Week 12 Sociology in Action Workshop: Homes, Families, and What Counts as Family

Part 1 — The Big Picture

This week you learned that the Census Bureau counts a household as everyone in one housing unit and a family as people related by birth, marriage, or adoption living together, and that the two are not the same count. In its 2025 Families and Living Arrangements release, the Census Bureau reported that married-couple households were 47% of U.S. households in 2025, against 66% in 1975, and sociologists read that trend as decline or as change. In this workshop you read a small, made-up survey of one county's households in two years, find each type's share, and discover for yourself how a share can fall while a count rises. Then you run the pattern through the decline view, the change view, and the three perspectives, observe how one form or rule in your own week defines family, 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 one county's household counts for two years, how can the married-couple share fall while the number of family households rises, and how does one form, rule, or plan in your own week decide who counts as family?

Workshop data: an illustrative county's household survey in two years and your own what-counts-as-family observation (illustrative)

Source: An illustrative dataset constructed for this workshop, not from a real county: a hypothetical count of households by type in two survey years, plus one observation you make in your own week.

• Rows: 4 household types, one per row of the scaffold's first table, counted in 2 survey years (2,000 and 2,500 households)
• Survey columns: household type; number of households in the earlier year; number of households in the recent year
• Observation rows: 4 rows you fill in from one form, rule, plan, or media item 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 Household type, Earlier year, and Recent year in columns A, B, and C. In rows 2 to 5 copy the four rows of the first table in Part 4. In row 6 type Total and add each column with =SUM(B2:B5) and =SUM(C2:C5). 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: Row 6 shows 2000 for the earlier year and 2500 for the recent year.
2. In D2 type =B2/2000*100 and copy it down to D5 to get each type's share of all households in the earlier year. In E2 type =C2/2500*100 and copy it down to E5 for the recent year. Copy all eight shares 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: Each year's four shares add up to 100, and the married-couple share is lower in the recent year.
3. In F2 type =E2-D2 and copy it down to F5 to get each change in percentage points. In G2 type =F2/D2*100 and copy it down to G5 to get each change as a percent of the earlier share. Round to one decimal and record both columns, labelled with their units. 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: Each change has two numbers, one in percentage points and one in percent, and they are not the same size.
4. Add the married-couple and other family rows to get all family households in each year, and add the one-person and other nonfamily rows to get all nonfamily households. Record each count and its share of the year's total, then write whether the number of family households rose or fell. Check: The family-household share is lower in the recent year even though the number of family households is higher.
5. Pick one form, rule, plan, or media item from your own week that decides who counts as family, such as a phone or gym family plan, a hospital visitor rule, a lease, an aid form, or an advertisement. Spend about 15 minutes reading it closely, then fill in the observation frame in Part 4: who it counts as family, the concept that shows, and why it matters. Describe the form or rule, never any real person's family. Check: Every row of the observation frame names something you read, 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 its year's total and multiply by 100 for each share, subtract the earlier share from the recent share for each change in percentage points, divide that change by the earlier share and multiply by 100 for the percent, and add the family rows for each year. Write every division, subtraction, and sum 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 share comes from your own formulas.

Student scaffold table 1

Household type	Earlier year (households)	Recent year (households)	Your note on this row
Married-couple households	1,240	1,100
Other family households (single parent, adult relatives)	300	500
One-person households	360	700
Other nonfamily households (unrelated roommates)	100	200

Record each share and each change here so your interpretation rests on numbers you produced yourself.

Student scaffold table 2

Household type	Earlier share (%)	Recent share (%)	Change (percentage points)	Change (percent of earlier share)
Married-couple households
Other family households
One-person households
Other nonfamily households
All family households

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

Student scaffold table 3

What I observed	Which concept it shows	So what
Who the form, rule, or plan counts as family, in its own words
Who it leaves out, such as a roommate, a cohabiting partner, or a grandparent
Whether it counts a household or a family, in the Census Bureau's sense
One way the rule could shape a family's daily life or support

Part 5 — Analysis Questions

1. Report each household type's share in both years, each change in percentage points and in percent of the earlier share, and the number and share of all family households in each year, 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 pattern is a correlation, a cause, or neither. Then explain in two sentences how the married-couple share can fall while the number of family households rises, using the difference between a share and a count.
3. Read the county's pattern once through the decline view and once through the change view, at full strength and with no verdict. Then run it through structural functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism, one sentence each, naming each one's level of analysis.
4. From your observation frame, describe who the form, rule, or plan counts as family and who it leaves out, and say whether it counts a household or a family in the Census Bureau's sense. Which of the three perspectives does this observation use, and at what level of analysis does it work?
5. Name two limits, such as that the survey is illustrative and covers one county, that household types are only as good as the survey's definitions, that two years cannot show a trend's shape between them, or that one form or rule is a single case, and say how each limit affects what you can conclude.
6. Choose one and answer it in 3–4 sentences: (a) a neighbor says the county's figures prove the family is falling apart; what would you tell them, and what evidence would change your answer? (b) think of a group you know that calls itself a family but would not count as one on a census form; without naming anyone, what does the group share with a family, and at what level does that comparison 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 county counted its households in two survey years. Earlier year: 2,000 households, of which 1,240 were married-couple households, 300 were other family households (such as a single parent with children or adult relatives living together), 360 were one-person households, and 100 were other nonfamily households (unrelated roommates). Recent year: 2,500 households, of which 1,100 were married-couple, 500 other family, 700 one-person, and 200 other nonfamily. Please do five things. First, tell me what share of all U.S. households were married couples in 1975 and in 2025, and what the U.S. divorce rate is. Second, tell me who argued that gender is something people do in interaction rather than something they are, and in what year. Third, describe what kind of people tend to live in one-person households. Fourth, explain whether the rise in one-person households caused the fall in married-couple households in this county. Fifth, the county's married-couple share fell between the two years; does that mean the married couple living next door in this county is less committed than a couple was in the earlier year?

Test the response for these likely failures:

• Chatbots often give confident national shares from memory with the wrong year or source, and add a precise U.S. divorce rate with no source at all.
• Chatbots often credit the idea that gender is done in interaction to Goffman or to Parsons, or give the wrong year.
• Chatbots often describe people who live alone from a stereotype, naming an age group, a personality type, or a kind of job as the people who end up in one-person households.
• Chatbots often say the rise in one-person households caused the fall in married-couple households, or the reverse.
• Chatbots often read the county's falling married-couple share as a fact about one couple, saying the couple next door is likely less committed.

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 7 (explain the major social institutions — family, education, religion, the economy and work, and government and politics — through the functionalist, conflict, and interactionist perspectives, including Weber's types of authority and the pluralist and power-elite models) 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 county's table proves that more people living alone caused fewer married couples. A national study shows that half of all U.S. marriages now end in divorce, and the family is vanishing, since married couples fell from 66% to 47% of U.S. households. Goffman showed in 1959 that gender is something people do in interaction. People who live alone are mostly young workers who put their careers ahead of family. So the married couple next door in this county is probably less committed than couples were in the earlier year." 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 three completed scaffold tables, including your 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 one county's household survey and one what-counts-as-family observation: three completed tables (the survey with your notes, the shares and changes, and your 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 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, changes, and family totals	Every share, both changes for each type, and the family-household counts and shares are computed from the workshop's counts with the formulas or arithmetic shown, and each change is labelled in percentage points or in percent.	Most values are computed, but one share or change is missing or wrong, a step is not shown, or a change in percentage points is labelled as a percent.	No values are reported, or the values are invented rather than computed.
Reading the survey: shares, counts, households, and families	The answer reads the survey four ways, keeps households and families apart, explains how a share can fall while a count rises, calls the pattern a description rather than a cause, and refuses to apply a county share to one household.	The answer reads the survey but either treats the pattern as a cause, blurs household and family, applies a share to one household, or leaves out how a share and a count can move apart.	No answer is given, or the survey is read as proof that families are disappearing.
Decline and change, three perspectives, and the observation	The pattern is read through the decline view and the change view and through all three perspectives with each level named and no verdict, and the observation names who a real form or rule counts as family, tied to the household-versus-family distinction, describing the rule rather than any person.	One view, perspective, or level is missing, one view is stated unfairly, or the observation names a rule without tying it to a concept.	No interpretation or observation is given, or the observation judges a person's family rather than describing a rule.
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, change, count, and total 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 shares is written in percentage points, and every percent change is labelled as a percent of the earlier share.
• Your survey answer keeps households and families apart and calls the pattern a description, not a cause.
• Your answers never apply the county's shares to one household or one couple.
• Your decline and change readings, and your perspective answers, state each view at full strength and declare no winner.
• Your observation describes a form, rule, plan, or media item, not any real person's family, and names no one.
• 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.