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Thank you Harry for Sociology of Our Life

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Thank you Harry for Sociology of Our Life

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I can’t believe the semester is already over! It’s flew by so quickly. I just wanted to send you a quick message to say thanks so much for a great semester.
I wish that the year of ends with the brightest Christmas for you and your family. Stay safe and Healthy.
Thank you and Happy Holidays!!!

Best Regards
Irina Sirenchenko

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12/3/20               Mandatory entry                3 Grand theories to explain deviant behavior of illegal drug abuse                           

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12/3/20               Mandatory entry                3 Grand theories to explain deviant behavior of illegal drug abuse                           

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Sociological explanations help us to understand different aspects of our social life. Unfortunately, illegal drugs is also part of our society. Social bonds with friends, schools, families are very important for everyone. Mostly people with not strong bonds are more likely to start using the drugs. With weak bonds they less likely adjust to/accept the social norms and more likely to use drugs and engage in other delinquent behavior. Here, the influence of friends is critical. Usually people start using the drugs, smoke, or drink with peers. Usually it is starts in teenager age because they want to “fit” the group/crowd.

It reminded me myself, when I started to smoke regular cigarettes' in High School just because I wanted to "fit" specific girls' group. I was very shy person back there.

Here I will try to look at “drug using behaving” using the 3 grand sociological theories:

Social Functionalism emphasize the need of stability.

Although it might sound bad, but illegal drugs have positive affects too. Not only illegal drugs make positive physiological effect of users, it is also good for the society in general. Drugs “support” our police, because we need the police to keep the streets safe and clean from drugs. Same with criminal justice system, jail workers, and special social agencies that help to those who need help with addiction. As a result, even though illegal drugs create disfunction in society, it also supports the society. Maintaining the sustainability here is essential.

Social conflict emphasizes the theory of inequality.

Everyone knows that more illegal drugs are used in poor urban areas. Many would say that it comes from racial inequality, poverty, etc. For many poor people who do not have an education, selling the drugs is the way to earn money.

More illegal drugs in poor urban areas results from the poverty, racial inequality, and other conditions affecting people in these locations. Racial and ethnic prejudice and inequality help determine why some drugs are illegal as well as the legal penalties for these drugs. The large multinational corporations that market and sell alcohol, tobacco, and other legal drugs play a powerful role in the popularity of these drugs and lobby Congress to minimize regulation of these drugs. Also, it is well known that for the same weight of two different drugs (for example cocaine vs crack) there are different penalties. It is also well known that crack being used mostly in poor areas with mostly Afro-Americans, while white powder (cocaine) in large cities by white people.

Racial and ethnic prejudice played an important role here. Bid corporations selling tobacco, alcohol, and legal drugs are playing not the last role here as well.

Symbolic interactionalism emphasizes the people’s interaction.

Using the drugs came from people’s interaction. Beginners need to be told how and how much to use the drugs. Because of that type of interaction person get introduce to the illegal drugs, as well as learns the attitude that justify drug use.

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12/2/20                              (H) 446-460                           School and Voting/Education and Politics

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12/2/20                              (H) 446-460                           School and Voting/Education and Politics

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Education is one of the major institutions of social life today, although, along with the family and religion, it is a “secondary institution.” In today's life nature of society as a whole, are determined principally by the “primary institutions,” which today are the economy, the political system, and the military establishment.
According to  Durkheim, “is  the means by which society perpetually recreates the conditions of its very existence.”
The educational institutions are the large bureaucracies run by certified people. Education is the part of the socialization process which takes place in the schools, which are bureaucracies within bureaucracies. This begins from Kindergarten, where child will find opportunities for physical growth, for satisfying his “need for self-expression,” acquire some knowledge, and provide opportunities for creative activity. Although those are being taught in family as well. role. The student role is the repertoire of behavior and attitudes regarded by educators as appropriate to children in school, and for our modern society.
Our book describes the example of how a teacher named Edith has developed the discipline in the children by creating and enforcing a rigid social structure in the classroom through which she effectively controls the behavior of most of the children for most of the school day. Kids have been disciplined to do as they are told by an authoritative person without significant protest.  school. This learning is  principal content of the student role.
Children who submit to school-imposed discipline and come to identify with it, become the good students. Those who submit to the routines of the school but do not come to identify with them will be adequate students who find the more important part of their identities elsewhere, such as in the play group outside school. Children who refuse to submit to the school routines are rebels, who become known as “bad students”, or “problem children.”

Not very comfortable to imagine that we, as a students, are being kind a brainwashed... Although, every culture brainwash in different way...

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For this entry I needed to pick one or two examples of something being weird for me personally.
My "weird" example is wearing pajama in public.
I was born in Russia, where appearance is extremely important. In Russia, it is very hard to find someone who would wear even a little wrinkled clothes. I feel very weird when I see people wearing in public the clothes that I wouldn't even wear at home during the day. It is only for bed time. Period. Many would not agree with me because it is more like normal in US I assume, but still very weird for me personally.
I've been asked to describe what norms were violated. Etiquette norms! There is no limit to my indignation. Those norms was always there in respect of ourselves and others around us.
Wearing PL in public is definitely the sign of person's status. And it is doesn't matter of the race, age, gender, etc. People represent themselves mostly through their look and speech. I never saw Businessman or CEO walking in PJ. Well educated people respect themselves enough not to do that.
There is ONE day called "Pajama Day" when I let my little kids to wear PJ in public. Still feel weird though. Moreover, I usually buy a new one for that day.
Can I imagine myself doing that? No. I can not. Not even on PJDay.  And I don't know anyone from my surrounding who would do that.
I understand that this is the country of freedom, and we all can wear whatever we want but still, I see it as disrespect to people around. For me personally wearing pajama in public is the same as showing up in public wearing only underwear.

https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/arts/stop-wearing-pajamas-in-public-now-8052621

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11/27/20                              (H) 470-480                          Police Accounts of Normal Force                

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11/27/20                              (H) 470-480                          Police Accounts of Normal Force                

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Writer states that that police violence is a regular part of the occupation. Everyone knows, police required to handle a variety of peacekeeping and law enforcement tasks, therefore, the capacity to use force stands at the core of the police mandate. Legal force is that coercion necessary to subdue, control, and restrain a suspect in order to take him into custody. Often the police perceive many forms of illegal force as normal.
“It’s not done on the street the way that it’s taught at the academy”, says police phrase. In the formal world the police academy, teaches to account for force by reference to legality. But in the real world rookies learn that it is more tougher on the streets, and learned formal lessons mostly won't work there. Also, rookies earn respect from experienced officers by being “aggressive” and using whatever force is necessary in a given situation. It's harder for women officers to display their physical abilities in order to overcome sexual bias and obtain full acceptance from co-workers.
Police routinely normalize the use of force by two types of accounts:
-excuses, as excuses therefore constitute socially approved vocabularies for relieving responsibility when conduct is questionable (shootouts, violent fights, pursuits, etc.)
-justifications. is justifying force as normal by reference to interactional situations in which an officer’s authority is physically or symbolically threatened (to gain immediate control over over dangerous situation).
Police also justify the use of extreme force against certain categories of morally reprehensible persons, such as pedophiles, child abusers, cop killers, etc. The more morally reprehensible the act is judged, the more likely the police are to depict any violence directed toward its perpetrator as justifiable.
Of course not in every case the police officer is being exonerated. As a result, officer recognized conceptions of normal force are subject to restrictions of the following kinds:
1. Police recognize some rough equation between the behavior and the harmfulness of the force.
2. In any "punishment" case this force should not be used randomly and without control.
In conclusion, the police must be prepared to use force under circumstances in which its rationale is often morally, legally, and practically ambiguous.

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11/24/20              Personal reading                                The article about the prison made me think...  

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11/24/20              Personal reading                                The article about the prison made me think...  

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"When you lay down to go to sleep, you better be prayed up, because there’s no guarantee you’re waking up. I wanted someone to know, if something happens to me, that I'm not the only victim in here..."

I was reading the article after article. It shocked me. I didn't know such a "hell" exists around us. No war, no aggression, we do live our peaceful happy life, enjoying warm sun, and beautiful sound of birds... US is such a blessed place to live.
My brain and my heart are refusing simple imagine that "another terrible world" as prison's.
I've read and watched these articles and video below for about two hours, it is shocking...

https://prisoninsight.com/how-does-prison-change-a-person/

https://thecrimereport.org/2020/01/16/can-people-change-for-the-better-in-prison/

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180430-the-unexpected-ways-prison-time-changes-people

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV32KQMaQew

This is unbelievable! The more I read, more I realize that prison is making monsters from "lost souls". Even if they were not well behaved people, or made a single  huge mistake in their lives, they eventually come out of the prison as a worst person they could only become. When I think about pedophiles, it scares me the most.
Here is some scary statistics...
*1 in every 115 adults in America was in prison or jail in 2015.
* The 2015 U.S. incarceration rate of 670 people per 100,000 population is the highest in the world
* One in 17 black men aged 30-34 was in prison in 2015, as were 1 in 42 Hispanic males and 1 in 91 white males in the same age group.
* Black males born in 2001 had a 32 percent chance of serving time in prison at some point in their lives; Hispanic males had a 17% change; white males had a 6% chance.
* In 2015, the rate of prison incarceration for black women was double the rate for white women; the rate for Hispanic women was 1.2 times higher.
* Nearly half (46%) of people incarcerated in state prisons in 2015 were convicted of nonviolent drug, property or public order crimes.
* 93% of people in prison are men and 7 percent are women.
I am speechless ...

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We sure are able to tell the sane from insane! Are we?
There are a great deal of conflicting data on the reliability, utility, and meaning of such terms as “sanity,” “insanity,” “mental illness,” and “schizophrenia.” The view has grown that psychological categorization of mental illness is useless at best and downright harmful, misleading, and pejorative at worst.
This article describes the diagnostical experiment with 8 people gaining secret admission to 12 different hospitals. The eight pseudopatients were a varied group: psychologists, a pediatrician, a psychiatrist, a painter. 3 women and 5 men. They chose different location, states, ratios., etc. Only one was private clinic.
The pseudopatient arrived at the admissions office complaining that he had been hearing voices. Beyond alleging the symptoms and falsifying name, vocation, and employment, no further alterations of person, history, or circumstances were made. Right after hospitalization, "patient" stopped imitating, and acted absolutely normal. As anyone of us would act in daily life.
Interesting that despite their public “show” of sanity, the pseudopatients were never detected by personal. Although most of the "real" patients noticed them saying that they are not crazy. The fact tells us that physicians operate with a strong bias toward what statisticians call the type 2 error, which means that physicians are more inclined to call a healthy person sick (just to be safe).
In another experiment the hospital the staff was informed that pseudopatients would attempt to be admitted into the psychiatric hospital. Each staff member should rate each patient who presented himself at admissions. Numbers varied from 19 to 41. Actually, no genuine pseudopatient presented himself during this period. There is no way of knowing!
Unfortunately, having once been labeled schizophrenic, there is nothing the pseudopatient can do to overcome the tag. Once a person is designated abnormal, all of his other behaviors and characteristics are colored by that label. A psychiatric label has a life and an influence of its own on patient, friends, family.
The conclusion here that there is enormous overlap in the behaviors of the sane and the insane.

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After a prisoner read about Zimbardo' experiment, he secretly wrote him a letter. In his letter he detailed described his feeling and how prison affects him. Although he was there for stealing, and admit that he deserves to be there, he says that prison do not help prisoners to get better. In opposite, prison makes them more aggressive. And he does not want to steal anymore, he wants to kill, because prison changed him.
To understand what it
means to be a prisoner or a prison guard, scientists created their own prison with about 20 people (10 prisoners/10 guards). After 6 days they had to close
the project because of members' dramatic changes in virtually every aspect of their behavior, thinking, and feeling. Human values were suspended, self-concepts were challenged, and the ugliest pathological side of human nature surfaced.
Sociologist called off the experiment because of the horror of realized that individual behavior is largely under the control of social forces and environmental contingencies rather than personality traits, character, will power, or other empirically invalidated constructs. As a conclusion, perhaps the majority people can be made to do almost anything when put into psychologically compelling situations regardless of their morals, ethics, values, attitudes, beliefs, or personal convictions.
The mere act of assigning labels to people and putting them into a situation where those labels acquire validity and meaning is sufficient to elicit unpredictable pathological
behavior.
As a result, 70% prisoners fail to rehabilitate in positive way.  Reform must start with people with power, caring about the
well-being of others.

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11/23/20                              (H) 277-286                            24 Eating Your Friends Is the Hardest: The Survivors of the F-227                       

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11/23/20                              (H) 277-286                            24 Eating Your Friends Is the Hardest: The Survivors of the F-227                       

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On October 12, 1972, a propeller-driven Fairchild F-227 left Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo, bound for Santiago, Chile with 40 people on board. They were flying over the turbulence, and hit the mountain. 27 people survived. In 70 days they were only 16. Hunger and starvation began to bear down on them. That time the only chance to survive was to eat dead passengers.
A medical student, Canessa, offered to start eating dead bodies. After hours of arguments, 4 people went outside. Canessa cut the frozen body with piece of broken glass. To start eating human's body, was very stressful moment. Almost everyone, ate that day. Next day they find out that they wont be searched anymore. They realized that they have to eat human body to survive.
Survivors began to organize. Everyone had their own responsibility, ether it was to cut the "meat", others were melting the snow for the water. At the time they developed the rules. Not eating women's bodies, no one had to eat, food was rationed, and pieces are fixed. The only 3 people who will go for help, could eat bigger pieces. They became more organized. Also, constipation became a problem for them.
Finally 3 persons went to search for help. Ten days after, they stumbled into a shepherd's hut. Survivors were saved 4 days before Christmas.

Oh God! I read this story in one breath. This is such a hard story to read. Time to time, during reading, I tried to imagine what or how would I act in this situation? I honestly have no idea! Logically I see the point, but would I be able to eat my family member? "Absolutely NOT. I wouldn't", says my mind. Then I think that probably to survive I would have to...and I feel goosebumps all  over my body. Simple imagining it make me feel nausea. Oh...

Here sociologists derived lessons from this tragedy:
-our world id socially constructed with built-in meanings.
-we determine the meanings
-meanings are arbitrary, so we can change it
-definitions can be outmoded
-changes do not come easily
-anyone who suggests changes most likely to be seen as a threatening deviant
-the source of radical ideas is very important
-with group support, more chances for idea to be accepted
- changed circumstances make people more open to accepting new definitions of reality
-behavior follows definition
-to survive, norms must be
-to be sorted out on a basic of inequality
-human groups tend to organize t themselves
-people attempt to maintain a respectable sense of self
- it is possible to maintain a "good" self-image and still be in deviant activities
-the process of justifying the self actions to others
-to gain institutional support to secure the broad as a solid base for definition of reality.

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11/19/20                         Toy store observation: 

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11/19/20                         Toy store observation: 

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To observe the toys I went to Target on McHenry rd, Modesto. They have several isles full of toys for all ages, from newborn babies to teenagers. First what I noticed is colorfulness. "Very smart marketing", clicked in my brain.
I went closer.
First couple isles was filled with babies toys. Oh Jesus, I even forgot how colorful those toys are. My kids too big for them now. Green, yellow, red, blue...all the colors are sure to get babies attention. In those isles I didn't notice any "by gender" organized colors. One side for boys, another isles for girls, but all of them are in all colors. Probably because babies are too small.
Second and third isles, were toys for 4-7 year old  kids. Here I could clearly see the organization based on gender. On the left side for girls, and right side for boys. Organized by brands and type of entertaining (education, learning, active, beauty, creativity, etc.),  white skin color (only) dolls, unicorns, and many unusual animals were sharing the shelf with the easy recognizable cartoon characters. Behind me, on the isle there are hundreds of cars in different models and styles. Guns and other weapons are sharing this "boys shelf" as well. On the end of the shelf I saw dinosaurs, and robots. Gosh! I wish I had this     " toys heaven" in my childhood.
Anyway, going forward,  fourth to sixth row it were toys and games for kids about 7 and above. Here are the toys not only organized by gender or color, I also noticed something else. "This is not fair", thought flashed in my head. Apparently, knowing that this trip to the store was because of the specific assignment, I paid attention on some features which I wouldn't think about during my regular trip to the store.
Those toys are the prefect way to raise the zombies, or robots, or whatever word will work better, but...
Why all the girls' toys related to care, cooking, beauty, cleaning, houses? And boys' are all about power, strength, weapons, cars, and monsters.  This is so crazy, but I realized that we as a parents are programming our kids' brain that strength and power are not for girl, and vice versa, taking care of babies and a house are not for boys. I did notice that color are also differ by gender, but it wasn't as important as "brainwash" the kids' brain.
The only gender-neutral toys I could find were stuffed animals, and family board games. That's it.
P.S. I for got to mention that out of 100s dolls, I saw only 1 doll, and one Barbie with dark skin.

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I chose to observe the magazine "Dress to Kill"
It is 142 pages magazine that "teaches" to be fashionable and set up the standards for it.
I would never pay attention, may be mostly because I do not read them a lot, but now it made me think. The majority of pictures there are very young ladies. It was about 100 pictures... White, skinny ladies. Yes it was only 5-9 men there, but I am sure it is because of this particular magazine mostly for women. And men there only in role of accessories. And this is ok for women's magazine. But what really surprised me is racial depiction. All the ladies in this magazine are white young ladies, with ideal white skin type, with absolutely NO any body fat, and sexy look. I am not quiet sure about their race, but I would give 90% of chance that all of them are white Americans or White Canadian.
If not this assignment, I would never pay attention on that. And slightly seeing the magazine in the store, while staying on the line, nothing would take my attention. But, I am sure it would touch my feelings if I'd be black lady though...

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I am sure every girl fantasizes about her dream wedding. I am not the exception.
Since I realized what wedding is, I was imagining my own. Of course the older I became, more developed my dream wedding was. I was dreaming meeting a man, looking in his eyes, talking to him, etc. In my dreams it was always kind person with big muscles. LOL  From replaying my own wedding using dolls, to walking around wedding stores as an adult, wedding dreams are always in women's thoughts. It was fun to play with my own imagination, and replay different scenarios. The only things never changed are; white dress, beautiful cake and handsome, kind man.
Now, after my divorce, thinking of wedding gives me immediate goose bumps, but at that time I was a dreamer. I do have an amazing family and person I love, but I never want to hear "will you marry me" again because I quickly realized that those dreams will only be dreams, and it has nothing to do with the reality.

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Observers always fear for the future of America's families; highest divorce rate, percentage of unmarried women, having fewer babies, an epidemic of sexually transmitted disease, drugs, race riots, prostitutions, etc.
In 1950 life looked good compared with the hardship of the Great Depression and WW2.
But much nostalgia for the 1950s is a result of selective amnesia, that life was achieved through censorship, coercion, and discrimination. People with unconventional beliefs faced governmental investigational and arbitrary firing.
Although the rates of unwed childbearing tripled between 1940 and 1958 it wasn't noticeable. It happened because unwanted kids were born outside of the town, troubled youths were encouraged to drop the school, spousal rape was legal, and child abuse was accepted as a normal part of parental discipline.
American Mirror
Muncie, Ind. is the most studied place to observe the typical American family. Caplow discovered that family life was much healthier in the 1970's compared with 1923's.
Today fathers are spending more time with kids, kids were getting more parents' attention, and American kids are safer now.
Families are always having to play catch-up with a changing world. instead. Child labor was abolished. workforce participation by wives and mothers that soon doubled the family income. Women became more independent, as a result they happier with their lives. Women’s new options are good  for their children as well. Kids do better when their mothers are happy with their lives.

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 Chapter 8                         Dreaming of a White Wedding:...

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 Chapter 8                         Dreaming of a White Wedding:...

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1. Introduction
Weddings are both a massive industry, and a powerful ritual/ceremony with benefit like trust, companionship, sexual intimacy, shared finances, and raising children. The white wedding is sociologically significant as a hegemonic cultural ideal.
2. Married with children?...
Our ideas about what counts as family can have powerful social implications, in social policies and government. Although the institution of the family(family operates as an important social institution that organizes social behavior and also contributes to forms of social inequality) continues to be widely regarded as the foundation of society, reality is more complex. Sociologists use term social repro duction to describe reproducing people.
Years ago, marriage was more about practical consideration. In pre-industrial families were bigger, including uncles, aunties, grandparents, etc. When people left the farm to work in factories, this shift to smaller family units in the city. This gave rise to the nuclear family (mom, dad, children). land. With a move towards urban living, it became  possible for people to independently decide whom they wanted to marry. “Love matches” are a contemporary norm, as well as the romantic love is a key motivation for modern marriage (which consider gender equality).
Modern love ideals changed a lot. For example sexual contact prior marriage, or having kids outside of the marriage. Also, the link between women and homemaking has also changed, because women chose to work and be more independent.
Almost half of the marriages in USA end up with divorce. Violence in the family is shockingly common. officials), Feminist scholars argue that violence against women in intimate relationships is a specific manifestation of the patriarchal domination of women by men.
In June 2015, a landmark US Supreme Court ruling legalized gay marriage nationwide
3. The white wedding: A pricey ritual
The average wedding cost is $30,000, plus 2-3 karat diamond. The ritual of the white wedding revolves around the bride’s dress. White dress is an important part of the wedding ritual because it embodies a host of symbolic associations—purity, virginity, tradition, and so forth.
attraction. Scholars suggest that heterosexuality is an institutional force framed around sharply differentiated masculine and feminine gender roles.
Tamarra Sniezek (2005) found the sign of gender inequality in wedding preparation, saying that woman do the most job in wedding preparations as a result of unpaid labor.
Ingraham  writes that wedding mask the conditions of life. Weddings are not just a personal event, but are deeply social inequality. The wedding also operates ideologically in the perpetuation of racial inequality, and differ on ethnic and racial backgrounds.

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The women’s movement represents profound social change. In this chapter we look at the integration of women in the military, and what male soldiers think about them.
Sexual harassment is unwanted sexual comments or advances. Gender harassment is not sexual, and is used to enforce traditional gender roles, or in response to the violation of those roles. For instance
-resistance to authority (challenge women’s authority by not complying completely), or    -constant scrutiny (to catch individual women making mistakes),
-gossip (Gossip is perhaps the most familiar and elementary form of disguised popular aggression, and mostly designed to ruin the reputation, Scott.
-sabotage (found in work fields that nor traditional for women. For instance to earn respect by providing skills and willingness to work hard)
-indirect threats (harassments, raping, etc. )
Why Gender Harassment?  Gender harassment is an attempt to push women back into their natural roles. One of the army captain said, "women should be given totally equal treatment and standards". Male soldiers oppose expanding women’s opportunities because they believe that women already enjoy too many advantages although have not yet met the requirements of the roles they already fill.
Research result shows the  “hostile proponents", that describes that most of the men who favor opening combat roles to women on the same terms as men do so only because they are confident that women will fail in those roles. Some state that the issue of women in the combat arms will not be put to rest until women have been given the opportunity to prove their incompetence.
Women's privileges.
There is no place for women in the infantry, say male soldiers. argue that women do not meet the men's standards. Nowadays there are different privileges for women:
-easier training standards (women's requirements are easier)
-pregnancy as an advantage (deployment, single barracks, easier work-profile)
-better education (women get more opportunities  to get education, which improving  the chance for the promotion)
-exception from combat arms for faster promotion (Male soldiers view women not only as obtaining easier work, but as jumping up the hierarchy without earning it) Some men say that women are useless in army.
-paternalism (whether women being relieved of some hard assignments, or male coworkers had given them special treatment because of their sex)
-quotas, sex, and other path to the top (believes that women can “sleep their way” to the top, and that quotas allow women to receive undeserved promotions and assignments because of their minority status)
Limited forms of protests
During research, when male soldiers were asked about the gender problems, they were afraid to share their opinions. controversial. being concerned that they would be held accountable for any statements that could be considered sexist. They feared an official reprimand and negative consequences for their career.

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11/09/20                               (H) 341-348                            Katz, The importance of being Beautiful                         

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11/09/20                               (H) 341-348                            Katz, The importance of being Beautiful                         

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The main characteristic of all the societies is a social stratification, which means the ranking of the group system. We are constantly being ranked by what we have, no matter if it is a car, a clothes, our family, house, speech, etc. Appearance takes the  central place of the ranking.  As Katz points out, rankings that are based on attractiveness have significant consequences for our lives. Attractiveness helps to find friends at school, helps win the court (or at least get "less punished"), it helps in relationship, as well as in career.
"halo effect"-if you look as super star, it’s assumed that you’re more generous, trustworthy, interesting, and sexually responsive, etc. Conversely, if unattractive, because of the “horns effect” you’re stigmatized as being mean, sneaky, dishonest, antisocial, and a poor sport to boot. Beauty, or the lack of it, influences a person’s entire life. The halo and horns effect comes into play beginning with birth and continues throughout the various stages of life.
In early life...
Beautiful infant gets a lot of attention and love. The Unattractive baby, may suffer neglect and rejection. The unattractive kids were not as well liked by their peers as the attractive ones. They were accused of “fighting a lot,” “hitting other students,” and “yelling at the teacher.”
At schools, teachers tend to judge their pupils largely on the basis of their looks. Parents should be aware that when child is  beautiful, the teacher can be expected to give him more than his share of friendliness, encouragement.
At the college, the "beautiful person reaps an even richer harvest when he or she attends college."-more friends, better grades, and lead more fulfilling social and career lives.
Marriage...
Beautiful person's marriage should be idyllic. An alluring woman has a busier social life, and therefore have a better chance of meeting a compatible mate. They also tend to be more sexually responsive. Even more,  the power of beauty is such that the status of even a homely man skyrockets if he marries a dazzling woman. They become  more self-confidence, likeability, friendliness.
Beauty in career
In you are beautiful, you should not worry a lot about career. York University psychologist Ronald Burke said, “For some reason, “tall men are assumed to be dynamic, decisive, and powerful." An elegant woman herself, attributes at least part of her career success to good looks.
Beauty make it easier to establish rapport.

UGH! that is true. I liked it, and I don't.
It sure helped me a lot at sales job. Funny, but we were 4 sales people in our group. Four male and me, a female. LOL. I was getting 80 percent of male customers. And because we were selling new semi trucks, which absolutely man's business, I was most successful salesperson. It sure was fun.
But, I was always irritating when people would ask why I didn't go in modeling career? I was always responded with one phrase- "Because I am smart enough to earn money using my brain, not body!"

In old age, an elderly person's attractiveness influences the way in which they treated in nursing home and hospitals. They get more time and better care.
Unfortunately, fact. People seldom look beyond a pleasing façade, a superficial attractiveness.

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Men and women represent distinct worlds of socialization, from ideas about sex and love to the best way to be successful in life.
Women often apologize, too often! They should stop it because for man, apologies mean putting oneself down. Although, women's apologizes might not just mean that she feels guilty, in most cases it an automatic way of keeping both speaker on an equal footing, or women do it assuming it will be the first step in a two-step ritual. It is important to know when to apologize, and why, and control the speech based on the reactions.

Now I feel better. :)                Back in Russia, where I lived for 22 years, we didn't have anything like that. If you hear apologizes there, that means person did act bad, or did something wrong. Nothing even close to how often you hear phrase "I am sorry" here in US. I think that is the reason it is so hard, and extremely unusual for me to "spread around" the phrase "I am sorry". I am having a hard time making myself to say it, simple because I didn't do anything wrong. Why would I apologize?! I guess it is the way I grew up.
When I came to US, it took me a while to understand why everyone apologize. No matter if person passing me at the store, (although he sis not on my way at all), or if I share some of my not fun life story, etc. Why would everyone around  apologize, they didn't do anything to me?
This lecture helped me in some dark areas of my understanding. Wait, exactly! About 90 percent of those people who apologized were women.

Another thing here is women act very careful in criticizing. They use more softeners-matter of convention. In most cases, people who prefer criticism given straight are operating on an assumption that feelings aren’t involved.
Many women use "Thank you " as an automatic conversation starter and closer. Their "Thank you" is just a ritual. Though they say it often, they also expect the "matching" response, if not, they feel highly uncomfortable/or not being treating well.
Men expect that the discussion will bring some  ritual verbal "fight". They challenged, .adrenalin makes their brain sharper.  But many women take this approach as a personal attack.
Men and women have different habits in regard to giving praise. When men do not praise, he is probably thinking the no need of it, it is extra work, everything goes well. When women ask for the praise, she is most likely seeking for the compliment.
“Troubles talk”, or complain about the problem, can be a way to establish rapport with a colleague. But while such commiserating is common among women, men are likely to hear it as a request to solve the problem.
The types of humor/jokes women and men tend to prefer differ. The most common form of humor among men is razzing, teasing, and mock-hostile attacks, while among women it’s self-mocking. Women often mistake men’s teasing as genuinely hostile. Men often mistake women’s mock self-deprecation as truly putting themselves down. There is no “right” way to talk. All styles will at times fail with others who don’t share or understand them.

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In this chapter we discuss the relationship between men and women. Thorne and Luria studied kids in forth and fifth graders, and found that the children very careful to separate their friendships based of sex.
Here, "gender" refer to cultural and social phenomena-divisions of labor, activity, and identity.  Children, 9-11 years old, are beginning the transition from gender system childhood to adolescence. At this age they are    on the verge of sexual maturity, cultural adolescence.
Gender segregation is the separation girls and boys in elementary schools, including play grounds. Boys tend to interact in larger and more publicly visible groups (outdoors, more space). Girls more often interact in smaller groups or friendship pairs, organized in shifting alliances.
In daily talk boys in all-male groups often build heightened moments with dirty talk as a staple part of the repertoire. Sports, dirty words, and testing the limits are part of what boys teach boys how to do. Also, a groups of boys appear to be greater risk-takers. A boy group always feel more power, they  experience a shared, arousing context for transgression, with sustained gender group support for rule-breaking. Anonymity enhances the contagious excitement of rule-breaking.
4th-5th grade girls more often organize themselves in pairs of “best friends”. Group can also grow in complex social networks. Since relationships sometimes break off, girls hedge bets by structuring networks of potential friends. They more often engage in small-scale, turn taking play. Girls share secrets, and more focused on constructing intimacy and talking about one-to-one relationships.
Based on Gagnon and Simon, girls learn about romantic before the explicitly sexual. Boys vice versa. Dating are processes in which each sex teaches the other what each wants and expects.

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I was always trying to look a bit better, to become a little bit skinnier...
"Here, I need to add a little more make up here, and now I can go out..."
"I need to go shopping. I look fat in this clothes..."
"Oh, it is time to get a new manicure..."
"I need to get a mask for lightning my skin. This California sun is too strong..."
After reading Chapter 11, I can't stop thinking. Honestly, skinny models are in every magazine, in every ad, in every post. Every time when I go shopping online, every clothes looks so beautiful on pictures. But people, who order those have the same weight range as model that is presenting that clothes on the image. Yes, it sure looks good on her, but girls who eventually end up buying it, get mostly disappointed after trying it on. I feel sad, because most of those women will think that they are not good enough. All those modern stereotypes are harming (or at least make feel sad) most of the women around the nation.
Here a couple article that I was curiously reading.

Yes, Sociology DOES "opens a secret curtain" on the other side of our seemingly so simple and understandable life.

https://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2009/08/thinking-like-a-sociologist-understanding-changes-in-the-ideal-body-size.html

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sexy-science/201602/what-s-really-blame-our-skinny-obsession

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10/04/20                    (JCB) Chapter 11                    Looking good: Ideology, Intersectionality, and the Beauty Industry

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10/04/20                    (JCB) Chapter 11                    Looking good: Ideology, Intersectionality, and the Beauty Industry

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1. Can anyone be beautiful?
Our physical appearance is loaded with sociological meaning. People aim to maximize their physical attractiveness. Our mas media is full of images with  skinny, white, young women, wearing make up.  Those images suggest that beauty is strongly associated with femininity, as well as makeup is an understanding of beauty. The youth, thinness, pale skin. flawless skin, perfect hair, a firm physique, and a fashionable look are all part of this list as well.
Worldwide mass media highlights the way that beauty is socially constructed.
2. Beauty: A Powerful Cultural Ideal
We are constantly being bombarded with advice  on how to improve our appearance. Our focus on the body as an important marker of personhood is unique. Today such body work as makeup, exercise, tattoos, hairstyling, hair-removal, clothing selection, dieting, cosmetic surgery are extremely popular.
Joan Jacobs Brumber (The Body Project, 1997) analyzed the diaries of women with 100 years apart, and  noticed the striking shift in ideals of self-improvement, from the internal betterment of thoughts to the external betterment of physical appearance. Concluding, emphasis on beauty is not natural. It created within a social construction.
2.1 Beauty as a Social Construction
Social construction-categories we use to make sense of the world are socially created, rather than naturally occurring or biologically inevitable.
Our understandings of beauty are fashioned by specific group norms, values, and social processes, influencing our brain. Those categories are deeply shaped by social inequalities, and work to advance the interests of dominant groups, that is racism and sexism itself. (One of the  example here is popularity of whitening the skin.)
2.2 Beauty as an Ideology
Ideologies work to convince us that inequality is natural, and therefore not a problem. Intersectionality attracts the attention to how race, sex, and class to build women's experience.
There are 3 key dimensions:
-gender; historically, feminine beauty has been associated with inactivity, passivity, and submissive body language (heteronormative desire, an object). Men, on other hand, depicted as large, muscled, dominant, athletic, and sexually powerful (a subject).
-race; beauty images work ideologically to naturalize racism, and to present whiteness as the ideal beauty type
-body shape; Body fat-as a fear (fat-phobia). Skinny bodies are attractive and associates with health.  Hegemonic beauty ideals carry considerable social power in shaping our beauty norms and practices.
3. Looking Good: A Growth Industry
Miliann Kang about manicures, “while some women’s bodies are manicured into objects of beauty, other women’s bodies serve as tools for enacting these beauty regimes”. Inequalities are also perpetuated in the labor relations that underpin the beauty industry.
Georg Simmel theorized the fashion cycle- tendency when elites initiate a fashion trend but must find something new to distinguish themselves when the trend is copied by the masses.
view. He believed that fashion brought individualism, differentiation, and visibility in a larger context of social inequality.  But i is eve more complicated. It brings such an positive and negative emotions as confidence, anxiety, fears. It does include the elements of competition.
The worlds of beauty and fashion appeal to many, but do not empower all equally.

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Attractiveness has always been part of the femininity. The appearance of the girls is as important as what they do.
The fact that cheerleaders are seen as team representatives makes their appearance salient in the context of a culture that places a high value on female beauty. They should be highly attractive, clean, in great shape, and of course to have a nice smile.
In fact, male interest in their bodies as being sexual and appealing could arouse the deepest level of appearance anxiety in girls. Discussing the appearance is part of female daily life, especially at school time.  Informal rankings remind girls that they are being evaluated on a daily basis.
Girls' gossip is a huge part of their world as well. Their their conversations are often dominated by cultural standards and male perspectives that highlight the importance of good looks. Besides being appraised on the basis of their attire, girls were also evaluated for their clothes, body weight and type. Girls who were particularly overweight were frequent targets of gossip. Although girls can't control many of those characteristics, Perhaps because of the extensive nature of this type of gossip, girls often try to increase their control over their weight by dieting, which leads, in more severe cases, to eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia.
Through objectification, women are denied their sense of totality. To be viewed primarily as a physical and sexual object. Women must struggle to overcome a perception of self as object rather than subject before they can begin the process of self-definition as total and complete human beings.

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Men still dominate our social institutions. Why?
Is it consequence of genetic heritage, or it is due to culture?
According to sociologists, our masculinity or femininity is not biologically determined. Each of us arrives in this world with a clearly definable physical characteristics. Our parents, consciously and subconsciously, separate us in to two worlds. Colors, clothes, toys, all of this help kids to socialize one or other way. Our parents push us onto a predetermined course. Clothes, like little sailor suits and ties, displays sexual significance. Toys, like trucks or guns, as the symbolic of our future masculinity of courage, competition, daring—and of violence.
Kids learn sexual boundaries of tolerance as well. We can make all sorts of expressive sounds, We always know where is "mom's limit", so we stop right before she loose her tolerance. We know that before party starts, we got nice, clean clothe. And all we have to do is to stay quiet and clean until party starts. Our more boisterous and rougher play continues to help us learn the limits of our parents’ tolerance.
We eventually learn those edges extremely well, if not our parent's wrath will fall abruptly upon us.
Boys, learn that girl live in different reality. boys curious about strange female creatures, who coinhabit their space. They quieter, neater, and more subdued. Kids know that every morning starts with healthy breakfast. Then have have whole day full of adventures, games, and freedom. Childhood, is a time when kids learn to lie, to deny, to avoid, to deceive, to tell half-truths, and to involve ourselves in other sorts of subterfuge rather than to admit violations. Boys' freedom is imaginary world filled with daring and danger.
Soon, the females turned to violent taste and distaste. There are two worlds. Boys protect their sexual boundaries, by shaming sissies.
Then comes the puberty, World is  changing. Boys feel that something is going o inside their bodies, but they not quiet understand those processes yet. They forced into new concepts of masculinity. Here comes gentleness, nice language, consideration.
Then, another radical changes...
Boys learned to be more adept role-players, boning the acting skills. Learned that in order to get what they want, boys must meet the expectations of the one from whom we desire something.
Time to leave the secure men's world of manliness momentarily to penetrate the conjoint world occupied by our feminine counterparts. Although two different worlds combined now, male world diverges in almost all aspects from the world of females. Not only they look, talk, and act differently, but also fundamental thinking and orientations to life contrast sharply.

I am so much feeling it now. My son is !!, daughter is almost 9. two different world under the same roof. SO sensitive to colors. They try to play with others' toys, but always criticize them at the end. They always want to try repeat each other actions, but again say that it is not fun. It clearly mix of curiosity, learning "other gender", and of course staying relevant to their own world. Very nice chapter to read. Thank you

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11/01/20-11/02/20                    (JCB) Chapter 7                       Toys/Gender, Sex and Sexuality

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11/01/20-11/02/20                    (JCB) Chapter 7                       Toys/Gender, Sex and Sexuality

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A 1914 article in the American newspaper the Sunday Sentinel advised to use PINK for boys, and BLUE for girls. The conclusion here is that our ideas about what is suitable for boys or girls are socially constructed.
Today words SEX and GENDER are common used in our society. Sex here refers to biological characteristics (M or F).
Gender refers to the social characteristics, like feeling, attitudes. More how person identify himself as a individual. (Intersex-meaning they do not fit the two-sex model).
Transgender-person whose gender identity does not align with biological sex.
Cisgender-refers to people whose gender identity matches the cultural expectation for their biological sex.
Gender binary-the false idea that all people fit nearly into on or two sex-gender categories (F/M).
Socialization refers to the learning, preparing people to function in their society. The process of socialization starts in the family, then goes through school, social media, university, work. With other words it is the process throughout entire life.
Sociologists state that we learn gender roles from childhood. Gender roles refer to social norms and behaviors considered man and woman division. The concept of gender policing draws attention to how our ways of doing gender are managed and regulated by others, starting from childhood pink/blue colors and boy's/girl's toys, saying that it teach the kids their roles
Sexism-is the term used to describe a belief system that favors masculinity (patriarchy) over femininity.
Rich Kids and Poor Kids...
Toys are also tied up in process of socialization. Lareau identifies two different classes parenting styles: concerned cultivation (middle class parents control kids' development enhancing their cognitive and social skills and improve their performance) and natural growth (working style parents, put kids in charge of their own leisure).
Alison Pugh found that upper-income parents was establishing allowances and rules in order to socialize children's self-control, including limited and not expensive purchases. In contrast, low-income parents were demonstrating that they were buying a lot for kids.
Pugh’s and Williams’s studies show how toys socialize children to understand their role in social stratification. Everything is matter here, from toy stores location, race of the people who work here, till dolls' skin color on the store shelves.

It reminded me about my son. He was 10 years old when I transferred him to different school. On the first day of school I got his clothes ready. When he woke up, he said  that he wont wear them. On my question why, he answered, "Mom, if I wear this, other boys will think that I am not cool, and I wont be able to make friends there." So, instead of jeans and white t-shirt, he put on Nike shorts and sleeveless t-shirt and of course his Jordan's shoes.

Understanding Kids' desire for Toys...
Individual toy purchases and the adult-child negotiations are embedded within structural forces. Marketers see children as savvy consumers with both their own money and significant influence over parents’ spending decisions. As social actors in their own right, kids are not simply “dupes” of capitalist structures, at the same time they don’t fully control the culture they are born into, and their choices are often closely monitored and regulated by adults. Dan Cook that consumer culture is unavoidable and important part of socialization for kids. Consumer goods can facilitate children’s sense of belonging, and be used to establish status as markers of distinction among peers.

That's true. In my family kids are choosing what toys or clothes they want. It is not my decision as a parent anymore. Of course my approval needed, but still it is on them. They know what they want/need, they know how to use it, and moreover I am, as a parent, enjoy it simple because they show the development through making decisions.
P.S. It get's a little tougher for Santa though...

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11/1/20                              Chapter 4                         Coffee: Class, Distinction, and "Good" Taste                  

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11/1/20                              Chapter 4                         Coffee: Class, Distinction, and "Good" Taste                  

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5 am
I finished my coffee, put the empty cup aside and it is time to summarize Chapter.

Consuming the Perfect Coffee...
Our taste not only biological, but also profoundly social, states author in this chapter, while supporting this fact with the example of Melissa, and her morning coffee habit. This was her morning routine for 10 years, until one morning she realized that she never actually liked the taste of coffee.
2. How Consumption Conveys Class and Status
Different social classes consume different things. The term conspicuous consumption (Veblen, 1857-1929), to describe the way social elites purchase high-status items to distinguish themselves and their high status. Juliet Schor (1999), states that contemporary shoppers continue to "upscale" their consumption to emulate the lives of social elites, this called upscale emulation.
Bourdieu (1986) differentiated 3 forms of capital:
economic - refers to the amount of money processed;
social - refers to the value that comes from social relationships and networks;
cultural - refers to knowledge that valued within a culture (embodied as manners, objectified in possession, and institutionalized as education).
Elite groups usually have all 3 types of capital.
3. Coffee Consumption and Social Status
Compared with old days, when coffee was a simple brown drink. Today, coffee become much more than just a drink in huge variety of flavors, it is also a way to express social status and cultural capital. Author describes Starbucks started as a coffee shop where customers could not only enjoy coffee, but also learn about it, which appears as a cultural capital. Soon, Starbucks brand became a symbol of high status. Consuming an everyday “luxury” like Starbucks became a known sign of good taste and sophistication. Today, it continues to offer is a predictable, clean place for people to meet, work, and take a break and enjoy their expensive coffee. Ray Oldenburg developed the concept of third place to describe spaces where people can get together to meet and talk, and contrasted them with the “first place” of a private home, and the “second place” of a workplace. Starbucks as a “third place” resonates with understandings of the chain as a safe, predictable, and comfortable setting,
4. The Paradox of the $4 Cappuccino

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10/30/20                          Required entry                       5. How do other people decide what race you are? Examples?

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10/30/20                          Required entry                       5. How do other people decide what race you are? Examples?

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Everyone describe my look mentioning my height (5'9"), blue eye, brown hair, and of course their mention my "cute" accent.
It is hard to judge myself, I do not feel that I am so much different, compared with people around me, but in some reason everyone notice the differences immediately. I sure like it, but still cant see the difference in my look compared with others.

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10/30/20                          Required entry                            4. How do you decide what race other people are? Example?

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10/30/20                          Required entry                            4. How do you decide what race other people are? Example?

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Honestly, I have never think about this. Well, visually, it sure easy to notice first of all by skin. 1. African-American people have very dark skin, with some specific type of body and hair. By phone, I can notice the accent as well. Their type of speech is a little different.
2. Asian, first of all their shape of eyes, and black hair. Also, their body size is also the sign for me. Their pronunciation is also a sign.
3. Hispanic race had darker skin color, and black hair.  Usually they are medium height. I also noticed some difference in body shape, and accent.
4. Native Hawaiian race, as I can see, have a bigger body shape, also, they have specific face shape.  .
5. White, probably a little harder to explain, because it is my race. Probably, tall, blue eyes, blond or brownish colored hair.

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10/30/20                   Required entry                     3. How did you learn what race you are? Can you tell me about some of the early messages you first received about race in general or your race in particular?

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10/30/20                   Required entry                     3. How did you learn what race you are? Can you tell me about some of the early messages you first received about race in general or your race in particular?

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Nothing special here, I had to learn it while I was filing the immigration papers. I was quickly and clearly explained what means race. Anyway, I was always questioning why those questions are everywhere though.
Yes, I do understand it in immigration papers, social security, or DMV. But why the libraries, doctors, and real estate departments are asking it, not sure? May be for the statistic.

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10/30/20                Required entry                  2. How do you know what is race? How do you make that decision?  

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10/30/20                Required entry                  2. How do you know what is race? How do you make that decision?  

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I have learned it at school, back in Russia. That type of lectures were brief and short. In our little town it was always been only one race of students. I faced the real race difference only when I came to United States. Here, I sure realized how big is the difference in race.
Personally, I do make my decision about person's race based on person's look. The longer I live in United States, the easier to notice the differences in appearance.

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10/28/20             Required entry                           

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10/28/20             Required entry                           

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1. What race for you ?

Each person has one head, two arms and one heart. My personal opinion, it is a mistake to think that races are very different. It's not like that at all. People in different parts of the planet are different from each other. Race is a set of racial traits and their variability in a given population. These features have developed historically in a certain territory and distinguish a specific group of people from their neighbors. And not only by skin color, but also by a host of other indicators. Differences can be biological, these are our genes and how they are implemented in a particular environment and social, these are language, religion, lifestyle, songs and dances, the way we dress, equip our homes, and so on. I personally think t hat it is at least stupid to treats some races with disdain, especially when in multiracial country.

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(H) 369-375                        The Racist Mind

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(H) 369-375                        The Racist Mind

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In US racism has declined considerably these days. But not so long time ago there was separation everywhere; schools, restrooms, separate drinking fountains, etc.
Time changed, yet, the racial-ethnic integration of society is far from complete. There are still people who hate others because of their skin color.
The militant white racists infer that race is the powerful biological construct that identifies essences. The movement takes one of the many jumbled belief, and adding to it the sense that life is struggle, that the fundamental issue between humans is a power, that the world divides into good and bad, so it should be a fight.
Our economy is grinding through transformation, where a lot of people have no confidence that their jobs, wages, health care, or savings are safe.

Author here shares his experience of interviewing the followers and leaders in the militant white racists movement.
While he was describing the process, place, and people, he was also sharing his own feeling.                 Being a Jewish, a leftist opposed to racism, a professor at the University of Michigan, he didn't hide it about himself.
“I have no use for a Jew. Keep Hitler’s dream alive: Kill a Jew.”
"He's a Jew!"
"Jew," "Jewboy"
“If it were the time and the place, I would show you.”
“Yeah, just move your niggerized self along, Jewboy! Just move along”, more and more catcalls; more frozen stares as he passed; more hard, hostile faces, all of those he heard during the interviews.
Some whites, who will respond to the racist signal has post an enticement. They always hungry for activity. Movement brings a sense of meaning, to some of the discontented. It gives them the meaning of life, at least temporarily, the movement lives on demonstrations, rallies, and counterrallies. In reality, author thinks, struggle over race simply distracts young people from solving the real problems of their lives. They will soon realize that nothing has changed in their lives. Racism is first of all a way of thinking. We are part of everyone who lives in a racist society.
We must start with our own lives. We must start by respecting each other's lives.

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Word segregation is new word in my English vocabulary, so I have to "feed" my hungry curiosity. :)
Segregation is the practice of requiring separate housing, education and other services for people of color. Segregation was made law several times in 18th and 19th-century America as some believed that black and white people were incapable of coexisting.
The first steps toward official segregation came in the form of “Black Codes.” These were laws passed throughout the South starting around 1865, that dictated most aspects of black peoples’ lives, including where they could work and live.

Segregation soon became official policy enforced by a series of Southern laws. Through so-called Jim Crow laws, legislators segregated everything from schools to residential areas to public parks to theaters to pools to cemeteries, asylums, jails and residential homes. There were separate waiting rooms for whites and blacks in professional offices.

Colleges were segregated and separate black institutions Tennessee were created to compensate. Virginia’s Hampton Institute was established in 1869 as a school for black youth, but with white instructors.

In 1875 the outgoing Republican-controlled House and Senate passed a civil rights bill outlawing discrimination in schools, churches and public transportation. But the bill was barely enforced and was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1883.

As part of the segregation movement, some cities instituted zoning laws that prohibited black families from moving into white-dominant blocks.

Segregation During the Great Migration
During the Great Migration, a period between 1916 and 1970, six million African Americans left the South.

Some facts here...
Fact 1
The Amendments were written to protect the civil rights of African Americans.
The 13th Amendment abolished slavery;
the 14th Amendment (1868) extended “equal protection of the laws” to all citizens;
the 15th  Amendment (1870) guaranteed that the right to vote could not be denied “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Fact 2
First black members of Congress

From 1869 to 1877, voters in the South elected more than 600 African American state legislators and 16 members of Congress.
Fact 3
Margaret Douglass, of Norfolk, Virginia, a former slaveholder, was arrested, imprisoned, and fined when authorities discovered that she was teaching “free colored children”  to read and write.
Fact 4
Homer A. Plessy, an octoroon , who lived in New Orleans, challenged that city's right to segregate public transportation by riding in a Whites Only rail car, the constitutional amendments, passed after the Civil War and written to provide protections and rights for Negro citizens, had been eroded. The Louisiana state courts ruled against Plessy in 1896. The impact of Plessy was to relegate blacks to second-class citizenship. They were separated from whites by law.
Fact 5
The 1896 it was felt that the children of former slaves would be better served if they attended their own schools and in their own communities. These images of schools for black students show that facilities were separate but never equal.
Fact 6
Charles Hamilton Houston from Washington, D.C., he graduated from Amherst College, in 1915. In 1923 he became the first African American to earn a Doctor of Juridical Science degree at Harvard's
https://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/1-segregated/promise-of-freedom.html

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/segregation-united-states

https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/jim-crow-laws

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The circumstances that we inherit at birth, affects us all our life. In the US, race and ethnicity is a major divide, a primary  source of identity.

In this article writer shares his personal life experience from 1950s.
As a six years old child, author saw the water fountain with signs on them "white", and "colored." Trying the "colored" he quickly realized it wasn't about the color of the water. "Segregation", said his dad. Child never heard this word before....
Child's elders told him that there are places where white people don't want colored to go. And, white people make rules.
Segregation was everywhere, swimming pools, picnic areas, theaters, etc.
Once kids said "I wish I was white", and got his mom mad.
By the time when child went to middle school, the area would relax the racial prohibitions.  It showed him how quickly ignore the segregation problem. Anyway, for author it became the more apparent that he  ad his white friends were living in parallel realities.
"Do not show your color", his parents always said that. That phrase had special meaning of an expression of chastisement or warning, admonishment or adulation, satire or self-hatred, anger or celebration.
There is no one way to be black says the author.
Time have changed.  Black people can go anywhere now. But, the old rules of race have been replaced in many ways by new ones, say the writer. Despite there are some icons of black success, a fog of a false contentment conceals menacing fissures cracking the national racial landscape.
Despite the of the growth of the black middle class, most blacks and whites live separate lives.
In this article author brings up the melting pot metaphor, and reject it.

A melting pot is a metaphor for a society where many different types of people blend together as one. America is often called a melting pot.

I came to US 12 years ago. Black and White people has already living together in every neighborhood. I didn't face the "segregation" in person, I think...

Wait, in all those 12 years, I actually never had black friends, or even coworkers. It is not something that I did in purpose though. I can not come up with any example of facing, or witnessing the racism here in US. Moreover, at the time when I immigrated to US, I was feeling that black people were more white than me, because I arrived to their country, I was new here. I have never separated people by skin color, just didn't raised like that. I actually never saw black people until I went to London, in 2005.
Hmmm, still can't stop thinking why I do not have black friends here...
I might be wrong but, with all respect to everyone in this Blessed country, may be THEY are separating themselves from whose who have white skin. And then mention that racism still exists. I know it wasn't long time ago since everyone got equal rights. So, may be families' dark histories is still follow those families. Or, might be I am too "blind"...
I am still thinking ... why I do not have black people as my friends...

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10/26/20                         (JCB) Chapter 12                   Music/Racism and Cultural Appropriation 

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10/26/20                         (JCB) Chapter 12                   Music/Racism and Cultural Appropriation 

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Music is important source of  cultural symbolism, but moreover it is a way to "communicate". Music can also be seeing as power of subcultural capital.  The one of the brightest example here is African American culture, and its history by it's own.
1. Introduction: How Music Matters
Do we need music?
Sociologically, there are three key ways:
1) as a commodity
Being a commodity, music  supports global industry  of songwriters, musicians, producers, etc.
2) as an art form
Here, music is for  satisfying and expressing our tastes, as well as drawing symbolic boundaries. Historically, music tastes have been associated with class differences as well, so by saying I like this music, we are representing ourselves.
3) as a tool of cultural resistance
Here, music is a form of political expression, "Protest song" is most likely the most clearly illustrated example. Historically established, protest song, at its core, marries music with the message of resistance and a vision for social change (slavery, women's rights, war, poverty, etc) American folk music has a lot of protests songs, as well as a long history of social protest. Those songs, that discuss slavery and the oppression of indigenous people, could be heard on the streets throughout the US. The protest song is a rich site of sociological meaning with clear connection to the thinking frames. Protest songs are a form of cultural expression that responds to material conditions of oppression.
2. The Status of Subcultures
Sociological research has shown how subcultures can point out  the inconsistencies in the larger culture, the gaps between a society's values and it's realty. Here HIP_HOP is a good example showing inconsistencies between ideal of American dreams and young inner-city Blacks, who lives shapes by racism. They provide mainstream culture with the source of excitement, rebelliousness, and a kind of edginess. Jazz here also an an example of protest song.
3. Producing and Consuming Hip-Hop: Racism, White,...

Looking through the "curtain" of history, we can look at Hip-Hop (South Bronx, 1970s), as a mass-market commodity, that sometimes criticized for its sexism and materialism.
Sociologists study racism, discrimination, and institutional racism, that refers to systems of racial advantages and disadvantages that are maintained through social institutions (education, criminal justice, etc.) who target students of color.
Jason Rodriquez (2006) suggests  that Whites downplay the significance of racial inequality, embracing colorblind ideology, which espouses "the assertion of essential sameness racial and ethnic groups despite unequal social locations and distinctive histories.
4. The Music Industry
Lately, technological changes has been exceptionally transformative

in the case of music. In a market scene, production shapes consumption, and vice versa. Music industry is the market with small number of powerful sellers (oligopoly). The reason we listen the same old songs are because the industry sticks to familiar formulas that have been successfully in the past, and because the industry uses consumer data.

While I was typing this chapter's summary, it made me think about why I prefer to listen the songs on my native language. Although, I understand songs in all languages I speak, which English, Russian, and Tatar, I still prefer to listen Russian songs. Probably I am still attached to Russian culture...yeah, probably I am... Russian songs are touching my heart.

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10/23/20                          (JCB) Chapter 6              Get in the Game: Race, Merit, and Group Boundaries

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10/23/20                          (JCB) Chapter 6              Get in the Game: Race, Merit, and Group Boundaries

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1. Introduction
Sport plays important role in society. People like sport, so it is no wonder a massive industry has developed around athletic competition. Sport now is a lot different than it was decades ago. As an example, in the basketball (1900) most common ethnic group was Jews. Today, African American are disproportionally successful at basketball. Essentialism is the term used to refer to the belief particular social group share innate and universal qualities.  For sociologists, sport often express many of society's core values concerning talent, effort, competition and merit.
2. Sport Teams...
According to Bonnie Erikson (1996), sport provides a way for people to interact with wide rang of others, being a basic for social encounters that generate social capital (symbolic boundaries).  Olympic events provide a stark example of reinforcing group boundaries at level of nation. Success at the Olympics is a huge source of national pride.
In sport, gender and race both been used to delineate group boundaries. The separation of women's and men's sports is fairly persuasive. Sports are a key way that we socialize gender differences(gender binary).

About two years ago, I sign up my kids  (boy and girl) for gymnastic classes. My son was absolutely against going to that class saying that this is sport FOR GIRLS. :)

Sport team is a strongly ganders group boundary, with gender inequality. But the stereotypes that link a particular race or ethnicity with a particular sport is slip in logic.
3. Athleticism and the Social Construction of Race.
Social constructionism is a vitally important is very important concept in out sociological toolkit, however, it  asks us to be skeptical of the idea that our physical differences position us in exclusive categories.
Race is much more than skin color. Today, racism includes interpersonal racial bias and discrimination, as well as the vast racial inequalities embedded in society(health, education, housing, job market). Racial categories influence our identities, opportunities, and life out comes. Taking the baseball as an example, it was within social context of an overtly segregated America that professional baseball emerged. The racial segregation of professional baseball was a ubiquitous practice without ever being a formal police. Choices about hiring baseball player was based on race, not based on athletic talent. Although, today, 75% of baseball players are black people. The link between sports and race is dependent on social factors, not inherent difference, and culturally reinforced through racial stereotypes.
4. Cheaters and Liars or Strategic Actors?...
Any sport has rules, norms, and laws. Some of them are informal and ambiguous, while others are more formal and clear. Social norms are unwritten rules, and social  laws are written in precise language and approved by a authority. And for braking the law can lead to punishment, or charge. Banishment or sanctions  provide a mechanism for encouraging athletes to play by the rules.
While large sport events are big news, the most attention is gathered by wrongdoing in sports, such as doping, match fixing, cheating.
5. Sport as a Business...
Professional sport generate massive revenues (tickets, sport channels, t-shirts, Olympic games, etc.). NO one owns the exclusive rights to any athletic pursuit. Sociological research suggests that sports may reinforce social inequalities rather than helping  to overcome them.
Although some athletes are paid very good, others survive on very little.  Sport never just simple game, but are reflection of many of society's the most important issues. Sport is forming by broader systems of inequality, especially economic disparities, gender inequality and racial injustice.

While I was typing this chapter, I remembered different situations in sport scene, especially those sport teams whose fans were destroying the city after their "favorite" team lost the game. Another one was opposite. After sport team lost the game, the leader of the team apologized for the lost, and asked their fans to be respectful and not to "act bad". Surprisingly nothing bad happened that night on the streets. It tells me that the sport does affects the society.

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10/21/20                  Lecture assignment.        How your social class has impacted your life? 

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10/21/20                  Lecture assignment.        How your social class has impacted your life? 

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Everything as usual. My mom was phlebotomist in hospital, my dad was a driver. We were living in small town named Zainsk in Russia. It was simple middle class family, according local standards. Farming and gardening whole spring and summer, getting up at 3 am twice a week to work at the garden, fall was time for harvesting, tanning, and marinating everything that was harvested in our garden. Everything by hand. So, we will have veggies and berries for winter. Pluss farm animals for meat. That is how people live in most of the small towns in Russia. Same nowadays.
How did my social class impacted me?
First of all, we grew up as extremely hard working people. There is nothing I would think that I can't do if I need to. Homemade food for the family, having a garden, building the extension to the house, making clothes, hunting, learning forth language. I know I am strong...But, if to take a look at my personality from different angle-it is sad. The reason I learned all of this and much more, not because I wanted it. All of this came from my style of living, from my family, from my social life.

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YouTube video            Wealth Inequality in America     

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YouTube video            Wealth Inequality in America     

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Wow! This saddest video I have ever watched about United States!
The author of this video really shocked me. I sure knew that small amount of people have good part of the nation money.
Honestly, it is hard to imaging how 1% of Americans can have 40% of nation wealth.
It scares me when I see that 1% takes a quarter of a national income today, although in 1976 it was only 9%. It is only 30years. Not even a whole generation. What will happen in another 30 years?

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Social inequality is a fact of life in all societies. People who are in the Social Register are chosen for the style of life they have. The purpose of Social Register is to restrict social intercourse for its members (including marriage cases). In US upper class always tried  to separate themselves from regular people for whole entire life. Here people were mainly white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestants (unofficially, but ethnicity was important). This upper class life is not easy to see for casual observer. Upper class has their approved list of schools and colleges, clubs and churches.
Baltzell, in his work described the role of education as provincial family surrogates because their outlooks were local in nature. Episcopal Academy (1785), Haverford, Penn Charter, and Chestnut Hill were schools for upper class children. In 19th century, became the preferred,  so parents cold assure that their child would be raise away from the destructions, school such as St. Grottlesex, Choate, Hotchkiss, and Kent. Most desirable universities: Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.
Fraternities and eating clubs
In university it were the members of other social classes. In order to separate upper class from others, the private clubs were cleated. In addition to those clubs the senior societies were even more important (Yale), such as Skull and Bone clubs, or Scroll and Key Club. The purpose of those was to build class solidarity and personal alliances that will be translated into lifetime friendship and future business relationship.
The upper-class world of private club
There are two clubs for those upper class who graduated, the metropolitan dining clubs (with status hierarchy among the clubs) and suburban country clubs (associated with golf, tennis, swimming). Significant in that the entire family are members.
Yacht clubs are also an integral part of upper class life.
Religion and the upper class.
The upper class has a long association with the Protestants Episcopal Church, which is an extension of the Anglophilia of the American upper class, and with the Presbyterian Church.
Debutante balls
The debutante balls are the seasonal series of parties, teas, and dances where upper class announce the availability of their daughters.
Social register
The first edition of the Social Register was a listing of society in Newport, Rhode Island in 1886.
As of now, the Social Register has remained the only social listing for the 13 cities since 1939.
It looks more like a telephone book,  with listed names, phone numbers, schools members attending (ed), addresses, etc.
Getting into the Social Register, or being dropped from it, was always a subject of speculations. It called idiosyncratic.
There are 3 methods of obtaining membership.                            1. To be born in into it.              2. to marry in to a  listed family.
3. Is to apply for membership.
The reason of dropping from the list is to publicity disparage the Social Register. Another was to be dropped is to marry the entertainer.

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Everyone wants to be successful in their life, and in order to be be upwardly mobile, it is important to be future oriented. Based on Morris and Grimes analyses, socialization begins in childhood. First, enduring exposure to culture occurs in the child's family, where parents' class location is one of the most important influence. Parents may pass a variety of recourses down to their children, explicit and implicit.  Bourdieu argues that family resources have three forms: economic, cultural, and social. He conclude that the exposure to the high culture is directly related to the family's position in the class structure. As an example here, the socialization of working class kids is heavily influenced by life experience of their parents, as a result kids taught a specific set of values.
Economic Capital relates to maters to material wealth, that immediately convertible into the money.
Cultural Capital refers to knowledge about the world within which an individual lives. As it was stated by Bourdieu, cultural capital is determinant in the reproduction of social structure. It is based on values, knowledge, and meaning.
Encouragement and Expectations
Although most of the parents encourage their kids in the education, telling that it is extremely important, working class and middle class parents participation differ. Working class parents leave education to the "professionals", while middle class parents are more involved in their kids education during all school years. Although, most parents encourage for the education, kids from working class families simple do not "see" the same future opportunities.
Social Capital refers to the network of social connections that can be converted into economic capital under certain circumstances.

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Before I start this reading I want to share my opinion about poor class of society, and compare with today's reading. So...
Poverty exists not only in developing countries, it is also a tragic and hidden reality in developed countries. More  established people prefer not to notice the poor people, until some "dirty work" need to be done. . It is sad, but at the same time, the poor create a balance for the middle and upper class of the population, serving as a starting point measuring rod of status.
Here is the chapter summary.
Author noted that poverty is not only "tighten the belt". Poverty have deep and very important meaning. Here, author describes 13 functions:
1. Poverty ensures that "dirty work" for society will be done. "Dirty" means low paid, dangerous, seasonal, dead-end, etc.
2. Poor subsidize a variety of economic activities that benefit the affluent. for example housekeeping, by freeing reach women for other public activities. Poor pay a higher proportion if taxes and income in property, subsidizing the state services. Also, poor support the innovation, being a "Guinea pig" in experiments.
3. Poverty creates jobs for those who "service" the poor. Without poor, we wouldn't need the police, penology, etc. It relates to drugs, prostitution, pawn shops, faith healers, and so on.
4. The poor buy goods that no-one wants, thus prolong the economic usefulness of those goods.
I guess all the Garage sales that we see on the weekend, is perfect example of it. Same is on craigslist.com, where people sell used items.
5. The poor can be identified and punished as deviants in order to uphold the legitimacy of conventional norms.
Kind of show to discourage others, I guess...
6. The poor offer vicarious participation to the others in the sexual, alcoholic, and narcotic behavior. Sociologists think that poor people enjoy more the risk, and the sex.
7. The poor also play a big role in culture. All those blues, country music came from the poor. Same as Negro spiritual, cowboy, the artifacts, and folk cultures.
8. Poverty guarantee the status of those who are not poor.
Here the start point of reference I mentioned in the beginning.  Everything need to be compared, so it can be "measured".
9. The poor aid the upward mobility of groups just above them in the class hierarchy.
10. The poor entertain the aristocracy. Charity is a perfect example here.
11. Poverty is usually those to absorb the cost of change and growth on society. As an example: Universities, hospitals, roads, and civic centers built on poor areas. It is easier to push those who powerless.
Kind a rule of jungle here.
12. The poor stabilize the  growth American political progress. They support Republican, thus making democrats to want to help them, so they have a chance to get their vote.
13. The political role of the poor in upholding conventional norms also very important. An economy requires a deprived population that is allegedly unwilling to work.
Although I knew that the poverty in very important for the government, and society in order to keep the overall sustainability, I learned a lot more today. The poverty does play tremendous role in our society and survives because it is useful.

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For this discussion we’ve been asked to choose the brand that we connect with.

I choose the brand Volvo Truck. I made that choice because I was working as a Volvo heavy duty truck sales representative for 2.5 years. It is a great company with well-established internal culture. Volvo Truck corporation is providing great care about their employee and customers.

TEC Equipment is the West’s leading full-service truck and trailer dealership. TEC has 28 locations from Seattle to San Diego, serving thousands of customers across the nation. TEC Equipment sell Mack and Volvo heavy duty trucks, trailers, parts, and offer great service.

Not everyone knows how hard is to be a truckdriver. Hours and hours of driving with limited ability to eat, rest, and simple relax. Driver must sit for hours in other same position (not comfortable seat-bad blood flow-stroke) and fully control the road. It is incredibly stressful style of life. Volvo brand, as a cultural pedagogue,  teaches that driver have a tremendous responsibility on the roads. A lot of truck drivers gets in deadly accidents because of teh problem with the heart, or they simple fell asleep.  Volvo make driving easy by offering them the truck that is extremely comfortable to drive and easy to control. As easy a regular car. I can strongly agree with it because I personally drove it a lot.

Volvo also teach the specific lessons about driver’s safety, as a main priority. Volvo Truck is number one in the US regarding the safety. It is the only truck that use high-strength steel cabs, and unique programs for driver’s safety. Volvo truck is safest truck regarding the “accident death report in US”.

I know for the fact that every driver who drove Volvo before, will not chose other truck. It is a consumption habit. Volvo is being known as safest, most comfortable, and most productive truck. I personally drove different models of heavy-duty trucks, from classic 18spd Peterbilt 1985 up to 2021 Volvo780 with 77’ sleeper. There is no more comfortable truck than Volvo. Every driver knows it.

Ideological message of Volvo Truck is to take care of the customers with the unique value proposition, a powerful combination of convenience, premium product & service, and customer commitment.
As a past employee, my opinion is that this company offers very good overall pay, according to every job description. I am, as a sales representative had my pay based on commission, but I’ve never heard any compliance from any others who work there.

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I am, as a student, have been asked about my opinion regarding what I think about the fast-food campaign demands for a $15. I have never worked in fast-food place, and can only share my opinion based on theory…

There are old Russian saying, “The stick has two ends”, which means you can look at the same thing from two different angles. Same here when I thought about raising the minimum wage in fast food industry. I would say yes, they need to be paid fairly. They all have a family they need to take care of, bills needed to be paid, and other simple little needs to be happy. But, at the same time every single citizen of the US has his/her rights and chance to improve his/her life. We all make a lot of different decisions during the life. Big or small, successful, or not very much. It is all about choices everywhere. I can work at the same place, doing same job, and earning $12 for years. Then, strike time to time, trying to make my employer to “make my life easier” by increasing my wage. Or I can work on improving my life standard by keep looking for better job or get the education.

That exactly what I did in my personal life when I left my ex-husband with two babies.

There is NO limit for desire!

I did not have anybody to help me in this country. I was learning English for nights to be able to find ANY job. I was searching for job for weeks, to be able to provide food for my babies. I was fighting for custody of my kids for months, to be able to hug them every moment. Five years later, I am where I was planning to be. With no help, I achieved my goal. I have extremely successful life right now, and I am not done yet! I will not stop until I will have paid off house for each of my child, in my will. Today is the Saturday, October tenth, of 2020. I am doing my Sociology homework since 4:30 am. I woke up early because I have plans for later today. I have scheduled 4 appointments with the realtor at 1 p.m. Today, I will be choosing my first house to buy. Funny coincidence.

Anyway, going back to the subject about “should a minimum wage in fast food raised”? No, I do not think so. We The People, with strong rights printed black and white in Declaration. My opinion here; The economy needs to have low and high paid jobs to keep the sustainability in this country. If someone does not like their pay, they simply need to start “moving”.

Second part of the question is about the right to Unionize. Based on my knowledge about Union, my answer yes, I think it is a good thing. Although everyone has the right to make choices where to work (employee), and how much to pay (employer), there is always should be a control of the process. Clear and fair system of control will make everyone’s live better. And of course, it will bring some little “hit to the wallet” (fees), but everyone needs to be paid, as well as people who work in control department.

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10/06/20                         (H) p535-p546               Wishard, Caught Between the Ages               

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10/06/20                         (H) p535-p546               Wishard, Caught Between the Ages               

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One of the most significant change in the world is globalization of capitalism. We have unprecedented challenges ahead, for sure the most difficult humanity has ever faced. There are three trends that are moving us from one age to the next.
Trend #1.
World is forging an awareness of our existence as a single entity. Nations are incorporating planetary dimensions of life into our economics, politics, culture, and international relations- it is globalization.
Globalization now means that western ideas are gradually seeping into the social and political fabric of the world. Globalization is about culture, tradition, and historic relationships, and it goes to the very psychological foundation of the people. As examples, nations are adopting ideas like sanctity of individual, due process of law, universal education, the equality of women, human rights, private property, concepts of civil society, and other new modes of thought. Not every nation agree to change though. There are some nations who prefer to keep and follow their traditions that appears to be their connection to the past, the part of their psychic roots. Terrorism is one of the example them saying that they have different strong beliefs and wont obey current new changes. Author mention that one of the aspect of globalization is find irritating is America's global role and resulting world perception of America. At the end, globalization must have a legitimacy that validates itself in terms of a true democratic and moral order.
Trend #2
The second trend is a new stage of technology development. This is absolutely new precedent in the history of science.  The experts say that by the year 2035, artificial robotic intelligence will surpass human intelligence. The experts tell us that the rate of change doubles every decade. Although, noted that onrushing change is already producing mounting dysfunction. As an example  the rate of the suicide among the women is 200%. The mental health health is the fastest growing component of corporate health insurance programs. Freeman Dyson, the theoretical physicists, talks about the "technical arrogance" that overcomes people  "when they see what they can do with their minds."
Trend #3
is a long-term spiritual and psychological reorientation that's increasingly generating uncertainty and instability. It does affect everyone, because we are all part of this country collective psychology. It is our culture here. The world is experiencing a long-term spiritual and psychological reorientation. One of the example author gives is that in early 20th century, if people had personal problems, they would went to the priest for  advice.  Nowadays, people started going to their psychologists. Part of the psychological reorientation taking place is the breakups of our collective inner images of wholeness. Our connection with nature is devalued or discarded, there is little to sustain the inner life of the individual. As a result, it is weakening of the structure that organize and regulate our life-religion, self-government, education, culture, and the family.
Globalization, new stage of technology, and long term psychological reorientation, are basic changes determining the future.

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(H) 497-507              Leidner, Over the Counter at McDonald's

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(H) 497-507              Leidner, Over the Counter at McDonald's

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Rationalization means to make things efficient. To set up the rules, that will reduce the unexpectant event.
The hart of McDonald's success is predictability. Same food, same décor, same waiting time, and same service. It takes a lot of efforts to keep that managed around t he world.
McDonald's is a restaurant that serve products of uniform quality, the company use centralizing planning, supervised suppliers, and automated machinery.
Today McDonald's is the most advertised and recognized fast food restaurant, where people assured that they will find the high standard of quality, service, and food in every location around the world. They are advertised as place for fun, health, and family oriented.
Traditionally McDonald's has paid minimum wage. Luck of benefits. The 50% of employees are younger than 20.
"Quality, service, and cleanliness are the most important for the company's success", said Kroc.
McDonald's mail management training focused mainly on strictly followed rules and standards, as well as teaching employees to "love" their work.
About 3,500 students attend classes at Hamburger University annually. graduates receive a doctorate in hamburgerology. The course lasts two weeks and is very strict. They learn to check equipment and maintain it correctly. For every workplace in the store, McDonald's also has a Station Operation Checklist. McDonald's has so carefully streamlined the work of its teams that decision-making is virtually excluded from the workplace.

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An experimental scientist Barbara Ehrenreich, in the beginning of June 1998, decides to temporarily change her personal life, so she can study the life of poor people.
She left everything, and kept only $1300 in her pocket. She has to find place to live, job, and start living her "poor life".
First task-to find the place to live. She has calculated that if she can find job with $7 per hour, she will be able to find some place with no problem. Place she were, is too expensive, so she has decided to rent the place in 30 miles away.
Before she starts applying for job, she has decided that she wont use her knowledge and experience. Also, she will try to get the highest paid job.  She was surprised that every employer would easily let her to apply. After three days went by, no one out the twenty places called for the interview.  She sadly realized that the want ads are not a reliable  measure of the actual jobs available. They were simple insurance policy against turnover of the low-wage work force.
Eventually she got a waiters job, with late afternoon shift, and $2,43 per hour plus tips. It was new tough world for her. She describes herself as beset ny requests like a bees: more water, iced tea here, ketchup there, a to-go box, or extra chair for others. Also here mentioning about "third server's job", as a cleaning and restocking. She realized that server's job is extremely busy and hard, and the only time to sit is to fold the napkins. Otherwise, if manager will see anyone sitting, that one will get even harder and more work.
Although it is busy work, people still have their personal lives. Barbara described her coworkers as everyone is living their lives with solving one after another task in order to survive, where paying rent is the biggest problem. Even purchasing the $30 ladle to stir with in a big issue.
Over time, she started to make friends, getting to know them and their families better, forming a reliable mutual-support group.
Then Barbara decides t move closer to the town, counting every cent to be able to afford it. And, started to think about second job.
She got rented room #46, room with 6 feet in width. In that room only small sized couch flits, and where bathroom is so small that her knees rub against the shower stall when she sits on the toilet.
After a month of experiencing poor life, she got a housekeeping job, she was very happy. Inside job, and  AC.
Then Barbara describes a day of her server work. Where she  couldn't handle it and left, earning only $1040 per month.
Barbara was deeply in thoughts about now impossible to work two jobs, and how impossible to survive with only one. Although she had the advantages, as good health, stamina, a working car, and nonchildren, it was still impossible to survive for her.
I definitely feel Barbara here. In 2015 I left my ex-husband with two little babies, with no family in USA, with no shelter, no English, no job, and $300 in my pocket. I grabbed two bags of children's clothes, two their bikes, our dog, grabbed the car keys and left. Left nowhere. Not sure if I understood that time what I am doing and what to expect, but I did. It was long cold months, years. No-one wanted to hire me because I didn't speak English. And no-one cared that I have Masters degree from Russia, and already fluently spoke two other languages. I  had to start my new life with babies. And shelter with food couldn't wait.
Here I am now: I have two brand new cars, few fancy vacations in Mexico, I got a house for my sister in Russia, I kids are developing well in their gymnastic and marshal art sport classes, and...I am buying a hose now. Who would think? I did it all myself. Now people think I am lucky, or having a good life. But no-one knows that 3 years ago I was thinking about subside because of my deep depression, no-one knows that I was ubering nights (with my knife next to me if drunk passengers starts act weird), so kids would have milk for the breakfast. There are a lot of stories of that period. It is in the past now. I am happy and grateful for who I am now.

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10/01/20-10/02/20                     (JCB) Chapter 3                 Fast Food/Work and Economy 

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10/01/20-10/02/20                     (JCB) Chapter 3                 Fast Food/Work and Economy 

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Introduction: Do you want fries with that?
There are many different opinions about fast-food. Loth of them are negative. However, consumption of fast food is only growing, especially the that spread around the world. Lately fast food was the center of attention not only as a consumer good, but also as a key site of labor unrest. The reasons are the long unpredictably shifts, and low pay with no security. In USA, work is organized around the ideal of efficiency, that's why shifts are scheduled using software system designed to maximize the financial gain, but it is not always convenient for workers.
2. Working in Global Food Economy
Most of us need job in order to provide living. Although, job gives more that just an income. It is also an important aspect of people's identity, as well as a key source of social relationships that brings different feelings from pleasure till exploitation.  According to Karl Marx, workers in capitalist system  perform unfulfilling work, with little control, so workers are alienated from work process. It can be easily seen in fast food industry. While capitalist market forces and transnational corporation are a powerful force in the global food system, The state is still an important actor regulating and how market workers and how workers are treated. For example  minimum wages, sick-leave, vacation, parental leave, etc.
In some serious job inequality, and poverty facing low-wage workers in fast food industry, the questions such as "why don't workers resist and fight back against exploitation?" may appear. One of the explanation is the importance of commonly held ideas, or ideology (1) set of ideas of beliefs, (2) power held and used by capitalists.
Hegemony-describes the role of  ideas in political and economic domination. Here the views  and interests of the ruling class take on a common-sense appearance and look like standards.
3. The cost of Fast Food: Mcdonaldization ands the Iron Cage.
George Ritzer developed the term McDonaldization, as a paradigm in now social institution operate, type of model for doing business.
Weber (1930) observed the growing power of bureaucracy- that emerged to do things like collect taxes, organize armies, provide health care, provide health care, and enforce the rules that everyone must follow. Weber named these restrictions as "iron cage", in which we all live.    Ritzer's Mcdonaldization is supporting Weber's observation.  Mcdonaldization, as a process in which fast food industry is only growing, has four basic aspects:
-efficiency (discovering the best possible means to whatever end is desired);
-calculability(refers to measuring all elements in the production process);
-predictability (ensuring that the settings, and procedures are consistent across time and place);
-control ( control using the technology).
Ritzer highlights a fifth element -irrationality of rationality.

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9/29/20                       JCB p140                              Shopping for 'we-ness"

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9/29/20                       JCB p140                              Shopping for 'we-ness"

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We've been asked to think about the time when we bought something because I wanted to fit in with a group.
My first thought is ...
About 5 years ago, before I filed divorce, I have been married for 6,5 years. My ex-husband, and whole his family were strict Baptists Church every Thursday and Sunday. It was big and very fancy church. Everything was ok there, but clothes. Everyone was wearing the most expensive clothes they could get. Even people who were living lower than middle-class life, were using their credit cards for clothing stores. Ladies dresses only, man was always wearing suits. If someone would come not according the "dress code", people would start whispering about him.
Not very comfortable surrounding  there. It was all about show.

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9/29/20                            (H) 269-276 Meyer, If Hitler Asked you to Electrocute a Stranger, Would you?...

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9/29/20                            (H) 269-276 Meyer, If Hitler Asked you to Electrocute a Stranger, Would you?...

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Strange question. Of course there is only one answer...
Of course not...
Are you sure?
After reading this passage, I was wondering, and still do.
Let's look at two aspects of the groups over our lives. First, we do everything we prefer not to...
It is almost 2 am, do  I want to type this summary? Definitely not. What I really want to do right now, is to go to kids bedroom, to kiss their foreheads, and after whispering the prayers into the air, to go to my bed and let my fluffy blanket to "hug" my exhausted body.
Do I wasn't to get up in 4 hours, to make sure kids eat healthy oatmeal, instead of crackers, and  other luck of nutrition food? Of course not. I would like to sleep in and get up after 9am. Work, classes, cleaning and assignments - not fun, but OI have to do it.
Second,  Sometimes, we do really feel heavy social pressure, that conflict with our morals.                  Treating others not very  well, judging, cheating, not telling truth, etc.
Social psychologist, Stanley Milgram, had a plan to prove that Germans are different. He stated that Germans have one disadvantage, to obey authority without questioning it. He developed the experiment that ensured with measuring the obesity level. First finding was that Americans are highly obedient people.
In his experience he made people to hurt others using electricity. People who got electric impulse were the actors. They were faking the loud screaming, because of constantly increasing the electricity to see if tested people would react on it, because they were ones who were pushing the buttons. No matter how loud people would scream, tested individuals would still send the electric impulse, because they have been told to do it.
Milgram's theory failed.

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"Are we manipulated consumers, or are we consumers-heroes, keeping everything under control? "
1. Introduction
From the sociological perspective, shopping presented as a puzzle. In this chapter sociologists present the shopping as a paradox: shopping can be both, a pleasure, and a stressful routine. Also by studying shopping we will be able better understand how social group.
2. Shopping: A Brief History
The marketplace emerged alongside the rise of capitalism. One of the modern shopping centers to attract purchasers were the 1800s Paris Arcades. Benjamin emphasized how this prototypical shopping space blurred the boundaries between public and private life, consumption and leisure, that shopping is not only utilitarian act, but also dreamlike experience. Women were the primary consumers.
Another important period was when "big box" stores were created, they built their success on the convenience and affordable prices.
I am as a person who like to save, regularly go shopping to Walmart, that represents the big box store. They have lower prices compared with other store that has the same goods. So, Walmart has me as regular customer for all the household items. Another store I use regularly is Amazon. Very affordable, and comfortable. I think it is perfect source for middle class consumers that are about 85 percent. Big box stores are definitely winners here.
Gentrification is a process where the price increase and rent makes it difficult for lower-income customers to stay in the neighborhood. As a result people keep moving looking for more affordable place to live. Which appear to represent the sign of urban development.
3. Shopping Motivations and Values, Comparison and Choice.
Purchases, or utility maximization model of social behavior is perfect cases for research. Which sociologists describe as a rational exchange of money for well-priced items.
Sociological researchers are asking: what do we value when we go shopping. There are different hidden desire for shopping, like to save money, by purchasing  low cost items, others want to feel fashionable. Sometimes we buy branded items, that makes us feel as a part of specific group  (Jordan's fans; Harley Davidson fans, etc.). Consumption is not only about the individual. It is relationship and social belongings.
. Juliet Schor (1998) stated that  the problem with the socially competitive dynamic of consumption is its persistence. The problem here is that process will never end.
My cousin keep asking the new updated phone every time new phone model presented in the market. She states that her friend have the same phones, and she wants to feel comfortable around them.
So, as a conclusion we can see that consumption culture is a manipulative power.
4. Shopping , Social Order, and Solidarity.
According to Durkheimian, shopping takes us into groups and form bonds with others. That we do the purchases not as individuals, but as a member of society who share common social obligations, social norms, and comparisons.
Feeling of connection with others refers as social solidarity. Based on Durkheimian people in those group have lower suicide rates, because they do not feel isolated.
Durkheimian stated that social facts (entities that are external to the individual, but govern their actions), need to be studied.
The sense of interdependence that follows from a complex division of labor is what Durkheim understood as organic solidarity.
4.2. Consumer Culture and Social Solidarity: Bonding Through Brands.
Purchases raise our modern cultural valorization of the individual. Sociologists states that making purchases, people seek out community to bond with. For example specific type of clothes may bond us with group, tattoo, brands, life styles.
My son was asking to purchase Jordan's for several months. He finally got them two days ago. He is 10, but he feels happy, proud and modern, because every "cool" guy has to have them.
4.3. Is Shopping a Social Problem?
There are many different points of view about purchasing. Economists think it is a sign of growing economy. So it is good. From environmental prospective it is a problem because we use too many natural sources. A psychologist see the shopping as a problem from loneliness prospective. Durkheimian point is the problem is not clear-cut: it is a sense of anomie and isolation, which is stress; on other hand purchases make individual happy, making them feel as a part of bonded society. group

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9/25/20                      Coffee shop ethnography      

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9/25/20                      Coffee shop ethnography      

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I tried to find the coffee shop that would have dine-in open. Unfortunately, most of them were curb side pick up. Although, I realized that cafeteria in fair mall was open. So, I took my kids, since no-one could watch them home, and we went to do a "family research". :)
We came there about 3pm. I assumed that it would be a good time.
For this research I needed to
observe:

if strangers talk to each other;

how friendly does the space feel;

if some people seem more welcome than others;

what groups of people does this coffee shop seem to cater to in terms of age, class, race, or other social factors?

Even though I expected to see more people, what I saw there was  predictable. While my kids run to ice-cream place to argue which flavor is the best in the world, I've started watching people. Compared with the size of the room, it was not to many people there. The surrounding was friendly, but "cold". Everyone looked like they were having the deep thoughts. Although, the American culture is friendly and welcome, during long pandemic situation, people seems to be in stress. No smiles, no talks... and distance, physically and emotionally. There were different ages and race people there. Teenagers, parents with kids, couples....
Teenagers seems to look more open, and communicating within they own small group. Audits, and kids were very quiet. Kids on the screens, audits were just silently waiting they turn to buy the drinks, standing in long line with 6 feet apart between others. Even though masks were covering everyone's faces, it was easy to notice that they are not in the mood. I do hope this pandemic situation will end soon, and strangers will be able to enjoy each other there during coffee time.

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9/23/20 (H) p135-p146  Goffman, The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life

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9/23/20 (H) p135-p146  Goffman, The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life

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Goffman presents a dramaturgical model of human's life, saying that life is a stage, and people are actors. Others who observe others are the audience.
So where is a true self? Sounds like a masquerade. The masquerade is fulfilled with   curiosity, never know who is behind the mask.
Anyway, when person enters the presence of others, others are "reading" him. They will be interested in his personality, social-economic status, attitude, etc.
That information help them to get to know him and understand what to expect from that person.
There are two different kinds of sign activity that person express himself: The expression that he gives, and the expression that he gives off. The information that he gives involves verbal symbols that he use to convey the information.
The second, the information he gives off, includes wide range of actions that others can see.
Everyone had that experience in their daily life. I am not an exception as well. The longer human lives, the better role he can play. Sometimes, when my friend ask: "How do you like my new jeans?" I can look straight into her eyes and emotionally say "You look beautiful", but in my head I think that that dress probably in not her style, without letting her notice it in my voice, or on my face. Another example is, my daughter is 8 years old, and does not drink coffee. Today she asked if she ca ask my caramel coffee. After she tried it, I asked if she liked it. She said it is good, but while she was putting it back to cupholder, the expression on her face made me feel that it was so discussing for little girl's taste buds, that she even straggled to swallow it. I immediately thought about Sociology and wearing the masks. LOL
Anyway, when individual appears in front of others, those other,  without realizing it, project a definition of the situation, making him act in certain way.
For example, when I enter the crowded room at my work, with people being very quiet, I will definitely try to be quiet too without realizing it. But when I visit the same group of people on one's party, I definitely going to say loudly " Hey guys, let's party" without being worried that I will be judged.

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9/23/20                      (H) 249-p264 Thompson, Handling the Stigma of Handling the Dead  

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9/23/20                      (H) 249-p264 Thompson, Handling the Stigma of Handling the Dead  

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In 1900, life used to be short, people died by the age 40. And at that time death was a family affair. People died at home, family members washed the body, dressed it, and put in coffin, putting the body in the middle of the room, so everyone could see him.
This reminded me about my childhood. I remember being a little girl, and my 5 year old cousin was in the coffin in the middle of the room...not breathing, and cold. Audits were standing and crying in the room around him, and my one of the old lady was reading outload. It was some kind of praying for his soul to be in peace. Before taking him to cemetery, everyone would make a circle around him, touching his feet, and head.
It was years ago, not sure how it is now though.

Nowadays, the occupation or profession is central to peoples personal and social identity. Compared with the past, when job of taking care of dead people was assigned to the lower classes, today death became something to be handled by professionals.
Sudnow (1967) mentioned negative attitude toward the people who work with dead, saying "deathtainted".
Managing Stigma
Goffman, in his work "Stigma" (1963) wrote about some technics called "passing", "dividing the social world", "mutual help", etc.
The most important message there was about symbolic redefinition of the work with dead, role distance, professionalism, emphasizing service, and the status. He also found out that embalmers are hide their real occupation.
Symbolic redefinition
One of the way to handle the stigma is the symbolically negating. They try to avoid heavy words, or phrases by not saying "death, body, corpses", instead they say "loss", "hour of sadness", "loved one' and so on.
Also, they try to shift the accent from taking care of dead, to caring for the living.
Role distance
Everyone's sense of self is linked to their occupation, so those who are on stigmatized occupation are practicing the role distance. There are three patterns emerged: emotional detachment, humor, and countering the stereotype.
1. Emotional Detachment
that means detaching from the body of the work.
Same as doctors try not to have feelings toward the patient's pain, so they can concentrate on the patient's body as a work area.  I think such  professionals as doctors, police, firefighter, especially people who work with dying kids, or cancer cases; in professions where feelings can distract- they all do the same-detaching themselves from the body of the work. They need to totally cut off the emotional part.
2. Humor
From impromptu comments to the standard jokes are being used in working with the body as well. It is very effective method of defining stigma, however people need to understand the lane they should not to " cross".
3. Countering the Stereotype
It sure sad for morticians to know that people have negative stereotype about their accusation. So, they try not to acknowledge others about what they do, also not to conform to it. Some of them do not wear black, some try to stay positive as much as etiquette allows them, others wear unformal clothes.
Professionalism
Other method to reduce occupational stigma is to emphasize professionalism. Such elements as educational requirements, exams, code of ethics, boards, lend a credibility., and respect.
The shroud of service
Another way for morticians to decrease the stigma is anounse4 themselves in a "shroud of service". The emphasis on service is shift the focus away from the handling and preparation of the body.
Nowadays, in advertising, more and more we hear about care, instead of help. People now want to be taking cared of. And the phrase "We sell care, not goods", sounds way more better to get customers' attention. Especially in funeral business, phrase "What is piece of mind worth?" will work way more better.,

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9/21/20                   (JCB) Ch 10                        Branding/The Self and Social Interaction   

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9/21/20                   (JCB) Ch 10                        Branding/The Self and Social Interaction   

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1. Introduction.
We all are unique. That feelings are related to our inner qualities, like interest, priorities, personality, etc. but nowadays, the key way to express ourselves is through things that we chose to purchase, and demonstrate to others. I am, as a lady, always try to look in a certain way, because  other's opinion about my personality is matter for me.
Consumption gives us the feeling of individuality. Although we think that things we buy can tell something about us, they are also align us with certain groups. (It is still amazes me how easily I can notice Russian people in USA. Probably because I am Russian. Anyway, I would say they do wear American clothes in Russian way).
In paradox of exploring individuality and uniqueness, we need to understand how identities emerge in a social context. That means that we might think that we born the way we are, but in the reality is social world is also shapes who we are.
2. The Social Self: Key Thinkers and Concepts.
Sociologists see self as a social creation.
Here we will discuss Cooley. Mead, and Goffman,
three major sociological thinkers within the Symbolic Interactionism-the perspective that emphasizes how our social world is created through our everyday relationship  and interactions.
Charley Cooley, put forward the concept of the looking-glass self. According to Cooley, our self developed through an imagined sense of how other see and judge us. Cooley said that our sense of self is always relational, based on our emotional responses got from evaluations of others. I sure noticed the same affect on my kids. I keep telling them that they smart and that I am proud of them. I can see that they growing up with self confidence, and being more and more successful, because they know they can. Or when I say to my friend that I like her dress, or jeans, she always wear them around me.
Being able to see it myself, I think I agree with  Colley who introduced the idea that how we think about yourselves is shaped by how we think others perceive and evaluate us.
George Hilbert Mead agreed with Cooley, explaining it as "dialogue  between I and me". It means that we need to think not only about ourselves, but to assume the perspective of others.
Erving Goffman was sure that face-to-face interaction is critical. His dramaturgical perspective used metaphors of the theatres to emphasize his point of view. Based on Goffman, people  live their lives on social scenes, and the role we play on that scene.
As an example, student acts different was in front of professor, compared of acting in front of his friends.
According to Goffman, our identity is not given at birth, it is more like social accomplishment. Saying that stigma-is a relational process involving judgment and identity management interaction.
The examples of it are when person has a job interview he will cover his tattoos, or when person is denying the health problem.
3. Shopping for a Self-Concept in Consumer Culture
In the past old days, traditional and identities were more fixed. Now people facing more freedom. So each individual can choose the way he wants to leave his life. Anthony Giddens argues that we have to actively work on building our own identity.  His concept of the "reflective project of the self" describes that we always need to think who we want to be, and develop our sense of self". We need to think about what we buy, what we talk about, what we use, and how people see our acts.
Belk describes three way relations between a person, a possession, and social relationship.
I personally have a lot of examples. We have an old wood rocking chairs in out living room, that belongs to grand grand father; or, I still have a t-shirt I was wearing when I first arrived to USA; or the old, already rusted neckless that my sister gave my at the time when I permanently left Russia 12 years ago. It cost nothing, but worth a lot to me.
4.Branding Goods, Branding the Self
Brand is constellation of meaning, feeling, perception, and beliefs. Brand is first of all a way to communicate. Brand, such as  Nike, Starbucks, Adidas, are talking to consumers. That is the primary function of brand. But today, brand management is less about telling people what a brand means, and more about defining the contours of what the brand can mean as it used.  The object that we express our individual sense of self also contribute to our sense of collective identity.
I remember at high school all girls were wearing same style of skirt. It made us feel a part of the group. We were  judged those who didnt wear the same style.

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9/17/20                    p63-p72 Pager, Would you hire an Ex-Convict?

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9/17/20                    p63-p72 Pager, Would you hire an Ex-Convict?

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Here we will focus on the consequences of incarceration for the employment outcomes of black and white men. Here it will be it will be done an experimental audit approach to formally test the degree to which a criminal records affects subsequent employment opportunities.
Annually, in USA, there are over 12 million ex-felons, representing 8% of working population. The  expansion of the prison papulation has been particularly consequential for blacks. According to the record of 2000, it was 10% if black, and nearly 1% of white people.
The purpose of this study is to access the effect of a criminal record differs for black and white applicants.
For this study were chosen 4 male auditors. Two white and two black men. 23-years students from the Milwaukee college, that were very alike in appearance and general style of self-presenting. Each team one auditor was assigned a "criminal record" for drugs.. They were switching the record weekly. They were sharing  15 entry level positions.
The result of study showed that   white men with not criminal history get 37% callbacks compared with 17% of white man who do have a criminal history. It is twice difference. It is clearly, that criminal record close the doors in employment situations. Testers reported seeing employers level of responsiveness change dramatically as soon as they saw the criminal record.
Another important major in this study was effect of race.
It is huge. Among black people with no criminal record , only 14% got callback, compared with 34% of white people without criminal record. So, race continues to play t he dominant role in shaping employment opportunities. According to the results, the effect of a criminal record is thus 40% larger for blacks than for whites.
As a conclusion, it is certain that criminal record is a real employment barrier. Also, the race on employment opportunities is clear here. Black people are less likely get hired.

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9/9/20                      (H) p29-p47 Henslin, Doing Sociological Research

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9/9/20                      (H) p29-p47 Henslin, Doing Sociological Research

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There are two major activities of sociologists.
First, conducting empirical research. Second, constructing a theoretical base.
Nor does one necessarily come before the other. Empirical means based on observations. Sociologists gets the information based on superstition, custom, guesswork, common sense. They get the information that represent people. Sociologists use different type of methods: experiment, interview, documents, etc.  Compared with regular people, like us, sociologists are not rigorous. They check constantly.
There are three sociological theories...
1.Symbolic interactionism.
It stresses everything that we already know very well: people, things, and event in our life. Symbolic interactionism includes three major themes:
-human beings have a self, means that people can think, talk, and express their opinion; - - people construct meanings , then acting based on them, people act by reflecting on their own opinion;
- people take into consideration the opinion of others, people can adjust their behavior, based on how others can  react on.
2. Functionalism
Society is a multi-functional system, containing many parts. Each part fulfills its ow function, which makes the system sustainable.   If any part of system fails, it might create problems for other system parts, and system becomes dysfunctional.
3. Conflict theory
Here society is viewed as a system with many groups in it are in competition, or conflict. Each group tends to want more power, more wealth, more authority and so on. Those groups compete with each others, making the conflict is unavoidable. Examples here are racism, sexism, social class conflict, ageism, health care, etc.

How Sociologists Do Research
From common sense, model research has eight basic steps.
1. Selecting a topic
Chose what information is interested in. Curiosity is involved.
2. Defining the problem
To determine what to learn, to concentrate on a specific area of problem.
3. Reviewing the literature
To review the publications.
4. Formulating a hypothesis
a statement of what is expected. Relationship between variables are being predicted.
5. Choosing a research method
Choosing how data will be collected.
6. Collecting the data
Collecting valid and reliable data. 7. Analyzing the results
Range from statistical tests, to content analysis.
8.Sharing the results
Writing, sharing, and replicate the results.

Methods of research
1. Survey
Choosing the population, group target, Location, gender, age, similarities, or random sample.
There are different ways; questionnaires, interview, closed-ended questions, open ended questions.
2. Second analysis
It is a second research method. It means researchers analyzing the data collected by others.
3. Documents
During research, sociologists examine other sources of data, as books, newspapers, records, police reports, files and records kept by police, schools, and hospitals.
4. Experiments.
It is a classic way of natural sciences. Main purpose is to identify cause and affect relationship, by involving independent and dependent variables.
5. Unobtrusive measures
Means observing people's behaviors when  they do not know they are being studied.
6. Participant observation
Researcher is participating in research setting while observing what is happening in that setting, without others knowing about it.
The researchers hwo have been trained in quantitative recearcj methods are more likely choose surveys, while researchers who have been trained in qualitative methods choose participant observation.

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9/9/20                      JCB Appendix P401-424 Advertising/Research methods

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9/9/20                      JCB Appendix P401-424 Advertising/Research methods

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1. Introduction.
Advertising is part of our daily life. It plays the center role in today's  economic market. Moreover  we are learning pertinent information about the products and information from every advertisement. What more important is that advertisement is a best way to develop the brand. It is the way for the corporations and manufactures to communicate with their consumers, that brings not only delivering the useful information to consumer but, establishing the emotionally association with the product.
2. The nature of Empirical Evidence and Explanations.
Usually, sociology belongs to the category of "social science". It refers to the system of acquiring information based on scientific method, as well as to the organized  knowledge gained thorough researches.
Sociologists use the term empirical for describing the data collection, and term normative to designate the idea the way our world should be.
2.1 Ways of Knowing
Social science methods are good for finding the fact without relying on traditions and authority. Tradition is a thing,  what people thought about for very long time. Authority is ability to pursue others that something is true.
In form of alternative, we also can rely on our own observations. But that might bring common mistakes because we rely on our "not perfect" memory, what means that we can loose useful information.  Social science methods are developed to be systematic in order to avoid common mistakes.
2.2 theory, Cases, And Classes of Cases.
Sociological research is explanation about the things and how they related. So, the theory is explanation about classes of events, or cases. There are Idiographic explanation, that provides complete picture of what happened, often about single case, and a nomothetic explanation, examines multiple cases to try to explain how variable are related.
3. Types of Data
Data is the information that treated as evidence. There are quantitative, represented numerically, and qualitative, presented through words,  types of information.
For collecting the data, sociologists gather information in different attributes. Attribute, is the characteristics or qualities of the things, or person.
Variables, are the groups of attributes.
Sociological research starts with decision of what we want to observe. Operationalozation describes process of making the decision of what to observe, to get the information we need.
The process of operationalozation is related to the task of sampling-selection the specific group of people for observation.  Sometimes in sociology we are interested in determining how variables relate to one another. Here, we  look at correlations between variables, and in this case we can approach these variables as having a causal relationship, that has independent, and dependent variables.
2.4 Inductive and Deductive Reasoning are represent two different ways of getting information. When more is known, scientists use deductive reasoning. When less, inductive.
Deductive approach involves reasoning from general to the particular (thinking ...idea ...hypothesis).  While deductive reasoning starts with the statement, Inductive reasoning starts with with observing cases and  then involves observing cases.
3. Sociological Methods
3.1 Being there...
Ethnography is the way to learn by entering into social world. In this method the researcher entering into social group and observing it in its natural surrounding. This method is perfect to facilitate inductive reasoning.
But in some cases it wont work to observe people because it can cause distraction. In this cases researcher can become a participant. This kind of work called participant observation. This type of observations will perfectly work for collecting date from people's thought process.
3.2 Standardized Questions: Survey Research
A survey is a research method that involves administering a standardized questionnaire to a sample of respondents. The big advantage here is that they ask the SAME questions  to large number of people, and can compare them. The main thing here is that questions must be well planned and developed. So it will be easy to understand, and the same time will gain the necessary data.  Survey research is very complicated one. That's why a lot of traditions of data analysis were developed. Like social network analysis or paneldata analysis.
3.3 Exploring in depth
The basic method of sociological research is interviewing people. The purpose of Quantitative interviews is to facilitate an interaction  between the interviewer and the research subject. Quantitative interview is very flexible, and perfect for developing the new theory. Quantitative interview usually get done in small sample sizes, with deeper questions. Advantage of it is high degree of clarity.
Also researchers use a method called focus group, when people talk in small group. Focus group is a key tool for marketers, so they can learn perception of advertising.
3.4 Document Analysis
In many cases in it impossible to get the information from people directly. Then researchers study documents. Document analysis might be  quantitative or qualitative in method, depend on type of date needed.
Content analysis is a category of document analysis that must commonly involves; selecting the sample of documents, codes to apply to the documents. Sometimes textual analysis is to content analysis as qualitative interviews  are to survey. It is much more focused on deep analysis of smaller number of documents.
The method of historical comparative research based on the analysis of documents that related to historical research.
3.5 Controlled Comparisons: Experiments
Experimental methods that based on the premise should be controlled with comparisons.
Experiments based on realizing the causal influence between variable., based on hypotheses, and are quantitative data method. Survey analysis employs a "quasi-experimental" design, where only some of the important variable are controlled.
Experimental research is the main research in science and psychology.

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9/10/20              Features of American culture     

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9/10/20              Features of American culture     

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We've been asked to give one example of contemporary American Culture.
Seriously?

I might be too fresh in this country, but I can't choose one!
United States is an amazing country with its own characteristics, oddities, and cultural foundations.
I've been raised in different culture, completely different. The life style with slogan "Eat, or be eaten!", is not a big fun. Sure Russia in not a wild country, it as high developed as US but, the human culture itself is way more aggressive. My opinion is that people in Russia had so many wars that the "surviving life style" become a culture. In Russia people work crazy hard, party crazy long, fight crazy bad, ... Everything in "size of XXXL". LOL
It is funny, but true.
Anyway, going back to the subject of USA. Although we've been asked about one example, I will tell all of them that I have in my head. Years after, I STILL have a hard time getting used to them.
So, here they are:
1. People drive cars. People do not walk the streets of the cities of the world. Even in the city center there are not so many passers-by, and in the suburbs the streets are pristine empty. (Russian people walk A LOT)
2. Wear simple, comfortable clothing and shoes. In everyday life, Americans do not dress “for going out”, they prefer sports shoes and jeans. (In Russia all about fashion).
3. Smile broadly at strangers. This is part of American culture, Americans smile when they meet each other's eyes and that doesn't mean anything. (In Russia, people avert our eyes in this situation. Moreover it might start the conflict).
4. Ask the question "How are you?" to everyone you meet. "How are you?" - can be heard on the street, in the park, at the checkout in the supermarket, on the phone, etc. (In Russia-only if you know the person).
5. Distance measured in miles, liquid in gallons, temperature in Fahrenheit, instead of kilograms used pounds.
6. Go to a restaurant to eat. As strange as it sounds, people here go to a restaurant to eat and not cook at home. (In Russia 99% food is home made. Healthy, affordable).
7. Put ice on all drinks. Not only in restaurants, but also at home, Americans cannot live without ice. (Russian winter is enough of cold, lol).
8.  Do not arrange a feast. Long-term feasts are not about Americans. Even on family holidays, it is not customary to set and seat guests at the table, not to mention parties. (For example, Weddings in Russia take 3 days of all day long party, and yes Vodka; Christmas with New Year 10 days off, Victory Day-one week off, lol).
9. Americans wear street shoes at home. It is not customary in American families to take off their street shoes at the doorstep. They walk around the house in shoes, they can lie on the sofa or lie on the bed. (In Russia - NO WAY!)
10. There are no stray animals. Not at all. Shelters are built for homeless animals. (In Russia they everywhere. Not always safe).
11. Celebrate Christmas with more excitement than New Year. And many do not celebrate the New Year at all.

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9/8/20                      JCB p.50               Contrasting Marxist and Durkheimian perspectives 

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9/8/20                      JCB p.50               Contrasting Marxist and Durkheimian perspectives 

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Food as a totem in my own life.
I was born and grew up in Russia. I was 21 when I immigrated to United States by myself. Everything I had at that time is my suit case and strongly established foundation of cultural education. Food culture was part of it.
So, the main thing that I can assert firmly is Russian food is fully home made food from scratch. Delicious, healthy, and affordable. Since I was 6 I could easily cook soup, with self made pasta, or ragu made from all type of steamed veggies. Also, considering 4 seasons, we had huge garden that provided us with all type of veggies for the rest of the year. As you can see Russian food totem is home made food.
Marxist lens of commodity fetishism.
Well, probably that is the key reason why I hate wasting the food. I grew up in the culture where whole family is working in garden taking care of the plants, so we can have potatoes, onions, etc,, to eat whole year. I know what it worth to get up at 3 am, before heat hits, to clean potato plants from the bugs, i am talking about acres. I know how much water I need TO CARRY to water cucumbers and tomatoes. Not just plants. We had farm as well. Horse, cows, lots of pigs, chickens, and ducks. Sheathed goats and cows by hand twice a day, morning and evening. And a lot of food. By the way, we mowed the wild grass, behind the forest, by hand all summer so those the animals would have food for the winter. As a result, we were having milk, eggs, and different type of meats. And that is normal for me. I have my own chicken in my yard right now, for meat.
So, yes I do know how much time and effort need to provide the family. US is Blesses country, easy life, delicious food from the stores, lots of free time....

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9/2/20                 Chapter 2                       Food /Culture 

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9/2/20                 Chapter 2                       Food /Culture 

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1. Introduction
Brillat-Savarin wrote, “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.”
It is so much right
Specialist Warren Belasco mentioning the social importance of the food, saying the food take first place in our life necessity list, calling it as a world's largest industry.  Thinking about food offers multiple opportunities for thinking sociologically. as a material and cultural aspects of our lives. An estimated 842 million people worldwide struggle with chronic hunger and malnutrition, 827 million of whom live in the Global South. Today, not having access to affordable, healthy food-is still very serious problem.
2. Theorizing Food
Every sociologist has different conception about food. There are a few theoretical perspective of understanding social meaning of food.
2.1. Marx: Food as “Fetish”
Johnston, Jose. Introducing Sociology Using the Stuff of Everyday Life (p. 35). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.
Marxist theoretical perspectives focus on conflict, and more specifically, the class conflict that occurs in capitalist societies.  Marxist perspectives have traditionally emphasized the obfuscation of labor relations in the production process. For example:  many workers in the West African cocoa industry are children, and a significant percentage of those children are enslaved.

2.2. Durkheim: Food as Totem
Johnston, Josee. Introducing Sociology Using the Stuff of Everyday Life (p. 37). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition. emphasizes how food brings us together, and acts as a kind of “totem” creating a sense of social cohesion. He mentioned the useful difference between two realms of social life, the sacred and the ordinary. SO. totemic objects belongs to sacred realms, He realized that totemic principle highlights how culture influence people using specific object. Durkheim considers food as a culture totem, as well as TV, Thanksgiving turkey, Christmas tree, etc.
2.3 Feminizm: Food as a women's issue
I grew up in Russia. Every morning, before school I was having my breakfast. Breakfast that my mom made for me. Why mom, why not dad?  Because it is my mom, and she is responsible for food. Woman HAS TO feed the family....
As I moved to USA, I have visited a lot of american families.
Amazes me still!!! Man, as well as woman, cooks in the kitchen. Still, after 12 tears living in CA, amazes me. I Russia kitchen is the main habitat for woman. Cooking, as well as raising the kids, is only woman's responsibility! ...not fair.
Every job has to be paid fairly.

But food is also the focus of significant unpaid labor. The feminist sociologists mention about unpaid woodwork in the home has been historically performed by women.

Sociologist Marjorie DeVault, “by feeding the family, a woman conducts herself as recognizably womanly”
3. Food Rules: Culture, Norms, and Deviance
Sociologist Raymond Williams famously wrote that “culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language.” That's true, we use word "culture" everyday in our daily life, without realizing the word has a way broader meaning. It might me the type of food we have on our tables, the famous author's novel that we have on our couch, or the movie in the DVD. Because norms are so ingrained in social life, they are often invisible to us—that is, until they are broken. Sociologist mention deviance- as a violation in social norms. It is not necessarily criminal or evil. Deviance can provoke moral outrage, but it can also provoke shock, laughter or mockery. Norms exert such a powerful force on our lives that breaking them can generate moral outrage, or simply draw the attention of those around us.

3.1 Ethnocentrism and cultural relativism
Cultural relativism: that is, understanding an individual’s beliefs, behavior, feelings, and worldview in relation to his or her culture. It doesn't matter if it is traditionally eating snails in French, or eating dog in Korean. A food choice that might seem unappealing from our own perspective can be a delicious and meaningful symbol for someone raised in a different cultural context.
4. Food as a Sociological Research Topic
Food can be studied from a microsociological and a macrosociological. Dave Mercer and Ferne Edwards used this approach in their ethnographic research with "freegans". Freegans who dumpster diving and making free meals in the activist “food not bombs” soup kitchen. In contrast to the microsociological perspective achieved by hanging out with freegans, a macrosociological approach draws our attention to key elements of the food system.

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9/2/20                       (H) P109-p134                    The Sound of Silence and Sympathy in Everyday's Life

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9/2/20                       (H) P109-p134                    The Sound of Silence and Sympathy in Everyday's Life

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To communicate, people use something more than just words. say. Their inflections, tones, pauses, cadence, and volume also have meanings. Non-verbal communication, is very important as well. We use it to share our comfort and discomfort, trust and distrust, pleasure or tension, suspicions, uncertainties, desires, etc. Non-verbal communication was the only language through the history of humanity, including gestures, facial expressions, costume, the way one's talk. etc.
There are three ways in which eyes are used to communicate:
!. conscious use
2. unconscious , but learned
3. the response of eye itself.

Also, this chapter tells about
difference between people of different ethnic backgrounds is their sense of territoriality and how they handle space, called "bubble". This bubble is a kind of mobile territory that he will defend against intrusion.
The size of this bubble depend on emotional condition, mood, and culture people grew up in.
Four main distances in their business and social relations:
1. intimate, direct physical contact, to a distance  if 6-18 inches.
2. personal, 1,5-2.5 feet, like distance that wife and husband keep in public.
3. social, the distance people have during the transactions with clerk. About 7 feet.4.
4. public, 25 feet and up, for example teacher in classroom.

Touch also is an important part of the constant stream of communication that takes place between people. A light touch, a firm touch, a blow, a caress are all communications. It is also important to consider that every culture has different "norms".
In section Sympathy, author tells about sources he used in his researches. First, it were expressions of sympathy in greeting cards, newspaper and television reports, advice columns, etiquette books, song lyrics, etc. The second source was the ethnographic materials produced by generations of sociologists. For the third research, author involved himself as a participant observer of sympathy interactions in natural settings. The last, forth one, was the survey of northern New Jersey residents. He describes his observation, and shares his hypothesizes.

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9/2/20                       (H) 87-p91                Body Ritual Among the Nacirema   

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9/2/20                       (H) 87-p91                Body Ritual Among the Nacirema   

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Wow!
My brain refuses to imagine it...

Here the history about Nacirema, and their exotic traditions. Professor Linton first brought the ritual of the Nacirema to the attention of anthropologists twenty years ago, but barely studied, probably because those culture with it's rituals were private and secret. They fundamental belief underlying the whole system appears to be that the human body is ugly, so they use powerful rituals and ceremony to fix it. For that rituals they use charms and potions that they get from specialized practitioners (medicine man). He writes down the ingredients on charms in secret language.  All those charms are placed in charm-box of the household shrine.  Each day every member of the family, in succession, enters the shrine room, bows his head, mingles the holy water in the font, and proceeds with a brief rite of ablution.
There is men in prestige, called holy-mouth-man". Nacirema have  pathological horror of them. People use that person twice a year for exorcism the evils of the mouth by making wholes in teeth and filling them with some supernatural substance.
Another rituals are involves man scraping and lacerating the surface of the face with a sharp instrument, or women bake their heads in small ovens for about an hour.
No wonder that a result, most of the population shows definite masochistic tendencies.
They also build an imposing temple, or latipso, where they treat very sick patients. Those ceremonies are extremely harsh and expensive.
Another "practitioner" known as 'Listener', he has the power to exorcise the devils.
There are ritual fasts to make fat people thin, or vice versa. Also rituals to make women’s breasts larger if they are small, and smaller if they are large.
the Nacirema has certainly shown them to be a magic-ridden people.

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8/29/20                        3. Understanding the book 

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8/29/20                        3. Understanding the book 

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In this book, each chapter has two goals. First, to encourage reflection and realizing how consumer culture affects our daily lives. Second, to offer the Sociology glasses, which means to give a sense of  how sociology do sociology.
Every chapter of this book has three sections:
1) Case studies focus on sustenance. By this, I mean biologically necessary items, and its social and cultural dimension. Also exploring  how consumer goods help us form social groups and give us a sense of belonging. Our consumer habits reflect individual desires, also constrained by what stuff is made available in globalized capitalist economies.
2) Second section contains the studies focus on fitting in. In this chapter we had Jeans example, then we use a case study of professional sports to investigate the formation of group boundaries. Phones and toys were also involved to case studies. Wedding, as a culture tradition, along with movie was also shown as an example.
3) Studies focus on the process of crafting a unique identity and sense of self. The creatively use commodities to express our individuality, challenging to think sociologically about the consumer stuff at hand.

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8/28/20                        2. Where it came from? 

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8/28/20                        2. Where it came from? 

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To see how sociology relates to consumer culture, and understand the capitalist context, it is useful to briefly look back in time to examine how it emerged. This brings us to  England, 17th century. The pathways of industrial capitalism emerged alongside sociology as a discipline with       Marx, Durkheim, and Weber and their work on industrial production , as well as the impact of these new economic systems on social cohesion and social strife. Karl Marx was also well known because of his work on recognizing the fundamental class division between factory workers and business owners.

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Have any of us thought about it?  It is just a part of our daily clothes that laying folded in our wardrobe, waiting it's turn to be put on. We would think, hah?  And I did, before I read first chapter.
Now, let's put on our Sociology glasses and look what our jeans can tells us about. What would be a story?   Is it about one more boring day in wardrobe? Or about the neighbor's dog that tried to rip our jeans off?
Surprisingly, it is way deeper. Sociology glasses will help us to look at the things from absolutely new prospective.

One of the Philosophy professor draw a circle inside of another circle, pointed at it and said, "the more the circle of your knowledge, the more the circle of your unknown."

It will take us through geography, chemistry, psychiatry, history, study of cultures and relationship, biology, and human development. And this is not the whole list. The sociology, is the science that deny the existence  of individual choice, but pushes us to look at how outside forces contribute to our situation and life outcomes. lives. Sociology pushes us beyond our own individual perspective toward a systematic understanding of human society.

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Chapter 1                      1. Introduction 

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Chapter 1                      1. Introduction 

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The chapter starts with question, "...take a moment to look down at your legs. Now look at the legs of the people around you." I did, I looked at my legs and I saw my favorite Jeans ... it hooked me. So let's see what are we going to find out.

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I've handled money since I was 5 years old, to go to the little store around the corner, so hard to go that far back in the past, lol
But, first that comes to my mind about my purchases is my first car. I was 19, third year of university student that time. I was living far from home, by myself in large, busy city. My university had 2 separate building, plus our library was in third one.  I quickly realized that I have too much stuff to do, so I couldn't spend hours using public transportation. So, I have decided to get my personal car. On the third year of university, because I passed my 18th birthday, I was legally allowed to travel as an adult. I applied for "Work and Travel" program for students. It was 4 months work during summer brake. I went to England, Colchester. It was hard 4 months of harvest work, and a lot of foreign students who wanted to earn money. When I came back first, I remodeled kitchen for my mom, in parents house. Then with rest of the money I got a car. It was used, simple car. But it made a huge difference in my education success, as well as in my personal life. First of all, I didn't need to stay in library till 11 pm, just because I could arrive early and get everything done way earlier. It let me to add hours of sleeping. It was amazing  feeling. Second, It was extremely rare that young girl can afford purchasing her own car. And almost never with CASH that she earned herself. It raised my self-esteem tremendously. I was proud of myself. It made me feel strong, and independent. Third, It helped me to visit my family more often. Few easy hours driving, and I am home, with my family. Life got a little more better. :)

Here is the picture of me and my first car, back in Russia. :)

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Easy!
I love wearing glasses-the Sociology glasses. I have always been interested in the nature of human behavior.
The mind of each person is an independent world, built under the influence of information received from outside. It's like going to the circus to watch a magician's show. He places an object in his magic hat, but no one knows what will come out of it. Imagine his hat is a mind. The object placed in it, is the information that the person receives. Now, time to observe ...