Now Is the Time to Add More Sociology of Climate Change to Our Introduction to Sociology Courses

Abstract

Sociology has been slow in responding to the challenge of climate change. In this conversation, we advocate adding more climate change content to Introduction to Sociology courses. To support our arguments, we present data from a content analysis of the top 11 best-selling introductory textbooks in the United States, demonstrating that environmental concerns are usually relegated to the end of books, which provide little (and sometime errant) content. Climate change gets even less attention, and there has been little change to textbook content over time. To correct such deficiencies, we suggest instructors free climate change from its current position as “a subfield of a subfield” and interweave the issue with all content areas in the curriculum. Our conversation concludes by considering how climate change can be featured in the curriculum of introductory courses as well as in the pedagogies presented at the introductory level.

Thoroughness in Explanation of Substructure-Superstructure Relations in Introductory Sociology Textbooks

“…The 11 top-selling introductory sociology textbooks in 2019 (Liu and Szasz 2019) were used to analyze the thoroughness of coverage of both Marx’s economic determinism and Weber’s ideological determinism in introductory sociology textbooks. We defined an introductory sociology textbook as a book that was written and intended to be used as the main teaching and learning resource in an introduction to sociology course, and only the latest edition of each book was included in this study.…”

“…We used the top-selling books (see Table 1) because they represented the most widely read introductory sociology textbooks and the most likely books to frame the discipline for students, especially online students and those whose only exposure to sociology would be the introductory course. Also, we adopted the list of 11 top-selling introductory sociology textbooks in Liu and Szasz (2019) for this study because the list was very recent (only a few months old) and was published in a reputable journal ( Teaching Sociology ), therefore nullifying any necessity for a newer list of top-selling books.…”

Leaving the Lectures Behind: Using Community-Engaged Learning in Research Methods Classes to Teach about Sustainability

“…Although collaborative research is a pinnacle of this study that we encourage other instructors to engage with, the sustainability component could be interchanged with other fields or areas of interest, such as public health, entrepreneurship or business, or education. With that being said, sustainability issues are arguably some of the most challenging and important issues of our time, and there is increased attention to the importance of incorporating such issues into social science and specifically sociology classes (Liu and Szasz 2019). In this study, students learned about sustainability issues in their community via guest lectures from local organizations.…”

Burying the Lead: Systematic Reluctance in the Coverage of Stratification Systems in Introductory Sociology Textbooks

“…In an attempt to produce a thorough sample of textbooks, I took several steps to select a sample of textbooks that would be as rigorous and exhaustive as possible. First, all 11 titles of bestselling textbooks analyzed by Liu and Szasz (2019) and adopted by Oyinlade, Christo, and Finch (2020) were included in this sample. Second, I checked for additional titles appearing on the bestseller list of sociology textbooks on Amazon.com (Carroll 2017).…”