A Preliminary Review of a Sociology Internship Course to Foster Critical Thinking and Awareness through Service Learning
Toni Y. Sims-Muhammad

Abstract
This paper describes a Sociology Internship course in which college students were required to serve as mentors to 50 high school students. The course is an elective for undergraduate Sociology, Child & Family Studies, and Anthropology students who have been exposed to traditional classroom learning platforms. The course incorporates, service learning, in the form of mentoring to guide college students toward learning sociological concepts from a community based, hands on experience and interactive perspective. Expected internship outcomes included experiences that create awareness in three areas: student expectations (range of ideas, attitudes and perceptions about persons, group dynamics that function to create and maintain social institutions and community); student purpose (ability to examine ideas about community participants and interest and intelligence in social problems); and student reflections and connections (ability to realize a personal role and to connect to situations that are real).

Full Text: PDF