Read the article by Hodgetts et al. highlighting how social class background affects how people adapt to becoming homeless. In essence, our social class background affects how we can interact with others in a variety of settings. Making explicit use of the sociological perspective discussed in Chapter 1, respond to the following questions:
- How would one's social class background influence how one adapts to life in one of the following contexts: an elite college or university, a small rural town in the American Midwest, or a nursing home?
- What specific factors of one's social class background might influence one's ability to adapt to this environment?
- What sort of social class background would be most conducive to adapting to this context? Why?
- What sort of social class background would be least conducive to adapting to this context? Why?
- How has your own social class background shaped your educational experiences?
- Have you had a hard or easy time adapting to online college life due to your social class background? Why?
This course is structured so that in each week, you work on and assemble pieces of your Final Paper. In Week Five, then, much of the groundwork will have already been laid out for a successful final project. Consequently, it is very important to take special care with these discussion prompts, as careful work will save you much time later on.
Last week, you described a social problem (Week Two, Discussion 2). This week, you will construct a thesis statement that does the following things:
- Identify your social problem clearly.
- Identify two factors that contribute to this social problem.
- Identify two consequences of this social problem.