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TRAILS Featured Resources
TRAILS Featured Resources
February 23, 2023

TRAILS, the Teaching Resources and Innovation Library for Sociology, provides a way for you to easily locate peer-reviewed teaching materials, showcase your teaching ideas, develop professionally, and join a community of scholarly teachers. You will find great assignments, syllabi, lectures, and other teaching ideas at TRAILS. Please also consider submitting your great ideas for teaching. The Featured Resources include some of the newest additions to our collection.

-Stephanie Medley-Rath
TRAILS Lead Editor

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Joanna S Hunter
Flash Data Collection and Analysis: A First Day Activity
June 8, 2018
Subject Area(s):
Introduction to Sociology/Social Problems
Resource Type(s):
Class Activity
Class Level(s):
College 100
Class Size(s):
Any
Abstract:
This first day activity for an introductory class is designed to introduce students to the discipline of sociology, particularly its research methods. Students engage in "flash data collection" by quickly filling out a card about a classmate and collecting data on...
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Kenneth Chen, Gowoon Jung
Migration Consultant Activity and Lecture
June 6, 2018
Subject Area(s):
Migration/Immigration
Resource Type(s):
Class Activity
Class Level(s):
College 300
Class Size(s):
Small
Abstract:
These lecture and group activities introduce students to theories of international migration, and ways to apply theories to social problems. They will allow students to understand the motivations, which cause people to migrate, the processes through which they make a...
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Philip Schwadel
Global Religious Diversity
June 6, 2018
Subject Area(s):
Religion
Resource Type(s):
Syllabus
Class Level(s):
College 300
Class Size(s):
Small
Abstract:
Global Religious Diversity is an online course for upper-division undergraduate students. It is not required but it does count toward the Sociology major and minor. My goal was to create a course that focuses on interactions between people and groups from different...
Cover Page Requires Subscription DOCX
Karam Hwang
Using The Office to Teach Goffman
April 18, 2018
Subject Area(s):
Theory
Resource Type(s):
Class Activity, Video
Class Level(s):
College 100
Class Size(s):
Any
Abstract:
Erving Goffman’s theories of symbolic interaction have the potential to appeal to students due to their immediate applicability to dissect everyday social interaction. However, contemporary students may find his writing to be less than straightforward and his...
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Tal Peretz
Feminist History in Waves Activity
April 17, 2018
Subject Area(s):
Collective Behavior/Social Movements
Resource Type(s):
Class Activity
Class Level(s):
Any Level
Class Size(s):
Medium
Abstract:
In this activity, students research and share moments of women’s history, create a timeline on the board, then work together to draw patterns out of the historical timeline, performing a basic version of historiograpy. By laying out a thorough, if haphazard, history...
Cover Page Requires Subscription DOCX
Alanna Gillis
School Choice and Inequality: Choosing Schools Activity
April 12, 2018
Subject Area(s):
Education
Resource Type(s):
Class Activity
Class Level(s):
Any Level
Class Size(s):
Any
Abstract:
This in-class activity is designed to illustrate how school choice (i.e. charter schools and private schools) contribute to the growing inequality of schools by social class and race. In this activity, students are split into groups and are given a family profile...
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Amy Baumann Grau
Relativity of Deviance
April 8, 2018
Subject Area(s):
Deviant Behavior/Social Disorganization
Resource Type(s):
Class Activity
Class Level(s):
Any Level
Class Size(s):
Any
Abstract:
A group based activity that challenges students to think about the relativity or degrees of deviance through manipulation of the context in which the deviance occurs. Students are exposed to many examples of the concept of the relativity of deviance and thus reflect...
Cover Page Requires Subscription DOCX
Alexandra Hendley
Home and Society Syllabus
March 12, 2018
Subject Area(s):
Work and Labor Markets
Resource Type(s):
Syllabus
Class Level(s):
Any Level
Class Size(s):
Any
Abstract:
The course draws primarily from scholarship on the sociology of gender, work, family, and culture, focusing on research and theory concerning "home" (whether or not it is where one resides) and the "private" or "domestic" sphere. Particular attention is given to...
Cover Page Requires Subscription PDF
May Takeuchi, Alexander Takeuchi
Pizza Statistics
March 9, 2018
Subject Area(s):
Statistics
Resource Type(s):
Assignment
Class Level(s):
College 200
Class Size(s):
Any
Abstract:
Teaching materials on quantitative analysis are often stereotyped as "dry," "boring," "difficult" or even "intimidating" by some undergraduate students. To make entry level descriptive statistics more approachable to those students, this assignment uses...
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Rena Zito
"Why Don't They Just Leave?": An Immersive Role-Playing Activity on Intimate Partner Violence
March 9, 2018
Subject Area(s):
Family
Resource Type(s):
Class Activity
Class Level(s):
Any Level
Class Size(s):
Medium
Abstract:
This in-class activity requires students to take on the role of an individual making decisions about whether to stay or leave an abusive relationship. It is designed to demonstrate the constrained choices that complicate leaving decisions, thereby addressing a common...
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