Culture Shock

Growing up where we do really shapes what we think and how we act. The things we naturally need to do can be done in so many different ways, like eating, bathing and going to the potty! Sometimes it's hard to think that other cultures could be different than ours and when we find they are, we feel we our culture is correct. That's why we need to be mindful of other cultures and realize it's just another way of living life. I haven't really been anywhere too different from my culture, but my sister went to france a couple years ago and told me they wouldn't let her shower. She had to bathe and she thought that was really different that they never showered.

A Bronx Tale

What really stuck out to me in this movie was the in and out-groups. There are a bunch of groups in this movie. Sonny and his gang, C's family, C's friends and Jane's neighborhood. Looking in at another group that a character was not involved in led to judging. C's friends judged Jane's family and neighborhood; they beat up her brother just simply because he was black. C's dad always judged Sonny and saying he was not trust worthy. It's really easy to judge a group of people, or even one person, when your looking in from the outside. When you don't really know someone you make assumptions which lead to judgements. In Stevenson there are a lot of different groups and it would be impossible to get to know every single person. So how does one go about not judging? You just have to realize that your assumptions might not be true and you don't know what's going on in that persons life. It's really difficult to stop at just assuming and not push it to a judgement.

Gang Leader for a Day

When I first started reading Gang Leader for a Day, they talked about different types of sociological research. They mentioned the scientific type and I thought, well obviously that is the best way to study, using constant data from multiple sources. As the story went on and Sudhir tried to use this method, I saw that it really wasn't working. Using data does help see constants, like with the abandon ship results Salituro has from over the years, but having just that data gets you no where. You need to go deeper and figure out why people do things or feel the way they do. Just like we discussed in class why we chose who to get off the ship to understand why, Sudhir tries to get to know the gang members personally to understand more. I really liked that chapter of Gang Leader for a Day.

Social Construction of Reality

Social construction of reality is how the society we are in makes us see things in certain ways . It's weird to think about how society molds you to think things. I actually had an experience of social construction today. I was drinking tea on the way to class, but I had to go to the bathroom. I thought to myself, is it weird to bring my tea into the bathroom? Society molds us to think that certain things are good or bad, or clean or dirty. Social construction in our high school has made it weird if someone doesn't have internet on their phone or have an ipod. The cool thing about social construction is that it's different everywhere you go because society differs in location.