Differences in Culture

Throughout this week, we have been discussing the differences we encounter from culture to culture. We talked of differences in language and daily lifestyles, we read an article regarding how cultures value time differently, and we even compared and contrasted toilets from different cultures. This reminded me of something we learned in AP Psychology recently. Researchers placed a basket with food, clothing, tools, etc. and asked a tribe in Liberia, the Kpelle tribe, to sort these items. Of course, we would sort the food with other food, the clothing with other clothing, and so forth. Members of this tribe didn't do this! Instead, they sorted a tool and a food together, the knife and the potato, because the knife is used to peel the potato. Then, the researchers asked them to sort the items the "fool's way" and they sorted the items exactly as we would. This shows that cultures develop different ways to see things around them. When we look at that basket, we place items together that are similar. When they look at the basket, they pair the items based on their functions. We respond differently, than other cultures do, to almost everything. In order to comprehend the world around us and avoid developing ingroups and outgroups, we must remind ourselves to see things cultures do/think as "different", not "wrong"

Gang Leader for a Day

This week we read an excerpt from the book Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh. Venkatesh was interested in studying the poor living in the projects of Chicago. He was just beginning to learn the procedure of interviewing someone and he set up a list of impersonal multiple choice questions he expected would be answered easily. To his surprise, he was not welcomed to the neighborhood by a gang, called the Black Kings. The part of this chapter that really surprised me was when the leader of the gang told Venkatesh he could meet him and his gang members at the same spot the following week, and that Venkatesh actually accepted his offer. Eventually, he ends up hanging out with them and learning a lot without interviewing them directly. It was really brave of him to do this for his career and it was shocking to see that he would go this far. Relating to Charon's article regarding categorizations and generalizations, Venkatesh uses his natural skill of categorizing when he hangs out with these gang members. Since he was studying to become a sociologist, he had the advantage of knowing that using negative assumptions when categorizing makes them his categorizations inaccurate. If you notice, he never judges or racially stereotypes people in the gang or people in the neighborhood. When generalizing, he makes intelligent ones. For example, even though the gang members wouldn't let him accomplish his goal when he first came into the neighborhood, he shouldn't try to harm a gang leader or gang members because he could risk getting hurt. This shows that no matter who you are, sociologist or not, people generalize others naturally. These categorizations are useful because they protect us and help us understand our surroundings. However, we should be careful to prevent these categorizations from becoming racial stereotypes or negative assumptions about a group of people.

Complex You

In class, on Wednesday, we sat in a huge circle and we were asked to classify ourselves in groups we are a part of. Whether we put down that we're apart of a certain sport, a family, a group of friends, or a certain sexuality, we were also asked to list our status within each group. Finally, we placed a star by the status we saw as being the most important, the status we define ourselves as. The people who thought their role/status in their family defined them said so because they were so close to their family members that, without them, they would be a different person. The people whose top choice regarded their status in sports, believed their lives are the way they are today because of the sport they play; they believe they have the type of friends they have because of this sport, they manage their time the way they do because of this sport, and their attitude is the way it is because of that sport. This activity showed me how complex people are because of one thing; one group they were involved with had such a large effect that it has made them the person they are today. People are used to developing schemas about people in their mind, and by using confirmation bias, if they see one person in their schema group that fits that schema, they will see everyone in that group as the same. This activity really showed that everyone is different; no two people are ever replicas. We should open our eyes and realize that everyone is their own, unique individual.

The Social Construction of Reality

In class this week, we learned about the social construction of reality; our reality is what we create. Our society creates the "norm" and the norm is different everywhere you go. At Stevenson, we've constructed a society where we sit down at 8:05 every monday-friday morning, watch the announcements, take out our notes, and stare at the teacher until he/she speaks. We get 55 mins to eat lunch and, if we leave campus, we usually just go to a fast food restaurant. In Europe, it's completely different. They get enough time to go home for lunch, because they have constructed a reality where eating with family and friends is really important. Going back to what Sal was talking about in class, regarding the bathrooms we have in America, we have constructed a reality where we have the toilet, the shower, and the bathroom all in one room. In Japan they find the fact that we bathe in our own filth when we take baths is disgusting. In Iran, they believe that our toilets are unsanitary. Their norm is a toilet that is built into the floor so you can avoid the germs that come from sitting on a toilet seat. When I visited my family there, about five years ago, I was so shocked to see that and I even thought it was weird. However, everyone uses that type of bathroom so they've constructed it to be normal. In the diverse community we live in, we should become more open-minded of the realities other societies construct, in order to understand people better.

Iranian-style Toilet:

Sociological Mindfulness

In class this week, we spent our time discussing sociological imagination and sociological mindfulness, along with the importance of the two. Sociological imagination is recognizing how our surroundings and our relationship can shape us into the people we are today. Reading "Outliers: The Story of Success" by Malcolm Gladwell, I was surprised by the results Wolf, a physician in the town of Roseto, obtained regarding the Rosetans' health. He found out that the death rate of citizens in Roseto was "thirty or thirty five percent lower than it should have been" and that no citizen below the age of 55 acquired heart disease or suffered from heart attack. Normally, this phenomenal result would be due to consistent diet or exercise. However, Wolf found that the lifestyle Rosetans carried out, being kind and caring to everyone in the town, was the reason the death rate was so low. Rosetans were shaped by their environment. If they lived in a town polluted with cruel, ignorant citizens, the death rate may in fact have been higher. It gives us something to think about; Do you think the community you live in and the people you interact with have actively shaped you into the person you are now?

Sociological mindfulness is understanding that our actions have consequences and have a big part in affecting people around us and even affecting us. In the excerpt from Michael Schwalbe's "The Sociologically Examined Life", Schwalbe mentions that sociological mindfulness "is especially important for helping us see that the consequences of our words and deeds often escape our intentions". Basically, he says we need to step back and notice how everything we do/say has an affect on other people, even though we might not mean anything by what we do. By understanding and taking a part in being sociologically mindful, we will learn to become more compassionate people, leading our world to a more peaceful future.

A great example that involves sociological imagination and sociological mindfulness is the movie Mean Girls. Karen, Regina, Cady, and Gretchen are a part of the popular clique, that go by the name "The Plastics". All they do is terrorize other people to make themselves feel superior. In the beginning, Cady, played by Lindsay Lohan, comes to a high school in North Shore as a polite and innocent home-schooled transfer student from Africa. Dared to become friends with The Plastics, she ends up becoming a corrupt, self-absorbed snob due to the people who surrounded her. In the end, after a burn book that her and her friends created gets exposed, she becomes sociologically mindful. Cady thinks about everyone she's hurt since she's been there and apologizes sincerely. By becoming sociologically mindful, she becomes a better person and becomes more aware of her actions when seeing how they directly hurt her peers and how her actions came back to haunt her. She also realizes she's changed as a person because she moved from a place where she was mostly with animals and her family to a place where everyone else in her clique were snobby, shaping her into a snob.

This clip shows how Cady is shaped by the high school "girl world" she is exposed to and this, along with her individual motives, leads her to forgetting about sociological mindfulness. Not being sociological mindful, her actions have the consequence she didn't want and make the situation worse for her.

Is Technology Really Making Us Grow?

People are always mentioning how our society is growing rapidly each day, once a new piece of technology is introduced. There's the phone, made to make long-distance communication easier, but it has made us avoid conversations with people who aren't so far away. There's the internet, giving birth to myspace and facebook and other social networking websites. However, those have just pushed us away from communicating with individuals face-to-face, as well. Why start a meaningful conversation in person when you can just go on your smart phone and post a youtube video on that person's wall to express your feelings?

Recently, in English class, we read an article entitled "The Future of Creativity" by Jeannine Ouellette. The article mentioned how, due to technologic advancements, we are no longer creative and lack a sense of imagination. When there were no computers or television, children voluntarily played outside with other children, inventing their own games and expressing their sense of imagination. Contemporary times portray that as "boring" and inferior to playing a bowling game on the Wii or staying on the couch, watching a movie marathon. We've been brainwashed into having entertainment and technology do all the thinking and imagining for us.

Instead of consuming ourselves in all this technology, we must take a step backwards and put ourselves in the mindset of children, allowing our naturally creative minds to let us grow.

About me :)

Everyone has a different definition of what they want in life, that certain image that floods their mind and pushes them to want to leap and grab it so badly. Traveling back and forth between Iran and Italy until age three, life seemed like a breeze. Writing songs about braiding my hair and about how jealous my mom's friends would be not having my messy, braided hair was just about the hardest thing in my life. I moved to the US at age three and life really began from there.

When people ask me about my dad and his death, I really don't know how to respond. I was still a toddler when he passed away and don't have much of memory of it. When someone close to you dies, people expect that stereotypical, dramatic reaction whenever the name of the deceased is even mentioned. However, like it or not, everyone will lose someone they love and care for at least once in his/her life. It's an unfortunate part of life and it hits you hard every time. Even though it sounds cliche, being happy for who you still have and what you still have is all you can do. I'm more than happy to have my mom there for me every single day. I look up to her so much, raising a child single handedly, knowing nothing but broken English during the toughest of times.

I've always loved animals and, after many fish and a golden retriever, my mom brought me home two kittens named "Romeo" and "Juliet". I had them for three years and they had even had kittens of their own. Romeo became very ill one summer and acquired a urethra blockage. The surgery costed more than we could afford so we had to give it up to a no-kill shelter that would pay for his procedure. That was the day I decided I was going to work hard and become a vet. I've never wanted anything more in my life and on the day I graduate Veterinary School, I will give all the credit to my mom for showing me that working hard for what you believe in is worth the drain it first brings.