Suchergebnisse

This article discusses pedagogical exercises developed to help students appreciate the power of sociological perspectives as they seek to better understand their own lives and the world around them. The assignments are focused on fulfilling the particular course learning goal that highlights student mastery of the application of diverse theoretical perspectives in societal analysis. The article offers a brief overview of how theoretical thinking is introduced in the classroom and continues with a discussion of particular assignments used to promote student engagement and understanding: the preparation of a letter to a theorist, the creation of a poster to visually represent the life and ideas of a theorist, and the writing and performance of a play "starring" theorists studied in class. The article concludes with a discussion of the issues of assessment and student learning and a consideration of how these assignments may benefit student learners both within and outside of sociology.

This article examines women's wartime experiences with a focus on Latvia's women volunteers in the Red Army in World War II. An estimated 8 percent of the Red Army was composed of women, who played a wide array of roles, including as snipers, combat engineers, medics, and frontline journalists. This level of female participation was unique in World War II, but a close examination of the phenomenon shows that motives and means for entry into the Red Army at the beginning of the war were not uniform. Our examination of the case of women volunteers from the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic reveals key factors that fed women's fervent desire to "get to the front." It shows particular ways in which the Red Army functioned as an unlikely refuge, sheltering women from some of the hardships and threats of life in the Soviet Russian interior, including hunger, loneliness, and a lack of warm clothing, while providing a means of exacting revenge against a mortal enemy. At the same time, it exposed women to extremes of violence and conflict. Dominant Soviet narratives of women in war have presented them in largely marginal roles or have silenced stories that failed to comport with triumphalist and masculine representations of World War II. This work uses the voices of women volunteers in the Latvian Riflemen's Divisions of the Red Army to construct an agent-centered history of motives, experiences, and memories.

In late June 1941, Nazi Germany stormed the borders of the Soviet Union, occupying the three Baltic republics within weeks. By the end of 1941, a significant proportion of the Jewish population had been murdered by German forces and local collaborators. In the days before full Nazi occupation of the territory, Latvia's Jews confronted the question of whether to flee into the Russian interior or stay in their communities. History shows that this would be a critical choice. Testimonies and memoirs of Jewish survivors illuminate the competing motivations to leave or to remain. This article highlights the key factors that figured into these calculations and the interaction between individual agency and structural opportunities and obstacles in determining where Latvia's Jews were when Holocaust in their homeland began.

This article discusses the use of problem-based learning (PBL) in the undergraduate sociology classroom. PBL shifts students from the role of passive listeners and learners to active knowledge builders and communicators through the use of concise and engaging social problem cases. PBL creates opportunities for building substantive area knowledge, research skills, and problem-solving capacities and fosters student enjoyment. This teaching note describes the key characteristics of PBL, discusses practical approaches to its use in a variety of sociology courses, and offers sample case studies. We evaluate student experiences with PBL and consider its broader applicability.