Journal Prompt for The Sociological Perspective

To understand behavior, sociologists look at their social location in society: their group memberships within categories like occupation, income, education, gender, age, race-ethnicity which influence their self-concept and behavior.

For this assignment, I’d like you to use elements of social location to explain voting patterns in the most recent Presidential election. In your analysis you should identify social location by referring to specific groups in society.

  • If you voted, how did your social location influence your choice? If you didn’t vote, how would your social location have influenced you to vote?
  • Now try to analyze elements of the social location of voters who cast their vote for a different candidate than the one you chose or would have chosen.
  • Can you link any of the issues that influenced voters to larger social structures? (See the NYT article linked in required reading for specific ideas.) 