Introducing Sociology Using the Stuff of Everyday Life

The challenges of teaching a successful introductory sociology course today demand materials very different from the norm.It is a question of making the practice of sociological thinking meaningful, rigorous, and relevant to today’s world of undergraduates. This comparatively concise, highly visual, and engaging book offers a refreshingly new way forward to reach students, using one of the most powerful tools in a sociologist’s teaching arsenal - the familiar stuff in students’ everyday lives throughout the world: the jeans they wear to class, the coffee they drink each morning, or the phones their professors tell them to put away during lectures. A focus on consumer culture, seeing the strange in the familiar, is not only interesting for students; it is also (the authors suggest) pedagogically superior to more traditional approaches.By engaging students through their stuff, this book moves beyond teaching about sociology to helping instructors teach the practice of sociological thinki