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The paper requires that you use your sociological imagination to write a brief autobiography by incorporating four concepts from the course. Note that you must include at least two concepts from two of three systems of stratification (class, race/ethnicity, gender/sexuality)
C Wright Mills’ concept of the “sociological imagination” – the capacity for individuals to understand the relationship between their individual lives and broad social forces that influence them” – is central to Sociology.  Using your “sociological imagination”, please describe how your life story is/has been connected to broader social forces.  You can, for instance, narrate how you ended up at university or what your future career plans are, but you don’t have to.  It is your biography. You must include 4 concepts or ideas(social mobility, achieved social status , ascribed social status, core countries, upper middle class, welfare, working poor, conspicuous consumption , downward social mobility, life styles,deviance career 
primary deviance, secondary deviance, crimes against persons, crimes against property, status offense,drug-related crime, victimless crime, out-group, reference group, secondary group, achieved status, master status, latent status, manifest status,anticipatory socialization, formal socialization, 
gender-role socialization, informal socialization, resocialization) presented during the semester. Additionally, your essay MUST include how systems of stratification (i.e. class, race/ethnicity, or gender/sexuality) have served as a source of privilege, disadvantage, or both.  I list terms you can choose from below, and you can also bring in terms not included. You do not need to include all of these terms in your essay, but you do need to include examples from two of the three systems of stratification.  Provide specific examples of how these systems have affected/continue to affect you.  Be creative with your answer.  The goal is to use your sociological imagination to understand how systems of stratification affect us as individuals. Essays should be 4-5 pages, double-spaced. 

Class: stratification according to Marx and/or Weber, socioeconomic status (SES), income and wealth inequality, absolute and/or relative poverty, the three social groups most likely to be in poverty, and welfare/wealth-fare, class socialization via families/schools/media

Race: the concepts of race/ethnicity/minority groups, prejudice/racism/or discrimination (attitudinal and/or institutional discrimination), patterns of minority group treatment (see textbook), racial socialization via schools/families/media/criminal justice system, cultural appropriation  

Gender: the concepts of sex and gender, sexism, patriarchy, sexuality, the double standard, second shift, glass ceiling, sexual harassment, problems with the gender binary, gender socialization via schools/families/media