Teaching Criminology at the Intersection : A How-to Guide for Teaching About Gender, Race, Class and Sexuality

Teaching about gender, race, social class and sexuality in criminal justice and criminology classrooms can be challenging. Professors may face resistance when they ask students to examine how gender impacts victimization, how race affects interactions with the police, how socioeconomic status shapes experiences in court or how sexuality influences treatment in the criminal justice system. Teaching Criminology at the Intersection is an instructional guide to support faculty as they navigate teaching these topics.

Bringing together the experience and knowledge of expert scholars, this book provides time-strapped academics with an accessible how-to guide for the classroom, where the dynamics and discrimination of gender, race, class and sexuality demographics intersect and permeate criminal justice concerns. In the book, the authors of each chapter discuss how they teach a particular contemporary criminal justice issue and provide their suggestions for best practice, while grounding their ideas in pedagogical theory. Chapters end with a toolkit of recommended activities, assignments, films, readings or websites.

As a teaching handbook, Teaching Criminology at the Intersection is appropriate reading for graduate level criminology, criminal justice and women’s and gender studies teaching instruction courses and as background reading and reference for instructors in these disciplines.

Rebecca M. Hayes is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work at Central Michigan University. Driven by her passion for social justice, particularly eradicating violence against women, she assisted with starting the first rape recovery non-profit organization in St. Lucia called PROSAF-Surviving Sexual Abuse in the Caribbean. You can find her scholarly work published in academic journal such as Feminist Criminology, Violence Against Women, Crime & Delinquency, and Critical Criminology. In 2013 she was awarded the Central Michigan Vice Provost Award, the American Society of Criminology's Division on Women and Crime New Scholar Award, and the American Society of Criminology’s Division of Victimology Practitioner/Activist of the Year Award.

Kate Luther is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Pacific Lutheran University. Her areas of interest include gendered violence, women’s incarceration and the impact of incarceration on families. Her current research examines the pathways to college for children of incarcerated parents. She serves as the co-chair for the Division on Women and Crime’s Committee for Teaching and Pedagogy.

Professor Susan Caringella is an internationally known expert on rape, feminism and criminology. She has published extensively in academic books and journals on topics ranging from rape to violence against women, legislative change, sociological theory, political ideology and public opinion. Her acclaimed book "Reforming Rape Reforms in Law and Practice" (2009, Columbia University Press) has been nominated for awards in the American Society of Criminology and the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Professor Caringella's body of scholarship has been widely cited and recognized with national, state, and university scholarship awards and honors.