Amanda M. Dewey

Yesterday was my final day of Introduction to Sociology for this semester. My goal for this course was to incorporate student-centered and active learning in class. I decided to reduce the amount of lecturing and repetition of concepts from readings. Therefore, I did not go over all concepts discussed in readings, relying on students to complete reading assignments. Instead, I used most of my class time to help them to apply and understand central ideas. This was an experiment in…

Read More Read More

Last month, I was sworn in as a Councilmember for the Town of Berwyn Heights. This role has presented me with new opportunities and challenges. Serving in local government, and specifically working with the police department, has provided me several opportunities to apply my sociological knowledge. Local politicians are faced with considering the opinions of diverse populations and navigating complex histories and group dynamics. My community is racially and socioeconomically diverse. In addition, neighboring communities have different structural constraints and…

Read More Read More

The American Sociological Association’s 2018 Annual Meetings were a fantastic opportunity to network and share ideas with other scholars. The meetings took place in Philadelphia in early August. I was able to attend several sessions focusing on topics such as indigenous environmental issues, environmental justice, and public environmental sociology. I also attended a workshop on becoming a policy advocate as a sociologist, which included some really useful exercises and tips on how to use our positions as scholars to inform…

Read More Read More

Values influence all things. Values motivate behaviors directly and through possession of value-identities as people attempt to align their behavior with their perceived goals and identities. However, values can also serve as boundary-markers through which people can assert differences between themselves and members of other groups. For example, Lamont’s research on working class men highlights how her participants draw racial boundaries by defining the other group as deficient in characteristics that they value (Lamont 2009). For example, white participants defined…

Read More Read More

While working this summer, I have been thinking about how scholars can continue to apply social psychology to understand individual behavior, including participation in social movements. In my recent comprehensive exam, I argue that identity and emotion can help to explain differences in movement participation from initial involvement to variations in movement-related behaviors. The history and framing of particular social movements can interact with individuals’ social and personal identities and emotions to influence movement behavior. The environmental and environmental justice…

Read More Read More

In the last week I have finished my final course of graduate school and passed my second and final comprehensive exam. I will officially have advanced to PhD candidacy on June 1st! It’s hard to believe three years of graduate school have come and gone. At times I haven’t been able to see the progress (forest for the trees, etc.), but I think that my skills in writing, collecting data, and logic of inquiry have improved since I entered graduate…

Read More Read More

Last week I was able to attend the Southern Sociological Society’s annual meetings in New Orleans. This was my second opportunity to enjoy this conference, and getting to visit New Orleans for the first time was a major perk! I presented my work on childhood pathways to environmentalism on a panel on the environment and social justice. Other presenters in my panel discussed predictors of environmental justice campaign success and farmworkers’ responses to environmental justice issues in Florida. There was…

Read More Read More

I am just back from a trip to New York City to participate in a workshop as a member of the Qualitative Data Repository’s Annotation for Transparent Inquiry working group. The initiative aims to meet increased calls across the sciences for increased transparency, focusing on the particular challenges associated with qualitative data. Transparency in research using qualitative data often has challenges that are different from those faced by quantitative researchers. Scientific transparency in research using quantitative data can often be…

Read More Read More

I recently wrapped up my first online course as instructor of record. I navigated designing and teaching my own course while learning about the nuts and bolts of online teaching. The experience was invaluable. However, I have been reflecting on the benefits and challenges of online teaching, which is in increasingly high demand at the University of Maryland and, I’m sure, elsewhere. I have had the opportunity to lead classrooms and organize my own lectures for discussion sections in the…

Read More Read More

Happy New Year! I am excited about a year of new challenges and opportunities. I’ve recently explored some of the literature in social psychology and group processes attempting to understand altruistic and prosocial, as well as unethical, behavior. Does contact with those bearing the costs of unethical behavior moderate the relationship between power and unethical behavior? Many structures and social processes depend on people not behaving selfishly when presented with a social dilemma, leading to social consequences for widespread behavior…

Read More Read More