1. How do universities and colleges function as agents of socialization in the lives of students? How does this differ from early school socialization?

2. Keep a descriptive journal of your social interactions with three people who play different roles in your life (for instance, your significant other, your employer or employee, your sibling or parent) for 3–4 days. Note the key qualities of the interactions and the definition of the situation you are seeking to construct. At the end of the journaling period, look over your journal and assess it as Erving Goffman might. What observations would Goffman likely make about the techniques of impression management you utilized and your presentation of self?

3. Charles Horton Cooley’s concept of the “looking glass self” involves three steps that are beneficial to understand the self and society today: (1) how we imagine we appear to others; (2) how we imagine others thoughts or judgments on how we appear; and (3) whether or not we change our appearance or behavior based on how we think others view us. Apply these three steps to your own experience. Using your body as evidence, highlight some aspect of appearance or behavior and how you have (or have not) changed it based on the imagined interactions/thoughts of others. Be prepared to share this privately with your instructor or in a small group.

4. Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology emphasizes the importance of effective meaning construction. New forms of communication present new problems with constructing meaning. With a group of peers, talk about the problem of meaning as it relates to text messaging and e-mail. How often is meaning misinterpreted or unclear in texts or e-mails? How do people feel when this happens? What do they do? How have the social practices of texting and e-mailing changed to reflect the problem of meaning? How do acronyms such as LOL or BRB and emojis help or hurt meaning?

5. Heroes driven by moral concerns are a central plot device of many action, suspense, mystery, and detective films, television shows, and books. With a group of peers discuss the role of the hero driven by moral concerns in these forms of media by sharing specific examples of this plot device. Discuss what actions the heroes in these stories undertake and the reasons and justifications the stories provide for their heroes’ actions. Do you think the heroes’ actions are moral? At what level of Kohlberg’s morality scale are the heroes’ justifications for their actions? What would justifications at the other levels of the morality scale look like? Are the patterns to the moral representations presented in popular culture?