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Portrait of Fidan Teaching, by Aowyn O., Age 8

Over the years, I’ve interviewed hundreds of people for different research projects. One thing always stood out in the biographies of university-educated folks: how life-changing a single course in the social sciences can be--something I've written about here and here. Sociology, in particular, has the potential to introduce people to a radically new way of seeing the world.

By paying attention to the socially constructed nature of institutions, norms, and everyday life, we can start to deconstruct how these things are not ‘natural’, ‘unchangeable,’ or ‘random.’ Rather, the world that we see around us is something that humans have made collectively. And, this human-made world has changed a lot over time, and therefore, can change again in the future.  

The fancy word for this way of seeing the world is ‘the sociological imagination.’ That is, I encourage my students to consider the social conditions that make seemingly ordinary events possible, let themselves be surprised by these phenomena, and imagine what can be. Equipped with this sociological imagination, I believe, students leave the classroom as more agentic individuals.  

​Below are some courses I teach at the University of Toronto.  ​

Courses

Associate Professor (University of Toronto)
  • Practicum in Qualitative Research Methods, undergraduate  Immigration I, graduate
    • This seminar course introduces students to qualitative methods as a way to examine the relationship between micro, day-to-day level processes and structural forces at the macro level. Students also receive hands-on experience carrying out original empirical research using qualitative methods.  
    • This seminar course offers a survey of some foundational theories, ongoing debates, and new directions in the sociology of migration. A key area of focus is the relationship between migration, capitalism, and inequality.  
  • Immigration II: Power, Race, Im/migration, graduate Immigrant Scarborough, undergraduate 
    • Drawing on cases from around the world, this course examines enduring theoretical paradigms in the sociology of immigration and the extent to which they need to be rethought to better explain the empirical world, particularly state power, nation-making, and racialization. 
    • This writing-intensive seminar course explores human agency in contexts of constraint, exclusion, and hardship. Empirically, course content draws on past research about the experiences of immigrants in the Greater Toronto Area. Additionally, students have an opportunity to conduct original interview-based research about a topic of their own choosing, relevant to immigrants living in Scarborough. 
  • Issues in Critical Migration Studies, undergraduate 
    • This lecture course introduces students to the structural causes and consequences of international migration, with a strong focus on the relationship between border-crossing and neoliberal capitalism. The course also discusses how anti-Blackness and settler colonial nation-making have shaped migrants’ and Indigenous peoples’ lived experiences on Turtle Island.  
  • Ethnicity, Race and Migration, undergraduate
    • This lecture course explores the ways that international migration is regulated. The first half of the course discusses how sending states may promote and police emigration. The second half of the course explores the ways that receiving and transit states engage in border and immigration enforcement. Throughout the course, we discuss how these processes of regulating migration affect the global political economy and the lived experiences of people on the ground. 

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Other Teaching Experiences
  • Instructor, University of California at Berkeley, “Sociology of Immigration Politics,” 2015-2016 
  • Berkeley Connect Fellow, UC Berkeley, 2014-2015
  • Graduate Student Mentor for the Sociology Department's Senior Honors Program, UC Berkeley, 2012-2014
  • Co-Instructor, Literacy Volunteers of Tucson (now Literacy Connects), Tucson, AZ, 2011-2012.
  • Co-Instructor, Prison University Project at San Quentin State Prison, San Quentin, CA “Critical Thinking: The Foundations of Modern Western Thought.” 2008

Awards
  • Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award, UC Berkeley, 2011
  • Teaching Effectiveness Award, UC Berkeley, 2011 (Read my essay, "Reading Theory With Courage," here.)