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Life Still Happens
Pennies falling out of a vase across a table
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Keywords

Life Chances
Stratification
Inequality
Class
Games

How to Cite

Rubin, Zach. 2024. “Life Still Happens”. TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology, November. Washington DC: American Sociological Association. https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/life-still-happens.

Abstract

An update to Dr. Tracy Ore’s “Life Happens” activity (2015), “Life Still Happens” is a class activity designed to illustrate and help students apply the sociological concept of life chances (Weber 1978). Students create or are assigned to “families” tasked with creating a budget that allows them to either survive, or thrive, based on their family...

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Details

Subject Area(s):
Economic Sociology, Family, High School Sociology, Introduction to Sociology/Social Problems, Race, Class and Gender, Social Welfare/Social Work, Sociological Practice, Stratification/Mobility
Resource Type(s):
Class Activity
Class Level(s):
College 100, College 200, High School
Class Size(s):
Medium, Small

Learning Goals and Assessments

Learning Goal(s):

  1. Define and describe the concept of life chances.
  2. Prepare a family budget that is balanced and priorities family needs with family happiness.
  3. Generalize about a person’s life chances depending on their family circumstances as affected by life events.

Goal Assessment(s):

  1. Students will turn in a completed family budget sheet that shows a thoughtful engagement with the parameters of the activity.
  2. Students will engage in discussion over how the arrive at their budget, comparing their experience to the other families in the class with different income levels.

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