Drawing on a key concept or theory from the lectures, or your degree programme more widely, explore ...

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Drawing on a key concept or theory from the lectures, or your degree programme more widely, explore how a contemporary issue within society can be understood via this conceptual lens. The case study must not be the same as your group task or those presented within the lectures.  Selecting your case study: You cannot examine the same case study as your group’s case study in Assessment 1.  Your case study for Assessment 2 needs to be something which comes from the public domain, either a current or previous issue which has been debated within the public domain, i.e. in the popular press, in popular culture, on social media. You could, for example, take inspiration from the top news stories of 2021/22 or from the lecture materials.  It is acceptable to draw upon grey literature within your essay, especially at the beginning when you are contextualising your case study. However, later on in your essay it is important that you are grounding your analysis in academic sociological literature, i.e. journal articles, edited collections, and academic books and textbooks. Think about an issue which has really grabbed your attention. Writing about something that you’re passionate about will really help you succeed in this assessment! It is important here to be analytic and critical in your response and focus on making clear connections between sociological concepts/theories and your own case studies. Drawing on the content of the lectures, it will also be useful to include reflexive thinking, noting what the example you have chosen says about where you think the discipline is heading and the kinds of knowledge you’re producing within the discipline. To be clear, the focus here is not on describing your chosen case study (though some brief context is of course necessary). Rather, you need to think creatively and utilise sociology to explore and examine this phenomenon in a new way. In doing so, you are showing what the value of sociology is.Additionally, please note that: All essays should use the Harvard referencing system. All essays should be submitted electronically on Turnitin.