Search

This article focuses on the condition of sociology education in U.S. high schools. The second national study on the presence of high school sociology courses is presented. Two predictors in the prevalence of sociology courses in public high schools include geographic location and the size of the student body. Topics include how the presence of courses at the high school level may incubate sociology majors in secondary education as well as how the field of sociology may be affected by a small number of incoming sociology majors.

There has been a renewed interest over the past live years among sociologists in empirically examining the status of sociology in high school. The few studies that have recently been conducted, however, have focused almost exclusively on high school sociology teachers. Little has been said, by contrast. about the nature and structure of the courses themselves, or about how they affect student learning and recruitment to the field. This paper presents results from a mail survey of high school sociology teachers in Connecticut. It describes and discusses live aspects of the nature and structure of the sociology courses that were offered during the 2000-01 school year: general course characteristics. instructional materials, course content, teaching techniques and resources, and student requirements. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been renewed interest over the past 5 years among sociologists in empirically examining the status of sociology in high school. The few studies that have recently been conducted, however, have focused almost exclusively on high school sociology teachers. The nature and structure of the courses themselves have been largely ignored. Given the American Sociological Association’s recent attempts to develop and implement an Advanced Placement course, it seems especially important to examine the characteristics of existing sociology courses. This paper uses the results of a national mail survey to describe and discuss three aspects of the nature and structure of a random sample of sociology courses that were offered during the 2005–06 school year: instructional materials and pedagogical resources, teaching techniques, and course content. I demonstrate that these aspects of the courses look remarkably similar across the country: Teachers rely overwhelmingly on standard introductory textbooks to structure their courses. They are also apt to utilize supplemental materials from textbook publishers and from newspapers and newsmagazines, and to use a combination of lecture and discussion in their sociology classes. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An attendee of a workshop on teaching high school sociology at the 2003 ASA annual meeting raised a fundamental question for which sociologists currently have no answer. Why is a sociology course offered in some high schools but not in others? The only empirical study that has attempted to answer this question is more than 20 years old. After analyzing a dataset from the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, and questionnaire and interview data collected from high school sociology teachers in Connecticut, I argue that the decision to offer a sociology course is made at the level of individual schools. It is not influenced by community-level variables, as previous research has suggested. Four factors in particular affect sociology's existence in high school curricula: student interest and enrollment, teacher changes and shortages, ongoing curriculum revision, and the prevalence of standardized testing. In conclusion, I recommend ways in which sociologists and ASA representatives might take these results into account as they continue to lobby for increasing sociology's presence in high school curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since academic sociology's birth in this country, sociologists have not been shy about publicly praising and ridiculing the discipline. Though sociologists have been the primary participants in the seemingly endless debates about sociology's proper subject matter, methods, and purpose, there is another group that has also struggled over the past 95 years to formulate a conception of the discipline—high school sociology teachers. At this point, we know virtually nothing about what the thousands of high school teachers who offer sociology each year, actually think about the discipline. This paper uses questionnaire and interview data collected from high school sociology teachers to examine their thoughts on four topics: (1) sociology's strengths, (2) its weaknesses, (3) whether high school students are capable of understanding the discipline, and (4) appropriate course objectives. The results indicate that high school teachers view sociology quite differently from academic sociologists, and that their conceptions are based primarily on ‘textbook sociology.’ I conclude by discussing the far-reaching implications of teachers' current thinking about the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High school sociology has historically, been and largely, continues to be neglected by, the discipline's professional organizations and by academic sociologists. The few past reforms of high school sociology--such as the SRSS project during the 1960s and early 1970s--were aimed at course content and instructional materials; they have failed. I argue that a new approach is necessary, one that focuses on improving high school sociology, teacher training. Professional associations and academic departments must both contribute to efforts to improve the formal sociological education and professionalization of high school teachers of the discipline. Improving teacher training is the best way to enhance the quality of secondary sociology courses, and may, also help rectify, the discipline's distorted public image as high school students gain a more accurate appreciation and understanding of fundamental sociological insights from their better trained teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]