what i learned in sociology class

First I would like to thank the professor, professor Applewhite for having me in his class I am very grateful.  I had a lot of good experience in the class and I also learned I a lot in the class. In this blog, I will be writing about the class and how it affects me has a student. I learned a lot in the class like socialization, norms "deviance, and also how to make a blog. My experience in the class was very exciting and I will be writing all about it from beginning to end, in this blog assignment.

          The first day of class, I actually thought it was going to be a boring class, I thought I wasn’t going to learn nothing because I wasn’t a big fan of sociology, but I thought wrong. Once professor Applewhite walked with an open welcoming smile I started to doubt my thoughts. He made us laugh by telling us few jokes and related to us as students. The first day of class we all had to watch a film titled “connected but not alone” in a TED conference by Sherry Turkle giving lecture about how we interact through technology. Then we had to write our first blog which was to introduce ourselves to the class. The idea of making a blog really annoyed me, I never wrote a blog before and I felt like making one wouldn’t do much for me. I thought wrong again making blogs was one of the best experience I had in the class because it thought me how to make a blog and how to connect with all my classmates and getting to know them through their blog post .

In the sociology class one of the lessons we learned in class that was really fascinating to me was power and inequality which lead to social status. Before this class I didn’t really know what role and status I was in a society. I actually owned a status in society like being a daughter, student, employee, African, and Nigerian makes me who I am in a society. Also behaviors expected associated with my status like as a student I am expected to go to school, learn, and do what I have to do to pass my class. I also learned about ascribed status which are status you were born with like being a female and my race and achieved status like being in college also being able to take the sociology class.

           I also learned about socialization. Before the class I knew we are who we are by the people we hang out with like friends , just because my mother use to always say that but I didn’t know it was actual fact about socialization she was getting across to me .  Socialization we get who we are by the people we socialize with everyday whether it’s our friends, classmates, or even our parents. If I hangouts with someone that smokes everyday there’s a possibility I will grow up to start smoking as well . If all my friends skateboards I will probably end up skate boarding as well . It’s funny because I never would’ve have thought that. I never use to wear makeup, take time to actually do my hair. But since started high school and socializing with females that wore make up I started to wear makeup.

 I also learned about deviance in my sociology class. The deviance chapter made me realizes that because I think something is wrong really mean it’s wrong it can just be deviance. Like in the United States bathing outside in public might be deviance but in my country Nigeria it’s normal. We are used to it, people bath in front of their property if they want. Every country has something they consider as “deviance” but what is deviance to one cultural is not deviance to another.

The sociology class was very interesting, I made new friends, I learned a lot about other cultural and how our world is shaped globally. This class makes me look at the world in a whole other perspective. I learned a lot in this class. A class I was never interested in, now ended up to be my favorite class this semester. How ironic right! But thanks to the professor for explain step by step until I was clear about what sociology truly is. 

BEYOND BLACK AND WHITES: Remaking Race in America

This article talk about how alot of kids in Amerca can't label thereselve as one race. Because now people are marrying out of thier race. A white man and and African American woman what race would that be ?  this article says that before 2000 intermarried couples had no choice but to put their kid as either black or white, which can be pretty annoying . But now its different now people with more than once race can put "OTHER" as a race . It states in the article that this matters because, how people report themselves provides information needed to implement and enforce important legislation like the voting rights act. The growth of muliracial population is a result of increasing marraiges betwwen non whites and whites. I think this very interesting because i didnt know how much it matters what race you're in and i didnt really care about the other category, now i see that the other category really does matter and it changed the life of the parents and kids with multiracial marraige .

WHAT IS DEVIANCE?

 

 

Deviance is the behavior that goes against the laws like stealing, violence and more which varies from time, place and setting. Deviance varies in time place and setting because in my country Nigeria a lot of things that we do, may be considered deviance in the United States. Like the way some of us take showers. In Nigeria some of the parents bath for their kids outside in public where everyone can see them, because not everyone have a private bathroom , it's either you sharing with the whole building or you bath outside in public. Which is now a collective conscience in Nigeria? If someone from Nigeria comes to the United States and bath in front of their property or even in front of a building it would be look at as deviance because it goes against the norms of the United States. In the reading "Race and class in the American Criminal Justices System” talks about the O. J. Simpson case and how whites have more share of wealth in our society.  O.j Simpson was able to buy himself and a good lawyer for defense because he was wealthy but if he was wealthy they came might have been different than what it was. If it was another black man with no money he might have lost the case and be prisoned. People that are poor and uneducated are automatically looked at as criminals. While people well educated and not really looked at with violence view.

Socialization

Socialization is the process through which people learn their culture's basic norms,value,beliefs and appropriate behaviors to my beliefs and appropriate behaviors to my believes Socialization helps you to survive because it helps you somewhat understand society. You somewhat understand because society is based on immorality which isn't logical and so not understandable. It's based on violence, greed, envy and hate, values that are contra-survival to it's survival and it's citizens. The thing to do is understand this for what it is and have no part of it, if you want to stay sane. Don't react to it, because by reacting to it, you become part of it and further it. Just don't do anything about it. Look at it dispassionately, like you would at looking at a facts sheet of something where nothing is required on your part, it just is what it is, because doing anything, such as trying to repair it, only makes it worse because it comes into conflict with whatever opposite is opposing you, and that sort of thing has been going on since time began and has gotten no one anywhere. In the video " A call to man" the speakers tony porter talks about how society divides the role between male and females. He says males are taught to be strong, not to show to much emotions, also aggressive. While females are taught to be less aggressive and have more emotions if a female act like a man then she is giving a name by society same also go with males. Tony porter uses his own kids as an example, how he treat his son more aggressively and his son more aggressively and his daughter with more emotions.

What do you know about social control ?

Social control is controlling the Norms, which is used in every aspect of our lives in school, at work, in anything thing we do in life we use social control . Without social control there would be a lot of confusion, violence and so many obstacles.  Social control helps us organize our society, it shapes the way we live . I didn't really pay attention to social control  what social control really meant until I read more about in the passages giving to us . Some example of social control is traffic lights and speed limits  they control how fast we drive and we drive, also drinking age restrictions "you have to be 21 before you can drink liquor" religious organizations some religion you have to be a certain age before you can get married another social control can be arrange marriage . There's also social structure . Social control is the way that we structure our society sometimes without even thinking about it because its the way it was always done. Examples from the textbook is like the way we already know  the first day of class we're suppose to sit down in the sits facing the front and the way we Stand in the elevator, we don't stand facing the people in the elevator, we face the door . There's no rule saying we must face the door but because we know the structure of the classroom and the elevator so we did want seem to us appropriate. There are two level of social structure which are "Meso level social structure and Macro level social structure . Meso level is formal rules or job description example agreement on sharing office space or among family members about chores . Macro level social structure focuses more on  social structure, social  problems, and their interrelationships. For example the effects of industrialization on older people's status, or how gender and income affect older people's well being. Social control and social structure helps us shape our society 

The research process and the Standford experiment

In chapter 2 " The Research Process" I read about different techniques social scientist use to describe and measure the patterns in social life. One of the techniques is Identifying and understanding patterns I'm social life and also gathering empirical evidence which are evidence based on observation and or experience, explains how the evidence was collected and analyzed also viewing research claims and provisional knowledge subject to revision . In chapter 2  it also tells us how how theory and data act together in social science. Research theory helps us identify key research questions and to interpret the data that are collected. Data provide the evidence that can support existing theory, lead to changes in the theory, contradict a theory, or result in the development of a new theory.
       One of the research that relates to the chapter 2 reading is the Standford Experiment video . The purpose of Stanford prison experiment was to see the psychological effects on the prison guards and the prisoners. To conduct this experiment, Philip Zimbardo randomly assigned 24 college  students to be either guards or prisoners and to live in a fake prison for the next two weeks. After six days, however, the experiment had to be terminated. The students, who were assigned to be guards, started to mistreat the “prisoners” by calling them names, threatening to beat them, or forcing them to commit humiliating acts. Also the students, who were selected to be prisoners, showed signs of depression, low self-esteem, and other signs of emotional disturbances.  This experiment is a good example of the research process because in this experiment they used a lot of the techniques that social scientist use like empirical evidence, Philip Zimbardo and he's researcher observed that, because  the the prisoners where being mistreated the started to feel depressed .

Culture

What does culture mean to you ? Culture is what you belief, your knowledge, norms language behavior and material object shared by people.  Culture can be passed from generation to generation and some it is referred to as the way of life. Culture consists of  both material and non material elements. Material elements are like objects we can see and touch by people in a particular culture , objects like clothes, toys,painting, and housing which you can find in a museum. Non material culture      refers to the idea of a culture  like values, beliefs, ways on how to understand and live in the world. The idea and practice of culture makes up an entire way of life  affecting how people eat, work, love, think  and live . The element of culture which are Value, which is how people judge the world especially in terms of what is worthwhile like wealth, equals and success. The second one is belief which is people's opinion that people accept as facts like god exist. The third one is Knowledge, which is informations , understanding that make People communicate like language, mathematic and sociological insights . Another element is Norms  which is rules and what people expect to be a appropriate behavior .  Behavior which is also one of the element is the action associated with a group that help produce a distinct way of life like appropriate sexual behavior . The last one is Object and artifact like items that can be touch physically like food clothes and music.  Values, knowledge, beliefs and norms are the idea of a culture which help to shape people's view toward the world, providing unwritten guidebook on what to think and how to behave