Ivy-leaved toadflax.
Magical Thinking
vs. Sociological Reasoning
Karen Sternheimer
A student of a colleague had failed a course after rarely
attending and not completing
several assignments. The ones he did complete were poorly
done; he did not see the instructor
in office hours despite repeated invitations to talk
about improving his grade during the course.
He earned 25 out of 100 points in the course, and perhaps
unsurprisingly, an F.
But to my colleague’s surprise, the student emailed after
seeing his final grade,
asking if there was any way he could earn a C in the
course
(which typically requires 70%, well above his 25%).
Maybe the instructor added incorrectly?
After writing back with a detailed explanation of the
breakdown of his grade,
the instructor also reminded him that the class had in
fact ended,
and that he could no longer complete work for the course
to earn more points.
This is an example of magical thinking, the notion
that things we want will happen
without connection to actual events or in this case,
despite a lack of effort.
In her book The Year of Magical Thinking, author
Joan Didion describes coping with grief
after the death of her husband, whom
she imagined would return and need his shoes
and his cell phone. But she knew
this was not going to happen,
and her book was about coping with the pain of
this loss.
Within magical thinking, conventional notions of cause
and effect are disregarded in favor
of what we might also call wishful thinking, or
hoping that what we want to happen
will happen simply because we want it to happen.
Sociological reasoning is very different. Thinking
sociologically requires us to look
for connections between events—although not
always causal connections—
based on empirical evidence, or events that we observe.
Sociologists often use
quantitative data to assess probability,
or the likelihood of an event occurring based on the
events of the past.
Perhaps this is why it is so frustrating when students in
sociology courses overlook
the most basic causal relationship between their
assignment grades and their final grades.
As sociologists, we learn how to ask questions (see
these
previous posts on asking sociological questions) in order to find out
more about the connections between events,
sometimes about those that are not obviously related.
Part of developing a sociological imagination is recognizing that patterns
exist
between our individual lives and the broader world around us.
But students aren’t the only ones who engage in magical
thinking.
Nearly everyone does this when events feel beyond our
control.
Unfortunately, policy makers sometimes disregard the
connections between events as well.
For instance, we might make funding decisions without
recognizing the obvious consequences
to these actions. When funding for public education is
cut to balance state budget shortfalls,
the outcomes might include hiring fewer instructors,
paying instructors less, increasing class sizes, reducing course offerings,
reducing enrollment, or increasing tuition at the college level.
No one likes tax increases, and those affected certainly
don’t like fee hikes, tuition increases,
or pay cuts. But these are all likely results unless we
want to reduce
who has access to higher education, not to mention the
quality of higher education as well.
This has been a particular problem in California,
which
has the country’s largest public college system.
One campus has seen its
enrollment increase by nearly 13 percent over a five year period,
as more people seek higher education to improve their job
prospects in the wake
of the Great Recession. The Los Angeles Times reported
that:
Campus officials say they lack funding to hire enough
full-time faculty to meet needs
while facing surging numbers of applications from
out-of-area transfer students
and qualified high school graduates. The system received
more than 790,000 applications
for fall 2015, a number greater than the population of
North Dakota.
Community colleges in the state also face more demand
than funding can keep up with,
so starting at a two-year school isn’t an easy option
either.
As the Times reported in 2012, some community
colleges are so over crowded that students can only enroll in one class at a
time:
It's a product of years of severe budget cuts and heavy
demand in the two-year college system.
The same situation has affected the Cal State and UC
systems, but the impact has been most deeply felt in the 2.4-million-student
community college system — the nation's largest.
At Pasadena City College, nearly 4,000 students who are
seeking a degree or to transfer
are taking a single class this fall. About 63% are taking
less than 12 units
and are considered part time. The school has slashed 10%
of its classes to save money.
And yet high school students are routinely encouraged to
work hard and go to college—
often by the same politicians who were complicit in these
budget cuts—
only to find a barrier preventing interested students
from enrolling. Beyond a personal problem,
a less educated workforce can prevent economic growth and
create a glut of low wage workers
with too few jobs to go around while other fields have
too few qualified candidates.
Sociological reasoning requires us to think about the
relationship between social action
and the effects of these actions. Can you think of any
other examples of magical thinking
that would benefit from sociological reasoning?
http://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2015/03/magical-thinking-vs-sociological-reasoning.html
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