Teaching Sociology

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Web Review: This Week in Sociology: Connecting Your Classroom to the World
Martin D. Hughes
Teaching Sociology 2013 41: 228
DOI: 10.1177/0092055X13483709

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483709
483709Teaching SociologyBook Reviews
2013

TSOXXX10.1177/0092055X13

Web Review
Teaching Sociology
41(2) 228229
American Sociological Association 2013
ts.sagepub.com

Corey Dolgon and Jason Smith

This Week in Sociology: Connecting Your Classroom to
the World. 2011. Electronic resource. Retrieved July
6, 2011. (http://www.thisweekinsociology.com).
Reviewed by: Martin D. Hughes, Calvin College,
Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
DOI: 10.1177/0092055X13483709

At the Web site for The New York Times its possible to sign up for free e-mail alerts on selected
topics. When I opted to have the newspaper notify
me every time it published an article tagged with
the keyword sociology, I expected to discover
news stories that could serve as timely, relevant
examples for my classes. What I received instead
were occasional book reviews, obituary articles,
and op-ed columns from non-sociologists. The
truth is that there just arent that many hidden
stories waiting to be discovered at the major news
outlets. What you see is pretty much what you get.
I then switched to a different strategy: operating my own news-clipping service. As I scanned
each days headlines I simply saved those articles
I thought I might some day use in class. The problem with this approach was that my timing was
usually off. Id have to wait until later that semester for the story to line up with the course material;
of course, if Id already covered that topic Id need
to wait even longer, until the next semester. This
defeated the purpose of clipping the articles in the
first place. By the time a story became truly useful
to me, it was often yesterdays news, buried
under a torrent of more recent developments. In the
current era of 24/7/365 news, a story can have a
very short shelf life. Even more than the timing
issue was the expense. Since I couldnt afford the
constant vigilance, both in terms of time and mental effort, I eventually abandoned the project.
Then, in spring 2011, I learned of the launch of
This Week in Sociology, an online collection of
analyses of current events contributed by practicing

sociologists with an eye to connecting your classroom to the world. The site uses the blog template
that most of us are familiar with by now: The newest
posts appear on the main page, with older posts a
few clicks away. All entries are tagged with keywords, allowing them to be grouped into topical
categories. Beginning in mid-March 2011 and continuing through early May 2011, every week brought
a new slate of four to eight items, though the site
seems to have gone on hiatus until the beginning of
the 20112012 academic year. This makes sense,
given that it is administered by a two-person staff
and relies heavily on voluntary submissions.
This latter fact also means that content quality
varies. I mention this not to indict anyones writing
abilities, but rather to indicate that some stories are
more student-friendly than others. Although I
wholeheartedly endorse students learning about
the history of May Day, the fact that it isnt even a
nationally recognized holiday means that it is
already somewhat removed from their everyday
experience. Such items stand in stark contrast to
those written about golf and college basketball
tournaments, beer advertisements, Mardi Gras, and
the years Best Picture winner. To be fair, there are
also a number of analyses of high-profile events
that are somewhat less proximate to students lives
but no less significant, such as the earned income
tax credit, giving visitors a good variety from
which to select as well as a good understanding of
the breadth of range across which a sociological
perspective might be fruitfully applied.
A personal favorite is the analysis of televised
beer advertisements and what they reveal about
contemporary conceptions of masculinity (Brenneman 2011). Written with warmth and humor by
Robert Brenneman, this piece yields multiple
insights into culture while also introducingor
illustrating, for those readers with prior knowledge
key concepts such as heteronormativity. Many of
the other articles are equally informative, and some
have that same Ive-always-wondered-about-thattoo flavor to them. But Brenneman manages to

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Web Review
deliver all this in an accessible, conversational
style, and all within the space of 1,200 words. He
teaches, but he does so by leading us to the things
hes learned himself. The reader learns with rather
than from the author.
The variety of entries lends itself to application
in a number of sociology courses, from the introductory undergraduate level on up. Some of the
analyses present concepts they do not fully explicate, leaving some of the work to the student and/
or the teacher. This isnt necessarily a bad thing, of
course. They could readily serve as discussion
starters. They might also be used as examples for
students to model their own analyses after. Id be
excited if more students made their own contributions to the Web site, but that depends on whether
teachers actively encourage them to do so.

This Week in Sociology is a very new venture.

Its long-term viability depends on the cooperation
of its editors, its contributors, and its intended
consumers: the myriad undergraduates in sociology courses and those of us teaching those
courses. Its very existence is an experiment in
collective action that I hope will succeed, but it
isnt entirely up to me. At the very least I hope it
survives long enough to witness the publication
of this review.

REFERENCE
Brenneman, Robert. 2011. Man Up! Lessons in Beer
Tasting and Masculinity. This Week in Sociology. Retrieved July 6, 2011 (http://www.thisweekinsociology
.com/?p=520).