Teaching

Photo: Sociology of Immigration class trip to Fallen Star.

San Diego, CA, May 2022.

Viewing my teaching and research as two sides of the same coin, I've had the joy of designing and teaching four courses: Sociology of Immigration (twice), Qualitative Interviewing, and Comparative and Historical Methods. Additionally, I served as a teaching assistant for both lower and upper-division courses on 17 occasions. Over the course of three distinct research projects, I provided mentorship to seven research assistants.

Throughout my graduate career, I had the privilege of teaching and mentoring more than 750 students.

My teaching interests include inclusive and equitable pedagogy and teaching, citizenship, international migration, refugee studies, populism, authoritarianism, Global South, Political Sociology, and Qualitative Methods.

I was recently honored to receive the Barbara and Paul Saltman Excellence in Teaching Award, for which my students and department nominated me.

You can access the syllabi and sample course activities from the courses I have taught.

Sociology of Immigration

Click here for the syllabus.

This course will explore the topic of immigration, involving people's movements. While migration is common, it's a complex process. The class covers each stage thoroughly.to untangle the complex web of actors, policies, interactions, violence, and human experiences. While we will give special attention to theoretical and political discussions, we will never lose sight of the human aspect of immigration.

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

• Apply sociological theories to analyze and understand migration processes, patterns, and outcomes.

• Conduct critical analyses of the structural reasons behind migration.

• Utilize sociological and international legal terminology to understand and discuss migration.

• Evaluate the structural barriers and opportunities for integration/assimilation that different migrant groups encounter.

• Explain how migrant categories are politically instrumentalized and legally designed.

• Analyze the role of social institutions, such as the family, education, and the labor market, in shaping migration patterns and experiences.

• Examine the ways in which migration intersects with other social issues, such as globalization, transnationalism, and environmental degradation.

• Reflect on ethical issues related to communication with and about migrant groups.

Sample Course Activity

Fallen Star Trip (May 2022)

Fallen Star on the UC San Diego campus is an art installation representing the artist’s migration and assimilation experience. I organized a field trip to Fallen Star to teach the course material on assimilation. The students became more engaged with the course topic and stated that the visit enabled them to visualize the assimilation experience. After the visit, the students were prompted to write down what they had observed and how it connected to the theories discussed in the class.

Note: The photo in the header is taken during the trip

Qualitative Interviewing

Click here for the syllabus

This course explores qualitative interviews as a sociological research method. While we will work on the practical aspects of interviews, we will also pay special attention to theoretical and ethical discussions. The course is designed to give students tools to assess qualitative interviews, produce their own analyses, and prepare students for more advanced methodological courses and techniques. We will follow the steps of an interview-based study throughout the quarter, and our class time will be frequently structured as a workshop. In this workshop type of structure, students will have the opportunity to develop their own

interview projects but still work as a part of a group and will give and receive feedback from their peers.

At the end of this course, you will be able to

• Articulate the peculiar aspects and steps of qualitative interviews
• Design and conduct interviews following the best practices in the field.

• Critically analyze a qualitative interview-based study

• Have basic literacy of one qualitative data analysis (QDA) program of their choosing

• Complete an IRB application

• Present and discuss findings

• Reflect on ethical issues and challenges surrounding qualitative

interviews

Sample Course Activity

Mock Institutional Review Board (IRB)

Throughout the quarter, students actively crafted their own interview projects. To instill an understanding of the regulations and ethical considerations inherent in scientific research, students were tasked with completing a brief online IRB course and filling out authentic UC San Diego IRB forms. Following this preparatory phase, I established IRB committees, each comprising three students. Every student served as a member of one IRB committee and submitted their project to another committee for evaluation. Each committee then provided peer evaluations resembling IRB review results, offering suggestions for revisions where necessary. Only a select few projects successfully passed their peers’ IRB reviews without any revisions. This exercise facilitated valuable discussions surrounding research ethics and scientific methodology.

Comparative and Historical Methods

This course offers a comprehensive exploration of Comparative Historical Methods (CHM) by focusing on three interconnected pillars. Firstly, students will delve into the logic and philosophy of Comparative Historical Studies (CHS) to understand the underlying principles that inform this approach. Secondly, they will engage in practical applications of CHM, learning how to collect, process, and analyze historical data. Lastly, students will examine significant examples of CHM in historical research to gain insights into its real-world applications. The course follows an asynchronous format with weekly assignments and readings. Readings will be available on Perusall, and active engagement is encouraged through thoughtful annotations.

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

Comprehend the logic and philosophy of Comparative Historical Studies
Apply Practical Comparative Historical Methods
Analyze Significant Examples of Comparative Historical Methods
Develop and deploy a critical sociological perspective.

Sample Course Activity

Upon instructing students on various methods and software for analyzing archival data, I tasked them with engaging with an online repository of historical materials, namely the Black Freedom Struggle in the United States online archive. Following instructions on archival research techniques, students delved into different sections of the archive, logged pertinent data, and conducted thorough analyses. A pivotal aspect of the course entailed guiding students in crafting comparative and historical pieces rooted in their archival research. Many students further developed their term papers by transforming them into accessible blog posts. These posts, brimming with insightful reflections and analyses, were shared and published in honor of Black History Month.

Additional courses prepared for instruction

Art and Migration

In this course, we transcend the conventional boundaries of migration literature and theories, seeking to forge connections between art, migration, politics, and sociology. We aim to unravel the intricacies of the human experience underlying migration, delving into the profound interplay between artistic expression and the socio-political dimensions of movement.

Conflict and Human Rights in the Middle East

This course will introduce the conceptual framework and the “Middle East” construction as a geopolitical concept. The second module will briefly discuss the historical legacies that shape the modern Middle East. It will introduce the role of forced migration in creating modern states in the region. The third module will analyze three major political events that shook the region: U.S. Intervention in Iraq, the Arab Spring, and the Islamic State. The fourth module will examine three major refugee-creating conflicts: Syrian, Kurdish, and Israeli-Palestinian.

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