culture

Name
Culture Assignment [due on or before 11pm Sunday, July 21st]
Instructions
Please interview someone who comes from a cultural group that is different from your own and answer the questions below. In general, culture can be though of as ways of thinking, acting, and feeling acquired by an individual.  Elements of culture include material artifacts or products (clothing, tools, etc.) and non-material aspects (norms, values, beliefs, knowledge, attitudes, symbols [including language], etc.).  In choosing your subject, please be sure to choose someone from a group that has cultural norms that are different from the norms that govern your own in-group.  You may choose a person from any other cultural group except someone whose cultural difference is based on religion.  Cultural differences may be based on race, country of origin, ethnicity, socioeconomic status (SES), and so on; also, you might examine differences in profession, region, age, gender, or sub-culture.

After doing your interview, please answer the following prompts in elaborative detail, including specific pull quotes from your interview as well as applicable psychological concepts from the text and other resources.  Please include the headings in your paper for organizational purposes.
DEFINING TERMS
Please define the concepts of culture and norms, using multiple authored sources from which the definitions may be compared and contrasted.
IDENTIFICATION AND DESCRIPTION
Please describe your own cultural group, including its defining characteristics, customs, and any additional meaningful material and non-material aspects.  Also, please describe your subject's cultural group, including its defining characteristics, customs, and any additional meaningful material and non-material aspects.
COMPARING
Please describe in elaborative detail at least five cultural norms that your group shares with your subject's group.
CONTRASTING
Please describe in elaborative detail at least five cultural norms that your group does not share with your subject's group.
DISCUSSION
Please provide a general summary of your experience, including (but not limited to) any interpretations you might have missed, stereotypes that were debunked or reinforced, personal connections you didn't anticipate making, whether differences should be accepted or tolerated, and any other content that synthesizes your ideas into some larger meaning.
*This assignment will generate a paper of five (5) double-spaced pages minimum, written in APA format in Microsoft Word.  All syllabus course rules apply, so review those rules before you write the paper.  Good luck, and please email me with any questions you might have.
Due Date Sunday, July 21, 2013 11:00:00 PM EDT