Write essay responses to the questions listed below making sure that you in-text cite course materials and include a “Works Cited” page at the end.

Write essay responses to the questions listed below making sure that you in-text cite course materials and include a “Works Cited” page at the end. Each response should be approximately one page double-spaced. Each numbered set of questions is worth twenty points.

The questions are:

1. Define the “sociological imagination” and describe the approach sociologists generally take when contextualizing and trying to understand and analyze humans and societies. Elaborate on at least two key research methods used in the discipline, the processes of each, and what types of evidence each can provide.

2. Explain how cooperation and conflict are inherent in human nature and societies. Clarify at least three prominent examples from our course that show how these have or do exist in or between societies at both small and large scales.

3. Describe a practical human and/or societal problem that we covered during the course. Show how the problem you discuss relates to the concept of the laws and/or norms of a society.

4. Utilizing evidence we covered in our course, explain major trends in the recent history and current U.S. regarding two different issues: immigration and K-12 education. What are key patterns we see, in terms of individuals and groups, with each of these parts of our society?

5. Clarify trends in poverty and inequality in the U.S. and internationally in the present day and within the past fifty years. Describe major factors that we see related to poverty in the U.S. over the past half-century. Explain at least three conditions that impoverishment results in regarding living conditions and life outcomes, either domestically or internationally.