Sociology

Using this week’s required readings as references, select one of the two topics below and respond to the aspects of the prompt in at least 400 words.

The essay must be 400 words in length, excluding title and reference pages, and formatted according to APA style. If you would like to refer to APA samples and tutorials, review the APA Checklist within the Ashford Writing Center (https://awc.ashford.edu/cd-apa-checklist.html) located in the Learning Resources tab in the left navigation bar. This assignment can be completed by using the primary materials related to each prompt. Although you are required to use only one of these corresponding sources, you may choose to supplement your analysis with outside sources.

Choose one:

Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”

Describe the movement of the person in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave.” Identify all the stages in this movement and then explain how this allegory relates to your own life. Analyze what Plato is trying to convey about the nature of social reality and the outcomes of that reality for most of us? Finally, examine Plato’s idea about the best type of life. How does one reach this best form of existence? Do you think that Plato’s ideas about the best type of life actually reflect the best type of life? Why or why not?

Dubois’s “Of the Sons of Master and Man”

What is Dubois’s primary goal in this work? Explain two of the interactive relationships that Dubois examines in this essay. Next, determine how Dubois claims the African American experience differs from or is similar to the White experience in these two relationships. Explain an instance from your own life or the life of someone you know that reflects biased treatment of a certain ethnic group. What were the assumptions of the people who treated others this way and were those assumptions justified? Why, or why not?

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