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Social Movements.

    This picture above is to represent social change. It does not happen in a year or months; it takes years and centuries for it to happen and last. Social movements most at times lead to a social change. Results from social change can be technological innovation, the emergence of new ideas, changes in cultural identities and conflict between social actors. One way the civil right movement was extended was through the use of radio. Today the invention of computers and the internet has brought significant changes in the community. People can work from homes away from their offices, and we can shop online cutting down resources like gas. in recent years, researchers have presented new studies showing how regular consumption of blueberries lowers a person's risk of having Type 2 diabetes. This information was brought to peoples attention, and they have decided to change their behavior or diet, in turn, bringing about a social change. 

    The results of social change have not always been positive; it can lead to wars and conflict. The division of Germany in the aftermath of world war II is an example. World war II was responsible for the cold war and the founding of the united nations. When ideas cash, new patterns of social organization is formed from their resolution. According to Conley, " this process of conflict and resolution, according to Hegel, is how history proceeds.". So my point here is that although a movement does not produce immediate social change cannot be termed a failure because such things take time to achieve.

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Conley, D. (2017). You may ask yourself: An introduction to thinking like a sociologist. Social Movement and Social Change. New York: W.W. Norton.

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Gender.

     Sexism is a challenging issue; many of our women face today. Sexism occurs when a person's sex or gender is the basis for judgment, discrimination, and hatred against him or her. (Conley, pg. 482). This description sounds so harsh, and many will admit that there is no way they think like it. But even in schools, we see women are involved in fields of study such as arts and humanities while the men dominate areas such as math and physics. At the end of this discrimination, the men are paid more because their work is considered "hard" sciences.

         If women are given or enter into more prestigious career dominated with men, her chances of reaching the very top are limited. Why? This is because of the term glass ceiling which is an invisible limit on women's climb up the occupational ladder. She might be receiving the same pay and benefits a man in her position will have, but it is still believed the man is best suited for the managerial role. When a woman does break through and gain the administrative role, she is considered the numerical minority, token or a stand-in for all women. (Conley, pg.490). Let us take for example law firms; the women population for paralegals is higher than the lawyers. Paralegals are expected to be caring and motherly toward the trial lawyers they work for. The lawyers, on the other hand, are told to excel it takes aggression, intimidation, and manipulation which leans toward the masculine side. Female lawyers are more insulted while the male lawyers have more success and are respected. 

    Like I said before this issue is being tackled and changes are making some content with where they work.

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Conley, D. (2017). You may ask yourself: An introduction to thinking like a sociologist. Gender. New York: W.W. Norton.

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it wasn't showing up hope you can see it. thanks

Think of how far socialization has come. These magical things such as the internet and media allow us to maintain friendships with people two miles away or abroad. It has made online dating, online shopping and even online schooling possible making our use of time effective. Obviously, some disadvantages come with it. For example, when you are texting a friend, it’s hard to know their facial expression whether they are laughing or not. But with all this, the benefits outway the negatives in my opinion and we keep evolving. 

According to Conley, it looks like our human nature would not exist without social interactions. Regarding human nature, he gives an example saying “physiology prompts us to urinate, but its socialization that tells us where and when to urinate.”. (Conley, pg. 215). Anna’s case was brought up in this chapter. She was a young girl who was bound in a chair and left alone entirely in the dark since birth. Food was given to her, but the only human interaction was when her mom brought her food.

Later on, when Anna was found she could not walk, talk or use her limbs. She could not respond to light as healthy kids would either. The nurses and doctors did all they can to help her, but she was never healthy again. It was almost as if she had been born mentally ill. This case showed that we have the human nature we were born with, but with social interactions and the environment we were raised in, we develop.

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Conley, D. (2017). You may ask yourself: An introduction to thinking like a sociologist. Socialization. New York: W.W. Norton.

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Reflection.

Sociology has taught me what makes up a society and different human interactions of the people. Not only did I learn the relation between people but between organizations, institutions, and culture. This class is essential for my career in nursing because I will be working with people of various background and cultures. Knowing something about the beliefs and practices of some cultures will help provide the best care without judgment. personally, the chapter I connected with most was racism. Going through an all-white school, many of my friends will make racist remark intentionally or unintentionally. This made me know racism still exist, and it's ingrained in most of the children at school. Since I had just traveled here, some will say "oh she is fresh from the boat." I could overcome such comments when it was directed to me by being silent and walking away. But when others of my race are being insulted that is where I step in to defend. In all this class has taught me human interactions are vital for our survival and we should do all we can to maintain it.

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Advice

Advice for this class will be to do all your quizzes and discussions and submit them on time. For your reviews, let's say if its due Sunday, send it on Thursday to be on the safe side because points might be deducted. It will be tough but look forward to getting an A by following all the teacher's instructions. Ask questions by emailing your professor because reading the instructions might not always be apparent until you ask. do your best to do some reading before taking the quizzes because they are timed. For this project, it is easy to start whenever your class starts. Make sure you use a desirable image or video that explains the concepts and have adequate explanations. Doing this every week or two weeks will help instead of one sitting that was something I wasn't clearly informed. Discussions come with responses. Two responses are required to get your full grade. What worked well for me were the quizzes and what didn't work well for me is manipulating tumblr. It took some effort to go through the examples my professor had available, and it helps a little. Please make sure you are on time for everything, and a B and above is for sure.

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Introduction

Hi, my name is Abigail Appiah, and I am a second-year nursing student at HACC Lancaster. My hobbies are listening to music and painting self-portraits especially. I recently moved here, Pennsylvania five years ago from Ghana. My favorite subjects are biology and algebra. Someday I will like to travel to London with my best friend and visit my homeland, Ghana. I have three siblings, and I am the oldest. I am taking sociology as my prerequisite for nursing, and this is my required final project. This blog includes the ten topics such as socialization, racism, gender and deviance that we covered during the semester. Most terms are from Videos and pictures that tell a story about a topic is what we are to include in our blog. With the photographs or videos comes a short description of what the post is about. I hope whoever is reading my blog learns something like I have. Thank you.

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Social class

This simple picture describes the American social class perfectly. There are basically 3 economic classes that show the division of finances within America. A class system is an economically based hierarchical system characterized by cohesive, oppositional groups and somewhat loose social mobility. (Conley, pg. 401). To us drawing boundaries around class categories is very important to know where each on falls. Overall the class system boils down to two antagonistic classes in a capitalist society such as America. The employing class(the bourgeoisie) which can represent the upper class and the proletariat or working class which can represent both the middle and working class. The employing level benefits the most in the nation to the point of extracting the surplus value from the working class. This is why many believe they should be taxed more. The working class, on the other hand, works for the employing type and sells its labor and production to the bourgeoisie so that they can receive wages and survive. 

       As far as we know the middle class is what holds all the classes together without them, it will be broken. Therefore being in any of these classes tells your status and maybe your occupation criteria. This brings the question of how the wealthy are the upper class? Wealth is a family's or individual's net worth which includes total assets, minus total debts. (Conley, pg. 410). While income is the money received by a person for work. So those in the upper class are placed there based on their wealth and not that they make at work. The high class tends to save and invest while the middle or other class spend to keep surviving. How can we build our wealth then?

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Conley, D. (2017). You may ask yourself: An introduction to thinking like a sociologist. Stratification. New York: W.W. Norton.

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Deviance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl7ZDnB4cn0

Social deviance is a term that sounds harsh as we think of crime when we hear it. However, what is it, according to sociologist? It can mean any transgression of socially established norms. It ranges from minor actions to committing a crime. Acts such as farting, picking your nose and spitting in public are not wrong to do but because it is not the social norm we sense it is somehow wrong. (Conley, pg.317). How can we tell? By the glares, people give us when we act like that. Then we have formal deviance or crime which is the violation of laws enacted by society.

Such persons are punished depending on the seriousness of the offense. Parking at a wrong spot will result in you having a fine to committing murder will lead to incarceration. The video posted above is a school project where students portray acts that we usually will not do in public to see the response of people. Like I said before, not everyone will walk up to you and say change your deviant act, but they give one intimidating looks. Many in the video just watched and walked by. The student who pretended to pee though was reprimanded by a man. The student tries to explain that it is a school project, but the man insisted that it is still illegal and should not be done. This all depends on the environment and its usual standard of ways. Labeling someone as a deviant person can be powerful as they will live by that label. They stick with the name and might not go back to who there were.

So to conclude social norms put everyone in place in a community.

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Conley, D. (2017). You may ask yourself: An introduction to thinking like a sociologist. Social Control and Deviance. New York: W.W. Norton.

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Culture

               When you type culture in the google such and go to images all that pop up are people of a different color with intriguing outfits. Or different shades of hands held together, but what really is culture. According to the textbook, You May Ask Yourself, it is the sum of social categories and concepts we embrace in addition to belief, behaviors, and practice. So this is everything but the natural environment. The culture of a people is not automatically passed on after birth; instead, it is acquired and taught by family and friends. Colonialism and migration are factors that led to the dispersal of culture. Its either we are learning a groups culture, or they assimilate with the dominant's culture. 

                     Everyone is proud of where they came from their culture or at least I am but to what extent. Ethnocentrism is a term pertaining to culture. It is the belief that one's own culture or group is superior to others and the tendency to view all other cultures from the perspective of one's own. This attitude is what contributed to racism. "It was believed that non-westerners did not have souls and weren't human, and this notion was used to justify slavery, violence, and oppression.". (Conley, pg.157). Times have changed, and people will say that is not the truth, but there are a few who look down on some cultures. Instead of having such an attitude why not get to know the practices and reasons for the ways of their culture. This will merge different ideas which will benefit the nation.

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Conley, D. (2017). You may ask yourself: An introduction to thinking like a sociologist. Culture and Media. New York: W.W. Norton.

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Research

https://theconversation.com/young-people-worldwide-fear-a-lack-of-economic-opportunities-its-easy-to-see-why-65248 

       This article is about the issue of unemployment in the youth population. They are in fear of being independent without financial stability. To make the reader understand the seriousness of the message numbers were used in explaining. This type of research is known as, quantitative method. It is a method used by sociologist to obtain information about the social world that is already in or can be converted to numeric form. (Conley, pg. 111). They can control groups to determine how changes in one factor affect another social outcome. With this method of research surveys and interviews are incorporated to get the statistics. This segment is an example. "since the global financial crisis of 2008, the number of youth that is neither in employment, education or training has actually risen by 1.4% to 11.8%. This equates to 580,000 young people.". These two numbers help us know how much youths without education has risen by percentage and the actual number. 

   "There is also a clear disparity by gender. Young women are 50% more likely to be stuck in a NEET situation than men. This is well above the OECD average of 36% for gender disparity.". The numerical data does not only tell what amount is not educated but also which gender is more favored according to the quote above. Proper documentation can help the government or nation to come up with a solution to this issue. This article they realized they have not even touched the surface of unemployment, so something needed to be done immediately.

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Conley, D. (2017). You may ask yourself: An introduction to thinking like a sociologist. New York: W.W. Norton.

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Think like a socialist...

It is hard to think like a socialist because of the many theories they base their concepts on but here are three basic ones. They include functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interaction.

A functionalist will define himself as someone who believes social institutions and processes in society exist to serve some essential or necessary function to keep the community running. (Conley, pg.91). Meaning the government, media, schools, hospitals and even criminals have a vital role to play in the society to keep it going. They are all needed to work as a unit for the nation to progress. The next is conflict theory. These group of people has the idea that conflict between competing interests is the primary, animating force of social change and society in general. (Conley, pg. 92). While the functionalist is saying everyone works together in a community, conflict theory is saying there is competition at all levels of analysis. From individual to nation causing a social change such as war. This, in turn, brings division among different classes or groups in a society.

The last but not the least group is symbolic interactionism. This theory believes shared meanings, orientations, and assumptions form the underlying motivations behind people's actions. (Conley, pg. 94). For example, a red light will inform people to act in response to the purpose of that light which is to stop. People of a standard background are more likely to understand familiar gestures and language that a foreign individual. Information such as these is what helps us in our everyday interactions with people.

These are a few of the theories socialists use, among these are midrange theory and feminist theory.

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Conley, D. (2017). You may ask yourself: An introduction to thinking like a sociologist. The Sociological Imagination. New York: W.W. Norton.

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        We want everything fast and efficient to the extent of our health. What is the cost of that sacrifice? Well according to the video above many want out of the hospital as soon as they can. McDonaldization is a term developed by George-Ritzer to define how society is adapting characteristics of a fast food restaurant like Mcdonalds. This brings about social change in the community. I worked at Wendy's for some time, and customers expect you to work like a robot or faster once they placed their order. Well, what Ritzer was saying is that this attitude has spread to another aspect other than food and one I found had to do with patient care. With the help of technology, we have come up with laparoscopic and endoscopic surgeries that require maybe an inch incision which allows a patient to leave the hospital the same day after the procedure. 

     Such expectations come with advantages and disadvantages. Benefits are obviously you get home and rest in your comfortable bed but what about the risk. Risk of complications such as infections and maintaining your health while out of the hospital unstable. The more emphasis we place on being efficient, more predictable and replacing human by nonhuman technology then we have to accept when the consequence that comes with it. In his article, Ritzer said,” What is needed is not a less rational society, but greater control over the process of rationalization involving, among other things, efforts to ameliorate its irrational consequences.” 

Ritzer, G. (1983), The “McDonaldization” of society. Journal of American Culture, 6(1), 100-107. doi:10.1111/j.1542-734X.1983.0601_100.x.

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    Oh, this video breaks my heart every time I see it. If the subjects were adults, I would not be stunned, but these are little kids who are innocent and have little to no experience in life. What actually is racism? It is a belief that members of separate races possess different and unequal traits. (Conley, pg. 506). This leads to both the dominant and nondominant race looking down on the minority.

     Nowadays racism is not just looking at a set of physical characteristics but something that comes with social implications. Two terms related to this topic are one-drop rule and miscegenation. At one point in America was the "one-drop rule" which asserted that just "one drop" of black blood makes a person black. This rule was built upon and developed laws passed in many US states forbidding miscegenation which is interracial marriage. This made it clear that anyone of black lineage fell on the unfortunate side of the racial divide, so the rule made sure there were two societies: one black and other one white. With this history and what children see on the news about the mistreatment of black people, they are prone to think their own race is terrible and violent and the whites are much nicer and beautiful to be with. These children will grow up with insecurities that are hidden and will not be confident enough to show that they can be successful. They too are privileged. 

     This issue is not easy to solve as these children go to school and can be told the opposite of what you want them to know. But I think parents should do their best to encourage kids to talk to them about any little problems they face and teach them the right way to view themselves.

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Conley, D. (2017). You may ask yourself: An introduction to thinking like a sociologist. Race New York: W.W. Norton.

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Think of how far socialization has come. These magical things such as the internet and media allow us to maintain friendships with people two miles away or abroad. It has made online dating, online shopping and even online schooling possible making our use of time effective. Obviously, some disadvantages come with it. For example, when you are texting a friend, it's hard to know their facial expression whether they are laughing or not. But with all this, the benefits outway the negatives in my opinion and we keep evolving. 

According to Conley, it looks like our human nature would not exist without social interactions. Regarding human nature, he gives an example saying "physiology prompts us to urinate, but its socialization that tells us where and when to urinate.". (Conley, pg. 215). Anna's case was brought up in this chapter. She was a young girl who was bound in a chair and left alone entirely in the dark since birth. Food was given to her, but the only human interaction was when her mom brought her food.

Later on, when Anna was found she could not walk, talk or use her limbs. She could not respond to light as healthy kids would either. The nurses and doctors did all they can to help her, but she was never healthy again. It was almost as if she had been born mentally ill. This case showed that we have the human nature we were born with, but with social interactions and the environment we were raised in, we develop.

word count 256

Conley, D. (2017). You may ask yourself: An introduction to thinking like a sociologist. Socialization. New York: W.W. Norton.