Teaching Criminology at the Intersection ― A How-to Guide for Teaching About Gender, Race, and Class

Topics which surround gender, race, ethnicity, and class, produce some of the most challenging issues for classroom lectures and discussions. These conversations, which many people find uncomfortable, are commonly met with resistance in the classroom when students are asked to examine how victimization is gendered, how racial profiling affects the criminal justice system, or how socioeconomic status shapes a defendant’s experiences in court.

Teaching Criminology at the Intersection is an instructional guide to support faculty as they navigate teaching these topics. By combining the experience and knowledge of an international set of expert scholars with pedagogical theory, this book will provide time-strapped academics with an accessible how-to guide for the classroom where the dynamics and discrimination of gender, race, and class demographics intersect and permeate criminological concerns. In each chapter the contributors will discuss the particular challenges related to teaching about their topic and their suggestions for best practice, while grounding their ideas in pedagogical theory.

Reading lists will be provided for each topic, as well as a ‘toolkit’ of assignments, activities, syllabi and images or video links.

Rebecca M. Hayes is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work at Central Michigan University. Driven by her passion for social justice, particularly eradicating violence against women, she assisted with starting the first rape recovery non-profit organization in St. Lucia called PROSAF-Surviving Sexual Abuse in the Caribbean. You can find her scholarly work published in academic journal such as Feminist Criminology, Violence Against Women, Crime & Delinquency, and Critical Criminology. In 2013 she was awarded the Central Michigan Vice Provost Award, the American Society of Criminology's Division on Women and Crime New Scholar Award, and the American Society of Criminology’s Division of Victimology Practitioner/Activist of the Year Award.

Kate Luther is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Pacific Lutheran University. Her areas of interest include gendered violence, women’s incarceration and the impact of incarceration on families. Her current research examines the pathways to college for children of incarcerated parents. She serves as the co-chair for the Division on Women and Crime’s Committee for Teaching and Pedagogy.

Professor Susan Caringella is an internationally known expert on rape, feminism and criminology. She has published extensively in academic books and journals on topics ranging from rape to violence against women, legislative change, sociological theory, political ideology and public opinion. Her acclaimed book "Reforming Rape Reforms in Law and Practice" (2009, Columbia University Press) has been nominated for awards in the American Society of Criminology and the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Professor Caringella's body of scholarship has been widely cited and recognized with national, state, and university scholarship awards and honors.