The Unloved Curriculum : Teaching research methods and ‘demonstrably alive’ sociology

Back, Les and Benson, Michaela and Tomlinson, Maisie (2025) The Unloved Curriculum : Teaching research methods and ‘demonstrably alive’ sociology. Sociology. ISSN 0038-0385 (In Press)

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Abstract

The Unloved Curriculum reflects our experiences of developing a more sociable approach to teaching qualitative methods. Through a set of examples drawn from our teaching practice, from our shared development of a sociable qualitative methods curriculum for MA students to the production of the Fieldwork Fables films, we explore these possibilities practically in the classroom context as a way of fostering a ‘demonstrably alive’ sociological craft. In contrast to those commentators who fear that digital culture poses an existential crisis for our disciplines, we suggest that this new informational environment also affords unprecedented opportunities to re-imagine the contours of sociological craft itself and how we bring this to life in the classroom and for a sociable mode of sociological teaching that is based in the classroom but not confined to it, which embraces the possibility to expand our pedagogical tools.