social norms

Convocation this week. (From the Latin, con = with, vocare = to call --> calling together, assembling). In addition to the president's neoliberal remarks about mission statements (last term it was some nonsense about "every student must succeed" -but what if they choose to skip class and never do the work - is that to be blamed on instructors??), I was paying attention to social norms.

1. Is it normal to put the right palm over the heart for the Star-Spangled Banner? Some did, and some didn't. Did we used to do this for Flag Day back in the 1960s Land of Patriotic Conventions? I don't remember.

2. How is it that students don't know to stand up for a faculty procession, and even when you gesture, they are a bit unwilling?

3. On the other hand, they knew to clap before and after a person came to the podium - upon introduction and upon the conclusion of their remarks.

I'm intrigued by the apparently random transfer of social norms of behavior. My students don't "get" taking off hats in buildings. (A real cultural problem when traveling with them in countries like Italy. They think it is perfectly ok to check phones for texts, and return texts, while they are in a social setting. But they also get the respect for elders and the flag. There is a research paper in all this, I'm sure - but it doesn't have geographical dimensions, other than to say the flag-fetish is an American thing.