The world is becoming more complex. How do your beliefs, values, and behavior affect the people around you and the world in which you live? Students examine social problems in the increasingly connected world, and learn how human relationships can strongly influence and impact their lives. Exciting online video journeys to an array of areas in the sociological world are an important component of this relevant and engaging course. HST060-PBL is taught in a project-based learning format.

Course Outline

Project 1: School of the Future

Human beings are social animals. We create cultures, including shared values and norms, and societal structures to spread and pass on those cultures. School is one such societal structure. Students are professional educators working on a team of school professionals dedicated to reimagining school in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Their task is to write and deliver a 3- to 5-minute Ted Talk that explains how schools reflect and reinforce cultural values and how they should change to reflect the realities of the twenty-first century.

Project Objectives

General

· Explain culture, including how it is passed on and how it evolves.

· Understand how schooling models reflect the culture of their times.

· Describe the socialization process, including how it affects an individual’s sense of self.

· Examine the social structures that shape society.

Success Skills

· Analyze elements of a problem to develop creative solutions.

· Prepare oral presentations to provide information for specific purposes and audiences.

Benchmark 1: What Is Sociology?

· Learn about the sociological approach.

· Learn what sociologists do.

· Understand the development of sociology.

· Understand the major sociological perspectives.

· Understand sociology today.

Benchmark 2: Drivers of Change

· Understand what culture is.

· Learn how culture develops in a society.

· Follow the development of technology in society from preindustrial societies to postmodern ones, and examine how these changes affect the social structure of societies.

Benchmark 3: Learning the Ways

· Learn what language, norms, values, and sanctions are.

· Understand cultural variations like subcultures and countercultures.

· Learn about cultural diversity.

· Understand the role of the family, school, peer group, media, and workplace in the socialization process.

Benchmark 4: Old School

· Follow the development of technology in society from preindustrial societies to postmodern ones, and examine how these changes affect the social structure of societies.

· Understand the role of the family, school, peer group, media, and workplace in the socialization process.

Benchmark 5: It Takes a Village

· Understand what socialization is and how people learn to be members of their culture.

· Examine the different socialization processes throughout the course of life.

· Learn how the agents of socialization teach individual culture.

· Examine how socialization affects the development of the self.

Benchmark 6: A Face in the Crowd

· Examine the social structure of society and how this structure affects your everyday life.

· Learn about the statuses in society that you may hold and the roles that follow from these statuses.

· Explore social interactions between groups of people.

Project 2: Golden Sneakers

Inspired by a local museum exhibit about the history of sneakers, KICK Channel 4 news has asked their news reporters to create a slideshow news story about the importance of sneakers in today’s society. Students will create a the news story to explain whether sneakers are important status symbols and provide context for how status symbols help stratify society while discouraging deviance.

Project Objectives

General

· Understand how and why societies are stratified

· Learn about how society enforces conformity and uses social control to discourage deviance and crime

· Examine poverty in North America and its connection to social stratification and deviance

Success Skills

· Communicate information, data, and observations to apply information learned from reading to actual practice

· Use correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization when preparing written documents

Benchmark 1: Class Act

· Understand what social stratification is and how it affects society

· Learn about the three types of social stratification

· Investigate the social classes that exist in the United States and Canada

Benchmark 2: What’s in a Label?

· Understand what deviance is and how it affects society

· Examine different explanations for deviance

· Examine major theories of social stratification

Benchmark 3: Under Pressure

· Learn about poverty in North America and which groups are more likely to be poor

· Examine the different explanations for deviance

Benchmark 4: Stealing Sneakers

· Discuss how society encourages conformity and how it uses social control to discourage deviance

· Understand the different types of crime and how society deals with crime

Project 3: Child’s Play

Recognizing the lack of and need for more diverse representation, Rainbow Toys and Games has tasked their design team with producing toys that are inclusive of gender, race, and ethnicity. In this project, students will be creating a new toy or line of toys that reflects the diversity of the United States and is inclusive of minority groups. They will also create marketing materials to persuade stores across the country to stock that toy.

Project Objectives

General

· Learn about how race and gender have been socially constructed

· Explain how society organizes itself into groups and how minorities navigate those hierarchies

· Examine how gender inequality affects all members of society

Success Skills

· Prepare oral presentations to provide information for specific purposes and audiences

· Demonstrate flexibility and willingness to learn new knowledge and skills

Benchmark 1: Social Constructions

· Learn what race and ethnicity are

· Learn what gender and gender roles are

· Discuss the social construction of gender

Benchmark 2: Minority Report

· Investigate the characteristics of a minority report

Benchmark 3: The Doll Test

· Understand what prejudice, racism, and discrimination are

· Examine the different ways that group relationships may be organized in society

· Discuss how a minority group may respond to repression

Benchmark 4: Breaking the Binary

· Examine how gender roles and expectations influence the positions and opportunities