Assignment Overview

The Midterm Synthesis is an opportunity to step back and reflect on how your thinking has changed so far in this course. Rather than focusing on individual chapters, you will connect ideas across multiple weeks to explain how sociology has reshaped the way you understand personal problems and social issues. Your goal is to demonstrate sociological thinking by using key concepts accurately, applying them to real-life examples, and reflecting on the shift from common sense explanations to sociological explanations. This assignment replaces the Weekly Sociology Brief for Week 3 and is designed to show depth of understanding, not memorization.

Assignment Directions

Prompt:

How has sociology changed how you explain personal problems so far in this course?

Students must:

• Use 57 concepts
• Pull from multiple weeks
• Reflect on thinking shift

Length: ~1,200 words

Use this checklist before submitting your Midterm. If you can check most of these off, you are on the right track:

I answered the prompt by explaining how my thinking has changed, not just what sociology is.

I used 57 sociological concepts correctly and explained them in my own words.

I connected ideas from multiple weeks, not just one chapter or topic.

I showed the difference between common-sense explanations and sociological explanations.

I applied sociology to real-life examples (personal experiences, observations, or social issues).

I focused on analysis and reflection, not summarizing chapters.

I clearly explained my thinking shift over the first half of the course.

My writing is organized and easy to follow, even if it is not perfect.

source: https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/7-introduction

(read chapters 1 – 7 to get the concepts)

L.O.V.E. Film Analysis Framework

ES 384 is entitled Interracial Sex and Marriage through Film, but I find it horrible that LOVE is completely left out of the title. In order to bring love back into the discussion, I want us to use this L.O.V.E. Framework when analyzing the films we watch in this class.

In other words, when I ask you to analyze a film, you should be responding to ALL of these questions.

Thank you to Dr. Raju Desai for the use of this framework.

LENS

• Whose voice or perspective is the story being told in?
• Whose perspective is race and/or interracial relationships being told in?
• When was this film made? How do you think that impacts the lens?
• Who was the intended audience? What do you think their understandings of race and/or interracial relationships were?
• What do you think was the purpose or message of the film for the time it was released?

OBJECTIFICATION/ OTHERING

• How is race and interracial relationships being treated?
• What are the identities (racial/ethnic backgrounds, genders, sexualities, etc) of the main characters?
• Is any character portrayed as other? If so, how are they othered and why do you think that is?

VISUALS

• How do the visuals in this film impact the message around race and interracial relationships?

EXPERIENCES/ EVALUATION

• How does this film connect to your own experiences or understandings of race, racism, and interracial relationships in the United States? What are your understandings, frustrations, critiques, surprises, and/or comments about the film in relation to race and interracial relationships in the US?

Written Reflections

Submit a written reflection on two readings of your choice. Written Reflection is to be 2-3 typed double-spaced pages in length.

To guide your responses, you may address all or some of the following orienting questions:

Did you enjoy the reading? Why? Why not? (Taste/Interest)

Are the readings important? If so, why and for whom? If not, why not? (Relevance)

Can you apply the readings to a personal experience (past or present)? To a historical or current event? To a play or other artistic performance? To a novel or other written work? To a movie (either one assigned for this class or any other movie) or television show? (Application)

Did the readings inspire questioning/questions on your part? (Curiosity/Questioning)

In this assignment, you will use the

to look up articles and submit a small summary of each article.

Using the One Search discovery tool in the

, locate four (4) scholarly journal articles on a topic listed below. You will then provide a brief summary of each article to submit to your instructor.

Steps to complete this assignment:

1) Choose one topic that interests you from each of the groups below (two topics total).

Group 1:

a) The legalization of marijuana

b) The Standford Prison Experiment

c) Crack vs. cocaine sentencing disparities

d) The power elite

e) Felony disenfranchisement

Group 2:

a) Online identity theft

b) Net neutrality

c) Disneys media consolidation

d) Planned obsolescence

e) The Grameen Foundation

2) Type your keywords (or copy and paste the provided keywords that correspond to your chosen topic) into the One Search box in the

.

3) Choose two (2) relevant articles for each topic of interest (four total).

4) Include an APA citation for each article and a brief 100-word summary of the article or abstract.

Below is an example of an article citation in APA format, followed by a short summary of the article.

Overview

In this assignment, you will choose the research studies you will use as the basis for crafting your research question in Project Three. You will also look for patterns in data-collection types and consider some of the credibility threats to the research studies you have chosen.

Prompt

In Project One: Research Methods in Social Sciences, you examined methodology types for research studies and how each methodology type impacts research. In Project Two: Various Types of Data, which you will complete in Module Six, you will explore data-collection types and their impact on research. As you continue to build toward crafting your complex research question in Project Three, you will need to finalize your research study choices for your specific research problem. Deciding on your research studies now will not only allow you to focus your efforts on developing a complex research question but also help you begin to evaluate the research you have gathered in order to develop a deeper analysis of data collection for the Project Two.

In this assignment, include the following:

Select Research Studies

First, you will need to make sure your research studies represent a variety of research methodology types in order to ensure that you have enough research to draw from to craft your complex research question in Project Three, which you will submit in Module Eight. In addition, to make sure you have enough information to evaluate the data-collection types in your Project Two in Module Six, you will need to complete the following:

• Select research studies that explore your chosen research problem and utilize the different methodology types you examined in Project One. You must include two research studies for each methodology type, for a total of six studies.
• Note: You only need to submit the APA reference-page citation for each study you will use.

Data-Collection Patterns

Now that you have conducted your preliminary research and chosen the research studies you will use to help craft your research question, you will need to evaluate each of your research studies to determine patterns in data-collection types. Determining patterns in data-collection types now will help you identify and analyze how these types impact potential threats to the credibility of your research, as well as the relevance of data-collection types to the research questions you will explore in Project Two in Module Six. As you consider the types of data included in each of your studies, answer the following:

• What data-collection patterns do you notice?
• Are there some data-collection types that seem to be used more in your area of study in the social sciences?
• What about the other social sciences?
• Why do you think that is?
• How can using certain data-collection types more than others create a threat to credibility?

Purpose of Varied Data Collection

Finally, in Project Two in Module Six, you will analyze data-collection types to explore the benefits and drawbacks of the choices the researchers made in your selected studies, and the choices of researchers in anthropology, political science, human services, and criminal justice in the social sciences. As you consider data-collection types, answer each of the following:

• What are the benefits of multiple data-collection types?
• What are the drawbacks of multiple data-collection types?
• What is the link between varied data collection and credibility risks?
• What are some common types of data collection used in each of the social sciences?
• Why do you think certain social sciences seem to favor particular types of data collection over others?

Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed:

1. Select data-collection types in selected research studies
2. Explore patterns in data collection to identify and analyze their impact on potential threats to credibility
3. Examine common data-collection types in social sciences

After reading the following , what role does the environment (e.g., friends, family, careers, education, socioeconomic status, etc.) play in behavior? In your opinion, is criminal behavior justified if the environment promotes, or supports, the behavior?

When responding to your peers, share your opinions and discuss other situations where the environment has impacted an individual’s behavior. Are certain behaviors justified by the environment? Explain your rationale.

cASE STUDY:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43853952?seq=1

This week, you will begin selecting your topic for your final paper, conduct

some preliminary research on the topic and then write a 2-3 page

synopsis.

Submit the 2-3 page synopsis WORD file to the Synopsis assignment

drop box by 11:59:59 PM on February 8, 2026.

You can find the Synopsis assignment drop box at the end of Week 3 of the

Home Page or by clicking on the Assignment link on the left panel menu.

We will discuss the sociological lens, the journals and discussion boards

extensively over the next two weeks in the Questions to Ponder discussion

board.

The more you engage each other, the better you will learn how how to use

your sociological lens to examine everything in the course. These are very

important discussion boards.

Essay on Paid and Unpaid Work – Instructions

Weight: 20% of your final grade

Length: 1,000 words

Due: After Unit 3

Instructions:

For this assignment, you need to write an essay (1,000 words) on paid and unpaid work. The purpose of this essay is to present facts and arguments from the course readings in a succinct way. This includes providing precise definitions of the key concepts that you use in your essay.

The essay should answer the following questions:

Why is labour market access different for men and women?

What are the relations between paid and unpaid work?

What are the peculiarities of caring work?

There should be absolutely no AI used or AI paraphrasing or plagiarism. I use GPT Zero to check and so does my school so please be very accurate. If there any concerns or any questions Please feel free to reach out or if there’s a time constraint you need extra time that’s perfectly fine.

Attached are the PDF notes as well as the required readings and concepts for this assignment. If you cannot access any of the readings or cannot find it or need help, please let me know.

write about one or more sociologist, tell who? What? When? Where? And How. The Source of The Book Is Free its called introduction to sociology 3e on Openstax