Laura O'Toole, Ph.D.
Laura O'Toole, Ph.D.
Professor (Retired) | Cultural, Environmental, and Global Studies
Laura O’Toole retired as Professor of Sociology and Senior Faculty Fellow for Community Engagement in May, 2022. She has taught in the areas of Gender and Intersectionality, Work and Organizations, and Food Studies at Salve Regina University and previously at Guilford College and Roanoke College. She is active in numerous community organizations and has recently published on integrating public sociology and community engagement in the undergraduate curriculum. She wrote the successful application that was awarded a 3-year Davis Educational Foundation grant to support campus and community engagement in 2016. O’Toole continues to teach part time in her areas of specialization at Salve.
Featured Spring/Fall 2017
Community Engagement Best Practices Across the Disciplines
Applying Course Content to Community Needs
Edited by Heather K. Evans
Chapter 9 | Civic Engagement as Public Sociology: Conversations for Pedagogy and Practice
Laura O'Toole
Summary: Over the past decade, civic learning has been identified as an educational priority that prepares students for lives as citizens in an increasingly diverse society[...] Although many national and regional conversations have focused on the pedagogies of civic engagement, shrouded in most of this dialogue is how civic engagement impacts the local places where students work from the vantage point of community members themselves.
The people with whom students and faculty work can - and desire to - contribute to the conversation (Stoeker & Tryon, 2009). This chapter develops a framework for using public sociology to embed civic engagement within the undergraduate sociology curriculum, focusing on the social change potential of this work and recognizing community partners as collaborators and co-educators in this process.
APA Citation
O’Toole, L. (2018). Civic Engagement as Public Sociology: Conversations for Pedagogy and Practice. In Community Engagement Best Practices Across the Disciplines: Applying Course Content to Community Needs (pp. 121-135). Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.
Access
McKillop Library CRC Collection: LC238 .C664 2018
Featured Fall 2022
Chapter 10
From Mission to Praxis in Neighborhood Work
Lessons Learned From a Three-Year Faculty/Community Development Initiative
Laura L. O'Toole, Nancy E. Gordon, and Jessica L. Walsh
Abstract: This chapter presents the case study of a partnership between the HEZ, a resident- led neighborhood collaborative in Newport, RI and the Leadership Dynamics and Practice Program (previously Holistic Leadership program) at Salve Regina University. A hybrid model of participatory action research (PAR) and community development (CD) grounded a two year collaborative to develop a sustainability-focused strategic plan and to document the leadership/CD values and practices in use but not previously formalized or promoted in HEZ publications or reports. The case study leadership project assisted the HEZ in securing funding to sustain resident mobilization and neighborhood development at the end of the first five-year funding cycle, while illuminating the CD praxis that made it a model of racial equity and inclusion among local organizations. The chapter situates this project within a larger three-year grant-funded university initiative designed to facilitate transformation within institutional, pedagogical, and community/project interfaces by aligning the justice-based university mission and community-based collaborations between faculty and partner organizations.
Publication Information
Laura L. O'Toole, Nancy E. Gordon, and Jessica L. Walsh, "From Mission to Praxis in Neighborhood Work: Lessons Learned From a Three-Year Faculty/Community Development Initiative." In Randy Stoecker and Adrienne Falcón (eds.), Handbook on Participatory Action Research and Community Development, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2022, pp. 189-199.
Access
McKillop Library Main Collection: HN 49 .C6 H36 2022
Featured Fall 2022
Gender Violence
Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Edited by Laura L. O'Toole, Jessica R. Schiffman, and Rosemary Sullivan
Summary: From Harvey Weinstein to Brett Kavanaugh, powerful accusations of gender violence against a number of high-profile politicians, celebrities, and corporate elites saturate today’s headlines. In this fully revised edition of Gender Violence, the editors bring together a new, interdisciplinary group of scholars to address this phenomenon, with up-to-date material on contemporary issues like workplace harassment, transgender violence, intersectionality, clergy sexual abuse, and the #MeToo movement.
Building on the groundbreaking success of earlier editions, the Third Edition provides a fresh, informed perspective on gender violence, in all of its forms. Essays cover a range of new topics, including toxic masculinity, pornification, sex trafficking, workplace violence, sexual violence in elementary and secondary schools, transgender violence, the legacy of slavery, online gendered harassment, rape culture, and child sexual abuse in the clergy. Each section includes an extensive literature review, covers a number of historical examples, and examines contemporary manifestations of gender violence in our society. With twenty-nine new contributions, including twelve original essays written specifically for this volume, this new edition will provide a profound understanding of gendered violence in the twenty-first century.
Publication Information
Laura L. O'Toole, Jessica R. Schiffman, and Rosemary Sullivan (eds.), Gender Violence: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Third Edition. New York: New York University Press, 2020
Access
McKillop Library Main Collection: HV6250.4 .W65 G48 2020