Assignment

Overview: The short response activities in the webtext throughout this course are designed to show your understanding of key concepts as you engage with course content.

Prompt: During the first week of the course, you will respond to several questions in the webtext as you complete each learning block. You will review your answers to these questions and ensure that you have responded to each question. It is important that you answer each question. Otherwise, the words no response will appear in brackets when you submit the assignment. The questions and their original locations in the webtext are listed in the table below in case you want to refer back to the reading as you edit, but you can edit your responses to all the questions directly in Theme: Exploring Social Science Issues, learning block 1-4 (page 5) before exporting to Word for submission to your instructor in the learning environment.

Question 1 Do you have any healthy habits? What role have culture and environment played in the healthy or unhealthy habits that you have formed?

Question 2 Choose a society from the map. Within that society, characterize one of the social science principles we identified in this learning block. As a reminder, the social science principles we focus on in this course are social roles, social institutions, social norms, and beliefs and values.

Question 3 Provide an example of the environment influencing the population in an area of increased longevity. Then provide an example of the population in that area influencing its environment.

Question 4 Think about factors affecting your lifestyle in comparison to the areas of increased longevity. Characterize two social science principles in your day-to-day life. Use the two principles that you did not describe in response to the earlier question. For example, you could describe some social norms in your day-to-day life.

Question 5 From a social science perspective, what are three factors that shape your day-to-day life? For example, you could describe some factors that influence your social interactions, your access to certain foods, your day-to-day activities, the pace of life in your area, etc.

Question 6 Identify 2 social science issues related to war.

Question 7 Identify 2 social science issues related to education.

Question 8 Recall: What are the five social institutions that we are examining in this course?

Question 9 Identify the social institutions discussed in this reading about India.

Question 10 Choose one of the five social institutions. Describe some of the factors that have influenced this social institution in India.

Question 11 Use the reading about social institutions in India to identify two social science issues that could be researched further.

Question 12 Describe two social norms in Dubai noted in the reading and explain how these social norms may differ from those of the culture that you grew up in.

Question 13 What factors shape the social norms in Dubai? Name at least two, and describe how they shape the social norms.

Question 14 What factors influence your society's social norms? Name at least two social norms that exist in your culture, and describe the factors that influence them.

Question 15 Based on the reading about Dubai, identify two social science issues that could be researched further.

Question 16 Now choose a social science issue listed above, or pick one of your own. Adopt the social science perspective to ask a question about this issue from the point of view of a psychologist. What is a question that a psychologist might have about this social science issue?

Question 17 Now choose a social science issue listed above, or pick one of your own. Adopt the social science perspective to ask a question about this issue from the point of view of a sociologist. What is a question that a sociologist might have about this issue?

Question 18 Now choose a social science issue listed above, or pick one of your own. Adopt the social science perspective to ask a question about this issue from the point of view of an anthropologist. What is a question that an anthropologist might have about this issue?

Question 19 Who occupies the social role of spiritual leader in most Papua New Guinean kinship groups?

Question 20 What are the societal expectations for a woman's social role in Papua New Guinea? What influences these expectations?

Question 21 Within your own society, what social roles do you occupy? What other social roles could you occupy, if you chose to? How much choice does your society give you to occupy different social roles? How much flexibility do you have to fill that social role differently than society expects?