Community Service

On Saturday April 12th, 2014 my friends and I volunteered our five hours of our time to participate in Project Dance, an all school dance marathon that raises money for charity. I had gone to Project Dance a few years ago and had enjoyed the experience, so I was excited to do it again this year. It was extremely rewarding to be able to raise money for those who are less fortunate while also having a good time in the process. Just like the previous time I attended Project Dance, I expected there to be dancing, pizza, and various dance performances throughout the night, but this year I was surprised to see the school had gotten a mechanical bull to go with the Country Western theme. Although I didn't get on it myself, it was fun to see my friends try to stay on it the longest.

On Wednesday May 21st, I got the opportunity to volunteer my time at Feed My Starving Children located at 742 E Park Ave, Libertyville,  IL 60048. My friend and I reserved a two spots for the 6:00-7:30 pm time slot and ended up enjoying the experience so much that we stayed for the 8:00-9:30 pm shift as well. Because it was my first time going, and I didn't know what to expect, I was a little bit nervous. But my anxiety disappeared quickly when we were welcomed with open arms by many friendly volunteers and employees. After my friend and I put on our hairnets, all of the volunteers gathered into the orientation room where we were showed a video that showed a hand full of the many children who receive the food they pack there. We were informed that we would be packing Potato - D, as opposed to the Rice that is normally packed. They explained that Potato - D was formulated to aid children who suffer from diarrhea and cannot keep nutrients in their bodies. When they said that Potato - D eliminated the diarrhea of every single children who ate it I was truly amazed and eager to get to work so even more kids could receive the nutrients they need to survive. During the first shift I was in charge of weighing each bag to make sure it had the correct amount food inside it. The second time I scooped the food into the funnel. As I did this I couldn't help but think of the people who would be on the receiving end. Although the bag was only about a third of the way full, I was astonished to hear that it was a shocking 12 servings, what I estimated to be only 1 or 2.

As soon as I returned home I immediately wanted to volunteer my time again. I spoke so highly of it that I unintentionally recruited join me, and we signed up for the next two available times: 6:00-7:30 pm and 8:00-9:30 pm on Friday May 23rd. Unfortunately I had caught a cold and couldn't handle the food, but I was given a different task instead: putting the expiration date labels onto the bag. Because this task is so simple and doesn't need to be prepared or cleaned up after,  I volunteered to work through the half hour break between the two shifts, and ended up helping set up for the next group of volunteers. Similarly to Project Dance, I was surprised at how much fun I had participating at Feed My Starving Children. It was a truly rewarding experience and I plan on volunteering my time there regularly in the future.

Post 7: Gender

Gender role socialization, or the process by which a child begins to exhibit masculine or feminine behaviors, can have a significant impact on a baby even before he or she is born. The four major agents of socialization, family, school, peers, and media, are the main contributors.
Family can influence a child in many ways. A mother's choice of words or tone of voice may be different dependent on the sex of her baby while she's carrying it. With knowledge of the gender of their baby in utero, a couple might decide to paint their nursery pink for a girl or blue for a boy. After the child is born, many things such as clothes and toys will be different depending on if the baby is male or female. These differences act as social pressures or expectations of a child to uphold gender border. 

Often times a child adopts gender specific behavior by observing and imitating their parents. In many households the father will go to work and provide for the family while the mother stays home to cook, clean, and take care of the children. While these gender specific roles have been in place for many years, it is very stereotypical and can instill wrongful notions of superiority and inferiority in children.

When I was younger my brother and I had very different toys that played into this gender stereotype. While I had a pretend washer and dryer, tea set, and Barbie dolls, my brother had a plastic work bench, toy lawn mower, and action figures.

There are differences the educational experiences of boy and girls as well. Teachers tend to favor, challenge, pay more attention to, praise, and punish boys more severely despite the fact that girls are said to receive higher grades when they begin school. Girls are influenced to focus more attention on social skills and appearance rather than intellectual ability, which can make them fall behind academically. This can be problematic in the years to follow, making teenage girls feel less intelligent than their male counterparts, and causing them to be more apprehensive about breaking into male-dominated subjects such as math and science.

Another important agent of socialization is peer groups. Children have a natural tendency to want to play with other kids of the same gender, therefore increasing the chances a child will participate in gender typed activities. For example, if two girls are having a playdate, they are more likely to have a tea party, play with dolls, or give each other makeovers, than they are to rough house, play sports or video games. Children are expected to adhere to these gender borders or face the potential to be bullied, mocked, or harassed by their peers. The need to be liked by ones peers heightens during the teen years. Boys gain prestige through athletic success while girls with physical appearance and popularity. This immense peer pressure can often cause boys to become violent and girls to develop eating disorders from low self esteem.

The media has a particularly weighty effect on gender role socialization. Due to the influx of technological advances in recent years, the media has also become more prevalent, therefore having more of an impact on society and the behaviors of those that reside within it. TV, movies, magazines, books, and music establish portray gender specific behaviors, social norms, and values, which are internalized by children viewers. According to standards as set by the media, women should be beautiful, sensitive, reserved, and compassionate, and men should be strong and assertive.
Young girls are constantly bombarded by advertisements that negatively depict the physical appearance of women, as portrayed in the video "Onslaught" from the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. They feature photographs of actresses and models that are too thin, and/or have edited the pictures into looking a certain way that is otherwise unattainable. Because many young girls aspire to look like the women shown in the magazines but cannot because of the unattainably high standard of beauty, they develop low self esteem or dangerous eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia.

This is the original and edited photographs of Jennifer Lawrence featured in the magazine GQ.

Post 6: Socialization

Socialization is the process by which a society, culture, or social group teaches individuals to become functioning members, and the process by which individuals learn and internalize the values, beliefs, and norms of the group. It works on both a social and individual level because once you learn you group's way of life, you then personalize it to make it your own. The purpose of socialization is twofold: to teach members basic human needs, and for individuals to learn of their shared way of life
The answer to the age old debate on whether it is our genetic makeup (nature) or social interactions (nurture) that makes us who we are is simple: it's both. While it is nature that gives us a basic idea of who we as an individual, ultimately it is how we are nurtured that lets us become who we are. Human behavior is learned and shaped through social interaction. Affecting the nurture process are whats called agents of socialization, or "people and groups that influence our self-concept, emotions, attitudes, and behavior..." (Agents of Socialization). Examples include family, mass media, religion, school, peers, sports, and the workplace.
Many agents of socialization affect my family and I. For example, my brother, my dad, and I are what my dad likes call "power users," or people with the ability to use, understand, and explore more advanced technology and technological features of programs than the an average user. The agent of socialization that affects my brother and I in this way is mass media. Due to the fact that we were born in the age of technology, we have grown accustomed to using it. Whereas my mom, who didn't grow up with as much technological influence as we did, struggles with it more than we do. But my dad was born around the same time as my mom and yet he doesn't have as hard of a time as she does. This is because my dad is the information technologies director at a real estate management company. Because of his occupation, or his workplace, my dad had more advanced technological abilities than my mom.

Post 3: In-groups/Out-groups, Macrosociology/Microsociology, Social Construction of Reality, and Generalization, Categories, and Stereotypes.

During the second half of unit one we learned about in-groups and out-groups. An in-group is most commonly defined as a group an individual feels loyalty toward, and can identify with. An out-group is any group that an individual feels opposed to, conflict with, or hostility toward. In the movie, A Bronx Tale, there are many in-groups and out-groups. For example, throughout the movie Calogero's friends get upset when the black kids pass through their neighborhood. In this instance, Calogero's friends consist of the in-group, and the black kids are the out-group.

We also explored macrosociology and microsociology this unit. Macrosociology is the level of analysis that studies large-scale social structures in order to determine how they affect the lives of groups and individuals. Microsociology is the level of analysis that studies face-to-face and small-group interactions in order to understand how those interactions affect the larger patterns and institutions of society. Examples of macrosociology and microsociology are present in the movie, A Bronx Tale. In the beginning of the movie, when Calogero was a boy, we see him and his friends sitting on the stoop outside. When a bus full of black kids drive through the neighborhood Calogero's friend becomes upset. Calogero tries to reason with his friend by saying “they don’t live here, they’re just passing through,” but Calogero's friend says, “well, my father said that’s how it starts.” Racism is rampant throughout this movie as a result of the time period it is set in, which is considered to be a macrosociological value. But, despite growing up in the same neighborhood, Calogero and his friend feel differently about the subject. Whereas Calogero is more passive about the issue, his friend is more aggressive. This is a result of microsociologic influences. While the major macrosociologic issue of racism influenced both of them, Calogero and his friend were affected differently, or microsociologically, by how their respective parents raised them to view the matter.

Everyone perceives and experiences the world differently; therefore everyone's reality is different. Yet all of our lives are socially constructed by the impact society has on how we experience the world. While one may feel they are in complete control of their life, this is not the case. It is actually quite the opposite; our reality, which consists of our experiences, is created, or constructed, by the people of whom we surround ourselves with. This concept is called the social construction of reality. Although we may not notice it, most of our everyday lives are socially constructed. For example, in America, we drive on the right side of the road, but in countries like Japan and England, they drive on the left.

We also learned about generalizations, categories, and stereotypes in Joel Charon’s Should We Generalize. According to Charon, it is impossible for people to refrain from generalizing or categorizing, for whether or not we realize, most of our functions on such organization tactics. In fact, “the whole purpose of social science is to achieve accurate categorizations and generalizations about human begins. Indeed the purpose of almost all academic pursuits involves learning, understanding, and developing accurate categories and generalizations.”

Organizing people and ideas can even be helpful. For example, we know that people who are sick are also contagious, and unless we want to get sick ourselves we should stay away from him or her until they get better. By doing so, we are “generalizing about ‘those with colds,’ ‘how people catch colds,’ and ‘how we should act around those with colds.’”

We can also apply knowledge learned through previous situations in which we generalized and compare it to new situations that we don’t understand, for the purpose of determining how to act in such new or unfamiliar circumstance. Doing so allows for us the to “intelligently act” in numerous situations that we otherwise might not have had the opportunity to experience.

In order for generalizations and categories to be beneficial, they must be correct. Inaccurate generalizations or categories become stereotypes. Stereotyping can inhibit understanding rather than promote it, which is the reason for social organization. To avoid stereotyping, we must be “open minded and reflective” so that we can determine the quality of our generalizations and categorizations, and change what we know in accordance to a given circumstance.

Often I am wrongfully stereotyped as someone who doesn’t care, or put much effort into my schoolwork because I am frequently absent. When in actuality I miss a lot of school for medical reasons, and because of that I work even harder to attain an education. 

Sociological Imagination and Sociological Mindfulness.

According to C. Wright Mills, the place and time period in which we live, our history, determines who we are, or our biography. He called this concept sociological imagination, or the relationship between one's personal history and biography. Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers exemplifies this notion in that the inhabitants of the isolated town of Roseto, comprised entirely of Italian emigrants, were the only people to evade the crippling heart disease epidemic that was rampant in the United States during the 1950's. Upon word of this, a physician named Stewart Wolf became intrigued, and set out to find out why. Through much observation and experimentation he disproved many initial theories, including: dietary and exercise related habits, genetic predisposition, and geographic location. Wolf eventually realized that the Rosetans were healthy because of their rich history. The town had strong social connections and interactions, and held steadfastly to their values of family and equality, all of which influenced who they were.

Due to my sociological imagination, I know that I am made up of a personal biography and history. I also know that others are affected by where and when they live as well. For this reason, I can see and appreciate that the unique qualities and characteristics of other people. As stated by Michael Schwalbe in his book, The Sociologically Exampled Life, this is the first part of being sociologically mindful, or “tuning-in to how the social world works.” He believes this is important because he feels that a harmonious and democratic society is necessary for one to have a “good life,” and that everyone should have an equal right to one. He also thinks that as humans, we must consider how our actions can affect other people and their chances at a good life, because all of our lives are interconnected.

Schwalbe also states “being sociologically mindful also means paying attention to the hardships and options other people face. If we understand how others’ circumstances differ from ours, we are more likely to show compassion for them and…less likely to condemn them unfairly for doing things we dislike.” This part really struck a chord with me as I have faced much undue discrimination for being diagnosed with what are called invisible illnesses. This means it would be impossible to know I am sick just by looking at me, because I do not have any visible impairment. Despite my seemingly normal appearance, and lack of physical impairments, my illnesses cause physical pain. Due to such symptoms, I need certain accommodations in school that others often perceive as special treatment because it is not blatantly obvious that I need them. For this reason, I am often judged prematurely and erroneously. Through my experiences I have come to terms with the fact that it is impossible for one to truly understand the effects of an invisible illness without actually having one; but with the promotion awareness, and the willingness of others to become aware, people will realize the potentially negative repercussions of their actions on the chances for people like me to have a “good life.” Perhaps if everyone listened to Schwalbe and became more sociologically mindful, unjust discrimination would be less prominent today.

Who am I?

Hey, I'm Brianna (Bree). I'm a senior in high school, and I'm planning on going to college in the fall. I'm not sure where I want to go or what I want do when I grow up, but I know that I want to help others.
I'm most influenced by music, especially live. My friends and I go to concerts a few times a month, and music festivals in the summer. I'm really into rock, alternative rock, punk rock, indie, and other genres in that general vicinity. I also love finding underground bands that haven't been discovered yet.
My mom's name is Julie and my dad's name is Steven. I have a brother, his name is Dylan and is a senior in college. My two dog's are Ginger and Kolby. I got Ginger when I was really little. She got her name from the color of her fur. When we got Kolby I was at summer camp. I would receive letters from my family signed, "mom, dad, Dylan, Ginger and K." I never really noticed that there was a random "K" in there, I just always assumed it was a typo. But sure enough when I returned home we had a new addition to the family.
To answer the question of who I am is kind of difficult for me, as I really don't know myself. I guess as I continue to grow and experience my life I will begin to figure it out.
I'm really excited to be in Sociology and I can't wait to see what the rest of the semester has in store!