Sociology Paper Discussion
Find a recent newspaper or magazine article that illustrates an event or situation relating to social stratification that has occurred in the U.S. within the last couple of years (2016-2020). The article must be from a major source, such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine, U.S. News & World Report, among others. The article can be found online or in print. Choose an article that focuses on groups of people in conflict with one another as a result of the inequality in the U.S. class system. You may want to run the article by me first before proceeding with this assignment. The objective of this assignment is to provide you with an opportunity to demonstrate your ability to apply sociological perspectives of social stratification to real-world situations. I. Background (1 page): a. Briefly describe the social stratification or situation presented in the article. b. When you describe the situation, do not plagiarize describe in your own words! c. Make sure you include a well-developed thesis statement which informs the reader in one sentence what your paper is about. The thesis should be placed at the end of the Background section. Go to this link for assistance: http://writingcenter.unc.edu/resources/handouts-demos/writing-the-paper/thesis-statements. II. Assessment (2 pages): This is the core of your paper. Make sure this section is very well-developed, well-organized, and well-written since your grade depends mainly on your sociological analysis of the article. Discuss why the social stratification or situation occurred by relating it to four sociological concepts/theories learned from any of the chapters in the textbook. Remember that you do not need to explain the theories/concepts. You will be graded by how you apply the theories/concepts to the article you have selected. Concepts/theories must be bolded or underlined in your paper, or they will not be counted in the quota. b. Discuss how the reality is presented by the author/reporter/media. Are there any unwritten cultural assumptions? Do those assumptions reflect ideologies? Do the ideologies support the status quo? What kind of status quo? Are there any biases in the media presentation? If so, what kind of biases? Try to read between the lines. Cultural assumptions are not written. IMPORTANT-you are asked to analyze both the content of the article of your selection as well as how it is presented. Presentation usually reflects ideology and subtly power relations. c. Include an engaging and stimulating conclusion paragraph that summarizes your paper. Demonstrate evidence that you can make connections between all of the main ideas. Make sure to include the URL of the article in your list of Works Cited. The paper should be logically organized in well-constructed paragraphs/sentences, have relevant content, and be easily understood. There should be few or no errors in format, sentence structure, grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. These errors should not hinder comprehension of your writing.
