Apply sociological analysis to one subculture with which you are familiar

Drawing on the concepts presented in Chapter 3, apply sociological analysis to one subculture with which you are familiar. Describe and explain the norms, values, argot, and sanctions evidenced in that subculture.

Sociology is the study of human social life. Sociology has many sub-sections of study, ranging from the analysis of conversations to the development of theories to try to understand how the entire world works. This chapter will introduce you to sociology and explain why it is important and how it can change your perspective of the world around you, and give a brief history of the discipline.

Sociology is a branch of the social sciences that uses systematic methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social structure and activity. Sometimes the goal of sociology is to apply such knowledge to the pursuit of government policies designed to benefit the general social welfare. Its subject matter ranges from the micro level to the macro level. Microsociology involves the study of people in face-to-face interactions. Macrosociology involves the study of widespread social processes. Sociology is a broad discipline in terms of both methodology and subject matter. The traditional focuses of sociology have included social relations, social stratification, social interaction, culture, and deviance, and the approaches of sociology have included both qualitative and quantitative research techniques.

Much of what human activity falls under the category of social structure or social activity; because of this, sociology has gradually expanded its focus to such far-flung subjects as the study of economic activity, health disparities, and even the role of social activity in the creation of scientific knowledge. The range of social scientific methods has also been broadly expanded. For example, the “cultural turn” of the 1970s and 1980s brought more humanistic interpretive approaches to the study of culture in sociology. Conversely, the same decades saw the rise of new mathematically rigorous approaches, such as social network analysis.

An Overview of Culture

Is there a set of guidelines for eating at McDonald’s? In general, we don’t think about regulations in fast food restaurants, but if you glance around one on a typical workday, you’ll notice people behave as if they’ve been schooled to be fast food customers. They queue, select products from the colorful menus, pay with debit cards, and wait for food trays to arrive. Customers bundle up their paper wrappers and hurl them into rubbish cans after a fast dinner. Even though no regulations are written and no officials direct the procedure, customers’ journey through this fast food routine is orderly and predictable.

Important information for writing discussion questions and participation

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Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to

I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.

Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.

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Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.

Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.

I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!

Hi Class,

Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.

Contact me if you have any questions.

Important information on Writing a Discussion Question

• Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
• There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
• Include in-text citations in your response
• Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
• Follow APA-7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor

• A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
• Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
• Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
• Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
• Follow APA 7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

• Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
• Here are some helpful links
• The is a great resource

Consider what would happen if you followed different rules. (You’d be engaging in ethnomethodology, which involves purposely violating social norms in order to learn about them.) For example, make reservations ahead of time and ask the cashier precise questions about the food’s contents and preparation. Request that your dinner be delivered to your table. Alternatively, as you depart, put your rubbish on the ground. You’ll almost certainly evoke unpleasant replies from restaurant personnel and other patrons.

The relevance of fast food practices has been the subject of entire books. They look at the physicality of fast food in great detail, including the food, wrappers, bags, trays, those little ketchup packets, tables and chairs, and even the business itself. Everything about a chain restaurant represents a social group’s culture, values, and behaviors. From sporting events to holidays, from education to transportation, from fashion to etiquette, sociological analysis may be applied to many aspects of culture.

People rarely distinguish between the phrases “culture” and “society” in common discourse, but the terms have slightly different connotations, and the distinction is crucial to a sociologist. A society is a group of people who share a shared culture and a common region. Sociologists define “territory” as a defined area, which can be as tiny as a neighborhood (e.g., East Vancouver or “the west side of town”), as large as a country (e.g., Ethiopia, Canada, or Nepal), or anywhere in between (in Canada, this might include someone who identifies with the West Coast, the Prairies, or Atlantic Canada). To clarify, a culture refers to a group’s values, practices, and artifacts, whereas society refers to the people who share those views and practices’ social structures and organizations. Without the other, neither society nor culture could exist. In this chapter, we go deeper into the relationship between culture and society, focusing on the components and forces that shape culture, such as variety and cultural change. Finally, a survey of the various theoretical approaches from which sociologists study culture is presented.