Teaching Social Theory through Students' Participant-Observation

Silver, Ira; Pérez, Gina M.

doi:10.2307/1318774

Cited by 19 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Because they are unable to immediately see the relevance of theory to their own individual life experiences, they avoid reading it, working with it, or learning about it (Silver and Perez 1998; see also Lofland 1996). Students resist grappling with theory and often postpone taking theory courses until they become unavoidable (Segady 1990).…”

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confidence: 99%

Teaching Sociological Theory Through Active Learning: The Irrigation Exercise

Holtzman

2005

Teach Sociol

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confidence: 99%

Teaching Sociological Theory Through Active Learning: The Irrigation Exercise

Holtzman

2005

Teach Sociol

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“…From our point of view, participant observation is a suitable method for acquiring sensual impressions of political processes (for a general discussion in political science, see Fenno , ; Schöne ; Behnke, Baur, and Behnke :247–269) . While its usefulness as a research method is increasingly acknowledged in political science (for example, Gillespie and Michelson ), it has also been implemented in specific course settings as a means of experiential learning (Beamer ; Silver and Perez ). We utilized participant observation as a teaching method through which the students in our course on transnationalization could acquire sensual impressions of how transnational dynamics shape domestic politics.…”

Section: The Learning Objective: Making Transnationalization Tangiblementioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching the Transnationalization of Politics: Participant Observation of Public Events

Eimer

Kranke

2014

Int Stud Perspect

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Most university courses on transnationalization encourage students to learn about the facets of the phenomenon only from selected readings. This article suggests using participant observation of public events as a complementary didactic means to reduce students' experiential distance from transnational politics. In a master‐level course at the Freie Universität Berlin in the 2011 Summer term, our students undertook one day of fieldwork in the German capital on May 1, the International Workers' Day. The unusual design of our course allowed them to relate cognitive insights into transnationalization to affective, though methodologically informed, field experiences. There is thus significant didactic potential in designing courses with opportunities for experiential learning in the field.

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“…I read a number of articles on teaching theory, most of which emphasize the challenges of helping students overcome "theory anxiety" and appreciate the usefulness of such an abstract field for pursuing their interests in sociology (Ahlkvist 2001;Holtzman 2005;Lowney 1998;Silver and Perez 1998). Lowney (1998:69) referred to frequent student comments that "the course is 'hard' or 'abstract' and 'is a lot of work'" and suggested that students come into the class from previous courses with little real understanding of theory and its importance.…”

Section: Teaching Notementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lowney (1998:69) referred to frequent student comments that "the course is 'hard' or 'abstract' and 'is a lot of work'" and suggested that students come into the class from previous courses with little real understanding of theory and its importance. Silver and Perez (1998) suggested that students' understanding of theory and their appreciation of its value is deepened by the application of theory to participant-observation experiences.…”

Section: Teaching Notementioning

confidence: 99%

Collaborative Learning in an Undergraduate Theory Course

McDuff

2012

Teach Sociol

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This project was designed to assess whether a collaborative learning approach to teaching sociological theory would be a successful means of improving student engagement in learning theory and of increasing both the depth of students' understanding of theoretical arguments and concepts and the ability of students to theorize for themselves. A comparison of students' comments, reflections, and evaluations in the traditional and collaborative learning classes showed a substantial increase in student engagement and interest in social theory in the collaborative learning class, and an analysis of students' applied and reflective papers showed improvement in understanding of theoretical concepts and ability to apply theory to social issues and problems.

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Teaching Social Theory through Students' Participant-Observation

Cited by 19 publications

References 7 publications

Teaching Sociological Theory Through Active Learning: The Irrigation Exercise

Teaching Sociological Theory Through Active Learning: The Irrigation Exercise

Teaching the Transnationalization of Politics: Participant Observation of Public Events

Collaborative Learning in an Undergraduate Theory Course

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