Deviance

This week in class we learned about Deviance and how its different form what we know in are usual social norms.We looked at an article a group of students in the 70's called the Saints.They where a group of eight male white middle class students. Many people had said in the article  referring to the boys saying how great students they where and popular in the community.But They also violated some aspects of their school's society, like how they would ditch classes and and go to the pool hall but the teachers did not notice it.But there was another group in the school the Roughnecks that were not the greatest students to be at the school but they did the same types of things the saints did but they usually got caught. The Roughnecks were the ones who were shown to not be as successful later in life. Sometimes I do a positive deviance like washing the dishes because I would normally not do that.

Last week in class we learned about how men and women are portrayed in the media. We watched a documentary about how men are viewed as unemotional and the ways the let their emotions out is with anger and violence. Their violence was linked to the school shootings from being bullied. In shows and movies men are always the tough ones and if they show any weakness they are considered not manly. The boys at school act like this, they dont really show any emotions and they when do other boys at school make fun of them. I can see first hand at school how this is affecting the boys in society.

Media

This week in sociology we watched a couple films about how television and the media has a huge effect on our lives. The video talked about how toy companies market to young children. They make a show like spongebob for example and sell tons of products like lunch boxes, t-shirts, and toys. They also talked about how girls in the media are portrayed as super skinny and pretty. Due to this young girls are striving to look like the models on tv, but in real life only 5% of women in the world have that body shape. When Fiji got television the country went from liking being big to wanting the "western" look. This is wrong because not everyone has the same body shape and sometimes they photo edit the models to look a lot skinnier than they actually are. There are so many ways the media shapes our lives, when I look through magazines sometimes I wish I could look like the models but they don't actually look like the picture in real life.

Human Nature

This week in sociology we watched a show about a young girl who was neglected most her life. Her name was Danielle and one day a neighbor called the police because they saw a little girl in the window and they thought Danielle's mother only had two sons. When the police came to the house it was filthy and there all kinds of bugs in their home, when they came to the girls room she was in the corner in a soiled diaper. She was about 6 years old but she look like she was 2 or 3. She had animal like traits, she walked to the side almost like a crab, couldn't make eye contact, and was scared of other human interaction. She had the mental age of an infant maybe in the 6 month range. After she was adopted it improved but not much. This just shows us how love and affection actually do affect us greater than we realize. It can be the difference from having a mental disability or not. Danielle's case shows us to appreciate and love everyone around us because even though the affects aren't on the surface they have a lasting impact, especially when a child is developing.

Nothing and values

This week I'm sociology we talked about subcultures, subcultures are groups within a culture that aren't part of the norm. Each subculture has its own mores, folkways taboos and values. These aspects of a culture are tailored to each individual subculture, which makes each unique. These subcultures we find shape who we are as people. Our culture around us has a bigger influence in our lives than we notice. We also did a "nothing" assignment were we had to do nothing for ten minutes. It was a lot more challenging than I thought it was going to be. The whole time I felt like I should pull out my phone to check a text or the time, also I felt really awkward when standing alone and couldn't really keep my mind from thinking of nothing. Even though every student wants to do nothing for homework, they should be careful what they wish for.