Infantilization Culture

Today was a day centered around the culture of treating adults like children and inconsistencies between expressed and practiced values. Our word of the day is a relatively new word to our lexicon, infantilization, and it has been used by Benjamin Barber to describe how our culture will treat adults like children and as a result adults may make decisions like children...particularly in the field of consumer purchasing, but with far ranging effects. An idea for a blog is infantilization...can you find real examples of it in your everyday world? If so, what effect does this have on an individual and how they behave in micro and macro sociological environments? Do you think infantilization is consistent, inconsistent, or both with US macro cultural values?

Here is the remainder of the video from class today. file:///Users/bsmith/Desktop/barber.flv

If you still need the "do nothing" activity sheet, click here.

Culture Culture Culture

Hey Sociologists in training. While I am busy trying to catch up reading all of your Unit 1 reflections I hope you enjoy starting your first blogs on CULTURE.

Taking some of the information we have worked on so far, and keeping in mind the fish/water metaphor, look at some of the material and non-material (symbolic) forms of culture that we see so clearly as "different" in other cultures and identify some that exist here in US Culture. What are some words/phrases/sayings, behaviors, customs, etc that we do in the USA that would be really hard to explain/translate/understand if you were from another culture????? Go a step further and try to explain why we do those things the way we do and how that might shape the way an individual (not you necessarily) would think about the world around them!!!

Don't forget the pump-fake nose flinch if you are going to Honduras anytime soon.....ps, not a good time to go as they are in the middle of curfews and violent protests due to a several month long Coup-de-etat right now. (Kind of weird having friends, living where I used to live and breath everyday just like here, living with such chaos and disorder!)

Unit 1 Sociological Discussion

We have had the opportunity to look at quite a few different sociological ideas, see some experiments, do some activities, and read about a number of sociological concepts in action. While many of you have already reflected on the themes we have been examining so far it is time to really show-off what you have learned in a discussion piece about one of the four larger themes we looked at: Macro-Micro Sociology, Groups, Sociological Imagination, Social Construct of Reality. Please focus your discussion around ONE of these concepts and use the movie, A Bronx Tale, as your source of information. Additionally please look at some of your classmates blogs and make a comment on ONE of their blogs. Here are some guidelines to use when examining the movie and writing the discussion piece.

Micro-Macro Dynamics
The racism throughout the film is obvious. What is often taken for granted is where the racism comes from. What are the micro and macro sociological forces that create this racism? Think in terms of the Abandon Ship exercise. How did micro and macro forces come together to influence who was saved and who was tossed? Apply this to the racism in the movie.

Groups
What are all the groups that Collogero belongs to? (Think in terms of the circles exercise we did in class.) Would you put him in Sonny’s crew, or would you put him and Sonny in their own group? What is Collogero’s Master Status? Why do you think so? Do you think his master status changes throughout the movie?

Social Construction of Reality
How is their reality in the neighborhood socially constructed? What are the unwritten rules that govern how you can or can’t act? How do you think this construction came about? Can you see their racist attitudes as a social construction?

Sociological Imagination
Use your imagination to think about the dynamics and social forces that created Collogero’s “world”. How did the neighborhood come to exist? How did the different groups within the neighborhood come together there? Clue: the movie doesn’t show this, you have to think about what the movie doesn’t show. Another way to put it is how are Collogero’s personal troubles (his biography) part of the bigger picture (his history and society)?

9/11 and Weekend Posts!

A pair of 9/11 articles here for you to look at. One is from 2008 and one is an editorial from today.

Besides Categorizing/Stereotyping, Groups, Macro and Micro Sociology, feel free to also write about the last 2 questions we had in-class today about 9/11 and the impact on US Stereotypes or US Construction of Reality.

I look forward to reading a bunch of blogs and COMMENTS on others blogs on Saturday.

Please, too many folks have lost their lives, 9/11 is the most famous historical event of your lifetimes, you are citizens of a nation at war, this government is supposed to listen to the public, make sure you are well informed about 9/11, because your decisions and choices (even inaction) direct the activities of your government!

Macro vs Micro Sociology and a video!

Macro and Micro Sociology are really not in a fight against one another, they get along just fine if you are able to be flexible and embrace multiple perspective about any given issue. Of course as sociologists in training we are all able to do that with our sociological imagination.

We have had a few different chances to look at Macro or Micro Sociology in action recently....
One was the Abandon Ship activity. Think about how and why our classmates chose to kick different people off of the boat.

A MACRO-SOCIOLOGICAL approach is going to see larger societal and big group dynamics at play....you are teenagers in the USA (so age group and national society group....both very big) and are going to get rid of the overweight millionaire b/c you are at an age that is very body conscious in a society that glamorizes physical fitness instead of seeing a person who is probably very creative (self-made millionaire). We also got rid of the older couple being American youth, you prize youthfulness and vitality instead of having a high regard for your elders and their wisdom (like you might find in many Asian societies).

A MICRO-SOCIOLOGICAL approach is going to look at our specific smaller group or even one on one individual dynamics that took place. Instead of thinking about age group, US society, not even Stevenson or Suburban society, we would examine why Jeff the millionaire was pressured to and chose to abandon ship, why did the couples both choose to abandon ship together rather than separate (instead of the Western Society belief in romantic love) it was because closer friends in real life chose to be those individuals during our activity. There are many things to look at here, who were the leaders in the group and why did this happen (did it have to do with individual personalities, our class dynamic, the way it was introduced by me the teacher???). These are all looking at micro-sociological dynamics.

Mr. Venkatesh's research is another place to look for Micro and Macro Sociology. Lots of us like to look at Macro reasons for why certain groups in a society are prone to be in gangs thanks to the larger societal issues (poverty, education levels, job opportunities, etc) and it is usually much easier to use these methods of analysis because it is so hard for sociologists to engage on micro level sociology (it is rare, risky, and hard for someone like the author to be allowed into a gang to look at any micro level interactions). Think about the micro level things that are discovered, J.T. had attended college, some of the economic/organizational structures that rely on micro sociological interactions (individual respect, 'bling', etc).

Gangs also leads us to our next topic of Grouping and how we look at others. Sociologists look at all kinds of groups and are categorizing people as a regular part of their work, in fact we humans seem to be naturaly wired to find common and uncommon patterns and identify people (or anything else) we encounter into categories. But we don't have to stereotype! Placing values or socially constructed meanings to the groups or categories begins to get us into stereotyping. What sort of things did you learn or see from Mr. Venkatesh's writing about Gangs or the video discussion about his work on gangs that alters your views and understanding about "gang" members, their motivations, their life choices, their lifestyle? Did you have stereotypes that were changed or altered? (to see the video click here)

Take these topics and blog on one or many of them......
Micro or Macro sociology and the Abandon Ship (boat) activity
Micro or Macro sociology and the Gang Sociological research
Groups and Stereotyping and the Gang sociological research

I look forward to reading about your observations and thoughts....please check out some of your peers blogs as well!

Welcome to my Gang!

To my sociology class, I really apologize for not being at school for you today. I hope you enjoy(ed) reading about Mr. Venkatesh and his sociological research into gangs on the streets of Chicago. I find it one of the more compelling looks at what sociologists (Ethnographers specifically) have to do and go through in modern urban societies to try and do legitimate field work. Think of not only the personal challenges and risks but the additional struggles of getting people to support you and accept your work as a professional when so many other sociologists just believe in examining abstract data and macro-trends that Mr. Venkatesh had to face.

In Gang Leader for a Day you see the recent challenges faced by Mr. Venkatesh. If you would like to read more about him, his work, and hear him read from his book go to this link at NPR.
Additionally there is a discussion regarding and involving Mr. Venkatesh and this book about how much credit and $$$$$ he deserves versus J.T. the gang leader who helped him. Go here to read this piece in Slate magazine.

Possible topics for this weeks blog can be about this reading.....differences and thoughts about Macro sociology versus micro sociology? Challenges of doing field research? Who deserves the $$$ for research/books J.T. (the subjects) or the authors (Mr. Venkatesh)? I look forward to your thoughts.

Social Constructs

Now that you all know how to shake hands lefty, and that some of us aren't so ambidextrous as we thought, we can begin to look at how society constructs our realities from handshakes to cannibalism.

After reading about the survivors of the F-227 crash in the Andes and the ways they had to adjust their concepts of reality to allow themselves to eat the bodies of the dead and experiencing how odd it feels to violate your societal rules on handshaking, I am sure you can think of many other "realities" in everyday life that you and others never question. Many of these unquestioned realities are constructed by our society for us and with little or no thought given to it by us. Sometimes learning these beliefs and activities are considered part of the acculturation, growing up, fitting in, or being socialized.

What other activities do we do that are not scientifically essential for our survival but we do them practically all the time??? Blog about some examples. Why do we do these things? How does society teach us to do them? What happens if we violate these constructs? Why?

Freaks and Geeks

You have all been introduced to 1980's Michigan HS students as portrayed in Freaks and Geeks. A lot of funny scenes and some all too familiar scenarios (for me) but more importantly, a really nice piece of sociological entertainment. Clearly the writers were using their sociological imagination, as were the actors making the shows in 1999. I have to say looking at their closing homecoming scene it reminded me a lot of the Stevenson Prom I chaperoned last year and the different perspective I have as a teacher and as a person from a different generation. Two different "groups" that I belong in. What do you think your groups would be at Stevenson if they were filming a show here today? Who and what have "power" in the Stevenson world here? What are the important symbols for the school society you live in today in 2009?