Basics in Social Science Sec: B

Assignment 1: Chapter: Culture 20

Answer the following questions:
1. Give two examples of cultural lag. 2
2. How do subcultures and counter cultures differ from the dominant culture? 2
3. How does Ethnocentrism affect one's viewpoint? What is the danger of cultural
Xenocentrism? Give one example of cultural Ethnocentrism and Xenocentrism for a
Bangladeshi? 4
4. Why norms are important in a society? How do norms vary between cultures? Give
examples. 3
5. Give two examples of folkways and mores that are different from your culture. 2
6. Give four examples of material and non- material culture in your society. 4
7. Briefly state one of your experiences of cultural shock. 2

Word Count: 200(min)-400(max)

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Assignment 2: Socialization: 15
1. Identify the difference between Anticipatory and Re Socialization. Give examples. 3
2. What does Cooley mean by looking glass self metaphor? What did Cooley try to
explain with the help of this metaphor??
3. Explain Mead’s following terms: 3

I, Me, Significant others, Role taking and Generalized others.

4. What are the positive and negative impacts of Peer group on socialization process of
young boys and girls? What characteristic are transmitted or valued among peer
groups of boys and girls? 5
5. Tareq is planning to become a successful business man before he reaches 25 years of
age. Though still in the university, he works part-time for a Phone company, carries
a brief case, and invests her allowance with a stockbroker. Moreover, he insists on
wearing formal suits even to track practice.
In the above situation, Tareq is engaged in which type of socialization and why? 2
6. Give four examples of total institution from your society. 2
 Word Count: 200(min)-400(max)
 Font size:12 Times New Roman
 MS Word Doc
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Case 1: Amish culture-separated from the modern world 10

The old order Amish live a “simple” life and reject most aspect of modernization and
contemporary technology. Today the old order Amish lives in about 50 communities in the
United States and Canada. The Amish are averse to any technology which they feel
weakens the family structure. The conveniences that the rest of us take for granted such as
electricity, television, automobiles, telephones and tractors are considered to be a
temptation that could cause vanity, create inequality, or lead the Amish away from their
close-knit community and, as such, are not encouraged or accepted in most orders.

The family is the most important social unit in the Amish culture. Large families with seven
to ten children are common. Symbolic of their faith, Amish clothing styles encourage
humility and separation from the world. The Amish dress in a very simple style, avoiding
all but the most basic ornamentation. The Amish believe strongly in education, but only
provide formal education through the eighth grade and only in their own private schools.
Schooling concentrates on the basic reading, writing, math and geography, along with
vocational training and socialization in Amish history and values. Life of Amish attracts
particular attention since their life-style pushes them to forgo movies, radio, television,
cosmetics, jewelry, musical instruments of any kind and motorized vehicles.
The Amish maintain their own schools and traditions, and they do not want their children
socialized into many norms and values of the dominant culture of the United States.
Answer the following questions:
1. If a sociologist wants to study the Amish society what should be the cultural attitude of
the study? and why? 2
2. Do you consider Amish culture as a counter culture? Why or why not? 2

3. In your opinion, what are the advantages and disadvantages of living in an Amish
community? 3
4. Do you support the idea that the Amish society should change their way of life and take
the benefits of modern society? Give reasons for your answer. 3
Word Count: 200-400 words
 Individual
You can also add your own opinion and take help from other sources like internet, book to
answer the above questions.

Case 2: Socialization 15

Our lost indigenous sports and a defective

socialization process -By Sohrab Hussain
January , 2017 Article

The ever green memories of childhood of a person who is now accustomed to the globalization
are no doubt the basement of socialization. The socialization is how a man, the core entity of a
society, is growing up through inter or anti-social relations and what factors form his character
that he ought to get or not. Some elements in humanitarian qualities in person’s character and
some does inhumane. The process through which we pass our childhood contains lots of
different sports, a core element of socialization of a child and have big impact on our
socialization process. Sports representing the cultural diversity of the nation address the distinct
nature of a society. If we flash back our past and grabble our sweet pieces of memories we
realize that how and how much our sports and its equipment have been changed for globalization
impulse and changed our socialization process. Some question spins in the head how has
globalization impact, how does it work, what are the new characteristics of the socialization and
what is present impact on the society of such changed process? Many sports, which we played
throughout our childhood, have totally been lost and lost many ‘goods’ as well. ‘Gollachut’, a
very famous game of making human chain holding the hands one by one consecutively and
round to catch the opposite players to out them and wait for opportunity to cross the line to
outwit the opposite rivals, we played many a time; but today we stand in now and the game in
‘past’. ‘Kutkut’, a very famous game for adolescents in which a piece of broken pipkin is the
equipment to play the game, has almost been lost from the society. Now that it has not been
being practiced for long time, It would seem to new generation as myths that they would hardly
believe. ‘Kabadi’, another famous and national game basically for men where two parties play to
defeat each other by scoring points, is generally played in raining days with wet dress.
‘Lukocuri’ game is still well known to everyone even to urban dwellers where someone hides
himself to be founded out in the game. Another famous game was ‘Sat chara’ (seven pieces of
pipkin) where one broken piece of pipkin was put on another piece up to seven pieces
consecutively and all these pieces have to be pull down by a ball throwing to the kept pieces of
pipkin. And ‘Top Game’, the game which we, challenging to split the Top into two parts, played
hundreds of times in winter season. Another unforgettable game was ‘Bouchi’ in the rural areas
where girls and boys played altogether. Totally unique play was ‘Dang-Guli’, a game of sticks,
in which the rule was to drig a small hole and put a small broken part of stick which have to
throw towards rival by anothon long stick and the thrower will be out if rivals can catch the small
throwing piece of stick; if cannot the thrower will score the point by mapping the distance by
long stick. If he can score targeted point he will be the winner if not will be the looser. ‘Morog
Lorai’ is very popular game and in many places, we saw many competition of ‘Morog Lorai’
where competitors have to stand by one leg and throw up th other competitors on earth by
standing on one leg. In this game, the last one will be winner. To make vehicles by bearings and
to ride and drive it was another interesting game. No one can forget the push on backrest by
helper to wheel the bearings. How can we forget the jumping moments on the water and the
hullabaloo of the aged guardians!!!! We competed to jump on water challenging to do highest
score even sometimes the shore of pond broke down for the pressure of tide created by our
jumps. In winter season, we got up at dawn and smeared our face with the sunshine of rising sun
and our legs with dew and noses smelt the scent of fog. We all children, rotating the seeds with
needles, played altogether by the seeds of ceiba pierced the top with needles. Our most favorite
game was ‘Churi’, a game plying in the water. The rule was to start the game from someone who
holds an assumed ‘Churi’ (knife) in his hand and the others had to get the ‘Churi’ by touching
any part of the knife holder’s body. It could be played individually or collectively forming two
groups. We, playing this game, spent several hours but could not notice for a while. As soon as
we finished our shower, a number of rebukes had welcomed us but we did not smear our body
with these rebukes. Now question is how did it work for socialization? After leaving the school,
when they came back to home all similar aged children or adolescents called each other to come
out from the home and play the games and thus they made a friendly and neighboring
relationship with each other. For socialization, they need an environment friendly location and
natural equipment for sports which are present in these games. For better growing up, a fully
fresh and simple play freed from all complexities and artifices is needed where the competitors
will be natural being not artificial devices that have a grave bad effect on the body and mind and
this case, these games can fulfil such demand. The games, which represent the socio-economic
conditions, hold cultural diversity and come into existence naturally, should only be the element
of socialization process. If the games do not represent them it will distort the socialization
process. The vivid example is Bangladesh where the environment has already been changed,
indigenous games have been abolished and foreign games have grasped everything by
globalization impact. During the entertainment period, we sometimes wrangled each other and
guardians also joined with us but importantly, the children whose guardians indulged them for
any wrong had a long time bad effect on their lifestyle and the children whose guardians did not
indulge them for any wrong or mistake during entertainment period had also a very long time
good impact on their lifestyle. Almost all educational institutions established in suburb or rural
areas have play grounds for its students to play at leisure time which also works for socialization.
But after the availability of antenna and internet, these indigenous games had been replaced by
foreign games like cricket, or football, or Olympic, or artificial games like cartoons or animation
games, which had been mobilized by media and host of multinational companies. All educational
institutions of urban areas do not have any play grounds even not in the dwelling flats for
children. Instead of such facilities, they have computer or computer lab for entertainment. In
return, new generation has been engaged with laptop and computer games and growing up with
physical and psychological problems. According to a scientific study in 2001, Most of the bad
effects of video games are the Children who play more violent video games are more likely to
have increased aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and decreased prosocial helping.
The attitude of the children is to notice malpractice presented in the video games and follow that
by execution. Gradually, the new generation will commit crimes for defective socialization and
we have seen it at the time of holly Artijan attack. Too much video game playing makes a kid
socially isolated. Also, he may spend less time in other activities such as doing homework,
reading, sports, and interacting with the family and friends. Sometimes, the gamers do replace
their offline social lives with online game playing. A study by Argosy University’s Minnesota
School on Professional Psychology found that video game addicts argue a lot with their teachers,
fight a lot with their friends, and score lower grades than others who play video games less often.
For proper solution of this problem, the parents, whose responsibility is to ensure a friendly
environment for socialization, should nurture their children to make them as asset of the nation.
In urban areas, all educational institutions should be obliged to keep play grounds for students.
All artificial games must be banned to protect future generation from distort process. The
students should have leisure time for entertainment and sports after school period for mental
refreshment to concentrate on the regular study.
The writer is a LL. M. Student of the University of Dhaka.

1. What are the different varieties of traditional/indigenous sports that have been mentioned
in the above article? 5
2. Do you think that the traditional and indigenous sports had been replaced by the foreign
games and other artificial or computer based games? Why? What are the adverse effects
of these changes on Socialization process? 5
3. What should we do to address this problem? 5

Word Count: 200-400 words

Individual
You can also add your own opinion and take help from other sources like internet, book to answer the
above questions.

Submission Deadline: All students must submit all the assignments and case studies (total 4) through
e-mail on or before 17th April 2020. If you face any difficulty you can contact
with me.

Shaira Matin
Assistant Professor
E-mail: shaira102@aiub.edu
Phone No: 01712019398