Trails: The ASA's Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology

https://trails.asanet.org/issue/view/high-school-sociology

In this class activity, Robert Thomson has students wrestle with the causes and consequences of gang violence through a series of activities including lectures and assignments organized around the documentary Crips & Bloods: Made in America (Peralta 2008). https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/teaching-race-and-gang-violence

In this class activity, Robert Thomson has students wrestle with the causes and consequences of gang violence through a series of activities including lectures and assignments organized around the documentary Crips & Bloods: Made in America (Peralta 2008).
https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/teaching-race-and-gang-violence

In this activity, Yvette Jean helps students explore the norms, customs, and troubles that arise while splitting a group restaurant bill. This resource works well for introduction classes. https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/splitting-the-bill-informal-responses

In this assignment, Tagart Sobotka has students demonstrate and apply their understanding of sociological theories and concepts about social movements by working in groups to: 1) identify an issue around which there is no current social movement; 2) develop a detailed plan for mobilizing people in support or opposition to the issue. https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/social-movement-strategic-action-plan

In this assignment, Jerrod Yarosh has students engage in an in-class learning experience where they work through a structured note taking activity that allows them to be introduced, learn, apply, and review course material related to Erving Goffman and Dramaturgy.
https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/interactive-note-taking-understanding-erving

When submitting to TRAILS, you should assume that whatever you submit may be published in the format in which it was submitted. We do not have a copyediting stage. Once the editor accepts your resource, they move immediately to the publication stage. In most cases, your resource will be published the same day it is accepted. Make sure you have all authors added, typos corrected, and any other formatting issues resolved at the submission stage. We are unable to make edits after your resource has been published.

In this project, Tamika Odum helps students gain a sociological understanding of food insecurity and health.
https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/separate-not-equal-exploring-food

In this assignment, Zachary Miner promotes critical examination of media more broadly, and encourages students to see media content as: 1) socially constructed; and, 2) subject to many of the same social forces as other aspects of culture.
https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/dreaming-of-gender-assessing-sut

In this activity, Rachel Sullivan provides students with an opportunity to review redlining maps and consider the historical and present day impacts that this practice has had.
https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/examining-redlining-historical-origins-and

In this group activity, Anjel Stough-Hunter and Kathleen Gorman-Ezell asks students to explore data and articles on factors that contribute to the gender wage gap. In doing so, students critically evaluate the gender wage gap and propose strategies for addressing this gap.
https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/gender-wage-gap-activity

In this activity, Julio Montanez has the resource mimics Gordon Allport's contact hypothesis tenets to develop an interactive, problem-solving approach to discussion board-based assessments.
https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/adapting-anti-prejudice-tenents-for

In this activity, the authors Rebecca Shisler, Abbey Piner, Andrew Smolski, Angel Cruz, and Emma Brinkmeyer created it to have students learn how power operates within the food system and government/nonprofit/charity programs. Students will also gain an understanding of how to think about charity models and adapt charitable work to work that prioritizes innovation and justice.
https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/power-and-program-design-moving

Congratulations to TRAILS editorial board member Michel Estefan on recieving TWO awards from the American Sociological Association's Section on Teaching and Learning. The awards are: 2024 Scholarly Contributions to Teaching and Learning Award & 2024 Carla B. Howery Award for Developing Teacher-Scholars.

Congratulations to Yen-Ting Hsu who received the 2024 Graduate Student Contributions to Teaching and Learning award from the American Sociological Association's Section on Teaching and Learning for his TRAILS publication, "From Atomized Q&As to Team-based Concept Mapping: How to Transform Review Sessions into Peer-learning Opportunities." https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/concept-mapping-peer-review

In this assignment, Zachary Miner help students critically examine media – specifically music videos – for the gendered messages contained therein. This goal is achieved through analysis of currently popular music videos, via a process adapted from Sut Jhally’s classic documentary series, “Dreamworlds.” https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/dreaming-of-gender-assessing-sut

In this syllabus, Natalie Ingraham covers sociological research methods broadly and is designed for Sociology majors or minors as a required core course. This course was designed as part of a two-step course for an upper division (300 level) research methods survey course that led into an independent thesis-style research senior Capstone course. https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/soc-390-research-methods-syllabus

In this assignment, Colleen Wynn and Amanda Miller provide two approaches to an OpEd assignment in two levels of courses. Teaching students how to write OpEds is a skill which allows them to apply their sociological expertise immediately and long after they have left our classrooms. https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/building-student-expertise-using-opeds

In this activity, Matt Reid has students replicate Merin Oleschuk’s (2020) content analysis study which demonstrated how our culture favors individual-level causes and solutions to larger social problems in the context of the obesity epidemic. https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/individual-v-structural-frames-of

In this activity, Kaylin Greene has students work together in teams to apply their critical thinking skills and their understanding of the medicalization of birth to a hypothetical scenario. https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/medicalizing-birth-using-the-dent

In this activity, Cody Warner has students in criminology or criminal justice courses use a modified DENT framework to translate theories of crime causation into proposed interventions. . In the DENT approach, students define a problem, explore solutions, narrow to a specific solution, and test that solution. https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/from-theory-to-practice-can

In this activity, Cody Warner has students in criminology or criminal justice courses use the jigsaw method learn about labeling theory and the consequences of a criminal record by collaborating to produce handouts on the formal and informal collateral consequences of a criminal label. https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/understanding-labeling-and-collateral-consequences

In this activity, Kaylin Greene students use a jigsaw cooperative learning strategy to learn about diverging perspectives related a contested illness scenario.. The current activity enables students to experience this social construction firsthand. The activity is appropriate for courses focusing on the sociology of health as well as medical sociology. https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/understanding-contested-illness-through-a

In this assignment, Amanda Kennedy has it serve as the final project for Introduction to Sociology—asking students to practice the sociological imagination, apply theoretical paradigms, read and summarize sociological research, describe the process of socialization, and examine the impact of social stratification. https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/seeing-social-problems-through-a

In this assignment, Lisa Winters uses Gwen E. Kirby’s work of speculative fiction “A Few Normal Things That Happen a Lot” to teach about sexual victimization and related concepts. https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/fake-antennae-real-threats-speculative