Author: Benjamin Adam

My artifact is an overall course redesign based on the process of “working backwards” from revised learning goals. First, I revised the learning goals slightly since the first draft to clarify and to make the work more reasonable for a short Winter intercession. Working backwards, I’m now thinking about the projects and assessments I’ll use during each module to measure these goals. I’ve also established a rhythm for synchronous and asynchronous work.

I need to finish planning the third module, and lastly I’ll figure out “what I’m doing and assigning” so students can meet those goals.

Course Learning Goals

• By the end of this course, students will gain skills to describe, understand, and discuss the scope and degree of inequality in the United States. Students will be able to
  • Locate, access, and understand contemporary Sociological data about inequality produced by researchers and institutions in the U.S.
  • Recognize and analyze stratification associated with race, gender, sexuality, and other identities, statuses, and roles from an intersectional perspective.
  • Analyze contemporary issues of inequality as discussed in the media and in relation to their everyday lives using the Sociological imagination.
  • Use these ideas and concepts to make an informed argument about inequality, social mobility, and democracy in capitalist societies.
• Students will gain an understanding of key areas of inquiry in the Sociology of Inequality, and will be able to deploy the ideas and vocabulary developed in this class to analyze inequality in the U.S. These areas include
  • The Individual attributes and the structural approach to understanding and explaining inequality and the use of the Sociological imagination in analyzing and explaining our experiences, identities, and worldviews.
  • Racial capitalism and its relationship to contemporary forms of inequality.
  • Class power and the relational and dynamic view of class, social mobility, and democracy in capitalist societies.
  • Social movements against inequality from an intersectional perspective.

Synch Mon,Tues, Fri

Asynch Wed, Thurs

Course Modules

Course Introduction and Introduction to Inequality

Jan 3-7

Goals: 1,2,A

This module will include

• Wealth inequality guessing game. Students will estimate the wealth distribution in the U.S. and compare their estimates to data.
• Short in-class exploration and research assignments using Social Explorer designed to introduce students to mapping inequality, give them the opportunity to learn and explore the software, and to introduce them to the scope and degree of inequality in the U.S.
• Small research projects exploring and describing stratification in the labor market re: race and gender according to published data and reports.
• Sociological Imagination exercise

Capitalism, Class, and Democracy

Jan 10-14

Goals 3,4,A,B,C

This module will include

• How capitalism is supposed to work / how it works short essay
• Social Explorer map-making project visualizing a chosen aspect of inequality
• An introduction to social explorer stories, and practice
• Annotation and discussion of youtube videos on vocat re: social construction of race, and racial inequality
• Analysis of inequality in news media

Social Movements and Social Mobility

1/17-1/21

I often feel like when I design or redesign a class that I get stuck in the many, and overwhelming details and spend a lot of time looking for a reading or assignment that I think will be “useful” or students will “like” from the beginning. Or, I spend a lot of time thinking about logistics or the parameters of an assignment: when will we meet, and should I use a discussion board, journaling, etc. This has meant that I sometimes don’t have a strong sense of why, or how the materials and assignments contribute to the goals of the course as a whole. So! After I read this, I decided to work backwards by first defining the big goals of the course. When I did this, I realized my module structure would need to be revised. Here’s what I wrote about the overarching learning goals.

• By the end of this course, students will gain skills to describe, understand, and discuss the scope and degree of inequality in the United States. Students will be able to
  • Locate, use, and understand contemporary Sociological data about inequality produced by researchers and institutions in the U.S.
  • Recognize and analyze stratification associated with race, gender, sexuality, and other identities, statuses, and roles.
  • Analyze contemporary issues of inequality as discussed in the media and in relation to their everyday lives using the Sociological imagination.
  • Use these ideas and concepts to make an informed argument about inequality, social mobility, and democracy in capitalist societies.
• Students will gain an understanding of key areas of inquiry in the Sociology of Inequality, and will be able to deploy the ideas and vocabulary developed in class to analyze inequality in the U.S. These concepts include
  • The Individual attributes and the structural approach to understanding and explaining inequality, including the materialist structural model and its use in analyzing and explaining our experiences, identities, and worldviews.
  • The structure and operation of the political economy of capitalism including stages and varieties of capitalist organization, class power and the relational and dynamic view of class, and social mobility and democracy in capitalist societies.
  • Racial capitalism and its relationship to contemporary forms of inequality with a focus on housing, labor, and forms of social control including policing and prisons.
  • Features of social welfare systems, and policies, structures, and techniques of governance related to the management of poor people including critiques of the “culture of poverty” thesis and the nature and function of policing and prisons.

More soon!…

Hi! Nice meeting you! Could you introduce yourself? What department are you from? What courses are you teaching or have been teaching? What are the classes you teach like, such as format or class size? Is there anything you want to tell us about your teaching, research, or other projects? 

My name is Benjamin Adam. I teach courses in the Sociology department related to deviance, inequality, and social control as an associate adjunct. Over the past few years I’ve been teaching sections of Social Inequality, Crime and Justice from a Sociological Perspective, Criminology, and Intro; and a few special topics classes on sexuality, law, and social theory. Most of my classes are 20-35 students and include varied majors. I try to engage my students by teaching about contemporary politics in all my classes.

Could you talk a little bit about that course you’ll be working on during this seminar? 

I’ll be working on my hybrid Social Inequality class for the Winter intercession. Because it’s important to me, I focus especially on sociological explanations and analyses of inequality which offer a counterpoint to contemporary discourse about individual responsibility and culpability. I try to teach with accessible and compelling materials that offer those perspectives, and to foster discussions which engage students in the process of Sociological thinking. Sometimes it’s a hard sell.

What are the listed learning goals of your course? They could be ones provided by the department, or ones that you have written for your syllabus? Please list them (pasting is fine!).

Here’s the course description from the department: This course examines individual and structural explanations for the generation and maintenance of inequality in the United States and the impact of stratification on the social mobility of groups and individuals. It looks as patterns of allocation of societal rewards according to class, race, and gender; the distribution of educational opportunities and cultural capital; and labor market segmentation by race, class, ethnicity, gender, and immigration status.

I’d like to develop more organized, complete, and specific learning goals. Here are the 5 modules in the course, and excerpts from short descriptions I share with students about a few of the modules.

Course Introduction and Introduction to Inequality
Capitalism, Class, and Inequality
Inequality and Democracy
Intersectional Inequality
Social Mobility

In this class, students will be introduced to key sociological ideas related to inequality including
* What is Social Inequality? What are some of the ways inequality shapes our experiences, identities, and worldviews?
* The scope and degree of inequality in the U.S.
* Individual attributes v. structural approach to understanding and explaining inequality
* What is inequality and why is it important? Is inequality functional (i.e. necessary)?
* What does inequality have to do with power?

In this module, you’ll learn about how Sociologists think about the political economy of capitalism, and the class structure associated with it. For (most) Sociologists, inequality is a feature of capitalism associated with the division of society into owners and workers, and particularly, with the question of how labor is controlled and surplus value is distributed.

In this module, you’ll have an opportunity to explore one of the major axes of inequality in the United States: race, with a focus on the social construction of race in the colonial period, and the historical and ongoing racial inequalities associated with housing and household wealth.

This module will explore the concept of intersectionality a bit further, and will examine at some forms of inequality that are multi-dimensional and not easily explained by reference to what Kimberle Crenshaw calls a “single-axis framework”: that is, a perspective focused on a single axis of identity and discrimination such as race, or (but not also) gender.

What class materials are you planning to develop? What goals do you have for them?

I’d like to develop a few general lesson plans for in-person and online activities, especially better alternatives to “open” or prompted online discussions. It’s been a challenge for me to foster spontaneous and ongoing verbal engagement in online synchronous sessions, which often feel forced and alienating – especially because so many students have their cameras off.