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International travel has long been considered a key pedagogical strategy for global learning. Yet very little is known about whether study-abroad experiences increase students' awareness of the impact of tourism as a global phenomenon. In this study, we assessed students' learning through a content analysis of their journals and final essays from a short-term study-abroad course that used key concepts from the sociology of tourism to explore the impact of tourism in a developing country. Findings demonstrate how thinking sociologically about travel and tourism enabled students to look "behind the scenes," fostered critical-thinking skills, helped in their self-assessment of ethnocentrism, and promoted a sense of global responsibility. We also discuss areas that merit further pedagogical attention, particularly when students struggle to unlearn preconceived ideas about poverty and inequality or resort to overgeneralizations when thinking comparatively.

Sociologists are uniquely positioned to use science fiction literature in the classroom. Despite students reading less, the science fiction novel "The Handmaid's Tale" is more popular than ever. I obtained the data for this study through content analysis of 108 student journal entries in a sociology of gender course at a small liberal arts college. Journal entries were analyzed for identification and application of class concepts in addition to an overall rating of "The Handmaid's Tale." Students successfully identified and connected 58 distinct class concepts to the novel. The most common concepts that students identified were gender stereotype, doing gender, and patriarchy. In addition, students enjoyed the novel and rated it highly. The average rating was 4.2 stars out of 5. Results from this study suggest that science fiction remains relevant and useful in the contemporary sociology classroom.

Biomedical socialization and premed culture have been shown to promote reductionist and depersonalized approaches to understanding human difference, a serious problem in contemporary health care. In 2015, the Association for American Medical Colleges (AAMC) launched a new version of its Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) that included material from sociology, providing sociology departments an unprecedented opportunity to instruct premed students on contextualizing human difference and being sensitive to the diverse trajectories of people in the health care system. This article describes a large, public research institution's introductory sociology course for premeds and draws on the students' reflective writing to show how premeds valued the complexity, critical perspective, open-minded capacity, and conceptual approaches that sociology had to offer. In applying the sociological material to their experiences or impressions of the medical field, premed students felt that sociological instruction would help them become a more socially minded and critically engaged doctor.

In this article, we describe a way to encourage students to envision "real utopias" through the Global Village experience at the Heifer Ranch in Arkansas. The Global Village experience introduces participants to issues associated with global hunger, poverty, environmental sustainability, and resource consumption and provides opportunities to experience simulated poverty and resource inequality. Using student journals recorded during the experience and participant observation, we demonstrate how students' learning is enhanced by temporarily living outside their typical comfort zones and closer to the global averages of consumption. We find that the Global Village experience is an effective and unique tool for engaging students in global and transnational issues and for encouraging students to imagine other possible worlds.

Diverse college campuses have been conclusively associated with a variety of positive outcomes for all students. However, we still know very little empirically about how student diversity directly impacts the core task of the university: classroom learning. While students vary based on race along a broad spectrum of experiences and backgrounds, we have yet to establish how those varying backgrounds might impact the ways students engage with course material. In this study, I examined student journals in order to understand how race influenced the ways students engaged with course material and found that black students are much more likely than their white student peers to find connections between course material and daily life, a central task of the sociological imagination. The results of these findings are important for sociologists in particular and educators in general as we seek to maximize the effects of increasingly diverse educational settings. (Contains 3 tables and 3 notes.)

This study presents an experiential exercise designed to heighten students' awareness of overconsumption in the United States and allow them to see how their own consumption habits are linked to larger social factors. Students engaged in the "Not Buying It" project--which involved refraining from purchasing all but essentials for a set number of days--as part of a broader lesson on consumerism. Qualitative and quantitative data, gathered from students enrolled in three sections of Introductory Sociology, suggest that the exercise was effective in enhancing students' sociological imaginations by helping students see how their own consumption habits are shaped by larger social forces and how they, along with most Americans, tend toward overconsumption. To a more limited extent, it may help enhance cognitive understanding of consumption. Teaching about consumption in general, and the Not Buying It project in particular, offers instructors an excellent pedagogical means by which students can acquire a sociological imagination, reinforces key sociological principles, and links to broader goals within the discipline. (Contains 4 figures, 2 tables, and 2 notes.)

The benefits of community-based research (CBR) in the sociology classroom go beyond those associated with traditional service learning. Here, students use their sociological skills to examine and propose solutions to local social problems addressed by community organizations. Through analyzing students' course reflection journals and the results of pre- and posttests, the authors demonstrate how CBR can help students gain a better command of the research process and enhance student attitudes toward community service. After participating in CBR, the authors find that students indicate greater proficiency in undertaking the entire research process, from creating and implementing a research plan to making data-derived client recommendations. In addition, by showing how CBR can be incorporated into a less obviously applicable course, such as Sociology of Sexualities, the authors hope to encourage its further expansion in sociology. (Contains 4 tables and 1 note.)

Describes a classroom icebreaker that examines the assumptions inherent in racial and ethnic labels. The exercise involves students using connected Post-it notes on which to write their names, the racial label people give them, and the ethnic/racial label they give themselves. Later discussions address the use of labeling. (MJP)

Discusses the use of personal journals in a social psychology course, the benefits of this technique, the challenges confronted by the students and instructor, and ethical considerations. Students revealed that the journals helped them apply course materials to everyday life, facilitated self discovery, and created a bond between teacher and student. (MJP)

Efforts are underway to globalize sociology in the United States through study abroad experiences. At the same time, there is a push to extend the reach of such programs to students of color. We use student journal entries and fieldnotes from trips to South Africa to analyze how students of color grapple with a disruption of identity in a Black majority setting. Findings reveal that students were challenged by new axes of identity, namely, language and place, and were confronted with their own relative privilege. Sociology can play a critical role in helping students maximize benefit from such experiences if undergraduate curricula incorporate additional axes of intersectionality and include more scholarship from Africa and the Diaspora. Moreover, study abroad programs need to devote significant time to structured debriefings in all pedagogical activities. This would provide faculty and students a space to productively manage and even embrace the disruption of identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]