First-generation and working-class (FGWC) students bring a different set of life experiences to the classroom than students of privilege. As an instructor from an FGWC background, I use the poverty simulation game Spent! to make economic stratification understandable to students who have led lives of economic privilege and bring FGWC…

Social inequality is a central theme in sociology study plans (both in research and education), but it is often one of the most difficult topics to teach. This article presents an innovative student-centered strategy for teaching social inequality that uses a survey to collect data on students' socioeconomic characteristics and perceptions of…

A considerable amount of research across the past several decades has documented the emergence of a new racial ideology of "color-blindness" as well as evidence that white college students have difficulty recognizing the racial privileges that are obscured by this color-blindness. To address this, we developed a cooperative group White…

To increase students' engagement and achievement in introductory sociology courses, teachers should make them relevant to students' lives. Students' relevance perceptions may vary within the classroom, depending on the degree of fit between their sociocultural position and the teaching methods. To test this prospect, an experiment among 1,325…

Traditional service-learning pedagogy assumes that learning occurs when contact between relatively advantaged students and a relatively disadvantaged service population reduces prejudice. However, little is known about how students whose backgrounds are similar to the populations they serve process this learning experience. This study explores the…

Teaching students about race remains a challenging task for instructors, made even more difficult in the context of a growing "post-racial" discourse. Given this challenge, it is important for instructors to find engaging ways to help students understand the continuing significance of race and racial/ethnic inequality. In this article,…

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…

The "millennial" historical moment presents fresh dilemmas for race-critical instructors. In addition to being well-versed in colorblind racial discourse, millennial students are socialized in a pop-cultural milieu that implies a more integrated, racially egalitarian world than exists in reality and includes claims that U.S. society is now…

Research shows that an oppressive classroom environment impairs learning and academic performance for students with oppressed identities. Less research examines faculty perceptions of their classroom, but such research could reveal whether an oppressive environment impairs teaching effectiveness. Although the literature shows that women faculty of…

In this article, the authors describe a class activity that uses a combination of strategies to overcome obstacles students face when learning about the reproduction of inequality in everyday life. Based on Schwalbe et al.'s (2000) piece on "generic social processes," and following the idea of "making the strange familiar and the familiar…

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…

As evidence of the growing ecological crisis mounts, it is imperative that sociologists speak to this social problem and incorporate a sociological perspective on environmental issues into the curriculum. Central to understanding how social issues relate to environmental problems is an examination of the ties between consumption and its ecological…

Substantial classroom experience has made teachers aware that teaching undergraduate sociology courses dealing with minority groups presents a particular set of challenges. The difficulty they confronted in teaching a course dealing with racial and ethnic groups is two-pronged: on one hand, there is the well-documented problematic nature of the…

Describes a sociology experiential learning assignment where students learned why people living in poverty can sometimes pay more for products than people with better incomes. Focuses specifically on the rent to own concept. States students achieved the goal of learning how life constraints of poverty can hinder the poor from overcoming their…

Discusses experiences in teaching the meaning and value of the sociological imagination to a group of ethnically and economically privileged students. Describes an assignment asking students to critically assess agendas, fallacies, and consequences of scientific racism. Finds evaluations reflect that the assignment conveyed that sociological…