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I know when I go into elevators I avoid eye contact and face the front. I also know that when i'm writing academic papers, using jaron's or swear words are unacceptable. Certainly I know that showing up to northern Boston grocery store without shoes or a shirt on is my one way ticket into negative sanction. These are just a few of the societal norms govern every part of my life, whether I realize it or not. It's the expectations and behaviors that i don't recall ever learning or taking notes on, however, I know they're there. For high schoolers, our societal norms pressure are massive. Were expected to take advanced classes, play sports, throw in a couple clubs, ace the ACT, get an after school job to build our character (and well a resume)
The novel, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley first published in 1932, presents a very bleak out look of what future society will be like. The novel presents a future of where almost total conformity is a carefully guarded aspect of society. Even before one is "decanted" they are conditioned to fill a specific roll and to act a certain way.
Conformity means a change in one’s behavior due to the real or imagined influence of other people. As a teenager, the pressure to conform to the societal “norm” plays a major role in shaping one’s character. Whether this means doing what social groups want or expect you to do or changing who you are to fit in. During class, we watched films such as Mean Girls, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and The Breakfast Club which demonstrate how the pressure to conform into society can change who you are. In the movies we have seen, conformity was most common during high school.
For my final example of society not accepting people and things that people do, teen pregnancy. My friend got pregnant her junior year of high school. Being at such a young age and not fully matured as a person, Being pregnant is looked down upon by many people. Since society Doesn 't accept this, Teens that have become pregnant tend to distance the self from other people. Most drop out of school from embarrassment and judgment. This makes life for them more difficult. From these three examples, you can see why being an outcast can really make life difficult and unbearable. It 's lonely and can mentally hurt you as a
While trying to break the movie theater norm, it was difficult for me to pick movies with a different variety of people and movies that were a little older so less people would be attending them. I also had a little trouble when it came to answering the phone and waiting for the other person to talk first. The problem with this one was that I had to wait for people to actually call me, which doesn't happen that often in this day and age anymore. To conclude, these social norms forced people to be in uncomfortable situations and make a decision as to how they would react to it.
How do the actions and words of a society affect the way people act? In Never Let Me Go, author Kazuo Ishiguro depicts a society in which individuality is threatened by the pressure to conform through methods such as peer pressure and social expectations. Without a doubt, peer pressure is most commonly found in schools today just as social expectations are suffocating the middle class’ desire to become their own unique person.
It was the first day of school. I was eager to see most of my friends who I went to middle school with. There was one big thing that struck me; I noticed my friends changed. They started dressed differently, acted differently, changed their hair style, and even started wearing makeup. Since the transition fresh out of middle school and into high school, my friends wanted to look older. The biggest factor that bothered me was how they would conform to look like the sophomores, juniors, and seniors. I felt that my good friends wanted to conform and be something they weren’t. In my personal view, Americans in general want to feel mature sophisticated but also want to have fun. Individuality is essential because it allows people to express who they are as an individual. When people express themselves differently and in their own way, they elucidate uniqueness and universal truth. Values in American culture can contradict with family, fashion, and the workplace.
I do not take the elevator a lot in my day to day life because I live on the second floor in my residence hall and my farthest I have to travel to get to class is three flights of stairs. I never see the need to wait for the elevator, but even though I probably have not been on one for over four months, I still, like most people, remember the social norms that go along with riding in one. When you go in you either push the button for the floor you need or you ask someone to press the button for you. If you were having a conversation with someone either you wait to continue it when you get off or you lower your voice considerably. These rules obviously only apply if there are strangers in the elevator with you. If you are alone in an elevator you can essentially do anything (that still follows all of the laws. You could sing to yourself, run in place, or even play patty cake and no one would know. The problem is, once someone gets on the elevator with you, these behaviors are now breaking a norm. I decided to take this concept of a quiet environment
As a student, I am often troubled by the rigid routines of the school day, despite the fact that I am actually a very habitual person. The constant ringing of bells, lectures, bellwork, classwork, homework, each a daily practice throughout the school year. Although all of these components promote conformity, which will ultimately support the balance of school and societal norms, they also tend to threaten each student’s own unique characteristics. This then poses the question; to what degree should schools encourage conformity versus individuality? Certainly, a level of conformity is required to achieve a balanced society however, the overall structure of the school day and class, including the methods used to teach and mandatory classes, is depriving students of their sense of independence by not allowing them to think for themselves and destroying their natural curiosity; therefore I believe schools need to place more emphasis on the individuality of students.
There are many things that influence our behavior from internal influences to social norms. Social norms are implicit or explicit rules that govern how we behave in society (Maluso, class notes). Social norms influence our behavior more than any of us realize but we all notice when a norm has been broken. Breaking a social norm is not an easy task and often leads us feeling uncomfortable whether we broke the norm ourselves or witnessed someone else breaking it. Sometimes however, you just have to break a norm to see what happens.
In the morning before school, picking out an outfit can be difficult. There are many questions to consider like; “Do I want to be different?”, “What will people think of this outfit?”, “Does this show who I am?” This can be very stressful, and cause complications when it comes to identifying yourself and making difficult decisions. Problems that come with individuality can easily be avoided and refocused with conformity. School uniforms positively impact of the learning environment by ensuring student safety, psychological growth, and academic performance.
The choices of education and occupation of children are highly correlated with their parents. These choices are affected by the nature and nurture of the child and family. Socio-Cultural norms shed the light on the mechanisms of thoughts which affect the nature and nurture with the correlation of education. Education is the foremost tool of empowering the society, but social and cultural norms play an important role in shaping the ways of education. The community of third gender faces lots of problem in getting educational and occupational opportunities. In order to know their educational problems and issues, there was a need to understand the concept of their socio-cultural norms. These norms and thoughts influence the demographic dividend
There are always certain groups in every high school that seem to stand out, the popular one, the wannabe, the nerd and the sleepy one. The popular one tends to always have someone to talk to in the hallways and has a full weekend planned. The wannabe is in the sought-after group, but never talks much and just seems to laugh along with the groovy kids because they are afraid to be rejected by these people. The nerd is always studying and never has time to do anything else but study. The sleepy one doesn’t do very well in class because... they are always taking a snooze. The only thing these people have in common is one thing, they all are in school and live in the same society. Naturally, you see all of these same people as you do in school
Social influence/peer groups were one of the dominant themes in my observations, survey, and literature. Social influence looks at how individual thoughts, actions and feelings are influenced by social groups (Aronson, 2010).The desire to be accepted and liked by others can lead to dangerous behavior. College life can be an overwhelming experience for first time college students and or transfer students as they struggle to manage class time and social activities in an attempt to fit-in in the new environment that they may not be used to. Students can experience too much anxiety and drop out of college or fall behind classes. Working at the Cambell Student Union information Center, I observed a great deal of students falling into this trap of social influence and peer pressure. A female student tripped as she was going up the stairs to Spot Coffee but did not fall. What appears to be a group of guys who are not popular (guys who are not very well known), were seating where popular students normally seat. The group of guys started laughing at the girl and stopped. One guy kept laughing, but it was obvious he was forcing the laughter as to purposely attract attention. He started making jokes about the girl and carrying on the laughter so he would appear to be funny. Another example, which portrays peer influence, involves parties over the weekend. Multiple students stated they were falling behind in classes on the grounds of their friends wanted to go out the night before and they did not want to seem/appear “lame” so they tagged along. The influence of a group is intensified by the person’s desire to be an accepted member of the peer group. To achieve this desire he tries to conform in everyday to the patterns approved by the grou...
A norm is the expectations of the right behavior. There are also folkways, mores, values, and sanctions. A folkway is norms that are not strictly enforced. Mores are norms that are strictly enforced because they are thought essential to core values or the well-being of the group. Sanctions are either expressions of approval given to people for upholding norms or expressions of disapproval for violating them. Values are the standards by which people define what is desirable or undesirable, good or bad, beautiful or ugly.
As a high school student the expectations provided to me by my parents are to have good grades, but more specifically a 4.0 grade point average. This expectation can be seen throughout the entire school body in varying levels. Society has shown us the direct correlation between education and wealth; therefore, as we approach the age of making these important decisions we attempt to take control of our future. Another expectation given to me as a high school student is to do well on the ACT. This is also another common expectation given to high school students throughout society. The higher the education level of school I am in the greater the expectation is put on me for social aspects as well. As seen in kindergarten and elementary school my teachers and parents encourage good behavior and good friendships, and as I have grown older these expectations have remained, but now is tacked on the expectation to have a good relationship with the right people. This would mean to carefully choose my friends and not hang out with the “wrong crowd”, which seems to be a social norm expected by people my age from their parents. As for the consequences, at a younger age for disobeying expectations the consequences were not severe, the consequences now that I am in high school can be though. As the responsibility learned in elementary school builds up so does the consequence