In her revealing book on the constitution of political identities in rural Wisconsin communities, Katherine Cramer describes how perceived inequities in decision-making authority and access to resources produce a deep resentment among residents in rural communities toward their urban counterparts. Considering that a central component of this resentment reflects rural residents’ sense that urbanites have little understanding of, respect for, or interest in rural ways of life, how can academics – often from urban and/or suburban backgrounds themselves – work to bridge these rural/urban divides in the classroom? In this panel, our invited presenters will discuss pedagogical strategies used to transgress geographic cultural, political, and identity barriers, with a particular focus on preparing students to work in rural communities, avoiding isolating conservative students in the classroom, and teaching rural students about urban inequalities. Through reviewing pedagogical strategies used to bridge the gulf between rural and urban experience, we hope to build on Cramer's 2017 RSS Plenary Address, continuing the conversation by exploring classroom applications of her insights.
Joseph Molnar, Professor of International Agriculture at Auburn University, will discuss his experiences teaching students in the rural medicine program at Auburn prior to their transition to the University of Alabama School of Medicine. Spencer Wood, Professor of Sociology at Kansas State University, will discuss pedagogical strategies employed in his teaching of rural communities, racial inequality, and the sociology of agriculture at his rural, Midwestern institution. Clare Hinrichs, Professor of Rural Sociology at the Pennsylvania State University, will share a set of activities she uses in her Society and Natural Resource course to highlight contrasting experiences with natural resource use and environmental quality in rural, urban, and suburban communities, as well as across intersecting identities of race, class, and nationality. Bringing insights from her rural research into the classroom, Aimee Vieira will introduce a hands-on approach she uses with students in her courses on Race & Ethnicity and Social Stratification at Norwich University (a private military college in a small town in Central Vermont). Vieira’s innovative techniques emphasize the importance of place in shaping ideas, attitudes, perceptions and interpretations of the world through a series of dynamic, technology-enhanced, small group activities designed to reveal place-based variations in outcomes along the intersections of race, class, religion, gender, and nationality.
