Sociology

1.  For this assignment you will be responsible for selecting a subculture to examine. You may choose from the list provided or you may choose another ethnic group (such as Latino, or Asians), a nationality (such as Mexican, Kenyan, or Swedish), a religion (such as Catholic or Mormon). There is a lot to choose, so I thought the list provided below would help to narrow your choices. 

(1) Female gentile mutilation

(2) Living with the dead 

(3) Beauty Standards 

(4) Cutting off fingers

(5) Neck Ring Culture 

(6) Foot Binding

Once you have selected the subculture in which you will research mostly through videos or supplemental readings may be helpful as well. You will then complete the activity on page 84 of your textbook "Data Workshop, Analyzing Everyday Life: Seeing Culture in a Subculture."  Be sure to answer the questions in steps 2 and 3. I am expecting that each of your responses will be written in a collegiate manner and be supported by scholarly materials when appropriate. 

2.  To explore the power of social norms, you will participate in an observation assignment. Turn in a 1-2 page description of the norm you violated, the way you felt, and the reactions people had to you. For example, you might describe whether the experience was uncomfortable, fun, liberating, scary, or something else. Or you might discuss the social psychology of other people's reactions to you.

For this next project you will be asked to violate (go against) an established social norm. You will then be asked to record the reactions your violation inspires in both yourself and others. You may, if you choose, work with 1 other person, but this is not required. 

YOU MAY NOT:

• Violate school policy, or do the project within school 


• Break any law, or cause others to break the law


• Cause physical or psychological harm to yourself or others


• Do anything which is ethically questionable


• Do anything involving intervention of authorities (police, medics, teacher, etc.). 

***If you think your project may violate any of the above rules, speak to me before doing it!

General Directions:

1. Select a social norm which interests you.  After selecting a norm you will violate that norm in a social setting.There must be observers for the violation to count. Observe reactions in a timely manner. Observe both your reactions and the reactions of others (both verbal and nonverbal).


2. You will then write a 2-3 page paper which describes what you did.  In this paper you must describe the norm violation and reactions in detail. Format is detailed below. If you choose to present, you will get extra credit!

Format for paper/presentation:

PRE VIOLATION QUESTIONS:

1. Describe the social norm that you chose to violate. For example, if you ate soup with a fork, you would have violated the social norm of using a spoon (the socially constructed ‘appropriate utensil’). 


2. Describe the setting in which the violation took place. Don’t be general – don’t simply say “the mall”, but rather go into detail. Did you go into certain stores in the mall? Did you target a particular audience such as peer groups, or adults? 


3. Describe your intended audience – who exactly are you choosing to witness this norm violation, and why did you choose this/these group(s)? Did you target audience by age, race, gender, socio-economic status? Why? 


4. As this is a social experiment, what is your hypothesis regarding how your intended audience will react to your norm violation?

VIOLATION QUESTION:

1. Describe what you actually did, in detail.

POST-VIOLATION:

1. Hypothesis testing: did people react and respond in the ways you expected, as outlined in question 4? In other words, was your hypothesis confirmed or disproved? If disproved, describe how your audience reacted. 


2. How did you feel (emotionally) as you were violating the norm you chose? In other words, were you comfortable, nervous, anxious? Explain your internal process. 


3. USING YOUR NOTES (see PowerPoint “DEVIANCE AN D SOCIAL CONTROL, on website) describe, in some detail, what this experiment help teach/reinforce about the following:
   
   
   
   • Social Norms
   
   
   • Cultural values
   
   
   • Social Control 
   
   
   
   

Tips & Strategies:

SETTING IS EVERYTHING! Remember that for this to be done correctly, it must violate a social norm, not just be generally strange or weird behavior. Norms are dependent on your setting (as we’ve discussed in class). So, if you’re normally a loud person and everyone thinks of you as loud, being loud in front of friends isn’t a norm violation. However, doing that at Church is! (not a recommendation, just a point). 

When thinking of what to do and how to do it, start by thinking of a setting and audience, then ask yourself what are some social norms in that setting – feel free to make a list. For example, if you were to choose dinner as your setting, and your family as your audience, you could list the following things as norms:

• sitting in seats


• using utensils


• asking for food to be passed to you


• waiting your turn to speak


• using a napkin


• eating food in a particular order (e.g., salad, appetizer, dinner, dessert) 


• asking to be excused if you get up

Then you could choose any or all of these to violate to gauge reactions. Do this for whatever setting you choose and above all, be creative!