Richard Hanson

A Biography

Richard R. Hanson

Teaching Experience

As a part time sociology instructor in the Modesto Junior College, Business, Behavioral, and Social Science Division I currently teach three Introduction to Sociology classes in the Fall and Spring Semesters and two Introduction to Sociology classes in the Summer Semester.

These courses involve an introductory study of the basic concepts, theoretical approaches, and methods of sociology. Topics include the analysis and explanation of social structure, group dynamics, socialization and the self, social stratification, culture and diversity, social change and globalization.

These courses include the opportunity to learn how to apply sociological ideas to everyday life. A community research project (fieldwork) and research paper is required to satisfactorily complete this course along with examinations. In addition to lectures, there are class discussions and media presentations.

I have been teaching sociology part time at Modesto Junior College for over a decade. Also, through the years I have also taught part time a variety of sociology classes at the University of California, Davis, California State University, Stanislaus, and the University of New South Wales, in Sydney, Australia, and full time at California State University, Chico, California State University, Humboldt, and the University of San Francisco accumulating some 30 plus years of teaching sociology.

In addition to academia, I spent some twenty years in the world of business establishing my own insurance agency providing multiple line insurance policies for my clients, and teaching part time for two years an insurance class in the Business Department at California State University, Stanislaus.

Research Experience

In the early 1960’s employed as a Research Anthropologist with Department of Public Health for the State of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. I worked in the context of a psychiatric therapeutic community, with Australian Aboriginal families and assisted psychiatrists in their efforts to help these aboriginal families work through their mental health challenges.

In the years 1966 through 1968, I worked as Research Assistant with the University of California, Davis, Department of Applied Behavioral Science and assisted in the development of a research project for the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity to evaluate responses of California migrant farm worker families to new housing facilities provided for them nearer to the field in which they worked.

As part of a research team my wife and myself conducted participant-observational research living and working out of a sampling of these housing facilities and following the crops up and down the Central Valley. This was our effort to see firsthand the concerns of the migrant families to inform the research project.

A published report was forward to the government making recommendations reflecting the migrant families concerns and how these housing facilities and other health and educational programs could help resolve their concerns. I was also invited to conduct workshops at Cornell University to assist researcher doing fieldwork with migrant farm workers on the east cost.

In the years 1969 through 1972 as a graduate student in the Sociology Department at the University of California, Davis in collaboration with sociology professor Julius A. Roth we developed a research proposal, conducted a study, and submitted a final report to the National Institute of Health (National Center for Health Services Research and Developments Grant #HS 00564).

This research project involved a three-year study of alternative medicine.  I contributed to a final governmental report and a publication “Health Purifiers and Their Enemies: A Study of the Natural Health Movement in the United States with a comparison to its counterpart in Germany” (1977) authored by Julius A. Roth. The main recommendation that emerged from this research is that to optimize our health and health care we need to integrate the best of alternative medicine with the best of traditional western medicine.

I have integrated these research experiences into my sociology teaching at Modesto Junior college as well as in all the other academic colleges and universities I have taught to enrich the classroom experience.

For example, in collaboration with faculty and students we conducted field work to discover the conditions that contribute to successful intimate coupling. This research was published in a sociological journal and Modesto Junior College students were acknowledged as co-researches in this research project. (Hanson, R.R. and Woodside, S.J. (2009). “Optimizing Marital Success: The Conscious Couple Uniting Process”. Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, 32 (1), 158-183.

Most recently, again with the support of Modesto Junior College and students, we conducted a three year study to discover the conditions that contribute to student success at Modesto Junior College.  Students collected some 1500 interviews of fellow students focusing upon their concerns and their efforts to resolve their concerns in their quest for success. We completed an unpublished research report on the results of this research.

Educational Experience

1954-58: Department of Anthropology, University of Washington, Seattle, B.A. Degree in Anthropology.

Through the years 1962 to 1972 I have taken a variety of graduate courses in Anthropology and Sociology at the following institutions, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, University of California, Davis, and the Sociology Department, University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, San Francisco. At the University of California, Davis, I successfully completed all the required graduate sociology courses for the M. A. and Ph. D. degrees.

I love teaching and researching sociology and  I  have enjoyed these many diverse opportunities to teach and integrate community research projects with my courses in sociology. I have particularly enjoyed working with my fellow Modesto Junior College colleagues and our students and look forward to doing so in years to come.

Richard R. Hanson
Sociologist