Study Abroad for Sociology Students
Sociology majors often take advantage of study abroad opportunities available at Marymount. We work closely with Marymount’s Center for Global Education (CGE) to offer a variety of study abroad experiences, including the Global Classroom Series and the Short Term Summer Programs.
Some recent sociology study abroad courses include:
- Amsterdam: Through the Sociological Lens (Spring 2014)
- Kenya: Addressing Injustice (Summer 2014)
- Belize: Through the Sociological Lens (Summer 2015)
- France: Diversity, Community and The Church (Summer 2015)
- El Salvador: The Global Village (Spring 2016)
- Groningen: Through the Sociological Lens (Spring 2017)
- Portugal: Topics in Human Rights (Spring 2019)
- Colombia: Cities in the 21st Century (Spring 2020)
- Puerto Rico: Global Inequality and Community Development (Spring 2022)
Global learning on campus
The Sociology Department offers other exciting global learning experiences. Students have taken a globally networked class that connects faculty and students who are located in another country. In collaboration with partners at Hanze University of Applied Science, Dr. Janine DeWitt and her colleague, Loes Damhof, pioneered this form of global learning by offering The Global Village. This course was taken simultaneously by students at both universities. The professors and students met for presentations and guided discussions, sharing their observations of globalization in the communities where they live, work, and play. Through these exchanges students on both sides of the Atlantic gained a deeper understanding of globalization, identifying its different impacts on people within their communities, and building valuable career skills by working on intercultural teams.
Dr. DeWitt’s The Global Village course was designed as part of the Collaborative Online International Teaching project (COIL) at the Global Center of the State University of New York. In addition, the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities recently mentioned this global networked classroom experience on its list of the “Ten ways that Catholic higher education lives the vision of Gaudium et Spes.”
Following in Dr. DeWitt’s footsteps, Dr. Bakker and Dr. Lindsey have collaborated with partners in Mexico and Egypt, respectively, to make globally networked learning opportunities available for Marymount sociology students. Working with Terry Graham at the Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores del Occidente (ITESO University) in Guadalajara, Mexico, Dr. Bakker has incorporated globally networked learning in two of his courses over recent years: Topics in Human Rights and The Global Village.
Graham and Bakker further innovated by incorporating both globally networked learning and a short-term study abroad component in their Topics in Human Rights course in the Spring 2019 semester. They took students from their respective courses to Lisbon, Portugal where they explored the connections between human rights and refugee law, met with various community organizations and service providers working with the refugee community, and compared refugee resettlement policies and practices in Portugal and the rest of Europe.
Dr. Lindsey brought global networked learning into the study of urban life in his course Cities in the 21st Century course by partnering with American University of Cairo (AUC). Working with Professor Gerda Heck from AUC’s Department of Sociology, Egyptology, and Anthropology at AUC), he developed a collaborative experience focused on the theme of life in their respective global capital cities of Washington, D.C., and Cairo. Students met twice listening to guest speakers. Ahmed Zaazaa presented on urban development and inequality in Cairo. Matt Bakker presented on displacement and community change in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia.
