SOC 416 Stratification and Prejudice in Current Events

The purpose of this assignment is to explore stratification and prejudice in current events. Despite great advances towards equality between the races and genders, racial and gender discrimination, as well as class stratification remain serious social problems. To conclude this course, you will use the news media to discover current social issues with regards to race and gender.

To complete this assignment, perform the following tasks:

• Using newspapers, news websites, or news magazines, select three current events (within the last six months) that reflect our studies on stratification. One event should represent racial issues, one gender issues, and one class issues. All three should demonstrate discrimination and/or stratification in American society.

• Using your research, describe the current events and how they are reflective of your studies on racial, gender, and class discrimination and/or stratification.

• Analyze the events and apply the lecture and text to the news articles. What theories of stratification apply? Are the current events representative of the historical trends of racial, gender, and class discrimination and or/stratification? What solutions, if any, should be applied to these current events?

• In your discussion, apply your personal experiences and observations to the current events.

• How do you feel that the media perpetuates discrimination and/or stratification based on race, gender, and class? Support your ideas with concepts from the text and/or appropriate outside resources.

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Provide a minimum of three references and apply the correct APA standards in the format of text, citations, and references. Your paper should include a title page and reference. Your paper should be at least five pages in length, not including the title and reference pages

We are socialized at every stage in life to conform to our gender identity. Societal reinforcement of tendencies of gender identity is relentless. For example, in hospitals, little girls are wrapped in pink and little boys in blue. This difference in colors influences how we learn and how we internalize our role in our society.

Girls tend to grow up to play feminine roles and boys tend to grow up to play masculine roles. This differentiation of gender identity has implications in social stratification. The videos given below will provide you with a better understanding of the differentiation of sexual identity from an earlier generation.

Search for and watch an episode of at least one of the following shows. You may find these videos using a variety of search methods including visiting your local library, using Netflix or your local video store, or searching on YouTube. If you have difficulty locating an episode of one of the following shows, contact your instructor for assistance in finding an alternative.

• I Love Lucy

• All in the Family

• The Mickey Mouse Club

• The Honeymooners

• Leave it to Beaver

• Father Knows Best

• Gilligan’s Island

• The Brady Bunch

• I Dream of Jeannie

As you watch the video, ask yourself the following questions:

• To what extent have things changed and to what extent have they remained the same in regards to gender roles, expectations, division, and identity from the time this show was originally popular and today?

• How conscious and sensitive are the characters regarding gender prejudice, power inequality, and subordination?

• Did they take inequality of the sexes for granted?

Based on your readings and understanding that you have gathered after watching the above-noted video, write a short biographical description of your life if you were to wake up tomorrow morning in the time period of the video you watched and find you have a different gender identity. Write a description of how you lived your life a day after your hypothetical change in gender as you answer the following questions:

• Discuss how you would react on finding out that your sex is opposite. Would you feel a sense of relief, indifference, or elation? Why?

• Discuss three ways your attitude towards the opposite sex was enlightened or would change as a result of what you learned from this project. If you would not change your attitude, why?

• Write down the ideas and attitudes you have taken for granted a member of your actual gender. Consider how your roles at home and in the office would change if you were a member of the opposite gender.

• Relate the ideas of sexism and racism to the videos. How do you think sexism and racism have changed since the 1950s?