Culture Shock

I experienced culture shock when I lived in Israel last year. One major difference from Chicago suburbs to Israel is the amount of soldiers walking around in uniforms carrying guns. The soldiers were everywhere, on the streets, in restaurants, on public transportation, etc. There it is normal to see that many people around carrying guns over their back, while if I saw one person here with a gun out, I would run the other way. It creates more of a feeling of safety there seeing the guns, unlike in America, where it would cause panic. Also, because Israel is Jewish state, on Shabbat, the roads clear out; public transportation does not run from Friday afternoon until Saturday night and the amount of cars on the road is much more limited. It is very interesting to see a whole city basically shut down for more than a full day, then come back to life on Saturday nights.

Social Construction of Reality

In class last week, we watched A Bronx Tale. The Bronx in the 60's was socially constructed much differently than neighborhoods than I am used to, living in the suburbs of Chicago. Each gang had their own territory and should they cross into another gang's area, trouble would rise, as did in the crime scene on the street, which Calogero witnessed when he was 9 years old.
One unwritten rule that govern how you can or can't act would be that black people and white people are meant to hate eachother and should stay in their own neighborhoods without socializing with the other. This may have come about when the black population in New York grew, which was a change for the white people and they were unhappy with the change so they decided to hate the blacks because of it. These racist attitudes came about all over the US around this time.
Another unwritten rule is stay out of Sonny's way. If you do something that bothers him, you will be on his bad side, and he might just kill you, so it is smarter to be friendly with him and make sure to stay out of trouble with Sonny.
One sociallly constructed idea that I beleive is that you should always respect your elders. It is not written anywhere that you must do so, it is out of respect to them, as they are usually much wiser and have been through more life situations than you have.

"Sonny had five fingers, but he only used 'tree' " 

Gang Leader for a Day

Last week, we read an interesting piece from the book Gang Leader for a Day, where an Indian sociologist tried to study poor African American neighborhoods and learned a lot in ways he hadn't imagines he would. Instead of learning through surveying many different people, he got close with one specific group of people and learned their story. At first, he was intimidated by them, but by the end he felt comfortable and voluntarily went to hang out with these men. This type of research is important because one must live in a way that the people live whom they are learning about so they can see life how these people live it everyday. A survey of many people also is important so that one also see the group as a whole and study trends within the group. If you wanted to choose which school to send your kid to, I would suggest both types of studies. I would talk to, and get to know, kids from various groups, such as jocks if your student is an athlete, but I would also look at statistics of the school as a whole.

Spit vs. Saliva

In class earlier this week, Sal had a student salivate onto a sterile spoon. He then proceeded to talk about how important saliva is for our body. After that, he offered the student to take back her saliva and she refused to take it back. When Sal asked her why she didn't want it back, she said "because it's gross", yet couldn't give a good reason for why it is any different than the saliva in her mouth other than the fact that it turned from "saliva" to "spit" when it left her mouth, which has a much more negative connotation in our society. Social construction is the true reason why the student wouldn't take the saliva back, which is that society has created experiences, which make it socially acceptable to do something such as swallow a spoonful of your own spit.
I was a competitive cheerleader for much of my life and our uniforms were basically sports bras and booty shorts, along with almost every other team there is in the world of competitive cheerleading. Because of how society is, this attire is completely appropriate for a cheer competition, yet it is not okay to walk down the streets or around the school in a sports bra and spandex.

My cheer team from 2011.

 

Being Sociologically Mindful

I have done a lot of community service throughout the past several years; one of my favorite opportunities to volunteer at is Equestrian Connection, which is a therapeutic horse stable for children and adults with disabilities. I started volunteering there in seventh grade when I needed a Mitzvah (Service) Project for my Bat Mitzvah, and I love it so much that I have continued doing it for years. This place is very eye opening to a group of people who I would not have known much about without actually going to Equestrian Connection and being there with them. Someone who cannot walk stably, or is missing a limb, or even in a wheelchair, can get up on a horse and have complete control of where they want to direct the horse. I really enjoy being able to help these people get onto horses, work on their balance, play games with them on the horse, and talking to them; I feel I have become sociologically mindful of a new population of people while getting to know these children and adults as individuals with their own unique story to tell. Volunteering at this amazing place has taught me to look at someone as a person, and the second thought should be if they have a disability, and what I can do to help them do any tasks because nobody should be held back from anything. Everyone who volunteers and works at Equestrian Connection is sociologically mindful and very aware of the people and the environment they are in.