The Sociological Imagination within Teaching Sociology: 1973–2020

Abstract

The sociological imagination is widely considered essential to sociology and sociological scholarship-of-teaching-and-learning research. Still, sociologists have struggled to agree on precisely what it is and how to measure its development effectively. A content analysis of every article published in Teaching Sociology was conducted examining where the sociological imagination appeared in the journal, where authors claimed to develop students’ sociological imagination, and the methodological sophistication of the evidence they provided to substantiate those claims. Analysis confirms the importance of the sociological imagination, appearing in a fourth of all published articles and nearly half of the articles published between 2010 and 2020. Just over a fourth of claims-making authors provided no evidence to validate their claims, and the frequency of making unsubstantiated claims persists even as the methodological rigor of the journal overall increased. Among the studies that provided evidence, however, the methodological sophistication appears to be increasing.

Understanding the Individual in Context: Socioeconomic Inequality in College Students’ Perspectives

“…Despite the omnipresence of these learning objectives, scholars have struggled to assess the degree to which college students develop such perspectives. When scholarly consideration of these goals is found, it often focuses on teaching strategies, rather than empirical evaluations of student outcomes (Palmer 2023; Rousseau 2020). In cases where evidence of the perspectives that students develop is examined, these assessments are typically confined to a single classroom or a single teaching intervention, rather than examination of the impact of higher education more broadly (Palmer 2023).…”

“…When scholarly consideration of these goals is found, it often focuses on teaching strategies, rather than empirical evaluations of student outcomes (Palmer 2023; Rousseau 2020). In cases where evidence of the perspectives that students develop is examined, these assessments are typically confined to a single classroom or a single teaching intervention, rather than examination of the impact of higher education more broadly (Palmer 2023). The present study attempts to address this gap in the literature.…”

“…Such learning objectives are often integral to general education requirements (Aldegether 2017), major- or discipline-specific programs of study like sociology, history, communications, and political science (Arum, Roksa, and Cook 2016), and even to the goals articulated by the student affairs profession for learning beyond the classroom (Evans et al 2009). While scholars have written a great deal about best practices for facilitating these forms of awareness (Ghidina 2019; Trautner and Borland 2013), to date we know little about whether college students actually develop understandings of the interconnections between individual experiences and social, historical, or political contexts (Palmer 2023).…”

Postdigital Imaginations as Emancipatory Practices

“…Imagination has never entered the mainstream of social sciences. Nevertheless, it has been used as a methodological tool in different fields including sociology (Atkins and Grant 2022;Fuist 2021;Nasu 2014;Palmer 2023;Willis 2000), anthropology (Atkinson 1990;Rohrer and Thompson 2023), and social work (Barnetz 2015). The Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch's The Principle of Hope (1959Hope ( /1986) has sparked considerable interest among critical social scientists, making a 'dramatic contrast to the Frankfurters' autopsy of the self-destroying Enlightenment' and connecting utopian imagination to educated hope (see Therborn 2024).…”

Sociology for Beginners

“…In particular, questions about the rigor of claims for the benefits of a particular way of teaching concepts and ideas based on very thin evidentiary foundations have been raised. In a recent systematic review of the journal, covering published work through 2020, Palmer (2022) shows that in spite of this history, most articles continue to report results based on severely limited outcome measures (such as student self-reports), frequently without random assignment into test conditions, and very few provide tests of actual learning. Reliability is virtually never considered; Palmer (2022, p. 8) observes that 93% of articles report findings from a single site test application.…”