SOC 31
Description of Change in Two Generations of the Same Family (25 points)
In a 4-6 page paper, please use your sociological imagination, sociological research methods (observation, interview), and strong sociological analysis to understand the concepts presented in this course through the lens of analyzing the experiences of members of two generations of your family.
This assignment involves exploring your cultural heritage by analyzing your family across two generations in the same family. Specifically, you are asked to compare yourself and your family (at the age you are today) with the identities, challenges, and family life of one of your parents or another relative who is of a different generation than you are (as it existed when they were the age you are now).
Rather than relying on your own impressions and recollections to answer the following questions, you may find it helpful to interview some of your relatives, if possible.
You should organize your paper by (1) writing an introduction, introducing yourself and the family member you are writing about and an overview of how you can use your sociological imagination to understand the things around you. (2) answering the questions below with thoughtful sociological analysis (1-3 paragraphs per question). (3) providing a conclusion that draws from your analysis here and your experience learning sociology this semester.
- Family composition: Outline the kinship structure of each household. Specify the age of each family member.
- Cultural heritage: What are the ethnic and religious ties of each family member? Specify how and to what extent these ties permeated family life. Your family and your parent’s family.
- Social Class Position: Specify the occupation, income and education of each parental pair to determine the socioeconomic status of their respective households. Your family and your parent’s family.
- Sex-roles/gender: What were the sex-role patterns in each family? How and to what extent were these patterns reflected in the division of labor and the authority structure of each? Your family and your parent’s family.
- Parent-Child Relation: What kind of parent-child interactions were encouraged? What differences existed between the maternal and paternal roles? What was expected of children, and what types of discipline were employed? Your family and your parent’s family.
- Family solidarity: What is your assessment of the character and strength of the family bond? Your family and your parent’s family.
- Education: What did education look like for each family member? Did they go to school? Attend/plan to go to college? What were their educational opportunities and/or challenges?
- Health: What did access to a healthy life look like for each family member? Did they have access to health care? Healthy foods? Clean air?
- Specify the procedures (methods) you employed to gather information. What difficulties did you encounter? If there are areas where the respondents did not want to answer, please report that also.
Papers should be written in times new roman 12 point font, 1 inch margins. Papers will be uploaded to blackboard by 6/4.
