Education for Social Change
Facts and Values: What Science Students Should Learn about the Social Aspects of Doing Science
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Emanuel Istrate
When studying science at the undergraduate level, it is easy for students to reach the conclusion that science consists of a set facts and skills that are not related to a value system or to any social interactions. Scientists who are more advanced in their careers recognize that the work of scientists is an inherently social activity. Scientists must work in teams governed by a hierarchy, must raise funds for their work, must communicate their findings to their peers and to the public, must face competition, and sometimes must also deal with unethical or fraudulent behaviour. What is the best way to expose undergraduate students in the sciences to these social aspects of scientific work? One possible solution would be to devote a fraction of the time in each science course to this subject. This, however, requires coordination of topics among many courses and also suffers from the inevitable time pressure in science courses to dedicate more time to the science. The alternative is to include in the science curriculum a separate course on the social aspects of scientific work. This has the advantage that a larger range of topics can be explored in a more coherent fashion. This talk will explore methods to make science students aware of the social aspects of science work, and will provide best practices to engage students with this topic along with examples of student activities and assessments. It will be based on experience teaching this topic at the University of Toronto.
The Meaning of Higher Education and Schooling for our Humanity
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Dene Williamson, Jessica Mabry, Randall Woodard, Patrick Ryan Murphy
There are vastly different perspectives when it comes to the mission of higher education. Ouchi (2003) asserts that the way to successful school transformation is found in “good data from standardized tests” (p. 139). Wolk, however, decries our current system and its focus on testing arguing that we are preparing robots and workers, not human beings. Wolk (2007) demands that “We must deeply question the schools and the curricula we have; we must ask what it means to be educated and what it means to be human” (p. 650). We need to go much further than university being a place to memorize facts and situate a school’s mission in terms of preparing students to live responsibility and able to work toward the common good for all. This paper will focus primarily on education making a social difference. The aim will be on the type of people we are educating. What is more important to the health of a democracy than educating caring citizens who will make a difference socially? Interestingly, Wolk (2007) asserts that “It certainly seems that the more ‘civilized’ we become as a species, the more brutal we become as people. What does the 21st century hold in store for us? Will we survive? What are schools doing to improve our chances?” (p. 653). This presentation will approach higher education from a multidisciplinary perspective with these questions in mind.
Experiential Learning Experiences of Criminal Justice and Sociology Students: Exploring Social Justice and Community Engagement
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Zoann Snyder, Ashley Chlebek
Sociology and criminal justice majors are preparing for employment in social service and/or criminal justice agencies. Addressing issues of social inequality and social justice will be part of their daily work. Preparing students for working with people impacted by social problems such as poverty, victimization, and crime requires grounding the students in empirical research and theoretical foundations of the field, but also the opportunity to gain practical work experience prior to graduation. The purpose of our research is to explore the pathways taken by undergraduate sociology and criminal justice majors to engage in experiential learning coursework. For our research, experiential learning will be generally defined as learning from experience or learning by doing. While experiential learning may take place in a variety of traditional classroom settings, we are looking particularly at four types of classes: service learning, study abroad, internship, or the Wrongful Convictions project. A convenience sample of students who have completed one or more of these classes was drawn to engage students in focus group or individual interview conversations about their coursework choices and experiences. The findings of our research may be used to address curriculum and course offerings to better meet the needs of students and the discipline as well as contribute to the larger scholarly literature on experiential service learning.
Integrating Ethics into Undergraduate Teaching in Psychology: The Uses of Discussion and Narrative Analysis
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Maureen Gibney
Studying psychology’s history of ethical tensions is a useful introduction to examining current iterations of potentially harmful individual and social perspectives. Embedded in our class work in developmental and social psychology and in narrative and abnormal psychology, for instance, are inquiries into the ethical and narrative implications of the material we're studying. What are the moral concerns embedded in research, how is our history as a field compromised or enhanced by our inattention or attention to culture, and how would narrative themes such as generativity and communion be discerned in accounts of aging, or racism, or suffering? What are concerns about consent and assent in the juvenile justice system? What are the puzzles in dementia care related to who the “decider” is as the disease progresses and painful choices must be made? How can implicit cognitive processes such as the reception of metaphor enhance or thwart welcoming attitudes toward immigrants? How do moral disengagement and social comparison affect our willingness to overlook our own missteps? In some classes students use memoir or film sources to craft formal narrative analyses employing ethical principles, in some they rely primarily on scientific articles and videos provided for them. In all classes, though, students vigorously discuss these and other ethical issues, engaging with each other in critically exploring approaches to difficult important questions. The practice of ethical and narrative analysis can then, if students wish, continue as a way of considering new material well beyond their undergraduate years.
