Our latest data brief–The “Down-the-Hall” Phenomenon: Preparing the Next Generation of Faculty to Use Innovative Pedagogy–examines how pedagogical knowledge is disseminated to future sociology faculty members. Looking at membership activity data for all 2012 graduate student subscribers to ASA’s online, peer-reviewed, digital Teaching Resources and Innovative Library in Sociology (TRAILS), we find that graduate students are almost twice as likely to subscribe to TRAILS when at least one faculty member from 
their academic department subscribes—other factors being equal. (Other characteristics–such as having a subscription to the ASA journal Teaching Sociology–have a demonstrated association with subscription to the digital library as well.) Such a finding suggests that sociology faculty play a significant role in generating awareness of teaching and learning activities to students—a process of socialization that has been referred to as the “down-the-hall” phenomenon.
If you are a current or former graduate student in sociology or a closely related discipline, how have you adopted or learned content and methods for teaching sociology concepts? Do your experiences echo or diverge from our latest research findings? We invite you to discuss this through your comments.
