AI and the Colonization of the Classical Sociological Theory Classroom

• In Event: Teaching Sociology in an Age of Disruption

Abstract

This paper explores—partly from an auto-ethnographic viewpoint—the experience of encountering and trying to cope with the disruption caused by the introduction of AI as a factor in the Classical Sociological Theory course. The paper has four parts. Part One presents a description of the status quo which has been disrupted by the introjection of AI as a “given” in student life. Part Two describes our first recognizable encounter with student use of AI in the Fall of 2022. Part Three recounts our early skirmishes and growing concern, culminating with an attempted counterattack on AI in Fall 2025. And Part Four, voices our current concerns on what we have come to see as the “colonization of the classroom” by AI. The status quo for us is located in the classroom experience of teaching classical sociological theory, a key part of our lifeworld for about fifty years (each); it is a world that we know and have overall been at ease in and even joyful. But AI has called into question the value of what we know, the ease we have developed in sharing that knowledge and organizing interactions in that space, and the joy we have felt in students’ accomplishments. This world can be colonized by AI offering to tell the student or to state for the student what the theory’s concepts mean and how the concepts relate to the particular problem the student has chosen. The skill that AI and many postings trumpeting the utility of AI teach is not this understanding of concepts or of their application but the ability to properly “prompt AI.” The important skill is to ask AI the right question and offer its answer to a given assignment. The student does not need to understand either the concept or the problem; they need only to understand how to frame their work so that AI produces an appropriate answer.

Authors

• Gillian (Jill) Niebrugge-Brantley, George Washington University

• Patricia Madoo Lengermann, George Washington University