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This paper explores the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on Russia's academic sector, relying on the limited evidence available. The invasion has triggered an academic exodus from Russia, with both immediate and far-reaching consequences. These consequences range from the interruption of ongoing research projects and the termination of international collaborations to the emergence of an intellectual void, raising concerns about the future of academic pursuits in Russia. Conventional models for understanding academic mobility, which primarily focus on professional and economic incentives, prove inadequate in accounting for the complexities introduced by geopolitical strife, international sanctions, and curtailed academic freedoms. This paper calls for an interdisciplinary approach incorporating perspectives from political science, sociology, and international relations for a richer understanding of academic migration in conflict-affected settings. The Russia-Ukraine war serves as an important case study, shedding light on the vulnerabilities of academic sectors, even in the aggressor country where the physical conflict is not occurring, and offering broader insights for the field of academic mobility.

In this practice-based pedagogical paper, we, the university faculty of Education, Food and Nutrition, Sociology, and History in the U.S., describe how we started a Reflective Practice Teaching Circle at our institution for interdisciplinary dialogue about the effective use of social media (SM) for teaching and learning. Our discussions led to the design of the Social Media Entry Model that educators can use for decision-making. We begin this paper with a brief synthesis of scholarly literature describing students' SM use and how higher education faculty use SM to support 21st-century skills development. Next, we describe the institutional, individual, and pedagogical barriers that prevent faculty from embracing SM as a teaching and learning tool. Based on our shared vision and praxis, we present the Social Media Entry Model and describe how educators can use it when deciding how to integrate SM into the formal or informal curriculum. Through our narratives, we illustrate how we use a variety of SM platforms and different entry points in the model to enhance students' 21st-century skills. We also discuss the legal and ethical issues that educators must consider to ensure that university students use SM in a socially responsible manner.

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The number of international schools hit the 6,000-mark in 2012, and the 13,000-mark in 2022. In spite of continuous growth and diversity of provision, paradoxically some literature continues to paint a largely negative sociological imagination, associating the arena with micro-politics, high turnover, and increasing precarity. At the same time, the social reality of working in the arena remains under-reported and under-theorised. The largest number of international schools are now in China, where two-thirds are of the 'non-traditional' type. Our paper focuses on the experiences of two expatriate teachers in that relatively new field. In order to address the questions of 'how do teachers cope?', and 'what strategies do they adopt?', our paper delves into the under-reported social reality of 'cliques'. By adopting a 'positive sociology' lens of inquiry, we begin to address the role that cliques-formation might have in dealing with precarity and insecurity, especially that of 'friendship precarity' caused by constant transitions and short-term contracts. It can be seen that cliques offer a natural, quick, and practical solution to addressing precarity, helping over time to create resilience, and should not be viewed solely within a negative sociological imagination.

Peer mentorship programs have mostly emphasized formal structures, wherein a more experienced student guides a less experienced student. However, these practices are hierarchical and require substantive resources to organize and implement. Searching for alternatives, we research the effectiveness of an informal teaching technique that facilitates active learning and peer-mentorship from everyday classroom settings and processes. Drawing on formative feedback from students enrolled in a lower-level Sociology course over a term, this paper analyzes how a "Liberating Structures" (LS) technique called Five Whys (an adaptation of the Nine Whys of LS) can promote in-class collaboration, peer mentorship, and increased engagement without training and the need to design a formal peer-mentorship program. Students identified many benefits, including that Five Whys promoted community, reflective learning, and deepened engagement with course content. However, the structuring of interactions was seen to be stifling to natural group processes. Broader implications for LS and in-class mentorship are discussed. [Articles in this journal were presented at the University of Calgary Conference on Postsecondary Learning and Teaching.]

Empathic qualitative methods have become emblematic of early Chicago sociology. Yet methods were not formalized through the early 20th century and empathy was not in usage as a term. Only at mid-20th century did methodological formalization in sociology begin to occur, and an additional quarter-century passed before writing about empathy in sociological methods began to crystallize. Nevertheless, a portion of early Chicago sociologists, assimilating pragmatist thought, established a framework for the deployment of empathic acumen. Because empathy involves understanding others, it is argued that it is central to the study of social life. The article contends that understanding empathy must be as central to the social scientist's knowledge as it is to the effective deployment of research methods: a competent quest to generate knowledge about social life is premised on empathy. To heighten awareness of empathy, an epistemology is necessary. To this end, the article examines empathy as situated by a set of organizational and historical conditions that account for its origin and ascendance as a prescriptive characteristic of sociological work. The author draws attention to the significance of suffering and suggests that its religious precepts are transmuted for the conditions under which sociology develops in turn-of-the-century Chicago., (© 2024 The Author(s). Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

This paper contends that sociotherapy, a sociologically informed approach to therapy, is a viable alternative to the diagnostic model recognized by the College of Registered Psychotherapists in Ontario (CRPO). The Psychotherapy Act (2007) along with the Regulated Health Professions Act (1991) gives the CRPO authorization to regulate the practice of psychotherapy and to control titles affiliated with the act of psychotherapy. I offer a discussion of sociotherapy and socioanalysis as clinical alternatives to the conservative and normalizing approaches endorsed by the College. I situate sociotherapy and socioanalysis in the discipline of sociology and in relation to Freudian psychoanalysis. I offer my own sociotherapeutic practice as an illustration of how the societal and the psychological, the social, and the psychic must be engaged in concert. I underscore the importance of dialogue, as opposed to diagnostics, interpretation as opposed to assessments and psychosocial contemplation as opposed to cognitive-behavioral treatment in clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing students with opportunities to wrestle with and engage with messy, real-world problems can be challenging in traditional, higher education courses. However, for students in helping and applied professions, engaging with challenging problems in a supportive environment is critical to developing their skills and confidence. This paper presents an innovative pedagogical pilot project that utilizes design thinking in the context of a community-engaged applied learning experience to guide students as they worked on a real problem for real organizations. Undergraduate sociology and master's level social work students engaged in the experience during their regular course work. Their instructors coached them through the process. At the conclusion of the project, they reflected on the process and what they learned. These student reflection papers were analyzed using both a deductive and inductive approach. We found three themes present in these reflection papers: skill development, deeper understanding, and meaningful experience. We conclude our paper by describing how instructors can incorporate aspects of this project into their own classrooms.

This paper discusses the conception of a joint intercultural students' research program of one German and two Kyrgyzstani teachers and students from the Otto-von-Guericke University of Magdeburg (Germany) and the American University of Central Asia (Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan). The paper conceptualizes such a research training program and gives reference to qualitative methods teaching in the two corresponding universities. What follows is a description of the chosen research topic: "The 'Intersections' of Gender, Family, and Society in Kyrgyzstan" and the course program. With different academic cultures concerning research ethics in the Anglo-Saxon and continental European contexts, a challenge for such a program will be addressed. A short review of the research results of the different students' teams is provided, and the paper is finalized with a self-reflection upon such a joint intercultural undertaking.

Sociology was born in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a project in, of, and for empire. This essay excavates a tradition of social thought that grew alongside metropolitan sociology but has been marginalized by it: anticolonial thought. Emerging from anticolonial movements, writers and thinkers, anticolonial thought in 19th and 20th centuries emerged from a variety of thinkers (from indigenous activists in the Americas to educated elites in the American, Francophone and British colonies). I argue that this body of thought offers distinct visions of society, social relations, and social structure, along with generative analytic approaches to the social self, social solidarity and global relations-among other themes. Anticolonial thought offers the basis for an alternative canon and corpus of sociological thinking to which we might turn as we seek to revitalize and decolonize sociology., (© 2023 The Authors. The British Journal of Sociology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of London School of Economics and Political Science.)

This paper presents and analyzes a case study of a five-week study abroad course called "Inequality in Brazil: An exploration of race, class, gender, sexuality, and geography." The course was constructed to teach social inequality in the context of Brazil by using place-based and experiential learning within the framework of critical pedagogy (Freire, 1989). By examining inequality through the lens of culture and geography, students were empowered to become "student-teachers" in their explorations of race, class, gender, and sexuality as they linked theory to practice and lived experience. This paper provides an example of how study abroad can be used to teach about issues of inequality by partnering with community members to build learning environments where students and community members can all benefit.

Youth from every continent used online tools to exchange ideas, debate alternatives, and create a document that represents their voice on the relationship education should have with global citizenship: the International Youth White Paper on Global Citizenship. This paper applies de Sousa Santos' sociology of absences and emergences to trace the ways in which the White Paper extends--and limits--decolonial thought in relation to global citizenship education. Through document analysis of the White Paper, we note particularly the students' emphasis on a decolonial and processual notion of relationality that challenges current neoliberal notions of the global community and instead is oriented toward justice. Further, the students connect political resistance to epistemological resistance, asserting that diverse ways of being, knowing, and seeing are necessary to ensuring those who are marginalized are included in the decision making processes that affect their lives.