Story-Based Teaching
I integrate diverse first-person narrative formats into my teaching. First-person stories are valuable because they provide direct perspectives and evoke the emotions tied to those experiences. As such, I have developed teaching methods that introduce students to various forms of first-person narratives, such as small group activities, autoethnography, and cultural resources to encourage engagement with colorful stories.
Through active engagement with these stories, I have identified three key teaching goals:
(1) enhancing students' interdisciplinary skills to critically analyze everyday issues;
(2) fostering emotional resonance across diverse social contexts;
(3) encouraging students to transform class lessons into personal, actionable tools for social justice.
Sample Syllabi
The following syllabi represent courses I have designed or am prepared to teach, reflecting my teaching interests and scholarly expertise in gender, health/disability, and social inequality. While some of these courses have not yet been offered, they serve as exemplars of my pedagogical approach—interdisciplinary thinking, emotional resonance, and transformative action.
This course provides students with the opportunity to critically analyze gender and its associated social phenomena. The course is divided into two parts: Theory and Practice. In the first part, students will explore major sociological theories that explain how gender operates in society. They will be encouraged to challenge the notion of gender as "natural" and critically examine how gender is socially constructed through institutions, cultural norms, and representations of the body. In the second part, students will extend these theoretical discussions by applying them to everyday experiences and case studies. Through engagement with diverse gendered experiences, the course ultimately invites students to reflect on their own lives through a critical lens and articulate their insights using scholarly language.
This course explores the complex and dynamic intersections of disability and gender through sociological and interdisciplinary perspectives. Centering the social construction of both concepts, we will examine how disability and gender shape—and are shaped by—institutions, cultural norms, public policies, and everyday experiences. Drawing from critical disability studies, feminist theory, and lived narratives, students will engage with topics such as caregiving and dependence, reproductive justice, stigma, family and kinship, sexuality, and activism. By combining theoretical readings with personal reflection and case-based analysis, this course invites students to critically rethink dominant understandings of embodiment, power, and identity.
This course examines health and illness in the United States through sociological and critical perspectives, with particular attention to how race, class, gender, disability, and sexuality shape access to care, health outcomes, and embodied experiences. Students will engage with core theories from medical sociology, critical public health, and disability studies to analyze how structural violence, institutional bias, and neoliberal policy regimes impact the health of marginalized communities. Key topics include health disparities, racial and gender bias in clinical settings, reproductive justice, mental health stigma, cultural humility, and care work. The course invites students to critically reflect on U.S. healthcare systems, dominant narratives of illness, and alternative models of community care and healing.
This course examines the intersection of gender and health in East Asia. Focusing on South Korea, Japan, and China, course topics will include but not be limited to reproductive health and rights, mental health, aging, disability, LGBTQ, eating disorders, and gender disparity in healthcare systems. Students will broadly explore how political, economic, and sociocultural factors shape challenges related to them, and moreover, how local actors make efforts to resolve confronting issues by advocating for improvements in institutional systems, such as state laws and welfare policies. By doing so, students will have the opportunity to engage with the contemporary debates on gender, health, and social justice in East Asia as well as critically examine public health policies and healthcare systems in East Asia while considering the impact of multiple social factors.
Every day, people chat; they share their stories to express their thoughts and feelings. Stories, therefore, are crucial tools for investigating our social world—helping us better understand how our day-to-day lives are shaped by “meanings” and “interpretations.” This course will explore how to investigate the meanings and interpretations embedded in stories. During the first two weeks, we will begin with a warm-up on why stories matter in social research and the importance of qualitative research. After discussing research ethics, we will learn and practice methodologies—from data collection to evaluation. Active participation is key in this course. But don’t worry! There won’t be a “big” final project. By the end of this course, you will learn how to analyze meanings in everyday experiences and interpret them, providing valuable insights for your future research in sociology.