Teaching Sociology

Teaching Sociology Successfully is a comprehensive guide to teaching, learning and delivering sociology, not only with success but with confidence. Carefully combing insightful anecdotes and practical ideas with key theoretical concepts on planning, learning styles and assessment, this book is an essential tool for both new and experienced teachers of sociology. Each chapter focuses on a particular aspect of the teaching and learning process – from preparing to teach the subject for the first time to measuring student progress over time – in an approachable yet rigorous way. This practical guide will help you to: improve your knowledge of specifications and syllabuses at GCSE and AS/A Level; provide the best pedagogic approaches for teaching sociology; think about learning styles, skills and capacities in relation to teaching sociology; gain practical ideas and activities for improving student’s argumentation, evaluation and essay writing skills; apply strategies for teaching abstract sociological theories and concepts; make the teaching of research methods engaging and interesting; deal with practical issues such as planning and assessing learning; encourage students’ independent learning and revision; connect ICT, social networking websites and the mass media to further students’ sociological knowledge; tackle the thorny issues of politics and controversial topics. Drawing on the author’s own experiences, Teaching Sociology Successfully helps readers to identify, unpack and negotiate challenges common to those teaching sociology. Complete with a variety of pedagogical resources, it provides tasks and further reading to support CPD and reflective practice. This book will be an invaluable tool for students on PGCE social science training courses, as well as School Direct candidates and undergraduates studying BEds in similar fields.

By including material from literary, philosophical, and anthropological sources, and by selecting readings which consider educational practice both within and beyond formal educational contexts, this book broadens the character of sociological inquiry in education. The editors bring together material they have found valuable when working with students of education and sociology at all levels. Many of these articles and extracts are either inaccessible or have not been reprinted. The collection should stimulate inquiry about the assumptions underlying current debates on curriculum, streaming, school organization, methods of teachin, and preconceived notions of ability.

Teaching Sociology Successfully is a comprehensive guide to teaching, learning and delivering sociology, not only with success but with confidence. Carefully combing insightful anecdotes and practical ideas with key theoretical concepts on planning, learning styles and assessment, this book is an essential tool for both new and experienced teachers of sociology. Each chapter focuses on a particular aspect of the teaching and learning process – from preparing to teach the subject for the first time to measuring student progress over time – in an approachable yet rigorous way. This practical guide will help you to: improve your knowledge of specifications and syllabuses at GCSE and AS/A Level; provide the best pedagogic approaches for teaching sociology; think about learning styles, skills and capacities in relation to teaching sociology; gain practical ideas and activities for improving student’s argumentation, evaluation and essay writing skills; apply strategies for teaching abstract sociological theories and concepts; make the teaching of research methods engaging and interesting; deal with practical issues such as planning and assessing learning; encourage students’ independent learning and revision; connect ICT, social networking websites and the mass media to further students’ sociological knowledge; tackle the thorny issues of politics and controversial topics. Drawing on the author’s own experiences, Teaching Sociology Successfully helps readers to identify, unpack and negotiate challenges common to those teaching sociology. Complete with a variety of pedagogical resources, it provides tasks and further reading to support CPD and reflective practice. This book will be an invaluable tool for students on PGCE social science training courses, as well as School Direct candidates and undergraduates studying BEds in similar fields.

Showcasing advanced research from over 30 expert sociologists, this dynamic Handbook explores a wide range of cutting-edge developments in scholarship on teaching and learning in sociology. It presents instructors with a comprehensive companion on how to achieve excellence in teaching, both in individual courses and across the undergraduate sociology curriculum.

Originally published in 1984, the articles presented here explore such matters as how teachers maintain order, how they treat their pupils and how they cope with pressure; they examine the ways in which teachers relate to their colleagues, what goes on in staffrooms, how they engage in educational debate, and what their ambitions are. The contributors get to grips with what it is really like to be a teacher, to make sense of the everyday rewards and penalties, opportunities and problems. This is the hallmark of the ethnographic method of educational inquiry. It brings to life (by close observation and/or in-depth interview) the internal workings of an institution or culture, revealing the perspectives of its members, their roles and adaptations and making explicit the routine or taken-for-granted features of institutional life. All the papers in the volume are to one degree or another located within this methodological tradition – they all begin with what life is actually like for teachers in schools. Though they draw on a range of theoretical perspectives, from interactionism and ethnomethodology, to Marxism and the ‘New Sociology of Education’; and more besides. In this volume the editors bring together examples of some of the most important and influential pieces of work which illustrate the range of material, and which have hitherto been spread widely among different research reports, academic journals, and collections of conference papers. Classrooms and Staffrooms provides a fund of quality source materials for initial and in-service teachers.

‘An essential student-friendly text for Education Studies.’ Dr Gillian Forrester, Subject Head for Education & Early Childhood Studies, Liverpool John Moores University ‘Introducing students to the complexities of Education Studies is a difficult task and this book will go a long way to making it easier. I will definitely be recommending this to all my students.’ Kevin Brain, Programme Leader, Education Studies, Leeds Trinity University This textbook explains the basic principles of sociology and relates these concepts to today’s society and education system in order to deepen your understanding of how these issues affect our lives and the world we live in, encouraging you to think critically and to develop a ‘sociological imagination’. Coverage includes: the wider political and economic context for education in the UK, including an analysis of the reforms of the 2010 coalition government childhood, schooling and pupil voice non-traditional consideration of critical pedagogy, ‘race’ and gender the role of education in a multicultural society inequalities in educational opportunity in terms of class, ethnicity and disability. This is essential reading for students on undergraduate Education Studies degrees, and for sociology courses covering educational issues.

First published in 1988, this work considers the ways in which the sociology of education can inform educational practice. It examines the research which marries the two fields and considers the thinking behind it. It addresses key themes such as: sociological awareness or imagination, and how it might be stimulated and enriched by educational study; reflectivity for both teachers and sociologists; and ethnography, the major research orientation behind most of these studies.