Few Years’ Resolution strives to produce works of public sociology. The following are videos especially relevant to sociology instructors–all less than 5 minutes long, all focused on illuminating a sociological insight/concept in an accessible way:
For the full list of titles, videos, and transcripts, click here.
The Sociological Imagination
- 1.6. How We React Differently to Rapid Social Change
- Describes how one’s place in a social structure influences their attitudes toward social change
- 1.13. Why It’s So Important to Think Systemically
- Contexualizes and reinforces Mills’s articulation of the “sociological imagination”
- 7.9. What Science Can and Can’t Do
- Useful for those who may question the validity of the social sciences
Political Sociology
- 2.2. What Makes a Government a Government?
- Description of and expansion upon Weber’s analysis of the state’s “monopoly on the legitimate use of violence”
- 2.9. The Legacy of World War II
- Covers the postwar geopolitical order dominated by the U.S., western Europe, and the global north
- 3.13. Power to the People
- How political and economic elites overwhelm the interests of ordinary people
- 8.14. The Iron Law of Oligarchy
- Covers Michels’s argument about how democratic institutions become undemocratic over time
Economic Sociology
- 2.3. How Money Works
- An analysis drawing heavily from Simmel and Erik Olin Wright
- 2.8. Why Big Corporations Almost Always Get Their Way
- A global perspective drawn from Ulrich Beck’s Power in the Global Age
- 2.11. Neoliberalism: What It Is and Why It Matters
- An introduction in the vein of David Harvey’s A Brief History of Neoliberalism
- 3.14. Our Great Global Crisis
- An overview of the problems caused by unrestrained global capitalism
- 4.5. Why Are We So Unhealthy?
- On the socioeconomic factors that created the obesity epidemic
- 9.11. What Capitalism Can and Can’t Do
- A structural consideration of the possibilities and perils of capitalism
Race/Gender/Sexuality
- 1.7. How Privilege Makes Us Lose Perspective
- A microsociological take on how privilege distorts one’s worldview
- 2.4. The Legacy of Slavery and Colonialism
- Pushing back against the notion that we live in a postracial, postcolonial society
- 2.10. The Legacy of the Civil Rights Movement
- Tracing struggles for race, gender, and sexuality equality from their postwar origins to the present day
- 2.13. Why There’s No Such Thing as “Reverse” Discrimination
- Perfect for contesting claims of “reverse” discrimination, “double standards,” and “color [or gender] blind” discrimination
- 3.5. Why Inclusion Matters
- Exploring group boundary maintenance, inclusion and exclusion, and its consequences
- 3.9. Systems of Oppression
- What they are, how they work, etc.
- 3.10. Why “Double Standards” Are Fair Standards
- Pairs nicely with 2.13 to concisely debunk common objections/misunderstandings of racism, sexism, etc.
Sociology of Education
- 2.7. Why Our Educational System Is Set Up to Fail
- How assembly line methods, credential inflation, and neoliberal reforms have undercut the more humanitarian, egalitarian goals of mass education
- 6.12. Intergenerational Conflict
- How the invention of adolescence and mass education have fueled intergenerational conflict
- 9.5. Fixing Education
- Considering how we can make our educational system stronger and more equitable
Media, Communication, Interactions
- 1.4. Why the Media Tries So Hard to Freak Us Out
- Analyzing the tension that results from the contradictory goals of making money and informing the public
- 2.12. Why You Should Rethink Your Technophobia
- Pushing back against moral panics by emphasizing the political, economic, and social contexts of technology development and use
- 4.11. Why We Complain So Much
- A Goffmanian analysis of complaining in conversation
- 5.4. Preaching to the Choir
- On the political, economic, and social causes of “information bubbles” and “echo chambers”
- 6.5. “Othering”, 6.6. Adapting to Inequalities, 6.7. Boundary Maintenance, 6.8. Communities Are All About Emotions
- A series of videos based on Schwalbe et al.’s 2000 article in Social Forces on generic processes in the reproduction of inequalities
- 6.10. The Secret to Strong Communities
- Using Randall Collins’s Interaction Ritual Chains to describe what makes strong communities tick
- 6.14. Online Communities
- How digital technologies have affected social interactions and political engagement in recent decades
- 9.6. Fixing the Media
- Making sense of the pros and cons of publicly and privately owned journalism
Social Movements
- 3.15. Violence or Nonviolence?
- Using Gene Sharp to discuss the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of violent and nonviolent methods of resistance
- 4.15. Why Self-Care Is So Important
- How a lack of self-care hinders the cause(s) you want to advance
- 5.3. The Problem with “Changing Hearts and Minds”
- How a fixation on this common trope can hinder productive social action
- 5.9. Act Locally…and Act Globally Too
- How another common trope–“think globally, act locally”–can also be problematic
- 6.3. Imagined Communities
- How Benedict Anderson’s concept helps explain inequalities
- 6.11. How Threats Unravel Communities
- A microsociological account of how paranoia and ingroup elites destabilize communities
- 7.13. Why Saving Face Is Such a Big Deal
- A microsociological account of why it’s so difficult to deescalate conflicts
- 8.2. Social Movements and the Tragedy of the Commons
- How competition over the same pool of donors and supports hinders social justice
- 8.13. Media Coverage of Social Movements
- How the media is incentivized to both help and harm social movements