Abstract
As much as instructors wish it were different, college students receive far more information from non-academic than academic sources. As a result, they are inundated by over-information mixed with distortions and contradictions that are confusing. This paper discusses strategies to help students distinguish between information and misinformation regarding economic and social inequality in non-academic publications. The goal is to develop critical thinking skills that detect flawed popular arguments. The first strategy addresses evidence-based arguments. It helps students identify how the hidden assumptions about an argument and its supporting evidence mislead the reader. The second strategy deals with reason-based arguments. These tools help students develop questions to uncover an argument’s flawed implications and emphasize the importance of analyzing hidden messages in debunking popular misinformation.
Keywords
- Critical thinking
- Sociological imagination
- Teaching strategies
- Deep learning
- Economic inequality
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The author is grateful for the valuable comments and input provided by William L. Smith and Kristin Haltinner.
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Zhang, P. (2018). Teaching Social Inequality Through Analysis of Hidden Assumptions in Non-Academic Publications. In: Haltinner, K., Hormel, L. (eds) Teaching Economic Inequality and Capitalism in Contemporary America. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71141-6_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71141-6_14
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