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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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Kristen M. Schorpp
Debate: The Medicalization of Childhood Psychiatric Illness
September 19, 2017
Subject Area(s):
Medical Sociology
Resource Type(s):
Class Activity
Class Level(s):
Any Level
Class Size(s):
Any
Abstract:
Medicalization is the process by which human problems or experiences become defined as medical problems with medical solutions. The goal of this in-class activity is to enable students to apply and evaluate a contemporary example of medicalization to better...
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Stephanie Medley-Rath
Seeing Sociology v. 2 (Updated 2017)
August 29, 2017
Subject Area(s):
Introduction to Sociology/Social Problems
Resource Type(s):
Assignment
Class Level(s):
Any Level
Class Size(s):
Any
Abstract:
This is an updated and revised version of Seeing Sociology (Medley-Rath 2013). In this update, I have revised the instructions so that they are better organized with greater clarification to increase ease of use by instructors and students. In this update, I have...
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Colby King
Subsidies, Uneven Development, and the Race to the Bottom
August 28, 2017
Subject Area(s):
Urban Sociology
Resource Type(s):
Assignment, Audio, Class Activity, Lecture, PowerPoint, Website
Class Level(s):
College 200
Class Size(s):
Any
Abstract:
Through this set of materials students listen to an engaging interview about detailed reporting on local subsidies and explore an interactive map revealing local subsidy policies. The materials include a lecture outline for teaching these concepts with reference to...
Cover Page Requires Subscription DOCX Requires Subscription PPTX
Marcia Ghidina
Using Ma Vie en Rose to Teach about Gender Norms and Socialization
August 28, 2017
Subject Area(s):
Socialization
Resource Type(s):
Assignment
Class Level(s):
College 100
Class Size(s):
Small
Abstract:
Ma Vie en Rose is a 1997 French language film with English subtitles. This relatively light and kind-hearted film sympathetically tells the story of Ludovic/Ludo who was born a boy but identifies and wishes to be regarded as a girl. Her parents are accommodating at...
Cover Page Requires Subscription DOCX
Erin K Anderson
A Quest for Culture in the Campus Community
August 23, 2017
Subject Area(s):
Social Psychology
Resource Type(s):
Assignment
Class Level(s):
Any Level
Class Size(s):
Any
Abstract:
This paper has been used in a Social Psychology course to help students understand the concept of idioculture, a group culture with shared knowledge, beliefs, sentiments, and behaviors. After a class discussion on symbolism as a necessary component of interaction,...
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Erin K Anderson
Presentation of the Profile Self
August 23, 2017
Subject Area(s):
Social Psychology
Resource Type(s):
Assignment
Class Level(s):
Any Level
Class Size(s):
Any
Abstract:
This paper has been used in a Social Psychology course during the period of discussion on presentation of self and impression management. Using the free online program Photofeeler (photofeeler.com), students are able to post profile pictures of themselves for...
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Lauren McClain
Exploring Gender, Relationships, Parenthood, and Poverty in the Inner City Utilizing the Work of Kathryn Edin
August 3, 2017
Subject Area(s):
Family
Resource Type(s):
Class Activity
Class Level(s):
Any Level
Class Size(s):
Any
Abstract:
Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood before Marriage and Doing the Best I Can: Fatherhood in the Inner City, by Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas and Timothy J. Nelson, respectively, are excellent portrayals of young women’s and men’s lives. These texts...
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Nik Janos
Using infographics to learn and communicate about global problems
June 2, 2017
Subject Area(s):
Development
Resource Type(s):
Assignment
Class Level(s):
College 300
Class Size(s):
Medium
Abstract:
Research papers have long been a staple of upper division sociology courses; however, this assignment combines sociological research with the creation and dissemination of a sociological infographic. An infographic is generally defined as data visualization with an...
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David Diego Delgado
Examples of Capital in Social Media
May 11, 2017
Subject Area(s):
Introduction to Sociology/Social Problems
Resource Type(s):
Class Activity
Class Level(s):
Any Level
Class Size(s):
Any
Abstract:
Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of reproduction involves an understanding of four types of capital: economic, cultural, social, and symbolic. This activity will promote students’ abilities to recognize these forms of capital, distinguish between them, and understand how...
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Jack Edwin Niemonen
Sociology 312 History of Sociology Syllabus (Contributions to the Discipline of the "Voices" from Below)
May 11, 2017
Subject Area(s):
History of Sociology/Social Thought
Resource Type(s):
Syllabus
Class Level(s):
College 300
Class Size(s):
Small
Abstract:
This course is taught as a history of black sociology—giving "voice" to neglected thinkers and offering a different perspective on icons such as Martin Luther King, Jr. In other words, it examines the viewpoints of black theorists and activists, and it explains how...
Cover Page Requires Subscription PDF

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