Emissions Mapped Out [Video]

When I discuss the environment in my classes, I think it is important to show students how this issue is truly global. I was watching last night's episode of The Daily Show where this video showing worldwide emissions was featured.  I think it can be a very powerful tool to show students the differences between developed and developing nations.

Sport & Racial Ideology [Video]

Racial ideologies are so embedded into everyday discussions, especially when it comes to sports. In this video, actors mock the way sportscasters use ideologies to discuss football players' strengths. I use the video to discuss the mind/body dualism that is so integrated with the way we talk about race.



You can pair this video with an interactive graphic that looks at actual NFL scouting data: http://avidsociologyinstruction.blogspot.com/2014/08/describing-black-and-white-athletes.html

Assumptions About Stealing a Lost Wallet [Video]

My students love prank and social experiment videos and one student recently sent this one my way.

In the video, a man loses his wallet on purpose and then follows the man who found it. As they pranksters follow and film the man who found they wallet, they are guided by assumptions about him based on appearance. The man eventually returns the wallet, surprising the pranksters (and the student who sent the video to me).

I think a good class activity would be to discuss that emotion, being surprised, and talk about what that means about our assumptions of people.  Would you be surprised if an elderly white woman returned the wallet?

More on Privilege [Video]

A student recently sent this video to me because it reminded him of our class. In the video, a woman talks about an experience at the grocery store and the role that privilege played.

I liked the video because I find that personal stories and experiences can really help students see the social positions of others, thus unlocking their sociological imagination.

People Killed By Police [Interactive Graphic]

When I talk to students about police brutality, I usually get several students who express anger that the media talk about police who harm black people more than they talk about police who harm whites.  These students will are upset that these white victims are not getting justice.  As someone who has studied race and justice, I know that the victims are disproportionately black, but the students don't always understand this. But that's why they are in our classes, right?

So I thought it would be helpful for them to see actual data on the issue. I found this interactive database compiled by the guardian. According to the website, "The database will combine Guardian reporting with verified crowdsourced information to build a more comprehensive record of such fatalities"

I displayed it in class and clicked around on the site to show students a little about the data.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database#

Please keep in mind that these victims represent a variety of types of death (motor vehicle fatalities, deaths in custody, shooting, etc). You can use the filters to sort by a number of variables. You can also view the data as a list or on  map.


Here are some interesting things that I found and shared with the students.  Use the database to create your own list of points to share.[ As of today's writing, there were 1000 people killed, so I'll be working with that number. It also makes the math super easy!]

• I started by confirming students' view that the majority of people that were killed by police were in fact white. However, I then toggled back and forth between "total" and "per million".Since whites make up more of the total population, they also make up more of the victims (502 Victims).  But blacks are more likely to be killed respective to the numbers of blacks in the population. There were 250 black victims but that means 5.94 blacks were killed for every million blacks in the population.  The respective numbers for white victims is 2.54.
• 198 of the victims were unarmed, or 19.8%  That is important because it shows 4 out of 5 times, the victims represent threats to police and to others. So here, I like to point out to students that police are doing their jobs well in most situations.
• Furthermore, only 88 of those unarmed victims were killed by gunshot.(For example, many of the unarmed victims died in motor vehicle accidents)  That's only 8.8%.of all deaths.
• So what happens when we look at these 88 deaths?   35 of those victims were white and 31 were black. That means that 6.9% of all white deaths were unarmed victims shot by police and 12.4% of all black deaths were unarmed victims shot by the police. I think this comparison indicates a clear racial disparity that you can talk about with your class.

It may be helpful to go through these same steps above, but using the current numbers. Your class can all calculate the numbers together, which helps students see that you didn't just "make up the numbers to distort the issue"

Money in Politics [Interactive Graphic]

When I talk about inequality and power with student, we often discuss the role of money in politics.  It can be hard for students to grasp exactly how much money we are talking about but I think this interactive graphic from Slate magazine can help students visualize the issue.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/11/super_pac_money_how_political_groups_are_spending_to_influence_the_2016.html

Check it out!

How Privileged Are You? [Activity]

In past years, I have used the Privilege Walk activity to demonstrate the concept of advantages.  I grew disenchanted with the activity for a few reasons. The first was that many students had done the activity and thus knew what to expect. The second was that I felt like the underprivileged students weren't surprised to be at the back, but I could sense the emotional toll that standing there was taking on some of them.   I'm all for generating a healthy level of discomfort but I felt like I was somehow using the underprivileged students' situation to create discomfort for the privileged., which wasn't the purpose.   In addition, in a series of tiny rooms that I was assigned to, this exercise was not possible. I still think the "Walk" works well in some situations, but I was able to find an alternative that accomplished the goals and generated discussions. That alternative was actually produced by Buzzfeed!so the students tend to like it.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/regajha/how-privileged-are-you#.vazaNLNnZx

This quiz asks students to answer 100 questions and generates a privilege score.  It's not scientific but it is fairly comprehensive with respect to class, gender, race, sexuality, disability, religion, etc. Instead of doing this in class, I assign the quiz as homework. I ask students to take a screen shot of their results and to write a paragraph about what they think influenced their score the most.  They turn these in at the beginning of  class.  I ask them to discuss in small groups and while they do this, I record all of the answers on a spreadsheet (anonymously),  put them in order, and show the class the range of scores. From here I launch into the discussion  just as I would when the privilege walk ended and people were lined up across the room.  In the quiz version, you actually don't know who scored what - you just know the range of scores in the room. The underprivileged students know where they fell on the scale, but at least they don't have to stand and be gawked at by the high scorers.

It also may be helpful to pair this exercise with this video in class. This video shows other people doing the privilege walk so can be useful in the overall discussion without doing the exercise in class.

PS - One thing I still need to work on here. The high scorers wind up reporting feel "blessed". It's almost if the result is "Wow! I really dodged a bullet" or "I'm lucky" rather than "Wow. Stratification is real and it has given me a leg up and so we should investigate why that is happening ". I realize part of this is where they are in life, how often they have received these messages but still....

Consumption, Culture, & Identity [Video]

Check out this music video for an interesting way to teach students about the relationship between material culture, social meanings, and identity.

Objects are never just objects - they take on social importance and meaning through culture and social interactions. In the case of this video, a sneaker takes on importance beyond simply footwear.

Before showing the video, we talk about culture, stuff, and who it matters to and why. I then ask them to watch the video paying attention to the deeper meanings behind the 'stuff' and the ways that those meanings are tied to social identities.  At a more advanced level, you could also ask students who benefits and who loses from this way of treating stuff which could take you into a deeper discussion about the social consequences of economic systems.

Thanks to Dr. Jason Martin for rocking out with me to this video way back in graduate school and launching into good discussions about it.

Global Inequality & iPhones [Video]

This short Nightline Video is a great way to engage students in a discussion of Global Inequality. The piece is short (about 15 minutes) and touches on several sociological concepts, making it a great tool to start a discussion on this topic.

• I like to ask students to think about the differences between producing and consuming countries when they watch this video. We talked about those conditions but we also talk about what prevents the producers( Chinese workers ) and/or the consumers (the students themselves) from demanding better wages/conditions. 
• I especially like to push students on their role in this system and one way to do that is to pair the Nightline video with other photos/videos showing people in developed countries waiting in line/camping overnight/and fighting for thew new iPhone. Here's an example, but you can probably find something more current: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/09/scuffles-arrests-at-pasadena-apple-stores-iphone-5s-launch/
• The clip also covers the suicides of many workers and so can also tie in with ideas about Durkeim/suicide/anomie.

If you are  going to watch this in class, you should also check out the iEconomy series produced by the NY Times in 2013.  Much of the journalists' work is still relevant. You'll find potentially readings and other interactive features here that you can use in your class: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/ieconomy.html?_r=0


Shout out to my colleague Dr. George Gonzalez who sent the Nightline video a while back.

Celebrity Race Sort [Activity]

A recent facebook discussion on Shared Teaching Resources for Sociology inspired me to post a description of the activity that I use to demonstrate the social construction of race.

Several group members noted that they have used the "Sorting  People" activity that was produced by PBS in conjunction with the film Race: Power of An Illusion, but that students complained that the small pictures made the activity difficult.  I had the same issue and so I created a classroom exercise that would help the students get the  concept without the grainy low-res photos. The great thing is that  you can change this from year to year so that the celebs are always current.

I use this activity to start a discussion on the social construction of race and to point out how a racial group is really just part of a system of human-made categories. We talked a lot about how humans decided where to draw those lines and how biological difference was much more complex than racial categories. The activity gets students up and moving and really challenges them to think about racial categories in a new way.

The class prep
The first step was to come up with a list of popular celebrities. I had a student assistant help me with this one to ensure that the famous people would be recognized by people other than myself. We tried our best to represent a variety of races and ethnicities. in the process, we googled celebrity bios to find out how they self-identified - and only tried to use those celebrities who we had a self identification for. We then created a Power Point with 40 color photos. A sample of that slide show is below.

The Activity

• I printed out the power point slides in color and then cut them up and placed the celebrity cards into a box.At the start of class I passed the box around and students randomly selected a photo.
• Once everyone had a photo, I asked students to line up based on the skin color of their celebrity  from light to dark (The first time I did this activity, students thought I wanted them to line up based on their own skin color!  So you need to make it clear that they are lining up based on their celebrity card.
• After the students formed one big line, I asked them to say the name of their celebrity. We started from lightest skin to darkest skin, but you easily go the other way around. I wanted other students to listed and picture the celebrities in this continuum.  The students were pretty good about knowing who these people were but I had a cheat sheet  in case they didn’t know whose card they were holding.   Sometimes the student didn’t know the celebrities real name but would instead say something like “Olivia Pope from Scandal”. That was fine with me because most other students knew who this was by that description. I did not put the names on the cards because I didn’t want the name association to influence where they placed unknown celebs (For example, we know that Latino or Arab surnames can influence how a person reads another person and what group they classify in).
• After each student read the names, I told them I wanted to make two groups: White celebrities and black celebrities. I then asked them where to draw the line between the two.  This was obviously difficult because it can’t be done but I forced them to do so and asked everyone to vote on their choice. We had a good conversation about how they came to their decision.
• Now I made the class stand on opposite sides of the room. I  then selected some people on each side and asked if their celebrity might now be misclassified? We discussed this in depth.
• After that ,I asked students to raise their hand if their celebrity was Asian. Hands went up on both sides of the room, so we discussed. I repeated the same question for Latinos. Hands again went up on both sides of the room.
• (Finally a time-consuming option would be to collect the celeb cards in order and then rearrange the original power point to show how the students drew lines and made categories. This would be good to further show visual difference)

Though I like this activity, it does require a large room, talkative students, and a dynamic moderator.
If you don’t have this, you could also  have students do the exercise in pairs or small groups. You could give each group the same exact set of 10 to 20 celebrity cards and then ask them to tape them up to the wall or to a posterboard in order. You may stimulate interesting discussions among the students, especially if they decide on a different order.  If you are teaching an online class, you make the initial power point and send it to the students and ask them to rearrange the photos, save the slide, and post it back to the discussion board.  Feel free to adapt a version of this activity to your classroom and have fun!


 [I still think that the PBS activity can be useful. You can find it here:  http://www.pbs.org/race/002_SortingPeople/002_00-home.htm ]

Race & Religion [Video]

In a recent class I was explaining the idea of "Racialization of Religion" to students.   We make assumptions about religion based on race and assumptions about race based on religion. This video really helped solidify the concept for the students. In fact, on a recent exam, many students referred to this video as an example. In my mind, that's always a mark of success.

This is one episode of the brief web series called "Halal in the Family', a spoof of the classic family sitcom, that focuses on the lives of an American family who happens to be Muslim.  There are other episodes here that could be interesting to teachers who want to talk about race, religion, immigration, and assimilation as the family often wrestles with how to be American and Muslim at the same time.


I paired this video with the reading cited below. Special thanks to Sheena Sood for  recommending the reading:
Joshi, K. Y. (2006). The Racialization of Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism in the United States. Equity & Excellence in Education, 39(3), 211–226.

Immigrants in the US - Where do they live? [Interactive Map]

A while back, I posted a link to an interactive dot map that visualized where certain ethnic and racial groups live. This map is similar, except it displays immigrant populations using Census data (see the below example that examines the NY Metro Area).

My students have really enjoyed interacting with the Racial Dot Map, and I hope they will learn a lot from this one as well. Find the map here: http://personal.tcu.edu/kylewalker/immigrant-america/

Sports vs Academics [Video]

As a sociologist who studies sport, I'm often pushing students to view sport with a critical lens.  This usually puts us in conversation about how we value sports and how we devote time, money, and energy to sport because of those values.

 This video is especially useful for having that conversation with relation to how we value sports  versus how we regard academics.

Enjoy!

Football & Rape Culture [Video]

Amy Schumer is one of my favorite people in comedy right now. In this sketch, she uses satire to show the connections between playing football and rape culture.  I showed this video last week and the students found it humorous. More importantly, this really opened up our conversation on this topic.  In addition to the clear linkages between football and hyper masculinity,  the students also pointed out a number of other things:

• The players ask their coach a lot of questions.  This shows that boys and men aren't often taught what rape actually IS.  Most girls women have been taught how NOT to be victims, but boys and men don't discuss how NOT to be rapists.
• The coach's status and power are question when he tries to introduce new rules that don't line up with ideas about hegemonic masculinity. 
• The community plays a  role in upholding a certain way of thinking about football and football players.

What Kind of Asian Are you? [Video]

A student of mine recently send this video following a discussion of race and identity.  It's humorous way to look at how Asian identities are often essentialized in ways that people who appear as European whites aren't.  What would happen if we treated those white people the way they often treat Asians?

Brutally Honest NFL Promo [Video]

Thanks to Funny or Die for putting together a video that sharply contrasts our the idealized notion of football versus the reality of scandals and issues that have plagued the NFL.

In many ways, this is just a more extreme, and honest, version of the regular promotions that show hard hits and advertise violence. I plan to use this video to discuss how ideologies are often undermined by evidence, yet still persist in our collective discourses.

"The Real Stuff White People Like" Talking About Race, Ethnicity, & Relationships [Interactive Data]

Today in class, my students and I were talking about race, ethnicity, friendships, and dating.  Our discussion centered on how cultural norms in different communities could influence people's likes and dislikes. Because we look for friends and romantic partners who share out interests, these likes and dislikes can affect who we choose to form relationships with it.

In order to get the students involved in talking about this without feeling like they were stereotyping people, I showed them some data collected by the fine folks at OKCupid.  The OKCupid staff looked at unique words and phrases used in the dating profiles of their site users and created interactive graphics showing the results.

The students got a kick out of this activity and it definitely broke the ice. After I showed them these examples, we had some great conversations about we find friends and dating partners and how/why these things matter to their lives.

Link to the site: http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-real-stuff-white-people-like/

Intersectional Feminism Using Food Metaphor [Video]

In this video, writer and comedian Akilah Hughes uses the metaphor of pizza to explain intersectionality.  In brief, it goes something like this: in a world made for Burgers, Cheese Pizza is trying to argue that it deserves the same rights as Burgers.  In that struggle, what is a Pizza with toppings other than cheese supposed to do?

It's not a perfect metaphor, but I think it's a way to help students start thinking about intersectionality.

Link to video: http://feministing.com/2015/04/13/intersectional-feminism-brought-to-you-by-pizza/

Using comedy to discuss "reverse racism" [Video]

I recently attended a dissertation defense on the articulation of race in comedy sketches (shout-out to Jennifer Kim: check out her work "The Merits of a Fool: Contending with Race and Racism through Sketch Comedy from the 1960's to the 2000's").  In one of the sketches, comedian Aamer Rahman uses humor to critique the notion of "reverse racism."  This video may be a way of tackling the idea in the classroom.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw_mRaIHb-M

A call to redefine what we value as masculine [Video]

I believe that it is important for students to examine how cultural constructions of gender are relational: not only is masculinity defined in relation to femininity, but masculinities are also defined in relation to one another.  I aim for students to be able to identify how constructions of gender, especially hegemonic masculinity, can be restrictive and can affect not only men's interactions with women, but also their interactions with other men and their self-identities.

This video calls for us to value characteristics of masculinity (that the creators see as) opposed to the current construction of hegemonic masculinity.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj7Zw4P8LPo

Map of Social Inequality using Human Development Indicators [Interactive Graphic]

How does the United States rank on measures of health, education, gender inequality, poverty, and other human development indicators in comparison to other countries around the world?  Use this interactive map and data from the United Nations Development Programme to help students get a better grasp on the “big picture” of social inequalities.

Link: http://hdr.undp.org/en/data/map

Socialization and Gendered Violence [Video]

A recent video called "Slap Her" went viral.  In this  video, children watch and react to the viral video and then later answer questions.

It can be hard to start a discussion about gendered violence but watching these children might get the conversation going in your classroom.  Because "Slap Her" shows boys refusing to hit a girl, the interviewer addresses issues of "being a man" and violence but he also asks the kids about reversing the situation. What if a girl were asked to hit a boy? I think the video also shows how strong socialization is - these young children have internalized norms about what it means to be a woman, what it means to be a man, and how that relates to violence. The kids do have a strong message.  "Don't Slap Anybody" and "If you hit people, you are dumb".

Gender and Teaching Evaluations [Interactive Graphic]

As sociologists, we know that people are evaluated differently based on their gender, but it can be hard for students to visualize this out of context.  This tool allows them to visualize gender and evaluations in a very relevant way: through professor ratings. Ben Schmidt looked at the evaluative words used in Rate My Professor reviews and compiled the results in this series of interactive charts. 

You can search for any word. The resulting graph will show you the difference between male and female professors in a variety of disciplines.    You can see one example above.  According to evaluations, men are funnier than women are more likely to be labeled as "genuises". Males are also more likely to be rated as intelligent and smart (though the gaps are smaller). . Males were also more likely to be "weird" in every discipline other than Physics.  Females were always more likely than males to be rated as  "nice" and to be rated as "mean".

  

Thanks to Dr. Schmidt, assistant history professor at Northeastern University, for putting together this data visualization.
Link: http://benschmidt.org/profGender/#

Race & Comedy - Interracial Marriage and "Doing Race" across the globe. [Video]

A student sent this one to me and I wanted to share with AVID readers.

South African Comedian Trevor Noah, born to a white father and a black mother, uses his stand up routine to address several layers of race.

In this clip, he discusses

•  interracial marriage and mixed families (his family was illegal in Apartheid era South Africa)
• "doing race" - he imitates both white,  black Americans, and Germans.
• the social construction of race - if he was black in South Africa, why was he Mexican in America?

Manifest and Latent Functions of Alcohol Ads [Video]

I asked my students to find video clips that demonstrated both the latent and manifest functions of the media.  One student found this South Park 'commercial' that showed how clearly these lines often get blurred. Are alcohol ads simply designed to sell us beer & liquor?  Or are they trying to tell us something else about status and lifestyle?
Check out the video and ask students what they think.

Condemning Extremist Muslim Acts and White Privilege [Video]

Many people condemned the Charlie Hebdo attacks in France, but why do Muslims often feel like they have to  announce their condemnation with greater fervor than other ethnic and racial groups do?  In fact, why does it seem like there is pressure for individuals to explain the actions of people who look like them?  And why doesn't that apply to whites in the US?

Let this funny Daily Show video be a good start to this conversation in your classroom.

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

Accountability and doing gender while being a police man [Video]

This in-car camera footage ("Dash Cam Confessionals") of a Dover police officer captures him singing (and dancing) along to the Taylor Swift song "Shake It Off." Students find this 4 minute video clip helps them understand "doing gender" and how we are accountable for our gender performances. Have your students watch (and probably laugh) as this policeman changes from enthusiastic sing-along exuberance to "cool and collected" greeting-behavior when he drives by other people.

Video link: http://youtu.be/8XFBUM8dMqw

Average Asian [Video]

There are so many stereotypes about Asians - but like most stereotypes, one size does NOT fit all. Despite this, few people talk about those stereotypes influence Asian's identity and sense of self.  Additionally, some people feel that Asian jokes are okay. But are they? A few videos to get the conversation going. The first video is a parody called "Asian but not smart" The second link is from MAD TV's. They produced a series of sketches called the "Average Asian". The song and the skits are over the top, but can certainly start a discussion on these topics.

Global Census [Interactive Feature]

The concept of race as a social construction can be hard for many students to grasp. One thing that helps them understand this concept a bit better is when they see how race is categorized differently in different parts of the world.

The RACE Project put together a cool interactive activity to help people understand this. The Global Census allows students to take the Census in 9 different nations.  This activity is a great way to talk to students about how and why we construct race categories the way that we do.

http://www.understandingrace.org/lived/global_census.html

The site also has an interactive timeline that gives some insight on race and history and a number of other interactive activities including those shown in the image file above. I will likely write about some of those features as I use them in class. [ Click through to this link to get to that page: http://www.understandingrace.org/lived/game/index.html ]