Culture Intro

This week we started our new unit about Culture. We started the week out by playing a card game where we weren't allowed to talk and as the winner or loser moved from table to table, the rules changed but because no one could talk, no one was able to explain it. I was the loser from my group so on the second round I had to switch tables and play with new rules. At first everything seemed normal but then when I thought I was supposed to win a round, a different person in the group took the cards. I was confused and thought I was right but there was nothing I could do about it since we couldn't speak.  That was the whole point of the activity.

We later defined three terms and I had realized that they each applied to my situation while playing the game. First, Culture Shock, this is the moment when someone sees something new or different and is surprised because it was different than what he or she was used to doing. In my case, when I thought that I won a round but someone else took my cards without hesitation. Then, Ethnocentrism, this is the idea that the practices that the person is used to is the right way, they feel that everyone doing something different from them is wrong and that they are right. When the cards were snatched by another person I felt this way. I "knew" that according to the rules that I had read on my sheet, I was playing correctly and then just assumed that the people all around me were wrong. Then lastly, Cultural Relativity, which is where one adapts to the environment around them, considering all aspects (what they believe is right and what others believe is right) and make their decision based on that. I experienced this too when I began to understand the trends that were going on in the new game and eventually started playing according to their rules.

I have experienced different cultures throughout my life but one of the most extremes was when I spent two weeks as an exchange student in Barcelona, Spain. I lived with a family that knew very little English and while I thought that that would be my biggest challenge, I was very wrong. They live very differently than I do in America. For example, their main meal of the day is lunch, not dinner. Something that was very hard for me to get used to because I was not hungry for a large meal during the middle of the day but rather at night, like I had been brought up doing. Another example is that they had a lot more freedom going out then I did at the time. When I went I was only 13 and living in Chicago where I could not always go and roam the streets at night because it just wasn't safe. In Spain though, these kids parents allowed them to be out later than I was used to and could walk from house to house as they pleased. Both of these concepts to me were weird and unusual but as the initial Culture Shock went away and my Ethnocentrism started to fade, I became more Culturally Relative to the customs that they had and started becoming more accepting of them.

Unit One Summary

The movie we watched this week was not only entertaining but covered all of the topics we discussed in class during the last five weeks. It showed characters who were sociologically mindful, a concept we spent a few days learning. The main character Calogero is definitely the most mindful throughout the movie. He is one of the few people who are against racism and do their best to see the other side of the situation (black perspectives) and at the end of the movie, even dates a black girl named Jane. He knew that when he was in the back seat of his friend's car, on their way to go beat up a black neighborhood that it was not the right thing to do and that set him apart from the rest of his friends.

Another thing we spent a few days discussing were the different groups many people are apart of. A big emphasis in class was put on the fact that everyone belongs to lots and lots of different groups throughout their day and life. We spent time thinking about all the different groups we were part of and wrote them down. I was surprised to see how many groups I fit into every day without even realizing it and the main character in the movie was no exception. He not only was part of his family's group and friend's group, but he also had a completely separate life with Sonny and all of the bar guys. To go even further Sonny and him had their own separate relationship from everyone else so they had a group as well as the main character and his father.  Another big theme in the movie was race and ethnicity which played into groups as well. Whites and blacks were highly segregated at the time so he was very much a part of a white group, as well as an Italian-American group and even more specifically, part of a Sicilian group.

Seeing the divide in black and white neighborhoods was very different because in the time I grew up in, racial diversity is much more accepted. At the same time though, I look at the cultural neighborhoods I have grown up around from living in Chicago and now feel that I have better insight into their worlds after seeing what it was like living in an Italian neighborhood in America. Each year in elementary school we would take field trips to China town and Pilson (a mexican neighborhood in Chicago) and go to their restaurants and experience their culture. My mom's house is in Greek Town where the greek letters that spell out Walgreens are written under the big Walgreens sign on the building. Each of these things I have seen in my life but never really thought much of them. After watching the movie in class, I feel like I can understand these different neighborhoods a little bit better.

Macro Sociology

This week we learned about the ways that individuals are shaped by society. They are shaped by things all around us that we may otherwise not have realized. The idea of macro sociology is the thought that the values of an individual person, although they may think are made completely on their own, are really shaped by the values of the community around them. We spent a lot of time talking about the different characteristics of people and deciding how important they were when we did the Abandon Ship exercise. We characterized older people as not as important in our society versus many other societies where people of a higher age are praised for their experience and wisdom in life. Then a few days later created a web of the different groups we belonged in and how being in those groups affected our society.

For me this was a meaningful exercise, I belong to a lot of different groups of people and even being in a family with divorced parents creates sub groups even within my family group. At times I feel like I am living a completely different life when I am with my mom and step dad's family versus my dad and stepmom's family. I have different friends when I am with each different family and although I am a sister in both families, my number of siblings is different. On top of all those differences though I do belong to some very big groups such as being an American, being a girl and being Jewish. This goes to show me that while at times I feel like my life is being divided into smaller and smaller sub sections, at the same time my life is growing and I am expanding my life and sharing similarities with people that I don't even know. I had never really thought about my life in that way before so I took some extra time reflecting on the lesson in class and it has helped me realize how big and evolving my life is and that it'll just get bigger and bigger as my life goes on.

Social Construction of Reality

This week we learned about the Social Construction of Reality. By breaking the phrase apart you can figure out the definition pretty easily, social meaning society or people in society, construction meaning creation and reality meaning one's experience, it becomes clear that the definition for the social construction of reality is the way society perceives a specific experience. In class when we saw the spit on the spoon we thought it was gross only because that is what society believed to be gross, just as society has a belief that saliva, inside of someone's mouth is completely normal. We learned that there is no clear explanation of why these very similar items are described as drastically different, but they are. Everyone around us thinks so, therefore we all think the same without even realizing it.

The spit demo was just one example of the many things we think about in our daily lives without even realizing it. After realizing how strongly I conformed to society without even knowing it I began to take a step back and try to figure out what other things I am doing or thinking just because the people around me are too. Money, stop lights and even the simple act of wearing clothes are normal to us because it is what our society is used to. To people who lived in times before real streets and roads, to them a stop light could be just a range of colors, attempting to tell some one to stop or go but because it is not normal to them they may not think it is necessary to be followed. They may not understand why the computer generated light pattern should be able to have priority over their want to go if the light was red. To us though, we have become so used to street lights in our society that we would never think to question it. Seeing the Social Construction of Reality is a difficult to do but when you step back for a second and think, you start to notice life in a whole new light.