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A Quarterly Publication of
The American Sociological Association
ABSTRACTS--Volume 27, Number 1, January 1999
ARTICLES
- Building the Sociological Imagination Through a Cumulative Curriculum: Professional Socialization in Sociology .....Edward L. Kain
- Doing a Good Deed or Confounding the Problem? Peer Review and Sociology Textbooks .....Diana Kendall
NOTES
- Teaching Tools for Evaluating World Wide Web Resources .....Paula Hammett
- Reclaiming Deviance as a Unique Course from Criminology: Revisited .....Karl E. Kunkel
- Introducing Social Stratification and Inequality: An Active Learning Technique .....Lucy McCammon
- Using a Mock Institutional Review Board to Teach Ethics in Sociological Research .....Stephen Sweet
- Tapping into Parallel Universes: Using Superhero Comic Books in Sociology Courses .....Kelley J. Hall and Betsy Lucal
- Using E-Mail to Promote Cross-Cultural Understanding of Families ..... Sara C. Hare
- Teaching Students Inferential Statistics: A "Tail" of Three Distributions .....John Wybraniec and Janet Wilmoth
Building the Sociological Imagination Through a Cumulative Curriculum: Professional Socialization in Sociology This paper examines the professional socialization of undergraduate sociology majors with a focus on research training. The first section of the paper argues that strong professional socialization requires a cumulative curriculum that provides students with a solid set of research skills designed to build the sociological imagination. Next, the paper presents data that explore the structuring of research training in the undergraduate major nationwide and the extent to which this training follows recommendations on "study in-depth" within our discipline. Finally, a case study is presented that illustrates how to integrate research training throughout a cumulative curriculum in undergraduate sociology.
(Edward L. Kain)
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Doing a Good Deed or Confounding the Problem? Peer Review and Sociology Textbooks This study examines how the peer review process influences the writing and publication of sociology textbooks and the teaching of sociology. The research analyzes reviewers' comments regarding a recently published text and compares them with peer review patterns observed by other authors and editors over the past decade. The results show that peer review affects sociology texts in at least five ways: (1) degree of innovation, including the book's focus, organization, and content, (2) length, (3) reading level, (4) ancillaries and accessories, and (5) the marketing strategies that will be used by publishers to "sell" the book. The findings suggest that, although the peer review process generally provides authors and editors with beneficial ideas for the resulting book, it compounds other problems.
(Diana Kendall)
Teaching Tools for Evaluating World Wide Web Resources With the explosive and exponential growth of Web sites, the Internet has become an important (if often flawed) information resource. However, access to this glut of information is not always useful if one does not know how to select and evaluate the best and most reliable sites. This note illustrates a series of teaching tools useful for addressing these issues, including criteria for appraising Web pages, citing Web pages, and assessing students' mastery of the topic.
(Paula Hammett)
Reclaiming Deviance as a Unique Course from Criminology: Revisited Various sociology departments offer two separate courses that deal with people who violate norms and societal reactions to these people. These two courses typically involve the sociology of deviance and criminological theory. The theoretical foundations of these areas are very similar, which can cause significant overlap in the two courses. The issue for teachers involves distinguishing a sociology of deviance course from one in criminological theory while maintaining the academic integrity of each. This paper discusses a teaching strategy for creating distinction. The article suggests the deviance course emphasizes constructionist theory and the criminolgy course stresses causal theories. Distinguishing these courses on the basis of theoretical orientations minimizes overlap and avoids distinctions based on either the legal status of a behavior or a fascination with the "nuts, sluts, and preverts" critiqued by Alexander Liazos over 25 years ago.
(Karl E. Kunkel)
Introducing Social Stratification and Inequality: An Active Learning Technique In this paper, a method is described for teaching social stratification through an experimental exercise for class sizes of 14 to 50 students. It is appropriate as a module for beginning sociology courses, or as an introduction to social stratification courses. The technique is designed to engage students who are naïve about differences in wealth and income. Through active learning, students develop a relational understanding of inequality.
(Lucy McCammon)
Using a Mock Institutional Review Board to Tech Ethics in Sociological Research 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.
(Stephen Sweet)
Tapping into Parallel Universes: Using Superhero Comic Books in Sociology Courses Abstract forthcoming.
(Kelley J. Hall and Betsy Lucal)
Using E-Mail to Promote Cross-Cultural Understanding of Families Students often have difficulty studying the family through a sociological lens. They think of their family as the "natural" way to organize family life instead of a socially constructed unity. A cross-cultural perspective on family life can help students develop a sociological perspective when analyzing family life. This teaching note describes an active-learning exercise in which electronic mail is used to promote cross-cultural conversations and learning. Sociology students are paired with international students as e-mail "pen pals" and correspond throughout the semester about the topics we cover in class. Sociology students learn not only about other cultures, but they also learn about our society as they must explain it to the international students.
(Sara C. Hare)
Teaching Students Inferential Statistics: A "Tail" of Three Distributions 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. Our experience is that students learn relatively quickly the difference between a sample and population distribution, but they tend to have difficulty with the function of the theoretical construct known as the "samplin distribution." 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. The article first describes the set-up of the exercise, and then it discusses issues related to administering the exercise to small and large calsses. Finally, it briefly discusses students' comprehension of making generalizations to a larger population from a single sample.
(John Wybraniec and Janet Wilmoth)
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