Heather Beth Johnson

Heather Beth Johnson (Ph.D. Northeastern, 2001) Social stratification/mobility; race and class inequality; ideology; children and childhood; social reproduction/social change; structured wealth inequality and dominant ideology in the intergenerational reproduction of race and class stratification in the contemporary United States.
 

Links To Articles on Professor Johnson's Teaching and Classes

•  "Open Discussions Open Student Minds," by Linda Harbrecht, Lehigh University-- University Relations

•  "An Intellectual Journey to Empowerment," by Sarah Piperato, Lehigh University-- University Relations

Summary of Teaching Philosophy

My primary goal for each course I teach is to make students think – about their life experience, their society, and the social world around them.  My teaching is an attempt to bring students on an intellectual journey grounded in active learning that ultimately empowers them to think critically and sociologically beyond the classroom and throughout their lives.  This is a challenging goal, and I am committed to pursuing it through engaging, dynamic, creative, and excellent teaching.  I attempt to get each of the students I work with to take themselves seriously as intellectual thinkers while encouraging close reading, deep debate, mastery of material, and interactive, enjoyable learning.  I try to develop in each of my students a sociological perspective of the world, an empowered understanding, and an addiction to critical thinking.
 

Current Courses

Taught by Professor Johnson at Lehigh University, Department of Sociology & Anthropology:

SSP 103 (AAS 103)  Race and Ethnicity
Course examines race and ethnicity from a sociological perspective.  Focus on the role of the major racial and ethnic communities in modern American society.  Explores the roles of race and ethnicity in identity, social relations, and social inequality.  Topics include racial and ethnic communities, minority/majority groups, assimilation, prejudice& discrimination, identity, and the social construction of the concept of “race.”

SSP 166 (AAS 166)  Wealth and Poverty in the United States
Course examines the sociology of wealth and poverty -- affluence and disadvantage, “rags and riches” -- in American Society.  Focus is a critical analysis of the wealth gap, its causes, consequences, and social context.  We will consider the roles of wealth and poverty in determining life chances and structuring opportunity, as well as their roles in the perpetuation of social inequality across generations.  We will address contemporary debates surrounding public policy, tax laws, anti-poverty programs and other reform efforts aimed at decreasing the gap between the “Haves” and the “Have-Nots.”

SSP 355  Sociology of Education
Course examines the social organization of education as a social institution and the role of schools in society. Focus is primarily on educational processes in the United States.  Topics include: IQ, curriculum, tracking, educational inequality, primary/secondary/higher education, private vs. public, informal education and social capital, effects on and of race/class/gender, schools as agents of socialization, educational policy and school reform.

SSP 374  Social Stratification: Race, Class, Gender
This course is an introduction to social stratification.  Examines social inequality as an organizing principle in complex societies.  Explores the intersection of the “great divides” of race, class, and gender.  Through readings from classical sociological theory to cutting-edge literature we embark on a critical analysis of the causes and consequences of social stratification and social mobility in the United States and in a global context.

SSP 379 (AAS 379)  Race and Class in America
This course focuses on the ways in which race and class intersect in the social, economic, and political structures of American society. Through sociological literature, fiction, non-fiction, film, and other media we will explore the place of race and class in American society. We will examine how race and class operate on a personal, “micro” level, while at the same time operating on a large-scale, “macro” level.

SSP The American Dream: Popular Ideologies in American Society
Is the “American Dream” a myth or reality? This course explores this question and various aspects of basic American values through a sociological lens. The American Dream, meritocracy, and individualism are strongly held beliefs the United States – the “land of opportunity.”  We will examine the implications, causes, and consequences of these beliefs and other popular ideologies in the context of a highly stratified and increasingly diverse society.  The course focuses on how ideologies function to both reproduce and transform society.

Graduate Courses:

SR 401 Graduate Proseminar in Applied Social Theory
The goal of this course is to provide Master’s level students with a broad overview of major theoretical perspectives in sociology.  We will examine both classical and contemporary social theory and explore how these theoretical perspectives can, and do, impact social research and social thought.  We will focus on how theoretical perspectives in sociology can be applied to social problems, policy, and research.  This course will help students understand social theory and how to apply it to analysis of the social world.  By the end of the course each student should have a strong theoretical and substantive understanding of sociological theory and how it applies to their own life and the world around them.

SSP 461  Seminar in Sociology: Urban Education, Inequality, and Public Policy
Social inequality is found throughout American Society but problems of inequality related to education have perhaps received more attention than those of any other contemporary social institution.  Researchers, scholars, journalists, social critics, and observers have studied, written, and talked about educational inequality to an enormous extent.  Social service organizations, activists, policy-makers, legal professionals, and government officials have focused massive reform efforts and political agendas to tackle inequality in education. Many sociologists have long viewed education not just as an arena of inequality but as the solution to the widespread inequalities they see reflected in society.  Urban education has been an especially complex and controversial subject of scrutiny in recent scholarly and popular debates. This course will focus with a sociological perspective on urban education, inequality, and public policy in the contemporary United States.  The first portion of the course examines research and literature relevant to the contemporary social problems of urban education and inequality. The second portion of the course will explore the role of public policy in perpetuating educational inequality, and as a potentially promising solution to it.