My Disney Autobiography – A Visual Sociology Project

This resource was originally published in TRAILS, which is an online database of peer-reviewed teaching resources supported by the American Sociological Association.

This teaching artifact involves students visiting Walt Disney World within the context of an 8-week course. In the assignment, students practice visual sociology and conduct fieldwork observations on site. The course is focused on how our autobiographies are structured by the Disney universe. The assignment asks students to create their own Disney autobiography before the trip and then using the lens of a sociology of autobiography to focus their fieldwork observations while on site. After the trip, the students work together to create a presentation that draws on their individual autobiographies, their fieldwork observations, and pull it altogether showing how Disney structures autobiographical work.