Purpose: The purpose of this activity is for you to understand your personal family
history in relationship to the history of the family and sociology of the family. You will
need to determine 3-5 concepts within your textbook (i.e. race, socioeconomic status,
immigration, blended families, step-families, etc.) to discuss in your paper. You can
create a narrative (story) that blends the topics in with your personal family history to
demonstrate you have a foundational knowledge about the sociological concepts
surrounding the family. You are not writing a complete history, just a partial history about
3 to 5 different concepts.
Technical Guidelines: 3 – 5 double spaced pages in APA format (Please use your embedded librarian for
assistance) Contain at least 3 scholarly sources (hint: your textbook will count as one source)
Guiding Questions for Components of the Assignment: Do you provide a compelling overview of your family history with key
sociological concepts embedded in the narrative? Do you incorporate scholarly sources to define the sociological concepts used to
enhance your family history? Did you follow the APA guidelines including title page, page numbers, spacing,
and font?
Possible Sociological Concepts to Consider in Your Family History: How did your family “arrive” in America? What are the occupations of your grandparents and/or parents? Where did you grow up? What type of school did you attend for primary education? What was the parenting style of your parents? How were you disciplined as a child? Have you experienced any hardships or tragedies within your family? What is your birth order? The birth order of your parents? Is there mental illness in your family? How does that affect your family? Is your family religious? How did you meet your spouse? What was dating like for you? How many children do you have? How many siblings did you have growing up? Has your family experienced drastic changes by generation? What will your parents leave you when they die? What will you leave your
children? Try to pick 3 to 5 concepts that will be easily linked together to create a well-balanced
story about your family. This should be a comprehensive analysis of those concepts, NOT
a comprehensive analysis of your entire family history. That would take much more than
3-5 pages 😉
