American Indian families are unique in American society. How are they similar to the larger
American culture and how are they unique?
What will be an ideal response?
Kawulich portrays how American Indian families adapt to the conditions within the culture in
which they live, and also reflects how family structure is affected by economic and social
conditions. Culture is preserved through conveying and sharing common values and beliefs,
language, social ceremonies (dances, seasonal celebrations, religious practices), and lifestyle
patterns. People draw from the cultural mores in the process of forming their own identity,
selecting, shaping, and emphasizing the cultural elements to fit their personal situation and
status in life. The cultural elements are internalized and legitimized (as described by
Erickson) to develop a unique person within a larger social group.
American Indian women experience a certain cultural discontinuity in seeking to retain certain
traditional values, beliefs, and lifestyle, while still living in a larger modernistic non-Indian
(white) culture. This can create difficulties in forming and maintaining their personal identity.
Some traditional Indian tribes were matrilineal in form (tracing lineage through the mothers
line), which makes Indian culture somewhat unique in American society.
What are some other examples of groups within the American culture being matrilineal in
form? (Answer: single mothers, in some types of settings)
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According to McNamee and Miller in "The American Dream," a source of American individualism is
a. free public education. b. individual abilities and motivation. c. the Protestant background of European colonists. d. the American Dream of meritocratic reward.____
__________ The tendency to choose prospective spouses from neighbors, coworkers, and classmates
What will be an ideal response?
Carlos has dated a variety of women from diverse racial, ethnic, and economic backgrounds but ended up marrying someone from his small town in Cuba. Sociologists would say that this clearly represents the principle of
(a) exogamy. (b) heterogamy. (c) polygamy. (d) homogamy.
An example of the complete participant role is
a. joining a sorority or fraternity to study initiation rituals without revealing your identity as a researcher. b. standing at a street corner and watching whether males or females are more likely to jay-walk. c. telling a motorcycle gang that you are a researcher and would like to ride with them for a year to understand their interaction patterns. d. being a newspaper reporter who interviews union workers to learn about recent strike efforts. e. All of these choices exemplify the complete participant role.