The materials and activities of SRSS give students experience with the ways sociologists seek to understand the social world. This perspective entails the seeking of reliable knowledge about patterns of social life. Students procure, analyze, and interpret data, and use these data to identify and weigh action alternatives. The project developers intended for students to come to appreciate the usefulness of sociological concepts and procedures and to learn to use evidence carefully as a basis for planning and decision-making.

History of Development

The sociology project, sponsored by the American Sociological Association, was funded by the National Science Foundation. Materials were developed by a number of professional teams comprised of sociologists and educators, and field-tested by teachers and high school students. SRSS was commercially distributed as Episodes in Social Inquiry.

Organization of the Project

The materials include a text designed for a full-year course in sociology, a series of sociological readers, and a series of special topic units, called "Episodes in Social Inquiry." Developers describe an episode as "a set of instructional materials designed to provide a brief but dramatic and enlightening first-hand encounter with social data." CULTURE & TECHNOLOGY contains the following thirteen episodes from the original project:

Simulating Social Conflict
Testing for Truth: A Study of Hypothesis Evaluation
Small Group Processes
Analyzing Modern Organizations
*Roles of Modern Women
*Social Mobility in the United States
*Analyzing Views on Civil Liberties
*Transitions
*The Early 20s & Late 60s: Two Generation Gaps
*Images of People
*The Incidence and Effects of Poverty in the United States
*Divorce in the United States
*Migration Within the United States

*Note: The social data, the language, and the terminology of many of the episodes are based on America of the 1960s and the material emphasizes issues confronting Americans at that time. Users may wish to update or edit language or pictures in some lessons. Alternatively, such lessons could be used as documents representing American society of the sixties. Users also may find it instructionally useful to plan a "data hunt" with the students to bring the material up-to-date.

Each unit contains a teacher's guide, student readings, and additional instructional materials.