Anthony Giddens • Sociology 6th edition

Lecturer Resources

This site will provide a range of materials to help you plan your teaching using Giddens's Sociology. These have been organized into a tutors' guide written by experienced lecturers, Eric Harrison of City University, Sue Hemmings of the Open University and Philip W. Sutton formerly of Robert Gordon University.

Every lecturer is different, and so are their students. Tutors on introductory courses may be experienced teachers or beginners in the classroom, they may be sociology specialists, or their expertise might lie elsewhere. Students may still be at school, or studying at a higher-level; they may be sociology majors, or learning about sociology as part of a vocational degree.

That's why it's important to treat this guide as a menu. More experienced diners will no doubt wish to please themselves and go à la carte. If you're new to this type of cuisine or are short of time, we have put together a number of set meals you can simply take away. Either way, lecturers can adapt the offerings to suit the tastes, and requirements, of their students.

You can find a sample guide, for Chapter 1 ‘What is Sociology’, here.

Each chapter of the guide contains eight sections:

  1. Chapter commentary: this gives a quick overview of the main themes in the text.
  2. Teaching topics: These suggest core issues around which to organize teaching.
  3. Activities: All activities relate back to the text, but also supplement it with tasks and additional material, including readings from classic texts and newspaper articles. Lecturers might like to cut and paste the activities into worksheets for classroom use.
  4. Questions for discussion and reflection: These could form the basis of classroom discussion, but equally might be used as follow-on questions for individual students to address outside of the classroom.
  5. Essay questions: As much assessment still takes this form, these are intended to help lecturers devise their own ways of testing students' understanding and critical thinking.
  6. Making connections: One of the difficulties students find is seeing the links between different substantive areas, as well as theory and method. These sections highlight the key ‘cross-text' thematic connections.
  7. Powerpoint slides: These provide the building blocks for visual stimulus during teaching, and can be adapted or expanded to suit lecturers' own needs.
  8. Sample session: All the above features offer ingredients that can be combined and recombined, and mixed with material from other sources. For each chapter, we suggest one way in which the different elements of the guide might be put together.

Click here to go to the guides.

All materials written by Eric Harrison, Sue Hemmings and Philip W. Sutton.

The right of Eric Harrison, Sue Hemmings and Philip W. Sutton [etc.] to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published in 2009 by Polity Press. All rights reserved.

Every effort has been made to trace all of the copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.