Click here to go to the grading rhubrics for your papersBelow are the topics for you to choose from for your two papers. I strongly suggest you make your choices based both on interest and scheduling - remember, papers go down a letter grade each day they are late for any reason (except documented sickness or family death). I will briefly discuss each paper 1-2 weeks before it is due; and, I encourage students to see, to call or to E-mail me if they ever have any questions regarding any paper. Be advised, none of these papers can be successfully completed by starting the night before it is due. I suggest you plan accordingly. To aid you in your writing, you can find the general grading rubric I employ for these papers on my home page. Familiarize yourself with it. It will take out the "guesswork" for my grading.
Paper Option 1: What Does the Media Teach Us About Gender? (Due 9/19)
Compare the most recent edition of at least 2 magazines that are targeted to men and 2
magazines that are targeted to women. These magazines cannot be of a sexual nature (e.g.,
Playboy or Playgirl). Analyze the advertisements in these magazines from a sociological
perspective with regards to what they say about men and women, gender expectations and gender
socialization. In writing your report: 1) Write a brief introduction citing what researchers claim
the media's role in socialization is. (You can use your textbook for a discussion of some research,
but I also suggest looking for some journal articles using the electronic indexes from the library).
2) Write a methods section where you describe the types of magazines (title and a brief
description of the focus of the magazine) you used and why you chose them. To conduct this
study, you need to code the advertisements. I suggest you a) Keep track of the number of total
advertisements for each magazine, the number that just feature men, the number that just feature
women and the number with both b) code the individual advertisements according to the
portrayal of men and women's roles. I suggest you code them along 3 dimensions - traditional
(e.g., for women, the woman in the ad may be cooking, cleaning, etc.), non-traditional (if a man
was doing these behaviors) or gender neutral (e.g., standing around w/o any hint to a relationship
with other people in the ad) You are free to use other categorizations, but regardless of which
you chose, in your methods section you need to identify how you categorize the people in the ads
and explain (you can list these) what behaviors / expressions / poses are grouped into each
category. I suggest you keep track of the number of ads that fit your categories separately for the
magazines aimed at men and those aimed at women. 3) For the results section, present a table
with the number of ads in each category for each group of magazines (male, female). How do the
numbers compare? 4) Finally, what do the depictions say about men and women's roles in
society? What are the implications for gender socialization, both for young children who may flip
through the magazine to look at the pictures and for continuing socialization that we experience in
adulthood? What are your views about this?
Paper Option 2: The Power of Norms (Due 10/5)
Explore the power of norms. Conduct a short experiment where you break a norm (one in
which doing so does not put you or others in any physical danger or break any laws - either in the
school or the general community) and analyze people's reaction to you. For example, wear
pajamas to classes one day (after receiving permission from your professors to do so) or visibly
eat an awkward food combination (such as peanut butter and tomato sandwiches) in the presence
of others. In writing your paper: 1) Write a brief introduction discussing the importance of
norms, their place in society and how their perception relates to concepts such as ethnocentrism,
cultural relativism, etc. 2) Describe your experiment -- what norm did you break? How did you
do it? When did you do it? Where? Who was around? 3) Record people's reactions to you -
Did others look at you oddly? Did they behave in any specific way (shy away, make comments,
etc.) 4) Analyze their reaction - What was the meaning behind their reaction? How did you feel
about their reaction? Did their reaction affect YOUR behavior (or would it have if you honestly
broke this norm, instead of for a class experiment)? 5) Conclusion - tie the results of this
experiment to what you learned about norms and sanctions. Were the results as you expected?
Why or why not do you think this is the case?
Paper Option 3: What Do People Think of the Poor? (Due 10/31)
Design a short questionnaire pertaining to attitudes and beliefs about poverty. Include
popular stereotypes about poverty, welfare and welfare recipients. For example "Do most people
bring poverty onto themselves?" "Who is more likely to be in poverty? Whites or minorities?".
These should be closed ended questions, meaning that YOU provide answer choices for your
respondents. Specifically, you need to: 1) Write an introduction which discusses who the poor
really are in terms of race, sex and age. Include in this section a discussion of the two views of
poverty - that it is primarily due to individual factors (such as laziness, having a child while
young) or that it is primarily due to structural issues (the poor quality of many schools, the low
minimum wage for jobs). Also include any concrete information that corresponds to your
questions. In other words, if you have a question that asks respondents whether they think the
poor are lazy, in this section you may want to mention the percentage of the poor with full and
part time jobs (Your respondents will not know this. It will become relevant in the last section of
the paper.) 2) In the methods section, discuss your survey and your sample. Your survey must
consist of a minimum of 5 questions about poverty and 1 question regarding the person's sex.
Look at Chapter 5 in your textbook for some ideas about writing questions and show them to me
when you think you have them ready. I will quickly glance over them to make sure they are
written correctly. With regards to your sample, you need to sample a minimum of 15 people.
These people should be almost evenly split between men and women. To simplify the study, they
should all be of the same race and similar age group (e.g., college students, parents or
grandparents / older adults). Include one copy of your survey questions in the back of the paper.
3) The results section will consist of 2 tables. One which lists the 5 questions about poverty (a
shortened version, not the complete question) and the percent who agree or strongly agree (you
can collapse these into one "agree" category if you want, but you don't have to. Just be clear
whichever way you do it) and another table which compares the responses of men and women (I
will discuss how to do this briefly in class). 4) Lastly, for your discussion section discuss how
your sample's perceptions of the poor fit with the facts about the poor you discuss in your
introduction. Based on your sample's responses, do they generally favor an individualistic (micro)
explanation of poverty or a structural one (macro)? Why do you say this?
Paper Option 4: How Socially Weak are the Elderly Really? (Due 11/30)
Study the lobbying efforts of groups advocating the rights of the elderly (such as the Gray
Panthers or the American Association of Retired Persons). To address this topic: 1) Write a brief
introduction discussing some of the main concerns the elderly have. What do they see as
problems and why? 2) Provide a brief history of the lobby group you chose. When did they
form? What are their main goals? 3) Discuss the areas in which this lobby group has been able to
enact social change. In what areas has it failed? What legislation in general can be traced to elder
activism? 4) How does this group fit into our discussion of age inequality? Of population
change? Any ideas on how it applies to collective behavior (other than it is more than one person
acting as a collective unit)?
NOTE: This paper doesn't really have a methods section per se because it is an extensive
literature review. To research this topic, you can use Internet sites in addition to journal articles
or magazines; but you need a minimum of 15 sources.
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