Sociology, Social Change

Exam instructions: This is an open book, take-home exam. You may consult your course readings and notes. Students are to work on this exam independently – working collaboratively with classmates constitutes cheating and similarities between exams will be treated as such. Answers are to be typed, double-spaced, and submitted via Brightspace on Thursda, Dec 10, 2020 between 9:00am-12:00pm. Late submissions will not be accepted (student accommodations will be respected)

This exam is worth 30% of your final grade. The essay response will be graded on the basis of 100 points for the clarity and coherence of the argument, supporting evidence provided, critical thinking, syntax, and formatting. 

Essay question – you must answer the following. You must follow the formal essay format, including introductory and concluding paragraphs. You should expect that the essay will be approximately 10-12 pages long (double-spaced). The inclusion of point-form lists will not be accepted.

Bhambra and Santos argue that there are themes, or narratives, that run throughout the discipline of sociology, particularly in classic texts. They argue that those narratives describe a particular vision of the processes that brought the modern world into being (2017:5). They state that:

Accounting for the contemporary configuration of the world, and addressing the inequalities that we find there… requires taking seriously the understandings of the broader historical processes through which the social sciences have been constituted. (Bhambra and Santos: 2017: 5-6)

Your take-home exam essay must address the following: what evidence can you find in some of the classic texts to prove or disprove this argument? What illustrative examples do the authors present to justify their argument(s) about macro-level changes and the transition to modernity? To the point about processes of change, what texts and/or arguments critically engage with these narratives about processes and modernity? Finally, using materials in the course, formulate an argument about expanding analyses of historical process so that the argument is more inclusive? 

Be attentive to the use of in-text citations, but you do not need to include a bibliography for any of the course texts, lectures, or any of the materials provided in this exam. Any additional materials must be identified in a bibliography.