HKU SPACE Community College Pre-Associate Degree Programme

Individual and Society (CC154) 07/08 Semester 1

Revision Exercise 1

Student’s Declaration

The assignment is my own work, and has never been submitted for assessment in any other course

before. Proper reference has been made to all sources, published or unpublished works and the idea

of other.

(Signature) Date:

Name: Au Wai Laam

Student Number: 10384267

Class code: 154-01

Lecturer: Carmen Tong

Answer 1

Values are the belief of us. It is personality. For example you think the shoes are beautiful but

someone thinks it is ugly. Then the shoes are beautiful is your value.

Norms are value of the society. The society has fixed the standard for us. For example people

should not pick nose in the public. But we don’t know why.

Sanctions are the result of your social roles. For example student get a good result will be praised,

get a bad result will be blamed. Praised or blamed is the sanction.

One day, I walked in the street in Causeway Bay with two friends. We were chatting and my fiend

always spoke the foul language loudly. A policeman stood beside the street and stopped us. He

warned us do not speak too loud. After this, my friends don’t think he was false.

Answer 2(a)

Ascribed Achieved
A son Student
Hong Kong citizen Consumer
Male Christian

Answer 2(b)

In Ascribed status, I think the social role of Hong Kong citizen is should obey the law.

In achieved status, I think the social role of Student is hard working and get a good result.

Answer 3(a)

I think Mr. X can beg beside the street can solve his problem. In my opinion, I think Mr. X resort

commit the crime rather then trying to beg because begging is a lose face thing and robbing can get

more money than begging.

Answer 3(b)

I think he is innovator. It is because Mr. X is the lower class in the society, his education is low. His
pressure is finding a job. He has the certificate as an electrical appliances technician, but Hong

Kong does not recognize. It is not fair to compete with other because he may has the ability to

compete with other same class people, but he can not find a same job of them because of the

certificate is different. His societal goal is right, he just want to earn more money to support the

family. But his socially approved mean is wrong, he use robbery to achieve the societal goal.

Answer 3(c)

I think the government can lower the standard of applying the CSSA. Or provide some free course

to upgrade the people like Mr. X in order to help him to find job easily.

Answer 4(a)

Yes, I think the choice of term between young offenders or children affect the way I think about the

negative treatment. The term of children as more unacceptable. It is because children are small, they

just contact the world. We need to teach them the right or wrong though the good/bad thing they do.

I call this is the “teaching period”. So when the children do the wrong thing, we think they don’t

know they do the thing is wrong, so they will not be punished seriously. But when young offenders

do the wrong thing should be punished more seriously because they surpass the “teaching period”,

we all aspect he know the right or wrong. So we think they are intentionally to commit the crime,

and then we punish them more seriously.

Answer 4(b)

The criminal are labeled they are very bad. Normal people think that the criminal is blameful. So

they should be bullied, even they may think that bullying is a method to teach them. But not all

criminal are bad, some criminal may commit the crime under pressure, they should not be bullying.

Something in some condition may become deviance but not all condition. So if someone are bullied

outside the prison, normal people think it is deviance. If the labeled criminal are bullied, normal

people think it is unerring. So deviance is socially defined.

Answer 4(c)

I am inspired by the labeling theory. I know we should not label people. But under this reality

society, I think it is difficult to change my mind of anti-labeling people. When I meet these people, I

will try to treat them like normal people.

Answer 5(a)

I think the purpose of sociological imagination makes the world as “different from what it is now”.

It is because the purpose is to make the society more harmonious. The sociological explanation is

the result of the study or researching. It is objective, not like the explanation of a normal people. So

many people trust the sociological explanation rather than normal people’s explanation.

Answer 5(b)

Before I guess education is just in order to build up a civilized society. But there is another function

is social control. Let the young people who have not yet qualified for working to have a place of

settling. Sociological explanation helps us understand our society form an “out-of-the-box’ angle

and improve our critical thinking.

Answer 5(c)

No. I think it is not necessarily path the freedom. Greater awareness can only give us a goal or

method of getting freedom or happiness. I think freedom and happiness is strived by ourselves.