Raising Hope of Raising Sociology: Adding a Little SALT

In 40 years of teaching sociology, there are moments that one can forget (or would like to) and some moments that you cannot forget. Sometimes these are disturbing, other times they are simply part of the hum that happens when delivering the same ideas over and over again. However, sometimes they are career-changing. Let me focus on one of those experiences. It was a small interaction but nonetheless career-altering.

This happened somewhere in the first third of my four-decade trek to impart my vast wisdom in Introduction to Sociology. Don’t get me wrong. I really enjoyed Intro. For a community college professor, it was my bread and butter. Furthermore, it was part of a larger mission to make this great cluster of thoughts part of a larger audience’s mental database.

This day I found myself about to start class as I had done, may I say, hundreds of times before. Looking out on the assembling group I spotted a young man with the newspaper wide open. He looked pretty engrossed in the material that he was reading and from the looks of things it appeared that none of my profound wisdom was likely to enter his young ears… at least for today. Whatever was going on in the newspaper was going to be more important than anything I could say.

Ah, ha! Was it the assessment of some sociology concept that had had the profound power of revelation in the Baltimore Sun that day? Perhaps, it was the overwhelming rush one gets when considering Emile Durkheim for the first time somewhere between the sports and the stock market sections? I thought: “Yes, I’m getting through!”

No.

“Hi, what’s going on in the paper?” Said I. Anxious for the response what would make teaching all worthwhile.

“Oh, I don’t ever have enough time to read the paper, so this is a good class to get caught up. Besides the stuff in this class is fine and everything, but you can’t do anything with it.”

Game changer!

How to respond to this? Of course, there were countless ways. I could have said, “well you're in the business program and of course you can see the relationship between business and groups of people, right?” Or if “you're in information technology you can easily see how the use of software and hardware is enhanced by understanding collective human action, right?” No. That wasn't going to work. In fact, there was little I could do to change his mind. He had attended class faithfully, but after a while, he simply weighed the cost-benefit and decided that he’d get more out of the newspaper. And, that’s when I realized that the problem was me not him.

I started to realize that the connections were not obvious. The way I was teaching the class and presenting the material didn't provide a bridge between the course concepts and what this person needed to navigate life and the workplace. I always told myself that I had made assignments that helped portray the use of social concepts in daily life. I realized that what I assumed to be obvious was simply not obvious at all! That experience and many more since that time reinforced my awareness that perhaps the best solution was to teach sociology as an applied discipline. Since that time, I put together a few ideas that may help make the transition from thoughts and what people do. Let's take a look at these. Let’s add a little SALT: Skills, Articulation, Language, and Trends.

Skills. I challenge you to ask students at any level in sociology to list the skills that they've learned in their courses. Here I don't mean what courses have they taken, or a list of the concepts that they've learned and regurgitated. I mean what are the special things that you can do after you take a sociology course, but you couldn't do before? Can you identify a problem better now than you could before? For example, identifying structural issues instead of blaming individuals. Could you read a table better now? Are you better able to work in teams? Can you communicate data more effectively now than you could before? How about some basic analytical skills? Can you supply valuable assessments of quantitative data now? How about making sense of the myriad of COVID data that streams across media. Consider creating a skills inventory.

Articulate. This one is critical and I'm not sure I've ever really figured out how to do it very well. In many respects, it requires a general knowledge of job requirements far beyond academia. Nonetheless, connecting the skills to specific job-related and life-related areas is critical. Specifically, what can you do and how can you use it in the workplace or in daily life? For example, what skills can be connected to a career in financial advising? How about market analysis or hospital administration? Where would the sociology skills fit in a nursing career? Ask for direct connections.

Language. I believe that very often the language that we use in sociology creates a boundary between the workplace and often between daily life situations. I don't deny that the language of sociology is a valuable tool but very often it can't be translated into corporate cultures or workplaces. So, it becomes important for us to be able to make it clear that concepts and theories are tools to be applied but they may need to be translated. For example, in what ways are corporations systems? That corporations have their own inherent cultures and language. For example, does a corporate website and mission statement give clues to life in that company? Knowing and using this is in itself a valuable application. Create concept-translation exercises.

Trends. Social change is part of the bedrock of almost any sociology course. Certainly, it's the case that any introductory sociology course will review the landscape of change. This means that three things are likely here. First, getting a handle on change can help make sense of numerous emerging realities. Secondly, the discipline can be valuable in creating those realities, a kind of sociological creativity. And finally spotting trends may help students find jobs and careers that may not now exist! Can recognition of private-sector space travel reveal new opportunities for 21st-century jobs? Do some trend spotting exercises.

In summary, for the vast majority of people who will dip their toes in the water of sociology only one time in their lives, it seems to me that adding a little SALT can help. Teaching our discipline from a practical, applied perspective first is both efficient and practical for those who we hope will have an improved life because of our efforts and theirs. For the most part, and for the largest part of our citizen audience, the greater good could be served by assuming that we are not producing the basis for more sociology majors but rather creating a skill set for living.