Teaching

At Federation University Australia I’m currently teaching the introductory course The Sociological Imagination, as well as Sociology of Health and Illness. I’ll also be teaching courses on the sociology of sexuality, as well as race and ethnicity.

In my previous position, as the Hans Mol Research Fellow at the ANU, my teaching tasks were limited to guest lecturers, postgrad supervision, and the annual National Graduate Student Workshop on “Representing Belief,” convened for students from across Australia researching issues of culture, society and belief. However, over the years I have taught a variety of courses in the social sciences and humanities in Australia, Britain, and Finland  Youth Culture and Consumption (University of the West of England, now branded UWE Bristol), Contemporary Social Research (Deakin University), Spirituality and Secularization in the West (University of Helsinki), and Music, Sound and Society (University of Helsinki) – here is the youtube playlist I put together for the course with my co-lecturer Heikki Wilenius. In the past I have also guest lectured on research ethics at the University of Helsinki, and facilitated tutorials and seminars in a variety of subjects in the social sciences at Monash University, the University of Bristol, and the University of Helsinki.

As a teacher, clarity is very important to me. Many of my students have spoken English as their second (or third, or fourth) language, and often my classrooms have included students from different class backgrounds, with different expectations, and with different ambitions and motivations. I feel that it is important for me to make clear to my students what they should be able to comprehend at the end of a course and at the end of a class. It’s then our joint responsibility to make sure that each student reaches that level of comprehension. So I am always looking for new ways and new methods to clearly explain the concepts that we work with in the social sciences, to understand the case studies that we investigate, and to appreciate the relevant changes that have taken place in society and in scholarship over the years, especially changing ethical practices.