Abstract
This article offers an innovative way to teach an introductory sociology course by taking seriously C. Wright Mills’s dictum that the sociological imagination can be found at the nexus of history and biography. Indeed, introductory sociological concepts can be taught using a biography as the central text. To illustrate the idea, I describe my experience teaching a course titled “The Sociological Imagination” in which students read The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley over the course of the semester. The book is well adapted to a sociology course because the chapters each seem to engage a different social institution. By tracking the life of Malcolm X, students can learn about and discuss race, class, gender, urban life, criminal justice, religion, social movements, media, sports, transnationalism, and more. By multiple evaluative mechanisms, the course was successful in sparking student interest, teaching sociological concepts, and conveying the sociological imagination.
People are always speculating – why am I as I am? To understand that of any person, his whole life, from birth, must be reviewed. All our experiences fuse into our personality. Everything that has ever happened to us is an ingredient. Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both.
The great American sociologist of the twentieth century, C. Wright Mills, wrote that the most important gift that the discipline could provide to the world is “the sociological imagination.” He described it as the intersection of history and biography. Essentially, the sociological imagination is a skill, or a habit of mind, that enables one to comprehend the connection between a single life story and the broad social forces to which that life story is bound. Sociology centers its attention on the patterns, trends, and tendencies that transcend the idiosyncrasies of each person’s life—their “personal troubles,” as Mills (1959) would say. But that does not mean that individuals are unimportant. Understanding broad social patterns is relevant precisely because they impact the lives of individuals. Helping individuals to see and comprehend those patterns can be empowering; no longer buffeted by forces they do not understand, people can identify what is happening and how it might be changed for the better. If that is the greatest gift that sociology provides, then how can that skill be effectively taught?
With this problem in mind, I set out to devise a new course whose central purpose would be to enhance the sociological imagination. I decided to take seriously Mills’s dictum that the sociological imagination can be found at the intersection of history and biography by building a sociology course around a biographical text, namely, The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley (X and Haley 1999). By delving deeply into the life of one person and drawing out examples to illustrate sociological theory, my intention was to make vivid and visible that which can be lost in more abstract, impersonal, and generalizable sociological knowledge. While doing so, I could also expand students’ knowledge about an important period of U.S. history and provide greater insight into the controversial figure that was Malcolm X.
Teaching Sociology with Alternative Texts
Given that the sociological imagination involves understanding the embeddedness of an individual life story in the societal context of its time, it makes logical sense to encourage students to practice this skill by applying sociological concepts to their own lives. Many sociology instructors include opportunities for personal reflection or assign autobiographical essays to help students develop their sociological imagination (e.g., Hoop 2009; Ingram 1979; Kebede 2009; Powers 1998). However, as Packard (2013) has shown, not all students believe that their own life stories readily apply to the content of sociology courses, especially if they come from privileged backgrounds. Another tactic that teachers frequently employ is using a collection of anecdotes from individual lives. Sometimes, these stories can be found in the side bars of introductory textbooks, or teachers will bring in stories from the news. Reading ethnographies can also help bring sociological concepts to life. However, there is another way to help students practice the sociological imagination—to collectively work to tie together general sociological knowledge to a single life story—and that is to assign a biography as a primary course text.
Over the last few decades, sociologists have been embracing the opportunity to reach beyond traditional scholarly texts to increase student interest and comprehension. The pages of Teaching Sociology are filled with examples of faculty who utilize artifacts of popular culture to demonstrate sociological thought. Examples of useful sociological television shows range from Lovecraft Country (Wyatt 2022) to The Simpsons (Scanlan and Feinberg 2000). Ahlkvist (2001) suggests using progressive rock to teach social theory. Novels can also be a source of inspiration for sociology (Hill 1987). Laz (2020) recommends teaching introductory sociology through the novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Others have explored podcasts as alternative reading assignments (e.g., Oslawski-Lopez and Kordsmeier 2021; Prince 2020). And a number of articles suggest utilizing popular music as a means to teach sociology (Ahlkvist 1999; Albers and Bach 2003; Martinez 1994). And film, especially, is often employed to enhance the sociological imagination, often portraying the everyday lives of different cultures (Anwary 2003; Pescosolido 1990; Prendergast 1986; Valdez and Halley 1999).
What has not yet been explored in the pages of Teaching Sociology is the use of biography as a central text for building an introductory sociology course. But with the right individual, such a text could work to bring diverse students together to collectively practice building a sociological imagination. By telling the same life story throughout the entire course, the biography becomes an anchor, grounding all these different sociological subfields into one story that the class can share. It provides the connective tissue that links all the diverse content of a sociology survey into a coherent whole.
Assigning a biography in a sociology course can seem risky; for a discipline built around rejecting n = 1, reading a biography could feel counterproductive. It could backfire, instilling in students a “great man” perspective rather than elucidating the importance of social forces in constructing a life. But this challenge is surmountable, and sociologists can model the sociological imagination in practice by leading students through the biography without themselves succumbing to hero worship. First and foremost, educators can model this approach by treating the central figure as a real person with multifaceted attributes—not an idol to be emulated. Additionally, instructors can draw on critical pedagogy (Fobes and Kaufman 2008), critical historiography (Stearns 2003), feminist pedagogy (hooks 2014), and feminist historiography (Ware 2010). These perspectives have long sought to decenter the charismatic men of history whose unique personal attributes were supposedly the reason behind their success and historical importance (Ward 2012). In fact, teaching the sociological imagination can itself work as a prophylactic measure against hero worship by persistently placing structure and agency side by side as co-constituting any historical figure. Even the most charismatic individuals are still shaped by and subject to broader social forces beyond their control. To steal a phrase: They make history but not as they please. 1
And although the “great man” risk is there, the potential reward is also substantial in the form of student engagement and understanding. Through biography, students can learn about important times and places in history while thinking through generalizable social theory. They can engage abstract concepts while remaining invested in the narrative of a compelling life story. In the remainder of this article, I describe how such a course can be built using as an example a course I recently taught focused on the life of Malcolm X. 2
Teaching Sociology Through the Life of Malcolm X
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (X and Haley 1999) as told to Alex Haley (hereafter referred to as the Autobiography) begins with a description of the Ku Klux Klan riding to Malcolm’s family home and threatening Malcolm’s mother while she was pregnant with him. The book’s descriptions of both violent and casual racism are powerful, and Malcolm’s attempts to carve out agency within a racist structure is poignant. The book is highly engaging; Malcolm X was a charismatic leader, and his powerful personality carries the book forward, encouraging student interest. But although students may be drawn into the book because of their interest in its protagonist, they will also be made to think about the society in which he lived and how it shaped his unique trajectory.
Although Malcolm X may be a fascinating and controversial figure, it is not simply his own charisma that renders his biography so well-suited to illustrating core concepts in sociology. Rather, it is the sheer number of social institutions that his life story engages. Malcolm is born in a close family that is broken up by the welfare state; he is a top-notch student who drops out of school, a small-town boy who moves to the big city, a worker and a criminal, a man called “Satan” who finds God, a man who fights for justice while remaining a deep misogynist, a movement organizer whose movement turns against him, and so much more.
All of these myriad social institutions and experiences can be found, rather sequentially, in The Autobiography of Malcolm X (X and Haley 1999). The book almost seems to have been structured to complement an introductory sociology course. Each chapter engages a distinct social institution—a different subfield of sociological knowledge. As shown in Table 1, the course I developed using this text moves by week through the book and through the following topics: race, education, class/status, urban life and work, crime and deviance, criminal justice/prisons, religion, social movements, gender, sexuality and the family, mass media and politics, sports and leisure, and globalization/transnationalism and culture. A survey of sociological subjects can be found, in succession, in the chapters of the book. However, in real life, a variety of social institutions concomitantly impress themselves on us. Although each chapter of the book privileges one or two social institutions in particular, a multiplicity are perpetually present in Malcolm’s life story. Rather than siloing sociological knowledge by subfield, the text allows students to spiral back, adding more richness to subjects already addressed. By following this one life story, teachers can demonstrate these intersections and in so doing, increase the depth of learning.
Weekly Topics, Readings, and How the Content of the Chapter Fits the Sociological Topic.
To give just one example of the kinds of sociological discussions that can be gleaned from the life of Malcolm X, I describe a few points from the week that dealt with gender and sexuality. Malcolm X was undoubtedly misogynist, and many students were disturbed by his comments on women in the book. But we were able to depersonalize his misogyny and use the text instead to unpack and illustrate sociological theories of sex and gender. For example, the Autobiography writes that “Islam has very strict laws and teachings about women, the core of them being that the true nature of man is to be strong, and a woman’s true nature is to be weak” (X and Haley 1999:230). But then Malcolm describes the classes that were offered every week at National of Islam (NOI) mosques, where in the Fruit of Islam (FOI), men were “learning to be men” and the M.G.T., or “Muslim Girls’ Training,” taught women how to be “a good Muslim sister and mother and wife” (X and Haley 1999:232). Far from being a “true nature,” the NOI constructed gender archetypes and had to actively teach them to its members—a clear example of gender ideology and gender socialization. The fact that these socialization experiences took place in a religious institution allows the class to connect back to previous discussions of the sociology of religion.
Meanwhile, Malcolm X’s disturbing comments about women can be leveraged to teach the idea of patriarchy. However, it was insufficient to simply raise awareness to the universal devaluation of the feminine in social status hierarchies; it was also necessary to explain why it matters and why patriarchy is critiqued. For this task, I was able to leverage Marable’s (2011) biography of Malcolm X, which portrays his marriage to Betty X as rocky. Marable suggests that one major source of marital strife was his wife’s sexual dissatisfaction. While acknowledging that we were entering into the realm of hypothetical—because we really could not say for sure what was going on in someone else’s marriage—we did have an interesting sociological conversation about how patriarchy could have contributed toward their strained sex life, or at least made it harder for the couple to address it, using findings from social scientific studies about gender equality and marriage quality. 3
But we did not end the class with patriarchy. I reminded the class that at Malcolm X’s funeral, the actor Ossie Davis said, “Malcolm was our manhood – our living, Black manhood!” Davis’s statement was powerful, and it resonated with them. They all agreed that saying Malcolm was “our manhood” was not the same as saying that he was “our personhood.” Interrogating this statement allowed the class to move beyond patriarchy and consider the notion of masculinity as a social construction that does not require domination (e.g., Brandth and Kvande 2018; Martín and Santaulària 2023). Students who had been quick to conflate masculinity only with its so-called “toxic” attributes, including those who had previously expressed their desire for the elimination of gender categories entirely, now found themselves unwilling to let go of gender and what it could mean in the context of Davis’ quote. That discussion helped students better contextualize the role that gender plays in society from a symbolic interactionist perspective—to better understand its “stickiness” as an idea despite the harms it has been known to cause.
Although I bring these examples from the one week when we discussed gender, similarly rich conversations took place every week on other topics as well, all made possible by the bountiful source material we tackled in The Autobiography of Malcolm X (X and Haley 1999).
Mediated Representation in Malcolm X
Importantly, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (X and Haley 1999) is not the work of historians. It cannot be said to be an historically accurate representation of the past. Neither is it even an autobiography in the truest sense of the word. The journalist Alex Haley compiled the book from his notes during interviews with Malcolm X. Although the potential inaccuracy of the book could be considered a detriment, it can also enrich the course beyond what a historical biography might offer as long as this problem is confronted openly and directly for the purpose of deepening student understanding.
The mediated quality of the text allows the class to engage in critically important conversations about the nature of knowledge. Narrative as a representation of the truth cannot be conflated with the truth as it was, and the Autobiography enables students to apprehend the multilayered nature of narrative and interpretation. Malcolm X clearly told his story with an agenda in mind. Moreover, his agenda changed in the course of telling his life story because the interviews transpired over time and across the period of his break from Elijah Muhammed.
Alex Haley had his own politics and values, much more liberal and conservative than Malcolm’s. 4 He also had his own story to tell, which impacted his choices as he compiled Malcolm’s words and portrayed them to the public. Haley’s editorial efforts take us another step away from the actual historical past. In more recent years, historians have worked to uncover facts from history and test the credibility of both Malcom X and Alex Haley’s portrayals—and they have found both wanting. So historians, using rigorous methods for uncovering the past, tell us still another version; but it, too, is a representation. Marable (2011), Payne and Payne (2020), and other chroniclers of Malcolm X’s life each focus on different aspects of the story in the telling, reflecting their own interests in the choices they make. 5 And historians may critique one another’s interpretation of the evidence. Knowledge is a field, and no one artifact can be taken uncritically as the ultimate authority. During the discussion, students expressed their appreciation for the opportunity to reflect on the mediated and representational nature of the course material. I noticed that even later in the semester, students would sometimes question what Malcolm or Haley’s intention might have been in certain passages in the book, which suggested to me that they were not coming at the text naively or uncritically.
It was important to me to temper students’ expectations at the beginning of the semester regarding the full accuracy of The Autobiography because I decided not to assign any additional texts on Malcolm X. It was, fundamentally, a sociology course, not a history course, nor did I wish it to be interpreted as “The Sociology of Malcolm X.” His life may have anchored the class, but it was not the whole show. To make up for the inaccuracies in The Autobiography, I read several recent biographies myself and brought the information they offered to bear on chapters in question when warranted. Some of this information—such as Marable’s (2011) finding that the character “Rudy” in the Autobiography was probably Malcolm himself—is sufficiently important for understanding and analyzing Malcolm X’s life that it would be remiss for an instructor not to read and reference supplementary materials.
I also found that bringing historical materials into the discussion helped mitigate the potential for students to take a “great man” approach to the life story. Although Malcolm X was an impressive person (and easily enables a discussion about the sociological concept of charisma), I found that bringing historical information to bear humanized him and grounded students in a past that now seems distant.
At the end of the day, I also think that the Autobiography is itself a humanizing document. Malcolm X was an impressive individual, but his flaws are also apparent—especially to a modern audience. In general, my students were very disturbed by his comments on women and Jews. But using these comments to discuss gender, patriarchy, ascribed inequality, status hierarchies, and symbolic boundaries gave students a space in which they could understand Malcolm X while not heralding, excusing, or condoning his various claims.
Additional Sociological Reading Materials
Because they are taking, first and foremost, a sociology class, it is important that students have access to materials beyond the Autobiography to help them better understand the concepts covered during class. However, because I was pulling an eclectic collection of sociological concepts from the source material, it was difficult to find readings that would appropriately complement the biography. Either the supplementary tests were too worthy of discussion in their own right and would distract from the biography, or they would be insufficiently broad to provide enough concepts to discuss in relation to the rich life story of Malcolm X. To resolve this dilemma, I decided to assign an Introduction to Sociology textbook and chose chapters appropriate to the themes the class would be addressing that week. It seemed the best and most logical way to provide students a standard sociological reference without allowing the sociological material to take center stage over the Autobiography.
Unfortunately, even this solution was maladapted to the course. Although designed as a survey of concepts, the textbook still mismatched the intended concepts and goals that I had drawn out of the source material. Essentially, there is no textbook that was written specifically to accompany The Autobiography of Malcolm X for teaching introductory sociology. Still worse, the students hated the textbook. It was the only aspect of the class that they said they disliked.
One solution to this dilemma would be to create an open educational resource (OER) specifically designed to the unique content of this course (Francis, Hill, and Overmier 2022). Students in the next course iteration would be required to write brief descriptive reports on selected concepts that are covered in class. These assignments can then be compiled as entries in a free, open-source textbook for use in future iterations of the course. Then, subsequent classes can update and refine the textbook as part of their own assignments. Building an OER would further student understanding of the concepts; it would also enhance their engagement and sense of purpose, knowing these assignments will be read and utilized by students in future courses.
Further Application of the Sociological Imagination
Although class discussions focused on the Autobiography and applying sociological theories to the life of Malcolm X, I also wanted students to continue to practice this skill on their own. Therefore, I required weekly reflections (eight total) where students would write three pages employing the same kind of analysis but now applying the ideas to their own lives. Students had the chance to tell stories from their personal background but then explain what they experienced through the lens of social theory. Whether their own lives could illustrate the sociological theory or stood in contrast to the theory was not as important as seeing how they thought about their experiences in relationship to broader social trends and sociological perspectives.
To illustrate student engagement with sociological concepts in their own lives, I provide several quotations from these personal reflections. Each quotation is from a different student and chosen from different weeks of the course. I received Institutional Review Board approval to utilize student essays for pedagogical research, received students’ informed consent, and have replaced their names with pseudonyms to protect their privacy.
In the first three quotations, students can be seen reevaluating their experiences in light of sociological knowledge. All three had previously held some strong belief—about religion, gender, and the Civil War. But through engagement with the course, they came to better understand and articulate the source of their unique frustrations.
On religion: My own childhood church decided that same-sex marriage was a sin and split from the greater Methodist church, joining the Global Methodist Church. . . . Seeing your parents and people you grew up around both vocally and financially supporting an expensive split from the United Methodist Church based solely on their own prejudices hurts. I am not out to my immediate family, mainly for the purpose of minimizing my college debt, so I had to essentially hide what I felt personally and make my protesting the decision come off as politically motivated. . . . I can’t help but look at religion as something that has negatively affected me, but I am able to understand how religion has the potential to be an incredible positive force in the lives of others. . . . At its best, religion can provide an excellent and supportive community, a solid code of ethics to live by, and generate cohesion amongst a social group. However, . . . an element of power plays into it. You will always have some sort of figurehead or leader that dispenses the sacred, such as a Catholic priest giving out sacrament or a rabbi reading from the Torah. This position of power can be used to twist religious tenets against elements of a community or abuse of one’s status to take advantage of others. (Finn)
On gender: Up until a few years ago, I remember mostly experiencing gender as a set of external rules that I ought to follow, or else I was and would be perceived as wrong or weird. When I went shopping, or when I received clothing as gifts, I would be constantly wary of these rules — nothing too flamboyant or brightly colored, nothing too tight, no t-shirts with a potentially embarrassing pattern, design, or writing, nothing that might seem childish, etc. When I got dressed, I tended to only choose clothes to what extent they satisfied all of the internalized rules. . . . In general, my decisions of how I did gender were based around what would minimize effort while following the various rules I had internalized by observing what seemed “normal” and learning what kinds of expression were weird or wrong for guys. . . . To me, it often felt like playing an arbitrary game. . . . This positionality of manhood was something I understood at the time as something I had no agency over, and which primarily manifested as an invisible network of associated obligations. (Sage)
On social movements: Because of my history it was easy for me to get caught up in Lost Cause movements. I still sympathize with some of what they say. For a while, I even defended the Confederate Flag. However, I came to see the framing used by this movement. I was attracted to the sense of home and place in the movement. This was intentionally framed. In reality, the movement espouses deeply harmful narratives about the Civil War. It simplifies it too much. The Civil War was not merely about slavery, no doubt. But it had a great deal to do with it, and pretending it did not can hurt many people. I sympathized with the movement because part of it was framed to allure my affections of home and family, but, luckily I have been able to see past the chicanery and separate the wheat from the chaff. (David)
As can be seen from these examples, all three students came away with a greater sense of understanding and agency in regard to their own interactions with social institutions moving forward. Finn, who explains the source of his prior animosity toward religion in general, came to appreciate why religion remains a powerful force in people’s lives as a source of belonging, belief, and guidance for behavior. He also more accurately identified power, operating within the context of religion, as especially problematic and a source of potential abuse. Meanwhile, Sage came to see their prior stress over gendered attire was doing the work of reifying a construct that was not as fixed as it seemed. They had seen gender as arbitrary and stressful, but they articulated a burgeoning understanding that agency can and does take place within a gendered semiotic system. Finally, David was able to see how his emotions had been manipulated by activists who sought deliberately to frame a political fight in a manner that would win his adherence to their cause, resulting in obfuscation of historical truth. With a better appreciation of social movement framing, he intends to analyze claims-making in the public sphere for what it is—mobilizing discourse—and not fall easy prey to obfuscating rhetoric.
Not every essay needed to suggest transformation. Often, students showed their grasp of the sociological imagination simply by clearly articulating an example of social theory in their own lives, as shown in the following two quotes.
On deviance: Different modes of deviance are more or less difficult to obscure. My queerness has become intentionally less hidden over time, but it is something that I could hide entirely with a great deal of effort. Other forms of deviance are more visible. I struggle with anxiety and probably have since I was very young. It has been more or less severe over the course of my life but at its worst is disabling and difficult to hide. Disability and mental illness are both often treated as deviant—they create a violation of social rules that a person be generally capable in daily life or that a person exhibit stress or emotional response in a manner understood to be appropriate to the specific context. Panic that occurs randomly outside of a truly frightening situation is not perceived as normal, nor is a limited capacity to be present in class, at work, or in other social settings without interruption. . . . Because instances of disability are considered to be exceptional, the labor of negotiating appropriate accommodations falls onto individual disabled students and their instructors. (Maggie)
On education: I would like to start with the discussed “labeling theory.” I personally experience it every day. If there is such a thing as “experiencing a theory” I would say I do. When you play a sport people often put you in boxes and tell you what you can do and what you are not capable of doing. I would like to give a personal and easy example. I personally know that I can shoot a basketball from the three-point line, but my coach at some point would tell me not to shoot to the point where I believed it, and I started missing every shot or I even stopped trying to take those shots that I used to take. A few simple words can change somebody’s life and confidence. (Ava)
Although we did not discuss disability as a form of deviance in class, Maggie was able to recognize that her panic disorder is a form of deviance from the expected norm—such that she must request accommodations from her professors not granted to other students. She was also able to think through the implications of disability as an often visible form of deviance—unlike deviant behaviors that can more readily be hidden or masked in public. In the other quote, Ava, an international student-athlete, provided such a clear and succinct example of labeling theory in action in her own experience, it left no room for doubt that she was learning both the sociological concepts and their importance for the trajectory of an individual life.
Reading these reflections was one of the more rewarding aspects of the class because I could see their command of the sociological imagination firsthand. They made the knowledge relevant for themselves in applying it to their own lives.
The most important written assignment in the course was a final paper in which students analyzed the entirety of The Autobiography of Malcolm X (X and Haley 1999) through the lens of sociological theory. Students could choose their topic, often selecting an issue that was meaningful to them. They were free to select issues and social institutions that were not covered in class, expanding their corpus of knowledge, as some did. Self-direction in topic selection offered students autonomy to engage the text as they saw fit, and the finished product became a means of evaluating their skills in utilizing the sociological imagination. From this assignment, I could glean the depth of their engagement with the text and assess their skill in utilizing social theory alongside moments from Malcolm X’s life story.
One particularly interesting example was a student who wrote on the sociology of time. “I live by my watch,” Malcolm X said. It was one of the first things he purchased when he got out of prison. The student analyzed the religious organization of time in the NOI and the inverse—his feeling of “timelessness” while he lived an unstructured life in Harlem. Finally, she discussed autobiography itself as an artifact of memory and time. It was a masterful piece of sociological imagination. Another student analyzed the parade of role models through Malcolm X’s life and their influence on his repeated attempts at reinventing himself. Another student analyzed Malcolm’s “uncanny ability to rise through [various] status hierarchies.” The paper made a convincing argument that Malcolm’s quick mastery of status signals and his ability to reproduce them in different settings underlay his meteoric rise to fame.
One variation that I might consider in the future would be to allow students to engage something other than The Autobiography of Malcolm X for their final papers. For the first iteration of the course, I wanted the students to write about the Autobiography because I had more confidence in grading their analysis. Allowing students to select other biographies for their final paper means that they would be analyzing a text that I, the instructor, may not have read. However, if there were scaffolding in place for regular feedback throughout the semester on the development of the final paper, I do not think it would hinder assessment to give students more flexibility. Students could select another biography to read and analyze. Alternately, they may gather an oral history from figures from their family or community. As long as the final product adequately demonstrates the capacity to put individual experiences into the context of sociological knowledge, students could have great leeway in selecting the life story they analyze. Because they may wish to learn more about other figures from history or individuals in their midst, following their own unique interests, the final paper would be an excellent space for them to do so.
Opportunity for Experiential Education and High-Impact Practices
Utilizing the Autobiography also allows creative opportunities to engage in high-impact practices and experiential learning opportunities outside the classroom, which have been shown to enhance retention and deepen student engagement (Kuh and O’Donnell 2013). I scheduled three extra credit opportunities for students to help them better contextualize the life experiences of Malcolm X. These field trips and events both expanded students’ horizons while also helping members of the class to form social bonds that enhanced their trust in classroom discussions. The first of these extracurricular enhancements was a Lindy Hop. Before Malcolm X joined the NOI, he was a regular patron of the Roseland Ballroom in Boston and the Savoy in New York. He spends quite some time in the Autobiography describing the swing dance and jazz music scene. I arranged for the students to attend a lesson in swing dance and then participate in a Lindy Hop. Most of the students had never danced before, and they really enjoyed the opportunity to learn. It also helped them to better imagine the period in history when these forms of recreation represented the height of popular culture. Next, while the text was describing Malcolm’s organizing efforts on behalf of the NOI, we visited the Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta. That trip contextualized Malcolm’s work within his historical moment, one that was dominated by the larger Civil Rights Movement in the Jim Crow South. Finally, toward the end of the semester, we gathered for a screening of the Spike Lee movie, Malcolm X (1992), starring Denzel Washington. 6
Assessment
This approach to teaching sociology is novel, so in the process of teaching, I wanted to ascertain whether the format was effective for both communicating course content and helping students to apply it in an individual life. In the following, I discuss three additional measures—beyond class discussion and written assignments—that I used to evaluate whether the students were developing a “sociological imagination,” whether they found the process enjoyable and engaging, and whether their knowledge of sociology improved over the course of the semester.
Outside Evaluation
To assess the intervention objectively and with an outsider’s eye, I connected with the Center for Teaching and Learning at my university to conduct a focus group with the students while I was not present. The moderator conducted the focus group and provided me with her report. When we met, her feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Her report stated that “students really enjoy the engagement within the class, the topics being discussed, [and] the safe environment in which to do so.” She also said, “Students find the topics interesting and appreciate relevant and personal examples related to the topics.” In other words, students were indeed connecting sociological material to their personal experiences and finding the content relevant to them—a key principle of the sociological imagination. The report also stated the following: “Most Important Feedback: Love the course!”
Qualitative Student Evaluations
Focus group results were not the only source of qualitative student feedback. Personal messages and qualitative evaluations also showed positive student response to the design of the course. “I personally found the class to be quite enlightening, having my own cursory knowledge of the life of Malcolm X greatly expanded and seeing how sociology reflects human experience in ways I myself could not gather from my own lived experiences,” said one student. “Overall, this course was deeply enriching and one of the best I’ve taken, showing how sociology is not just some series of theoretical models, but a solid system of analysis that can be applied to the lives of everyone,” said another. “Social theory is sometimes easy to think of as an abstraction, but [this course] always kept it grounded in the real world, and her teaching has reframed the way I think about sociology,” said another. One student reported that the discussions were “open and intellectually stimulating” and liked how class sessions “mixed content with student input” as we collectively explored the text. Another student appreciated the weekly reflections, saying that they “were a really neat assignment because they created a link between content and personal experience.” Essentially, the students were directly engaging in the sociological imagination, and they appreciated the experience of doing so.
Numeric Student Evaluations
In addition to these qualitative metrics of student success, the numeric student evaluations for this class were extremely high. However, it is worth mentioning that I did not incentivize the completion of student evaluations, so the response rate was unfortunately low. Still, those students who did take the time to fill out the evaluation were overwhelmingly positive. “Overall Course Effectiveness” received a 5 out of 5. “Amount Learned in Course” ranked 4.8 out of 5. Students rated the instructor’s Enthusiasm, Clarity, Communicating How to Succeed, Respect for Students, Inclusivity, Availability, and Feedback at 5 out of 5. Stimulating Interest was rated 4.8 out of 5. As much as the “instructor” scores are about the individual teaching and could be seen as idiosyncratic, arguably the format of the class—geared toward connecting the individual life to the subject matter of sociology—helped students feel seen and heard by the professor in the learning process; thus, the high instructor scores may also positively reflect the course design.
Based on these metrics and others, this experimental course appears to have been quite successful. Student engagement was very high, demonstrated also by students’ willingness to participate in the voluntary extracurricular activities described previously. I would not be so bold as to claim that this singular innovation can radically alter students’ scholarship and engagement, turning even the least prepared and engaged student into a passionate sociology student that makes straight As. But I do think that the opportunity to learn sociology in this manner, applying it to the life of an important person in history as well as one’s own life, can personalize the learning experience and bring out energy and potential of students from a wide array of backgrounds, enhancing the learning experience and solidifying students’ command of sociological content.
Potential for Broader Adoption and Diffusion
Although my initial offering of this course was experimental in nature, student enthusiasm convinced me to continue it. When asked in the focus group whether they thought the class should be offered again in the future, the students answered, according to the report, with “a resounding YES!” When I asked students myself later whether the course should be added to the regular curriculum, the students again answered in one voice, “Yes, definitely.” Their positive response suggests that this model could be successfully replicated at other institutions by other instructors.
However, institutional context varies, and it is worth considering how the central pedagogical contribution—teaching through biography—could be adapted for other classrooms, students, and instructors and how other educators might play with variations on this theme. Although I offered it in a seminar format, it could be adapted to larger class sizes. The most fundamental change would be in assessment. In my own version, I relied on written reflections and a final paper. Clearly, that technique would not be feasible with more than 40 students. However, personal reflections seem indispensable for encouraging the sociological imagination. One solution might be peer review of the reflection essays. Students could be required to read and evaluate (pass-fail) one another’s reflections. Because these are personal stories, the professor should ensure that (1) students know that they should refrain from sharing anything too personal, (2) there should be very clear ground rules for treating one’s peers with respect (and consequences for failing to do so), and (3) there should be a mechanism for double-blinded peer reviews that still allow the professor to know who is evaluating whom for accountability purposes. Students would need scaffolding to know what is required of them in assessing their peers, such as (1) the appropriate application of the sociological concept (Does the story from their personal experience actually demonstrate the idea?) and (2) missing concepts (Can you think of another sociological concept that also fits the story or situation that the reflection did not discuss?). The professor could read a selection of reflections and peer reviews each week to see how well students are doing, and certainly, they would need to read any that were given a failing score to ensure the peer-reviewed assessment was fairly given.
Another tactic that might work well for large lecture classes would be to introduce the key sociology concepts on the first class of the week, before the students have read the assigned chapter from the Autobiography. Then, the next time the class meets, it could open with a think-pair-share format, where students spend some time talking with their neighbors about where they saw certain concepts in the reading. Then, the class could come together to share the examples of sociological theory they found in the chapter. That way, students could still engage in some creative discussion about the text despite the large class size.
Instructors at other institutions might also consider other variations of adoption, either using the Autobiography as a teaching tool for only certain sections of a course or applying the format presented here to a different biography for the purpose of developing the sociological imagination. Although the students in my class gained important knowledge about a civil rights figure that is somewhat outside the traditional pantheon of integrationist movements in the South, subsequent versions of the class could target different places and other moments in time. I found that The Autobiography of Malcolm X was an excellent text for this endeavor; but other professors may choose from a wide array of historical figures as long as their life stories contain a sufficiently broad range of social institutions and can illustrate a range of sociological theories. 7
Although not meant as a replacement for Introduction to Sociology, an introductory level course that focuses on the sociological imagination using a singular life story—especially one as fascinating and controversial as Malcolm X—can provide an exciting, engaging, and innovative means to survey sociological concepts. The course could be utilized in any college curriculum where introductory sociology classes are taught. Because the subject matter of this course is, basically, introductory sociology, any trained sociologist could teach it. Importantly, it also offers instructors an opportunity for creative exploration and engagement with the sociological imagination because it is truly incumbent on the instructor to tie the biography into sociological thought and contextualize the individual life within general sociological knowledge. Doing this work can be intellectually stimulating for the professor and the student, enhancing the course experience for all involved.
Conclusion
This article offers a blueprint for how an introductory sociology course could be taught using a biography as the primary text. Specifically, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (X and Haley 1999) as told to Alex Haley is a remarkable book that seems almost designed to walk students through a variety of social institutions and examine how they might work to impact the life of a single individual. However, following this same format, instructors could utilize other biographies, pulling sociological concepts out of a particularly compelling life story. Malcolm X’s fascinating life trajectory intersected with many different social institutions, but he is not the only possibility. Alan Turing, for example, could allow instructors to take on the sociology of science and technology, the military-industrial complex, sexuality, and criminal justice. A recent biography of Frida Kahlo could be tapped to incorporate theories of postcolonialism, sociology of culture, gender and sexuality, and disability studies. With this model, there is no limit to where faculty might go in their efforts to teach the sociological imagination by taking seriously the call to link biography and history.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The course described in this article was designed and developed with support from a Class of 1969 Fellowship from the Center for Teaching and Learning at Georgia Tech. The author would like to thank Carol Subrino Sullivan, Kate Williams, Karen Franklin, other members of the Class of 1969 Fellowship program, and students in the initial offering of this course for their helpful feedback.
