Knowledge is transformational and my appreciation of its power greatly inspires my approach to teaching. I am motivated to persuade students to challenge their worldview and critically re-evaluate commonsense notions about the structure of society as well as relationships and interactions that they take for granted. My goals are to broaden students’ substantive knowledge, encourage them to make conceptual connections, and develop their skills to effectively articulate and apply sociological knowledge to global and local contexts. Challenging conventional approaches, I believe that students should not merely “think globally and act locally.” Instead, I strive to help them also act both globally and locally. My community-engaged teaching and research activities reflect the belief that cross-disciplinary, cross-regional, and international initiatives can provoke important philosophical discussions, and can lead to tangible benefits for vulnerable communities.
“Molding global citizens, rather than simply producing global tourists.”
It is gratifying to have received funding to initiate the Second-Class Daughters project, as it is a project intentionally designed to be community-centered. Funding from the American Sociological Association Funds for the Advancement of the Discipline supports this innovative approach and will additionally fund community workshops in in which informal domestic workers will hear about and respond to the preliminary analysis of the interview data. In this way, community participants are not merely interviewees, but rather they take on an active role in informing the analytical process. Contributing to the community-centered approach of this research, the Ruth Landes Memorial Fund and the USF WLP Junior Research Award will allow me to expand the project to other cities and provide stipends to black Brazilian college students who will gain experience as research assistants on this project. Critical to selecting and training students are my Fulbright affiliations with the Federal University of Bahia (sociologist Paula Barreto) and the Instituto Steve Biko. Both institutions have offered both the academic and community contacts necessary to ensure that this project develops as a collaborative community-centered project.
Community engagement is the hallmark of my teaching, and this focus has lead to me launching the USF in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil program, developing a high-impact service-learning study abroad Brazil course in 2014, and organizing seminars and programs with partners from historically black colleges and
- Dr. Hordge-Freeman launched and directed the USF in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil program in 2013.
- In 2014, Professor Hordge-Freeman developed an award-winning service-learning program in Brazil, with funding from a mini-grant from the Office of Community Engagement and Partnerships.
- Professor Hordge-Freeman served as the Distinguished Faculty Facilitator for the UNCF/Mellon International Faculty Seminar. She co-organized the seminar entitled, Afro-Aesthetics in Brazil … and Beyond: Transnational Blackness & Beauty, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, July 7-17, 2013.
- Hordge-Freeman received a Fulbright grant (2015-2016) in partnership with the Institute Cultural Steve Biko and The Federal University of Bahia