Tell the whole story: an attempt to find joy in sociology

Kelly N. Giles and Alison Better

Chapter 20 in Teaching Introduction to Sociology, 2026, pp 235-246 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter is designed to promote critical thinking about feeling and emotion, specifically joy and pleasure and their relationship to sociology as a field of study. We encourage sociologists and practitioners to commit to centering and telling the whole story—one that explores and examines the nuances, challenges, tensions, and contradictions that exist within the affective and the everyday, including those that move beyond pain and instead (re)imagine what joy, pleasure, and sociology can look like. We argue that joy and pleasure can serve as mechanisms to enhance and/or improve sociologists’ and practitioners’ relationships to teaching, learning, and research within the discipline and our everyday practices, if we are committed to telling the whole story and make the choice to have them.

Keywords: Emotion; Feeling; Joy; Pleasure; Teaching and Learning; Re-imagining (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035355778
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