This research explores how college students’ broader educational histories affect their decisions to plagiarize. While research typically categorizes plagiarism as intentional or unintentional, explanations revealed in interviews of first-generation, working-class, and/or racial minority students suggests that these typologies inadequately capture the complex reasons some students express for plagiarizing. Specifically, students in this study plagiarize primarily because they are concerned that not only are their vocabulary and writing skills subpar, but that they do not fit into the college student role. Their explanations are situated within Bourdieu’s framework of cultural capital, whereby students’ decisions to plagiarize are rooted in the outcomes stemming from educational practices that reinforce class hierarchies. Consequently, students’ plagiarism experiences are contextualized within their broader educational histories rather than limited to the immediate circumstances surrounding their academic dishonesty.

Scholarship on teaching undergraduates increasingly emphasizes the benefits of providing students with an active role in their education whereby instructors are more aptly described as facilitators of knowledge rather than merely providers of it. Additionally, recommendations from the American Sociological Association aimed specifically at the undergraduate sociology curriculum argue that students must engage as practitioners of sociology at each level of their program development. In short, undergraduates should do sociology—not just read or write sociology. Applying this recommendation to teaching statistics, I suggest organizing a course around a student-led research project in which students generate the topics, questions, and data that are then used to complete a substantive research paper. Students are given the opportunity to be actively engaged in all stages of the research and data-gathering process. Students also present their work in student roundtables, further legitimating their important contributions as researchers.

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