Art by Rick Rogers
Teaching Philosophy
The sociological imagination is a powerful tool that can transform students to engaged citizens who are prepared to think and reflect critically about the social forces that structure our world, evaluate information, make informed decisions, and have challenging conversations across differences.
Much of my research focuses on building communities across difference, particularly in changing and increasingly polarized times. This thread of my research deeply informs my pedagogy that emphasizes 1) building trust and community between students with diverse identities and experiences, 2) sparking students’ own explorations of their social worlds, and 3) centering critical reflection.
Every student has valuable experiences and perspectives that have the potential to push our collective thinking forward. Through writing, in-class activities, and discussion I encourage students to engage in deep, concentrated, and frequent reflection and challenge their own assumptions about the social world as they connect their observations, experiences, and current events to course material. In my experience, classroom environments in which students take charge of their learning more deeply connect them to new perspectives, themselves, and each other.
Having taught in a range of teaching contexts, I take seriously the charge to make my classrooms inclusive and equitable. By making reflection central, there are opportunities to learn from each other’s diverse perspectives and experiences, approaching every conversation with empathy and compassion. Even more, it is critical that students are exposed to a variety of scholarly perspectives. Therefore, I make conscious choices to assign readings written by scholars of color, women, and LGBTQ+ scholars.
Lastly, I am deeply committed to pedagogical development and seek out formal and informal mentoring opportunities to that end.
Courses Taught
Syllabi and sample assignments available upon request.
Introduction to Sociology
Students learn how to connect larger social problems with their own personal lives through exploration of basic topics, theories, concepts, and principles of the discipline.
Social Problems
In this course, students use their sociological imagination as a lens for analyzing the structural roots of social problems; the relationship between systems of power and inequality and the social problems of our time; and the link between social problems and the broader political, economic, and cultural context.
Conformity and Deviance
In this class, students consider how conformity and deviance are socially constructed phenomena that are developed both at the marco-level in large institutions and at the micro-level in interactions over time and across place. In doing so, they draw connections between specific forms of deviance and historical contexts, think critically about norms that we take for granted, and reflect on how categories of ‘normal‘ and ‘abnormal‘ are socially constructed.
Social Welfare
This course provides students with a critical introduction to U.S. welfare programs, past and present. Students examine the evolution of the U.S welfare state and how its history informs present-day policies; reflect on how categories of “deserving” and “undeserving,” and definitions of citizenship shape policies; examine how systems of race, class, and gender inequality inform policies; and consider directions for the future.
Additional Teaching Assistant Courses
Social Class Inequality
The Family
Elementary Statistics