ANTHROPOLOGY 101 FINAL PAPER

Cultural relativism tells us that we must examine cultural practices within their cultural

contexts, seeking to understand cultural practices from the perspective of those who take part in

them. It is always difficult to understand another culture from an emic perspective, and there is

an ethnocentric tendency to favor your own culture, viewing it as superior to others. In order to

overcome this tendency toward ethnocentrism, it is helpful to change your perspective, assuming

an outsider’s view toward your own culture and taking on an insider’s perspective toward

another culture. Over the course of this paper, I will examine an aspect of my own culture

through an etic lens in order to gain the perspective of an outsider, and I will examine an aspect

of another culture from an insider’s perspective in order to become more familiar with the

motivations behind this practice. Specifically, I will examine the state of higher education in

America and discuss anti-school culture among boys in Sweden to show that what Americans

consider “normal” is unusual in a wider context, and to examine how cultural narratives are

perpetuated and how they can negatively affect student performance. In both cases, culturally

based expectations are treated as the norm and often go unquestioned.

The following is an example of an introduction for this paper. You can use

this as a model to help you write your own introduction, but you can’t use

this exact introduction.

End your introduction with a

thesis statement that sets up

what you will cover in the body

of the paper and explains the

purpose of your paper.

Helpful tip: Use the

introduction to set up the

major concepts and topics

that will be covered in the

paper.