Public Sociology Syllabus

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

In Public Sociology, the intent is to teach students how to make sociological knowledge public, that is, accessible to a non-expert or lay audience. The assigned sociological readings are organized using the Sociology Literacy Framework and take an intersectional approach. Students prepare public sociology products, which include a blog that uses free-to-use images and alt text, Twitter threads about their blog posts, and a podcast. Their public sociology products are based on assigned sociological readings.

Public Sociology is a 100% asynchronous online course. The course is organized into 16 Modules. The syllabus is for a 6-week summer course. Each week covers 2-3 modules, therefore, the course can easily be adapted to other semester lengths.