Rejoinder to Perspectivity and the Activist Potential of the Sociology Classroom

Abstract

When this article appeared nearly 20 years ago, Patricia Hill Collins became one of the first in sociology to adapt the emerging critical pedagogy literature to the discipline. It is also fitting that it was published in Humanity and Society, the official journal of the Association for Humanist Sociology, because the organization was also an early leader in addressing critical pedagogy.This article is a timeless reminder of something that humanist teachers know; incorporating humanistic principles in our classrooms can help empower students as learners and as social agents, but that it is not without its costs. Alfred McClung Lee (1973), one of the founders of the Association for Humanist Sociology, contended that sociology should help people realize that action and change are not only possible, but desirable. Lee's concern is apparent in Patricia Hill Collins' discussion of "perspectivity" in the teaching and learning process. By perspectivity, she means "one's angle of vision or stance" (1987, p. 343). Perspectivity is a holistic way of knowing that is shaped by the personal biography of each actor, "the cultural context formed by those experiences, thoughts, statuses, roles and ideas that are shared with other members of a group and that give meaning to individual biographies" and by the training provided by socializing institutions that "exposes individuals ideas, knowledge, and angles of vision that go beyond an individual's experienced personal reality" (p. 343). For Hill Collins, an effective social actor understands and uses her or his individual, group, and disciplinary ways of knowing, while seeing the strengths and limitations of each. Thus, she concludes that "using one's perspectivity, engaging one's sociological imagination, can empower the individual" (p. 344).When we bring perspectivity into the classroom we disrupt its traditional hierarchical structure and students' expectations of how they should be taught. However, we also provide a climate that empowers students and creates the potential for activism. Hill Collins' argument for perspectivity is particularly important today when many authors emphasize students' passive enjoyment of technological razzle dazzle over thinking about and actively "trying on" new ideas for themselves. Indeed much of the literature published in the 1990s focused on how to convince faculty to adopt new technology in their classrooms, how to configure new technology, how to train faculty (especially