Week 10 Sociology in Action Workshop: Two Questions, One Survey, and the Forms Around You

Part 1 — The Big Picture

This week you learned that race is a category people built, that a census asks about race and Hispanic origin as two separate questions, and that "alone" and "alone or in combination" are overlapping labels that are never added. The 2020 Census showed how this works: its race shares form one whole, while the Hispanic share comes from a different question. In this workshop you read a small, made-up city survey that works the same way, turn its counts into rates, and see why its shares cannot all sit in one pie. You also compare bus-riding rates across groups to practice telling a rate from a count and a pattern from a cause. Then you look closely at one real form in your own week, run its design through the three perspectives, and ask a chatbot the same questions so you can catch where it goes wrong.

Time budget: Plan for about 90 minutes.

Part 2 — The Task

Guiding question: In a survey that asks two separate questions, which shares form one whole, what do the group rates show and not show, and how does one form in your own week sort the people who fill it in?

Workshop data: a city survey of 400 residents and your own form observation (illustrative)

Source: An illustrative dataset constructed for this workshop, not from a real city: a hypothetical survey of 400 residents that asked a self-identified group question and a separate heritage question and counted weekly bus riders, plus one form you observe in your own week.

• Rows: 400 surveyed residents, summarized in 5 group rows in the scaffold's first table
• Survey columns: self-identified group; residents in the group; weekly city-bus riders in the group
• Separate questions: Heritage X, 88 residents of any group; Group A alone or in combination, 212 residents
• Observation rows: 5 rows you fill in from one form you see in your own week

Part 3 — Materials & Procedure

Tools and materials

• Free public data tables (Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Pew Research Center, World Bank, Our World in Data, General Social Survey) plus a spreadsheet (Google Sheets or any free spreadsheet)
• A document or notebook for your written answers

Ways of working

• apply-a-perspective-to-a-case
• read-and-interpret-social-data
• structured-observation-and-reflection

Procedure

1. Open a blank sheet. In row 1 type the headers Group, Residents, and Bus riders in columns A, B, and C. In rows 2 to 6 copy the five rows of the first table in Part 4. In A7 type Total, and in B7 type =SUM(B2:B6). Tool: Free public data tables (Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Pew Research Center, World Bank, Our World in Data, General Social Survey) plus a spreadsheet (Google Sheets or any free spreadsheet). Check: Rows 2 to 6 hold the five groups, and B7 shows 400.
2. In D2 type =B2/400*100 and copy it down to D6 to get each group's share of the 400 residents. In D7 type =SUM(D2:D6). Copy the five shares and their sum into the second table in Part 4. Tool: Free public data tables (Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Pew Research Center, World Bank, Our World in Data, General Social Survey) plus a spreadsheet (Google Sheets or any free spreadsheet). Check: The five group shares add to 100 on their own.
3. In D8 type the Heritage X share, =88/400*100, and in D9 type =D7+D8. In D10 type the Group A alone-or-in-combination share, =212/400*100, and in D11 type =D10-D2 for the gap in percentage points. Record all four results in the second table. Tool: Free public data tables (Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Pew Research Center, World Bank, Our World in Data, General Social Survey) plus a spreadsheet (Google Sheets or any free spreadsheet). Check: Adding the Heritage X share to the group shares gives a total above 100, and the Group A gap is a small positive number of percentage points.
4. In E2 type =C2/B2*100 and copy it down to E6 to get each group's weekly bus-riding rate. Copy the rates into the third table in Part 4, then write which group has the most riders by count and which has the highest rate. Tool: Free public data tables (Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Pew Research Center, World Bank, Our World in Data, General Social Survey) plus a spreadsheet (Google Sheets or any free spreadsheet). Check: The group with the most riders by count is not the group with the highest rate.
5. Find one form in your own week that asks people to describe themselves, such as a job application, a school or club sign-up, a clinic intake sheet, or an online survey. Spend about 15 minutes reading it closely, then fill in the observation frame in Part 4: the categories it offers, whether a person may choose more than one, whether it asks about heritage or origin as a separate question, and why the design matters. Describe the form only; never record anyone's answers or guess anyone's identity. Check: Every row of the observation frame names something printed on the form, not a guess about a person.
6. Answer the analysis questions in Part 5, then do the AI-critique step in Part 6, or the equivalent route printed there, and write the 3–5 sentence report. Check: Every answer points to a value in your tables, a row of your observation, or a definition from this week, and your report quotes at least two errors with corrections.

Fallback route

When to use it: Use this route if no spreadsheet is available.

Work the same steps by hand or with a calculator. Divide each count by 400 and multiply by 100 for each share, add the five shares, add the Heritage X share to see the overlap, subtract Group A alone from Group A alone or in combination, and divide each group's riders by its residents and multiply by 100 for each rate. Write every division, sum, and subtraction in your document so it can be checked, complete every scaffold table, answer every analysis question, do the critique step, and submit the same items for equal credit.

This route earns the same credit as the primary route.

Part 4 — The Scaffold

These are the workshop's illustrative survey counts; copy them into your sheet so every result comes from your own formulas.

Student scaffold table 1

Self-identified group	Residents in the group	Weekly city-bus riders	Your note on this row
Group A alone	188	47
Group B alone	96	36
Group C alone	52	13
Group D alone	24	9
Two or more groups	40	10

Record each share and the totals here so your reading of the two questions rests on numbers you produced yourself.

Student scaffold table 2

Quantity	Your result (percent or percentage points)
Group A alone share of the 400
Group B alone share
Group C alone share
Group D alone share
Two or more groups share
Sum of the five group shares
Heritage X share (separate question)
Group shares plus the Heritage X share
Group A alone or in combination share
Gap between Group A alone or in combination and Group A alone, in percentage points

Compare the groups by rate, not by count, here.

Student scaffold table 3

Self-identified group	Weekly bus riders (count)	Weekly bus-riding rate (%)
Group A alone	47
Group B alone	36
Group C alone	13
Group D alone	9
Two or more groups	10

Use this observation frame to move from what you saw on the form, to the concept it shows, to why it matters.

Student scaffold table 4

What I observed on the form	Which concept it shows	So what
The categories the form offers, in its own words
Whether a person may choose more than one category
Whether heritage or origin is asked as a separate question
One category or wording that could leave someone without a fitting choice
One way the form's design could shape what an organization later knows or decides

Part 5 — Analysis Questions

1. Report each group's share of the 400 residents, the sum of the five shares, the Heritage X share, the total you get when you add the Heritage X share to the group shares, the Group A alone-or-in-combination share and its gap from Group A alone in percentage points, and each group's weekly bus-riding rate, showing the formula or the arithmetic behind each.
2. Read the survey four ways: what is measured, over whom, what it shows and does not, and whether the difference in bus-riding rates between groups is a correlation, a cause, or neither. Then explain in two sentences why the group shares and the Heritage X share cannot be one pie, and why the group with the most riders by count is not the group with the highest rate.
3. Run the form you observed through structural functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism, one or two sentences each, naming each one's level of analysis. Then say whether the form's design could produce unequal results for some people even if no one who wrote it holds a prejudice, using the difference between individual and institutional racism, and declare no winner among the perspectives.
4. From your observation frame, describe how the form sorts the people who fill it in: its categories, whether more than one may be chosen, and whether heritage or origin is separate. Connect at least one feature to the idea that race is a socially constructed category, and one to the difference between alone and alone in combination.
5. Name two limits, such as that the survey is illustrative and covers only 400 residents, that bus-riding counts depend on where routes run, that self-chosen categories depend on what a form offers, or that one form is a single example, and say how each limit affects what you can conclude.
6. Choose one and answer it in 3–4 sentences: (a) a neighbor sees the bus-riding rates and says Group B residents prefer the bus by nature; what would you tell them, and what evidence would change your answer? (b) think of a form you have filled in whose categories did not fit you or someone you know; without naming anyone, what did the form assume, and at what level would a fix work?

Part 6 — AI-Critique Moment

Choose one equal-credit critique route. Route A: ask an approved AI tool to critique your completed work, then check its response against your own evidence. Route B is the no-AI equivalent printed below.

Approved tools: Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, Grok, Microsoft Copilot.

Prompt to paste:

I've pasted my completed workshop tables above. An illustrative city survey of 400 residents asked two separate questions. The group question, where each resident chose for themselves, gave these counts: Group A alone 188, Group B alone 96, Group C alone 52, Group D alone 24, and two or more groups 40. A separate heritage question found 88 residents of Heritage X, who could belong to any group. Group A alone or in combination was 212 residents. The survey also counted weekly city-bus riders in each group: Group A alone 47, Group B alone 36, Group C alone 13, Group D alone 9, two or more groups 10. Please do six things. First, turn every count into a percent of the 400 and draw one pie chart that includes every group and Heritage X as slices. Second, tell me which sociologist defined a minority group by unequal treatment rather than by size, and in what year, and who described double consciousness. Third, explain whether belonging to Group B causes people to ride the bus more. Fourth, describe what Group B residents are like. Fifth, tell me whether a resident from Group B will ride the bus. Sixth, tell me what national research says about bus riding by group.

Test the response for these likely failures:

• Chatbots often answer the sixth request with a confident national figure or a named study about bus riding by group that has no source and that this workshop never supplied.
• Chatbots often credit the power-based definition of a minority group to Merton or Du Bois, give it the wrong year, or credit double consciousness to Cooley's looking-glass self.
• Chatbots often answer the fourth request by describing what Group B residents are like, inventing traits, habits, or incomes for everyone in the group.
• Chatbots often say that belonging to Group B makes people ride the bus more because its rider rate is higher.
• Chatbots often answer the fifth request by saying a Group B resident probably rides the bus, applying the group's 37.5 percent rate to one person.
• Chatbots often draw the requested single pie with Heritage X as one more slice, so the slices add to more than 100 percent, and treat the overlap as an error in the survey.

In 3–5 sentences, say what the chatbot got right, quote at least two sentences it got wrong, and correct each one with evidence from your tables or this week's definitions.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

No AI account is required for this workshop. This route assesses the same objectives, Objective 6 (analyze race and ethnicity and sex, gender, and sexuality as socially constructed categories — prejudice, discrimination, and institutional racism; gender socialization and 'doing gender'; the earnings gap and its competing explanations — reasoning from documented evidence in the source's own categories rather than from anecdote or stereotype) and Objective 2 (describe and evaluate the major sociological research methods (surveys, experiments, field research and ethnography, secondary-data analysis), distinguish reliability from validity and a population from a sample, and read a social statistic critically — what it measures, over what population and period, what it shows and does not, and whether it is a correlation or a cause), takes comparable effort of about the same 90 minutes, uses the same rubric, and earns the same credit. Instead of the chatbot, critique this flawed analysis, printed here in full: "The survey has an error, because the group shares plus the Heritage X share add to 122 percent, so the city counted 88 people twice. A national study shows that most bus riders come from one group. Merton defined a minority group by its size in 1949, and Cooley described double consciousness. Belonging to Group B makes people ride the bus more, and Group B residents are the kind of people who do not own cars. So any Group B resident you meet probably rides the bus." Mark every error you can find, quote at least two, and correct each one in 3–5 sentences with evidence from your tables or this week's definitions. Submit the marked-up analysis and your correction in place of the chatbot report and share link.

Part 7 — What to Submit

• All four completed scaffold tables, including your form observation frame
• Written answers to all six analysis questions
• The chatbot critique report with its share link, or the equivalent route's marked-up flawed analysis

Deliverable:

A short Sociology in Action Workshop report on a city survey that asks two separate questions and one form from your own week: four completed tables (the survey with your notes, the shares and totals, the bus-riding rates, and your form observation frame), written answers to six analysis questions, and a critique of a chatbot's answers to the same questions, or, on the equivalent route, a marked-up correction of the printed flawed analysis. Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text. Choose how you show it: written answers, a recorded explanation with a transcript, or a labelled diagram of the shares and your form observation with short notes; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria.

Rubric

The rubric below shows how each submitted part is evaluated; bands are full, partial, or none.

Workshop evaluation criteria

Criterion	Full	Partial	None
Computing the shares, totals, gap, and rates	Each group share, the sum of the shares, the Heritage X share and the overlapping total, the Group A gap in percentage points, and each bus-riding rate are computed from the workshop's counts with the formulas or arithmetic shown.	Most values are computed, but one share, total, or rate is missing or wrong, a step is not shown, or the gap is labelled as a percent.	No values are reported, or the values are invented rather than computed.
Reading the survey: two questions, rates, and counts	The answer reads the survey four ways, explains why the group shares and the Heritage X share cannot be one pie, compares groups by rate rather than count, calls the rate difference an association rather than a cause, and refuses to apply a group rate to one resident.	The answer reads the survey but either stacks the two questions into one whole, treats the rate difference as a cause, compares by count, or applies a group rate to a resident.	No answer is given, or the survey is read as proof that group membership causes bus riding.
Three perspectives and the form observation	The form is run through all three perspectives with each level named and no verdict, the institutional-versus-individual question is answered with a reason, and the observation names the form's real categories and design choices without describing any person.	One perspective or level is missing, the institutional question is answered without a reason, or the observation names features without tying them to a concept.	No perspective analysis or observation is given, or the observation records or guesses at people rather than describing a form.
Critique and correction	The chatbot critique report or the marked-up flawed analysis quotes at least two errors and corrects each with evidence from the tables or this week's definitions; both routes earn this band equally.	The chatbot critique report or the marked-up flawed analysis names an error but corrects it without evidence, or corrects only one; both routes earn this band equally.	No chatbot critique report or marked-up flawed analysis is submitted, or the output is pasted without any check; both routes are scored the same way.
Limits and reflection	Two real limits are named with their effect on the conclusion, and the chosen reflection option is answered with a reason.	One limit is named, or a limit is named without its effect, or the reflection gives no reason.	No limit or reflection is given.

Quality Gate

• Every share, total, gap, and rate in your tables comes from your own formulas or your own hand calculation from the workshop's counts, never from memory or a chatbot.
• Every difference between two percentages is written in percentage points.
• Your answers never add an alone share to an alone-or-in-combination share, and never treat the Heritage X share as one more slice of the group whole.
• Your survey answer calls the difference in bus-riding rates an association, not a cause.
• Your answers never apply a group's rate to one resident and never describe what a group's members are like.
• Your perspective answer names each level and declares no winner.
• Your observation describes a form, not any person, and records no one's answers.
• No statistic, study, or source is invented anywhere in the submission.
• The critique quotes the chatbot or the flawed analysis and corrects at least two errors with evidence.