TOPIC:
Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual human’s beliefs and values must be understood in terms of his or her own culture. Family structure, gender roles/opportunities and the sexual division of labor are areas of human culture that vary greatly in different parts of the world. Another area that varies greatly is access to education and health care resources.
From a position of cultural relativism, discuss the situation of women in Mali in terms of their social, economic and health status in the community. Is strongly recommended that you follow the organizational strategy listed below:
Introduction – make sure to define cultural relativism and explain what the essay will include/analyze. The introduction is not a summary of the book. When writing essays, it’s often beneficial to draft points of the introduction first, and then after the body of the paper is written, go back and finish the introduction (you can’t introduce something you haven’t written yet!).
Body of essay – Analyze (do not summarize or list) the economic, social, and health situations of the Malian community in Nampossela using a cultural relativistic framework (make sure you are not being ethnocentric in your analysis!). 6 pages
Conclusion – don’t just stop writing once you’ve reached the word minimum! This needs to be a fully formed essay, so you must have a conclusion.
Issues to consider in your essay (these questions are provided to guide your thinking about the topic; you don’t have to answer all of them in your essay):