@article{Harrington_2015, place={Washington DC: American Sociological Association.}, title={How Modern is "Modern Family"? Critically Evaluating the Extent to which the Television Show Represents Contemporary Families in the United States}, url={https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/how-modern-is-modern-family-critically-evaluating}, abstractNote={This activity allows students to further their sociological understanding of representativeness, specifically focusing on contemporary families in the United States by critically evaluating the extent to which the television show "Modern Family" represents contemporary families in society. What does the show get right? What does it potentially miss or inaccurately portray about contemporary families? Students will watch the pilot episode of the television show "Modern Family" and individually rate its representativeness on a 1-5 scale (1 meaning not at all representative and 5 meaning entirely representative), providing a written justification for their answer. The students will discuss their evaluations with a group of 3-4 of their peers before sharing their answers with the larger class. Working with the same group, the students will be asked trivia questions aimed at exposing possible strengths and weaknesses of the show. The class activity will culminate by asking students to reevaluate the show in order to gauge how the peer and larger class discussion, as well as the newly learned statistics from the trivia game, have changed their thinking. Following the in-class component of this activity, students will complete a low stakes out-of-class writing assignment where they will evaluate where their own family stands in relation to national trends. This supplemental assignment will allow students to see that their individual experience may or may not be indicative of other families, while also allowing you, as their instructor, the opportunity to learn more about your students’ backgrounds. }, journal={TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology}, author={Harrington, Blair}, year={2015}, month={Sep.} }