Sociology teacher sees potential in students

Cao Zhen

Sociology has long been a marginal and unpopular subject in Chinese education, possibly due to low graduate employment. Richard Driscoll, a sociology teacher from England, however, sees a different picture in Shenzhen.

“When I started to teach sociology in Shenzhen two years ago, at least 72 students in the school wanted to enroll in the course but there were only 24 places in the class, so I gave them a test and took the top 24 students. It was a very difficult decision to have to turn away many enthusiastic students who could not be accommodated and to see their obvious bitter disappointment,” said Driscoll, who is teaching at the Shenzhen College of International Education, a high school in Futian District that uses the British curriculum.

“At the end of my second lesson, I was amazed that one of the students had read in advance several of the books on the exam boards recommended reading list. This is something I’ve never seen in the U.K. where — on occasion — students would be recommended towards signing up to make up the numbers, as opposed to having a specific passion for the subject,” said Driscoll, who studied social policy in the University of York and was head of sociology at a high school in England for seven years. “I realized that some Shenzhen students are exceptional. Most high schools in China do not offer sociology courses and my students love the opportunity to study sociology.”

Since the English books on sociology in the school’s library are much more focused on the U.K. and America, he encouraged his Chinese students to talk about life and family in China.

“When we talked about family in class, I told them families in the U.K. are very diverse: divorces, single parents and gay marriages. A lot of students are very fascinated with gay marriages because they are interested in young people’s lives in other countries. They realized that although Chinese families are traditional now, in the future they might change.”

Last year, one of Driscoll’s students carried out a small-scale ethnographic piece of research into the matriarchal tribe of the Mosuo in Yunnan Province following a lesson on family diversity. And this year, six students participated in the British Sociological Association Sixth Form Competition.

One student won the competition with her research on education in the context of globalization.