The behavior I observed was the types of groups people sat with when studying and socializing in the Lakefront on Langdon Cafeteria. I choose to observe this behavior for two reasons. One, as I was sitting in the Lakefront on Langdon Cafeteria Wednesday the 20th of November, I started to take record of the people around me. I spend a lot of time in Memorial Union doing homework, studying, meeting with people, eating lunch, and in general, relaxing. I find the combination of open study spaces, food options, and quiet study areas to be a great combination to increase productivity without feeling like being stuck in a stuffy library. I was curious about the interactions of people in this area and if they were similar to mine or if they were different. After about thirty minutes or so, I noticed that there were people sitting alone, and there were people sitting with groups. I began to notice that men were sitting with men and women were sitting with women, for the most part. I was unsure if this was an exemption or if this was a type of social norm and rule in the cafeteria. I initially wanted to observe the types of activities the people were doing in the Lakefront on Langdon Cafeteria, but at the end of my unstructured observation I realized it was difficult to determine exactly what actions people were performing and it was more interesting that people seemed to be segregating themselves based on gender. Two, I had never noticed this gender divide before and found it interesting. On most of my visits to the union, I am with at least one other person, sometimes they are the same gender and sometimes not. I was curious if this behavior I was noticing was also just a one-time-deal or if this was a recurring trend. For these reasons, ...
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...port I stated that the "assumed race" of the individuals was recorded in the comments section of the structured observation guide sheet. The reason this was added is because I could only assume what races people were from an observation standpoint. I had to make generalities, I could not 100% determine the actual race of each individual. The race classifications were general and could possibly not be accurate.
Although these two observation periods showed a separation and segregation of groups based on race and gender, a greater number of observations would have to be conducted to create a general rule for how groups are divided within the cafeteria. At different times of the day or different weekdays, the make-up of groups could change drastically. Two observations of a little over 100 people cannot accurately and definitively generalize how groups are constructed
Race, which is another characteristic of demographic data, is a modern occurrence. It is being questioned and more than likely not a valid determinant. Our textbook in chapter five states, “racial identity or race consciousness is both controversial and pervasive. When early explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries came across people who were different from them a debate began which groups were “human” and which were “animal” (pg. 191).
"Ways That Males and Females Are Treated Differently." Mills College: Personal Pages Directory. Web. 20 Mar. 2011. .
The observation occurred in the LNC lunchroom during the second lunch of the day. I observed two groups of people in the lunchroom. The first group I observed being a group of all males seated to the right of me. The second group being a group of all females seated in the middle of the cafeteria. The method of observation I used was naturalistic observation. The naturalistic observation experience during the LNC lunch period provided further meaning about or local, national, and global community.
Paul, D.A., Locke, R., Zook, K., Leef, K.H., Stefano, J.L. & Colmorgan, G. (2006). Racial
Schaefer, R. (Ed.). (2012). Racial and ethnic groups. (13th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
Race is used to quickly classify a person and determine how one should interact with another. There is nothing easier than ...
In the past, races were identified by the imposition of discrete boundaries upon continuous and often discordant biological variation. The concept of race is therefore a historical construct and not one that provides either valid classification or an explanatory process. Popular everyday awareness of race is transmitted from generation to generation through cultural learning. Attributing race to an individual or a population amounts to applying a social and cultural label that lacks scientific consensus and supporting data. While anthropologists continue to study how and why humans vary biologically, it is apparent that human populations differ from one another much less than do populations in other species because we use our cultural, rather than our physical differences to aid us in adapting to various environments.
Time had effects on the social aspects of food choice and the proportion of food eaten. At lunch hour’s people ate more than later on in the evening.
Why is it impossible to use biological characteristics to sort people into consistent races? Review some of the concepts such as “non-concordance” and “within-group vs. between group variation.”
Bars and nightclubs are social entities that are designed for entertainment and they typically serve drinks, offer music and dancing. At bars, there are many stereotypes and gender differences that make the experience for both sexes very distinct, but very conflicting. The reasons that men and women go to bars are for the most part, different and also how they are treated at the bar would be absolutely opposite. Therefore they have different experiences while attending bars. One of the typical bars, for the age group of eighteen to twenty-four year olds, is the college bars and clubs that are located throughout every major city. The most common activities that takes place at college clubs and bars is typically drinking, dancing, socializing and at times “hooking up”. These actions show that these unique locations and atmosphere can take a whole different turn on gender stereotypes. It shows through multiple distinctions such as the gendered advertisement of drinks and the different treatment of the genders such as harassment due to the atmosphere. Considering varieties of age group and social entertainment, the knowledge of the bars, specific genders and the related attitudes towards social amusements could be among the most important topics one could research.
What make people different in society can result in the process of separation; it can be positive in terms of originality for an individual, but disastrous in the workplace. Separation in labor was proven to cause tensions among workers who were skilled, unskilled, immigrants, and non-immigrants. The division among them was both physical and abstract; the machines separated them as well as race and their own views. People were forced to unite and work together, but their differences created isolation and an inefficient work environment. It is inevitable to group diverse people in one place without conflicts. Separation was analyzed as an outcome of how people work, behave, and interact with others in society.
I chose the Chipotle restaurant located in Cedar Hill TX as the public place as a sample to observe peoples’ social interaction in Texas because I know many people choose to eat there and the customers and the staff members are always culturally diverse. When I arrived I obtained informed consent from the manager to observe for an hour. It was around one O’clock in the afternoon and just as expected there was a line of customers from the ordering counter to the entrance of the restaurant. I saw a mixture of African Americans, European Americans, and a few Latinos waiting to place an order.
Cultural diversity and demographic characteristics are increasingly important issues in today's workplace, having an impact on group behavior.
Stotsky, S. "The Promise of Single-Sex Classes." EBSCO Publishing. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014.
This experiment, even though it was conducted on a small scale, shows the changing gender roles that are being modified today by the upcoming generation. Although the students still had bits and pieces of gender stereotypes, they more so focused on the activities that Confederate A and Experimenter 1 stated they . Also, once they were all collectively in a group and they saw the jobs being written on the whiteboard, they realized various jobs that “were sexist.” The aggregate data shows that cooperatively students in this particular classroom had underlying gender roles, but were able to pick these roles out once seen. So even though they did have some stereotypical tendencies, this experiment demonstrated that their generation are moving past these gender