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Recent research has called on scholars to develop pedagogical interventions to address issues of media literacy. This teaching note answers that call by describing a media literacy project designed for use in social problems classes. The project acquaints students to the constructionist approach to social problems and the method of content analysis. Guided by the principles of scaffolding, the note discusses how students are guided through a series of readings, assignments, and activities that enables them to analyze how social problems are portrayed in news media. Analysis of student papers and comments reveals an increased understanding of the rhetorical strategies that are commonplace in media coverage of social problems. While designed for social problems, the project can be adjusted and modified for use in other sociology courses.

This article provides a critique and an addition to observations raised by Ballantine et al. in this issue. After reviewing the strengths of Ballantine et al.'s article about the need for a core in sociology, I argue that this debate has gone on long enough and needs to be reframed around areas of agreement. Three major curricular projects (that have already begun to move this discussion forward) are presented, including the American Sociological Association (ASA) High School National Standards; the ASA Task Force on "Liberal Learning and the Sociology Major, Updated, Third Edition"; and the Measuring College Learning (MCL) Project. A critical outcome of the MCL Project in sociology is the Sociological Literacy Framework, which is already changing conversations about sociology curricula and learning outcomes. The Sociological Literacy Framework is summarized, and use of this framework is discussed.

This article offers strategies for teaching about rationality, bureaucracy, and social change using George Ritzer's "The McDonaldization of Society" and its ideas about efficiency, predictability, calculability, and control. Student learning is facilitated using a series of strategies: making the familiar strange, explaining McDonaldization, self-investigation and discovery, and exploring and implementing alternatives. Through assignments, class exercises, and films, students contextualize modernity and its unintended negative consequences by viewing McDonaldization though the lenses of work and jobs. These strategies provide a framework to help students understand key concepts, critique McDonaldization, and formulate positive ways to cope with Weber's iron cage.

The research project assignment can create meaningful opportunities for students to apply sociological concepts. For grading these projects, assessment rubrics are useful pedagogical tools to evaluate students' abilities in achieving course learning objectives. In this study, I analyzed final research papers collected over multiple semesters in my undergraduate Methods of Social Research course. My goals are to (1) evaluate the grading rubric's effectiveness in enabling students to meet course objectives and (2) identify improvements in students' outcomes from revisions to the rubric over time. Findings indicate that rubrics can provide students the information needed to apply course concepts to their work and that rubric revisions are necessary to ensure validity, reliability, and equity across grading. In conclusion, I provide suggestions for implementing a semester-long research project assignment and initiating iterative revisions to rubric criteria.

In this article, I examine the effects of an environmental sociology travel study program in Zion National Park (United States) on 11 students during the summers of 2018 and 2019. I outline the program, and then I use students' reflections in their posttrip final papers to illustrate the effects of the program on their sense of environmental identity. While there was some variance in the growth of environmental identity, all students reported that they were profoundly affected by the program. For many, their environmental identity became salient. I also argue that we, as sociologists, need to grow our experiential environmental education so that many will become advocates for environmental change but also so that some will become the leaders we need to address the climate crisis and the environmental, social, and economic injustices that are deepening because of it.

I presented the 2019 Hans O. Mauksch address at the American Sociological Association annual meeting in New York City on August 13, 2019. In this address, I explore how sociology faculty perceive their physical bodies in relationship to teaching. After reviewing the literature, I surveyed a national sample of sociology faculty from diverse institutional contexts to find out how aware they were of their bodies in the classroom. I also asked questions related to how aging, chronic illness, and other health issues might affect the utilization of their bodies in teaching. Finally, a third area of research emphasized whether or not sociology faculty saw teaching as performative, and if yes, in what ways. This article is adapted from that address.

Sociology instructors have long used nontraditional texts such as literary fiction to demonstrate core course concepts, increase student engagement, and develop students' critical thinking in the classroom. In this article, I explore how written assignments structured around identifying core course concepts in a dystopian novel that connects to student interests can help develop higher-level and critical sociological thinking skills. Using data from an upper-level Sociology of Media course at a large, Midwestern university, I detail a final paper assignment centered around M. T. Anderson's dystopian satire novel "Feed." I present qualitative and quantitative findings that demonstrate students' successful use of higher-level and critical sociological thinking to identify, analyze, and support original arguments regarding core course concepts within the dystopian world and our own.

This article is a reflective analysis of an assignment in which undergraduate students developed dystopian, postapocalyptic, fantasy, and fictional short story parables to illustrate their understanding of sociological theory. In a social theory course, students were assigned a final paper in which they designed a short story that integrated sociological theory, including classical and contemporary concepts, which were applied to these fictional worlds. The assignment encouraged students to develop both macro- and micro-level creative social theory analysis using a fictional society that often touches on the themes of futurism, science fiction, or postapocalyptic settings. These scenarios allowed students to engage in world-building linked to systems of oppression that were analyzed through various perspectives, including Marxist theories, critical race theory, and feminist theories. The assignment is a creative way for students to apply their sociological imagination with the world-building process for an in-depth understanding of sociological theory.

Service sociology is a critical strategy for teaching and learning in sociology. Even beyond that, service sociology is an imperative for communicating the value of our discipline to our students and other constituents. Using data collected from faculty members in Minnesota colleges and universities, I describe the salience of the sociology literacy framework for service sociology and as a means to avoid some of the weaknesses associated with service learning as a general pedagogy in our discipline. I offer six recommendations for advancing a "culture of service" in sociology, concluding with the case for service sociology as socialization to advance the common good while building sociological literacy.

Although students rely on social solidarity in their everyday lives, they generally fail to acknowledge its existence. An active learning class exercise, conducted within approximately 35 minutes, introduces sociology students to Emile Durkheim's concept of solidarity and the distinction between its mechanical and organic forms. Some groups of students perform the task of creating and flying paper airplanes under the pretense of organic solidarity, and other groups perform the same task under the pretense of mechanical solidarity. Through reflection on their experiences and discussion with members of other groups, students begin to identify nuances of each type of solidarity. An evaluation of this exercise indicates that those who participate in it can describe the distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity and their respective associations with gemeinschaft and gesellschaft better than those exposed to a traditional lesson on the topic can.

Group research projects frequently are used to teach undergraduate research methods. This study uses multivariate analyses to examine the characteristics of higher-achieving groups (those that earn higher grades on group research projects) and to estimate the effects of participating in higher-achieving groups on subsequent individual learning (grade on final paper). The sample includes 257 students who completed a sociology research methods course at a small liberal arts institution between 2004 and 2015. Group achievement (grade on group research project) is predicted by group size, gender composition of the group, and group's average grade on midterm exams. Group achievement on the research project contributes to subsequent individual learning (grade on final paper) even after controlling for individual characteristics (student's gender, race, and average grade on midterm exams) and group characteristics. The findings support claims that group research projects are an effective pedagogy for undergraduate sociology research methods courses and point to some guidelines for instructors' composition of groups for research projects.

This study examined the effectiveness of the Star Power simulation for teaching stratification and inequality to students of the net generation. The data for this study were obtained through the use of survey methodology and content analysis of 126 course papers from introductory sociology classes. Papers were analyzed for identification and application of class concepts, recommendation of the simulation, and perceived value of the simulation as a learning tool. Analysis of data revealed 100 percent of students found Star Power worthwhile, and 98 percent recommended it be used in future classes. The most common concepts students linked with their simulation experience were inequality, stratification, and social structure. Finally, six themes were identified illustrating students' perceived value of the simulation.

The topic of human-animal studies (HAS) remains largely ignored within the sociology classroom. While a few sociologists have encouraged teaching about animals, none has assessed whether incorporating nonhuman animals into the curriculum is effective. In this study, three instructors at two universities incorporated animal-related materials in their sociology courses in a variety of ways. Data analyzed from course exam responses and student papers as well as end-of-semester student surveys indicate that student learning and enjoyment were enhanced. We provide suggestions for instructors on how to incorporate such material in their courses. We argue that teaching about nonhuman animals can serve as a powerful gateway to introducing students to a wide variety of social issues and concepts, thereby adding another useful instrument to our pedagogical tool kit in sociology.

Although there is a great deal of available material on using nontraditional resources for teaching sociology, the pedagogical uses of science fiction have not been examined for 20 years. This essay first asserts the need for an update based on changes in society and in science fiction over the past two decades. The paper then focuses on the uses of SF to teach sociology and critical thinking by describing how SF can help students to "make strange" (i.e., develop a skeptical, questioning stance), to "make believe" (i.e., develop critical and creative thinking), and to "make real" (i.e., use sociological concepts and theories). As illustration, the essay concludes with a detailed description of the use of Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" in teaching introductory sociology.

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. (Contains 4 footnotes.)

Breaching experiments involve the conscious exhibition of "unexpected" behavior, an observation of the types of social reactions such behavioral violations engender, and an analysis of the social structure that makes these social reactions possible. The conscious violation of norms can be highly fruitful for sociology students, providing insights into social structure and elucidating the sociological meaning of students' own subjective experiences. This paper adds to the discussion of the assignment of breaching experiments in two ways. First, it outlines specific instructions (for teacher and student) that are absent or not explained thoroughly in the literature. Described in more detail in this paper are some assignment guidelines the author has found valuable for effective social breaching. Second, this paper offers an example of how a breaching assignment brings abstract sociological concepts "down-to-Earth" for students. The author provides a description of a highly effective breach called "waiting-in-line" that he incorporates into a classroom discussion of Robert K. Merton's (1938) concept of "anomie," which describes a social condition in which the culturally-approved means and goals of a society become questionable, undesirable, or unclear. (Contains 1 table.)

Introductory sociology courses encourage students to shift from understanding social relations and inequalities through an individualistic lens toward a more sociological one. It is difficult for students to know how far they have advanced toward a sociological perspective if they do not have a good sense of where they began. This paper describes an approach intended to assess a sociological shift over the course of a semester by combining various recursive techniques that take place at the beginning and end of the semester: letters to oneself, social opinion surveys, and recorded small discussion groups. Although the shift was often not dramatic, the approach proved to be useful not only to help students keep track of their own developing sociological perspective but also as a way to improve teaching and assess student learning outcomes. Although ideal for small classes or discussion sections, I discuss ways to also adapt it for larger classes.

Team-based learning (TBL) is a form of small-group learning that assumes stable teams promote accountability. Teamwork promotes communication among members; application exercises promote active learning. Students must prepare for each class; failure to do so harms their team's performance. Therefore, TBL promotes accountability. As part of the course grade, students assess the performance of their teammates. The evaluation forces students to rank their teammates and to provide rationale for the highest and lowest rankings. These evaluations provide rich data on small-group dynamics. In this paper, we analyze 211 student teammate assessments. We find evidence that teams consistently give the lowest evaluations to their least involved members, suggesting that the team component increases accountability, which can promote learning. From these findings we draw implications about small-group dynamics in general and the pedagogy of TBL in particular.

Prior research measuring service-learning program successes reveals the approach can positively affect students' attitudes toward community service, can increase students' motivation to learn and ability to internalize class material, and can change their view of social issues. Studies also suggest that college students sometimes enter and leave a field site in ways that contribute to the reproduction of inequality. In this paper, we draw on three years of data from a service-learning project that involves sending college-age students (most of whom are white and materially privileged) into local, predominantly black, high-poverty neighborhoods to participate in community gardening. Using data generated by student assignments, we draw on service-learning research and critical race/whiteness scholarship to explore whether altering service-learning pedagogical tactics influences how students conceptualize and talk about race or if status factors, such as a student's own race, gender, and/or class, intersect to have greater impact on the racial logics they employ.

Prof. Niemonen claims that the concept of white privilege is "anti-sociological" and "mask[s] complex race-class interactions." He highlights the importance of including social class in discussions of white privilege but focuses exclusively on the white working class, neglecting how race and social class also intersect for people of color. Further, while different social identities mediate how whites experience race privilege, race remains a key factor in shaping life chances and opportunities. We agree that racial groups cannot be treated as homogenous, but we argue for the importance of teaching students about disparities between races before showing them heterogeneity within races; doing so in reverse minimizes the very real ways that race shapes people's lives. Nonetheless, taking into account Niemonen's points, we offer an addendum to our original exercise that stresses the importance of intersectionality; this can be offered as a second step once students have an understanding of white privilege.

Lecturing has been criticized for fostering a passive learning environment, emphasizing a one-way flow of information, and not adequately engaging students. In contrast, active-learning approaches, such as team-based learning (TBL), prioritize student interaction and engagement and create multidirectional flows of information. This paper presents an exploratory analysis of whether lecturing or TBL was better for teaching content; developing skills, such as critical thinking; and creating an enjoyable learning environment in a sociology course. Results showed few differences in these outcomes between groups taught with the two different methods, although TBL students thought they improved their oral communication and creative thinking skills more than the lecture students, and they reported getting to know their professor and classmates more than did the lecture students.

Few evaluated classroom exercises to date have addressed one of the most cited and compelling explanations of gender formation over the life course: interactionist gender theory. This theory posits that people actively "do" or "perform" their gender in every interaction, and as such, they often subconsciously reshape their public gendered personas based on the degree to which they find social acceptance within a given social context. This paper presents a highly engaging and temporally compact classroom exercise utilizing simulated speed dating to illustrate and generate discussion about interactionist gender theory among undergraduate social sciences and gender studies students. An evaluation study indicates that the exercise improves students' perceived understanding of interactionist gender theory and that it is both highly helpful and enjoyable.

This paper explores dynamics of students' critical consciousness development in the context of a thematically organized service-learning sociology course titled Health, Illness, and Community. The integrated components of the course were designed to cultivate critical consciousness by framing the study of health in terms of social justice issues that were demonstrable across three community partner organization sites. Analyses of writing assignments and qualitative interviews at the end of the semester reveal that student development of critical consciousness was demonstrated through analytic engagement with structural and systemic forces framing health inequities as well as reflexive consideration of the limited extent to which well-meaning efforts and intentions of individuals can significantly impact lasting social change. The combination of these two processes simultaneously cultivated students' ideological commitments to ongoing social justice work and subverted student self-efficacy with regard to the operationalization of those commitments.

Experiential and active learning exercises can benefit students in sociology courses, particularly, courses in which issues of inequality are central. In this paper, we describe using hunger banquets-an active learning exercise where participants are randomly stratified into three global classes and receive food based upon their class position-to enhance students' knowledge of global hunger and inequality. The nonprofit Oxfam America has made hunger banquets popular, but they are usually large public events. We provide ways of simplifying these exercises so that they can be conducted in sociology classrooms and incorporate sociological concepts. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of students' learning and engagement in three hunger banquets found that students had increases in perceived knowledge of the amount, severity, and causes of global hunger.

Sociology instructors have begun adding student response systems to support conceptual application in college courses. While little has been published about how these devices affect learning behavior in our discipline, research from other fields suggests clickers may enhance learning by encouraging engagement through collaborative talk. This paper presents mixed-methods data examining clicker use in two sociology courses (2007 to 2013). Survey, observation, and interview data suggest student response systems may enhance class discussions by supporting engagement, participation, and the building of empathy for diverse perspectives, but proper implementation is required.

This teaching note describes my multiyear experience with interventions designed to enhance student engagement and learning through various teaching techniques, most notably active and collaborative learning through local case studies. While other aspects of this course had been successful, I was disappointed in the level of engagement--the apparent level of study and practice and the excitement and interest in the project demonstrated during class meetings and through assignments--of previous students with the semester-long research project. Intervention yielded a clear increase in student engagement but did not seem to yield increased understanding, leading to a new set of questions and additional intervention. The note provides details about the specific teaching techniques centered on active and collaborative learning in local case studies and concludes with three recommendations for instructors pursuing excellence in teaching and learning. (Contains 1 note.)

The purpose of this paper is to describe an original active learning exercise that incorporates both referential and constructivist perspectives on the role of language in the social world. The exercise encourages students to view language as both a vehicle for transmitting sociologically-relevant content (e.g., attitudes, perspectives, justifications) as well as a vehicle through which actors construct social relations and social locations in ways that reflect and maintain social inequalities. (Contains 2 footnotes.)

C. Wright Mills would be a friendly critic of service learning, acknowledging its benefits for providing students with experiential learning opportunities to connect personal troubles with social issues. Yet he would be critical of service-learning practices that perpetuate institutional power inequalities and that do not advance the social change objectives of community-based organizations. We offer an innovative approach that helps to address some of these concerns which, when used in conjunction with "best practices" of service learning, has the potential to make a greater impact on the community than most service-learning projects. This paper highlights how two sociology programs in two urban universities--a large, elite university and a smaller, minority-serving university--have completed significant community-based research projects by having classes of students at both universities work on projects both consecutively and simultaneously across several semesters to complete substantial research projects with and for community partners. We use a case study approach to identify five key practices that have enabled the two universities to effectively collaborate across institutions. (Contains 2 footnotes.)

Reflexivity has gained paramount status in qualitative inquiry. It is central to debates on subjectivity, objectivity, and, ultimately, the scientific foundation of social science knowledge and research. Although much work on doing reflexivity by researchers and practitioners has been published, scholars have only recently begun to explore how one goes about teaching reflexivity in qualitative research. This paper contributes to the endeavour by first identifying challenges of teaching reflexivity. It then describes how I use an existing data set and hands-on learning as complementary strategies to teach reflexivity in a course on qualitative interviewing. It concludes with a discussion of the implications of teaching reflexivity in sociology in general and in qualitative research methods in particular. (Contains 2 tables and 5 footnotes.)

This paper arose from a larger study designed to explore what leaders in the field of sociology think are the most important goals and principles for students to understand after taking a college-level introductory course and how they teach those principles. A population of scholarly leaders in sociology was defined by various forms of peer recognition and included elected presidents of national and regional professional associations, recipients of national awards, and recipients of competitive research funding. In 2005 and 2006 we interviewed a sample of 44 leaders to gain an understanding of key principles and how they are taught. We report their teaching strategies and compare their strategies to those of other teachers and the recommendations in McKinney et al. (2004). Although similar in many respects, leaders are considerably more likely than other sociologists to engage students in research and somewhat more likely to use simulations or games. (Contains 3 tables and 4 footnotes.)

Participatory exercises are standard practice in qualitative methods courses; less common are projects that engage students in the entire research process, from research design to write-up. Although the teaching literature provides several models of complete research projects, their feasibility, and appropriateness for large, compulsory, single-semester methods courses has not been well established. Nor has much been written on how instructors are navigating the requirement at many institutions that course-based research undergo human-subjects ethics review. Here the authors describe how a high-enrollment qualitative methods course integrates a complete research project on student life and the transition to university. Students in this course of more than 100 conduct in-depth interviews with other students, pool the transcripts, and write original papers based on qualitative analysis of common datasets. Unfortunately, the complex logistics of the course rule out four experiential elements that instructors of smaller courses have incorporated: (1) multiple methods of data collection; (2) research of a non-campus setting; (3) follow-up interviews; and (4) an independent literature review. Using other parts of the course to fill these gaps, the model realizes many pedagogical benefits of a course-based research project. Specifically, it gives students a positive experience of research, so important in a compulsory course, and it also grounds students' formal learning of the qualitative tradition, as they concurrently gain first-hand knowledge of the research process. In this note, the authors describe how they met these learning objectives while keeping the project manageable for students and instructor within a single semester. (Contains 2 footnotes.)

This paper is based on a workshop of the same name presented at the 2007 American Sociological Association meetings. The purpose of the workshop and this article is to focus attention on teaching methods that require students to actively investigate sociological phenomena. During the workshop, participants practiced constructing inquiry-guided learning activities suitable for a range of different courses taught throughout the curriculum. These activities are described here. Inquiry-guided learning (IGL) includes a variety of teaching methods that assist students in their investigation of questions and problems. Fundamental to IGL in sociology is the notion that students should think and act like sociologists. IGL activities provide a means whereby the instructor models and the student practices the same disciplinary activities. Students "do" sociology rather than just learning about the results of others. (Contains 1 footnote.)

The first day of an introductory sociology course provides a crucial first impression to both students and instructor. The information instructors present on the organization, content, and expectations of the course reduces student anxiety and uncertainty. Instructors use self-introductions to address first day concerns and to provide information about the students, the teacher, and the learning environment (i.e., collegial, participatory) of the class. As they are normally conducted, however, self-introductions do not tackle the important question of sociological content. After handling administrative matters, reviewing the syllabus, and completing introductions, little time usually remains on the first day for examining social life. The exercise discussed in this paper effectively capitalizes on a valuable element of the first class with a quick illustration that allows students to immediately explore the sociological imagination and learn a key concept: social norms. (Contains 2 footnotes.)

Research has documented that collaborative learning groups improve student learning and increase the likelihood that students will have positive attitudes about both the subject matter and their peers. However, researchers know much less about how collaborative learning groups may influence student behavior and the extent to which their utility extends to testing as well as projects and papers. In an effort to address these gaps, we used quasi-experimental and survey data to examine the effects of collaborative testing on Introduction to Sociology students' learning, behavior, and attitudes. Findings indicate that collaborative testing improved students' behavior and attitudes. In comparison to a control group, students who participated in collaborative testing reported completing more of their assigned readings and had improved attitudes toward their learning, the testing process, and sociology. (Contains 3 tables.)

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. (Contains 2 tables and 3 footnotes.)

This paper describes an exercise that frames the choices made in creating measures of knowledge as problematic--making clear that the difficulties in interpreting the survey response are not limited to opinion items but apply to questions about factual information as well. Ambiguities in question wording and response options can invite multiple interpretations by respondents, which creates challenges for the student of survey research attempting to make sense of what the public knows. The following exercise focuses on how the analysis of survey data can influence outcomes. By coding data according to several different rationales, students will be able to see how univariate distributions vary and how associations change in response to operational form. (Contains 3 tables.)

Instructors of sociology courses strive to teach their students how to "think sociologically" or how to apply a "sociological perspective" to the world. Many creative methods, often framed as "applied" or "active learning," have been created to pursue this goal, but these active learning projects are not perfect solutions. The natural sciences have an advantage over their social science counterparts because their courses are often accompanied by a laboratory course that gives students "hands-on" experience in the subject's research methods. Sociology courses typically do not have a similar lab environment to accomplish these goals. This article offers tips on how to create such a "sociological laboratory" in which data analysis is incorporated into the classroom. The remainder of this paper presents some of the advantages of incorporating these websites into the classroom and discusses some pedagogical goals as well as some possible assignments using the sites. (Contains 1 table.)

As the global economy becomes more integrated, incorporating international experiences into college curricula becomes increasingly desirable for American students and their counterparts abroad. This paper describes one model for creating an international, Web-based, distance-learning classroom that can be used as a guide for those who might wish to pursue similar endeavors. Our replicated experiences teaching a sociology course on social control, twice under slightly different conditions, provide the basis for identifying the conditions and practices that optimize the goals of providing a forum for international education and enhancing reading and writing skills. A content analysis of the online Student-Led Discussions provides evidence that cross-national knowledge and understanding can be enhanced in this learning environment. Enrolling students from the United States, Belarus, Russia, and Australia, our course demonstrates how instructors can create a successful virtual classroom that truly encircles the globe.

Teachers have incorporated active-learning techniques into the sociology classroom for many years, but the types of applications and evaluations are quite varied. In this paper, the authors quantitatively test a particular form of active learning that they call "living-data exercises," which instructors can use to introduce sociological research methods. They define living-data exercises as any learning activity in which students play one or more different roles in the research process and then share their perspectives from their respective positions. Instructors can then direct discussion of the data-collection experience to include salient research issues and topics. Using control groups, they intend to test the value of using such an active-learning technique in terms of three criteria: student enjoyment, perceived learning, and actual learning, measured in quiz scores. (Contains 2 figures.)

This article presents the author's response to the article "The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning--Done By Sociologists: Let's Make That the Sociology of Higher Education" by Chad Hanson. In this response to Hanson's call for a sociology of higher education (SHE), the author will focus upon two things. First, he will review an idea that kept recurring as he participated in that workshop, that their discussions of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) are strongly shaped by the fact that they continue to be in the midst of a paradigm shift within higher education. Second, he will suggest that there may be good reasons to continue to conceptualize SOTL as separate from, but closely related to, a sociology of higher education. Hanson suggests that the scholarship of teaching and learning is "part of a broad assessment movement." In addition, clearly the insights from research on teaching and learning should be applied to the study of assessment and the assessment movement. Nonetheless, the author argues that the two are distinct. He stresses that he is certainly drawn to the argument that their analyses within SOTL need to use the sociological imagination and will benefit from linkages to larger social structures.

This article presents the author's response to the article "The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning--Done by Sociologists: Let's Make That The Sociology of Higher Education" by Chad Hanson. The author says that Hanson points to critical limitations of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) in sociology, including insufficient attention to a sociological perspective. Hanson offers two plausible reasons for this limitation: the evolution of SoTL outside their discipline and no coherent history of higher education research in the sociology of education (SOE). She added that his call that they, as sociologists, "infuse" their SoTL work with the sociological perspective is a valid one. However, she found herself asking many questions about his conceptualizations of various research areas. Some of these questions were about the definitions and meanings of key terms in the piece. She added that it appears that Hanson believes that if they just added a little sociological imagination to SoTL they would have SOE or SHE. But SHE is much broader than SoTL with or without the sociological imagination.

Across the field of higher education and within the discipline of sociology, several important reconceptualizations of academic work have emerged. While not absolutely in sync, there is a striking overlap across three of the most visible of these: Boyer's Scholarship Reconsidered, Carnegie's Stewardship of the Discipline, and Burawoy's Public Sociology. Putting the development of these conceptualizations into the larger context of shifts in higher education, I briefly review each, putting special emphasis on the synergy among them. However, despite these overarching guides and a number of other noted innovations (particularly in the scholarship of teaching and learning), new challenges have arisen. I end by discussing these new developments, drawing from basic sociological research to provide insights for maintaining gains and pushing these efforts forward. In particular, SoTL and the aging of the cohort of leaders who pioneered these redefinition efforts emphasize the importance of Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) programs, and the placement of new PhDs with this broad vision in PhD-granting departments, as well as in liberal arts colleges and universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information about American Sociological Association's (ASA) Projects on teaching Undergraduate Sociology. ASA Projects on Teaching Undergraduate Sociology has entered its third year. Projects are supported by grants to ASA from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education and the Lilly Endowment Inc., the activities of the teaching projects have attracted the interest and participation of hundreds of sociologists. In the past two years, a number of activities and publications have come from the three working groups of the Project. Three teacher development workshops have been held, several bibliographies are available for distribution and work from the Project task groups has generated papers read at national, regional, and state sociological association meetings. The Teacher Development Group held a number of workshops during the 1976-1977 academic year. The Task Group will also present brief sessions in conjunction with state and regional sociological associations.

The authors provide context for the three articles in the special section of this issue of Teaching Sociology on the topic of assessment. They provide a brief discussion of assessment in higher education today, supported by research conducted by the American Sociological Association from a survey of department chairs. These data indicate that most sociology departments are in fact conducting some form of assessment, although faculty members often are critical of these activities. The authors argue that sociologists are well situated to play a major role in carrying out assessment plans by virtue of their disciplinary training and skills in analyzing data. Further, the authors appeal to readers of Teaching Sociology that assessment and the scholarship of teaching and learning are inextricably linked and that it requires only a small step from conducting research on the scholarship of teaching and learning to doing assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The twentieth century saw a series of major changes in higher education that, among other things, led to an increasing tension between teaching and research within the academy. I argue that the contraposition of these two activities is counterproductive to sociology as well as other disciplines. Content analysis of job listings in the American Sociological Association (ASA) Employment Bulletin from three different decades suggests that although teaching and research increasingly blended near the end of the twentieth century, significant differences remain between type of institution and the relative emphasis upon teaching and research. I conclude with several suggestions for changes that are needed to help bridge the gap between teaching and research within the changing landscape of higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article argues that ethical teaching presumes honesty about the socially structured differences between professors and students. Some aspects of the professorial role are not open to redefinition. Organizations that offer postsecondary education constitute and enforce inequality, Instruction and faculty-student interactions occur within hierarchic structures. In academic matters, professors and students are unequal in authority. Typically differentiated by age and academic experience, they are unequal in expertise. Universities prescribe responsibilities and commitments for both. Authority can be denied, but not eliminated, by friendly impulses or egalitarian ideologies. On the other hand, the inequalities inherent in the teaching relationships do not justify paternalistic, condescending, or exploitive behaviors. Finally, an overzealous application of the service metaphor to teaching inverts the relationship by vesting authority in students as consumers. The relations between students and professors are not the relations of colleagues, confidants or friends. Friendliness is not the same as friendship. Friendships are particularistic and are structured around informality. Hierarchy and friendship are not easily compatible, Few faculty members, and even fewer students, can manage deftly the complexity of a dual relationship. Friendship can be an opening into unwanted importunings, unwelcome intimacies and untoward entanglements. fairness, or the perception of fairness, can be compromised.