This past Monday, 17 students from a Woodson High School sociology class, along with their chaperones and teacher, Annie Hadfield, joined Mason sociology students in Dr. Johanna Bockman’s SOCI 320: Globalization and Social Change class.
In class, they learned about the gentrification and displacement practices that have been happening in Washington, DC over the past century, an important topic related to social change. “It went really well,” reported Dr. Bockman, “many of the high school students already knew about gentrification so they understood the topic.”
The class visit was organized by Dr. Elizangela Storelli, who had presented to the high school class earlier this fall on what studying sociology at the university level would look like. Students were very interested and engaged in the presentation, which led their teacher to propose a field trip to Mason.
Overall, it was a very positive experience for the students and chaperones and Ms. Hadfield noted, “I could really see us doing this again next year.” To get the full college experience, the high school students also went to the Johnson Center for lunch after class.