Topic and Questions We Can Help You To Answer
Paper Instructions:

A New Yorker in Japan
OBJECTIVE
Discuss the role of cultures in social interactions

DISCUSSION OVERVIEW
This discussion forum explores the concepts of ethnocentrism and cultural relativism.

DELIVERABLES
Your participation in the discussion forum, including:

A response to the initial question(s) below
Responses to at least two other students' posts
Step 1 Access and listen to the audio file:

New Yorker in Japan/ http://media.pearsoncmg.com/pls/products/coco/intro_sociology/1269148451/assignments/media/msl_jump/lis_02_01.html

Step 2 Write a post answering following questions:
Can you identify any ethnocentrism in this story? Where? What about cultural relativism? Explain your responses fully.

Step 3 Read and respond to other students' posts.
Read other students' posts and respond to at least two of them who picked different examples than yours.

Why do you think they have a different perspective than you?
Use your personal experience, if it's relevant, to support or debate other students' posts. If differences of opinion occur, debate the issues professionally and provide examples to support opinions.

Step 4 Participate in another level of discussion with follow-up questions.
Discover more about your peers' opinions by asking follow-up questions. Consider asking questions like the following:

What do you think makes someone traveling in a different culture more prone to be ethnocentric versus adopt cultural relativism?
Can you give an example to each from your experiences?