Using Cooley's Looking Glass, the theory that we develop our self by interacting with others, I am able to determine my social location and analyze why. I will discuss several different sociological factors that have influenced me and created this person. Culturally, I am an American. I was born in Idaho, a northern state. Like many Americans, I work hard but enjoy entertainment as well. Since I grew up in a rural mining town in Nevada, I prefer outside activities. I am a 22 years old, white female. I know that women have had a great deal of persecution in their struggle for equality and happily, I can say that they did great. I was raised that I was equal to men in every way and thus have always been treated that way. I am proud to be a woman and feel lucky to be born into this life. My race is white and therefore I have never been persecuted for the color of my skin. Even as I write I am figuring out features about myself. For example, I just realized my father raised me in a very neutral way. He is not a prejudice man and I have never heard him make a racist joke, although he makes jokes constantly and is very funny. My cultural decent is a little foggy. My mother had 1/8 Native American in her, which I was very proud to have some of that blood, and the rest being from England. My father on the other hand was adopted by my grandparents from my grandmother's sister. The family name of Swigart is German yet, clearly that is not of my decent. Sometimes, I do find myself wanting to know what country I originated from but it would not be appropriate to ask my father and I realize it isn't the greatest part of me. As for Education, currently I have my Associates of Science in Nursing. Although I am proud of my cu... ... middle of paper ... ...nt arrangement. It is hard for strong independent women to sacrifice some of their independence and start making compromises. I also believe homosexuals should be allowed to marry and is necessary for evolving into an equal society. Again I was raised neutrally with religion. As a family we didn't attend church. My grandparents are all Jehovah's Witness's, although both my father and mother ended up being disfellowshipped from the congregation. Since not having any religious influence being taught to me, I was open to explore different religions for myself. I learned about several different religions. I know now that I am a Spiritualist, rather than Christian. There are many different aspects that make a person who they are and where they are in live. After analyzing my own life sociologically, I realize I am among beautiful people living beautiful lives.
Similar to everyone else in the world, many sociological forces have greatly impacted my life and shaped the person that I am today. Throughout Sociology 110, learning what elements in the population’s lives affect the way they live their lives allowed me to consider what has personally affected my own. The person I am today can attribute the sociological forces such my gender, my not-so close knit family, my family’s low socioeconomic status, and sexism in the family. There are plenty of other sociological factors that have considerably rendered my person, however, I believe that the ones I mentioned are the most important factors that manipulated not only how I live my life, but me as a person as well, into my current self.
In this paper will be talking about the three sociological perspectives as it pertains to the fraternities and sororities in today’s world. I have chosen this topic because it can be easily understood in all three perspectives.
I want to make it clear, to those who may question my positionality, that I do not believe that my journey as a white person is somehow special or better than anyone else’s. I do not believe that I hold some sort of special looking glass through which the solution to whiteness can be seen. I am a production of whiteness, and I am also a human being, which means I have many, many, flaws and blind spots that I continue to work on while simultaneously being inhibited by this blindness in my effort to see past it. What I do believe, as Roxanne Gay so beautifully said in Bad Feminist, is that,
There are many factors that have influenced my view of society, these factors are intrinsically linked with the social and political location that I hold within society. My social location is defined by my age, race, religion, gender, familial experiences, and income. All of these factors have influenced my social location, which in turn has had an impact on how I identify myself, as well as my view and understanding of society.
I’m a twenty-three year old African American male from Chicago. My great great grandparents were slaves in Mississippi. Sometime during the slavery days a slave owner had sex with one of my grandmothers, which I have lighter skin than most African Americans. Since I have slave ancestry, I have no idea which part of Africa my forefathers came from. Another reason I know that I am African American is because my phenotype matches that of people from African descent.
I classify my race, ethnicity, and culture as a white, Irish-Italian- American, woman. My mother was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland and my paternal grandparents are from Sicily, Italy. I imagine being first generation Irish and second generation Italian helps me relate with my ethnicity.
An individual is impacted by the people around them and one’s personal experiences shape them into who they are. In
From society to family to media, external influences never seem to disappear from everyday life. These outward forces tend to leave a lasting impression on us for as long as we live. Because they are so prevalent in our daily lives, exterior factors will have a significant influence on us, specifically our sense of self and happiness. When defining our sense of self, it eventually comes down to how we interpret our individual self-image. In most cases, we do not truly know who we are from our own mindset. Therefore, we take into account the reactions that those around us have an influence on our actions and decisions. From these external effects, we create the persona of who we are. In his article, Immune to Reality, Daniel Gilbert explains
As I sketch my sociological portrait, I find myself first looking at the multiple statuses I hold in society and how each came about. I am not only a father to an young adult, but a son, a brother, a friend to many, a neighbor, a student once again and a blue-collar worker. Each of these statuses developed during various times in my life, and requires me to take on, at times, numerous roles. These statuses have defined who I have become and the impacts I have on society. My sociological portrait will be based on the social institution of family. My family has been the most influential in molding who I have become.
As I sketched my sociological portrait, I found myself looking at the multiple statuses I hold in society and how each came about. I am not only a father to a young adult, but a son, a brother, a friend to many, a neighbor, a student once again and a blue-collar worker. Each of these statuses developed during various times in my life and required me to take on, at times, numerous roles. These statuses have defined who I have become and the impacts I have on society. My sociological portrait will be based on the social institution of family. My family has been the most influential in molding who I have become.
The generation that a person has grown up in can offer perception into the impact society has on that person’s well being, thoughts, and reality. This is contributed into what C. Wright Mills called “Sociological Imagination”. Sociological Imagination is the ability to see the world from the perspective of society, moving away from the individual's personal problems, and focusing on social circumstances that produce social problems. In other words, it is when people are able to see the connection between individual experiences and the larger society. For example, when one person is unemployed it’s considered a “private trouble”, but if many people are unemployed then it’s considered a “ public issue”. Depending when and where someone grew up, their sociological imagination can differ from anyone that grew up somewhere else or in a different generation. For this project, I had to interview somebody who is sixty-five or older who has lived in the United States for most of their life and see how their life was and how the generation they grew up in shaped their sociological perspective. The person that I interviewed was a sixty-six year old
'Making and remaking' refers to the way in which people consume, communicate and experience, and the way these actions reflect on society as a whole. Small groups such as the ones discussed in this work can be microcosmic indications of groups and communities at large, and can provide a reasonably accurate representation of how societies interact at large. Because society is diverse and ever-changing, connections and disconnections are made within groups and with society at large, and differences (which (Blakely and Staples, 2014, p.25) describes as “contrasts between groupings of people, such as those based on gender, class, age...and race or ethnicity”) and inequalities, (which (Blakely and Staples, 2014, p.13) describes as “The unequal
The Sociological Imagination The human attitudes have always been a curiosity that captivated most of the great social theorists like Karl Marx, Engels and Durkheim. One of the most unhumble attitude of the humanity was Racism and stereotyping. The racial issue even in the 21st century continue to be a subject that still is present and significant even though we tend to say that racism and other forms of discrimination are prohibited by law and illegal still even in the US the country of all freedoms people face everyday racism, discrimination and humiliation The Sociological imagination, a concept brought by C. Wright Mills basically states that a person lives out a biography and lives it out with some historical sequence. That means that everyone lives his personal life and personal experience but at the same time he contributes to change the history or to affect the society and that creates the historical sequence.
My family is made up of two cultures deriving from two different continents, Africa and Asia. When upon introducing myself to other people, I just say that I am African because that is more easier to believe than me telling them that I mixed with anything that has to do with Asia. My great grandfather migrated from Lebanon to Sierra Leone. The information of whether he brought any family members with him is unknown, but what is known is that majority of them were/are still in Lebanon.
Gould, M., & Howson, A. (2014). Cooley & the Looking Glass Self. Cooley & The Looking Glass Self -- Research Starters Sociology, 1-6.