Teaching Sociology Using The Wire?

Academics love The Wire. Well, almost everyone loves the Wire, but academics really love the Wire because they can use it as an amazing teaching tool. For example, William Julius Wilson has used the Wire to teach urban inequality at Harvard; it is used in sociology at York University; students watch it to learn social anthropology at Duke and in other social science courses. Academic books have been written about the Wire and conferences have debated the significance of the show. A variety of instructors in other disciplines have also built their courses around the Wire (click here for syllabi in an ethics , a communications, and a criminal justice course). We have a clip from The Wire on our site, and we hope to add more soon.

So, I have been thinking about how to restructure my sociology class on social problems around The Wire. And besides, I think my students are getting annoyed that I talk about it all the time and it’s time to really start assigning full seasons for class. But while some non-sociologists have posted their syllabi online, I have not found many syllabi or other resources for teaching The Wire in sociology classes. Have you used it to teach sociology? What worked and what didn’t work for you? If you wouldn’t mind sharing your ideas, please comment with links to resources or send me an email (pdean <at> socy.umd.edu). Cheers to the best show of all time!

Paul Dean