TEACHSOC: Re: Time-tested sociological insights

[Del Thomas Ph D]

oops Del Thomas Ph D wrote: I would prefer to talk in terms of the best science......  science is self correcting..... so there is "consensus" rather agreement regarding planets in our .....   at the recent conference  they were all in agreement that Pluto was not a planet..... but what to call it.  It is what it is.  It had been a special case.....  perhaps because of the name.  Actually, because science knowledge is temporary terms such as consensus may not serve us well. There are some who do not consider sociology a science.   I am always amused by those who claim it is an art. They don't realize that artists were among the first scientists........they are constantly testing.  You will find that many scientists are skilled in the arts.... painting, jazz....and so on...The notion that science is precise is  errored.... a mechanical remnant of the classical science.    a process that has not recognized the organic and fuzzy. If I were to select on finding it would be the result of the last several decades of functional imaging......they have found that thinking and behavior are dependent on the definition/structure of the situation/environment.     This  means that what is learned is shaped by the environment.........  we know this from Skinner, Mead, Rosenthal and Jacobson.......... Durkheim and Darwin.   That is why there is such an attack on Darwin by the creationists/constructionists.  So what is learned is dependent on the classroom structure. That science is the basis for the finding that the lecture hall reduces access to lecture content to a very limited group  of students.  One could use elimination of the teacher/preacher lecture hall model as a demonstration of the use of science to promote social justice.  We can have students discover this rather than telling them.  One of the students on our panel claims that this is close to self instruction and give the student ownership.... an upgrade from being a clerk. :-) Inequity This country has inequity built into the constitution.  It would be difficult to support an argument that there is more inequity today than there was when slavery was the law and females could not vote.   We are a nation of laws after all :-) Go Blue! Del   Joyce Robbins wrote: There's no consensus in the scientific community over how many planets are in the solar system; why would one expect consensus in the sociological community? The variety of theories is what makes teaching interesting. I would think that anything about which there is complete consensus would be trivial, or the consensus would reflect some kind of cultural/intellectual bias. Joyce Robbins -----Original Message----- From: teachsoc@googlegroups.com [mailto:teachsoc@googlegroups.com]On Behalf Of Michael Francis Johnston Sent: Friday, September 15, 2006 12:51 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: teachsoc@googlegroups.com Subject: TEACHSOC: Re: Time-tested sociological insights Hi, Del, Thanks for asking for the clarification. What I mean by non-trivial, time-tested sociological insights are ideas that have been produced by sociologists about the social world, were published in sociological outlets, are backed by a consensus on empirical evidence, and grab students attention (either because it directly matters for how the students live their lives or because students find that the idea helps them understand our social world in a new, interesting way). Some sociologists might argue that "the distribution of resources remains fairly constant from generation to generation" whereas others might argue that there is "growing inequality." To me, this could indicate a lack of consensus on this particular topic. I think that "growing incarceration rates" could legitimately be claimed as sociological (e.g. Bruce Western at Princeton) and there is a consensus on evidence. But does this matter to students? I think lots would think that they are not in danger of incarceration. At best, this would matter indirectly in that lots of tax money is being spent on incarceration. But students have little control over how are tax money is spent. An even less direct argument would be that the US is becoming a more authoritarian state, which I think would have the potential to make some students "tune out." Thanks for the postings so far, these have been very helpful to think through this issue! Respectfully, Michael -----Original Message----- From: teachsoc@googlegroups.com [mailto:teachsoc@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Del Thomas Ph D Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2006 7:17 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: teachsoc@googlegroups.com Subject: TEACHSOC: Re: Time-tested sociological insights Would you include science in this? What do you mean by matter to students and consensus? Del Michael Francis Johnston wrote: Hi all, Could you let me know what you consider to be some non-trivial sociological insights that matter to our students? Ideally, these would be results for which there is consensus that, yes the evidence really does show that this is true. Thanks in advance, Michael --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Teaching Sociology" group. 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