Week 16 Blog: Shift Happens

My initial reaction to this video was... "wow!" The information in the video left me in amazement at house fast our world is advancing and what that means for the human race. I noticed that the video was posted three and a half years ago, which means that the information is quite outdated, so I think that I would be astounded by what they could tell us about today's standards and what is in store for us in another 15 years. One of the most shocking and sad statistics for me was when they showed how much Nintendo invested in research and development and then showed that less than half of that amount was spent on research and innovation of education.

This video made me very unsure about the future, because of how rapidly it is changing and advancing. It is crazy to think that things I was taught in my first year of college could now be outdated - and I'm not even finished with my college career! It is hard to say what our educational system needs to do to prepare for the future, because we aren't even sure what the future really has in store for us. Another thing I found interesting from the video was their information about MySpace. You can tell that this was an older video, because if it was made today, then it would have information about Facebook and how much time people spend on social networking sites. I think the statistic about finding relationships online has most likely increased and will continue to increase, because those sites are becoming more and more popular. Overall, I just found the information in this video to be astounding and it is scary to think of what information would be presented in a video made today.

Week 15 Blog: Urbanization Issues

The two places that I remember living in throughout my life are Centreville, Virginia and Manassas, Virginia, both suburban areas. I lived in Centreville for about five years and don't remember seeing a lot of changes going on. I live very close to my old house, so when I am near that area, there are some changes that I have definitely noticed now. These changes are nothing compared to the changes that have been taking place in Manassas. When we moved into our house 11 years ago, our neighborhood was filled with houses, there was a park down the street, a gas station, and a few other miscellaneous stores only two minutes down the road. Now, driving down the street you see a complete difference. What used to be green hills and trees has now been replaced with a Wal-Mart, endless restaurants and little shops, Shoppers, a new housing complex has gone up behind my neighborhood, and a church was also built. It just amazes me (not necessarily in a good way) how much things have changed around me in the past 10 years or so. Since this is just a small sample of what is taking place in a suburban area, I would like to see the drastic changes that have been made in urban and rural areas as well.

Week 14 Blog: Who Has the Power?

Like I have stated before, I do not like talking about politics or anything closely related to them. Even reading through the different types of theories of democracy, I found it very difficult to form an opinion about what I thought, because I do not know much about our political system. I would mostly agree with the pluralist theory of democracy, stating that "citizens have little or no direct influence on political decision making" (pg. 400). When I think about change, I think of a large group making a change, not really one single person making a change. I think it would be safe to say that every person in the United States could come up with one thing they wanted to change with our government or with society, but one voice is not going to instantly make that change. It is the big political groups that really make voices heard. When it comes to competing interest groups, voices are going to be heard even more, because each group is going to want their point to across and they are going to want it to be louder and more in-your-face than the group next to them, so they will promote their interest even more and do whatever they can to promote the change.

Week 13 Blog: Is Wal-Mart Good for America?

I think I went into this weeks topic about Wal-Mart a little bit biased. I have a Wal-Mart literally two minutes down the street from me and I love going there for almost anything that I need. I would say the only thing I don't get from Wal-Mart is jeans and shirts, because of the styles that they have. Also, when I am away at school there is a Wal-Mart within walking distance, so a lot of people, including me, go there for groceries and any other necessities. Part of this is due to convenience, but I also think a lot of it, at least for me, is the price of name brand products they have at Wal-Mart. They always have low prices.

Watching this video, what I've thought for some time now was confirmed, that Wal-Mart is good for America or at least good for other manufacturers. In the video Wal-Mart was portrayed as a bully at times, but the fact of the matter is that they are helping other brands sell products like crazy. This will also positively result in more goods manufactured to sell, the possibility of more jobs, and an increase in sales. Although it seems like Wal-Mart has a bit of a monopoly going on, and this could cause them to hike prices up considerably, they still manage to keep prices extremely low, beating other competitors like K-Mart and Target. I think this speaks volumes, just because of how easily prices could be raised by Wal-Mart.

One of the men who spoke on the video said that Wal-Mart strives to have the best product for the best value and best price and I think this holds true. Although it may not be for every product, Wal-Mart has extremely low prices. The products that are sold are name brand items like Sony, Hanes, and Dell (just to name a few), they are not obscure brands that are sold for cheap. And since these are good products that are sold, the life expectancy is high and the likelihood of problems occurring down the road is slim. With the factors mentioned above, this makes for a recipe for a good, successful company, which Wal-Mart has continually proven to be.

Week 12 Blog: Sociology of the Family

When I was filling out my chart, I thought about how my chart probably isn't as typical as other families. My parents are divorced and my siblings and I live with my dad, so the duties of the house are divided amongst the four of us. When my parents were still together, although my siblings and I were still young, I was able to tell that my mother did more of the household chores and my dad was the breadwinner and worked. Since I am 21 and my youngest sibling is only 10, we all are able to help my dad out and do work around the house, and, in fact, are expected to help because we are part of the family. Primarily, my dad cooks dinner, does maintenance around the house, pays bills, and takes my brother to sporting activities. Since my sister and I are older, we are more independent and are able to do things on our own, like drive ourselves to work, get up and pack our own lunches, and cleaning our rooms/bathroom and designated parts of the house. It is weird to see my boyfriend and his family and their interactions and duties shared around the house, because they aren't really shared. His mom stays at home and cooks, cleans, and does almost all the household duties. It's hard for me to just put my dish on the kitchen counter and let his mom do all of the dishes from dinner, when I'm used to helping clean up, or at the very least, rinsing my dishes and putting them right into the dishwasher. Since I have been so independent for so long now, it is also weird how adults my age can still be dependent on their parents for so many things. I know girls that work with me that have their lunch packed by their mom, some parents will get up and make their kids breakfast, and others are paying rent, accessories, and clothes for their kids. I guess it depends on how a child was brought up in a family that determines which duties they are used to or what is considered 'normal' for them.

Week 11 Blog: Religion

I will start out this blog entry by saying that I find it very hard to talk about religion, especially when it involves society and the government. I think it is because I don't know what I fully believe and I think there are so many pros and cons to different issues the U.S. faces, so it is always impossible for me to pick a side.

The topic I will talk about this week is whether or not I think that the U.S. and/or the world is becoming more secular. This is something that I feel somewhat comfortable talking about, so I would say that I think there are parts of the world that are becoming more secular (the U.S.) and other parts that may be becoming less secular throughout the world. Now, this could be just because I am getting older and I am more aware of things going on around me, but I feel like more people have opinions about things. An example of this is saying the pledge of allegiance in school. Within the last seven years or so, there has been talk about not saying the pledge because it has the word 'God' in it. Going into high school is when I started seeing students not saying the pledge, now whether or not this was for religious reasons is yet to be discovered. I think society is going to be happier with being more secular, because everyone has a different view of things. If an issue were to address religion in it, then a lot of people would be unhappy, feeling like they would have to follow a doctrine that involves religion, especially if they are not religious. If an issue just doesn't address religion then everyone has the option of bringing religion into it or not.

As for different parts of the world, although I haven't even been out of the U.S. and can only speculate about this, I think there are probably parts that are becoming less secular. Things like poverty and hunger may play a factor in this. As more parts of the world encounter natural disasters, poverty, and hunger, they may turn to their religion and pray more, asking for help in their time of need.

Week 10 Blog: A Tale of Two Families

This week I read the stories of two young boys, one white and one black, and how they got to where they are now. Both had two very different paths that lead them to where they are now. I am a mix of German/Hispanic and can identify most with the story of Byron Green, although there are some differences. First, I have grown up in predominantly white neighborhoods, unlike Byron who grew up in a neighborhood that was mostly African American.

I can relate to his struggles, because I feel like my family has had to work hard to be where we are now. I felt like the other man had a lot of things handed to him: a private university education fully paid for, help paying for his house, and because of this he never had to worry about any debt. I am on the opposite side where my parents may have had privileges of white family, but we were not well off like the white family was. Since my grandparents had debt, this also carried on to my mom and dad and then on to me. Because my parents haven't had a surplus of money they were able to help me through college for my first two years with equity from the house, but I have take on my last two years, plus car payments, and apartment payments. This gets me worried for my future with a husband and children, because I don't want my burdens to become theirs. I hope to eventually be able to help them pay for college themselves so they can save their money for kids later on.

Week 9 Blog: Social Construction of Gender

Looking at the reading for this week, there were a couple things that I was particularly interested in discussing. First, on page 280 in the book it states that, "According to the social concept of gender, men and women have different identities and social roles and, thus, are expected to think and act in different ways." I definitely find this to be true in American society. The traditional role of the woman is to be the caretaker for the kids, the homemaker, the person who cleans the house and does laundry and has dinner ready when the working dad gets home from his 8+ hour days. Women are also deemed the nurturing ones, which may be why it is assumed we will take off of work to stay home with a new baby. Although I believe that this is predominately how America is, I do think it is shifting. There are more women who are going to college, getting higher paid jobs, and not staying at home as frequently, like it used to be 10 years ago. There are more dads that are taking the role of the homemaker and the women are becoming breadwinners of the family. I think this is a great thing that is happening, so eventually it might not be unusual to see a stay-at-home dad and a mom that works full time.

The second thing I wanted to talk about is related to the biological make-up of men and women. My boyfriend was in Washington state for a month for ROTC Army training. Their regiments consisted of both men and women, so there was always interactions between them. One thing he mentioned when he got back was that he can now see why there is such a push for women to stay out of combat arms positions. This is the type of position that requires a lot of physical strength, which women have less of (on average). Now, by no means is he trying to be sexist by saying this comment, because he explained how so many of the girls in his regiment had trouble carrying the same amount of weight in their rucks as the guys had. In fact, the guys would take some of the weight from the girls' rucks and carry it for them. I thought this was interesting to hear, because people might hear the comment "women shouldn't be allowed in combat arms positions" and assume someone is being sexist, when, instead, you look at the facts and the biological make-up of men vs. women and there is a logical reason for the statement.

The last thing I wanted to discuss was transgendered people in other cultures. This past spring semester I took a class called Psychology and Culture. This class was one of the most interesting of my college career and it taught be a lot about other cultures and different diversity issues. One of our topics was transgendered people and looking at them cross-culturally. It was interesting to see that in some cultures, transgenders are equal to men and women. In Thailand transgenders are called Kathoey's and are very accepted by the rest of society. A Kathoey even won a Miss Thailand crown. I think this shows how much more accepting other cultures are when compared to ours.

Week 8 Blog: Global Inequality

This week I will address a couple questions/issues talked about in the podcast, one of them being: How does global inequality effect your life as an individual and an American? First of all, I would say that it effects my life positively, because Americans are, generally, on the positive side of the global inequality scale. Researching my country for the country profile assignment, it made me think how lucky we are to not have to worry about agriculture as our main export (with frequent droughts, which make it impossible to have a consistent economic flow). My research also talked about the numerous displaced people/refugees seeking shelter in Ethiopia, but there is not really a place to put them. I know that people are homeless in America, but it is not the extent to which other countries have going on, and for that we should be very lucky, but also do whatever is possible to help out these poorer countries.

One other point that was made in the podcast was the contributions that countries make to one another (or internally) that can be negative or positive. I think that America's positives are brilliant minds like Bill Gates, the world of Hollywood that produces music and movies that help stimulate the economy, and inventions or improvements that pop up so frequently. Unfortunately, we also contribute negative things, like hatred. Although racism has improved, there is still hatred among people in America that is fueled by politics, race, sexuality, etc. We can only hope that the inequalities between the people in America that concern those topics can eventually be diminished. Poverty is also all around us, which was partially shown in the video from last week, and there are things we can do to eliminate poverty. Although it may not be completely eliminated, there are ways to 'break the cycle' and have families get out of poverty.

Week 7 Blog: Social Class in the U.S.

I think that social class in the United States is of utmost importance to the people that live here. I feel like, since I have gotten older and am able to realize it more now, that people, including myself, cannot go a day without referencing/referring to money. I would even venture to say that money is one of, if not the, most sought-after item in the world. Money is so important to us. We work to make money, we want to earn extra money to go on lavish vacations, we want to make a lot of money so we can have big houses, and we want a lot of money to have all the material things that we desire. We are all guilty of it, even me. But is this a bad thing?

I have started working when I was about 13, pursuing babysitting jobs off and on, and have been working ever since then. For me, I like to be self-sufficient and don't want to worry about asking my parents for money. I even saved up enough money to buy my own car. Unfortunately, it is more important for me, now more than ever, to be as self-sufficient as I can. My dad lost his job 3 months ago and has not had any luck finding any work. Being a single-father is hard enough, but being a single-father without a job is even harder. My sister and I are working very hard to save our money to ensure we are doing our part in helping our dad. We have always had enough money to get by, but the thought of being considered lower class can also be frightening. It makes me worry thinking about the possibility of not having enough money to pay the mortgage, provide food for ourselves, etc.

Week 6 Blog: Increase in Isolation?

I think that Americans are more isolated and more connected due to technology now-a-days, but that one fuels the other. Now, more than ever, people use cell phones and internet resources to communicate with others, which isolate them from interacting with people face-to-face, but create a stronger technological relationship.

This is a difficult topic for me to pick sides with, because I think that in a way people are isolating themselves, but in another way they are not. Meeting up with a group of friends gives you the potential speak one-on-one, makes you able to connect with the conversation you are having in greater depth, and you are also able to use non-verbal cues to understand how your speaker is feeling. When you are having a conversation through text messages, you could be in a room by yourself, but you are able to connect with many people at once through the text messages. The down side to this would be the lack of engagement in the conversation, the conversation could be very casual and not have much meaning to it, or you may not realize that the person on the other end may not understand what you are talking about.

Facebook has become increasingly popular in the past couple years and it is said that it makes such great connections with old school friends, neighborhood friends, and just people you haven’t talked to in a long time. Well, yes you may add them to be your friend, exchange a few wall posts after that, and then what? In my opinion, that is not connecting, but it obviously isn’t isolating either.

I do not think that isolating vs. connecting is something that needs to be of big concern right now, because people will continue to isolate themselves if that is what they do now. Also, others will continue to meet up with friends and converse over dinner and not isolate themselves. For the future, it could become a problem, because people may get too reliant on phones and the internet and could begin to lack in social skills. Even the increase in online classes plays a part into this debate, because, yes, technically one student may be talking to another through a discussion board post, but is the quality of the comment the same as it would be in an in-class discussion?

Week 5: Criminal Justice System

Policing and shaming have both positive and negative outcomes that may arise when trying to deal with different types of crime. First, I will talk about policing. When talked about in the book, it discusses policing in neighborhoods to make people feel more safe and secure. I definitely think this solution could ward off many criminals that may be lurking in a neighborhood, but what is the likelihood that a policeman can be monitoring neighborhoods 24/7? Another thing this could promote is more criminals dressing like a policeman to gain easy access to people's houses. We have learned to trust the police, especially when we are in a scary situation, so what if that power is turned on us? Also, what if there is one police in charge of a large neighborhood and he is in one part of the neighborhood and a crime is committed on the other side of the neighborhood, then will the surrounding families lose trust in the police and their system? One last thing to consider would be the cost of something like this. Are people willing to pay more money to possibly have their homes more protected?

When it comes to shaming, I do not think that this is a necessary policy. Although I see how some people could be so outraged at a crime that they want the criminal to remember it forever, this is not an alternative to jail. I believe that by going to jail, this person will be shamed enough, although I am also aware that this is not always the case. I think that one negative outcome to shaming is that the person may get so angry about being made fun of and made as an outcast that they could repeat the crime - or a crime much worse. As discussed in the book on page 200, if the criminal is brought back into the community and given a second chance, as opposed to shaming them, they may feel a sense of community and friendship and this may be deterrent enough from future crimes.

Week 4 Blog: Nature vs. Nurture

When it comes to the nature vs. nurture debate, I have always been a firm believer that we are made up of a mix of the two sides. There is no possible way that I could say I am the way I am due to purely my parents genetics or I am the way I am due solely to how they raised me.

The first thing I think about it, regarding the nurture side of the debate, is how I am a good student/child who always obeys her parents. Neither of my parents were completely like that. They both would sneak out at night and, although my mom was a good student in school, she was a bit mischievous. My dad was a trouble maker and hated going to school. Now, I am none of the things that I just mentioned, which shows that their parenting skills were very good. They instilled, in my siblings and I, that school work is extremely important and that we obey our parents. The Moya kids have all followed that.

The second thing I think about that supports the nature side of things is how much alike my dad and I are. We think the same way on a lot of things and see eye to eye on a variety of issues.

When looking at a hotly debated issue like sexuality, everyone has their own views of gay vs. straight. I think that it isn't a person's choice as to whether or not they are gay or straight, but that you are born one way or another. This would take the nature side of the debate. The nurture side could determine how/when a person 'comes out' to their family and friends. If someone is born into a very strict Christian family who has parents that are not tolerant of homosexuality, then they will likely put off coming out. Since it isn't accepted in the family or the person was raised to dislike homosexuality or to not be tolerant of it, then their experience will be different than someone who has very accepting family and friends.

Week 3 Blog: BBC Comedy Sketch

I thought that this video clip was a little bit hard to interpret, but I think it is probably because I'm not British or because I am American. When looking at Hugh Laurie's appearance, he has on a headband, almost looking like a "hippy" or a "redneck" type of person. This could be what people in Britain portray Americans as. Each time he would say 'America' the crowd would laugh. I guess the more that he said it, the more apparent it was, to me, that American singers write a lot of songs about America. In my opinion, this is a good thing because it shows the pride we have as American's. To other people this may just be annoying. At the end a man comes and knocks out Hugh Laurie, which may symbolize other people being fed up with our songs about America. Overall, it may seem, to a British audience, that the people of America really love America. Although this may be a good thing in the eyes of an American, other nations may think it is arrogant or annoying.

Week 2 Blog: Ethical/Unethical?

I think that there are aspects to Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment that are both ethical and unethical; it is really hard for me to say that the experiment was completely unethical or completely ethical. First, although the subjects were able to choose whether or not they wanted to participate he offered them money as a reward, which probably made them more likely to participate regardless of what the study was about and consequently was a little bit unethical. One ethical thing he did was randomly assign the roles of prisoners/guards. Also, Zimbardo did not directly tell the prison guards how they should treat their "prisoners", it was left up to the guards discretion. One aspect that may be traumatizing to their prisoners is that the experiment took place in their schools psychology building basement. This would be a reminder each time they passed by the building or had a class in the building, which could have been prevented if Zimbardo held the experiment in a building off campus, in a place that people were not familiar with. After the experiment was shut down, it was noted that many "prisoners" had emotional disturbances, so Zimbardo should have made sure that they were put in therapy to help them cope. Overall, this experiment could have been handled differently, but then again so can numerous studies.

Week 1 Blog: Introductions

I'm Christina, but my close friends and family usually call me Chrissy. I don't prefer one over the other, so you guys can call me either name. I live in Northern VA, Manassas area, and have for a while now. I am a student at James Madison University studying psychology and will graduate in December 2010 (a semester early). My lifelong dream has been to become a teacher, but I cannot exactly do that with only a psychology degree, so grad school is in my future, but not necessarily my immediate future. After graduating I plan on finding some kind of job, but I'm not exactly sure what kind of job that will be. The main reason I am taking this sociology class is to fulfill my 120-credit hour minimum for graduation. I am also taking another online class through NOVA, but it is an art class.

I really enjoy cooking, reading, and exercising/being outside. Cooking is my number one hobby. I am not skilled enough to create my own things, so I am perfectly content with following a recipe or just making something out of a box (ex. a cake). My favorite books are by Jodi Picoult. I started by reading My Sister's Keeper a couple years ago and she got me hooked, so now I am reading other books from her collection. My favorite type of outdoor activity is probably biking. I love to just go for a bike ride through my neighborhood or down the parkway. My favorite type of music is country music. I have a venue that is only about 20 minutes from my house, so I will be going to a bunch of country concerts this summer, which I am extremely excited about.