In this article, we report on the implementation of using the game Werewolf as a student-centered applied-learning activity to teach symbolic interaction theory and concepts. Engaging with symbolic interaction theory can be a powerful experience for students due to its potential to challenge taken-for-granted assumptions and analyze students'…

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…

A glance across ethnographic methods terrain reveals multiple controversies and divisive critiques. When training graduate students, these debates and controversies can be consequential. We offer suggestions for teaching graduate ethnographic methods courses that, first, help students understand some of the common epistemological debates in the…

This teaching note describes the design and implementation of an activity in a 90-minute teaching session that was developed to introduce a diverse cohort of first-year criminology and sociology students to the use of documents as sources of data. This approach was contextualized in real-world research through scaffolded, student-centered tasks…

We introduce an exercise designed to make Marx's theory of alienated labor accessible to students in a Sociology of Work class. Through a role-playing activity where students create and sell goods under conditions of both alienated and nonalienated labor, students actually experience the different material and social consequences of these…

This article presents an in-class exercise for teaching theories of the presentation of self that is organized around two key concepts, impression management and impression formation. By highlighting the interpretive, interactive aspects of the presentation of self, this exercise is also useful for teaching the major principles of symbolic…

Internships and other forms of experiential learning are a valuable learning opportunity and resource for many students and perhaps even more so for those with special needs. Outside of the classroom, however, assisting students with special needs may present faculty with new questions and challenges as they navigate the transition to a community…

The authors describe their experiences teaching Sustainable Cities in North America, a course on both urban sociology and urban sustainability. This course brought students to Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, British Columbia, and then compared those cities with Minneapolis, Minnesota, on various dimensions of urban sustainability. After…

Erving Goffman is one of the most important sociologists of the 20th century. Popular textbooks in sociology (e.g., Giddens, Duneier, and Appelbaum 2005; Macionis 2007) and social psychology (e.g., Aronson, Wilson, and Akert 2006; Cahill 2007; DeLamater and Myers 2007) devote large sections and entire chapters to Goffman's ideas concerning the…

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…

Instructors teaching students about social inequality, especially sexism and racism, often face some degree of student resistance. Opposition is particularly strong when students are from a white, middle to upper class background. As Haddad and Lieberman (2002) remark, "Students from privileged backgrounds lack personal experience with structures…

One of the important misconceptions in the American view of poverty is that people are poor because they do not work. This article presents an exercise, the "bottom line," which helps dispel students' misconceptions about the working poor. Through extensive primary-data collection and assembling a budget for low-skilled workers, the exercise: (1)…

The described curriculum can serve as a model for sociology departments that would like to make modest changes in their master's level programs to train students for careers in applied sociology. (Author/RM)

Although student evaluations of an experiential learning section versus evaluations of two control sections in an introductory sociology college level course showed no significant difference, subsequent enrollment in departmental courses was greater for students in the experiential section. (DB)

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…