Please post your ideas about the following concepts, which you should be able to define and apply.
CULTURE
NON-MATERIAL CULTURE
MATERIAL CULTURE
SYMBOLS
LANGUAGE
NORMS
MORES
FOLKWAYS
LAWS
TABOOS
SANCTIONS
SOCIAL CONTROL
VALUES
CULTURAL UNIVERSALS
ETHNOCENTRISM
SUBCULTURE
COUNTERCULTURE
SOCIALIZATION
SELF
LOOKING GLASS SELF
ROLE TAKING
SIGNIFICANT OTHERS
GENERALIZED OTHER
AGENTS OF SOCIALIZATION
SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECIES
CULTURAL CAPITAL
For next week, you are asked to Revisit your Thinking paper on Gender. Here are the details: Revisiting Your Paper
In brief, you are to think again about your paper. How you could reorganize, or differently present your ideas? For next week, you will revise one section of your paper choosing from one of the 4 main ideas that you discussed in your original paper. Perhaps you wrote about conforming to or challenging a gender expectation, revisit that idea (from our class this week you should have some new terms that could be useful).
Additionally, you need to provide answers to questions A, B, & C. These are not to be included in your revisted section. However, the questions might raise some further thoughts that could be relevant to how you would revisit your paper.
For next week, bring in your original paper, your revised section and the answers to questions A-C. (please do not use a cover sheet).
If you have questions, please post them.
Happy Writing!
We discussed and applied the theoretical paradigms in relation to Hurricane Katrina. In addition, we began to think about how we know what we think we know, revealing the Social Construction of Reality.
Here are the powerpoint slides used in class:
Week 3 - Sept 13
Be ready to discuss the following questions on tuesday:
C. Wright Mills poses three sets of questions that he says are “the kinds of questions the best social analysts have asked. “Using Mills’ concept of the sociological imagination, apply these three questions listed below to a current social problem. How could you study each of these aspects? Why are these three factors important to understand in sociological research
What is the social structure?
What is the historical period?
What is known about human nature?
Romero argues that Chicana domestic servants are a “hidden population.” List four of the explanations she gives for the difficulties in finding statistical data on Chicana domestic servants.
How does the reading by Romero illustrate C. Wright Mills’ conception of the sociological imagination?
According to Schwalbe, what is “relativity of perspective”? How might sociologists use it as a research tool?
Schwalbe spends a good deal of his article talking about sociological mindfulness. What would sociology be like without sociological mindfulness? How might this affect others?
What does it mean when a researcher says he or she is an insider or outsider in his or her study? Why was Kaplan concerned about her position as an insider?
How does Kaplan think her research will help teenage mothers? What suggestions can you make to improve the lives of teenage mothers?
Here's the assignment, which is due at the beginning of class tomorrow.
For this role-taking assignment you are asked to think and write from a social location other than your own. This is fairly simple and should prove to be a lot of fun. I want you to write a 2 – 3 page paper about a typical day in your life, with one critical difference – you will be writing as if you have suddenly morphed into a member of the opposite sex. This means if you were born female you will adopt a male persona and vice-versa. Write your essay in the first person (use the personal pronoun “I”). What I am looking for are your observations of the various ways that your biological sex affects you. The purpose of this assignment is to discover gender using your budding sociological perspective. If you want to score the full 50 points for this assignment with your first draft, you must address each of the following questions in your essay:
- What are the gender expectations that accompany your new sexual identity?
- What do you think of these new expectations? Will you conform or resist them?
- What are the consequences of compliance/resistance?
- How will your new sex and gender identity affect your plans for the future?
You won’t need to do any library research for this exercise, but you will want to give the matter some careful thought. There are, of course, no right or wrong answers here, but be as specific as possible about how your new sex/gender identity affects your life. Do not get too bogged down in describing your new body – what is most important are your sociological observations. Be creative and fun!
Still wondering...
For this assignment, you have suddenly changed - this was unexpected, and now you are faced with how your life is different. The four questions are designed to get you to focus on the specific ways that your life is impacted by gender. Will your job be the same, do you have a uniform, are there different expectations for men and women, do you think people will talk to you differently? How will you dress, will you conform to gendered expectations, or will will resist them, i.e. wear make up, shave parts of your body, shoe choices, etc. How do you think people will respond to your choices if choose not shave your face, or your legs? What were your plans for the future, did changing sexes alter your plans, why or why not?
Have fun thinking about this, and write an essay about your experiences as a new gender!
We discussed definitions of sociology, and began to develop a sociological perspective. Here are the powerpoint slides used in class.
Your first assignment, due at the beginning of class on Tuesday, is an initial foray into using the sociological perspective. The grading rubric is also in your syllabus. Happy writing!