The United States has one percent of its adult population locked up behind bars. One out of four prisoners IN THE WORLD is behind bars in the US. Over 50 percent of those incarcerated in a federal prison is convicted of a crime related to drugs. Here is a visual representation of the prison population. Approximately 16 percent of those incarcerated in America suffer from a mental illness. Here is an article from the International Herald last week detailing the shocking size of the US penal population. Are these statistics surprising? How does this affect our society? How should we begin working to change this dynamic, or is the system fine the way it is? Do you see how the relativity of deviance affects this? As attitudes change, laws change, and that affects who is incarcerated and how society deals with it.
Some other examples of how this applies to life beyond high school are the ways in which our society focuses on street crime as opposed to white collar crime. Most of the news each night is spent on street crime: murders, burglary, robbery and rape. The popular media likes reporting on these because they are action-oriented, personalized and fearful. Each crime is presented like a mini-drama story. However, white collar crime is far more costly and perhaps more dangerous. White collar crime includes tax evasion, bribery, embezzling, negligence. For example, a department store defrauded poor customers of over 100 million dollars; tire company executives allowed faulty tires to remain on vehicles despite recalling the tires in other countries - 200 people were killed before the tires were removed; an oil company skirted safeguards which resulted in an explosion and environmental disaster killing 12 people and costing billions of dollars. In each of these cases, there may have been fines imposed on the companies involved, but no one went to prison. No one received a felony record. I bet you cannot name an individual person involved in the incident because no one person was labeled as deviant. Another example of this is Freaks and Geeks episode 13 Lindsay is experimenting with pot but she does not get caught, but her freek friends get caught. They are expected to be deviant. They may have even accepted the label of being deviant and they now see themselves as deviant and that influences their actions.
Deviance is the repeated or serious violation of society's expectations. What is expected by society varies depending on where you are and when you are there. For example, cell phones used to be unacceptable at any school function just a matter of years ago. Now, I see students wearing cell phones on their waists and they are not perceived as deviant. It should be noted though that deviance doesn't just have to be negative. Check out this story from NPR:
A Victim Treats His Mugger Right Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner. But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn. He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife. "He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, 'Here you go,'" Diaz says. As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm." The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, "like what's going on here?" Diaz says. "He asked me, 'Why are you doing this?'" READ THE WHOLE STORY OR LISTEN TO IT HERE.
What a crazy story. What do you think about that? Another example of positive deviance is this clip of "Snackman," a guy who broke up a fight on a subway in NY while eating potato chips!
So this brings me to the idea that deviance doesn't have to be negative; you can violate the norms of society by doing something positive, such as paying for the toll of a stranger, giving away money (even just a dollar) to someone who doesn't ask for it, offering to carry a fellow student's books/bag for no reason, etc... For a experiment try to violate a norm in a positive way. Try an act of positive deviance. How does it make it you feel? How hard was it to do? How did others react to your positive deviancy?
Deviance is either repeatedly or seriously violating the norms of a society. Deviance is relative to both time and place. In other words, depending on when you are some place or where you are, you might be considered deviant or might not. We looked at many other examples of deviance from class: continuously talking to oneself in public having a tattoo doing your homework holding the hand of a significant other in public listening to your radio loud enough for everyone around you hear. dropping out of high school using illegal drugs growing your hair really long cutting your hair really short a man wearing a dress a business person wearing jeans balancing your groceries on your head in public leaving your parent's home after getting married driving 100 m.p.h. down highway 37 attacking another person with a weapon two men kissing women working in a factory or in construction woman with shaved/unshaved armpits getting divorced All of these have instances when or where they would or wouldn't be considered deviant. It depends on where you are and when you are there.
Deviance also needs to be perceived. In the following video, think about who is considered deviant and why: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmGRJWxLqiE and the 2nd clip below also depicts deviant behavior. And what about the 3rd clip?
It doesn't matter that Jerry didn't actually picked his nose. If he is perceived as deviant (which he is) then he is considered deviant and he will be treated as such. Same with the second clip where a the man has the broken middle finger but if he waves it around it still violates the norms of society. And the 3rd clip is another deviant behavior (swimming pool would fit here also) but do we label people for it?
So we are going to do a "Who am I" personality project. Take the following tests below and follow the instructions for the report. Print your results and include a cover page. Do the test included on this blog in addition to the other ones.
1. Please complete a minimum 350 word report titled "Who am I ?" This report should answer the title question based on the results of the ten tests. Please indicate which tests you thought were the most reliable and valid. Also indicate which tests you thought were the least reliable and valid. Use the psychological definition of reliability and validity as your reference. I am also interested in what you discovered about yourself after taking these tests. Use insight.
2. Include a title page that will present 1-3 symbols or images that accurately reflect your personality. Do not use any words on your title page. You can draw your title page and scan it if you have access to a scanner. Another option is to use a drawing program (e.g., Paint) or copy and paste images from the Internet. You will not be marked on your drawing skills. Please include a summary at the end of the "Who Am I?" report explaining the meaning behind your symbols/pictures.
So in Turkey it is greatly frowned upon for women to smile, at least according to the prime minister. SO women took to social media posting pictures of themselves laughing. Don't believe me-check it out.
So I was thinking we should use the selfie as a learning experience in sociology.
1. Locate three photos of yourself on your phone, computer or posted to social networks you think are flattering. Locate three photos of yourself that you find to be unflattering, funny or embarrassing in some way. Label your six photos A-F, and then write a photo essay in which you explain which pictures would be the best and worst to use for the purposes below. In your explanations, be as specific as you can (e.g. don’t say “this photo looks professional,” explain how and why you came to that conclusion, based on signifiers like clothing, background details, and so forth.)
Thinking in the future exercise: Pretend you are an archeologist from, say 5000 years from now, and these photos are the only existing records of human culture from 2015. What would you know about culture, based solely on these photos? What important information about our culture would be missing?
2. I want you to take a selfie that best envelops your personality. Describe your personality through the selfie.
3. Now I want you to think of what picture the media would use if you were gunned down and take a picture of it-preferably a selfie.
4. Go to the sites above and take a selfie where you try to symbolize, take a stand, or start a social movement such as "the don't shoot me selfie." Please be creative. For an example of a social movement on race go to the "I am Oxford" link.
If you can recruit more people to be involved in #4 it might be worth extra points. Maybe a funny one would be "I don't clash" or "I clash, get over it!" and have a bunch of pictures of clothing that matches or clashes. Just saying...but the more serious the better.
5. Now find another person and have them take a selfie with you. Answer the following: Why did you choose that person and what thought process went into the "before selfie" shot? Think of who you take selfies with. What do group selfies say about you, we as people, and society?
6. Now pick a person (anyone) and based on their personality and how you perceive them-tell them how to take a selfie-include what they should wear, stance, pose, etc. Keep it appropriate though please.
Lastly prepare a presentation of all the above. Do not put it on the blog though. School policy does not allow us to use pictures of students or yourself.
Is Homosexuality A Choice?
We have discussed Nature vs. Nurture in the past but I was reading an article and it made me think of of Lady Gaga and the song "Born this Way." After researching a little more I actually found out a lot of people, including Elton John, have adopted this song as a sort of "Gay anthem." So I thought maybe we should take a look at the lyrics of the song and then read an article on the latest theory of homosexuality.
Summary: Sociologists almost always find strong evidence of nurture over nature in our studies, but there is one research area where the environment and socialization has little influence: sexual orientation. The cartoon at left highlights that while social scientists cannot find links between being gay and socialization factors like parenting styles, biological believers find strong evidence for their nature arguments that claim sexual orientation depends largely on genes, hormones, and birth order. The video also highlights how the research reflects focus almost exclusively on gay men and not lesbians. The core message of this video is still very sociological because it outlines that since sexual orientation is neither an outcome of socialization or a lifestyle choice, “conversion” therapy is not only ineffective, but can actually become a damaging socialization experience itself-which we have already discussed.
