Abstract
We know that teaching sociology can be difficult in an era of extreme polarization. By engaging “structured discomfort” as a teaching strategy, we can empower students to think critically about how multiple social institutions interact and interlock to create social inequality. This approach uses three key organizing principles to activate learning on controversial topics: 1) build intentional classroom culture that promotes respect and empathy; 2) cultivate critical thinking by scaffolding sociological studies, multimedia, and other creative works; and 3) use high- and low-stakes assignments, strategic debates, and community interviews to explore a controversial topic from multiple sociological vantage points.
We know that teaching sociology can be uncomfortable and controversial in an era of extreme polarization, conservative rhetoric that stifles hard truths on inequality, and heightened misinformation about vaccines and Critical Race Theory. We also know that our disciplinary questions, empirical findings, and theories are necessary now more than ever.
As we plan our courses to critically engage with the challenging events witnessed since March 2020, our pedagogy should embrace the urgency of this moment in the classroom in ways that bring meaning to the lived experiences of many students we teach. We are mindful that sociology students are eager for space to make sense of the social world unfolding around them, but often arrive underprepared to discuss fundamental topics without intensive guidance. We encourage our colleagues to effectively address this nexus of issues by developing a classroom environment where students and instructors alike experience “structured discomfort.”
Structured discomfort uses three key organizing principles to activate learning on controversial topics. First, this approach works in collaboration with students to build intentional classroom culture that promotes respect, safety, and etiquette around group differences while also being cognizant of the experiences students individually bring to the discussion. In this way, structured discomfort enables us to grow empathy and understanding in the classroom while supporting deeper learning. Second, this approach cultivates critical thinking by scaffolding sociological studies, multimedia, and other creative works as additional layers of social experience. Third, we reinforce our layered approach to learning using high- and low-stakes assignments, strategic debates, and social experiences like community interviews. Taken together, these layers bring evidence-based context to a controversial topic from multiple sociological vantage points. This approach is constructed with the goal that students begin to employ a critical self-reflection of their social location relative to course topics.
We envision structured discomfort as a strategic framing for critical pedagogy that contains concrete, reproducible course-design elements to address real-world topics while developing the sociological imagination. This approach differs from simulations and community based learning which can overemphasize social problems, and in the process, obscure the relational importance of power and privilege (Hammer 2017). This “outsiders looking in” perspective can alienate students from affected communities, entrench student ideas about deservingness and personal responsibility, and promote paternalistic behaviors (Suelntic Dowell 2008). Case studies alone limit student understanding of complex social issues as they may see “the case” as a set of micro-level issues disconnected from broader structural inequalities. Case studies alone may also prove difficult to scale up in ways that encourage students to think about the intersections of multiple social problems simultaneously.
As we refine our own pedagogy, we offer suggestions to those that are interested in integrating layers of structured discomfort into the sociological classroom. First, introduce topics and debates that encourage students to consider how multiple social institutions interact and interlock to create social inequality. One way to do this is to teach students basic qualitative interviewing skills and compensate local community members for sharing their lived experiences during small group interviews that students and instructors conduct. Second, integrate an understanding of how law and policy are created, have evolved to reflect social hierarchies and power dynamics, and shape the possibilities for social change. The Racial Dot Map is one tool that instructors can introduce to students at the outset of the course to explore the racial demographics of the university’s surrounding neighborhoods, other neighborhoods where students live currently, and their hometowns. With these data, students are better equipped to understand the sociohistorical dynamics of place that affect controversial topics, and consider the role of law within them. Third, instructors can train students to develop empirically-supported written arguments in a manner that recognizes peers of diverse perspectives. The “they say, I say” writing method is optimal for a variety of sociological courses because it engages discomfort by encouraging students to have meaningful exchanges with themselves and others. Finally, by using collaborative tools such as Trello, students can experience dynamic engagement on difficult topics, build on one another’s ideas, and use mediums that resonate with them including writing, media uploads, or other shared digital content.
By applying structured discomfort as a teaching strategy, we can effectively mobilize our training to fulfill the objective of public sociology. It is one thing to name inequality; it is another to recognize its presence in our lives, identify our contribution, and do something about it. We invite our colleagues to reach out to discuss this teaching strategy in greater detail than is possible here.