Using ideas covered in the subject material throughout this session, please write an academic essay.

Using ideas covered in the subject material throughout this session, please write an academic essay that addresses the following topic to showcase your sociological understanding of community analysis. This essay is worth 40% of your final grade for the subject. Communities are ‘real-world’ social environments that respond and react to a range of social, environmental, and economic circumstances that contribute to community sustainability. One of the main tasks of the community analyst is to apply theory to real world examples to improve our understanding of how and why communities act as they do, change over time, or fail to take action. When a sociologist undertakes community analysis, the first step requires locating the existing research about a subject to permit articulating what the social and cultural problems are in the context of what needs to be understood. The guiding question for your critical research essay for Session 2 is: Using sociological theory that you encountered in Part 2 or 3 of this subject and academic research of relevance for sociologically understanding community action that you independently sourced, please write a critical essay that explains community participation, or lack thereof using a contemporary case example of your choice. Step-by-step Instructions: 1. Create a time management plan by week 4 of this session that will enable you to complete the research and writing necessary to submit this assessment item by 12 October 2018. Please plan to book an appointment with a CSU ALLaN team member to enquire what CSU university-level learning support opportunities are available should you feel you require individualised writing assistance and/or have received feedback in Assessments 1 and/or 2 that you require development of your academic writing skills. 2. Review all Part 3 readings and associated modules. 3. Identify a sociological theory encountered in the required readings in Parts 2 and/or 3 of this subject that you wish to explore in greater depth through this essay and apply to your research topic, explaining community participation or lack of participation. 4. Conduct library research to obtain academic journal articles, books, and/or book chapters (minimum of 5 external (non-subject) references, maximum of 10) about your chosen social theory and community participation/non-participation 5. After you have read the material collected for Step 4, identify a ‘contemporary’ (i.e., 2010 or more recent) case example of a practical and/or academic community issue that will constitute the ‘topic’ of the essay which you will endeavour to explain/anlayse using your sociological theory and community research material obtained from your library research. 6. With all information gathered and read for your essay, create an outline for the ‘critical’ argument you wish to put forth in your essay. Remember, what distinguishes a ‘critical’ essay from a non-critical essay is your articulation of existing theory and research limitations, strengths, biases, insights, etc. rather than ‘factual’ / descriptive account (i.e., study x found y, study a said b, etc.). 7. Review how to ‘properly’ cite and reference the ideas you include in your essay that are derived from others, rather than represent your independent thought to keep learning how to not plagiarise. If this is an area where you feel and/or have received marking feedback that you require further development to master, please seek additional support through the ALLaN team and/or other university support opportunities. 8. After you have completed draft 1 of your essay, please proofread it for grammar, typos, spelling, punctuation, and other technical aspects of writing so your final submission may offer a fully polished writing sample for this subject. 9. Finally, while I encourage you to discuss content and technical aspects of essay writing in your SOC308 learning communities, as well as interacting to better understand the sociological theories covered in Part 2 and 3 of this subject that may be used to write your essay, please note that your final, submitted Assessment 3 must reflect your independent work; this is not a collaborative assessment task. Nevertheless, general-level conversation about theory, research, and writing are encouraged. It will not be possible to submit drafts for marker review / feedback, however, prior to the assessment submission. Rationale back to top This assessment task will assess the following learning outcome/s: be able to understand sociological ways of describing and investigating communities be able to understand some of the sociological theories that have been developed to help us understand the variety of forms of community we have in our society be able to explain sociological research about communities clearly in writing be able to think critically about community be able to apply sociological theory and concepts to real world cases of issues that occur in communities One of the main tasks of the community analyst is to apply theory to real world examples. When a sociologist undertakes such a task, s/he looks to the existing research about a subject and tries to establish what the social and cultural problems are in the context of what is attempting to be understand. Sometimes theory can help us not only understand observed social phenomena, but also lends insight into solutions to ‘real world’ problems. The learning task set forth in Assessment 3 seeks to consolidate your learning experiences over this session, enabling you to demonstrate you have been able to meet the most difficult of this subject’ s learning outcomes – learning outcome 5. In addition to providing you with a final formal assessment item to illustrate your achievement of learning outcomes 1-5, the critical research essay asks you to perform the role of community analyst. By identifying and thinking about a particular theory and investigating what that theory can and cannot offer to understand a specific case example, you may gain insight into the strengths and limitations of specific theoretical lenses and research method approaches. In summary, Assessment 3 helps you to think about how to approach researching and explaining a single social issue, community participation or lack of participation, in the creation of ‘sustainable’ communities. In so doing, it allows you to develop several ‘soft skills’ that are useful for most employment and other broader life environments: effective time management, planning, researching, communicating, critical thinking, argument development, writing, and working through how to find suitable evidence for the points you wish to make. It also demands attention to detail and the capacity to follow instructions. Importantly, this assignment asks you to take a position about an issue for which there are multiple ‘sides’ and issues, as reflected by realities influencing complex societies locally and globally. As a ‘real-world’ issue, your chosen case example will helps you sociologically explore a specific topic, apply academic knowledge to make sense of the social issues demonstrated by your example, and choose what arguments and recommendations you will, and will not, make, explaining why in light of the theory and research. Marking criteria and standards back to top Assessment 3 will be assessed according to 8 Standards: 1. Knowledge and understanding of sociological theory – This is your chance to show that you have met learning outcomes 1 and 2. That is you are able to understand the structure, processes and factors influencing social life in communities and can examine these sociologically. 2. Knowledge and understanding of the case example – This standard is your opportunity to show that you can identify problems in communities, learning outcome 3. 3. Application of the theory to the case example – This standard refers to the your capacity to use theory to assess problems in communities and use sociological ideas to solve those problems, learning outcomes 4 and 5. 4. Capacity to assess the merits of a theory and its value to the case – This standard assesses how well you conduct the sociological community analysis, learning outcomes 2 and 5, and use the theory and concepts, learning outcome 3. 5. Essay structure (logic of your argument) – This further demonstrates your writing style and communications skills, specifically identifying community problems and solutions and what affect them, learning outcome 3. 6. Quality of additional research – Accessing and understanding a broad range of existing research and ways others have responded to problems is a key task of sociologists and community analysts. By researching widely in quality peer reviewed literature, you will be exposed to a variety of academic writing styles, ideas, theories, and research methods, all useful for widening your understanding of how others deal with ‘real world’ community problems. In learning how to incorporate prior research into your essay, you will be learning how to evidence and support your own ideas, justify judgements and build an argument for your recommended community analysis and evaluation, thereby showing you have met learning outcomes 3 and 4. 7. Writing (paragraphing, sentence structure, clarity) – As detailed for Assessments 1 and 2, Assessment 3 offers further opportunity to show you have met learning outcome 3, and possibly worked to improve your academic writing capacity over the duration of this session. 8. Referencing and formatting (APA 6th Ed) – Assessment 3 is your last opportunity in this subject to show you have met learning outcome 2. Assessment 3, Critical Research Essay, should follow the same formatting style as Assessments 1 and 2 – 11pt Times font, single-spaced, and using APA 6th Edition formatting for all in-text citations and the Reference List. Please ensure your name, CSU ID number and the subject code are included and include a word count, recalling the minimum word limit is 1500 words and the maximum is 2000 words, including in-text citations and excluding the Reference List.
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