Sociology Day

If the new Sociology major in Singapore has a "tradition" so far it seems to be a semi-regular event held at the Singapore Institute of Management (SIM), organized by my local colleague, Kaveri. She routinely adjuncts for SOC 101 and each time she teaches she organizes Sociology Day for the edification of all who pass through SIM's Atrium.

I never intended for my [38] SOC 293 or [115] SOC 101 students to do any more than attend her Sociology Day thing, in solidarity. The very idea of being directly involved with show and tell made me shudder, students in their "natural" classroom environment presenting to one another feels much more comfortable to me. However, when neither course textbook arrived for the first month of the semester, a substitute for the first of three exams had its charms, and riding Kaveri's coat tails for Sociology Day grew more appealing. So I made up new handouts, had students organize themselves into groups, and put it out of my mind for a month. Before I knew it, November 1 arrived and Sociology Day (November 24th)loomed.

The task for SOC 101 (Intro to Sociology) groups was for each member to review a relevant scholarly article and present a "big" sociological concept (anomie, stereotypes, deviance) in some focused manner.

The presentation had to be clear enough that non-sociologists could understand the gist of the sociological concept they chose to elaborate. SOC 293 students had to review literature, design a study, collect and analyze data, and present their findings in a research poster, similar to what would be presented at a professional meeting.
Kaveri had a plan and the Sociology Day schtick down pat. I, having no plan, adopted a more novice and less directive approach, and presumed students could organize themselves into doing something moderately interesting, without much herding from me. In the end, I think it might also be fair to say that my students' exuberant and less synchronized and scripted participation had a more "spontaneous" air about it....yeah, that's the ticket...spontaneous, that was what I stumbled upon, er...planned, yeah, spontaneous.

[I have to give a BUNCH of credit to Lynne Cossman, who excised a couple of the spontaneity demons and imposed what discipline and orderliness there was for my two classes. I don't know how she did it, but she did. And my soc students were thrilled to meet another U.S. sociology professor, especially one they had heard about in class.]

While Kevin McKelvey, Resident Director of UB-SIM, enthused about the ghost of Sociology Days past, he had some trepiditations about the present. What might my students do at Sociology Day that could be "awkward"? There are so many relatively verboten subjects in Singapore, given local cultural and political sensibilities, that youthful exuberance and a superficial exposure to sociology (let's face it, this is SOC 101) could inspire ... or wreak havoc. Who knew?Singapore generally is a very orderly, very conservative, very rules-oriented society, and SIM is a rather tightly wound microcosym of that culture. Also, Delores sometimes delights in teasing Kevin, and Debi had asked students to think sociologically and be imaginative (and if they happened to out-do the other SOC 101 class, that would not be the end of the world...we discussed in class the cultural norm of competition in the U.S. and its similarity to kiasu in Singapore).

A generalized bemusement about sociology in general may have combined with knowledge of the rule-breaking exercise SOC 101 students were assigned earlier in the semester seemed to elevate Kevin's fear of attracting ANY untoward attention to the UB program. For kids who ALWAYS follow the rules, exhorting students to break a few led to the brief sit-in at the Atrium, singing in the elevator, walking into a classroom and joining the surprised professor briefly on stage and then racing out, laying down in front of the library door, cutting in queues...etc. The hundred or so "actor" students and their confederates were so excited to report back reactions to breached norms that it is easy to imagine attracting a wee bit of attention at SIM(I don't know for sure, I was waiting back in the classroom). Of course, the prospect that "SIM people" might have noticed "deviant" behavior "encouraged" by a UB sociology professor [deviant is a word thrown around pretty loosely here] made Kevin a tad nervous. And then there was that group video I had to veto twice and hadn't yet seen the final cut for Sociology Day..."What will they do?" Kevin asked, in a worried tone of voice. After all, if students cooked up some "zany things to break rules" on the spot and those attracted attention, what might happen when students had months to plot?

Kevin looked paler than usual when he came to the Atrium to acknowledge Sociology Day. He needn't have worried.

I believe the first part of the program lived up to his fond memories of Sociology Days past...maybe even surmounted them. Obviously Kaveri had different ideas about what Sociology Day was (and fair enough, since she invented the event) than I did. She explained aspects of the event, and left plenty for me to discover on my own, too. Her 99 SOC 101 students did 99 individual posters (A3 size) to present their sociological concepts. That class had an organizing committee of 23 helpers, issued formal invitations to SIM administrators and colleagues, parents, onlookers, and passersby. Not only did it feature imaginative, thematically arranged posters that conformed precisely to size/shape requirements and communicated sociological concepts, but students also staged a fashion show of several traditional dress traditions in Asia. Besides the emcee (complete with script), there was a team of photographers and videographers to document happenings. They even interviewed me. All in all, a very well-organized event. Kaveri's SOC 101 class took the first hour and a half of Sociology Day (maybe we should call it Sociology Morning)--which was only half a day. Fortunately, for us, my two classes had the time that was left until noonish.

First, the SOC 293 students (one volunteer helper, one drafted helper and two emcees) presented their research posters using data they collected themselves.
Their posters explored reasons for body modification, Singaporean attitudes towards masculinities, opinions about househusbands, reasons behind women's choices to delay childbearing, gender differences in the ideal age of marriage, subtle racism in university education, and age-based differences in attitudes towards homosexuality. Their work was very well executed and my colleagues were pretty impressed with the professionalism of the student posters (as was I...they did a great job given their brief, single-semester exposure to research methods, even if there was sometimes more style than substance). Student emcees did "man and woman on the street" type interviews with students at each of the posters, asking good questions...and best of all, getting good answers! Students fleshed out the findings reported on the posters, acknowledging their gaps in knowledge (hurray, they are confident and recovered from the embarrassment of not knowing every single answer when asked a question!) They stuck to claims the data supported. How research-y!
The SOC 101 students came next, chaotic and inventive. Each group was interviewed by roving reporters; again, students handled the queries with aplomb. Too bad that the wretched acoustics in the Atrium made answers incomprehensible to anyone more than about two feet away (the amplified interviews also could be heard fairly clearly on the fifth floor...but not close enough to the posters and presentations to make any sense!). Still, the elaborations and responses I heard were pretty not bad! Student groups produced myriad presentations in every format they could imagine. Original photography and artwork, skits, a puppet show (it devolved to puppets only after the student could not quite master the ventriloquism in time for Sociology Day). There were several videos--two on racism, one on attitudes towards homosexuality, another on social stratification, one of food cultures, another on computer gaming, the Singapore practice of kiasu, a photo montage of the material culture of different countries' wedding practices and more. A newspaper format project reported stereotypic accounts of guest worker malfeasance on its front page...and devoted the inner pages to correct the record by documenting guest workers' contributions to Singapore's "miracle" economy. Beyond performance and video, series of clever posters elaborated themes, a board game students invented challenged popular stereotypes, the audience had a chance to see costumes and taste food students made to reflect the material culture of weddings in three Asian traditions. A mannequin adorned with images of women conforming to different norms of beauty in different cultures attracted lots of attention (and inspired many photos taken alongside our own version Paris Hilton)...







I still perceive Sociology Day as too much show and tell for me, and I can't express how happy I am that it is over. I know why I'll never likely attempt it again. But it had its moments, students did themselves and UB proud, and Kevin breathed a very heavy sigh of relief, having dodged another metaphorical bullet. He'll miss Delores when she's gone! After all, look at all the little prospective sociologists she tried to recruit for UB SIM!