American Sociological Association

According to Jon Shepard (2013), deviance is any behavior that departs from societal or group norms (p. 168). Deviance is a very broad topic. It can range from criminal behavior to wearing heavy amounts of makeup. Whether a person is deviant or not may depend on that person’s society or social group. For example, a Mormon would be considered deviant if they did not were very modest clothing. However, other religions may not have a certain dress code for their communities to follow. Another…

The standard definition when most people think of accountability or being accountable is accepting responsibility. Though this is true, to me accountability means: letting your actions rise above your excuses, overcome your fear and accept responsibility for the consequences you are accountable for. Accountability is liberating and requires a willingness to answer questions from those people affected by your actions. Accountability means to have the ability to follow through with your…

The sociological imagination changes personal issues into public issues. This actually makes people use the sociological perspective when they don’t realize it when in social crisis. Using sociological imagination causes awareness which then causes motivation and change. “Being aware of the power of gender, for example, has caused many women and men to try to reduce gender inequality in our society.”(Macionis, 6) Looking back even just 50 years ago, people would never have thought of a woman…

Amazing title I believe that if a person is responsible, not only will it bring him or her success, but it will also bring success to others around him or her. I did not come to this idea by myself, I had a great deal of guidance from one of my favorite people in the world, my mother, Kim Perras. Over the course of my life, my mother has taught me through example and advice, that my responsibilities do not only affect me, but they also affect the people that are counting on me, whether that be…

Every action and attitude by others are derived from the society around him. The people around you-- and, most importantly, the groups they break up into-- affect your attitudes through the treatment the status quo causes them to give you; the norms they set. After being influenced by an ideal, other specific ideas will develop which will cause other specific actions. This kind of shaping leads to the creation of norms, obedience, and the way we interact in groups. Attitudes control actions.…

Introduction In the article ‘Life is a tightrope’: reflections on peer group inclusion and exclusion amongst adolescent girls and boys, the authors seek to address the issue of peer group inclusion and exclusion by investigating the components of exclusion in relation to gender, the consequences of non-conformity, and strategies that girls and boys adopt in order to achieve group acceptance. The authors examined this through data, which was collected from interviews with adolescents at four…

1. I surveyed two people. One of them is my friend named Tao Chen who is a member in the university’s drama club and the other is my uncle who is the manager of the financial department of a company. There are some differences between their groups. The drama club is more of a social group than a secondary group. It is formed for people who love drama and acting to enjoy the activities. The financial department is a secondary group that is formed to accomplish a specific task or goal and it is…

Social Identity Theory, known otherwise as SIT, is a principle proposed by Tajfel and Turner in the 1970s. The study aimed to explain intergroup behaviour and the situational factors within a model of behaviour. At its core, the theory consists of four interrelated concepts: social categorization, the tendency to categorize individuals into in-groups (we/us) and out-groups (they/them); category accentuation (social comparison), the exaggeration of intergroup differences and intragroup…

Sociological Imagination was a term first used by the sociologist C. Wright Mills. Sociological Imagination can be defined as “the ability to make connections between our personal experiences and the larger forces of history (lecture notes).” The cultural and social historical events are the sociological structures that can affect our life. This paper will use sociological imagination to connect my personal life to some historical events in the past years. This includes historical events such as…

For example, when Cassie Logan, an African American girl, went to a town called Strawberry to buy items from the grocery store run by Mr. Barnett, a white man, she was ignored in favor of some white customers. After politely reminding the cashier, only to be ignored, Cassie, “...went to the other…