New Online Course: Sociology 390 – Power, Inequality and Resistance in a Pandemic

Halfway through the spring 2020 semester, SIUE shifted the majority of its classes online. Zoom became the primary way we connected to colleagues, students, family and friends. Many jokes floated around social media about the geese celebrating having the campus to themselves. In these “unprecedented” times, we all had to adapt to a “new normal” while wearing masks and physically distancing. As a sociologist, I questioned what was “new” and “unprecedented” about the world considering that the COVID-19 pandemic shined a spotlight on the various social inequalities and the power structures that created and perpetuated them. Because of the pandemic, we were asked to pay attention to—among other issues —the state of the U.S. healthcare system, systemic racism, workers’ rights and the lengths that local/state/federal government agencies can go to monitor our well-being. These very matters drove me to create Sociology 390: Power, Inequality and Resistance in a Pandemic.
The world we live in seems to inspire more queries than answers, which present opportunities to ask important questions: What is going on? How did this happen? What next? In the course, however, we begin by asking, Why now? Once we examine the current historical context, we critically review different aspects of power and inequality, such as the U.S. healthcare, systemic racial inequality and workers’ rights. From there, we assess the prospects of success and failures, highlighting ongoing debates about civil liberties and government responses (or lack thereof) to our own responses to the pandemic.
In the course, students use their academic and personal interests to investigate power relations, resultant inequalities and moments of resistance in the midst of this pandemic. Their projects run the gamut from digital inequalities to corporate greed, from police brutality to racial health disparities, and from access to clean water to the science/anti-science divide. Once students articulate the significance of their issue in light of COVID-19, they then analyze media portrayals of inequalities and resistance, and research an organization whose aim corresponds with their chosen issue. For their final project, students must submit a video in which they summarize what they have learned about their own topic, highlighting possible successes and failures of resistance efforts despite and/or because of this pandemic.
As I convey to my students, because our nation is built on principles of freedom and civil liberties but for only some of its citizens, it is no wonder that protest and resistance are central features of our collective history, pandemic notwithstanding. At their core, protest and resistance signify our capacity to challenge and rearrange power structures and any resultant inequality that they inspire. Sociology 390: Power, Inequality and Resistance allows students to examine these arrangements, while encouraging them to work toward effecting change.
Flo Maätita, PhD
Professor
SIUE Department of Sociology