Class Background Assignment*

This assignment asks you to take a detached look at yourself and your family background through the prism of social class. It asks you to do this through an integration of three types of data: 1) Interviews with family members or family friends; 2) Field observation, in which you seek to look at yourself, your life, and your family background in a new way, informed by the principles of ethnography; and 3) Course readings, which you will draw on to contextualize and explain what class has meant for your family over the past several generations. You are of course welcome to supplement the course readings with other relevant sources. The balance between these approaches may depend partly on whether you have family members close by, but my expectation is that you will write a paper that combines all three. If you perceive a problem with this, please consult me.

Interviews. Conduct a minimum of two in-depth interviews of family members or family friends of different generations (ideally a parent and grandparent). Focus on what their occupation and economic standing were, what kind of life they led, how they perceived their position in society, what changes they experienced, what they thought about class. Try to get a sense both of what class your parents and grandparents belonged to and what this meant for their lives. (You may of course also address how class intersected with other social identities, particularly those based on race and gender.) Your goal is to construct a geneology of class in your family over the past three generations. Take notes during your interviews with an eye to using quotations from them in your eventual paper. Do not write your paper as a summary of your interviews; the interviews are intended to provide data for your own analysis of your class background.

Field Observation. Try to look at the physical and social environment that you live in a detached and wondering way. How is the meaning of class played out or reflected in various contexts? What is distinctive about your class environment and how has it shaped the kind of person you are becoming? Possible observation sites include neighborhoods, workplaces, places where people spend their leisure, etc. Take fieldnotes on your observations as if you were an anthropologist studying an unfamiliar tribe. Try to wonder about things you normally take for granted. You may want to quote directly from your field notes in your paper.

Course Readings. It will be particularly important to demonstrate your mastery of the readings in your various assignments. Indeed, the readings should help you put in context and explain much of what you find out through interviews and ethnographic observation. Be thinking about how the various readings relate to what you are hearing and seeing. Note: While not limited to these, possible useful concepts and ideas might include: relevant ideas based on theories of class and social inequality (Marger, Chapter 2); discussion of the different dimensions of class and his model of the U.S. class structure ((Marger, Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6)); the concepts of meritocracy (McNamee and Miller, Chapter 2), inheritance (McNamee and Miller, Chapter 3), social and cultural capital (McNamee and Miller, Chapter 4) ; ideology (Marger, Chapter 13 and McNamee and Miller, Chapter 1), the issue of the relationship between race and class (Marger, Chapters 9, 10,11 and McNamee and Miller, Chapters 8 and 9) changes in government policies (Merger, Chapter 12, McNamee and Miller, Chapter 10); the distinction between income and wealth (McNamee and Miller, Chapter 3, Marger, Chapter 3), the impact of increasing inequality on families (McNamee and Miller, Chapter 10), etc. These are all tools for you to think with in understanding your class background better.

Your Paper

Write a paper of approximately 7-10 pages analyzing your class background over the past three generations and exploring how it has shaped your socialization and personal development. Weave together interview material, ethnographic observation, and course readings to present your story; do not make these separate sections. While it is certainly ok to explore the importance of other factors besides social class, don't lose sight of it--this is a paper about your class background and the significance it has had for you. At the end, you may want to address whether this exercise has affected your understanding of yourself or your family.

Your paper should include a brief section on method in which you explain whom you interviewed and what kinds of settings you focused on for your ethnographic observations. References to the readings should involve proper citation. Please avoid lengthy quotations. For the purposes of this course, the citation style to be used in all work will be American Sociological Association (ASA) style. ASA style guidelines may be found by clicking Citation Resources on the left toolbar.

* Adapted with permission from Dr. Robert Wood, Professor of Sociology, Rutgers University, Camden.