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HUMOR | SOCIAL NORMS | COLLEGE | CLASSROOM BEHAVIOR
Safety in Numbers: When It’s OK to Break the Rules
A Case Study in Social Norms in a College Classroom
When I was in graduate school, I served as a Graduate Instructor for several years while working on my doctorate in sociology. During that time, I often taught an undergraduate course in Social Problems, focusing on various issues in the larger culture. I helped my students learn to see social issues from a sociological perspective and introduced them to basic sociological concepts.
One of these was the concept of ‘social norms’ — written and unwritten rules guiding behavior. These ‘norms’ vary from culture to culture, and from one time period to another. I described this concept to my students and helped them understand it by giving them examples they could relate to.
I mentioned that we have social norms for everything in our society — how to act during a job interview, how to behave in church, at the grocery store, etc. I then asked them what kinds of social norms we have for classrooms. They immediately came up with some good examples:
- Don’t talk when the teacher is talking
- Stay in your seat
- Sit quietly and take notes
