I do an exercise in both my soc of religion and soc of education courses, usually when introducing functionalist approaches to either,in which I divide the students into 4-5 groups(depending on size of class--groups of about 5 or6) and assign each group a social institution (not education in soc of education, not religion in soc of religion) and ask them to come up with all of the interrelationships between their social institution and the social institution of education/religion. They are to find ways that family affects education (or religion) and how education(religion)affects the family, for example. Depending on the length and maturity of the class, I sometimes go into the differentiation of macro- and micro-relationships. And I usually add to their ideas. It gives them a sense of what is unique about their social institution, and how the social institutions are interrelated. If you are covering religion and education at the same time, you could have two groups covering family's interrelationship with religion/education; two groups covering polity's interrelationship with religion/education; two groups covering economy's interrelationship with religion/education, etc. It would show the similarities of the social institutions as well as their differences. Harriet
Harriet Hartman, Ph.D. Rowan University Department ofSociology 201 Mullica Hill Rd. Glassboro, NJ 08028 (856) 256-4500 x3787 Fax (856) 256-5610 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Teaching Sociology" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/teachsoc -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
