Midterm Project

Students will imagine a creative piece (see below) providing an opportunity to study a topic of their choice by exploring their relationship to the life course perspective and by integrating lecture and readings on the sociology of the life course.

Students are invited to use a medium of their choice to represent their understanding of the sociology of the life course throughout one topic of their choice and to explore their relationship to it as a social being e.g. as a person with their own biography but living within a certain history or sociohistorical context; as a person who has agency, but whose agency is conditioned by larger social structures and systems; as a person with intergenerational influences and/or individual social constraints to their agency that might be better or also understood as public issues.

Students can select a medium of their choice (e.g. photography, drawing, painting, mapping, videos, etc.) to represent the life course perspective through the topic they studied in the way they like. There is no right or wrong way to do so. The most important part of these projects is how students accurately explain their creative project in relation to the sociology of the life course.

These projects are designed to give students agency and control over their learning process, while also allowing them to explore sociology in creative and personal ways. The midterm and final projects are assigned to help students improve their creativity, analytical skills, critical thinking, and to become familiar with how their thoughts are shaped by their assumptions and preconceived ideas. Students are expected to take a position, clearly argue their points (drawing on their own research, class readings and discussions).

Midterm assignment:

Students will submit one midterm writing presenting the topic they have selected and how they intend to study and develop it to create their final project. The midterm assignment is designed to help students to imagine and conceptualize their final project and to receive feedback.

• Considering the sociology of the life course, students will define a specific topic to develop their own research and critical analyses. The creative project represents an analysis of one topic of your choice related to the life course perspective.
• The writing must be organized as follows: 1) present the topic chosen, 2) justify its importance for the life course perspective, 3) evaluate evidence based on scientific literature, 4) discuss this evidence and establish a position on the topic.
• Paper length is minimum 800 words, maximum 1200 words (word count includes footnote/ endnotes, but excludes bibliography), single-spaced, fully justified, and with 1 margins on all four sides. The font must be Times Roman, and the font size must be 12.
• Please utilize the AMA Manual of Style when formatting references. Exact formats and citation styles for written assignments are based on What AJPH Authors Should Know from the American Journal of Public Health. I strongly encourage the adoption of an electronic citation system such as Zotero, Mendeley, EndNote or others.
• A minimum of five scientific articles is required for the literature review to help you to develop and to support your main personal argument. The evidence base for this assignment consists of peer-reviewed articles, official reports by governmental agencies such as the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB), etc., and official reports by international organizations such as the WHO and the UNICEF. Statistics and facts that appear in lay publications, even respected ones such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, or their international equivalents, should be traced to their original sources and cited accordingly.