Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Teaching Sociology Conference on April 5, 2013

I received the following email via the ASA listserv. For those who may have missed it, here is a wonderful announcement.  I must confess a certain affinity to the planners and location as I taught in Indiana for 13 years and attended Valparaiso University for my undergraduate work.  I only wish I could attend this wonderful opportunity.

The email came with a registration form which can be found on this page:
https://sites.google.com/site/teachinghighschoolsociology/miscellaneous-docs

For those who go, the rest of us would love to hear what you gained from the experience.

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Dear Social Studies/Sociology Teacher:

I invite you to participate in a workshop on teaching sociology in high school.  The workshop is sponsored by the North Central Sociological Association (NCSA), the American Sociological Association’s Section on Teaching and Learning, the Indiana Council for the Social Studies, and the Valparaiso University Department of Sociology and Criminology in Indiana. The NCSA has offered this workshop almost every year since 1991, and its design and content have been shaped by feedback from previous participants.  It includes discussion of important curricular and pedagogical issues high school teachers face.  Participants are introduced to the services of the Teaching Resources Center at the American Sociological Association and are given opportunities to network with other high school sociology teachers and professors of college level courses. You will leave the room with dozens of teaching strategies for your sociology course, but many of them are applicable to courses on government, history, or psychology as well.

The workshop is scheduled for Friday, April 5th, at the Crowne Plaza in Historic Union Station in Indianapolis, IN.  It will begin at 8:30 AM and conclude by 3:30 PM. Registration is $100 for those who pre-register by March 22nd or $125 at the door.  Registration includes lunch, provides you with several ready-to-go lessons and enables you to participate in the larger sociology conference.  A certificate for earning continuing education credits (variously named in each of the adjacent states) will be available, though application but must be initiated through your own school system if you want continuing education credits.

Enclosed you will find a description of the workshop, a registration form, and a tentative workshop agenda.

After the workshop, you are invited to participate in the rest of the annual meeting events, which run through Saturday evening.  There are both presentations of research findings by sociologists from across the midwest and sessions on various aspects of teaching sociology.

We hope to hear from you!  If you do not teach sociology yourself, please pass these materials on to a colleague who does.  Thanks!

Cordially,
Lissa J. Yogan, Ph.D. Co-Organizer                                           Debra Swanson, Ph.D.  Co- Organizer
Associate Professor of Sociology, Valparaiso University          Professor of Sociology, Hope College
Contact:  219/ 464-6998    Lissa.Yogan@valpo.edu                  Contact:  616/395-7951  swansond@hope.edu



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The Teaching High School Sociology web site

Monday, February 4, 2013

Bullying as a Rational Choice



Over the weekend I was reading through my Facebook feed--a title really jumped out at me: "Bullying: A Rational Choice."  Having a friend who teaches economics, I hear the term "rational choice" quite a bit, as that is apparently how economists view choices people make for their economic models.

Anyway, I read through the blog post and it stunned me.  There is a compelling argument that is made about the origins of bullying and how it represents a social bonding experience related to conformity (increasing oxytocin), in-groups and out-groups.  Fascinating.  I would imagine that sharing such an article with your kids would yield some insights as well.  There are some amazing sociological connections in relation to groups and group dynamics in the article.

BrainBlogger Home Page:  http://brainblogger.com/

Bullying Post:  http://brainblogger.com/2013/02/01/bullying-a-rational-choice/

posted by Chuck Schallhorn