Community-Initiated Student-Engaged Research: Expanding Undergraduate Teaching and Learning through Public Sociology

Abstract

Drawing on a multiyear local research project on the affordable housing crisis, this article outlines a pedagogical approach we call Community-Initiated Student-Engaged Research, or CISER. The CISER model brings together three key groups of actors—undergraduate students, university researchers, and community organizations—drawing on and extending the powers of cooperative “dyads” between them. This model aims to improve pedagogical and sociological practice by constituting undergraduate students as both knowledge producers and an active public while at the same time creating meaningful partnerships between university researchers and community-based organizations. Based on assessments of the program from the vantage points of all three groups, our findings indicate that CISER is a powerful pedagogical tool and mode of community-engaged scholarship and that it offers both challenges and rewards to the involved students, faculty, and community organizations.

Advancing Publicly Engaged Sociology1

“…Change How Publicly Engaged Sociology Factors into Assessments in Tenure, Promotion, Teaching, and Service Publicly engaged sociology could be better recognized, promoted, and supported in sociology through changes in how tenure, promotion, teaching, and service are assessed and rewarded (ASA 2005(ASA , 2007(ASA , 2016Gans 2009). In addition to creating a curriculum for public sociology, public sociology classes that involve substantive engagement with external organizations or actors by professors and/or students should be awarded extra teaching and course credit, like hard sciences laboratory classes, to recognize the required extra work (Greenberg et al 2020) UCLA and UC Berkeley promote themselves as publicly engaged universities and have taken steps toward engagement, but institutional practices discouraging publicly engaged research persist (Ozer 2021). UCLA treats policy reports or publications as non-peer-reviewed research, and public work not producing a permanent product (website, new program design) as service (Staub and Maharramli 2021).…”

Toward a Du Boisian paradigm of family science

“…With over 500 students and several local partners participating in their student‐engaged and community‐initiated projects, the authors suggest they ask the following questions as guides: “what do you know (based on experience) that you can't ‘prove,’ and what do you need to know to do your work better?” (Greenberg et al, 2019, p. 60). Importantly, the CISER model recognizes community organizations and “students themselves [as] owners and creators of knowledge that add to both the quality of sociological research and their educational experiences” (Greenberg et al, 2020, p. 25). By incorporating students and developing community‐engaged research approaches to public sociology, the CISER model provides an avenue to address concerns regarding merit reviews and faculty evaluations, particularly reviews and evaluations that favor theory‐building and scholarship over community engagement at research universities (Greenberg et al, 2020).…”

“…Importantly, the CISER model recognizes community organizations and “students themselves [as] owners and creators of knowledge that add to both the quality of sociological research and their educational experiences” (Greenberg et al, 2020, p. 25). By incorporating students and developing community‐engaged research approaches to public sociology, the CISER model provides an avenue to address concerns regarding merit reviews and faculty evaluations, particularly reviews and evaluations that favor theory‐building and scholarship over community engagement at research universities (Greenberg et al, 2020).…”

Associate Degree Sociology Education in Hong Kong: An Exploratory Study Based on Student Focus Groups

“…Meanwhile, pedagogical innovation that enhances students' active learning has, in fact, been considered essential in sociology education (Pike et al 2017). Recent research in sociology education has well documented the significance of active learning in enhancing students' learning (Bartholomay 2017;Greenberg, London, and McKay 2020;Mayer et al 2019;McKinney 2007). The conventional pattern of teaching and learning typically emphasizes the lecturer's central role while underplaying the students' role.…”