The first post in a series on how some of the great sociological thinkers from the past can help us understand the struggle of today’s students as they explore and discern their vocations.
I start every class meeting by asking my students, “How are you all doing today?” This is not a rhetorical question. I expect students to respond and express a feeling, a thought, even a complaint. At the beginning of the semester, I usually get positive responses—smiles or, “Doing good.” At mid-semester, the tone drastically changes. Students avoid eye contact, and the few who do respond say things like, “Stressed,” or just give me looks of quiet desperation.
What is going on? Do I happen to teach at an institution with an unusually depressed student population? I suspect not. I do not think the issue lies within the individuals whom I teach, but rather within the social context that deeply impacts their experiences in patterned ways.
The “founding fathers” of sociology wrote during the emergence of industrial capitalism, when our modern way of life was emerging in cities in Europe and the United States. Some of their names are well known, others less so, and they are Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Karl Marx, and W.E.B. DuBois. All of these men wrestled with how society impacts mental, physical, and spiritual health. This post and the series that follow explores what their insights tell us about the struggles that students face today as they attempt to discern their vocations.
Why are my students not joyful as they explore and learn about the many possibilities for their lives and careers? The story that the smiling faces on college brochures tells misses the reality that students—who have many career options and unclear guidance on how to proceed—are overwhelmed and experience what Durkheim called “anomie.”
Anomie is a social condition caused by the breakdown of moral values and societally defined standards for people to follow. Sometimes defined as “normlessness,” anomie in its extreme can make people feel that life is meaningless. When individuals experience anomie, they feel disconnected within themselves and from the society they are a part of.
There are two types of “normlessness” impacting students’ vocational exploration. First, the destabilizing impact of technology on the job market, and second, the difficulty of understanding what it means to be a morally good person when we lack a shared reality due to technology and political polarization.
First, what is the “correct” career path to take when the world of work changes drastically every few years? As a millennial, I was constantly told to “learn to code” and that STEM was a certain path to a lucrative and fulfilling career. Today, thousands of formerly stable jobs in the sciences that relied on federal funding are being eliminated, and workers in the tech sector experienced over 150,000 layoffs in 2024. I cannot encourage students to follow my path into academia given the job market they would face, and many fields are the same. There are attempts to replace teachers, lawyers and doctors with AI, so no job feels safe. In this context of extreme uncertainty, students are going thousands of dollars into debt and making life-altering decisions, and I do not envy them. It is not surprising that conversations about vocation can spark an existential crisis for thoughtful students. They are getting conflicting advice from their parents, their academic advisors, the internet, and their peers. Who is right, and who is wrong? Who is to say?
It is not surprising that conversations about vocation can spark an existential crisis for thoughtful students. They are getting conflicting advice from their parents, their academic advisors, the internet, and their peers. Who is right, and who is wrong? Who is to say?
Second, if students want to be morally good people—and I believe most do—how do you achieve that in the world today? Emile Durkheim argued that religion is a crucial source of moral guidance. It still is for some, but according to the Public Religion Research Institute, less than half of Gen Z says that religion is important in their life. Even religion is not a straightforward guide to moral goodness when some Christians say empathy is a sin and fervently support a political leader who has been convicted of crimes and calls immigrants “animals” to justify putting them in detention centers that violate their human rights. In contrast, popular social movements have been vocal about the moral importance of respecting the rights of immigrants and people of color. Who is right, and who is wrong? Who is to say?
This moral uncertainty is compounded by the fact that students spend much of their time on their smart phones and social media, consuming content that has been algorithmically optimized to maximize their engagement, often by playing to base emotions of anger and fear. Our sense of shared reality has been eroded. We can no longer depend on formerly solid sources of information. For instance, Google has become less reliable due to search engine optimized spam. What does it mean to have academic integrity when it is easy to get an A on an assignment by feeding it into ChatGPT? Some professors encourage students to use AI, while others are anti-AI to the point of viewing its use as a moral failure. Who is right and wrong? Who is to say?
Is it any wonder that students are struggling to find their vocation in this social context? As a concept, anomie can help us diagnose and talk about these problems, but how do we provide students with actual guidance?
I do not have all the answers, but I can share what I am doing on both a personal and professional level. I take seriously adrienne marie brown’s maxim that “what you pay attention to grows.” I am intentional about how I use my time and how I direct others’ attention with the influence I have as a professor.
I am minimizing the amount of “doomscrolling” I engage in (20 minutes per day max). I try to make students more self-aware of their social media habits by doing interactive polls in class about social media use. Last semester, I adapted one from an addiction diagnostic tool which led to a rich conversation about unhealthy uses of social media. In my introductory sociology course, we focus on the interplay between social structure (what we have no control over) and individual agency (what we can control). I have no control over the fact that social media is designed to be addictive, but I can control whether I put any given app on my phone.
When students say they are stressed about the economy and their career prospects, I empathize with them and validate their feelings. I also reassure them that as individuals they are not at fault for the uncertain and difficult social conditions they face. One tool I use for this ongoing conversation is an online simulation of living in poverty called SPENT, which helps them understand the limits to what perseverance and hard work alone can achieve. However, even as I acknowledge the structural constraints that limit the impact any one person can have, I also teach students about social movements full of people who dreamed of a better world and acted to make their visions a reality.
I believe that if teachers can model adaptive behaviors for our students—show them examples of moral courage and a realistic perspective on what they can control versus what they cannot—at least some of them will see benefits in terms of their own mental health and ability to cope with the anomie they face in our society today. Directly acknowledging the complexity and difficulty of finding one’s purpose in a context of rapid social and political change will better equip students to search for meaning and moral fulfillment in their lives and work.
Michelle Oyakawa is an assistant professor of sociology at Muskingum University in New Concord, Ohio. She is coauthor of Prisms of the People: Power and Organizing in Twenty First Century America with Hahrie Han and Liz McKenna and Smart Suits, Tattered Boots: Black Ministers Mobilizing the Black Church in the Twenty First Century with Korie Edwards. For more posts by Michelle, click here.