Coursework 1: The conceptual analysis
For this assignment you are required to present an analysis which brings together the portrayal of the American Dream through the film American Beauty and link that to the key issues identified in the literature. The film will represent a social/spatial context that you will observe as if you were conducting a piece of ethnographic research in a real-life context. The results of that observation should be combined with key debates in the literature and presented in the form of a conceptual analysis (concept map – see examples below – there are numerous templates available on the Internet).

Coursework 2: The critical commentary

A critical commentary involves exploring a particular social issue and evaluating its effects and consequences. It involves the development of an argument from your own standpoint; that is, your own opinion based on your informed understanding of the issue and with an appropriate evidence base to substantiate your view. Ordinarily it would be a concise statement produced from the kind of conceptual plan that is the subject of coursework 1, except in this case you will choose one of the topics from phase two of the module: Crime and Social Stratification for the critical commentary.