Teaching Stratification: Stimulating Interest and Critical Thinking through Research Projects

One goal in teaching stratification is to illustrate how powerfully stratification shapes society. This paper discusses an effort to stimulate critical thinking through student research projects that utilize active learning in a course on social stratification. Students investigate stratification through research projects focused on their university. These projects accomplish three goals : (1) they involve students in the process of sociological research; (2) they show students that class, race and gender affects them every day; and (3) they clarify the importance of these issues to students