Race and Adulthood

Newman (2006), Chapters 6, 7 and 8 book.

Step 6: Submit an Adulthood Results (6.b) paper
Write a 1000 word summary and analysis of your adult (aged 60+) participant’s life history with particular attention to their experiences with class identity and positioning throughout the life span. Organize your paper around a chronological perspective on their life, highlighting key moments as well as general changes as they have aged. Consider changes across their life in light of U.S. historical trends and events as understood through the Newman text.
This means that you will focus first on their life story, paying attention to consistencies and changes as well as key moments and memories. What was their childhood like? What role did their socioeconomic class play? What experiences did they have that were formative of later developments in their class identity and positioning? What was their experience entering adult economic worlds? How has their class identity changed or stayed consistent over time? What do they think of their experiences with status, work, consumption, and assistance at this point in their lives?
Then explore how Newman has helped you to locate their story relative to their generation. Depending on whether you interviewed someone in their 60s (born in the 1950s) or 70s (born in the 1940s) or 80s (born in the 1930s) or older, you will focus on a particular historical lens. While I would like you to focus on Newman for this section of the paper, you are also welcome and encouraged to draw from other course material or outside academic sources that help you to develop this discussion.
Be sure to include a discussion on method and reference to ideas from three sources (you must use Newman; you are encouraged to draw from other course sources but you may use other academic sources for this paper). Conclude your paper with a reflection on the value of telling a story about class from the perspective of one key informant.
The paper should be organized with the following sections:

Introduction (270 words): introduce your participant, highlighting key features of their age, race, ethnicity, culture, gender, religion and nationality (if relevant), and so on. Also comment on their relationship to you/how you know them. Draw from your life history interview notes to offer a brief portrait that situates the research subject within their generation.
Method (180 words): explain your method for developing interview questions and describe your context for administering the life history, including a commentary on any ethical issues that arose.

Data and analysis (~400-500 words): this will be the main body of your paper. Tell their life story but also provide analytical commentary on the significance of their life for your understanding of the important role that class plays in U.S. society. Relate their experience to the broader contexts of their generation. Cite literature to help you consider the meaning of your results and the direction of your analysis. Start with Newman (2006)—and Branch and Scherer (2013) and Conger et al (2010) might be additionally relevant—but you might cite any academic literature you find useful.
This section of your paper is likely aided to spend time deep in your notes from the interview, considering what parts of their life story are most interesting to analyze. Yet I also recommend returning to the questions and prompts in the initial guidelines for the assignment (see Week 12) as well as the general framing for the paper explained above. Being able to answer some of the questions I posed or muse on what you learned with relevance to the themes I highlighted in the prompts will ensure a rigorous discussion. You might also productively return to your responses in the progress report from last week.
Conclusion (120 words): conclude your paper with a reflection on how your participant’s experiences and ideas of class have changed throughout their life span. What does old age look like for them now, and what role has their class played in establishing where they are now? Critically consider your methodology in terms of how learning about one person’s life through this analytical lens has shifted your understanding of the importance of class.

Bibliography: include a bibliography of sources that you cited, formatted in APA style.

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