So I am gone on Tuesday.  So we are going to blog on the article(s) from my blog with the TRASH articles.  250 words

So I am gone today, Monday February 3rd.  I want you to read the article on my blog below from January 7th.  It is titled X-box plus unleaded gas etc.  Read the article and blog a reaction to it.  Your reaction should be at least 300 words.  And you need to comment on my blog about the article when you are done.

So here is a cult classic from the 1980's that has a lot of sociological topics.  Socialization, culture, stereotypes, education, family, deviance, socio-economic status, cliques are some of the main sociological topics studied.  Consider the sociological value of the film and connect the film to your own life.  Consider the writing assignment given to the students in detention by Mr. Vernon.  What sociological implications are present in this writing assignment?

I want you to create a 4-5 minute podcast reviewing the movie "The Breakfast Club."  Your review may take the form of an interview (at least 10 questions), a character analysis study or any other form you may think of.  You will create the podcast by using the program audacity.  A tutorial below is available.  You will then need to export it in a wav. file, change the format to mp3 through iTunes, and then create a free account on podomatic to feed your podcast.  You will then be able to link your podcast to your blog for all to hear. 

Creating a Basic Podcast Using Audacity

  To download the above video just right click on the movie reel to the left and select save target as or save link as

To read and/or print a tutorial that shows how to add music and sound effects using Audacity click the icon on the left

Audacity Tutorial for Podcasters (click the movie reel icon to the left) This link will take you to an external website that contains a free podcasting tutorial series using Audacity

Add Music and Sound Effects to Your Podcast: Optional 

You can also include music and sound effects on your podcast? However, there are some restrictions. You can only legally use the first 30 seconds of a song free or include music that has no copyright restrictions on it. There are several websites that provide this. However, the quality ranges from excellent to poor. Findsounds.com is a good website to use. For Jazz music try the Internet Archive.

How to Explain Deviance

-        Cultural- Transmission Theory-Deviance is a learned behavior.  Can be learned by interacting with others who commit deviant acts.  We all conform-just a matter of what we conform to.

-          Structural-Strain Theory-Deviance is a natural outgrowth of values and norms within a society.

                   o   Anomie
                             §  Lack of sufficient guidelines for behavior, causing confusion to society

o   React in one of five ways to achieve goals and means

1.       Conformity-Individuals accept goals and approved means of achievement

                              2.       Innovation-Devise new way to achieve goals – business men and criminals
                                 3.       Ritualism-Find it impossible to meet goals by acceptable so                                          a person chooses to give up the goal but still follow rules of behavior
                              4.       Retreatism-Reject both cultural goals and acceptable means-                                         drug addicts, hermits (retreat from norms of society)
                              5.       Rebellion-substitute your own set of goals and means of achieving.

-          Control Theory-close communities have less crime, weak ties to a community lead to the likelihood of becoming deviant

-          Conflict Theory-Competition and Social Inequality lead to deviance

                   Struggle between people with power and people without power
                        §  People with power want to keep the power
                        §  People without want to gain the power

o   People in power usually define deviant behavior

                            §  Usually works against lower class
          o   Lower class are more likely to be detected and punished
                            §  Don’t necessarily commit more crimes

-          Labeling Theory-Everybody commits deviant acts sometime in their lives

o   Two types of deviants

1.       Primary Deviant

                                           a.       Nonconformity that goes undetected by authority
                                           b.      People not considered deviants

2.       Secondary Deviant

                                          a.       Person labeled as deviant and accepts the label as true
                                      b.      a secondary deviant will deal with label the rest of their lives
                                      c.       becomes the master status

Xbox + unleaded gas=less violent crime?  Say what!

So over break I read an article more or less titled above.  So it's my attempt to bring math into sociology.  But the article poses some serious sociological thinking.  Such as how gas and video games (even violent games) can (arguably) contribute to lower violent crime rates in large cities.
Here is a link to the article.  Read the article and tell me what you think.

By the way the  above is from "Doom" and I don't mean my class.  I mean the video game.