An empirical study of what is being taught and learned in university sociology courses around the country would be challenging to carry out. But American sociology provides a convenient site for observing how the discipline is taught in the form of a research journal produced by the American Sociological Association (ASA).
Teaching Sociology has existed since 1973 and advertises itself on the ASA website as “advanc[ing] the quality of sociology instruction.” I admit having never looked at it during the entirety of my quarter-century in the discipline until writing this essay. I came to graduate school under the influence of a pre-1960s generation of social scientists, and I shared their belief that rigorous scientific study of human behavior and social organization was possible. I learned early in my career that sociology is in intellectual decline. My walk-through of Teaching Sociology offers bitter evidence of just how great the distance is between the early scientific promise of sociology and what is taught to students in sociology courses today.
The teaching of sociology is understood by the journal as straight-forwardly political, in a univocal ideological vein.The teaching of sociology is understood by the journal as straightforwardly political, in a univocal ideological vein. “Social justice,” “mindfulness,” “a compassionate orientation,” “an emancipatory project,” “a trauma-informed and survivor-centered pedagogy,” and “a radical critique of society for the purpose of reducing inequality” are among the descriptives commonly encountered in this literature.
One representative article (“Help Me See the ‘Magnificent’ Side of Sociology: The Outcomes of a Community Action and Involvement Course Designed to Help Undergraduates View Themselves as Agentic”) affirmatively cites a student’s account of a typical sociology class in this way: “We have spent this whole course seeing how bad things are in the world. […] I do not like the way society is, but I do not know how to change it.” In other words, sociology serves to show students how warped human societies are from some pristine ideal. Not enough of what happens in sociology courses, such thinking goes, is about straightforward political action to try to produce the utopia imagined.
That said, much of Teaching Sociology does describe, and cheer, how much activism is going on in the sociology classroom under the guise of teaching and learning. Many articles positively discuss class assignments that are straightforward ideological training and exercises in naked partisanship.
One example describes a class op-ed assignment. I know this sort of thing to be common in the discipline, as I have heard many in my own department describe such assignments. Every student topic described in these articles originates from the political left. The topics include “bail reform and parole reform, sexual assault in prison, capital punishment, and ‘ban the box’ laws intended to help ex-felons gain employment by prohibiting employers from inquiring about past felony convictions” (“Teaching Civic Engagement through an Op-Ed Writing Assignment”).
“Active learning” is championed as a method for getting students “beyond” mere knowledge and into a dedication to political action, always of a progressive tenor. Emotional appeals to empathy and compassion are foregrounded.
I found little interest, in Teaching Sociology articles, in the evaluation of the efficacy of knowledge-production in class—that is, in the objective expansion of student expertise with facts and theories. There was, however, considerable interest in tracking and enhancing the way in which courses push students to “the … motivation to ease suffering.” The goal is “not only to understand the reciprocal connections between personal troubles and public issues … but also to alleviate social inequalities” (“Values, Compassion, and the Role of Active Learning in an Introduction to Sociology Class”).
Much attention is given to the imperative to teach critical race theory, queer theory, and other approaches that move away from science.Other articles describe the sociology teacher’s job as centrally involving monitoring student mental health. “Grades are major stressors for students,” writes one sociologist, so “instructors may … wish to consider alternatives to traditional grading, such as ungrading … a technique in which students assign their own grades.” Such practices “may not only have pedagogical benefit but could also foster psychological resilience” (“Mental Health in the College Classroom: Best Practices for Instructors”).
Much attention is given in Teaching Sociology to the imperative to teach critical race theory, queer theory, and other approaches that move away from sociology as a science and enthusiastically embrace activist political projects.
One researcher describes efforts to “queer the sociology classroom” by having students “watch … a short video from 2008 of [transsexual] Thomas Beatie after he appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show to announce his pregnancy. […] The clip ends with Thomas, pregnant belly stretching his shirt, proclaiming, ‘I’m a man, I just happen to be a pregnant man’” (“Queering the Introduction to Sociology Course”).
Another article on how to expand discussions of race and sexuality in sociology classes consists entirely of the writer’s reflections on his own identity: “As a cisgender, feminine but male-presenting, queer, light-skinned Latinx faculty member … [when] I walk into the classroom … I wonder whether I am seen as a freak [or] an anomaly.” This professor describes his/her class as “a sea of whiteness” requiring conscious work to “deploy sexuality studies … [in order to introduce] intersectional omissions” (“A Sea of Whiteness: Teaching Sexuality through a New Sociology at a U.S. American University” [sic]).
In still another article, it is claimed that teaching students about racial difference requires motivating them to see everywhere ways in which racism is cloaked in American society. “[C]ultural ideologies of meritocracy … [that] assert that any person can achieve success through his or her own hard work” are to be denounced. The appropriate teaching on race must affirm that “public policy changes (e.g., Affirmative Action) are needed to ensure equality of opportunity for all cultural groups.” White students must be made “to change their racial and ethnic consciousness” (“Impacts of Teaching Critical Race Theory and Applying Contact Theory Methods to Student’s [sic] Cross-Cultural Competency in Diversity Courses”).
Concerns are raised in some of the journal’s articles about students who seem to be merely “going along to get along” in the sociology classroom—that is, only half-heartedly accepting the radical ideology on tap there, sometimes even resisting it. Students who “refuse … to believe empirical data presented that detail the racial representation of those incarcerated, citing that the studies or numbers are some sort of propaganda” are deplored (“Resistance, Rage, Paralysis, and Paralysis by Proxy: Reflecting on Reactions to Contentious Content in the Classroom”).
Sociology has gone from an academic discipline to just another means for the delivery of radical opinions.Climate change is to be taught in sociology classes from a “doom and gloom” perspective (“In Defense of Doom and Gloom: Science, Sensitivity, and Mobilization in Teaching about Climate Change”). That is, “horrific … scenarios” must be privileged even if they cause “students … [to] fall into despair,” because “climate change is, in fact, an intractable existential crisis.”
We learn in Teaching Sociology that The Handmaid’s Tale—the dystopian science-fiction novel much beloved by radical feminists—is an effective tool for use in sociology courses to teach about gender. The reasoning given for teaching the novel is intriguing: “Students today … generally report they do not enjoy reading … [yet] The Handmaid’s Tale is more popular than ever [so] it is important to examine [its] pedagogical utility … for teaching sociology.” The concepts that were most readily learned by students who read the novel included, unsurprisingly, “patriarchy” (“The Handmaid Still in the Classroom? Using The Handmaid’s Tale in Sociology of Gender”).
Other politically charged novels are useful in teaching about race. One sociologist (“‘Pieces of My Soul’: A Humanistic Approach to Teaching Black-Identified Students about Race and Anti-Blackness”) reports on her use of Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing, a novel about the purported consequences of slavery and segregation. Student commentary on the novel gives away the partisanship of the course:
The history we are exposed to is that of the white man in power. We never get to hear the other side. […] [Gyasi’s] telling of “the untold stories” reshaped how I saw … life in the U.S. […] This idea of having your papers relates back to police brutality, professionalism, and survival. In police interaction, my parents have taught me to have my hands visible and to not come across as threatening. […] As a Black person in America, you have to have so much more “papers” in order to get your hands on what comes to white people so much more easily.
This is a small sample from a vast collection of similar material. I invite skeptical readers to look for themselves at the dismal state of the teaching of sociology apparent in the discipline’s own statement about that craft. Sociology has gone from an academic discipline to just another means for the delivery of radical opinions.
Alexander Riley is a professor of sociology at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania and a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Scholars. All views expressed are his own and do not represent the views of his employer. Follow him on Substack here.