I, Curtis

Category: Sociology

  • Making Sense of Identity

    I have been struggling for the past 3 weeks to establish the baseline for my work toward my thesis as well as the more current pressing matter of my directed readings project. Trying to assemble these thoughts I have come up with the following paragraph:

    At the core of a social life is the construct of identity. Identity is the vessel in which each individual stores a sense of self, established through internal thoughts and feelings as well as external interactions. A large component of individual identity is group affiliation. Such affiliations are established through social connections, in-group behavior and out-group presentation. Identity is not only a construction of the sum of experiences and social attributes, but also by determining what attributes do not describe the person. Social psychology involves the use of various theories to describe and define how these identities are formed, whether by symbolic interactions, controls of affect in interpersonal interaction or some other means. Regardless of the theory used a common trait of all interpretations is the identification with a specific category, label or strata of social experience. Group process is a large part of identity, but it is far from all of it and there is nearly always more than one in-group identity to which each person belongs.

  • A Postmodern Sociology

    During my year in the Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies graduate certificate program I encountered critical theory, postmodernism and poststructuralism numerous times. It just goes with the territory. It is difficult to study gender or sexuality without being able to deconstruct it and the best tools for that are provided by postmodern thought. Deconstructing the history that has been created is carried out through Derrida. Deconstructing the language that backs that history is carried out through Foucault. Deconstructing the performance of the history and the linguistic elements are carried out through Butler.

    Now, on the first day of my second week of the Master of Arts in Sociology I am reviewing articles related to my potential thesis topics and discover that all four of the articles that I pulled make some reference to critical theory or postmodern thought. It seems that I have come across the area of theory that is actually applicable to my areas of interest. I react to this with both anxiety (because I am somewhat perplexed by critical theory) and relief (because this is one less new thing to learn).

    I have been contemplating what my actual area of interest is given that I identify most closely with social psychology (and came from a psychology program), and am intrigued by deviant behavior, gender and sexuality. After spending some time reading on one area of social psychology, identity, it seems that I’ve found where everything converges in a way that makes sense. The social psychology of identity is a broad enough topic to allow me to explore a large amount of my interests in a cohesive way.

    Currently I am thinking I would like to focus my research on the social construction of identities and separately on deviant identities. There are probably ways to approach these topics within the positivist and quantitative scopes, but I find myself drawn more to the theoretical aspects of postmodernism, they allow for something that I perceive to be more meaningful than generating statistics about a group or behavior set and then attempting to classify based on it. In my limited social training through gender studies I have found that creating classifications or separating people based on numbers leads to discrimination and attempts to prove that people in the numerical minority are somehow inappropriate or bad because they don’t conform to the same behaviors and thoughts as the majority. Critical theory, postmodernism and poststructuralism defy the constructions of rigid barriers and challenge the authority of the majority, calling into question their version of history and the linguistic constructions with which they attempt to define the world for everyone.

    At some point my mission in sociology became not one of social research or analysis of social institutions, but of constructing discourse which promotes greater social justice and breaks the barriers of power which currently deny the existence of so much of the social capital that exists.

  • Becoming A Junior Scholar

    Monday morning at 11am I went to the University for a sociology orientation. I was uncertain of what to expect from this first encounter with the faculty and my cohort. Almost immediately it was confirmed that my understanding that I was one of six selected was correct. I am the type that typically likes to be quiet in large groups and typically have a hard time opening up in small groups, so at first it was a little intimidating, but it turns out that my cohort is quite friendly and most of us have at least something in common.

    Most of the orientation was rather uninteresting outside of the “getting to know the cohort” stuff, with the exception of a visit from our department chair. She started off her introduction to the group by requesting that we not call her by her doctoral title, but instead call her by her first name. This concept was not entirely unfamiliar to me, as some faculty prefer to be less formal. She went on to explain however, that her undergraduates are expected to call her by her doctoral title and that only her colleagues could call her by her first name. She prefers to think of graduate students as “junior scholars”. After spending the previous year in a graduate certificate program this transition did not occur to me, I did not consider that one of the key differences between undergraduate and graduate work was the level of engagement with the department and the institution. I am no longer merely a student, I am now a junior scholar, with all of the benefits and responsibilities of that status.

  • Why Sociology?

    My academic interests to this point may not scream that sociology is the logical choice for me, but I do feel as though it is a good fit. The programs I considered at the same time as sociology were counseling and a liberal studies degree. Counseling was and is my first choice, but things just did not align for that, so I am restricted to a more academic pursuit. In retrospect I was drawn to counseling because of status and stigma, I am not drawn to it as an academic discipline as I am with sociology.

    So, why sociology? Sociology is the academic discipline that is able to contain all of my academic interests neatly in a single program. Mental health and psychology do not cover my interests in social customs such as marriage and religion. Psychology treats my deviant behavior I interests as things to be treated and not things to be understood in a social context. My belief is that most behaviors and factors that affect daily life are based in some form of social learning or socialized construction. For this reason sociology interests me and is an academic discipline that I feel strongly toward. I feel that I can benefit the field of sociology and I feel that it can benefit me.

    I will have a hard time trying to decide what I want to put the most emphasis on in my degree as there are so many areas that draw me in.

    Deviant behavior is a big area for me. I am interested in it generally from the aspect of why deviant behavior exists or why deviance is a classification of behavior. I am also interested in the cultures of deviance such as those involved in fetish and sadomasochistic communities. A key question in this area is "why do non-conforming people form communities?".

    On the other side of deviance is the conforming world of family, marriage and religion. Religion fascinates me because I don’t have one and thus the social forces involved in religion is a total mystery to me. From my first sociology class as an undergrad (in 2004) I have contemplated the meaning of family and the origins of it’s definition. I suppose my question here is: "what is a traditional family and why is the concept of the traditional family perceived as critical to social cohesion?".

    Why sociology? I am intrigued by structural systems of power and their influence on the individual.

  • Accepted to Master of Arts in Sociology

    Fall2012Program

    I was simply checking my grades today and reviewed my academic transcript and found that my primary program had changed since my last visit. My primary major was listed as “sociology”. I opened up the status of my application to reveal “decision made”. It seems as though I am now a Master of Arts in Sociology student.

  • Gender as a role?

    Gender is typically treated as  “role” in society. Unlike other roles, such as “student” or “postal carrier”, the role of gender is present in all aspects of life. Why is this the case? If gender is truly limited to a social role, shouldn’t it be something that only applies in certain locations and certain situations?

  • Improvement of Society

    With my present course load of sociology courses I find myself caught in numerous debates about things that could improve society, or things that would make culture more safe. To me it seems that sociologists (and people in general) are looking in the wrong place. How can we ever expect to fix the ills of society as a whole? In my perception, “society” is not real. “Society” is a conception of the mind that exists when more than one person is involved. The problem with trying to apply fixes to the general society is that we are applying these fixes to an illusion. It is my belief that to improve society we must first improve individuals.

    It is concerning to think that a person might decide to not do something because it is illegal. If a behavior is wrong, why must it be illegal before someone stops doing it? Humans for too long have functioned from survival instincts, trying to do what is best for the self, and not what is best for the species or the whole. Why is altruism not a default human trait at this point? I don’t ever think of myself as perfect, or anywhere close, but I do try to think of my actions in terms of what it means for others and whether or not I think that the behavior is “right” (or moral).

    The problem with society is the individuals. Individuals are responding to what is “expected” in society, whether it is being successful or a social obligation to simply be deviant. Where is the conscience? Where is the self-control?

    This line of thinking was brought about by an interesting conversation in Deviant Behavior today, about the topic of legalizing prostitution. The majority of the class seems to feel that legalizing prostitution would be a negative thing. I agree that prostitution in itself may be negative and is certainly a deviation of social expectations, but on the topic of legalization, there is a lot more to be considered. Do we really need to have laws for such a thing? Do we need to tell people what they can and cannot do with their bodies in our society? It seems to me that it may almost be beyond the scope of what a rational government should dictate to its citizens. One individual in my class said that prostitution should be illegal because she did not want to think about the prospect of her son having access to prostitutes. First of all, if it were legalized, there would likely be additional safeguards in place (such as an ID check for age verification), and second, shouldn’t this concerned mother simply be teacher her child values that would help him make good decisions rather than counting on legislative action to protect him?  Another comment on the topic that has me concerned about the state of society was this one individual who was worried about prostitutes being able to increase their revenue if prostitution were legalized and be able to “take money away from the rest of us who make an honest living at a 9-5”. To me that comment screams discrimination. Just because a person makes more money than you at something that you disagree with, why does that make them automatically a target for your hate? I personally find Justin Bieber deplorable and certainly overpaid, but I don’t have this type of animosity toward him, not do I have a desire to see laws written that would hinder his rights to sell his body in the way that he wishes.

    Maybe I’m just crazy and have been around the academics too long, but I think that it is time for a different type of social reform, one which encourages individuals to be rehabilitated into society, not incarcerated, and generally a society where individuals are taught to respect each other and to exercise self-control and not be always driven for selfish gain.