Assignment

1. Family, marriage, education, and religion are areas that influence our lives daily. Write an essay answering the following questions. You must apply one of the following in some capacity-conflict, functionalist, or symbolic interactionist perspective:

• How has the institution of marriage changed over time? How could cohabitation and divorce influence this?
• When looking at the family unit, what changes have occurred in the structure of family? How is diversity a factor in current family makeup, as opposed to past family structure?
• How do education and religion affect both family and marriage?

Feel free to relate this to your own family structure.

Your assignment must be a minimum of two pages. Use APA style when providing in-text citations and references.

2. For this assignment, you will go to the CSU Online Library and use the Academic Search Complete database to research a topic related to human rights. In addition, once you pick your topic, you may want to do online research to find additional information; however, this is not required.

Here are some examples that that you can use:
• prisoner rights,
• death penalty,
• poverty,
• women's rights, or
• LGBT rights.

Research your topic and discover the issues. Describe these in a few paragraphs, starting each new response with the question it addresses:

• Where is your topic most relevant in 2014?
• Who is most affected by the topic?
• Apply the sociological perspectives on stratification to explain how social class and stratification affect your topic.
• What are some projects in place that will address the problem (suggest one if none exist yet)?

SOC 1010, Introduction to Sociology 6

• Why did you choose your topic?
• How has learning about the topic affected your ideas going into this assignment? Have any of your views changed since learning more about the topic?

You may also use your textbook to pick a different human rights-related topic, if you so choose.

Your response must be a minimum of two pages in length, answering the questions above. Use appropriate APA style and in-text citations and references.

3. Sociologists research and write about current topics that are culturally, politically, socially, and economically important. One such subject is same-sex marriage.

For this assignment, you will research a few court cases. Your goal here is to study this subject as a scientist would. Therefore, it does not matter whether you agree with the ruling or not, you can still write objectively about it. Use the Internet to find court cases and news articles from mainstream news outlets to use for your references, along with the textbook.

Begin by looking up the Loving v. Virginia case. Next, list the states that allow same-sex marriage. What were some of the arguments the states used in their legalization? What were some of the legal arguments against same-sex marriage? (Note: When looking for information, please refrain from religious reasoning or personal opinions; remember, you are looking at this as a scientist.) Do you think that the Supreme Court's ruling on Loving v. Virginia changed much about American attitudes and practices? Does this case set precedent for same-sex marriage? How has this view changed over time? Do you see a shift in America's view towards same-sex marriage? In what way is it changing?

Finally, briefly discuss how you feel about the subject. To what groups do you belong that help to shape your feelings about this issue? How do they help shape them?

Your assignment must be a minimum of two pages in length. As always, use APA formatting. Pay special attention to the proper citation of Internet resources.

4. For this assignment, you will pull together the information from your Unit II and Unit IV assignments to use when writing your final research paper.

To begin, make sure you have the following:
• title page,
• your topic from Unit I,
• your outline from Unit IV,
• information from the four (or more) peer-reviewed, scholarly articles on your topic that you located in the CSU Online Library, as well as any other sources you have identified, and
• references for your sources.

Following your outline, write your final paper about your topic.

Your research paper must be at least five pages, double-spaced, not including your title and reference pages. Use APA style writing for in-text citations and references. Should you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask your professor.