Midterm (Sociology of the Family)

Scholars of the family have generally interpreted recent changes in family life in one of three ways:

1. The family is declining.
2. The family has never been stronger.
3. The family is changing, but neither better nor worse. Just different.

Which perspective best describes the way we live now, based on what we’ve read? And how does your own experience of family life shed light on this question? Please be specific—use examples and relate them to the authors discussed in the syllabus! You must use a minimum of five of the texts or chapters from the syllabus in constructing your answer—but I encourage you in addition to employ other sources, whether journalistic, photojournalistic, literary, documentary, cartographic, ethnographic, demographic, etc.

• You will be submitting this exam as a Google Doc.
• (Do not include your name; paste a link to your Google Doc in the appropriate place on Blackboard. I will grade you anonymously; Blackboard will enable me to identify who’s getting what grade after the fact.)
• Maximum word count for the body of the text (the essay itself, not including supporting documents such as a cover page, footnotes/endnotes, reference list, appendices, etc.) is 1,000 words. Print the word count at the top of the first page.
• Essays should be double-spaced, 12-pt. font.
• Make sure you include a reference list. In-text and reference-list citations should be done according to ASA style.
• You’ll be submitting this exam as a Google Doc. All you need to do is post a link to your document on Blackboard; here’s a video that shows you exactly how to do that.
• Essays that do not adhere to these guidelines will, in most cases, be returned without being graded. If your word count for the body of the text is 1,001, for example, you have not followed instructions.

 

Further Reading/Notes Toward a Future Canon

‘Argument Papers’. 2018. Purdue Online Writing Lab. Retrieved 28 May 2018 (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/724/1/). Contains valuable instructions as to how to organise your argument, as well as how to write introductions and conclusions — these paper sections are often the weakest in undergraduate writing.

Caulfield, Michael.  ‘How “News Literacy” Gets the Web Wrong’. Fact-checking in three easy steps.

Weida, Stacey, and Karl Stolley. 2017. ‘Organizing Your Argument’. Purdue Online Writing Lab. Presents a valuable recipe for connecting claims to supporting evidence and reasoning. It’s worth checking out related material on the OWL website, e.g., ‘On Paragraphing’.

 

REFERENCES

Lewis, Natasha, and Madeleine Schwartz. 2016. ‘Whose Family? Introducing Our Winter Issue’. Dissent, Winter. Here’s a brief introductory essay that flirts with the ‘never better’ school of thought on the changing family. You would expect a left-leaning journal of opinion to welcome those changes that have benefited same-sex couples or led to more autonomy for women, and Lewis and Schwartz do not disappoint.