Cohort March 2022: Faculty of Arts – Dr. Silvia Bartolic, Melody Hall, Dr. Alyssa Alexander, Mittal Bagul
Project background
SOCI 415: “Theories of Family and Kinship” is a required course for the family studies minor and one of five options for an upper-level theory course required for the sociology major and honours programs. Based on data collected from students, alumni and community employers on experiences with and perceptions of the family studies minor, as part of the Department of Sociology’s curriculum reform project, all stakeholders indicated a need for more experiential or real-world opportunities to be included in the program in order to better prepare students for the workforce. As SOCI 415 is considered to be the last course in a series of required courses for the family studies minor and often one of the last courses taken by sociology students for the major/honours, it would be ideal to have this course revised to be a capstone experience, where family theory is linked to real work with families in the community. Our goal is to create a partnership with students in order to embed experiential learning in the redesign and development of this course.
Project details
Currently, the course details theoretical assumptions, concepts and propositions of nine major theories used to study families. The content is then applied to fictional case scenarios and other in-class exercises, which culminate into a comparative theoretical paper. Through the proposed redesign, we would partner with students to move the course from this very academic approach to knowledge acquisition, to more of an applied course where students would develop content and activities to link theory to real-world family contexts via the incorporation of experiential learning and community partnerships.
After gathering feedback and having discussions with community partners and students, student partners will incorporate more experiential learning into the course. Through community engagement activities, where students taking the course would volunteer with a group or organization and reflect on their experience, they would connect how their time spent or what they observed/learned in this setting relates to the theories discussed in class. By doing so, they would be able to connect family theory to both their career interests and the real struggles of families and individuals in order to make a real change in their community. This would also provide an opportunity to examine, in a real-world context, various lenses, benefits and limitations that each theory brings to the examination of family life, providing an ideal context for a comparative examination as well as providing a context for skill development in working with families.