An important article from In Context.
I've always wondered why I felt uncomfortable teaching. Maybe the answer lies partially in this article.
Showing posts with label sociological imagination. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sociological imagination. Show all posts
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Monday, September 29, 2008
Presentation at Sociologists of Minnesota
The following is a rough draft of the presentation I will giving Thursday at the Sociologists of Minnesota annual meeting.
The following presentation is an elaboration of parts of a sabbatical proposal (Canaries in a Coal Mine, 2007) I submitted at Saint Mary’s University. I planned to spend my sabbatical designing a honeybee focused section of SMU’s Global Issues course. Global Issues is an interdisciplinary core offering required of all juniors. While my sabbatical was rejected, I’ve continued work on this project.
Introduction
I teach the interdisciplinary course called Global Issues and every semester I am faced with the same problem: How do I engage students to consider important macro-structural global issues without losing them? An understanding of the problems and benefits surrounding economic and environmental globalization is a must for any informed citizen, yet for many students, these issues are too abstract and distant from them. Their eyes glaze over with each discussion of IMF policy, or the impact of neo-conservative ideology. I do well enough on my evaluations so I could ignore this problem and coast to retirement, but I have this gut feeling, not found in any of the “positivist” assessment tools used to evaluate the course, that my students are just not getting it.
Developmentally, my students are very concrete thinkers, so I am left with the problem of getting them to somehow ponder very abstract concepts and processes. One approach to my dilemma is to get my students to cultivate “the sociological imagination”: the ability to perceive that one’s inner and day-to-day life is very much connected to the larger macro-structures we live within (Mills 1959); the concrete mundane problems that we can easily grasp are very much related to those larger global issues and policies which we see as distant. From this pedagogical approach, students would start by focusing on an engaging, concrete activity and slowly broaden this focus during the semester, learning how this activity is impacted by a larger complex web of national and global structures.
After doing some initial reading and reflection in the summer of 2007 on the complex issue of “Colony Collapse Disorder” (CCD) amongst honeybees (Apis Mellifera), I thought that a Global Issues course that centers on honeybees as the proverbial “canaries in a coal mine” would help students understand and engage in the global issues that impact their own lives as well. The ecological crisis that beekeepers and their bees face is not simply technical/biological issues, but a problem influenced by global socioenvironmental forces as well.
Why focus on honeybees?
- Media Attention- The crisis facing bees already is of interest to many students through the attention much of the media have given to CCD. Students have seen stories on 60 Minutes, or read articles on the web or in newspapers.
- Bees are Engaging Creatures- Once people get beyond their initial fear of bees they often become fascinated by these creatures. Some even catch what beekeepers call “bee fever”. Tracey (2008:798) describes it this way: “People of every age are simply amazed at the advanced social insect, Apis Mellifera. It is the only insect that produces food and other products used by humans. It is the only insect with flower consistency. It is an insect with a solar navigation system, an ability to create enough heat and cooling effects to keep its brood at 94 F, and a communication system that allows hive members to work for the survival of a colony as a whole.”
- Transparent Connections – At least to this observer, the connections between the honeybee survival and larger socioenvironmental factors seem quite transparent and communicable to undergraduates.
The Teaching Model
While the hands-on “problem-based” pedagogy (Delisle 1997) I plan to use in this course would be interesting to discuss, in this paper, I will outline the proposed model to be used for structuring course content (see Figure 1). The topics in the course are pictured as a series of 4 concentric circles: the inner circle is bee biology, the circle around that concerns the local management of bees (apiculture), the next ring represents the larger societal environment beekeeping takes place in, and last circle represents the global level. The course ends with discussion of possible future scenarios in the above context.
The arrows in the model represent the learning/teaching trajectory of the course. The course’s general path will be to move from the biological, to the local, to the societal, and lastly, to the global, with constant connections being made to the lower levels. (This is indicated by those returning arrows that veer off the straight line.) Each “topic ring” is elaborated on below.
Bee Biology
Students begin the class with a “crash” course in bee biology. Topics include: the anatomy, function and life-cycle of the three honeybee “castes” (i.e. queen, drone, worker), the modes by which bees communicate with hive-mates (e.g. pheromones, “bee dance”), their genetics and mating behavior, other behaviors (e.g. foraging, stinging), the products produced by bees (i.e. propolis, honey, beeswax, royal jelly, “bee bread”), and, finally, the bees’ nutritional requirements (c.f. Blackston, 2002:17-40)
Two other topics will be introduced at this point in the course as well: (1) the honeybees ecological relationship with the “natural” environment and (2) the bee colony as a “super organism”. (Sanford, 2008; Tautz 2008)
Apiculture in Social and Cultural Context
Besides acquiring “hands-on” knowledge of both conventional and alternative apiculture, the students will be introduced to a critical examination of bee management from a social and cultural perspective. Western attitudes toward “nature” and the process of rationalization have both shaped the technology/techniques used to keep bees in the U.S. as well as many other parts of world. These two factors affect the health and well-being of Apis Melifera to a significant degree.
Western Attitude Toward Nature— Historian, Lynn White (1967) argues that through the influence of a particular Christian ethos, the Western World has developed an exploitive and domineering view of humanity’s relationship to nature. Rather than seeing ourselves as part of nature, we, in the West, see ourselves above nature in the role of a ruler who uses nature for his/her own benefit and as the ruler sees fit. Nature was created for us, we must subdue nature and use it for our own purposes.
The ill-effects of this attitude on honeybees is a source of debates debates between the conventional beekeeping establishment and those proposing more sustainable methods. (e.g. Chandler, 2007) Conventional beekeeping’s first priority, at least since the 1800’s, has always been a concern with the products bees produce for humans, and the beekeeper’s own convenience, and, only secondarily, with the health and sustainability of bees. So, for example, conventional beekeepers may attempt to extract as much honey as possible from a hive in the late summer and fall, leaving very little honey for the over wintering bees. The beekeeper makes up for the deficit by stuffing the bees with a cheaper cane sugar syrup or high fructose corn syrup throughout the fall. (Wells, Potter, and Abramson, 2008) Debate continues in the beekeeping community on whether this is a healthy, sustainable apicultural practice and whether or not such a practice might be linked, at least partially, to bee die-off. (c.f. Oliver n.d. a)
Sustainable beekeeper, Phil Chandler (2007), proposes another practice which commercial honey producers might label as “impractical”. He argues that the beekeeper should harvest honey in the spring, taking only what the honey honeybees have not used for over wintering. Thus, the bees would have a more nutritious diet in the winter, making them more able to resist the various pests and diseases that are endemic in the hive.
The Rationalization of Apiculture— Along with this domineering attitude toward nature the process of rationalization (c.f. Weber 1921 [1968]) also impacts the practice of apiculture in sometimes negative ways. The Western world has become increasingly dominated by a concern for efficiency, predictability, productivity, and labor saving control by technology (Ritzer 2008: 25). The rationalization of beekeeping management techniques seem connected to many honeybee “health problems”.
Horn (2005: 121-4) locates the origins of the rationalization of apiculture in the mid 1800s with the invention of three new apicultural technologies: movable frames, machines to produce beeswax foundation, and the “smoker”. These technologies allowed the beekeeper to efficiently and productively (in human terms) manage many more hives then s/he could in the past. Suddenly, almost over night, “industrial” labor-saving beekeeping was possible. Coupled with the rising price of sugar cane during the Civil War, large scale beekeeping was born. Today, these technological innovations have allowed commercial beekeepers to manage thousands of hives, and transport them all around the country and the world.
Even conventional beekeepers recognize that this rationalization of apicultural has not been without costs, especially to the health, well-being, and sustainability of the honeybees themselves. (e.g. Hayes 2008: 786) Many of the current techniques that make commercial beekeeping possible may have negative, long-term consequences for the bees. Two examples will suffice to illustrate this.
Recently, Randy Oliver, commercial beekeeper and “amateur” scientist, tested the efficacy of using two sustainable “folk” methods for controlling the varroa mite, a deadly honeybee pest that came very close to wiping out managed and feral honeybees in the early 90s. He discovered that by periodically pulling out and destroying frames of capped drone brood, and dusting bees with powdered sugar, the level of mite infestation can be lowered to a threshold that the bees own hygienic behavior and immune system can deal with. This management approach does not seem to produce any resistant mites as well. Overall, this management approach is quite sustainable for the bees. (Oliver n.d. B)
While such an approach might be regarded as an excellent option for sideline and backyard beekeepers and their handful of hives, commercial beekeepers see this technique as just too labor intensive and inefficient for their large scale operations. These sustainable techniques demand the opening and management of each individual hive on at least a monthly basis. From a short-term economic standpoint, it is much more cost effective to simply use one of the various miticides available to commercial establishments, and wipe out the mites in that way. Of course, in the long-term, even commercial beekeepers recognize, that this approach is not sustainable, and breeds “super mites” who are resistant to the miticide. (c.f. Hayes 2008: 786)
The second illustration also concerns the varroa mite problem as well. The only way unmanaged hives, as a “superorganism”, can reproduce is by means of “swarming”. To put it simply, if, in late spring/early summer, a hive becomes honey-bound, and reaches a critical density, the bees may begin preparations to swarm. The hive begins to produce dozens of queen cells, and both the old queen and close to half the workers prepare to leave in search of a new suitable home in which to start a new colony. Hopefully, one of the virgin queens in the old hive successfully mates and begins work re-establishing a thriving hive within the old colony. From the economic viewpoint of the beekeeper, swarming is something that should be prevented. (Horn 2005:139) A hive that swarms is set back at least a month in honey production. In some beekeepers’ eyes, not preventing swarming can be interpreted as poor, lazy, and neglectful management of a hive. So, beekeepers have developed various techniques and technology for preventing hives from swarming.
While economically unproductive, it does appear as if swarming has some real positive benefits for the future sustainability of the honeybee, however. For one thing, a hive that swarms breaks up the lifecycle of the varroa mite, keeping the level of infestation down.
The eggs of varroa mites are laid in brood cells, and their larvae feast on bee larvae. Until a swarm finds and/or builds new comb, the old queen cannot lay eggs, and without eggs there are no larvae on which the mites can live off. In the old hive, it will take around a month before a new queen is laying eggs, so again, the lifecycle of the mite is disrupted. The reason, then, that African hybrid bees seem resistant to mites has much to do with their tendency to swarm incessantly.
Societal Level--Beekeeping as a Business in the 21st Century U.S. Economy
At the societal level, students move next to an examination of beekeeping as a business and its position within the U.S. economy. As in the last conceptual zone, students will be asked to use the sociological imagination and reflect back on how the processes located in this zone impact the survival of the honeybee.
Beekeeping is a dominated subfield within the larger social field of American agriculture. (c.f. Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992:94-114) American agricultural is a field primarily dominated by multinational corporations (farming and agrichemical firms) that possess a lion’s share of economic and political capital. These corporations, more often than not, define the rules of the agricultural game through their economic advantages and political clout. All that enter the field usually find themselves on the agricultural “production treadmill” (c.f. Scnaiberg 1980; Gould, Pellow and Schnaiberg 2008), the “speed” of which is greatly determined by the agribusiness giants. (c.f. Flottum 2008)
The dominated subfield of beekeeping is itself divided into three subgroupings, differing in the amount and species of capital: commercial beekeepers (full-timers), sideline beekeepers, and hobby (backyard) beekeepers. Commercial beekeepers dominate this field to the degree that the equipment and apicultural methods that are conventionally defined as standard to beekeeping, are largely designed for the needs and approaches of commercial beekeepers. The manufacturers of equipment survive because of the sales they make to commercial outfits. If commercial beekeeping were to disappear so would most the manufacturers. But as dominant as commercial beekeepers are in this subfield, their capital and influence is tiny compared to some of the agribusiness and agrichemical firms in the field of agricultural. The largest of commercial pollinators or honey producers are still likely to be small-scale family-run operations with workers wearing many hats. (Mares 2005:55-77)
The Agrichemical Agricultural Complex (Flottum 2008:8) which fulltime, commercial beekeepers find themselves in impacts the health and sustainability of honeybees, primarily through the monoculture used in present day farming. Monoculture affects honeybee health in two important ways. First, monoculture is dependent on the use, not only of herbicides (to kill competing) plants but pesticides as well. Insect pests thrive in monocultural environments where diversity in plant life is lacking (c.f. McWilliams 2008:59; Olkowski, Daar, Olkowski 1995: 142) demanding extensive use of pesticides. Pesticides have been linked to bee die-off and colony collapse in a number countries (Schacker, 2008). The second monoculture effect is related to bee nutrition in monocultural areas. Honeybees require a variety of pollen sources in order to maintain a proper, balanced nutrition. In monocultured areas, where bees primarily forage on one type of plant, honeybees receive an improper diet which has been linked to susceptibility to a number of viruses possibly resulting in CCD. (Jacobsen 2008:47, 147).
Global Context
With the previous concept levels explored, the student is finally ready to examine the impact of globalization on the survival of the honeybee. Historically, the health of honeybees, as an economically valuable creature, has always been tied to the global system. Honeybees are not native to the United States, being brought to this country by the first white settlers. In the 1870s, a strain of honeybees was imported from Italy because of their greater productivity and “gentleness”. (Horn 2005)
“Natural” beekeepers, Ross Conrad (2007: 184) argues that the process of globalization is a two-edge sword in relation to the well-being and sustainability of the honeybee. On the one hand, the importation and export of honeybee strains around the world expands the biodiversity of the honeybee population, leading, at least theoretically, to a more adaptable species of insect. Some researchers have linked the CCD epidemic to the narrow gene pool existing amongst honeybees within the U.S.; American bees do not have the genetic variability to adapt to environmental changes. (Jacobsen 2008: 44-5) So, over the last decade, Russian honeybees have been imported and bred in the United States because of their immunity to the varroa mite and better survival rate in northern climates.
But the importing and exporting of honeybees around the globe has its negative side. A number of the pests and diseases (e.g. Varroa mites, Nosema ceranae) honeybees are battling in the U.S. have been introduced and spread through both the domestic, and global movement of colonies. The introduction of the African hybrid into the Western Hemisphere was simply the result of an economic development project gone awry. Every gain in the import/export of honeybees is outweighed by negative unforeseen consequences.
The issue of global climate change can also be illuminated through an examination of honeybee sustainability. Drought conditions and rising temperatures have made geographical areas where honeybees once foraged, less and less suitable for sustainable apiculture. (Bartlet 2008)
Global commodity markets will be discussed, highlighting their effect on honeybees. The price of honey has declined on world markets with cheap exports from China and Argentina flooding the world market. As a result, commercial beekeeping outfits in the U.S. now focus on migratory pollination services in order to survive (Mares, 2005) which many argue has a negative impact on the health and sustainability of the honeybee population. (Schacker, 2008; Jacobsen, 2008) Migratory beekeeping not only produces stress on honeybees, it also allows the rapid spread of bee pathogens around the globe.
The globalization of neo-liberal economic practices through the conditionalities set by the IMF, and World Bank (Stiglitz 2006:25-59; Cavanaugh and Mander 2004:32-54) and its effects on the health of the honeybee has yet to be studied. We have already seen that the process of rationalization both in apiculture and agriculture do seem to effect bee sustainability. What effects has the spread of these practices globally had on the honeybee in other parts of the world?
The Future and Solutions
In the last section of the course, students will examine the future of the honeybee and that future’s impact on human survival. We begin this section examining the works of both Jacobsen (2008) and Schacker (2008). Both authors predict dire agricultural consequences if the honeybee population continues to decline. The collapse of bees means a collapse to our food supply.
We move after this to the solutions currently being debated, dividing them into two categories: (1) technological/reductionist solutions and (2) structural/holistic ones. Technological/reductionist solutions are those of so-called “green capitalism”. They seek the solutions to environmental problems in technological innovations and “silver bullets” that keep the social structure virtually intact. So for example, many conventional beekeepers await the invention of miticides that are environmentally safer and do not lead to the breeding of genetically resistant mites. Structural/holistic solutions look for answers in structural and global changes in the rather complex, multivariate global socioenvironment. Some might argue that the creation of sustainable human societies (e.g. Cavanaugh and Mander 2005: 77-104) will ensure the sustainability of bees. For example, Chandler (2007) argues that the future survival of bees depends on beekeepers’ rethinking apiculture holistically. For Chandler, the survival of managed bee colonies depends on returning to beekeeping as a cottage industry, and away from factory apiculture.
Conclusions
In order to engage students in the abstract, and complex study of global issues, I have begun to design a problem-based, interdisciplinary global issues course that examines the current environmental threats facing honeybees. The course includes a biological examination of apis mellifera, a study of the human management of the creature, the impact of global and socio-environmental factors on their well-being and, finally, a discussion of their future survival.
References
Bartlet, William.2008. “Tulip Poplar Problems”, Letters to the Editor. Bee Culture September: 10, 7.
Blackston, Howland. 2002. Beekeeping For Dummies. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley.
Bourdieu, Pierre and Loic J.D. Wacquant. 1992. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Bourdieu, Pierre and Loic J.D. Wacquant. 1992. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Cavanaugh, John and Jerry Mander. Alternatives to Economic Globalization. San Francisco: Berrett Koehler.
Chandler, Phil. 2007. The Barefoot Beekeeper, 1st Edition.
Conrad, Ross. 2007. Natural Beekeeping-Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture. White River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green.
Delisle, Robert. 1997. How to Use Problem-Based Learning in the Classroom. Alexandra, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Flottum, Kim. 2008. “The Inner Cover: the Complex: Selling Honey.” Bee Culture September: 10, 58.
Gould, Kenneth A., David N. Pellow and Allan Schnaiberg. 2008. The Treadmill of Production: Injustice and Unsustainability in the Global Economy. Boulder, CO: Paradigm.
Hayes, Jerry. 2008. “The Classroom.” Bee Culture September:783-7.
Horn, Tammy. 2005. Bees in America – How the Honeybee Shaped a Nation.
Lexington, Kentucky: University of Kentucky.
Jacobsen, Rowan. 2008. Fruitless Fall- The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis. New York: Bloomsbury.
Mares, Bill. 2005. Bees Besieged - One Beekeeper’s Bittersweet Journey to Understanding. Medina, OH: A.I. Root.
McWilliams, James E. 2008. American Pests – The Losing War on Insects from Colonial Times to DDT. New York: Columbia.
Miller, Wesley. 2007. “Sabbatical Proposal Revised Again”
http://canariesinacoalmine.blogspot.com/2007/09/sabbatical-proposal-revised-again.html. Accessed September 8, 2008.
Mills, C. Wright. 1959. The Sociological Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press
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Olkowski, William, Sheila Daar, Helga Olkowski. 1995. The Gardener’s Guide to Common Sense Pest Control. Newtown, CT: Taunton.
Oliver, Randy. n.d. A. “Bee Nutrition: Fat Bees 1.” Scientificbeekeeping.com. http://www.scientificbeekeeping.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=34 . Accessed September 12, 2008.
-------. n.d. B. “Tactics: Biotechnical Methods I.” Scientificbeekeeping.com . http://www.scientificbeekeeping.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=24&Itemid=40 . Accessed September 12, 2008.
Ritzer, George. 2008. The McDonaldization of Society 5. Los Angeles: Pine Forge.
Sanford, Malcolm. 2008. “The Buzz About Bees: Effects of Their Superorganismic Qualities”. Bee Culture September: 15-7.
Schacker, Michael. 2008. A Spring Without Bees – How Colony Collapse Has Endangered Our Food Supply. Guilford, CT.: The Lyons Press.
Schnaiberg, Allan. 1980. The Environment from Surplus to Scarcity. New York: Oxford.
Stiglitz, Joseph E. 2006 .Making Globalization Work. New York: Norton.
Tautz, Jurgen. 2008. The Buzz About Bees: Biology of a Superorganism. Translated by David C. Sandeman. Berlin: Springer.
Tracey, Dyanne M. “Preparing Teacher-Beekeepers to Teach Student Beekeepers in Schools.” American Bee Journal. Vol. 148, No. 9: 797-8.
Weber, Max. 1921 [1968]. Economy and Society. Totowa, NJ: Bedminster.
Wells, Harrington, Potter, William and Abramson, Charles I. 2008. “Which Is Best? Sucrose and HFCS.” Bee Culture September 2008: 21-2.
White, Lynn. 1967. “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crises.” Science 155:1203-7.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Change in Session at SOM
I have been moved to another panel at the Sociologists of Minnesota meeting in October. I will be discussing my proposal for a hands-on "bee focused" Global Issues course. I will have more information on this soon.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Sociologists of Minnesota Conference
I sent this email today to the conference coordinator of the Sociologists of Minnesota.
I am interested in participating in the October conference but am a bit at a loss on how I might fit in.
I am a sociologist who teaches at Saint Mary's University of Minnesota. Over the last two years I've taken an interest, professionally, personally and politically, in the environmental issues surrounding the "disappearance" of honey bees. I think, as social ecologists might argue, this environmental issue has its roots in deep seated social problems, rather than simply just being a technical/scientific issue with a technical/scientific solution. The application of "Tayloristic" management practices to apiculture, the "grow or die" economic model of global capitalism, agribusiness practices like monoculture of crops, and aspects of global trade are all factors that interact and impact the survival of the honey bee.
These concerns have affected my sociological practice in two ways. In my interdisciplinary global issues course, the sociological story of the honey bees plight is used to illustrated the larger global forces that impact my students' daily lives in their own local environment. On the activist side, I have become involved in a global movement of sustainable beekeepers who not only "handle" their bees in a "greener" way but actively protest against those social forces and practices threatening the bees survival. (see http://biobees.com/ ) To be honest, I've only started this whole project but I'd like feedback and wonder if this might fit into the conference somewhere?
I am interested in participating in the October conference but am a bit at a loss on how I might fit in.
I am a sociologist who teaches at Saint Mary's University of Minnesota. Over the last two years I've taken an interest, professionally, personally and politically, in the environmental issues surrounding the "disappearance" of honey bees. I think, as social ecologists might argue, this environmental issue has its roots in deep seated social problems, rather than simply just being a technical/scientific issue with a technical/scientific solution. The application of "Tayloristic" management practices to apiculture, the "grow or die" economic model of global capitalism, agribusiness practices like monoculture of crops, and aspects of global trade are all factors that interact and impact the survival of the honey bee.
These concerns have affected my sociological practice in two ways. In my interdisciplinary global issues course, the sociological story of the honey bees plight is used to illustrated the larger global forces that impact my students' daily lives in their own local environment. On the activist side, I have become involved in a global movement of sustainable beekeepers who not only "handle" their bees in a "greener" way but actively protest against those social forces and practices threatening the bees survival. (see http://biobees.com/ ) To be honest, I've only started this whole project but I'd like feedback and wonder if this might fit into the conference somewhere?
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Social Fields
I wrote this as an email to a colleague this morning.
I've been thinking about this article all morning and think it might be useful to expand on Bourdieu's insights in relation to our own situations at ****.
Bourdieu has noticed in his own research that all social fields (e.g. **** faculty or the world of beekeeping) are arenas of social conflict and struggle where the various species of capital (e.g. economic, social, cultural, and symbolic) are _not_ the only things at stake. The winners in these struggles not only recieve the lion's share of capital, they are also given the "authority" to define what the "rules of the game" are in further struggles. Unlike a game of baseball or football where the rules stay the same no matter who wins or loses a game, the rules do not stay the same after each contest in a social field, but are changed by the winners to some degree to favor their own interests in further struggles. As I see it, this explains alot of what has happened over the last 15 years at ****.
The faculty at **** is a dominated subfield of the **** institution as a whole. The administration has "consecrated" certain members of the faculty as "leaders", either through promotion to administrative positions or as "informal", behind the scenes, leaders. Overall, these "consecrated" individuals have some characteristics that distinguish them from others:
a. (Bureaucratic Technicians) They do not engage themselves in critical/creative scholarship in their own disciplines beyond the reading of journals and textbooks. Sometimes, this is lacking.
b. They possess an incredibly extreme Protestant Work ethic. They see hardwork and busyness as a virtue in and of itself, whether that hardwork actually leads to any significant increase in "outcomes". In systems theory language, they focus more on "outputs" than on "outcomes".
I would add one other thing. For various career trajectory reasons (e.g. being an **** alumni, being hired by administration without an outside search) these individuals demonstrate an extreme loyalty to **** as an institution. While we all love SMU, many of us have other countervailing loyalties that keep us from totally "drinking the Kool-aid". I cannot ignore the debt I have to the Jesuit and the Anabaptist traditions that influenced me through college. I cannot simply ignore the critical thinking skills I've acquired from 30 odd years as a sociologist and simply say "Oh, conflict theory doesn't apply to ****. We don't have conflicts and we all have the same interests."
So, these are the qualities of those who have won, at this point, the social struggle in the faculty and so, these are also the qualities you and I are held to and judged by: (a) bureaucratic technician skills, (b) Working hard but not smart and (c) uncritical loyalty. Those of us who can't or won't live by these rules are at a disadvantage during further struggles and are easily labeled as "obstructionists", or "anti-lasallian" if we do voice objections. Even worse, like me, the institution can simply ignore them.
I've been thinking about this article all morning and think it might be useful to expand on Bourdieu's insights in relation to our own situations at ****.
Bourdieu has noticed in his own research that all social fields (e.g. **** faculty or the world of beekeeping) are arenas of social conflict and struggle where the various species of capital (e.g. economic, social, cultural, and symbolic) are _not_ the only things at stake. The winners in these struggles not only recieve the lion's share of capital, they are also given the "authority" to define what the "rules of the game" are in further struggles. Unlike a game of baseball or football where the rules stay the same no matter who wins or loses a game, the rules do not stay the same after each contest in a social field, but are changed by the winners to some degree to favor their own interests in further struggles. As I see it, this explains alot of what has happened over the last 15 years at ****.
The faculty at **** is a dominated subfield of the **** institution as a whole. The administration has "consecrated" certain members of the faculty as "leaders", either through promotion to administrative positions or as "informal", behind the scenes, leaders. Overall, these "consecrated" individuals have some characteristics that distinguish them from others:
a. (Bureaucratic Technicians) They do not engage themselves in critical/creative scholarship in their own disciplines beyond the reading of journals and textbooks. Sometimes, this is lacking.
b. They possess an incredibly extreme Protestant Work ethic. They see hardwork and busyness as a virtue in and of itself, whether that hardwork actually leads to any significant increase in "outcomes". In systems theory language, they focus more on "outputs" than on "outcomes".
I would add one other thing. For various career trajectory reasons (e.g. being an **** alumni, being hired by administration without an outside search) these individuals demonstrate an extreme loyalty to **** as an institution. While we all love SMU, many of us have other countervailing loyalties that keep us from totally "drinking the Kool-aid". I cannot ignore the debt I have to the Jesuit and the Anabaptist traditions that influenced me through college. I cannot simply ignore the critical thinking skills I've acquired from 30 odd years as a sociologist and simply say "Oh, conflict theory doesn't apply to ****. We don't have conflicts and we all have the same interests."
So, these are the qualities of those who have won, at this point, the social struggle in the faculty and so, these are also the qualities you and I are held to and judged by: (a) bureaucratic technician skills, (b) Working hard but not smart and (c) uncritical loyalty. Those of us who can't or won't live by these rules are at a disadvantage during further struggles and are easily labeled as "obstructionists", or "anti-lasallian" if we do voice objections. Even worse, like me, the institution can simply ignore them.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Sabbatical Proposal Revised Again
I received some comments from the Faculty Development Committee concerning my sabbatical proposal and have revised it. (see below) I am going to let my department chair read this before I send it back to committee since he didn't understand why any changes were called for in the first draft to begin with.
____________
Sabbatical Proposal for Spring Semester 2009
Wesley E. Miller
Department of Social Science
September 2007
1. Synopsis
I teach the interdisciplinary course called Global Issues and every semester I am faced with the same problem: How do I engage students to consider important macro-structural global issues without losing them? An understanding of the problems and benefits surrounding economic and environmental globalization is a must for any informed citizen, yet for many students, these issues are too abstract and distant from them. Their eyes glaze over with each discussion of IMF policy, or the impact of neo-conservative ideology. I do well enough on my evaluations so I could ignore this problem and coast to retirement, but I have this gut feeling, not found in any of the “positivist” assessment tools used to evaluate the course, that my students are just not getting it. Developmentally, my students are very concrete thinkers, so I am left with the problem of getting them to somehow ponder very abstract concepts and processes.
One approach to my dilemma is to get my students to cultivate what we sociologists call “the sociological imagination”: the ability to perceive that one’s inner and day-to-day life is very much connected to the larger macro-structures we live within (Mills 1959); the concrete mundane problems that we can easily grasp are very much related to those larger global issues and policies which we see as distant. From this pedagogical approach, students would start by focusing on an engaging, concrete activity and slowly broaden this focus during the semester, learning how this activity is impacted by a complex web of larger national and global structures that seem so distant to them at first.
After doing some initial reading last summer on the complex issue of “Colony Collapse Disorder” (CCD) amongst honey bees (Apis Mellifera), I think that a Global Issues course that centers on honey bees as the proverbial “canaries in a coal mine” would help students understand and engage in the global issues that impact their own lives as well. The problems (e.g. CCD, organic vs. conventional husbandry) that beekeepers and their bees face are not simply biological issues, but are influenced by macro structural forces as well.
The effective construction of any such course will demand a retooling on my part. A course with this focus will demand knowledge outside my disciplinary expertise. Besides a hands-on understanding of day-to-day apiculture I will need to become more familiar with global economic and political policy, ecological issues, agribusiness practices, and the cultures and philosophies in the beekeeping world.
In sum, then, I request a sabbatical leave for spring semester 2009 in order to pursue the following objectives:
1. To understand how the day-to-day lives of honey bees and beekeepers are impacted by the larger macro-forces produced by globalization.
Underlying this objective is the theoretical orientation in sociology called “structural constructivism” (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1988). Like ‘normal’ social constructivist theory, this approach recognizes that as individuals interact they collaboratively construct “typifications” or representations of reality (Berger and Luckmann 1967). Structural Constructivism argues that the “social materials” used in the social construction of reality come not only from the external social environment of individuals, but that these materials systematically vary with the structural/historical position of the actor. For example, a middle class, 21 century, US citizen from the Midwest will produce a different social construction than an upper class, 19th century, Irish citizen from Cork simply because their social/geographical/historical coordinates have placed them in different environments where the “social materials” at hand are different.
The chief advantage of this approach in both sociological research and problem-based pedagogy is that it avoids the false opposition between human agency and structural determinism. Actors “improvise” and create but always within the limits of the structures at hand; they internalize the external, while externalizing the internal, all with some “improvisational” control on the part of the agent. As they externalize they also reproduce, and creatively adapt to some degree, the structures they originally internalized.
As a proponent of the Conflict paradigm in sociology, I tend to shy away from the use of systems theory. From my viewpoint, systems theory tends to overly exaggerate the integration of cultural artifacts and the functional interdependence of societal structures, while casting conflict and cultural contradiction as “abnormal”.
2. To distill the above information into concepts and activities that would effectively engage students in understanding global issues.
Admittedly, at this point, I only have vague notions of what a “bee-focused” Global Issues course might look like. I would like to explore the possibility of combining a problem-based pedagogical approach (Delisle 1997) with a grounded theory-based (Glaser and Strauss 1967) research methodology (see more about grounded theory under objective 3). In problem-based pedagogy, students learn not by reading or listening for the teacher’s “correct answers”, but by creating and answering their own questions. The grounded theory methodology would provide the students with an environment to do this in, not simply as students, but as research collaborators elaborating on and clarifying the work I’ve already begun in my ethnography through their collection of data from new theoretically chosen comparison groups. Course activities might well include experiences interviewing beekeepers and observing different apiaries, content analysis of internet “bee” forums and email lists, attending to the current research on bee management and bee ‘problems’ in various apicultural publications, examining economic, environmental and political policies that might impact bees and/or beekeepers, and hands-on experiences in bee management and care. All these experiences would be recorded and reflected upon by each student in a detailed journal of field notes.
While the sociological perspective of the instructor will no doubt be a guiding influence here, the course should offer an interdisciplinary (rather than “other disciplinary”) perspective on “bees in a global context”.
3. To produce an ethnography of the beekeeping world including those more “esoteric” movements like “biodynamic beekeeping” and “apitherapy”.
Methodologically, this ethnography will be guided by two meta-sociological approaches: reflexive sociology and grounded theory.
In a nutshell, reflexive sociology (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992) recognizes that the same types of social forces that impact the social constructions of ordinary actors in day-to-day life also impact the scientific observer and her instruments when doing research and analysis. The scientific method does not provide the observer with a “magic bubble,” giving the researcher a “god-like viewpoint” on reality, thus exempting her from the influences that her social/historical position exerts on her. The reflexive sociologists rejects the “futile attempts to eliminate the effects of (and on) the researcher” (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983:17), but instead calls on the scientific observer to examine those effects in order to produce a richer understanding of the phenomena under study. Ignoring these social forces or claiming to control them doesn’t make the knowledge produced any more valid.
This proposed sabbatical project could serve as an institutional model for doing reflexive research. Whether we are discussing our positivist approach to assessment or Bloom’s taxonomy at SMU, we lack any general acknowledgement or analysis of reflexivity in the knowledge we produce. To paraphrase Schuman (in Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983:17), artifacts (or numbers) are produced in the minds of their socially positioned beholders.
The ethnographic study will also be informed by what is called Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). According to Glaser and Corbin (1990: 21) “the grounded theory approach is a qualitative research method that uses a systematic set of procedures to develop an inductively derived grounded theory about a phenomenon”. Through “theoretical sampling” and strategic comparisons, the researcher produces substantive theories that fit the data observed well. The beauty of such a methodology for problem-based pedagogy is that the theories produced are always open-ended, allowing others (both students and faculty) to clarify and possibly add to the theory through their own systematic observations, strategic comparisons and analytical clarifications.
2. Activities Description
The following is a tentative timeline of the activities I propose to do during this sabbatical. The spring semester was chosen since it coincides with the beginning of beekeeping season in Minnesota.
a. January
1. Library research with a focus on bee biology and apiculture.
2. Begin interviews with apiculturalists of all types. It will include interviews with large and small-scale intensive honey producers, apiarists who practice “organic” or “sustainable” beekeeping, and backyard beekeepers who have one or two hives.
3. Attend the American Beekeeping Federation annual meeting.
b. February
1. Library research and interviewing with a focus on the philosophical “esoteric” side of beekeeping. This includes examining the ideas of Rudolf Steiner, Gunther Hauk, and other members of the “biodynamic” movement. Also, time will be spent studying the ideas of Charles Mraz and other proponents of “apitherapy”. This also might include attendance at an American Apitherapy meeting and a visit to the apiary founded by Charles Mraz in Burlington, Vermont.
2. Attend the Organic Beekeeping Society meeting.
c. March
1. Library research on global agricultural policy and practices.
2. Take a short course on apiculture at the University of Minnesota extension from Dr. Marla Spivak, breeder of the “Minnesota Hygienic” bee.
3. Prepare two hives: one using conventional Langtroth boxes and frames, the second using a Kenyan Top Bar hive.
4. Continue interviews
d. April and May
1. Begin construction of a Global Issues syllabus using materials collected thus far. Syllabus will include readings and activities in and out of class.
2. Participant observation conducted at local apiaries of different sizes and philosophies. Observations will go beyond simply husbandry concerns to attitudes towards bees and global concerns.
3. Add bees to the two hives set up last month.
4. Library research with a focus on global environmental issues that may impact bees.
e. May to Summer
1. Begin the writing and continue research for the ethnography.
2. Summer management of bees.
3. Contribution Description
a. Professional Development – Sociology has a long tradition of ethnographic studies describing the subcultures of occupations. Back in the 1920s, Robert Park (1983) analyzed the social world of news reporters. In the 1950s, Howard Becker (1963) examined the lebenswelt of Chicago jazz musicians. More recently, French sociologist Loic Wacquant (2006) did a participant observation study as an apprentice boxer. These studies looked underneath the manifest, official descriptions of these occupations found in organizational flow charts or career services materials to a complex world of meanings and rituals. This ethnographic examination of the world of beekeeping is my first attempt to add to this body of materials.
b. Academic Program – I think that the activities of this proposed sabbatical, brought into the classroom environment, will enhance our students understanding of global issues. If other faculty find this approach engaging and/or successful, it might inspire others to approach other courses in this manner.
c. Sharing Results with Other Faculty- Besides doing a post-sabbatical presentation on some relevant issue growing out of my research, I will be keeping a daily blog which will be accessible to faculty, students, and administration during and after the sabbatical. This blog (“Canaries in a Coal Mine”) will document my sabbatical’s day-to-day activities and discoveries. The use of a blog in this fashion is something rather unique.
5. Assessment Description
Four types of evidence will be used in assessing this sabbatical project.
a. Scholarly Publications- I will produce some body of work that will be submitted either in article or book form. I can envision the research producing a number of possible publications in sociology, pedagogy, environmental studies, and apiculture.
b. Presentation at the Midwest Sociology Convention.
c. I will use the comments left on my blog to assess the accuracy and clarity of what I am discovering. I will also share the assessment of my work to my blog readers as well.
d. I will produce a new syllabus for my Global Issues course that uses honeybees as a concrete focus for examining the problems and benefits globalization.
Works Cited
Becker, Howard S. 1963. The Outsiders. New York: Free Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre and Loic Wacquant. 1988. “Social Space and Symbolic Power”. Social Theory 7:18-26.
Bourdieu, Pierre and Loic Wacquant.1992. Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Delisle, Robert. 1997. How to Use Problem-Based Learning in the Classroom. Alexandra, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Glaser, B. and Strauss, A. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago: Aldine.
Hammersley, Martyn and Atkinson, Paul. 1983. Ethnography: Principle in Practices. New York: Routledge.
Mills, C. Wright. 1959. The Sociological Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Park, Robert E. 1983. “The Natural History of a Newspaper”. The City: Suggestions for Investigation of Human Behavior in the Urban Environment. Edited by Robert E. Park and Ernest W. Burgess. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. 1990. Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Wacquant, Loic. 2006. Body and Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer. Oxford: Oxford University.
____________
Sabbatical Proposal for Spring Semester 2009
Wesley E. Miller
Department of Social Science
September 2007
1. Synopsis
I teach the interdisciplinary course called Global Issues and every semester I am faced with the same problem: How do I engage students to consider important macro-structural global issues without losing them? An understanding of the problems and benefits surrounding economic and environmental globalization is a must for any informed citizen, yet for many students, these issues are too abstract and distant from them. Their eyes glaze over with each discussion of IMF policy, or the impact of neo-conservative ideology. I do well enough on my evaluations so I could ignore this problem and coast to retirement, but I have this gut feeling, not found in any of the “positivist” assessment tools used to evaluate the course, that my students are just not getting it. Developmentally, my students are very concrete thinkers, so I am left with the problem of getting them to somehow ponder very abstract concepts and processes.
One approach to my dilemma is to get my students to cultivate what we sociologists call “the sociological imagination”: the ability to perceive that one’s inner and day-to-day life is very much connected to the larger macro-structures we live within (Mills 1959); the concrete mundane problems that we can easily grasp are very much related to those larger global issues and policies which we see as distant. From this pedagogical approach, students would start by focusing on an engaging, concrete activity and slowly broaden this focus during the semester, learning how this activity is impacted by a complex web of larger national and global structures that seem so distant to them at first.
After doing some initial reading last summer on the complex issue of “Colony Collapse Disorder” (CCD) amongst honey bees (Apis Mellifera), I think that a Global Issues course that centers on honey bees as the proverbial “canaries in a coal mine” would help students understand and engage in the global issues that impact their own lives as well. The problems (e.g. CCD, organic vs. conventional husbandry) that beekeepers and their bees face are not simply biological issues, but are influenced by macro structural forces as well.
The effective construction of any such course will demand a retooling on my part. A course with this focus will demand knowledge outside my disciplinary expertise. Besides a hands-on understanding of day-to-day apiculture I will need to become more familiar with global economic and political policy, ecological issues, agribusiness practices, and the cultures and philosophies in the beekeeping world.
In sum, then, I request a sabbatical leave for spring semester 2009 in order to pursue the following objectives:
1. To understand how the day-to-day lives of honey bees and beekeepers are impacted by the larger macro-forces produced by globalization.
Underlying this objective is the theoretical orientation in sociology called “structural constructivism” (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1988). Like ‘normal’ social constructivist theory, this approach recognizes that as individuals interact they collaboratively construct “typifications” or representations of reality (Berger and Luckmann 1967). Structural Constructivism argues that the “social materials” used in the social construction of reality come not only from the external social environment of individuals, but that these materials systematically vary with the structural/historical position of the actor. For example, a middle class, 21 century, US citizen from the Midwest will produce a different social construction than an upper class, 19th century, Irish citizen from Cork simply because their social/geographical/historical coordinates have placed them in different environments where the “social materials” at hand are different.
The chief advantage of this approach in both sociological research and problem-based pedagogy is that it avoids the false opposition between human agency and structural determinism. Actors “improvise” and create but always within the limits of the structures at hand; they internalize the external, while externalizing the internal, all with some “improvisational” control on the part of the agent. As they externalize they also reproduce, and creatively adapt to some degree, the structures they originally internalized.
As a proponent of the Conflict paradigm in sociology, I tend to shy away from the use of systems theory. From my viewpoint, systems theory tends to overly exaggerate the integration of cultural artifacts and the functional interdependence of societal structures, while casting conflict and cultural contradiction as “abnormal”.
2. To distill the above information into concepts and activities that would effectively engage students in understanding global issues.
Admittedly, at this point, I only have vague notions of what a “bee-focused” Global Issues course might look like. I would like to explore the possibility of combining a problem-based pedagogical approach (Delisle 1997) with a grounded theory-based (Glaser and Strauss 1967) research methodology (see more about grounded theory under objective 3). In problem-based pedagogy, students learn not by reading or listening for the teacher’s “correct answers”, but by creating and answering their own questions. The grounded theory methodology would provide the students with an environment to do this in, not simply as students, but as research collaborators elaborating on and clarifying the work I’ve already begun in my ethnography through their collection of data from new theoretically chosen comparison groups. Course activities might well include experiences interviewing beekeepers and observing different apiaries, content analysis of internet “bee” forums and email lists, attending to the current research on bee management and bee ‘problems’ in various apicultural publications, examining economic, environmental and political policies that might impact bees and/or beekeepers, and hands-on experiences in bee management and care. All these experiences would be recorded and reflected upon by each student in a detailed journal of field notes.
While the sociological perspective of the instructor will no doubt be a guiding influence here, the course should offer an interdisciplinary (rather than “other disciplinary”) perspective on “bees in a global context”.
3. To produce an ethnography of the beekeeping world including those more “esoteric” movements like “biodynamic beekeeping” and “apitherapy”.
Methodologically, this ethnography will be guided by two meta-sociological approaches: reflexive sociology and grounded theory.
In a nutshell, reflexive sociology (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992) recognizes that the same types of social forces that impact the social constructions of ordinary actors in day-to-day life also impact the scientific observer and her instruments when doing research and analysis. The scientific method does not provide the observer with a “magic bubble,” giving the researcher a “god-like viewpoint” on reality, thus exempting her from the influences that her social/historical position exerts on her. The reflexive sociologists rejects the “futile attempts to eliminate the effects of (and on) the researcher” (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983:17), but instead calls on the scientific observer to examine those effects in order to produce a richer understanding of the phenomena under study. Ignoring these social forces or claiming to control them doesn’t make the knowledge produced any more valid.
This proposed sabbatical project could serve as an institutional model for doing reflexive research. Whether we are discussing our positivist approach to assessment or Bloom’s taxonomy at SMU, we lack any general acknowledgement or analysis of reflexivity in the knowledge we produce. To paraphrase Schuman (in Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983:17), artifacts (or numbers) are produced in the minds of their socially positioned beholders.
The ethnographic study will also be informed by what is called Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). According to Glaser and Corbin (1990: 21) “the grounded theory approach is a qualitative research method that uses a systematic set of procedures to develop an inductively derived grounded theory about a phenomenon”. Through “theoretical sampling” and strategic comparisons, the researcher produces substantive theories that fit the data observed well. The beauty of such a methodology for problem-based pedagogy is that the theories produced are always open-ended, allowing others (both students and faculty) to clarify and possibly add to the theory through their own systematic observations, strategic comparisons and analytical clarifications.
2. Activities Description
The following is a tentative timeline of the activities I propose to do during this sabbatical. The spring semester was chosen since it coincides with the beginning of beekeeping season in Minnesota.
a. January
1. Library research with a focus on bee biology and apiculture.
2. Begin interviews with apiculturalists of all types. It will include interviews with large and small-scale intensive honey producers, apiarists who practice “organic” or “sustainable” beekeeping, and backyard beekeepers who have one or two hives.
3. Attend the American Beekeeping Federation annual meeting.
b. February
1. Library research and interviewing with a focus on the philosophical “esoteric” side of beekeeping. This includes examining the ideas of Rudolf Steiner, Gunther Hauk, and other members of the “biodynamic” movement. Also, time will be spent studying the ideas of Charles Mraz and other proponents of “apitherapy”. This also might include attendance at an American Apitherapy meeting and a visit to the apiary founded by Charles Mraz in Burlington, Vermont.
2. Attend the Organic Beekeeping Society meeting.
c. March
1. Library research on global agricultural policy and practices.
2. Take a short course on apiculture at the University of Minnesota extension from Dr. Marla Spivak, breeder of the “Minnesota Hygienic” bee.
3. Prepare two hives: one using conventional Langtroth boxes and frames, the second using a Kenyan Top Bar hive.
4. Continue interviews
d. April and May
1. Begin construction of a Global Issues syllabus using materials collected thus far. Syllabus will include readings and activities in and out of class.
2. Participant observation conducted at local apiaries of different sizes and philosophies. Observations will go beyond simply husbandry concerns to attitudes towards bees and global concerns.
3. Add bees to the two hives set up last month.
4. Library research with a focus on global environmental issues that may impact bees.
e. May to Summer
1. Begin the writing and continue research for the ethnography.
2. Summer management of bees.
3. Contribution Description
a. Professional Development – Sociology has a long tradition of ethnographic studies describing the subcultures of occupations. Back in the 1920s, Robert Park (1983) analyzed the social world of news reporters. In the 1950s, Howard Becker (1963) examined the lebenswelt of Chicago jazz musicians. More recently, French sociologist Loic Wacquant (2006) did a participant observation study as an apprentice boxer. These studies looked underneath the manifest, official descriptions of these occupations found in organizational flow charts or career services materials to a complex world of meanings and rituals. This ethnographic examination of the world of beekeeping is my first attempt to add to this body of materials.
b. Academic Program – I think that the activities of this proposed sabbatical, brought into the classroom environment, will enhance our students understanding of global issues. If other faculty find this approach engaging and/or successful, it might inspire others to approach other courses in this manner.
c. Sharing Results with Other Faculty- Besides doing a post-sabbatical presentation on some relevant issue growing out of my research, I will be keeping a daily blog which will be accessible to faculty, students, and administration during and after the sabbatical. This blog (“Canaries in a Coal Mine”) will document my sabbatical’s day-to-day activities and discoveries. The use of a blog in this fashion is something rather unique.
5. Assessment Description
Four types of evidence will be used in assessing this sabbatical project.
a. Scholarly Publications- I will produce some body of work that will be submitted either in article or book form. I can envision the research producing a number of possible publications in sociology, pedagogy, environmental studies, and apiculture.
b. Presentation at the Midwest Sociology Convention.
c. I will use the comments left on my blog to assess the accuracy and clarity of what I am discovering. I will also share the assessment of my work to my blog readers as well.
d. I will produce a new syllabus for my Global Issues course that uses honeybees as a concrete focus for examining the problems and benefits globalization.
Works Cited
Becker, Howard S. 1963. The Outsiders. New York: Free Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre and Loic Wacquant. 1988. “Social Space and Symbolic Power”. Social Theory 7:18-26.
Bourdieu, Pierre and Loic Wacquant.1992. Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Delisle, Robert. 1997. How to Use Problem-Based Learning in the Classroom. Alexandra, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Glaser, B. and Strauss, A. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago: Aldine.
Hammersley, Martyn and Atkinson, Paul. 1983. Ethnography: Principle in Practices. New York: Routledge.
Mills, C. Wright. 1959. The Sociological Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Park, Robert E. 1983. “The Natural History of a Newspaper”. The City: Suggestions for Investigation of Human Behavior in the Urban Environment. Edited by Robert E. Park and Ernest W. Burgess. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. 1990. Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Wacquant, Loic. 2006. Body and Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer. Oxford: Oxford University.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Sabbatical Proposal
The following is my first draft of a sabbatical proposal I will be submitting in October. Any comments would be greatly appreciated.
1. Synopsis
I teach the interdisciplinary course called Global Issues and every semester I am faced with the same problem: How do I engage students to consider important macro-structural global issues without losing them? An understanding of the problems and benefits surrounding economic and environmental globalization are a must for any informed citizen, yet for many students, these issues are too abstract and distant from them. Their eyes glaze over with each discussion of IMF policy, or the impact of neo-conservative ideology. I do well enough on my evaluations so I could ignore this problem and coast to retirement, but I have this gut feeling, not found in any of the "positivist" assessment tools used to evaluate the course, that my students are just not getting it. Developmentally, my students are very concrete thinkers, so I am left with the problem of getting them to somehow ponder very abstract concepts and processes.
One approach to my dilemma is to get my students to cultivate what we sociologists call "the sociological imagination": the ability to perceive that one's inner and day-to-day life is very much connected to the larger macro-structures we live within; the concrete mundane problems that we can easily grasp are very much related to those larger global issues and policies which we see as distant. From this pedagogical approach, students would start by focusing on an engaging, concrete activity and slowly broaden this focus during the semester, learning how this activity is impacted by a complex web of larger national and global structures that seem so distant to them at first.
After doing some initial reading last summer on the complex issue of “Colony Collapse Disorder” (CCD) amongst honey bees (Apis Mellifera), I think that a Global Issues course that centers on honey bees as the proverbial “canaries in a coal mine” would help students understand and engage in the global issues that impact their own lives as well. The problems (e.g. CCD, organic vs. conventional husbandry) that beekeepers and their bees face are not simply biological issues, but are influenced by macro structural forces as well.
The effective construction of any such course will demand a retooling on my part. A course with this focus will demand knowledge outside my disciplinary expertise. Besides a hands-on understanding of day-to-day apiculture I will need to become more familiar with global economic and political policy, ecological issues, agribusiness practices, and the cultures and philosophies in the beekeeping world.
In sum, then, I request a sabbatical leave for spring semester 2009 in order to pursue the following objectives:
1. To understand how the day-to-day lives of honey bees and beekeepers are impacted by the larger macro-forces produced by globalization.
2. To distill the above information into concepts and activities that would effectively engage students in understanding global issues.
3. To produce an ethnography of the beekeeping world including those more “esoteric” movements like “biodynamic beekeeping” and “apitherapy”.
2. Activities Description
The following is a tentative timeline of the activities I propose to do during this sabbatical. The spring semester was chosen since it coincides with the beginning of beekeeping season in Minnesota. During this process a daily blog, accessible to all interested, will be kept on my progress and ideas.
a. January
1. Library research with a focus on bee biology and apiculture
2. Begin interviews with apiculturalists of all type. It will include interviews with large and small-scale intensive honey producers, apiarists who practice “organic” or “sustainable” beekeeping, and backyard beekeepers who have one of two hives.
3. Attend the American Beekeeping Federation annual meeting.
b. February
1. Library research and interviewing with a focus on the philosophical “esoteric” side of beekeeping. This includes examining the ideas of Rudolf Steiner, Gunther Hauk, and other members of the “biodynamic” movement. Also, time will be spent studying the ideas of Charles Mraz and other proponents of “apitherapy”. This also might include attendance at an American Apitherapy meeting and a visit to the apiary founded by Mraz in Burlington, Vermont.
c. March
1. Library research on global agriculture policy and practices.
2. Take a short course on apiculture at the University of Minnesota extension from Dr. Marla Spivak, breeder of the “Minnesota Hygenic” bee.
3. Prepare two hives: one using conventional Langtroth boxes and frames, the second using a Kenyan Top Bar hive.
4. Continue interviews.
d. April and May
1. Begin construction of a Global Issues syllabus using materials collected thus far. Syllabus will include readings and activities in and out of class.
2. Participant observation conducted at local apiaries of all different sizes and philosophies. Observations will go beyond simply husbandry concerns to attitudes towards bees and global concerns
3. Add bees to the two hives set up last month.
4. Library research with a focus on global environmental issues that may impact bees.
e. May to Summer
1. Begin the writing and continued research for the ethnography.
2. Summer management of bees.
3. Contribution Description
a. Professional Development – Sociology has a long tradition of ethnographic studies describing the subcultures of occupations. Back in the 1920s, Robert Park analyzed the social world of news reporters. In the 1950s, Howard Becker examined the lebenswelt of Chicago jazz musicians. More recently, French sociologist Loic Wacquant did a participant observation study as an apprentice boxer. These studies looked underneath the manifest, official descriptions of these occupations found in organizational flow charts or career services materials to a complex world of meanings and rituals. This ethnographic examination of the world of beekeeping is my first attempt to add to this body of materials.
b. Academic Program – I think that the activities of this proposed sabbatical, brought into the classroom environment, will enhance our students understanding of global issues. If other faculty find this approach engaging and/or successful, it might inspire others to approach other courses in this manner.
c. Sharing Results with Other Faculty- Besides doing a post-sabbatical presentation on some relevant issue growing out of my research, I will be keeping a daily blog which will be accessible to faculty, students, and administration during and after the sabbatical. This blog (“Canaries in a Coal Mine”) will document my sabbatical’s day-to-day activities and discoveries.
4. Assessment Description
Four types of evidence will be used in assessing this sabbatical project.
a. Scholarly Publications- I will produce some body of work that will be submitted either in article or book form. I can picture the research producing a number of possible publications in sociology, pedagogy, environmental studies, and apiculture.
b. Presentation at the Midwest Sociology Convention.
c. I will use the comments left on my blog to assess the accuracy and clarity of what I am discovering. I will also share the assessment of my work to my blog readers as well.
d. I will produce a new syllabus for my Global Issues course that uses honeybees as a concrete focus for examining the problems and benefits globalization.
1. Synopsis
I teach the interdisciplinary course called Global Issues and every semester I am faced with the same problem: How do I engage students to consider important macro-structural global issues without losing them? An understanding of the problems and benefits surrounding economic and environmental globalization are a must for any informed citizen, yet for many students, these issues are too abstract and distant from them. Their eyes glaze over with each discussion of IMF policy, or the impact of neo-conservative ideology. I do well enough on my evaluations so I could ignore this problem and coast to retirement, but I have this gut feeling, not found in any of the "positivist" assessment tools used to evaluate the course, that my students are just not getting it. Developmentally, my students are very concrete thinkers, so I am left with the problem of getting them to somehow ponder very abstract concepts and processes.
One approach to my dilemma is to get my students to cultivate what we sociologists call "the sociological imagination": the ability to perceive that one's inner and day-to-day life is very much connected to the larger macro-structures we live within; the concrete mundane problems that we can easily grasp are very much related to those larger global issues and policies which we see as distant. From this pedagogical approach, students would start by focusing on an engaging, concrete activity and slowly broaden this focus during the semester, learning how this activity is impacted by a complex web of larger national and global structures that seem so distant to them at first.
After doing some initial reading last summer on the complex issue of “Colony Collapse Disorder” (CCD) amongst honey bees (Apis Mellifera), I think that a Global Issues course that centers on honey bees as the proverbial “canaries in a coal mine” would help students understand and engage in the global issues that impact their own lives as well. The problems (e.g. CCD, organic vs. conventional husbandry) that beekeepers and their bees face are not simply biological issues, but are influenced by macro structural forces as well.
The effective construction of any such course will demand a retooling on my part. A course with this focus will demand knowledge outside my disciplinary expertise. Besides a hands-on understanding of day-to-day apiculture I will need to become more familiar with global economic and political policy, ecological issues, agribusiness practices, and the cultures and philosophies in the beekeeping world.
In sum, then, I request a sabbatical leave for spring semester 2009 in order to pursue the following objectives:
1. To understand how the day-to-day lives of honey bees and beekeepers are impacted by the larger macro-forces produced by globalization.
2. To distill the above information into concepts and activities that would effectively engage students in understanding global issues.
3. To produce an ethnography of the beekeeping world including those more “esoteric” movements like “biodynamic beekeeping” and “apitherapy”.
2. Activities Description
The following is a tentative timeline of the activities I propose to do during this sabbatical. The spring semester was chosen since it coincides with the beginning of beekeeping season in Minnesota. During this process a daily blog, accessible to all interested, will be kept on my progress and ideas.
a. January
1. Library research with a focus on bee biology and apiculture
2. Begin interviews with apiculturalists of all type. It will include interviews with large and small-scale intensive honey producers, apiarists who practice “organic” or “sustainable” beekeeping, and backyard beekeepers who have one of two hives.
3. Attend the American Beekeeping Federation annual meeting.
b. February
1. Library research and interviewing with a focus on the philosophical “esoteric” side of beekeeping. This includes examining the ideas of Rudolf Steiner, Gunther Hauk, and other members of the “biodynamic” movement. Also, time will be spent studying the ideas of Charles Mraz and other proponents of “apitherapy”. This also might include attendance at an American Apitherapy meeting and a visit to the apiary founded by Mraz in Burlington, Vermont.
c. March
1. Library research on global agriculture policy and practices.
2. Take a short course on apiculture at the University of Minnesota extension from Dr. Marla Spivak, breeder of the “Minnesota Hygenic” bee.
3. Prepare two hives: one using conventional Langtroth boxes and frames, the second using a Kenyan Top Bar hive.
4. Continue interviews.
d. April and May
1. Begin construction of a Global Issues syllabus using materials collected thus far. Syllabus will include readings and activities in and out of class.
2. Participant observation conducted at local apiaries of all different sizes and philosophies. Observations will go beyond simply husbandry concerns to attitudes towards bees and global concerns
3. Add bees to the two hives set up last month.
4. Library research with a focus on global environmental issues that may impact bees.
e. May to Summer
1. Begin the writing and continued research for the ethnography.
2. Summer management of bees.
3. Contribution Description
a. Professional Development – Sociology has a long tradition of ethnographic studies describing the subcultures of occupations. Back in the 1920s, Robert Park analyzed the social world of news reporters. In the 1950s, Howard Becker examined the lebenswelt of Chicago jazz musicians. More recently, French sociologist Loic Wacquant did a participant observation study as an apprentice boxer. These studies looked underneath the manifest, official descriptions of these occupations found in organizational flow charts or career services materials to a complex world of meanings and rituals. This ethnographic examination of the world of beekeeping is my first attempt to add to this body of materials.
b. Academic Program – I think that the activities of this proposed sabbatical, brought into the classroom environment, will enhance our students understanding of global issues. If other faculty find this approach engaging and/or successful, it might inspire others to approach other courses in this manner.
c. Sharing Results with Other Faculty- Besides doing a post-sabbatical presentation on some relevant issue growing out of my research, I will be keeping a daily blog which will be accessible to faculty, students, and administration during and after the sabbatical. This blog (“Canaries in a Coal Mine”) will document my sabbatical’s day-to-day activities and discoveries.
4. Assessment Description
Four types of evidence will be used in assessing this sabbatical project.
a. Scholarly Publications- I will produce some body of work that will be submitted either in article or book form. I can picture the research producing a number of possible publications in sociology, pedagogy, environmental studies, and apiculture.
b. Presentation at the Midwest Sociology Convention.
c. I will use the comments left on my blog to assess the accuracy and clarity of what I am discovering. I will also share the assessment of my work to my blog readers as well.
d. I will produce a new syllabus for my Global Issues course that uses honeybees as a concrete focus for examining the problems and benefits globalization.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Bees and a Global Issues Course
I teach a junior-level interdisciplinary course called Global Issues and every semester I am faced with the same problem: How do I engage students to consider important macro-structural global issues without losing them? An understanding of the problems (and benefits) surrounding economic and environmental globalization are a must for any informed citizen, yet, for many students, these issues are too abstract and distant from them. Their eyes glaze over with each discussion of IMF policy, or the impact of neo-conservative ideology. I do well enough on my evaluations so I could ignore this problem and coast to retirement, but I have this gut feeling, not found in any of the "positivist" assessment tools used to evaluate the course, that my students are just not getting it. Developmentally, my students are very concrete thinkers, so I am left with the problem of getting them somehow to ponder very abstract concepts.
One approach to my dilemma is to get my students to cultivate what we sociologists call "the sociological imagination": the ability to perceive that one's inner and day-to-day life is very much connected to the larger macro-structures we live within; the concrete mundane problems that we can easily grasp are very much related to those larger global issues and policies which we see as distant.
I've been pondering then whether all this research and hands-on activity I've been absorbing about bees and apiculture might be one such concrete activity that might get some of these global issues across. The problems (e.g CCD, organic vs conventional husbandry) that beekeepers face are not simply biological issues, but are impacted by macro structural forces as well, connected to a short term profit oriented global economy. While it is probably too late to add apiculture as a case study of global issues to my syllabus this fall, perhaps I can do something when I teach the course in the spring. Anyone want to give a guest lecture?
One approach to my dilemma is to get my students to cultivate what we sociologists call "the sociological imagination": the ability to perceive that one's inner and day-to-day life is very much connected to the larger macro-structures we live within; the concrete mundane problems that we can easily grasp are very much related to those larger global issues and policies which we see as distant.
I've been pondering then whether all this research and hands-on activity I've been absorbing about bees and apiculture might be one such concrete activity that might get some of these global issues across. The problems (e.g CCD, organic vs conventional husbandry) that beekeepers face are not simply biological issues, but are impacted by macro structural forces as well, connected to a short term profit oriented global economy. While it is probably too late to add apiculture as a case study of global issues to my syllabus this fall, perhaps I can do something when I teach the course in the spring. Anyone want to give a guest lecture?
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