Sociology and You: Supporting Materials

The original publishers of Sociology and You (Glencoe) made a bit of an effort to produce branded PowerPoint resources to accompany each chapter and while there’s nothing very special about them – they’re pretty much bog-standard “text on a white background” slides – these ready-made resources can be useful as a way of introducing key ideas, concepts and theories to students. In the main they take the format of a chapter preview, key terms with short definitions and some expanded text that variously includes discussion and / or simple multiple choice questions.

If you just want these resources, they are the first link under each chapter heading but I’ve also included further PowerPoint resources created by various teachers (check the metadata if you want to know who) that seem to reference, directly or indirectly, this particular textbook.

These teacher created slides are something of a mixed bag: while some focus on key points and the information that can be built around them others attempt to be a little more audience-interactive by including simple activities and questions based around the slides. For both types the slides are pretty basic – mainly text with a few pictures that move.

Sort of.

We are talking 2010.

As with the textbook, the examples and illustrations used in the Presentations mainly refer to North America (although Canada doesn’t get much of a look-in) so this is something you either need to embrace or change by substituting examples drawn from your own cultural setting. The choice, as they say, is yours.

Introduction to Sociology: Introduction to Sociology | Founders of Sociology

Culture: Culture | What is Culture? | Society and Culture 

Socialisation: Aspects of Socialisation | Socialisation | Socialisation and The Self 

Social Structure: Social Structure, Societies, Status and Roles | Status and Role

Groups and Formal Organisations: Societies, Groups and Networks | Types of Social Interaction | Groupthink | Milgram Obedience Experiment

Deviance: Deviance and Social Control | What is deviance? | Deviance and Social Control 

Social Classes: Stratification and Social Mobility 

Race and Ethnic Groups: Race and Ethnicity | Race | Types of Group Treatment | Minority Groups

Collective Movements and Social Change: Social Movements and Social Change | Social Change | Collective Behaviour

Update

I’ve recently unearthed a couple more types of supporting materials for either Sociology and You (2001) or Sociology and You 2 (2008).

Or maybe they’ll work for both?

There’s only one way to find out.

Readings and Case Studies in Sociology (2008) you might not be surprised to learn, is a set of 21 articles on a range of topics designed, it says here, to provide “both teachers and students with the opportunity to expand on and enrich the lessons learned in the Sociology and You textbook”.

What this actually means, in reality, is that each Reading is followed by a set of comprehension questions (a Worksheet by any other name).

While the Readings “all focus on the current-day issues of ethics, values and technology”, you need to keep in mind that “current” in this context can mean anything between 10 and 20 years ago. Most Readings are also skewed very firmly towards American concerns and preoccupations (Capital Punishment, Manners in America, US Welfare Reform…), which is great for the many American users of this Blog, not quite so good for UK users – although, as ever, a cross-cultural perspective on things is never a bad thing.

Mastering Basic Concepts (2003) is part of a series of books created by the then publisher Glencoe around the different chapters in the book. This resource covers Chapter 1 (Sociological Perspectives) and includes material relating to Introducing Sociology and Doing Sociological Research.

In basic terms the resource is divided into a series of sub-chapters (Learning Goals, Graphic Organizer, Analyzing and Interpreting Data…) that set students short tasks around the text.

Again, it’s very much a “read this and then answer these” format but even if you don’t want to use all of the resources “as is” (particularly if you’re outside the USA) there might be ideas here that can be adapted to your own particular classroom needs.