This week we talked all about Social Class and we were also given our next assignment.
First, let's talk about scoial class. The first one Caroline brought up was the Three Stratum Model of Stratification. This is the one we here more about in our daily lives. It's the most used by everyone because we is simple to follow. You have your 3 classes. Upper Class, Middle Class and Lower Class. The definition of these are as follows:
Upper Class: The wealthy owners of production.
Middle Class: Professional Workers/Knowledgeable workers. They are also known as 'White Collar'.
Lower Class: People dependent on their hourly minimal wages. Also know as 'Blue Collar'.
These are of course very basic explanations.
This is the example I have drawn up. Think of Adobe Photoshop. Upper Class would be the owners of the company and creators of the software. Middle Class would be the Graphic Designers using the software for their companies. Lower class would be the ones who illegally downloaded the software to make internet memes. All of this, of course, would be taken with the smallest grain of salt.
Max Weber believed in Social Mobility, which is the idea that everyone can, in one way of another, get out of their social class and move up in the world.
Moving on, you have the Marxist Theory by Karl Marx. We learned all about this last year as it was our main focus. Class was split into two groups. Bourgeoisie, the owners of the means of production, and Proletariat, workers of production.
Then there is Weberian Theory which we will be getting into later.
We were talking about TV Shows and movies in popular Culture that represent class as a high focus.
Boardwalk Empire & Downton Abbey certainly use class as a power struggle,
MacBeth vs The Field. Both have an incredibly similar story, though one is upper and the other is lower class.
Football vs Rugby. A student in class said "Football is a posh sport played by scumbags and Rugby is a scumbag sport played by posh people." I couldn't ever understand why rugby is a posh sport.
Hunger Games - I could write an entire essay on that.
Then of course, X Factor. Poverty Porn - Dirt we like to watch.
I'll leave it at that this week. I think I've gone way over the 300 words limit.
Wednesday, 28 October 2015
Friday, 16 October 2015
Understanding Culture and Society Post 3
This week we discussed how we broke the ‘norms’ of society for a little bit, then we moved on the
talk about our next CA which is based around Ethnography.
An Ethnographer is someone who would openly or secretly participate and study other people taking part in an event, such as gigs/concerts or conventions, etc,
We discussed the origins of Enthnography which were the following: Anthropology, Sociology,
Design, Observing the User Experience. Enthnography, (I hate typing out that word), is a means of
identifying significant categories of human experience up close amd personal. There are many
different ways that you could go about it and these are the best ways:
Participant Observation - Observing others by taking part in the event.
Artifacts Collection - Taking flyers, posters, etc.
Oral Histories - Taking note of what people say.
Documentary - Recording people’s opinions of the events.
Passive Observation - Secretly observing.
Group interviews - Interviewing people in a group... Okay that one was a bit obvious.
We also discussed many considerations to be taken during fieldwork. Such as Information Selection which is the information collected representative of all possible experience. There is also field
location and your timeframe. Determining your field site such as the people, like whether or not there would be too much or too little people taking part in the area or that may be too many passer bys.
The place and whether or not it is a good location to start your research and the practice... Which to
be honest I’m too sure what that means. Also it’s very important to not break a few morale rules.
Such as making sure that what you ask them to do will not bring harm to any of the participants.
That there is no lack of informed consent, no Invasion of Privacy and above all - no deception.
That is your education for the week. So long and goodnight.
Thursday, 8 October 2015
Understanding Culture and Society Post 2
For this week we were given an experiment to following. Nowadays there are so many cultures that 'weird' isn't all that weird anymore. Who people are and they way they do certain things is becoming more and more acceptable everyday. That being said, there are still many things that are considered the 'norm'. A process that you would follow so that you wouldn't stand out. But I really like standing out from the crowd so I was pretty happy with the experiment we were given. What we have to do is 'break the norm' and judge the reactions of others.
The norm I choose to break was wearing women's clothes, I shaved my beard, I wore my girlfriends clothes, (ripped skinny jeans, a long sleeveless top and a small leather jacket that cuts off at the bottom of my ribs), and I wore mascara and eyeliner. The purpose of this was to show that people should be able to wear what they felt comfortable in. And yes, I felt comfortable in everything I was wearing. I also love eye make up because it puts focus on the eyes, which are, in my opinion, the body's best feature. I didn't wear a dress because I wouldn't feel comfortable in that and I didn't wear lipstick because I don't like lipstick on anyone.
The way people reacted very funny. People double took me walking past and my friends thought what I was doing was 'awesome' and we made jokes about how I wear the clothes better than my girlfriend. Then some were like 'RYAN!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!???'. I just kept smiling.
It wasn't all that different from what I normally do because I used to wear eyeliner on my right eye for years and I wear my girlfriends jeans or her jackets whenever I run out of clothes to wear, so that's why it wasn't all that surprising. I felt good breaking the norm. It's no secret that I like attention and I rarely buy clothes so it was nice to wear something different for a change.
Well, that was my day. :)
The norm I choose to break was wearing women's clothes, I shaved my beard, I wore my girlfriends clothes, (ripped skinny jeans, a long sleeveless top and a small leather jacket that cuts off at the bottom of my ribs), and I wore mascara and eyeliner. The purpose of this was to show that people should be able to wear what they felt comfortable in. And yes, I felt comfortable in everything I was wearing. I also love eye make up because it puts focus on the eyes, which are, in my opinion, the body's best feature. I didn't wear a dress because I wouldn't feel comfortable in that and I didn't wear lipstick because I don't like lipstick on anyone.
The way people reacted very funny. People double took me walking past and my friends thought what I was doing was 'awesome' and we made jokes about how I wear the clothes better than my girlfriend. Then some were like 'RYAN!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!???'. I just kept smiling.
It wasn't all that different from what I normally do because I used to wear eyeliner on my right eye for years and I wear my girlfriends jeans or her jackets whenever I run out of clothes to wear, so that's why it wasn't all that surprising. I felt good breaking the norm. It's no secret that I like attention and I rarely buy clothes so it was nice to wear something different for a change.
Well, that was my day. :)
Monday, 5 October 2015
Understanding Culture and Society Post 1
For this first post I have been asked how I might begin to think sociologically.
I try to think of my social location and my worldview. For me to understand my worldview, it took a lot of years of personal development and understanding of myself to understand how other people feel and how they work. Growing up in a town where everyone is labelled 'scumbag', led me to believe that it is true. However I later learned that the is always a reason for why people are the way they are. Life is a long process where either a bias can be developed after many occasions or they can be made because of a single event that happened at one point in someones life.
I like to think I always think without bias. Whenever I hear something about someone, I might continue the conversation, all the while not believing it. I try my best to hear the story from the person in question or see concrete evidence for someone that could be a celebrity before I go on to believe what I am told. The reason why I think like this is because when I was younger and in school, rumours would go around about me, like they do to every child, and people would automatically assume it is true. Even when I denied it. I have always hated not being believed and being misunderstood, and I think it's because of the strong empathy that I have always had that I would give someone the courtesy to be heard before I pass judgement.
In terms with the 8 Social Institutions, I'll make this short. With Family, although I may be close to my family, My parents divorced when I was 1 and growing up I had an abusive older brother. I believe it's because of this that I don't value the importance of family, though I meet other people that can't live without them. I have been in many forms of education and I feel that it is very important that it should be made better and teachers should understand the issues student may have. I have Dyspraxia and I was never given a chance until recently to be understood or helped with my issue. This is why one day I would love to be a teacher. Religion is good thing as long as you don't push your views on others, The media is complex and bias. Economy... I have no views on other than my own personal wages. Government is important for structure and people always want more and it's easy to blame the government for everything. These of course are all quick and rough ideas of how I feel from my worldview and should be takien with a grain of salt until I give a longer explanation.
I hope I have gotten right what I have been asked to do, however I notice I may have rambled a bit about myself. I'll try to understand more about culture and society and see how my understanding of the subject changes throughtout the duration of this module.
-Ryan
I try to think of my social location and my worldview. For me to understand my worldview, it took a lot of years of personal development and understanding of myself to understand how other people feel and how they work. Growing up in a town where everyone is labelled 'scumbag', led me to believe that it is true. However I later learned that the is always a reason for why people are the way they are. Life is a long process where either a bias can be developed after many occasions or they can be made because of a single event that happened at one point in someones life.
I like to think I always think without bias. Whenever I hear something about someone, I might continue the conversation, all the while not believing it. I try my best to hear the story from the person in question or see concrete evidence for someone that could be a celebrity before I go on to believe what I am told. The reason why I think like this is because when I was younger and in school, rumours would go around about me, like they do to every child, and people would automatically assume it is true. Even when I denied it. I have always hated not being believed and being misunderstood, and I think it's because of the strong empathy that I have always had that I would give someone the courtesy to be heard before I pass judgement.
In terms with the 8 Social Institutions, I'll make this short. With Family, although I may be close to my family, My parents divorced when I was 1 and growing up I had an abusive older brother. I believe it's because of this that I don't value the importance of family, though I meet other people that can't live without them. I have been in many forms of education and I feel that it is very important that it should be made better and teachers should understand the issues student may have. I have Dyspraxia and I was never given a chance until recently to be understood or helped with my issue. This is why one day I would love to be a teacher. Religion is good thing as long as you don't push your views on others, The media is complex and bias. Economy... I have no views on other than my own personal wages. Government is important for structure and people always want more and it's easy to blame the government for everything. These of course are all quick and rough ideas of how I feel from my worldview and should be takien with a grain of salt until I give a longer explanation.
I hope I have gotten right what I have been asked to do, however I notice I may have rambled a bit about myself. I'll try to understand more about culture and society and see how my understanding of the subject changes throughtout the duration of this module.
-Ryan
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