Suchergebnisse

In order for a culture that generally likes, even loves, animals to eat them, and especially not to make the link between the two, it is necessary to construct the consumption of meat-eating in such a way that the connection is blurred or erased. In this paper, I suggest that one way this is done is by transforming animals, which are loved, into meats, which are eaten, so that the concepts of "animals" and "meats" seem distinct and unrelated. Using content analysis of commercialized images of animals, I find that this transformation involves two key processes, the representation of meat as something that no longer resembles any animal origins and the "cutification" (making objects appear cuter than they usually appear) of animals, that promote the consumption of their animal flesh. I argue that these types of objectification are similar to other forms of objectification of oppressed groups in society, including women and minorities, and serve to perpetuate the oppression of animals in contemporary society.

This article applies an ecological model to the problem of sexual revictimization to advance the understanding of how personal, interpersonal, and sociocultural factors contribute to child sexual abuse victims' increased risk of being sexually victimized later in life. This ecological model explores how sexual revictimization is multiply determined by factors related to the victim's personal history (e.g., traumatic sexualization), the relationship in which revictimization occurs (e.g., decreased ability to resist unwanted sexual advances), the community (e.g., lack of family support), and the larger culture (e.g., blaming the victim attitudes). This article represents a step toward integrating findings on sexual revictimization and providing directions for future empirical work.

For centuries, humans have wondered what it means to be human. Sociologists suggest that the answer lies in understanding how we become human. This process, known as socialization, is the focus of this brand-new, full-color resource. The comprehensive guide examines how our identities are shaped by the cultures in which we live and how we, in return, play a role in shaping our social worlds. Special emphasis is given to gender, race, social class, and adult socialization processes and outcomes

Despite the democratic and egalitarian ideals held by many in society, the unequal treatment of certain groups is a fact of social life. Stratification and Inequality explores the many ways in which inequality is structured within our society, along with the social mechanisms that support systems of inequality. Included in this discussion is stratification on the basis of race, ethnicity, social class, gender, age, species, and nationality. This new, full-color resource focuses on the consequences of stratification for individuals' lives and society as a whole

The classroom climate shapes students' learning and instructors' teaching experience in profound ways. This study analyzes classroom climate statements in syllabi from various sociology courses to understand the extent that sociology instructors highlight climate issues and how climate is conceptualized in their syllabi. Drawing from data from two different times periods (pre-2005 and post-2010), the current study examines the frequency of classroom climate statements, the factors that may contribute to the presence of a statement, and themes within these statements. Results show a significant increase in climate statements between the two time periods (17 percent vs. 58 percent) and that statements appear more often in courses that focus on race, class, gender, and sexualities and those taught by women. Classroom climate is typically framed as a matter of respect, creating a safe space, scholarly engagement with the materials and ideas, and responsibility.

This qualitative study explores a widespread contemporary family form, the interspecies family, to understand how people who count their cats and dogs as family members describe this process of becoming and maintaining family. We focus on one aspect of interspecies families—pet parenting. We find that even though individuals say their pets are family, not all consider themselves to be parents or engaged in pet parenting. Participants with human children differed somewhat from those without human children, suggesting that family form shapes pet parenting experiences. Childless participants draw heavily from larger cultural narratives surrounding parenting to construct the parent–pet child relationship. Those with younger human children talk about the relationship primarily from a place of difference, while those with older human children construct the relationship in similar ways to childless individuals and emphasize similarities between raising children and pets. This study contributes to the literature on family change and human–animal relationships within households.

In this article, we describe an adaptation of Nichols, Berry, and Kalogrides's "Hop on the Bus" exercise. In addition to riding the bus, we incorporated a visual component similar to that developed by Whitley by having students conduct a sociological, photographic exercise after they disembarked. Qualitative and quantitative assessment data show that taken together, these exercises enhance students' awareness and sociological understanding of social inequalities, especially income inequalities. Specifically, the activities make abstract concepts real to students, make more obvious inequalities that often go unnoticed, help students better understand how structural barriers affect individuals' daily lives and contribute to broader social inequalities, and to some degree, dispel stereotypes of marginalized groups.

This paper examines the articulation of goals and means of sociological instruction in course syllabi. Three questions guide this inquiry. First, do sociology instructors articulate common learning goals? Second, what pedagogical means do instructors commonly employ to meet these goals? Third, to what extent have sociology instructors incorporated the recommendations presented in Liberal Learning and the Sociology Major (Eberts et al. 1990) and in its updated version (McKinney et al. 2004)? To answer these questions, we analyzed syllabi from 418 courses published by the American Sociological Association's Teaching Resource Center. We found that aside from coursespecific goals, most syllabi shared only a few general, abstract goals in common. The pedagogical methods or requirements of students tended to be fairly traditional (readings, writing, and exams). Requirements that required more active types of learning were less common. While these goals and means do seem to reflect what sociologists consider to be important, they do not correspond closely to the American Sociological Association's Taskforce on the Undergraduate Major's recommendations for the sociology major.

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.

At the 2007 annual meetings of the American Sociological Association, we presented a workshop entitled "How to do the Scholarship of Teaching." The workshop had three main goals: to introduce participants to the literature on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and to various SoTL outlets, to guide participants in the process of doing their own SoTL research, and to enhance participants' chances of getting their SoTL work published, especially in the discipline's teaching journal, Teaching Sociology. The overarching purpose of the workshop and this paper is to help participants and readers think about how their own experiences in the classroom could be transformed into research.

We analyzed undergraduate sociology course syllabi to determine how prevalent writing is, the types of writing used, and whether assignment of writing and specific types of writing vary by type of course goals, gender of instructor, institutional type, or type of course. Almost all courses represented in these syllabi incorporate writing, with traditional (transactional) writing being the most common. Writing is more likely in courses that seek to enhance students' critical thinking; transactional writing is used in courses stating critical thinking and sociological imagination/thinking as goals; and expressive writing is used more often in courses specifying critical thinking as a goal. Female instructors incorporate more writing, especially expressive types, than their male counterparts. Implications for disciplinary writing practices are discussed.