Teaching about the Social Structure of Fatal Gun Violence Using Interactive Maps

Abstract

Despite the increasing availability of online interactive maps and empirical evidence of how using them improves student learning outcomes, their use in sociology and criminology classrooms is limited. The following full class period activity was designed to allow undergraduate students to engage multiple interactive maps using a...

Download this resource to see full details. Download this resource to see full details.

Details

Subject Area(s):

Criminal Justice, Criminology/Delinquency, Introduction to Sociology/Social Problems, Stratification/Mobility

Resource Type(s):

Class Activity

Class Level(s):

College 100, College 200, College 300, College 400

Class Size(s):

Medium, Small

Usage Notes

1. 
   
2. In the class where this activity was tested, students are exposed to the works of W.E.B DuBois – specifically his discussions of the problems of historic segregation (i.e., economic, educational, residential etc.) and their relation to the “negro problem” – through his 1899 book “The Philadelphia Negro” and an article he published in...

Learning Goals and Assessments

Learning Goal(s):

1. Learning Goal #1: Utilize five different interactive maps.
2. Learning Goal #2: Understand the connection between fatal urban shootings and the spatial social structure of neighborhoods.
3. Learning Goal #3: Convey an understanding of how the social structure of neighborhoods spatially coincide with U.S. fatal gun violence.

Goal Assessment(s):

1. Assessment #1: Students will complete and turn in individual low-stakes worksheets at the end of the class period. This worksheet, which counts for course participation points, has author-written usage notes that students are required to read before engaging with each map. The usage notes teach students how to interpret these different maps. Instructors...
2. Assessment #2: Students will complete and turn in a low-stakes worksheet at the end of the class period. This worksheet asks students how the patterns of fatal shootings in the neighborhoods they’ve identified correlate with relation to the patterns of segregation or inequality on the other maps.
3. Assessment #3: Students are asked a ten-point short answer question on an exam that prompts them to discuss how the social structure of neighborhoods spatially overlaps with the patterns of fatal gun violence that they observe on interactive maps.