Each paper must be typed, double spaced, 12 font, include your own original title (not the title of this paper assignment). Your name and the course information should appear on the first page of your paper.
**No Plaragism and AI**
For this assignment you will write a brief paper on what sociology is. Specifically, as a result of taking this course how would you describe sociology to someone who has never taken a sociology class. You will need to incorporate specific concepts and ideas that would support your explanation and understanding of the discipline.
Paper Specifics:
Paragraph 1: Introduction AND you will need to first give a description of what sociology is to you based on being in this class.
Paragraph 2-4: Next, you will choose THREE main concepts that you feel best describes the goals of sociology. Some examples could be social forces, culture, power, social structure, inequality/stratification or the sociological imagination. You may choose other main theories and/or ideas.
In a separate paragraph for each chosen concepts, you will need to describe your three chosen concepts and provide analysis as to why they are essential to the discipline. If you need more paragraphs for each concept that is fine, but you should have a minimum of 3 topical paragraphs.
Make sure you reference your text and/or lecture ONLY to support your theories and claims within the paper: proper citations are a must!
Paragraph 5: You will need a nice conclusion paragraph to wrap things up.
Note: You may write in the first person for this assignment (“I”).
Sources:
Gender video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keVhWR9esmA
Government Lecture
Political Systems- Political systems are the institutions that regulates the use of and access to the power that is essential to articulating and realizing individual, local, regional, national and global interests. There are 3 major types: Democratic, totalitarianism and authoritarianism
Democratic- citizens have direct participation done by free and fair elections and equality in the voting process.
Totalitarianism- has a single ruling party led by a dictator, an unchallenged ideology, a system of control to stop opposition and control over the media and economy and many communist principles apply: Soviet Union, China and Nazi Germany are all examples of this.
Authoritarian- A single person, group or social class holds all the power. There is no vision or ideology of a perfect society, just the leader’s free will to exert his power, laws, values and ideology. They usually gain power by help of outside sources.
Power
Power is the probability that the individual can achieve his or her will despite another’s opposition. Power from the sociological sense comes in three various ways: authority-traditional, charismatic and legal rational.
Authority-traditional- power is based on traditional monarchy or birth right.
Charismatic leader- power is based on leadership that comes from personality, persuasion and ability to rally those behind them. Examples of charismatic leadership can be both positive and negative. Hitler and Dr. Martin Luther King were both considered to be charismatic leaders.
Legal rational- system of rules and regulations to give formal authority. The U.S. bases our power off of the legal rational system (although some of these leaders like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump have characteristics from charismatic leadership). This authority and power is based off of elections or codified procedures to grant authority.
