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Paper Instructions:

Family Dinner Paper

Please review and incorporate previous readings from all units in this paper. Be sure you are using proper APA formatting and citing all work properly. 

For this assignment, you will write a paper that presents family dinners as you were growing up (choose any time or age/s you wish) and analyzes how those family dinners represent the social behaviors, values, and beliefs you carry into your adult life and future relationships.

An important reminder: While I ask you to be honest in your discussions and replies, you are not required to divulge personal information or stories. Your examples can be from other classes, books, magazines, visual media, or observations.

Note: I understand that family dinners can be complex and look quite different. Please be honest, do your best, and know that your personal information is private.

Your paper will have three parts:


1. Family Dinners

Describe in as much detail as possible, family dinners in your family when you were are a child, teenager, or young adult. Consider these questions and organize this section so that it clearly evokes the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and emotions of your family’s dinner.

Who bought the food? Who prepared it?

Who set the table? Cleared the table? Took out the garbage?

What were some of the foods/dishes that your family ate regularly? Why did you have these foods?

Where did the people sit? Did they have regular places? How and why did these change? What did the table look like (dishes, tables cloths, utensils, etc...)?

How was the food distributed? What happened first? Then what?
What was the conversation like? What was the mood or feel at the table?

How were holiday dinners similar? How were they different?

2. Analysis of Social Themes

Analyze the social (and possibly cultural) themes your family dinners displayed.

Consider these questions:

What practices indicated ethnic or racial influences?
What practices indicate Religious influences?
What values were conveyed through family dinner practices?
Were gender roles displayed?
How did social class influences (of your parents) impact your meals or dining practices? What practices do you continue from these early family influences?

Which have you discarded? Why?

3. Implications for Future Relationships

Identify the social (cultural) influences, values, and practices that you have identified.

How will these themes impact your future relationships with family, partners, children...etc? What are the positives and negatives of these effects? Consider these questions:

How do background perspectives shape my views on my future family?

How do my values/beliefs shape my assumptions about family, gender roles, stereotypes, power/ oppression, and individual rights within the family?

How does my family status (social class, language, ethnicity, race,) and status within my family (gender, birth order, sexual orientation, sibling roles, abilities/disabilities...) affect my future family?

Please use the following criteria for your paper:

12 point font, double spaced, page numbers, free of grammatical and spelling errors, organized, vivid descriptions and personal voice