There are two distinct forms of assessment tasks for this Study Period. You will be asked to research and write two formal, academic essays based around topics that you have studied this SP. These tasks allow you to develop your research and writing skills and give you the opportunity to specialise in a couple of specific areas of the unit.
The other will require that you reflect upon the development of individual identity as it is shaped by society and as it is seen through a sociological prism; that is by taking sociological understandings about how society views, categorises and constructs us. We want you to explain this by imagining that you fall into another social category other than the one in which you see yourself fitting. These categories could be gender, class, as a privately/publicly educated person, as a doctor or a patient (categories for discussion are not limited by this list).
Assessment Task: Academic Essays
Both these essays will be written in the formal academic style using material that you have found in the research process, material that we want you to include and referenced in the correct academic style;
In all cases we would like you to use the following three texts to answer the question (these should appear in your essay as in text references):
Macionis, J. J. and Plummer, K. (2012) Sociology: A Global Introduction, 5th Edition, Pearson Education Limited England (your text); and
Two ebooks:
Plummer - swin.eblib.com.au/EBLWeb/patron/?target=patron&extendedid=P_557316_0; and
Back et al. - swin.eblib.com.au/EBLWeb/patron/?target=patron&extendedid=P_836639_0
In addition we would like a minimum of two more references used to augment the material in these texts. You can use other Sociology textbooks, articles from the Library database and for current topics newspaper articles are acceptable. Your Unit Outline also has a list of good Sociology texts as well
Which is more important in shaping individual identity: social structure or social interaction.
In this essay you can explore the power of cultural processes and/or structures in moulding our social selves. Are we shaped more by our immediate environment (friends, sub-cultures, i.e. the identity we draw from groups) or by the structures that make up our broader social context (our workplace, our country, the political system, the economic system, the education system)?
In most cases you may be arguing for the influence of both but that they are manifest in our lives at different times in different circumstances. The influences may be lifelong and sustaining or they may change and evolve as we do. You might also consider the effect of collective identity on the individual. This may be the family, the friendship group or the influence of a particular Australianness that you have observed.