Rising Expectations

In society we value the knowledge of knowing what everyday is going to be like. We like things to stay relatively the same because we fear the unknown. That is why in reading all of the chapters of our Sociology book the one that I found to be most interesting was the last one on social change. Most specifically, I found the idea of Rising Expectations leading to social change fascinating.

Because people value the knowledge of knowing what they can expect in life it is difficult for society to change. That’s why one of the actions that can lead to social change is Rising Expectations. The idea behind this theory is that when people who are disadvantaged don’t see change for an extended period of time they come to the conclusion that here will never be change. But when they do experience small change for the better they have heightened expectations and want more. In the 1980’s this happened in China when the Chinese government gave the citizens more freedom. After that they people began to openly revolt against the government that over time liberalized China.

http://www.units.muohio.edu/havighurstcenter/themes/1989/1989China.html

There are two reasons why I find this concept to be interesting.  The first is that people are never satisfied with what they have. This theory expresses this perfectly; when people are given improved conditions they want more. People aren't able to be content with what they have, even if it is enough. The second reason why I find this theory interesting is the power of knowledge. When people know that they can have more they are willing to fight for it. Not knowing what it is like to live a good life can cause a person living in oppressive conditions to become content with what they have. They fear what a better life might bring them and it keeps them from striving for more. I think a good example of this is the people of North Korea. The people they live a life in which they have no control over anything. They aren’t allowed to leave the country and live in very bad conditions and are content with it. I think that it would be very interesting to see what would happen if there conditions improved or they were freed.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/15/world/asia/north-korea-us-talks

The idea of change is a very scary thought because of what it brings along with it. Knowledge is a very powerful thing because it keeps our lives easy and familiar. But change is good and change is needed for society to make progress and that is why people are willing to fight for it when they know what it can bring.

Family History

When it comes to my family’s history in the United States I don’t know very much. The story of how my family came to the U.S. is not one that is known by either of my parents. Although there is record of our family’s ancestry, we don’t have a copy of it in our possession. What we do know is where are ancestors came from and approximately when.

My mom’s side of the family came from different areas in Europe. My maternal grandfather’s family came to the United States in the mid 1800’s from England. The last 4 generations of that side of the family were born in the United States and the family is located in Upstate New York. I currently have a great grandmother who will be 104 years old in a few weeks. She knows much about the family’s ancestry but I was unable to contact her. My maternal grandmother’s family came from Germany in the early 1900’s. My grandma can recall relatives traveling back and forth from the United States back to Germany to visit family when she was growing up in New York.

My dad’s side of the family has a similar story. We know that we have relatives who were from Russia who then immigrated to Germany and eventually came to the United States. My dad believes that they came to the United States in the late 19^th century or the early 20^th century when lots of immigrants from that area of Europe were coming over. My paternal grandmother also has family that came directly from Germany to the United States but we are unsure when.

Because of a lack of knowledge, I don’t know what struggles my ancestors encountered when coming to the United Sates but I can make some assumptions. I can assume that my family from England came in search of a new life in the United States. They came at a time when the United States had just recently become a nation and there was lots of promise. I do know they were very successful. As for my relatives from Germany I would think they came for mostly the same reason. At the turn of the 19^th century the number of Europeans immigrating to the United Sates was at an all time high. I can imagine they were discriminated against during the first and second world wars when the U.S. was fighting Germany.

Ancestry has never been something that I have thought much about. I have always known that I am mostly German and that I had some English and Russian blood. But I have never known the stories of what my ancestors went though to get to where they are today. It interesting how some families put lots of importance on their heritage and others do not. I have many friends who are Irish and they value that. They all know where their families came from in Ireland and when they came to the U.S. it interesting how different cultures value there own history and how much importance they put into knowing their family story. 

Gender

The social structure of gender in my mind is a set of rules. When you are born either a male or female, you are instantly given a set of standards and guidelines on how you are supposed to behave. These standards are the social norm and people who go against the rules are often looked down upon by others in society and considered weird or ridiculed. This structure gives our lives a certain amount of predictability because what we are expected to do has already been laid out for us, all we have to do is follow the rules.

The way that gender has affected my life personally is something that I haven’t ever thought about. I have grown up in a so called “Man’s” house. There are 4 men in the house, myself, my two brothers and my dad. The only woman in the house is my mother, even our dog is male. The way that this has affected us is by really knowing what the gender role of a man is. Media shows us what society thinks a real man is. A man plays sport (as I have my entire life), a man eats a lot and a man never cleans up after himself or helps around the house. But what my parents have taught me is much different. My mom does yard work and fixes things around the house when they are broken, my dad will cook and clean when needed. I have been taught that it is okay to help around that house and helping make meals for the family can be enjoyable and is a useful life skill. I’ve been taught that you have to work hard in life in order to earn respect and success and you need to provide for your future family. The most important thing that my family taught me was that you don’t have to follow the frame work of society you can be who you truly are because your family will support you no matter what.

  

The social structure of gender has had impacted me more than I had thought. I grew up playing sports like “men” are supposed to. I worked hard in school got in trouble around the neighborhood with friends. I do lots of manual labor for my parents at our house and helping other at their houses. I am also pursuing a major in a science field (biology). I have done all of this without noticing the impact of social structure.

Race (revised)

When you look up the definition of race in a dictionary it will say “a group of persons related by common decent or heredity.” By this definition race is a completely biological trait that we have no control over. In real life though race is how society views you as an individual. A person’s race can change from place to place and can even change while living in the same area.

Race is classified by a person’s physical traits and their standing in society. The way society has classified people is by how they look even though two people who are tall with blue eyes might have less biological similarities than two people who look nothing alike. Race is also classified differently from place to place. A person who is “black” in the United States might travel to Africa and be called white and vise versa. A person’s wealth will make society more or less likely to consider them one race or another. A rich black person is more likely to be called white than a poor white person. Society has made criteria for what it means to be a certain race. A white person is well to do; an Asian is good at math and so on. This is why person’s race changes depending on where they are, because there standing in society changes with them. If I was in a country like El Salvador I would be in the upper class compared to if I was living in Dubai I would not be considered upper class.

I think that the reason why society has changed what race is is because of the labeling theory. If we have been conditioned to think that a certain group of people act a certain why based on their race then we are made to think that all people who act that way are also a part of that group even if they aren’t. I think that this is why we look at race not as a physical characteristic, but a place in society. 

Poverty

Child (3 year old)

Clothing

6 shirts:                                   $60

6 pairs of pants/shorts:            $60

2 pairs of shoes:                      $80

Socks:                                     $10

Underwear:                             $10

Coat:                                       $40

Living

Food:                                       $1,260

Education/ Day Care:              $1,910

Health:                                    $200

Transportation:                        $200

Other:                                      $100

Adults (2) + 1 Adult Child

(all items x 3, except education, rent + utilities x 1)

Clothing

7 shirts:                                   $80

8 pairs of pants/shorts:            $120

3 pairs of shoes:                      $200

Socks:                                     $15

Underwear:                             $15

Coat:                                       $75

Living

Food:                                       $2,500

Education(x1):                        $910

Transportation:                        $1,500

Health:                                   $500

Other:                                      $200

Rent + utilities (x 1):               $8,000

Total:                                      $28,455

Difference:                              $6,342

The thing that surprised me the most when doing this project was how little $22,000 is when you are trying to support a family of four. My original calculations that I thought would be on the lower end of living wages ended up being more double the poverty line. You really notice what you have that others don’t when doing an assignment like this.

I don’t consider myself someone who spends enormous amounts of money. I will occasionally go out to a movie or out to eat with friends but this does not happen very often. When I thought about the amount of money that I do end up spending on little evening out I notice just how much money I am spending. Going to one movie a month and out to eat twice on month adds up quickly (over $400 a year). For a family struggling to make ends meet this adds up to a lot on money. For a family in this situation spending money like this would be nearly impossible and just down right not very smart. I also had to cut near basic expenses such as health care to bring my total number below $30,000.  Cutting this type of expense shows the type of difficult choices that people living at or near the poverty line have to make each day.  If someone in this type of financial situation does become sick and needs medical care the expense fall back on society, which fall indirectly back on all of those who pay for medical expenses.

When I had cut as much money of as I thought I possibly could I was still $6,000 over the poverty line. In doing this I have seen just how wealthy my family really is. My parents have been able to send myself and both of my brothers to a private high school and fund our extra curricular activates for the last 18 years. I am truly blessed to have the privileges that I do and I can’t think of what it would be like to live on the poverty line.

My Educational Experence (revised)

My life as a student has been very different than most peoples for one main reason. I was not enrolled in a traditional school from second to sixth grade. This factor was key to my educational experience and has given me a different perspective on school and education in general.

The summer going into second grade, when I was 7 years old, my mom decided to home school myself and my older brother. My mom had a teaching license and had been a stay at home mom my entire life. My older brother wasn’t being challenged academically and the school we were attending wasn’t providing him a challenging environment.  He hated school and couldn’t stand going each morning. She had already pulled him out of school and was home schooling him. I was the exact opposite, I was having trouble keeping up with the pace set for reading and writing and my mom believed that I need to go at my own pace. She then pulled me out of school and started teaching us math and English at home. The issue that my mom had found was happening at our public school was a lack of person attention to individual students. One teacher with 30 students will have a lot of trouble working with all of the students one on one to meet there personal needs. By home schooling us the teacher to student ratio went from 1 to 30, to 1 to 2. we go more individual attention and were able to address the areas that needed help or needed to be challenged more.

We participated in various co-ops with the other families in the community to expose us to science and art classes with other kids. I loved this style of learning. It was laid back and brought myself and my brother closer. My younger brother was right there at our side even though he was not of school age. We were also able to see my dad more often at his work. We always loved going to visit him as he worked for the University of Minnesota’s football team. Although I was at home most days I still had lots of social interactions with other kid through the co-ops and sports I participated in.  I ended up being completely home schooled until 5^th grade when my parents enrolled me in a charter school called Cyber Village Academy (CVA). CVA was a half in the classroom, half online school that my mom used to transition me back into the traditional school setting. Two days a week I would be in the classroom with other students and the rest of the week I would be at home doing my class work on the computer. CVA helped me to adjust to the traditional school setting. It still gave me lots of individual help because the class sizes were very small and the teachers there were very good. My mother even ended up working there on the days that we were at school!

When I went back to a traditional school in 7^th I had some trouble adjusting because I was having difficulties focusing. I was diagnosed with ADD and a learning disability (reading/writing) that year and it indeed had a very big impact on my learning. My mom had sensed that I had ADD at a young age and knew that school would not come easily for me because of this and she was right. I have always enjoyed the social aspect of school but have had trouble wrapping my head around the way it is set up to make us learn. Having everyone go at the same pace through school and expect them to all learn the same way is not how I think school should be. I enjoy learning new things but locking everyone in a room and lecturing for hours on end was torture for me. I’m someone who needs to be up and moving around. Because of this a traditional school taught me one important thing and that is patience. For me to succeed in school I needed to go in each day relaxed and know that no matter what,  I’d be free to go home and run around at three each day!

In the end my mom was right. I didn’t learn to read proficiently until around 5^th grade and this would have held me back huge amounts in a traditional school. My brother being challenged was also very good for him. He is currently going into his third year at the Engineering school at the University Of Minnesota. The personal help that being in a non traditional school setting has given me the opportunity to be at the educational level that I am at today.

Labeling Theory (revised)

Labeling theory is an interesting concept to understand. It is constantly present in our lives and is always influencing us. When it comes to why we label people in our day to day life it is so we can categorize them to make life easier. It is something that we are conditioned to do in today’s fast pace society. The idea is that if I see someone or something, I will automatically use my past experiences in life to categorize them. For example, if I see a pot on the stove with the heat on, I will instantly assume that it is hot. My past experiences of touching a pot on the stove or being told as a young kid that the pot is hot has shape my understanding of the situation. The same goes for people, if I see a man wearing a suit and tie, carrying a briefcase while talking on his cell phone as he walks down the street in downtown Minneapolis, I assume that that man has a corporate job and either works in the city or has business in the city.  He probably has a nice car, house and is married. Although for the most part our brains categorizing and labeling in life helps us to make things simpler it can also cause us to make wrong assumptions about people and situations. Labeling can also be caused by what we are told.

 

http://revolutionarypaideia.com/2011/06/18/you-cannot-lead-anyone-when-you-need-to-be-led/

I believe that this idea of labeling people and categorizing them has an impact on who we perceive to be deviant and who we don’t. When we see news headlines about criminal cases, the way the article is written shapes our opinion on whether the person in guilty or innocent.  If it is written in favor of the defendant, we will most likely have the assumption that they are innocent and vise versa. This initial view on the topic will have a huge impact on how we perceive the topic from then on out. A personal example of this in my life was the idea of steroids in sports. I grew up in a house hold that viewed the use of performance enhancing drugs as completely wrong and unacceptable. I always had this idea in my mind that if you used steroids you were a cheater and didn't deserve to win (you were deviant). In recent years I have seen the movie Biggest Stronger Faster which is focused around the idea that even thought the U.S. says that it doesn't support steroids it is really everything that the country stands for which is a hard thing to grasp.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KzGfuFFSxA

The other headline news story that has a raised in the past few years that I followed very closely was the Lance Armstrong investigation. I grew up watching the Tour De France and have been a fan of Lance my whole life. When he was under investigation for using performance enhancing drugs during his 7 Tour De France victories and eventually admitted to using such substances I was torn. I new that using performance enhancing drugs was wrong and against the rules but I also knew that at that time everyone in the spot was cheating (using performance enhancing drugs) so it was an even playing field. So would the actions of Lance Armstrong be considered deviant? It was the norm at the time and he didn't do anything that others weren't doing so should he be considered deviant? I have been torn on this issue for a while and have come up with a personal conclusion. Although Lance was on a level playing field with other cyclists of that era he was still breaking the rules and therefore is somewhat deviant. For me this was a hard conclusion to come to because I had always had always labeled Lance Armstrong as someone who was good. I had the idea that Lance never broke the rules and worked hard from the bottom up to earn his success but I was wrong and I had to re-label him.

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=lance+armstrong&FORM=HDRSC2#view=detail&id=8091AB42B4E9B5BAEFFF1A5A5F4F95695A8B0BE7&selectedIndex=36

The way that we as individuals and our society as a whole label different people as deviant has a lot to do with our past. What has happened to us in the past impacts our perspective and outlook on day to day life. No two people have had all of the same experiences and come out the same way. These experiences give us all different outlooks on the world and the people around us.