Affirmative action, a controversial topic about which students have many misconceptions, lends itself especially well to a sociological analysis. This paper describes an approach to teaching that: (1) informs students of different affirmative action programs; (2) gives them the opportunity to apply and integrate a variety of concepts and research…

Although all of us must teach against the text at times, I find myself doing this most often when teaching about qualitative methods in the context of a general introductory methods course. Myths about the nature and practice of qualitative research are both embedded in the folklore of mainstream sociology and supported by the textbooks that we…