Think about your essay topic and the research question you will address in your essay.
This essay will require that you find additional information to develop your ideas and arguments. That will mean doing additional research beyond what we have covered in class. Doing research is a process that can take multiple rounds of finding sources, reading the information, refining what information you need, finding more sources, and finally drawing conclusions. This process is known as the research cycle and can take some time, but produces the best results for your essay.
Remember sociological analysis involves debunking or a deeper examination of commonly held beliefs. Things are not what they seem. Put on your critical thinking caps in your examination of U.S. values.
What specifically is the topic for your essay?
What question are you trying to answer, or what specific topic are you addressing in this essay?
The sociological perspective invites you to look at your familiar surroundings in a fresh way. It encourages you to take a new look at the world you have always taken for granted and to examine your social environment with the same curiosity that we might bring to an exotic foreign culture.
The study of sociology leads us to areas of society that we might otherwise have ignored or misunderstood. Since our worldview is shaped by our personal experience and since people with different social experiences have different definitions of social reality, sociology helps us to appreciate viewpoints other than our own and to understand how these viewpoints came into being.
Approach your investigation of the core value you have chosen to work with from this vantage point.
Source - https://www.geneseo.edu/sociology/about
Consider these questions:
- How does society shape the individual?
- What are values according to sociologists?
- How are values shaped by social location?
- How do cultures vary in terms of core values?
- What roles do ethnocentrism and cultural relativism in the media reflect in the social science paradigm?
- How has social science research helped you to understand better the media in the U.S. and its impact on the individual, community, and social values?
Critical Thinking
“The fascination of sociology lies in the fact that its perspective makes us see in a new light the very world in which we have lived all our lives... It can be said that the first wisdom of sociology is this - that things are not what they seem.”
- Peter Berger, Invitation to Sociology (1963, pg. 21, 23)
In sociology, debunking involves a deeper examination of commonly held beliefs. To understand human behavior, you must dive beneath the surface. What are your taken-for-granted assumptions about the core value you are working on within this assignment? That things aren’t always what they seem? This assignment requires you to debunk common sense and taken-for-granted ideas about U.S. values.
For example, the idea that one can succeed monetarily if one just tries hard enough is common sense. But is it really so? This form of common sense fosters the belief that success and social mobility are strictly the responsibility of the individual, and thus obscures the role played by larger social factors such as social location (class, race/ethnicity, religion, gender).
A deeper dive into these core values requires you to go beyond your common sense. Remember our values suggest how people should behave, but they don’t accurately reflect how people do behave. Values portray an ideal culture; the standards society would like to embrace and live up to. But ideal culture differs from real culture; the way society actually is, based on what occurs and exists. Apply these concepts to your core value for this assignment to do a true sociological analysis of the topic.
Be sure to provide a reference for each source you use formatted in APA Style. **See the Tab in this Guide - Citing your Sources - APA Style for more details.
APA Style Reference TIP - APA Style Common Reference Examples Guide
Cross-Cultural Analysis
The following question in the essay requires researching cultural differences.
“Taking into consideration the sociological concepts of ethnocentrism and cultural relativism, think about a culture that does not share this value. Adopting a standpoint of cultural relativity, discuss how values develop uniquely within cultures.”
A cross-cultural analysis involves comparing different cultures with the aim to understand variations in people’s beliefs and behaviors. How do values vary from one culture to the next? For instance, in America we value individualism, but some other cultures value collectivism. You will need to research how the value you have chosen to work with in this assignment plays out in another culture. When analyzing another culture, you will most likely find differences compared to your own culture. How do you respond to those differences? Be sure to integrate the concepts of cultural relativism and ethnocentrism into your discussion.