SOCI 210 (McEntee): Assignment

Sociological sources, what does that mean?

Dr. McEntee requires you to cite sociological sources. A sociological source needs to be a scholarly source and either A) written by someone with a degree in sociology/working in the field of sociology or B) published in a sociological journal. So how do we determine if it is sociological?

A) written by someone with a degree in sociology/working in the field of sociology

Many databases have an authors' affiliations section for each article's record. It may indicate either their degree or that they work in a university's sociology department. You may also consider departments like cultural anthropology, human geography, or others mentioned in Dr. McEntee's course materials to be sociological in nature.

If none of the information is available, you can take to a search engine like Google to see what kind of information you can dig up about an author.

B) published in a sociological journal

Any journal that has sociology (and no other discipline named) in the title or is published by the American Sociological Association (ASA) may be considered a sociological journal. Some big ones to note that do not have sociology in the title, but are indeed sociological journals, are Social Forces, Gender & Society, and Continuity & Change.

Remember for this assignment you are required to find the following as a minimum:

• 2 sociological sources
• 2 semi-scholarly sources
• 2 data sources (1 may be reusing a sociological source if it has significant data)

Select a particular aspect of living in a globalized world that you believe is unsustainable to make it your Dependent variable -- the thing you are trying to explain.  The sociological definition of unsustainable is a) disrupted relations between human culture and the living world; b) causing changes in human social organization and practices. Since we've spent this Unit getting deeper into the 'workings' of the global social network, your choice should be clearly contextualized by relevant social boundaries in the global social network:  these include social institutions, connection to 'development' and 'area' (as defined by Burrows' Global Governance 2025: At a Critical Juncture (Week 9)).

Provide deep description of your topic as a global sustainability issue in the global social network.  Keep on human behavior that socially constructs the unsustainability AND the consequences TO humans OF the unsustainability.

Include the following:

• description of the 'ideal' (what would be sustainable) (Hint: if you make this your introduction, the rest of your test becomes deep description of the unsustainable practices)
• relevant aspects of systems in the global economy (extraction, production, distribution, consumption, and waste) along with 
  • relevant issues of development
  • relevant 'externalities'
• identification of relevant global social actors, by type and by role
• issues of legitimacy and trust