Sociology 211
Social Problems
Fall 2001
Dr. Scott Schaffer

Second Paper Assignment

Due Date: Tuesday November 6/2001 at the start of class. No late papers will be accepted without a compelling, well-evidenced excuse provided in advance.

Rules of the Game: This paper is to be a minimum of 6 (six) full and complete pages; there is no maximum length for the paper, so you should write until your paper is fully developed. Your paper must be typewritten, double-spaced, on 8 1/2" by 11" paper, in 10- or 12-point font, with 1 1/4" left and right margins and 1" top and bottom margins. Your paper must have a cover page, on which a creative title ("Second Paper Assignment" is simply not creative enough), your name, the number of the topic to which you're responding, and any other pertinent information should appear; your name should not appear anywhere else in the paper. Make sure that you proofread your work, that you cite every reference to someone else's work and that you refrain from using direct quotes in your paper; all guidelines listed on the First Paper Assignment handout, the syllabus, and the "How to Write a Schaffer Paper" handout pertain to this assignment.

Assignment: You are to write a well-argued, well-evidenced paper in response to one of the following topics. Be sure that your paper is not a recitation of what has been said in class or in the readings, but rather indicates your stand with regard to the question to which you're responding as well as the thought process that went into developing that stand.

Your response to every subsection of the topic should be an argumentative statement supported by paraphrased evidence from Democracy Against Capitalism and at least one article from Social Problems and Social Solutions.

The Topics:

1. To what extent do you think that elements of our ideology about democracy play a part in creating social problems in our society, and why?

2. To what extent do you think that elements of our ideology about capitalism play a part in creating social problems in our society, and why?

In order to answer either of these questions, you need to do all the following things:

A. Identify one element of our ideology about democracy or capitalism and outline it, following Wood's argument in Democracy Against Capitalism;

B. Show how this ideological aspect operates at each of the three levels of analysis (as a structural/macro-level norm, as an interactional/meso-level relationship, and as it creates individual/micro-level experiences);

C. Show how this ideological aspect impacts our society's development of a policy that responds to a particular sociological problem;

D. Show how the response our society develops to a particular sociological problem plays a part in creating one social problem discussed in the first segment of this course;

E. Integrate these elements into a direct response to the big question, showing how you're putting all these pieces together.