Assessment item 2 - Sociology Academic Essay – Due – 25th January 2021.

TASK
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Assessment 2 Task Description
SOC215's second task offers you the opportunity to conduct independent academic library research for the purpose of developing a range of 'general' life skills (effective writing, communication, critical thinking, reading comprehension, and time management) and academic skills (academic referencing, plagiarism avoidance, and subject content learning).
Instructions:
This session, the essay topic has been created to support you demonstrating learning of the
subject content provided in Module 2 as you progress achieving the learning outcomes. Please conduct any preliminary ‘university skills’ preparation you need to be able to write a formal sociology academic essay following the guidelines below.
Step-by-step guidelines:
1. Please sociologically answer the question below which addresses the ‘essay topic’ in 1500 words (-/+ 5%), following the 'presentation' instructions.

Essay topic:
SOC215 teaches social theories, historical changes, and structural conditions affect how ‘family’ and ‘gender’ are ‘socially constructed’ and experienced. Assessment 2’s broad essay topic is ‘regulation’. Society ‘regulates’ behaviour in many ways at individual (micro) and societal (macro) levels. Please write a sociological essay using four Module 2 readings and a minimum of five / maximum of eight ‘academically peer-reviewed publications’ to identify and ‘critically’ address the essay topic in a manner answering the essay question.

Essay question:
How does work - a social institution affecting and affected by ‘family’ structure - ‘regulate’ societal/individual performance of gender OR sexuality AND life-stage (youth, middle-age, older age, etc.)?

In answering this question, please consider ‘location’ - where ‘regulation’ is performed - to demonstrate learning how culture and rurality/urbanisation sociologically affects how work/family membership regulate gender/sexuality performance.
2. Plan time to locate 5-8 'relevant' academically peer-reviewed publications to help you sociologically answer the question. These may be published journal articles, academic books/book chapters, and/or conference papers; you may use 'popular' information (i.e., newspaper articles, websites, etc.), yet these do not 'count' towards the required academic references. CSU's Library team is here to help you learn how to find and distinguish among different 'types' of resources for academic essay library researching/writing, so please contact them online and/or by phone as possible/desirable!
3. Consult, read and use the 'required readings' from Module 2 (minimum 4, no maximum) and Module 2 subject content (I2 site resources and lectures) to help you sociologically answer the question in a manner showing SOC215 learning that achieves the ‘Learning Outcomes’. You may use Module 1 readings, I2 resources, and/or lectures, yet these will not replace the Module 2 referencing/learning requirements.
4. There are 2 ways you may approach this writing assessment - issue-specific or abstractly. To help you consider which you’d prefer, the following advice is offered.
Issue-specific - You may wish to pick one specific 'issue' (historical or contemporary) to discuss academic debates and details surrounding a relevant topic that addresses the assessment question. This approach would involve you finding specific examples to sociologically present and critically discuss the essay’s main elements (work and gender/sexuality and life-stage). For instance, you could explore how gender/sexuality is affected by work (paid or unpaid) using a very age-specific issue related to ‘the family’. Family violence, divorce, labour trends, living arrangements (single, multi-generational/extended families), social class, culture/ethnicity, socioeconomic privilege/disadvantage presented in this subject all offer opportunities to investigate how the structure/experience of work and gender OR sexuality and life-stage can be understood ‘sociologically’ through regulating norms/practices/attitudes in specific cultures/places.
Abstractly - Alternatively, you may wish to write a more 'abstract' essay by drawing upon social theory learned in this subject that you apply to the topic. Sociologically, both ‘work’ and ‘family’ are two major 'social institutions'. These institutions each have norms, practices, and belief-systems that affect individual and societal experience of gender/sexuality and age (expressed as different life-stages). There are many possibilities with this approach. Similar to the ‘issue-specific’ approach, you could pick one theory to sociologically analyse a specific issue (historical or contemporary) to illustrate learning what 'reproduces' institutionalised norms, attitudes, and/or behaviours at societal or individual levels related to work and gender/sexuality and life-course, zoning in on a couple specific expressions of each element or discussing each element abstractly using SOC215 content as a starting point to develop ideas that you independently research. You also could compare/contrast two different theoretical approaches to discuss a specific issue or way of understanding work as a social institution affecting gender/sexuality and life-course expressions/realities. Regardless, of your approach, be sure that your essay includes considering location and culture to demonstrate your coverage of the major and minor components of the essay topic/question.
5. Learn how to APA (7th edition) format all 'in-text' citations and Reference List entries, as well as learn how to construct and include an APA-formatted Reference List; CSU's ALLaN &/or Library team is here to help you learn how to do this, so please make an appointment by visiting the CSU website and/or calling Student Central who can assist you!
6. Review the 'marking rubric' criteria which markers will use to allocate 'points' for each criterion demonstrated by your assignment.