Begin with an introduction. Identify two of the American values listed in the Williams document in the week 1 learning resources. Why did you choose these values? How important are these two values to American society?
One way you can help determine the importance of American values is to look at poll data, such as the Siena College Research Institute, or the Brookings Institute. However, you can also find your own information from other sources if you want. Some websites to get you started are:
https://scri.siena.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/AVS-Data-Appendix.pdf
Americans, Deeply Divided, Yet Share Core Values of Equality, Liberty & Progress
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/AVS-2020-Presentation-FINAL.pdf
Select any two topics you learned about in class. Using at least 3 course resources and 3 resources from your own research (at least 6 total sources), do the following for each topic:
Discuss who is most likely to fully experience the values you chose within the context of the topic.
How do they benefit from achieving these values? Who is most limited from fully experiencing these American values
What are some of barriers and challenges that people face in fully experiencing these established American values?
Make sure to use examples from the course resources and your own research to validate your opinions.
For each topic you selected, explain why you think these American values you associated with the topics are not equally experienced by all Americans (for example, if your topic is health care, and your value is humanitarianism you could discuss why this value is not experienced equally within the context of health care).
In your explanation, you should also include one or more of the sociological theories you learned about in class – such as the conflict theory, structural-functionalism, or symbolic interactionism (from your week 1 learning resources), or Merton’s anomie theory (from the week 7 learning resources). You can also bring in other relevant sociological theories from any of the other course readings.
End with a conclusion. What does your essay say about American values and American society? Give two suggestions that you think would help make your two chosen American values more equally accessible to all Americans. Make sure to validate your suggestions with your scholarly sources.
