Interview Assignment: Connecting Local to Global

Interview Assignment: Connecting Local to Global

Objective
Analyze how diversity affects interactions with major societal institutions (such as health care, criminal justice, education, employment, voting, military) from
contemporary and/or historical perspectives.
Recognize that global issues and systems are experienced differently at local scales by identifying local problems via fieldwork and course readings and applying them
to larger global concerns.
Assignment
In a well-organized and well-written essay of three-to-four pages (5 pages max; full 3 pages minimum), you will address the question of diversity within your fieldwork
institution from Essay 1.
This assignment will ask you to do a semi-structured interview with a participant about diversity at your field institution and relate your question to broader global
issues. Make sure you address feedback on your writing in from previous essays as you write your assignment.
Your essay should cover the following points:
Address a diversity-based problem or issue based on prior participant observation at your institution (field setting).
What social problem or issue did you observe that might be an issue at your field site?
You should use your prior observations, course readings, discussions, and current events to develop and support a strong thesis statement about the problem of
diversity at your field institution.
Semi-structured interview. These allow you to get in-depth information from a particular person based upon existing data, such as your results from participant
observation. You will develop a list of 7-10 questions to ask your participant about the problem you identified. You must take notes during your interview, transcribe
them into a Word document, and turn them in along with your essay. Your transcript should not be part of the essay.
Analysis. You should re-read your interview and identify themes that are related to your social issue. How do your participant’s responses relate to the problem that
you identified?
Connecting local to global. What is the relationship between the problem you identified in your work and larger global concerns? Use topics from class discussion,
materials from the textbook and course readings to help you connect your local results to global trends and conditions.
Evaluation
You will be graded out of 50 total points, according to the following rubric:
0-10 points: A strong thesis statement of the problem, with appropriate evidence to support it
0-10 points: Transcript of semi-structured interview
0-10 points: In-depth analysis of the themes from the interview and how they relate to your problem
0-10 points: Relationship between your local problem and larger global issues
0-5 points: Appropriate use of citations
0-5 points: Appropriately addresses feedback from previous writing assignment