The document provides instructions for a weekly assignment on cultural anthropology. It prompts the student to choose a topic related to culture, select sources to use for different parts of a paper, and provide summaries of those sources. The student is asked to write a thesis statement based on their sources and is given guidelines for a final research paper where they will analyze aspects of their own and another culture from both emic and etic perspectives using the framework of cultural relativism.

1. 1) Select one aspect of culture from the list. Once you've made
your selection, please delete all other options.
Gender
Week Three Assignment Worksheet
Page 1 of 1
2) Select a source to use for Part I of the paper. You will be
using your textbook and the article by Miner for this part of the
paper, but for this worksheet, include the source you found
through your own research. Review the tutorial on Evaluating
sources and enter your reference in the space below.
Reference entry in APA format:
Crapo, R. H. (2013). Cultural anthropology [Electronic
version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/
Miner, H. (1956). Body ritual among the Nacirema (Links to an
external site.)Links to an external site.. American
Anthropologist, 58(3), 503–507. Retrieved from
https://www.msu.edu/~jdowell/miner.html
3) Include the reference for Part II that corresponds to the topic
you’ve chosen. Copy and paste the reference entry from the
table (e.g., if you chose Education, you would use the article by
Jonsson for Part II).
Becker. A. E. (2004). Television, disordered eating, and young
women in Fiji: Negotiating body image and identity during
rapid social change. Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry, 28(4),
533-559. Retrieved from the EBSCOhost database.
4) Summarize the main points from each of your sources. See

2. this guide for help with summarizing your sources.
Summary of your source for Part I (include one to two
paragraphs, totaling at least 300 words). Enter your summary in
the space below.
A person’s culture will influence every aspect of their daily
life: language, behavior, thought processes, decision-making. In
nearly every culture, gender roles come into play, displaying
cases of which gender is responsible or assigned to different
tasks or titles. The article highlights the importance of
communication between genders, the differences in gender roles
from culture to culture and how they seem to provide the best
design for each, discrimination issues, sexual differences and
issues involved with those differences and ethical issues that
may abound from some of these assumed roles. Mulvaney
explains that communication in reference to gender roles comes
with moral consequences, requiring that the communications
have moral responsibility. These communications teach us how
to be male or female through behavior, for example through
language, as linguistic practices are related to gender
differences. Women are more likely to communicate with
language including emotion and feeling, whereas men tend to be
more analytical in their communicating style, focusing on
giving fact and raw information.
The article highlights role difference and explains that role
differences should not be considered discrimination in any
form. The role differences are said to be essential normality that
makes up these differences at a biological difference as well as
cultural normality that described what is naturally normal in a
given culture. A society can be considered either masculine or
feminine, depending on a few traits: A masculine society would
display the emotional gender roles as very different, with men
as the authoritarians with a focus on material accomplishments.
The women in a masculine society would be gentle, modest, and
concerned with the quality of life within the population. A
population is viewed as a feminine one when the emotional

3. roles are similar or combined, both men and women would be
gentle, modest and concerned for the quality of life within the
society.
Summary of your source for Part II (include one to two
paragraphs, totaling at least 300 words). Enter your summary in
the space below.
There has been a large amount of research that has been done
about the media and youth’s behavior based on the media,
mainly focusing on the population as a whole. There are still a
large number of mysteries as to how an individual’s psychology
is affected. The Television, disordered eating, and young
women in Fiji: Negotiating body image and identity during
rapid social change article explores the research explicitly
completed on the introduction of television to West Fiji, and its
effects on Fijian adolescent girls’ character and body image in
rural Fiji in 1998. The study was conducted of a period of 3
years to a selected 30 girls, and showed that media is used both
creatively and destructively by these adolescent girls. "A
previously described cross-sectional, two-wave study
demonstrated a dramatic increase in indicators of disordered
eating during the 3 years following the introduction of
broadcast television with Western pro-gramming to this
community, a period which was also a time of rapid social and
economic transition (Becker, 2004, p. 534)" Many subjects
responded with positive attributes and characteristics being
credited to television dramas, but there was also a negative
impact. Weight and body shape began to be a major idea or
concept amongst these girls, leading to eating disorders to
control weight, as these girls saw the body shape as a social
necessity in order to fit in, grow or remain popular.

4. 5) Write a working thesis statement based on your sources. See
this example.
Working Thesis Statement:
Gender roles in any society can vary in numerous ways. Such as
in more modern cultures and societies, these roles become more
merged and flexible whereas in cultures that rely heavily on
tradition and religion they are not.
M E M O R A N D U M
TO: Dr. Jane Doe, President
Commission for Economic Sustainability
FROM: David R. Ortiz, Analyst
DATE: 7 October 1995
RE: Fuelwood management in Country
Central
Introduction
The situation regarding fuelwood availability in Country
Central is not yet at a crisis stage.
Forests and arable land are readily available for use by the
people. Deforestation is minimal
compared to our neighboring counties. Yet economic conditions
force the majority of the
fuelwood to be collected illegally. I propose three major
reforms to alleviate the problem of
illegal fuelwood collection. First, we should offer individual
communities small plots of forest for
tenuring. Second, we should establish a network of regional
fuelwood management offices to
monitor the illegal trade of fuelwood, to encourage fuel
efficiency, and to offer technical
assistance for the sustainable use of tenured forests. Third, a
system of forest plantations
should be developed to ensure future fuelwood supplies.

5. Current land tenure situation in County Central
Residents will continue to collect fuelwood illegally until they
are otherwise guaranteed a supply.
Land tenure offers the beneficiaries a direct reimbursement for
their efforts. A number of key
points support a system of land tenure:
(1) The rural population does not have a financial means to
purchase land at this time.
Foreign ownership as well as ownership by the wealthy of
County Central could lead to
limited access to forests for the poor. This maldistribution of
forest resources could have
long term economic effects.
(2) Land ownership means power. With recent government
changes, we cannot afford to
unleash this power to the people at this time. Actual ownership
of the land should remain
in the hands of the government.
(3) A system of tenure allows for better government regulation
over changes in the forest
resource base. Regulation of private forest lands with our
limited work force would be
impossible.
In lieu of efficiency concerns, a system of community tenured
regions would better
accommodate current circumstances. The state forest should be
divided into regions, each
village or community having an assigned region. The concept of
a community region is more
realistic than individual tenure due to the unmanageable number
of technicalities which would
be encountered. Ecological impacts are location specific. These
regions should be monitored
by regional fuelwood management offices.

6. Regional fuelwood management offices
Management of the harvests of fuelwood will require local
regulation. Your proposal should
include the establishment of regional fuelwood management
offices to facilitate the transition
11.479 – Water & Sanitation Infrastructure Planning Spring
2004
from an illegal market to legal and organized cooperation. The
regional offices will have the
following roles:
(1) Report and regulate the flow of illegal fuelwood to the
central government office so that
regulations can be modified for improved efficiency;
(2) Instruct villagers on maximizing use of fuelwood products
by encouraging use of efficient
stoves and kilns;
(3) Instruct villagers on proper forest management for long-term
goals of sustainability. This
instruction could also include the role of proper management in
erosion control and
watershed protection.
The regional fuelwood management offices should include a
number of representative groups.
Involvement of the local community is a requirement for
success. Local farmers and leaders
know the region, its customs and its people. In addition, an
administrator from our government
should be available to act as a liaison and to provide a political
update on the situation. Some
technical expertise will be required.
Future issues

7. Our government must plan for the future energy needs of
County Central. The World Bank has
proposed a hydroelectric power plant which would supply one
quarter of current energy needs.
This project should be carefully assessed. Special consideration
should be given to ecological
impacts of the building of the plant, dependence upon foreign
technical expertise, and
implications for the debt situation. I am skeptical of its success
because of the history of failures
of these types of development efforts.
Alternatively, our east coast has tremendous excess of arable
land which can be developed for
forest energy. Long-term planning should maximize use of this
land by developing forest
plantations. Coupled with these long-term plans for forest
plantations should be a program for
infrastructure changes which can assist in transporting the
fuelwood to villages throughout the
county.
Implementation
The creation of regional fuelwood management offices and the
allocation of forest regions will
require some time. Due to the lack of other available energy
sources, it is recommended that
residents be permitted to continue collecting fuelwood as
previously practices until the fuelwood
management program is implemented.
Implementation of these reforms can only take place with your
assistance in quality legislation.
Outlined above are three major reforms to improving fuelwood
management in County Central:
development of a community land tenure program,
establishment of regional fuelwood

8. management offices, and development of forest plantations
along the east coast. These
reforms offer the most viable solutions to fuelwood
management.
In the Final Research Paper, you will
· Describe an aspect of your own culture from an etic
(outsider’s) perspective in Part I of the paper.
· Describe an aspect of another culture from an emic (insider’s)
perspective in Part II of the paper.
· Apply cultural relativism in order to examine misconceptions
about culture that may occur due to ethnocentrism.
· Keep the distinction between cultural relativism and moral
relativism in mind as you write your final paper.
· Even if you do not personally agree with a cultural practice,
explain how the practice makes sense in its cultural context.
· Avoid opinionated or judgmental language in your paper.
· Analyze your chosen aspect in terms of how it developed as
part of a social system within both your culture and another
culture.
· Analyze your chosen aspect in terms of its purpose as part of a
social system both within your own culture and another culture.
The Final Research Paper
· Must be five to six double-spaced pages in length (excluding
title page and references page, meaning it will be seven to eight
pages total), and formatted according to APA style as outlined
in the Ashford Writing Center’s APA Style (Links to an external
site.)Links to an external site..
· Must include a separate title page with the following:
· Title of paper
· Student’s name
· Course name and number
· Instructor’s name

9. · Date submitted
· For further assistance with the formatting and the title page,
refer to APA Formatting for Word 2013 (Links to an external
site.)Links to an external site..
· Must utilize academic voice. See the Academic Voice (Links
to an external site.)Links to an external site. resource for
additional guidance.
· Must include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your
introduction paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis
statement that indicates the purpose of your paper.
· For assistance on writing Introductions & Conclusions (Links
to an external site.)Links to an external site. as well as Writing
a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.)Links to an
external site., refer to the Ashford Writing Center resources.
· Must include at least one full-text scholarly resource ideally
from the Ashford University Library in addition to the textbook,
the Miner article, and the article chosen from the List of
Topics (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. in
Part II of the Week 3 assignment.
· The Scholarly, Peer Reviewed, and Other Credible
Sources (Links to an external site.)Links to an external
site. table offers additional guidance on appropriate source
types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is
appropriate for this assignment, please contact your instructor.
Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a
specific source for a particular assignment.
· Must document any information used from sources in APA
style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s Citing Within
Your Paper (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
· Must include a separate references page that is formatted
according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing
Center. See the Formatting Your References List (Links to an
external site.)Links to an external site. resource in the Ashford
Writing Center for specifications.