(TEA1) Integrative Pedagogies: Teaching Sensitive Topics and Open Pedagogy

In a world increasingly marked by polarization, hostility, and hate, the role of educators in higher education institutions cannot be understated. In the field of Sociology, the task is particularly challenging since real-time events often interweave with the narratives we teach. This proposed round table “Integrative Pedagogies: Teaching Sensitive Topics and Open Pedagogy,” seeks to address these concerns. Sociology educators often grapple with the dilemma of integrating and discussing sensitive, timely, and sometimes controversial issues, which may pop-up well after their curriculum and lessons have been planned. If mishandled, these topics can inadvertently fuel biases, misinformation, and exacerbate hate. However, with an informed pedagogical framework, these very same topics can become pivotal for instilling empathy, understanding, and informed action. Likewise, by facilitating knowledge sharing and delegating responsibilities to students for sourcing and incorporating lived experiences, open pedagogy fosters solidarity, social justice mobilization, equity, diversity and inclusion, accessibility. This session brings educators in Sociology (and other related disciplines) together to share best practices, frameworks, and experiences of informed and open pedagogies. All done with the objective of, not only to educate, but also to counteract divisive narratives and promote empathetic understanding amongst those we strive to teach. The discussions will centre on balancing "real world" relevance with academic rigour, the need to instill critical thinking, and the importance of fostering inclusive and supportive classroom environments. The role educators play in challenging hate and promoting understanding is relevant in embracing the complexities of the contemporary sociopolitical landscape. Mitigating hate fuelled perceptions of the "other," has always been central to Sociological pedagogical practices. This session addresses some of these challenges, by fortifying educators’ role in challenging hate and promoting nuanced empathetic understandings in the face of contemporary and emerging issues within today's, and tomorrow's sociopolitical landscape. The educator's role is crucial for influencing societal narratives and challenging hate filled narratives. Tags: Education, Networks, Teaching

Organizers: Dara Vosoughi, University of Windsor, Oral Robinson, University of British Columbia; Chairs: Dara Vosoughi, University of Windsor, Oral Robinson, University of British Columbia

Presentations

Sarah Yercich, Capilano University; Connor MacMillan, York University

Socio-ME-ology: How un-essay assignments aid in students' explorations of sociology and self

Un-essay projects are an innovative approach to engaging learners in sociological exploration. This presentation explores an un-essay assignment, Socio-ME-ology , which is used in Introduction to Sociology courses as a means through which students make sense of the relationship between sociology and self. The Socio-ME-ology project supports learners’ engagement with their sociological imaginations to unpack their lived experiences through the lens of socio-structural concepts. This project challenges the boundaries of traditional academic expression and assessment by allowing students to choose their own medium(s) for conveying their “sociology of self” including, but not limited to, photography, film, art, music, poetry, storytelling, and performance; that is, anything other than an academic essay. The primary objective of the Socio-ME-ology un-essay project is not conformity but authenticity, emphasizing the compelling and meaningful connection between personal experiences and sociological ways of seeing and knowing. By dismantling the traditional rules of essay writing and conventional knowledge translation, students are encouraged to craft narratives that resonate with their lived realities. This presentation will delve into the transformative power of un-essays, shedding light on how they empower learners to reclaim their voices, untethered by the constraints of conventional academic ways of knowing. Attendees will share in the exploration of a diverse array of un-essay projects, each a manifestation of learners’ distinctive sociological perspectives. Through these creative expressions, we hope to engage the audience in reflective conversations on the intersection of personal narratives and sociological understanding, as well as the importance of alternate ways of learning and demonstrating knowledge in higher education.

Rohil Sharma, University of British Columbia; Oral Robinson, University of British Columbia

From awareness to action: emotional reflection as a pathway to social agency

As higher education continues to blend theory and practice, fostering not only academic excellence but also social responsibility is an important curricular competency. Social responsibility emphasizes the ethical and moral obligations that individuals, organizations, and institutions have toward broader society. It is a reflective process that constitutes recognizing the impact of ones actions on the social fabric and actively contributing to the well-being of a community and its members. As a cornerstone of this process, emotional reflection emerges as a central tenet for students’ development of emotional intelligence and self-awareness. Sociological literature regards emotions as socially constructed phenomena shaped by cultural norms and interactions (Averill, 1980; Harré, 1986; Hochschild, 1983; Lutz, 1988; Ratner, 1989). As individuals engage with their emotions, they are able to interpret their subjective experiences and contextualize these experiences in proximate social landscapes. However, the symbiotic relationship between emotional reflection and social agency is under-emphasized in existing research. As such, this presentation seeks to emphasize the transformative potential of emotional reflection in the classroom. Based on a survey (n=209) and qualitative analyses of memo forms deployed throughout three terms of an introductory sociology course, we examine how emotional reflection can serve as a pathway to empowering students’ social responsibility and fostering their social agency. Through pedagogical activities (such as prompted emotive writing, free-form journaling, and open dialogues between students) centered around students’ emotional resonance to topics in the course, we found emotional reflection to support students’ ability to recognize and interpret social injustices and understand their relationality to systems of oppression. On an individual level, this gave students a clarified understanding of their own values, ethical principles, and positionalities. Through articulating their emotions, students were able to channel their reflections into actionable steps to combat injustices and challenge systems of oppression. Upon sharing these reflections with their peers, students were able to empathize with a diversity of perspectives, foster a deeper understanding of how the same social contexts enact disparities between groups, and develop solidarity by observing the social axes and experiences that they had in common. We observe how this emotional exchange between students functioned as a constructive dialogue centering their ways of knowing, which strengthened their morale for enacting social change. This presentation points to the need for more emotional dialogue in higher education and emphasizes its integral role in nurturing the social agency of students. By encouraging students to center their emotions in their learning, educators can cultivate a more holistic and inclusive learning environment that serves as an incubator for socially conscious decision-making and community engagement. We suggest that educators provide varied and overt opportunities for students to articulate and share their emotional experiences in relation to course content; this would help instill a practical and humanistic understanding of social issues that transcends the potentially abstract nature of theory-based learning. More broadly, we call for a paradigm shift in educational philosophy that acknowledges an inextricability between emotional reflection and social agency. By appealing to the emotional intelligence and self-awareness of students, educators can help shape individuals into effective social actors in the contemporary world. 

Elliot Fonarev, University of Toronto

Dialogic pedagogies for softening digital and epistemic divides in morally heightened times

Since October 2023, diasporic politics around Israeli and Palestinian nationalisms (Shafir, 1996) have been reinvigorated over social media platforms such as Instagram and Tiktok. Digital media is a key site of collective construction of diasporic identity through online discourses and knowledge sharing about identity, peoplehood, and ‘homeland’ politics (Féron and Voytiv, 2021; Shams, 2020). Moreover, media on exogenous geopolitical events can siphon attention to other places and reshape migrant identity formations in connection to ‘homeland’ constructs and ‘present-place’ experiences of belonging (Shams, 2020). As part of a broader research project on Jewish boundary-making practices, I explore how knowledge construction around Jewish identity and experience is being encoded in the digital domain, examining the works of Jewish-identified cultural interlocutors who promote either ‘pro-Israel’ or ‘pro-Palestine’ positions through social media content and their claims and rebukes in competing boundary constructions around identity, belonging, and “sense of place” (Bourdieu 1977). Prior sociological research has documented the growing complexity of diasporic allegiances between young Jewish North Americans and Israel (Cohen and Kelman, 2010; Sasson, 2010; Schneider, 2020; Waxman, 2017). These scholars examines changing diaspora-homeland relationships and debate whether recent trends suggesting that younger generations have more critical stances towards the policies of Israel indicate alienation or deeper connection to Jewish identity. This highlights how transnational translations of knowledge and politics over digital media influences diasporic understandings of peoplehood and identity and how such claims-making may be used to build moments of ontological stability in a time of affective distress. In this presentation, I draw on critical and trauma-informed pedagogical approaches, professional mentoring practice, and community workshop facilitation experiences to identify strategies to sustain critical thinking practices and inclusive classroom climates that support diverse students around issues that engage identity across differences in power and culture. Drawing on dialogic approaches to tough conversations, I consider how educators can play a role in fostering inclusive classrooms and care to de-escalate fears and tensions around contentious politics.

Alexander Painter, University of Windsor

Greening Hegemonic Scholarship: Legitimizing Ordinary Knowledges with Environmentalist Humility

Contemporary Social Movement Scholarship has been charged with not aptly attending to methodological nationalisms and anthropocentric, hegemonic values embedded in sociological methods. Abstraction between social actors and scholars has been pointed to as a major issue in the development of counter- hegemonic pedagogy. Critiques call for researchers to consider: 1) trends in treating non- academic knowledge as ‘lower status,’ 2) tendencies for formal theory to insufficiently challenge hegemonic categorizations of out-groups, 3) ‘humanist’ approaches thatcounterintuitively disparage ‘different ways of seeing’ social issues, 4) the modern researcher’s undervaluation of causes and rationale for social action, and 5) societal influences in the construction of out-group categories and stereotypes. In this paper, I will reflect on the work of Edward Relph, who proposed that we approach the development and transformation of Earth with an ‘environmental humility,’ or a deliberate respect for the inherent virtues of places and things. In this reflection, I advocate for an ‘environmentalist humility’ wherein the scholar seeks to challenge both academic and societally-normative hegemonic standard ways of studying and framing environmental activism.

Addison Kornel, University of Guelph

Bridging the Gap Between Online and In-Class Discourses on Sensitive Topics

In the online sphere students can become exposed to political debates and, occasionally, hate speech. However, if students choose, they are able to engage with this content using a degree of inter-passivity. That is, they may engage vicariously in controversial topics through others by virtue of the online spectator position. However, my position is that classroom discussion must take the opposite tact. Students are taught early on in sociology that their perspective holds weight. Rather than leaning on the mechanics of online discussions in the real world (i.e., the spectator stance), students ought to be up-skilled to articulate their position on controversial topics respectfully and fully. The classroom, I will argue, is a bridge by which this shift may be hastened, provided it is the intention of the instructor to encourage such behavior. I will discuss the need to bridge inter-passive online communication to productive in-class discussions on topics that are highly sensitive. Identifying the need for this transition, I believe, is a positive step towards informed pedagogy, whereby a discourse of polarizing content can flourish in a controlled and productive manner.