Monthly Archives: August 2012

Often we hear the phrase “chivalry is dead.” In a society where almost half of marriages end in divorce, what is happening to the dating culture of the youth? It is apparent that the idea of a pre-arranged “date” that we once had no longer exists as the norm.

In college, the pre-arranged date is much rarer. Often people start to hook up and maybe they will end up dating. Professor England believes that dating is less likely to be the result of a set date to get dinner or see a movie. Even though most hook ups do not turn into relationships, it seems that in our present college culture that is the only way to get there. This is because the pre-arranged date before that hook up occurs is much rarer. Yes, there may be dates that will occur between the hook up and the relationship but it seems that chivalry really is dead.

Many could argue that chivalry was a sexist idea, but it seems that what is going on today is the reversal of chivalry. Professor England’s data suggests that men are getting more pleasure out of the hook up than women. I believe that this double standard that exists is creating a bad foundation for many relationships. If a relationship is built on equal pleasure, there will always be some sort of resentment or power struggle. Since this is the dominant culture in college, it is creating problems with relationships early on which could be contributing to the problems with marriage later in life.

Jackie Kaplan

The-Rise-of-Asian-Americans-Full-Report ( Page 96)

Indian-Americans looking for love

Arranged marriages in India 

Arranged marriage is a prevalent concept in some parts of the world. Arranged marriage is a concept where a person married his/her life partner, chosen by their family. The decision of parents is the biggest factor in this case. As I am from a country where arranged marriage is still very much prevalent, I had a first hand experience of seeing a lot of arrange marriage around me. I am going to talk about South Asian cultural stage here, not about the world stage.

Countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh(most of the South Asian countries in general) has a big share of arranged marriage. There are some reasons behind arrange marriage. One of the main reasons might be the importance of older people’s opinion about young generations’ lifestyle. Another reason is young peoples’ dependence on older ones when it comes to earning. A lot of people started to earn at a much older age, thus reducing their chance of having an opinion in important issues like choosing life-partners. Male dominated societies like South Asiaare affected by it. There are benefits and flaws of arrange marriage. The good sides of arrange marriage might be:

1) Arrange marriage leads to a less divorce rate, thus stabilizing the model of strong family-bond. For example, India has a divorce rate of 1.1% and both Pakistan and Bangladesh has less than 1%. On the other hand, Canada has a divorce rate of 72 % and US has more than 40%.

2) A stabilizing family only helps the couple to have kids and it is a very good environment to raise your children.

However, bad sides of arrange marriage is making this concept a very controversial one:

1)  Wife beating can be very much attributed to arrange marriage. Women have less power about a lot of opinions.

2) In some parts of South Asia, dowry and caste system are very much playing its part in rural areas.

3) Less knowledge about your partner might result in awkward bonding in some cases.

Arranged marriage has some interesting facts; it leads to huge amount of endogamy. Marrying someone from other societies is almost non-existent there. Even in US, the amount of interracial marriage among Indiacommunity is much less in comparison to other societies. 86% of Indian people in US are still marrying someone within their community. As I posted my video about marriage pattern among US Americans, you can see that tendencies there.
Arranged marriage also allows a lot of online marital business to boom in India. It has become the life-partner choosing site rather than becoming the dating side. My second video illustrates that situation. This evolution enables the partners to know more about it each other about themselves.

In conclusion, I am neither a supporter nor a hater of arrange marriage. The point is, it will always play a big part in those societies, even though love marriage is socially becoming more accepted in South Asia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9mzbpftczU

I believe that deviance is important in our society today. It makes us follow rules and know what is acceptable in our society today and what isn’t. However it can also be harmful like in the book. The example of Kelly Michaels proves that society can sometimes be harsh and unjust when faced with a problem of extreme norm breach. Kelly might have been innocent and interpreted wrongly. Kids often lie and don’t differentiate from right or wrong. The example of that psychologist saying that the more the kids deny it the more it becomes true is just stupid. Let’s face it, Kelly was given no chance. The decision was made before she was even sentenced with anything. The way people think and act is sometimes unfair because in the eyes of the society they are right and justified. The people who are singled out are basically exiled from the society and are treated as people who are weird and their opinion does not matter anymore. I believe that this should be changed, but how can we.

The video I have chosen talks about what I’ve just written, it explains in detain on how we act as a society and how we view deviance. I think that there are stages of deviance. We have our basic deviant acts like crossing the street on a red light, going over the speed limit and yelling and acting weird in public. Then we have a second level that is basically a bit more serious. Shoplifting would be one of them, beating someone up would be another. Finally we have the 3^rd level which is basically the worst and viewed as the most horrible thing you can do. Killing someone would be one of them, sexually abusing children many times like supposedly Kelly did would be another example. I think that deviance is a good idea that we have a society; however the way we sometimes act accordingly is what makes it not so great. There are many examples of people being unjustly branded for life for something they did not do and in cases like these there is little if not nothing we can do. Deviance is a broad topic and it is viewed differently by everyone because everyone has a different opinion of what’s wrong or right and now how do we tell who is right?

16 and Pregnant

MTV’s 16 and pregnant is a very popular tv reality show launched in 2009 that reveals real life footage of the struggle of young pregnant teens in America. The show depicts certain aspects of the lives of these pregnant teens pretty well when they talk about the different problems that will result in the baby’s birth, like who will take care of it, will the dad stay and how will they afford to raise it. But the show does not depict teen pregnancy completely since they only show teens whose families are willing to accept having their daughter pregnant at such a young age. In reality, most families either kick out their children once they find out that their kid is pregnant or has gotten someone pregnant. The show fails to follow the teens that are not allowed to live in their parents houses and try  to hold down a job to raise a baby, whose dad is probably not even there to support it.

This show is popular because it is an issue that most teens are surrounded by because of society. Teens learn about sex and pregnancy at a fairly early age in America as a mandatory class at school. Not to mention that American teenage society is fairly sexual therefore making the topic of sex and pregnancy strongly appealing.

In the episode, Jenelle realizes that being a mother is very difficult at a young age as she meets and also does not meet certain requirements for motherhood. One of the main conflicts that will occur when she gives birth to her baby is balancing her roles as a “teen” and also a “mother”. This role conflict is challenging since the two are not very similar, teenagers are rebellious and seek the freedom of adulthood without having actual responsibility. While mothers are bombarded by responsibility from their work and taking care of their kids. Role conflict can be very difficult and often leads to wrong decisions and not fulfilling the certain duties of a specific role.

Wife beating caught on video

“Ironically, relationships in families-which the people who are supposed to nourish us when the outside world has sucked away our life energy-can also be some of the most violent relationships in a society.”(Sociology, David M. Newman)

There are physical, psychological and sexual violence against women and children in the families and vast majority of offenders are males. This is due to the inequality between men and women in society, which exists for many centuries. Domestic violence is a serious and repeated violation of the law, however its seriousness is often underestimated. Also tragic consequences of violence vary from physical damage to serious psychological and emotional trauma symptoms, and social isolation.

The abuser may give different reasons by justifying the act of violence, but all of them have no relation to reality. A desire to establish full power over the wife (partner) is the main thing that driven by offender. The conflict usually is based on a specific problem, which can be enabled. However, the abuser makes the problem complicated, in desire to feel the pleasure from punishment and to feel powerful and authoritarian.  In the usual cases of domestic violence one person constantly monitors or trying to control the other and to affect its behavior and feelings. As a result, the victim can receive psychological, sexual or physical injury.

Violence always has an impact on children (witnesses of violence in their families), even if they are not the targets of violence. Children in these families grow up in an atmosphere of cruelty. Many are trying to protect their mothers against violence, and they are at risk to become victims of abuser. Those children also have the tendency to aggressive behavior not only in their childhood, but in adolescence too.

Family violence destroys moral principles of the family, and prevents the education of the younger generation, etc. It is not only undermines the basics of life of the family, but destroys the foundation of security of the society.

Functions of the Family

This video is a sociological commentary by prominent American sociologists. There are 7 minutes show which about different family types and the impact that family structure has on the members of each group.

From the video we can see the family is like the cell of society, the family system is also a social system. Family also is  a transmission of human culture because family provides general idea to people how to make behavior norm in a society.

There are two types of family, such as extended family and nuclear family. Extended family is he family unit consisting of the parent-child nuclear family and other relatives, such as grandparents, aunts ,uncles ,and cousins. And the nuclear family is the family unit consisting of at least one parent and one child.

Moreover , family structure, ,tradition, rules, and others will passed to the younger generation, to help them form a centain character.For example,  If a child lives in encouraging surround, he will learn self-confidence, however,  if a child lives with jealousy, he will learn envy.

People are crazy. In the video above a disturbing picture is shown on how people react to someone in a painful situation. An Actor plays an act of being sick and lays on the ground in a populated area in London. There he scream for help for 20 minutes straight begging for help. No one stops by and helps the young gentleman on the ground. Only after 20 minutes does he finally get up off the ground, but without any help. Why did no one stop and ask him what was wrong?

The bystander effect is an extremely interesting concept. Isn’t it human nature to help someone who’s in need? One would sure think so. In the latter half of the video, two more examples are shown. One of which is of a woman actor who pretends to be in pain. She is dressed casually and also lays on the ground asking for help. This time a man walks up to her asking if she needs help, but only after four minutes of laying down on the concrete. I believe he goes out to help her only because she’s a woman.

The third and final example in the video is of the same male actor as before, but this time he is dressed as a business man, and wears a suit. Here it takes six seconds for someone to help him! Only because he was dressed as a business man! The person who comes and helps him even addresses him as sir.

This video is scary and actually shows how very strange human psyche and people really are. Are people really that shallow that they would only help someone of a higher social class or status?

Something to think about.

By David Bassin

In the video above, a talk is held by professionals and leaders in the field of education discussing the reasons behind America’s failing education system and ways to fix the problem. The panel includes talk show host Charlie Rose from PBS, John L. Hennessy, president of Stanford University, Cory A. Booker mayor of Newark, Reed Hastings, an active educational philanthropist, Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academ, Kim Smith, co-founder of Bellwether Education, and Claude M. Steele, dean of education at Stanford University.

In the first half of the roundtable, the panelists discuss the problems and the reasons behind the problems in education in America. Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark New Jersey says an that one of the most important factors that play in the continuing failure of  American Education is the lack of attention and the lack of protest by the regular populace. American’s believe that if they could just get their own kids to great institutions like Stanford they could get by, and let the other people around them fall down into the spiral of horrible education. Cory Booker says that it is because Americans continue to ignore the issue, that it persists. In fact, this country is inter-dependent and that if we continue to follow this pattern of ” oh, all I have to do is get my own kids through school, and we’ll be fine” then our country is doomed and destined to fail.

Another major issue is the horrible pay and the lack of tools supplied to educators. We expect our teachers to do so much with so very little.

The panelists all say that there is no magic bullet for education, but a possible solution would be highly technological charter schools which focus on individualized learning. Projects like Khan Academy show that learning at an individual pace could help boost children’s performance, and help kids master the science before they are introduced into a new subject.

The only way America will continue being a strong nation is if we are all educated and are able to compete with the rest of the world. It is therefore, our duty to help one another, and help change the education system in America for the better.

by david bassin

Tiger Mom

Being born and raised in an Asian country, I was surrounded by kids whose parents expected so much from them to the point that they felt like they had no freedom in their lives. From being forced to play a classical instrument to having a pre-decided college major, some kids I knew who have “Tiger parents” were suppressed from having their own choice in life and felt depressed about their situation. But although their childhoods were tough, now when I talk to them they think it was necessary for their parents to push them hard earlier in their lives instead of learning the important lessons that their parents taught them now that they are already college students. The overall idea that kids with Tiger parents are unhappy and should be freed from their totalitarian governors is misleading because most people don’t understand the culture within the way some ethnicities treat their children.

Asian culture does indeed push for a more authoritarian style of parenting because ever since the 1800’s there have been massive amounts of Asian immigrants moving to North America to start a new life and earn “American money.” The thought of success and prosperity has made Asian parents stricter on their children in hope that they will get a good job and achieve success in a new prosperous country

When looking at this issue you have to see through unbiased eyes. It is just a cultural fact that to a lot of Asian parents, pushing their children is completely acceptable. Maybe to Asian parents the way that most American parents treat their kids is too lenient and “weak.” So it is not just to judge how someone educated their children if you do not completely understand the culture that comes with it. To them it is considered a norm of their society.

watch?v=526pL1fXmRY

Through socialization-(process of learning) the needs of the society in which we live becomes our individual needs.  Our learning process or becoming who we are is based on various individuals, groups, organizations or institution a person may come in contact with. These are called agents of socialization, which are family, peers, schools, religious institutions and media. These agents influence our behavior, attitudes, tastes, goals, emotions, values and behavior.

Family is our primary source of personal socialization our family shapes who we are in terms of beliefs, values and even our strengths.   Education is the second most important agent of socialization. It is more impersonal, is the transmission of knowledge, it teaches us to be more passive and non-problematic. It teaches us the bigger picture of the world at large makes us socialize with different groups of people where we encounter different beliefs and cultures. Through education we get the bigger picture of the world as a larger society not just our family’s view. Religion is another agent of socialization through which we learn values that we wouldnt otherwise have. Religion sometimes gives strength that we wouldn’t have either. Sometimes we need guidance in life religion may give that peace, guidance or even strength we might need through some tough times such as death of a close sibling.

The third most important agent of socialization that influences who we are is the media. It transmits messages about the type of people we should be as they wish.  Media influences what we eat, drink our beliefs almost every aspect of our lives are influenced by the media. This is an election year and according to the Washington post “television and ad buys are typically the single largest expenditure of a presidential campaign”. As you can see it is proven that media can really change or maintain a voter. Therefore that’s why media is one of the largest most influential agent of socialization. Lastly peers can be influential towards who we are as they say “tell who you hang out with and I will tell you who you are”.