This paper presents an innovative method of teaching ethics in sociology courses. Students are organized to evaluate ethically problematic research projects in their capacityas members of a mock institutional review board. This assignment stimulates lively discussion and serious critical thinking on the standards of ethical behavior expected of social scientists. Return to top of page. Return to top of page.
Students often have difficulty studying the family through a sociological lens.
A cross-cultural perspective on family life can help students develop a sociological perspective when analyzing family life. Sociology students learn not only about other cultures, but they also learn about our society as they must explain it to the international students. Return to top of page. In order for students to grasp the purpose of inferential statistics, they must be able to distinguish the connections among the sample, population, ans sampling distributions. The following article describes an in-class exercise that teaches students the relationship between these three distributions and explains why they form the basis of inferential statistics.