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To what extent, and why, do social science undergraduates experience anxiety about taking statistics courses? Despite holding assumptions of rampant statistics anxiety among students, sociologists have conducted few empirical studies of this issue. We extend the literature by analyzing data from a survey of sociology, social work, and criminal justice students enrolled in seven sections of our department's Social Statistics with Computer Applications course in the winter 2018 semester. Two thirds of respondents are anxious or very anxious about taking the course. They experience statistics anxiety primarily due to their lack of confidence in their ability to succeed in the course and their more general test-taking anxiety. This article offers a framework for instructors of social statistics courses to measure student anxiety and to address it in class in a way that aims to alleviate anxiety among the anxious while not alienating those who are comfortable in the course.

This article describes a simulation activity designed to teach students about the wage gap. The wage gap is an important topic in many sociology classrooms, but it can be difficult to convey the accumulated disadvantage experienced by women and racial/ethnic minorities to students using in-class discussions, lectures, or assigned readings alone. This is particularly true on college campuses that may draw their students from more affluent areas. Classroom simulations, however, provide an opportunity for students with all types of backgrounds to engage their sociological imaginations. In our simulation--Intersectionopoly--we use a modified version of Monopoly based on the wage gap and racial/ethnic minorities' experiences of everyday life to illustrate how members of different racial and gender groups experience disparities in earnings. Unlike other versions of stratified Monopoly, this simulation more closely mirrors the subtle nature of discrimination in the contemporary United States.