Sociology

Parts: A Discussion and a Group Project

The Discussion Board (DB)

A. Questions for weekly discussions and conversations (not part of the required Discussion Board assignment)

These questions can serve as the starting point for your discussions during the week. They are "thought starters," so that you can explore some ideas associated with the Discussion Board and unit topics.

Answers are not required, and they should not be submitted with your required assignment. Answers are not graded.

Why would researchers want to study the gender, race, and ethnicity of individuals in American prisons? What would researchers hope to learn from this type of study?

How can American society benefit from a study such as this that examines the gender, race, and ethnicity of individuals in American prisons?

How can the results of this type of study benefit U.S. culture on a large scale?
B. Required Discussion Board assignment.

For this assignment, you will make a posting of 2-3 paragraphs to the Discussion Board in which you must answer the following questions:

What are some potential methods of researching the gender, race, and ethnicity of individuals in American prisons?

Specifically, what are ways in which the gender, race, and ethnicity of individuals in American prisons could be studied using interpretative and critical frameworks?

What would you change, and why?

What different types of information or data would you likely obtain using this research process?

In your own words, please post a response to the Discussion Board and comment on other postings. You will be graded on the quality of your postings.

Unit: Research in Sociology

A corporation in the United States is about to expand its business globally. As part of this expansion, it will begin to sell its products in Europe and Asia. In addition, it plans to open a manufacturing plant in Asia.

The president and chief executive officer (CEO) is concerned; he has heard many stories of companies that have tried to expand globally, but operations either failed miserably or did not live up to expectations because of the cultural differences.

The CEO has asked your group to research problems that other corporations have had with the process of expanding globally and develop a plan to avoid these types of intercultural errors and missteps.

As a group, you will select a multinational corporation or international nonprofit agency that has encountered these problems (this can be a previous or current employer of yours).

Using the Internet and the library, each individual in the group will research the corporation or organization to discover any cultural barriers that the corporation or organization encountered as it attempted to expand globally.

Please note that this assignment has both a group component and an individual assignment.

Group Component

As a group, generate and evaluate reasons why people may not appreciate the cultural point of view of others. Each individual in the group should use at least 5 resources or materials (citations). Note that 3 of the 5 citations may come from the textbook.

As a group, discuss how appreciating cultural diversity affects peoples' ability to communicate effectively in the context of a multinational corporation or an international nonprofit agency.

Feel free to add your own experiences as well as quoting others. Please share the resources, materials, and citations that you find and collect on the small group Discussion Board.

Individual Assignment

Each individual in the group should create and submit his or her own paper of 2-3 pages.

Each individual paper should summarize the group discussions and provide suggestions regarding the steps that the company can take and policies that can be put in place to help ensure that the company's expansion is successful.

Each individual can draw from the resources and materials shared on the small group Discussion Board in the process of developing their individual paper. Each individual paper should contain at least 5 references, with at least 3 sociological references that may include the course textbook materials.