A. Answer one of the following two essay questions
1. How might a sociologist analyze the history of foreign military intervention from the symbolic interactionist perspective?
2. How might sociologists explain unequal access to health care and high health care costs, prior to the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, from the "conflict" sociological perspective?
B. Answer one of the following two essay questions
1. Describe the problems inherent to "capitalism" and "socialism". According to your textbook's author how might "democratic socialism" overcome these problems?
2. Define "educational attainment" and its importance to social development. What social class, gender, racial, and ethnic differences in educational attainment exist in U.S. society?
3. How do sociologists from the symbolic interactionist perspective tend to analyze social problems?
4. How do "sociological" explanations of human behavior differ from "biological", "psychological", and "economic" explanations?
5. How is the phenomenon of "capital flight" and "outsourcing" related to the central story in Thomas Greider's article "These Dark Satanic Mills".
C. Answer each of the following jive essay questions (12 possible points each):
1. According to Peter Edelman (2012, 2014), why is it so hard to end poverty in the United States? Briefly summarize his views.
2. What do sociologists mean when they say that social problems research is "grounded"? Why do ethnographic methods have the best potential for "grounding" research on social problems? In what order should these methods typically occur?
3. Why does Collier (2013) believe that the current status of gun control in the United States is a "tragedy"? According to Collier, what is a tragedy? what is tragic about the gun control situation? Who is it tragic for? Whom and what has produced the tragedy?
4. Summarize the arguments contained in the sections of Etzioni's book "Security First" (2007) that you read in the eighth week of the course.
5. Compare and contrast the sociological concepts of "sex", "gender", "sexual orientation" and "sexuality" as presented in my recorded lecture.