of 301 sociologists to determine which concepts, topics, and skills they deem most important to cover in the introductory course and in the sociology curriculum. Respondents indicated high agreement that the list of skills, topics, and concepts adequately represented the range of possible items. I use both the raw ratings and the results of asking respondents to select their “top five” items. Results show strong agreement on core concepts, topics, and skills, with both overlaps and differences between results for the introductory course and the sociology curriculum. Issues of difference and inequality are important for both the introductory course and the curriculum. Core concepts are seen as more critical for the introductory course, and theory and methods are seen as more critical for the curriculum. Values and commitments as well as applied sociology rank lowest for both the introductory course and the sociology curriculum. Implications for the sociology curriculum as well as for introductory textbooks are discussed.
The Sociological Core: Conceptual Patterns and Idiosyncrasies in the Structure and Content of Introductory Sociology Textbooks, 1940-2000
Authors: Keith Bruce , Ender Morten G.
Published: December 2009

Sociology is often portrayed as an errant discipline, driving forward without any apparent direction or purpose. We contend that these perceptions about the central tenets of our discipline derive from a lack of standardization of core material, which reduces the social value of sociology as a scientific field and erodes its credibility as a discipline. Insofar as common conceptual knowledge exists in the field of sociology, one ought to find evidence of it in the introductory textbook. To this end, our study examines 35 introductory sociology textbooks published in the 1940s (n=16) and the 1990s (n=19) in search of common concepts that represent cumulative core disciplinary knowledge. While our findings reveal uniformity in the structure of the textbooks' major chapter headings within their respective decades, our analysis of concepts—the language used to introduce disciplinary content—reveals that the vast majority are referenced by only one text, with fewer than three percent of all concepts shared in common. Moreover, neither the number of concepts introduced only once nor the variability in the total number of concepts referenced declined across the two decades. In sum, while introductory sociology textbooks are structured in similar ways, we find little commonality in the concepts used by texts' authors to frame the discipline, either within the two cross-sections or between them.
Using Focused Web-Based Discussions to Enhance Student Engagement and Deep Understanding
Authors: Persell Caroline Hodges
Published: December 2009

To increase student engagement and enhance critical thinking and deep understanding, I supplemented weekly seminar meetings with focused Web-based discussions of issues in a “Race and Education” senior sociology seminar. These Web-based discussions were structured by specific questions and discussion roles. Before seminar, Staters posted on the course Web site the most important thing they learned from a reading, describing what was most difficult, and raising new sociological questions. After seminar, Responders replied to the questions and difficulties posted and posed further sociological questions. Two days later, Integrators synthesized and integrated what they had learned that week from others' postings, readings, and seminar discussion, and raised further questions. Analysis of student postings suggests that students' engagement with the ideas of others increased during the semester and their thinking became more complex. This paper discusses the processes that contributed to students' learning and suggested pedagogical changes. It also raises questions for further research.
Problem-Based Learning: An Exercise on Vermont's Legalization of Civil Unions
Authors: Ross Susan M. , Hurlbert Janet McNeil
Published: December 2009

The majority of literature regarding problem-based learning demonstrates its usefulness as a teaching technique in the natural sciences curriculum. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, the broad purpose is to illustrate the application of problem-based learning for instructing students about controversial issues in sociology. Within the second, more narrowed focus, we describe a class exercise involving the recent Vermont Supreme Court decision to legalize civil unions as an approach to addressing contemporary debates in sociology pertaining to the decline versus transition of the American family social institution. This project is developed using a three-pronged pedagogical approach involving critical theory, problem-based learning, and information literacy. While the technique described in this article is taken from a course on the Social History of American Families, the method can be modified for a variety of courses including sociology of the family, sociology of gender, introduction to sociology, and social problems.
Service Learning for Social Change? Lessons from a Liberal Arts College
Authors: Lewis Tammy L.
Published: December 2009

This paper explores efforts by Denison University to shift its service-learning efforts from service based on a charity model toward service based on collaboration and community-based social change. The author describes the institution's process of adaptation and a series of service-learning courses that draw upon participatory action research, asset-based community development, and what Denison service-learning faculty call “place-based” service learning. Based on ethnographic data and reports from students' reflective journals from courses that have attempted to develop a partnership with a nearby community, the author outlines some of the challenges for faculty and institutions that are considering crossing-over from service learning based on charity to service learning for social justice.
Overcoming “Doom and Gloom”: Empowering Students in Courses on Social Problems, Injustice, and Inequality
Authors: Johnson Brett
Published: December 2009

In this paper, I use principles of civic education and social psychology to identify four main classroom contributors to students' pessimistic appraisals of their ability to improve social problems: authoritarian teaching methods, a culture of “doom and gloom,” little attention to solutions to social problems, and no linkage of social problems to individual behavior. I then propose a five-step process to effectively teach about social problems while empowering students to help solve these problems: (1) identify the process through which social problems are constructed, (2) identify existence of the social problem, (3) identify core causes of the social problem, (4) identify structural solutions to the social problem, and (5) identify individual actions that contribute to structural solutions.
Introducing Multimedia Presentations and a Course Website to an Introductory Sociology Course: How Technology Affects Student Perceptions of Teaching Effectiveness
Authors: Koeber Charles
Published: December 2009

I use a quasi-experiment and follow-up questionnaire to ascertain the effects of PowerPoint multimedia presentations and a Blackboard course website on the course grades and perceptions of teaching effectiveness of introductory sociology students. Results of t-tests showed no statistically significant difference in course grades between experimental and control groups. However, students' responses to standardized teaching evaluations were considerably more favorable in the experimental group; all measured dimensions of perceived teaching effectiveness yielded statistically significant increases, with substantial increases in perceptions of instructor rapport and grading. I use the ideas of George Herbert Mead to interpret the results and increase sociological understanding of the relationship between the introduction of instructional technology and student perceptions of teaching effectiveness. In Mead's terms, the introduction of technology is not merely a self-involved act performed by the instructor that changes the modality of course presentation but a social process involving both instructor and students. Within this process the introduction of technology is both a nonsignificant gesture, which elicits from students an unconscious or “instinctively” favorable impression of the course, and a significant symbol, which calls forth behavioral responses from students, conscious actions that substantially alter their perceptions of the course. Students not only reacted positively to the instructor's use of technology but through their own use of the technology increased their involvement in the course and came to perceive its teaching more favorably.
The High School Sociology Teacher
Authors: DeCesare Michael
Published: December 2009

High school teachers of sociology have long been neglected by academic sociologists and the ASA. Recent developments are encouraging, however. In 2001, the ASA appointed a Task Force on the Advanced Placement Course for Sociology in High School, and Teaching Sociology has published three articles on high school sociology since that year. Still, there is a dire need for research on the characteristics and experiences of teachers themselves, and for empirically-based recommendations for assisting them. The current study uses questionnaire data to examine the personal and professional characteristics of the teachers who offered a sociology course in Connecticut public high schools during academic year 2000-01. The results indicate that teachers have little formal education in sociology, are not involved in the professional activities of the discipline, and have virtually no exposure to sociology outside of their own courses. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research and action.
Teaching Social Science Reasoning and Quantitative Literacy: The Role of Collaborative Groups
Authors: Caulfield Susan L. , Caroline Hodges Persell
Published: December 2009

In this paper, we discuss ways collaborative research groups can be used and what students appear to learn about social science reasoning and quantitative literacy from such groups. Data are from field observations, pre- and post-semester surveys in both collaborative and traditional courses, end of the semester student comments, and student work on semester-long group-based projects. The findings illuminate teaching and learning processes, cognitive and personal learning outcomes, and remaining challenges. Students resist having to work in groups, while simultaneously becoming attached to their group and acknowledging its importance. In the end, many students see the importance of both social science reasoning and quantitative skills and demonstrate the ability to articulate key components of both. Challenges that remain include more specific measures of particular skills, potential group conflicts, and active learning within a culture of consumerism and entitlement.
Making Sexism Visible: Birdcages, Martians, and Pregnant Men
Authors: Kleinman Sherryl , Copp Martha , Sandstrom Kent
Published: December 2009

This paper offers six strategies for dealing with students' resistance to learning about the oppression of women: making the familiar strange, substituting race for sex, distinguishing between intentions and consequences, imagining men in women's bodies, exposing students' claims of equal gender oppression as false parallels, and analyzing some of women's desires as instances of false power. These teaching strategies, along with Marilyn Frye's (1983) metaphor of oppression as a birdcage consisting of systematically related wires, provide a framework for pre-empting or responding to students' resistance.
The Research Article as a Foundation for Subject-Centered Learning and Teaching Public Sociology: Experiential Exercises for Thinking Structurally About Child Care Fatalities
Authors: Lee Matthew T. , Wrigley Julia , Dreby Joanna
Published: December 2009

This paper is the latest installment in a series that is designed to bridge the gap between teaching and practice by developing classroom applications based on a current research article from the American Sociological Review. We discuss the ways in which a recent ASR paper on child care fatalities can be used to help students explore Burawoy's conception of “public” sociology in a manner that is consistent with a subject-centered pedagogical approach. To illustrate this approach, we offer three experiential exercises designed to facilitate the active engagement of students' hearts, as well as their minds, thereby linking our subject-centered approach to the increasingly popular notion of character education.
Civic Engagement Through Civic Agriculture: Using Food to Link Classroom and Community
Authors: Wynne Wright D.
Published: December 2009

The maximization of productivity and labor efficiency has been a hallmark of the American agriculture and food system. The result of these twin processes is an industrial, concentrated, and consolidated provisioning system that produces cheap and plentiful food. Many view this model as a panacea for providing food to a modern industrial workforce, yet, increasingly, others are identifying cracks in this system. Research shows that an abundant food supply from an industrial model of agriculture has hidden costs to farm family stability, rural community well-being, and human and ecosystem health. A recent turn in this research has shifted away from the identification of weaknesses toward the exploration of viable options to redesign the food system in a manner that ensures long term sustainability. Civic agriculture is one such model that includes community-embedded initiatives to re-localize agriculture in communities of place, while enhancing food security, literacy, safety, and rebuilding rural communities. In this paper, I detail an exercise to teach the concept of civic agriculture through the development of community-based learning in the form of global and local public learning communities, service-learning advocacy, and international exchange. To demonstrate the comparative nature of agriculture and food system changes, as well as emerging models of sustainability, I developed a partnership with a Hungarian class which allowed students to compare and contrast approaches to sustainable development and probe the role of history and culture as causal forces in these endeavors. I describe my efforts to develop this partnership and weave opportunities for service-learning advocacy into the curriculum.
Using a Research Article to Foster Moral Reflection and Global Awareness in Teaching About Religion and Politics, Theory Testing, and Democracy in the Muslim World
Authors: Davis Nancy J. , Robinson Robert V.
Published: December 2009

Encouraging students to reflect on their ethical principles and to develop a global outlook have been identified as key pedagogical goals in recent national reports on higher education. This article shows how instructors can use a current article from the American Sociological Review (ASR) to facilitate moral reflection and global awareness. The ASR article, with its focus on the political implications of moral cosmologies of Muslims, its cross-national methodology, and its non-western geographical focus, is well suited to these pedagogical goals. We offer active learning exercises designed to promote ethical examination and global understandings in an introductory sociology course, a theory course, and an upper-level course on political sociology, sociology of religion, or globalization.
Peer Facilitators as Border Crossers in Community Service Learning
Authors: Chesler Mark A. , Ford Kristie A. , Galura Joseph A. , Charbeneau Jessica M.
Published: December 2009

Community service learning offers students the opportunity to cross socially constructed and epistemological borders of power and privilege, allowing them to come into contact with groups of people who are different from themselves and to learn in different ways. Peer facilitators, undergraduate student instructional leaders who guide others through these encounters, often experience especially powerful border crossing experiences, both by virtue of their service site supervision and their seminar leadership roles. Using their own writings and interviews, we explore some of these peer facilitators' border crossing experiences in a community service learning course at a large midwestern research university. We focus on how peer facilitators encounter various issues as they guide discussion of the experiences students have at community service sites in reflective seminars. The findings suggest that such border crossing experiences can encourage peer facilitators to reflect on their own social group identity and position within the larger social structures of privilege and oppression, and on their own learning styles and engagement in the higher educational environment.
Critical Pedagogy and Classroom Praxis
Authors: Braa Dean , Callero Peter
Published: December 2009

In this paper we argue for the incorporation of critical pedagogy in the teaching of sociology. We first establish the theoretical and emancipatory rationale for critical pedagogy with a review of the neomarxist concept of reproduction. We then examine a specific application of critical pedagogy in the sociology curriculum of Western Oregon University. We give particular attention to a course sequence on community organizing in which students have developed a successful tenants union that serves as a vehicle for both personal and social transformation.
Effects of Web-Based Instruction on Math Anxiety, the Sense of Mastery, and Global Self-Esteem: A Quasi-Experimental Study of Undergraduate Statistics Students
Authors: Karen Van Gundy , Morton Beth A. , Liu Hope Q. , Kline Jennifer
Published: December 2009

To explore the effects of web-based instruction (WBI) on math anxiety, the sense of mastery, and global self-esteem, we use quasi-experimental data from undergraduate statistics students in classes assigned to three study conditions, each with varied access to, and incentive for, the use of online technologies. Results suggest that when statistics course requirements included the use of WBI techniques, such as Blackboard's (Blackboard Inc. 2001) digital drop box and online student discussion board, class levels of math anxiety were reduced from the beginning (Time I) to the end (Time II) of the course instruction periods. In classes that required student participation in online discussion forums, self-esteem levels appear to have been enhanced. Perceived mastery levels, however, were not influenced significantly by use of the WBI tools we consider here. The findings indicate that the incorporation of WBI techniques into statistics courses may benefit college students; yet, the mechanisms by which WBI tools affect student outcomes require elucidation. We recommend that widespread implementation of WBI follow only from systematic evaluation of its efficacy across various educational settings, student populations, and social conditions.
The Campus Survey: Integrating Pedagogy, Scholarship, and Evaluation
Authors: Royce A. Singleton
Published: December 2009

This paper describes a campus survey designed to enhance student learning while generating high-quality data for research and evaluation. Students enrolled in a research methods course pretest a draft interview schedule and interview randomly selected students; then, drawing on their interview experience, they write a paper that addresses methodological issues pertinent to the survey. The instructor selects the topic, drafts the interview schedule, trains students to interview, codes and enters the data, and generates tables to test students' hypotheses. Through direct involvement in a meaningful survey, students deepen their understanding of methods and realize the hard work and care necessary to do sound social research. Beyond the course, the survey data promote student research and provide a rich source of social indicators on the student body. While promising, the survey's unique features present challenges in terms of student input and instructor workload that must be addressed to facilitate its use at other colleges and universities.
The Student Voice
Authors: Mckinney Kathleen
Published: December 2009

In this article I report on the common themes derived from three small-scale qualitative studies that focused on how sociology majors believe they learn our discipline. These studies include a group interview, analysis of content in learning logs, and individual face-to-face interviews. Based on the results of these studies, five types of connections appear critical to student learning in sociology: to others, those among related ideas or skills, to students' lives, across courses, and to the discipline. In addition, students were at different points on three overlapping pathways of learning: level of success in the major, use of surface-deep approaches, and degree of novice-expert learning. I also offer implications and suggestions for teaching, sociology programs, and future research.
The Social Construction of Social Facts
Authors: Townsley Eleanor
Published: December 2009

This article describes an exercise that explores how race categories and classifications are socially constructed scientifically. In an introductory sociology setting, students compare their perceptions of the size of minority populations with counts from the U.S. Census. In a series of debriefing sessions, students analyze both their perceptions and Census counts as social constructions of the moral phenomena we call race. In the process, students are introduced to Census data and the Census web site as well as to historical and theoretical literature on the social construction of race. Students are then asked to reflect critically about the scientific practices in which race is constructed as a social fact, and in particular, to consider their own roles in these practices as users and subjects of race categories. The larger goal is to help students to develop a critical sociological imagination that productively engages the analysis of race in contemporary society.
What Should Students Understand After Taking Introduction to Sociology?
Authors: Persell Caroline Hodges , Pfeiffer Kathryn M. , Syed Ali
Published: December 2009

Sociologists have long reflected on what should be taught in sociology. In recent years, the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) has produced several important publications on key principles and learning goals for the introductory course. However, little current work has systematically examined what peer-recognized leaders in the field deem important for introductory sociology. This paper is an effort to fill this research gap. Our research questions include: What do leaders think students should understand after an introduction to sociology course? Do the goals of Teaching Award winners differ from those of other leaders? How do the leaders' goals compare with those expressed in leading SoTL publications? To address these questions, we interviewed a sample of 44 leaders in 2005-2006. Using qualitative content analysis, we systematically coded, analyzed, and compared their goals.
Performing Identities in the Classroom
Authors: Friedman Kathie , Rosenberg Karen
Published: December 2009

Teaching about intersecting, fluid and historically contingent identities has been taken up extensively within the sociology of race, class and gender and women's studies. Oddly, the case of Jewish women has been virtually left out of this robust literature. This article explores the challenges raised through teaching the course “Jewish Women in Contemporary America,” and links these challenges to the pedagogy of race, class and gender more broadly. Using the classroom as a research site, the authors conducted post-course interviews with students and kept detailed field notes on class sessions. The authors use Judith Butler's theorization of performativity to analyze classroom dynamics. After redesigning and teaching the course a second time, the authors conclude that the relationship between “experience” and “theory” must be constantly interrogated by both instructor and students; that personal narratives merit space within the classroom, but must be problematized; and a critical Jewish Women's Studies, based on illuminating the socially constructed and hybrid character of contemporary Jewish American women's identities, can help to expose the tendency to methodological essentialism still prevalent in much of the feminist race, class, and gender literature.
Critical Pedagogy in the Sociology Classroom
Authors: Fobes Catherine , Kaufman Peter
Published: December 2009

Although critical pedagogy has been discussed in the Teaching Sociology literature for nearly twenty years, dialogues about the difficulties in practicing and implementing critical pedagogical strategies in everyday classroom life are less common. In this note, we discuss a predominant theme of our workshop: challenges and concerns that may arise when one attempts to do critical pedagogy. We focus on both challenges and potential solutions for learners, instructors, and institutions of higher education. Understanding what some of these obstacles are and how they manifest in institutions of higher learning goes a long way in devising strategies to assuage their deleterious effects.