1 . What manifest and latent functions might exist for a health club?

2. Which sociological perspective makes the most sense to you as a means to study society? Why?

3. Think about an organization or business that you are involved with. What things might an interactionist be interested in studying about this organization?

4. Max Weber argued that we need to understand the meanings that people give to their actions and ideas. Do you agree or disagree with Weber? Why?

5. George Herbert Mead argued that the self develops through interactions with others. Do you think that your personality or self developed through your interactions with others (parents, friends, teachers) or was it something that you were born with? Give an example from your life to support your view.

1 Choose a country in the world other than the United States. Summarize the current cultural themes regarding marriage and family within this country. 

2 Define and discuss the symbolic interactionist, functionalist, and conflict perspectives on marriage and family.

3 Share some examples of variations in family life?  How do these examples compare to your life?

Ecological Modernization:

• What is Ecological Modernization and how does it work?
  • How can this be done in an opportunistic way?
  • Can we adapt the current system to specifications of EcologicalModernization?
    • Think about this in terms in of markets, taxes, incentives, and international law/global accords?

¡  Is this a possible answer for developing states?

• Can this allow them to not repeat the mistakes of the developedworld?

• How does this reinforce the concept of Ecocentrism that we discussed in the beginning of the semester?
• Do we have time to Green the Liberal State, given the nature of democratic politics?
• Is Populism an obstacle, or can it too be manipulated to help green the state?
  • Where might this be hard, and where might this be easier?

Here is the ready-to-answer question of Christian theology

January 27: Rigby, Speaking of God (chapter three on Incarnation)

Question: Drawing on Rigby's observations on pp. 86-90 (on Chalcedon), what difference does Jesus being fully divine and fully human make to how you live your everyday life as a person of faith? If you don't identify as Christian, how do you think the identify of Jesus should influence Christian choices?

      In her book Living by Fiction, Annie Dillard points out, along these lines, that most of what we have to say to one another is about "artifacts"-that is, specific things that have already been made by human beings that can be created, managed, examined, known, and mastered. 86  Dillard seems to include, in her understanding of artifacts, not only physical objects we make and use, or make and admire. She includes, also, the systems we develop that frame what is beyond our scope-perhaps the periodic table, the color wheel, or, even, a birdwatchers' guide. What is lacking in our world and our lives is not intriguing discussions of artifacts. What is lacking, she says, are those who are courageous enough to say something immediate about existence itself. "Who will interpret the raw universe?" she asks. "We have a shortage of metaphysicians." 87   This is a problem, Dillard thinks, because "if we confine our interpretive investigations to strictly bounded aspects of culture ... we miss learning what we most want to know."88