Chapter 5: Social Interaction and Social Structure (Assignment)

After viewing the videos and reading the material:
Discuss how the three major sociological perspectives of functionalism, conflict theory, and interactionism would view wealth. Would they have more respect for a person who is born wealthy or a person who becomes wealthy through hard work? Address the differences associated with ascribed and achieved statuses in your answer.
2. Describe sociologist Gerhard Lenski’s stages of sociocultural evolution and explain how his view differs from that of Émile Durkheim’s mechanical and organic solidarity and Ferdinand Tönnies’s Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft perspectives.
3. Discuss the various ways a person may experience role strain and role conflict in current everyday life.
4. Describe how the impact of new immigrants coming into the United States is likely to affect various social interactions among groups.
5. Analyze the importance of social institutions from the three major sociological perspectives. How are the views similar and different?
6. Discuss how social life and interaction would be affected if the Internet and cell phones permanently disappeared today. Use the sociocultural evolution approach to describe your predictions. As well as, the three major sociological perspectives of functionalism, conflict theory, and interactionism