Mask Making: Incorporating Service Learning Into Criminology and Deviance Courses

Criminology and deviance classes are often among the most popular in the sociol ogy undergraduate curriculum. These courses provide a unique opportunity for teachers since many students come to class with an intense interest in the subject matter combined with strong opinions about crime, criminals, and deviants. Because these opin ions are often based on media reports and stereotypes, criminology and deviance courses provide fertile ground for teaching sociology. At the same time, however, stu dent preconceptions tend to favor individu alistic explanations of crime and deviance, making it difficult to teach concepts such as the social construction of In this article, we propose a unique way to incor porate service learning into criminology and deviance classes to help students overcome this type of resistance to a sociological per spective. Over the years, a number of sociologists have developed exercises to help students understand the social construction of devi ance and social theories of crime. For ex ample, Brezina (2000) suggests an activity in which students analyze their own aca demic dishonesty as an example of deviant and behavior. Similarly, Reichel (1982) suggests the use of a criminal ac tivities checklist in which students check off their own deviant acts. Although poten tially effective, exercises of this type may fail to reach some students. So many stu dents cheat (or smoke marijuana, or drive drunk, etc.) that it becomes easy to deny that these are examples of real deviance. To overcome this problem, Greenberg (1989) proposes an activity in which stu dents conduct intensive interviews with im prisoned juvenile delinquents. As the stu dents interview the delinquents, they dis cover they have much in common. Green berg finds that this exercise forces the stu dents to consider the role society plays in determining who is labeled or devi ant. It also allows them to explore some of the social causes of behavior. We agree with Greenberg (1989) that allowing students to interact with juvenile inmates is a powerful way to help them question their assumptions about crime and There are, however, at least two potential problems with Greenberg's exer cise. First, it does not have clear benefits for the juvenile delinquents. Juvenile pris oners are frequently interviewed by a range of social service professionals and may re sent being asked to reveal personal details of their lives to a stranger with nothing tan gible to offer them. Second, it is difficult to obtain true consent from a captive popula tion; residents of juvenile prisons may find it difficult to refuse an interview because they fear reprisal from staff. In the pages *The authors wish to thank Susie Sargent, Neha Sahgal, Amanda Mizeur, Linda Morgan Clement, Emily Todd, Leon Horton, Pamela Nurse, the Wayne-Holmes Juvenile Attention Center, John Thompson, the Wooster Volunteer Network, and The College of Wooster for their assistance in the development and implementa tion of this project. We would also like to thank Gary Hesser, the editors of Teaching Sociology, and three anonymous reviewers for helpful com ments on earlier drafts of this article. Readers