I am interested in teaching courses on social inequality, work and occupations, education, and research methods. Below, I outline three graduate level and three undergraduate level courses I have taught or am teaching.
Diversity, Leadership, and Policy (taught 2020, 2021, 2023 at UIUC)
This is a Master’s and doctoral-level course that equips students in the Administration and Leadership; Diversity and Equity; and Human Resource Development programs in my current department to analyze issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion from multiple theoretical perspectives. The course places a heavy emphasis on drawing out practical implications of theories and their related streams of empirical findings to formulate policies that will support diverse and equitable workplaces. The course begins with a review of social scientific (e.g., sociological, psychological) theories on diversity: racial formation/social constructionist theories; structural theories of inequality that link status hierarchies to resource allocation; token theory; network theory; critical theories; and social-psychological theories. From there, we examine empirical articles in mostly sociology and management journals with findings in both corporate and public/non-profit sector contexts to better understand how policies and management practices can exacerbate or mitigate social inequality by race, gender, sexuality, and social class. We focus on both macro- and micro-level policy and the efficacy of various DEI interventions for change. We end by considering whether and how managers can function as policy actors.
Organizational Theory for Educational Leaders (taught 2020, 2021, 2022 at UIUC)
This course introduces students — most of them current or aspiring school-level or district-level administrators — to the central theories and empirical research on management drawn from the social sciences. Making use of Heather Haveman’s 3-part framework on classic and contemporary organizational theory and HBS/HGSE cases, the course is designed to help students apply those theories and frameworks to analyze and address real managerial problems, with emphasis on educational organizations and administrative leadership. The course covers the following theoretical perspectives: rational organizational theory, human relations, decision-making theory, contingency theory, and the cultural, demographic, and relational perspective of organizations.
Education and Stratification (teaching in 2023 at UIUC)
The central issue examined in this graduate seminar is equality of opportunity and how it affects educational outcomes. The broader issue of barriers to access is also examined, focusing on the ascriptive factors — race, ethnicity, class and gender — that are frequently associated with the distribution of educational opportunities. The readings for the course are drawn from traditional scholarship in Sociology on stratification and research on elementary, secondary and higher education.
Sociology of Work (taught Spring 2017 at Emory University)
The course Sociology of Work is a specialized topic that I am particularly qualified to teach, as this draws from the literature I build upon in my dissertation. This literature includes studies on job satisfaction, job design, turnover, denials (and safeguards) of dignity at work, organizational justice, organizational demography, and employee relations more broadly. Drawing from my qualifying exams, I incorporate Work literature into the syllabus that pertains to how race, class, and gender inequalities are created and challenged in the workplace. Furthermore, I bring to the course knowledge in how to conduct a workplace ethnography, interviews with workers about their jobs, and surveys about working conditions. For their final term paper, students will analyze BLS data and conduct interviews of their own.
Sociology of Education (taught Spring 2014 at Emory University)
My Sociology of Education course is designed to provide students with an introduction to current theory and research on the role of education in contemporary society. We examine how schools are a critical site of stratification and socialization processes through which the social order in society at large is reproduced. Special attention is paid to how students’ race/ethnicity, gender, and social class impact their schooling experiences and outcomes. Other topics include sociological explanations for the success and failure of school policy reforms; the organization of teachers’ work and the structure of the teaching profession; and the transition from high school to college and the stratification of postsecondary education in the United States.
Introduction to Sociology (taught Fall 2013 at Emory University)
My Introduction to Sociology course exposes students to the range of subfields in sociology: research methods, social structure, culture, the self (social psychology), deviance, organizations and social institutions, social class, poverty and social mobility, race and ethnicity, and gender and work. I love teaching this course. It equips burgeoning social thinkers with the foundational concepts that will help them make sense of their social world, and which they can apply broadly in many fields. Moreover, I enjoy teaching students just coming into college. I tend to have strong rapport with them, perhaps due to my high school teaching background.