Caroline Hodges Persell

New York University | NYU · Department of Sociology

In 2001, the American Sociological Association launched a task force to articulate learning goals for an introduction to sociology course and design an advanced high school sociology curriculum that could also be a model for introductory sociology courses in colleges and universities. This research note describes one of several efforts to validate...

This paper arose from a larger study designed to explore what leaders in the field of sociology think are the most important goals and principles for students to understand after taking a college-level introductory course and how they teach those principles. A population of scholarly leaders in sociology was defined by various forms of peer recogni...

Variations in Educational AchievementExisting Explanations for the Gap and their LimitationsGenetic explanationsCultural explanationsStructural explanationsProposed ModelRelation of the model to existing researchContemporary structural inequalitiesContemporary inequalities between racial groupsSocializing contextsStructural features of schoolsResou...

Sociologists have long reflected on what should be taught in sociology. In recent years, the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) has produced several important publications on key principles and learning goals for the introductory course. However, little current work has systematically examined what peer-recognized leaders in the field deem...

A new stream of educational reform arguments has emerged since the late 1970s suggesting that public and private schools differ in their effectiveness and efficiency, that the differences in their outcomes are due to differences in the dominant values and control that operate within the sectors, and that other features that vary by sector (such as...

In this paper, we discuss ways collaborative research groups can be used and what students appear to learn about social science reasoning and quantitative literacy from such groups. Data are from field observations, pre- and post-semester surveys in both collaborative and traditional courses, end of the semester student comments, and student work o...

How might computing technologies be used to help address critical problems in the teaching of sociology and other disciplines? This article discusses a qualitative case study designed to illuminate this question. It examines how a very simple computing technology, namely online discussion groups, was designed and structured to address certain pedag...

Theorists such as Gumport (2000) suggest thatdifferent conceptions of higher education mayhave important consequences for students andsociety. We explore this possibility byconsidering a specific research question: Dostudents who attend for-profit post-secondaryschools show lower levels of civic engagementthan students who attend non-profit communi...

To increase student engagement and enhance critical thinking and deep understanding, I supplemented weekly seminar meetings with focused Web-based discussions of issues in a "Race and Education" senior sociology seminar. These Web-based discussions were structured by specific questions and discussion roles. Before seminar, Staters posted on the cou...

Abstract Using Focused Web-based Discussions to Enhance Student Engagement and Deep Understanding To increase student engagement and enhance critical thinking and deep understanding, I supplemented,weekly seminar meetings with focused web-based discussions of issues in a senior sociology seminar. These web-based discussionswere,structured by specif...

In this paper we synthesize the knowledge available and identify the knowledge needed about ways that new digital technologies may affect student learning, particularly in sociology. We propose that a sociologically-informed Scholarship of Teaching and Learning requires awareness of how social contexts and relationships affect and are affected by t...

The idea that civil society is declining has been much discussed recently, for example, by Fukuyama (Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. New York: Free Press, 1995) and Putnam (The American Prospect 13 (Spring):35–42, 19937semi; Nobel Symposium, Uppsala, Sweden, August 27–30, 1994; PS: Political Science and Politics, December:...

Having gone to a private boarding-school, or prep-school as they are known, in the United States has always been an excellent path to a job as a decision-maker. Although these institutions account for less than 1 % of all high-school enrollment, they turn out a disproportionately high number of outstanding figures in the world of business, politics...

Elite boarding-schools. Ethnography of one kind of power transmission. Having gone to a private boarding-school, or prep-school as they are known, in the United States has always been an excellent path to a job as a decision-maker. Although these institutions account for less than 1 % of all highschool enrollment, they turn out a disproportionatel...

Has civil society declined in the United States in the past 20 years? Multiple indicators suggest evidence for decline. This paper questions Robert Putnam's generational explanation for decline and suggests an alternative explanation, namely the structural economic transformation of the U.S. and how it has been managed. Individuals' perceptions of...

Incl. glossary, index, exercises & answers to exercises

Civil society provides essential balance to the rising power of national states and market economies. Particularly in the United States, however, the economy and state are squeezing civil society, with negative consequences. One result is that market rationality supplants other moralities, with attendant changes in social practices. Examples are of...

The importance of teaching statistical sampling is matched only by the difficulty encountered by many social science students in grasping its theory and application. This paper briefly discusses the problems of teaching sampling and inference, and describes an original computer software program aimed at addressing those problems. The program, named...

This article analyzes the social conditions that facilitated and impeded the development of a computer program for teaching statistical sampling. It discusses occupational, developmental, technical, and pedagogical dilemmas encountered during this process, and analyzes the structural conditions necessary for overcoming sociological ambivalence towa...

This article elaborates Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital conversion by specifying a mechanism of differential asset conversion that illuminates the gendered postsecondary educational attainment of women and compares it with that posited for men in status attainment theory. Because young women's economic, cultural, and educational assets genera...

Can microcomputers enhance the goals of teaching and learning in sociology? This paper attempts to answer this question. Aiming primarily at nonusers, the author first outlines the negatives and positives of using PCs. Negatives include expense, hassle, and uncertainty. The positives arise from the functional strengths of PCs and from the fact that...

Using the national High School and Beyond (HSB) data set and a national sample of elite private boarding school adolescents, this article compares public, Catholic, elite boarding, and other elite private schools with respect to characteristics of the families whose children attend; features of access and control; educational, teacher, and pedagogi...

Pierre Bourdieu has argued that class position is maintained over time through what he calls strategies of reproduction. But most reproduction theory deals primarily with the effects of schools on the working classes; the role of the dominant classes in the process is seldom studied. The inevitability of change requires that elites adopt and channe...

* Prologue: Seeking the Prep School Perspective The World Of Boarding Schools * Privilege and the Importance of Elite Education * Rousseaus Children: Total Educational Environments * The Chosen Ones The Prep Rite Of Passage * Cultural Capital: Curricula and Teachers * Academic Climates, Teaching Styles, and Student Stress * The Iron Hand in the Vel...

Power without authority is fragile; to be effective, leaders must appear to deserve their positions. This sense of legitimacy is the most important end product of going through Prep school. This sense of legitimacy is magnified by the sense of collective identity that Prep schools generate among their students, and much of the bonding process essen...

The transmission of privilege is central to the reproduction of an elite class. There has been recurrent speculation about elite school influence within the structure of educational opportunity, but few researchers have had access to these schools. Based on interviews and observations at 42 private boarding schools, and on student questionnaires an...

Cookson, P.W. Jr and Persell, C.H. (1985) Preparing for Power: America’s Elite Boarding Schools, New York: Basic Books.

Robert K. Merton is one of sociology's outstanding scholar-teachers. In this interview he explores how his teaching ideas and practices developed, his views on teaching strategies and approaches, how he combined scholarship with heavy teaching loads in his early years, and the personal and institutional rewards for teaching.

Under the “merit” ideology of academic research, the criteria for academic rewards are quality and quantity of research publications. Do men and women receive equal rewards for equal performance in educational and social research? This question is addressed with a sample of 901 authors of research on education, 14% of whom were women. Gross differe...

Based on a review of the literature, the author summarizes and evaluates research on the role of principals in effective schools and suggests additional factors needing study. Her review identifies nine features of effective principals and schools, involving commitment to academic goals, academic expectations, school climates that facilitate learni...

The emergence of a campaign during the first two decades of this century to provide public information on sexual matters is analyzed as a social issue. The creation of sex education programs in the public schools, the role of government in disseminating literature on venereal disease, the founding of professional organizations concerned with the fi...