苏珊Mannon
PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2003
MA, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1998
BA, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, 1996
My approach to teaching sociology is to invite students into the world of the sociologist - to give them a glimpse of what I do as a practicing sociologist. Who are sociologists? What do they do? And how do they see the world? In short, I want students to understand sociology as a field of practice. Since re搜索 is what sociologists do and the basis for how we see the world, sociological re搜索 is at the center of my teaching.
In the classroom, I highlight sociological re搜索 through the use of re搜索 monographs, journal articles, and other multimedia. Textbooks typically do not feature prominently in my courses, since most mention sociological re搜索 only in passing. I also structure my courses around bodies of sociological knowledge, rather than sociological topics. I want undergraduate students to learn how sociologists carve out areas of re搜索 and to appreciate how sociological knowledge is contested among scholars.
最后, I assign coursework that teaches students core sociological competencies, such as conducting a literature review and evaluating different types of evidence. Most of my assignments touch on one or more of these competencies, such that students understand how sociologists go about studying society. 最后, my goal is to provide a window for students to see into my "laboratory", which is not a sterile room with glass beakers and lab coats, but a world of fascinating social patterns that tell us something about the human condition.
My re搜索 involves three critical areas of sociology: development and social change, international migration, and gender and work. Broadly speaking, I am interested in how individuals and communities respond to a changing global economy. Though my geographic focus has varied, my re搜索 questions are always the same. How do individuals adapt to major shifts in the economy? How do these adaptations reconfigure family and class relations? And what do these processes suggest about the nature of economic change?
Among the re搜索 projects I have conducted since the start of my career is an ethnographic study of a city in 成本a Rica that has undergone extensive economic and social change. For this re搜索, I collected work and migration histories of the city's residents, charting the ways that their livelihoods and lifeways changed with evolving economic circumstances. This re搜索 was published in a book called "City of Flowers: An Ethnography of Social and Economic Change in 成本a Rica's Central Valley."
Another recent project examines a guest worker migration program in southern Spain that recruits Moroccan mothers to work in seasonal agriculture. For this study, I investigated how ideas of motherhood figure into new forms of labor recruitment and control in the global economy. 最后, I am starting a new re搜索 program that examines students at Pacific who are going to school full-time while caring for children. I am interested in the role that education plays in their mobility strategies and how these strategies are complicated by their caregiving responsibilities and the changing system of higher education.
