Week #2 let the research begin

During the second week preparing the research paper, I had my ideas more set than the previous week; after having a hard time choosing from one of the topics, I finally decided to focus my research paper about the middle class, since I'm very interested on cultures and the variation between different societies. My focus of research during this week was to gather a 'big picture" of what my paper will be about, so I decided to surf over the web for key terms such as what middle class is; and middle class has a lot to do with the economic position of a person.I also looked over for it's beginnings, that comes back from Europe during the middle ages. What makes a person part of the middle class was another question that came up to my mind, so I had to go over it; I am not satisfy enough with what I found, but the information that I found gave me a broad picture of an approximate estimate number of how much money someone should earn to be considered to live a "middle class life". Last but not least, another topic came up in one of my researches; the industrial revolution. I have a feeling this was a big even that affected the course of the middle class, so I'll just keep it in mind to introduce a portion of the industrial revolution on my drafts as I keep learning and finding out important fact that will support my paper. Here are the different links I've used, I hope it's helpful for somebody else researching this fascinating part of history!

Middle class definition
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/_/dict.aspx?rd=1&word=middle+class

Middle class range/ disagreement
http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/08/23/how-perceptions-of-the-middle-class-keep-shifting/

Middle class rise (europe/ middle ages)
http://courses.wcupa.edu/jones/his311/notes/mid-clas.htm

Industrial revolution
http://webs.bcp.org/sites/vcleary/ModernWorldHistoryTextbook/IndustrialRevolution/IREffects.html

week #1 Greetings/ first Ideas

Good evening fellow students! I hope everybody liked our first week back to school. So I'm aware that we have this big essay that's due at the end of the course, so far a lot of the topics seems very interesting to research on, but there's two in special that caught my attention; one of the topics is under the category of National Politics & Society, and it's related to "middle class", is it in raise? who are the people considered "middle class"? and an analysis of the factors that make this people part of the "middle class". My second option is from Psychology, and it is a comparison and contrast of a feminist psychological idea against an idea that's mostly supported by males, or the option of the "American dream", which will involve the related experience of my family's reasons to move to America, and how our story relates to others, based on a particular pattern of immigration. I think I'm interested on this specific topics because of the points they touch, and how they reflect my viewpoint of society and life style. I hope I come up with a final decision by this upcoming week to start up with my paper, good luck to everybody!