Sociology Scholars

If you are a student of sociology, here is an assignment you can use to get your SOC on. As I’ve said, sociology is about the study of the world that you create through your actions, interactions, and “complicit” agreement with the “rules” of the world. In this assignment, I would like you to begin thinking like a sociologist. That is, take a sociological perspective on the world you live in and create. Specifically, take a close look at the two institutions that are closest to your current life experience. Take a look at your family and previous (or current) school as “institutions” with structures, boundaries, and rules. Reflect on these boundaries, structures, and rules. Start by identifying the rules of these institutions, and don’t focus just on the generic rules (like raise your hand before going to the bathroom), focus on the specific and implicit rules. Are all the rules applied equally? Do some people follow different rules? If so, why? What functions do the rules perform? If it’s an educational institution, then the rule of showing up on time allows the institution to carry out its function of educating you (or brainwashing as some might say). If it’s a family, then the rule of helping out after supper creates equity and togetherness.

Once you’ve identified the rules, pay particular attention to the way you participate, reinforce, and re-create the world. Or, if you are a rebel at heart, pay attention to how you find yourself butting or resisting against the operation of the rules. If you have questions or if you see things that you don’t understand, write these questions down. Make a little personal journal of your work if you like. You do not have to worry about sounding scientific or super intelligent. You also don’t have to worry about getting the “wrong” answer. This assignment is merely about reflecting on the institutions in your life.

“The world in 60 seconds? A sociologist looks at daily life differently. Walking through a market with melon in hand, we see interrelationships, economic realities, injustices, and a world that “could be” or “might be” if we stopped buying into the “that’s just the way it is” mentality of “normal” life. Revolutionary? No. In a way it is deeply ironic. Engineers, chemists, even physicists work hard to improve the things that matter to them and nobody questions that. Is it so strange then that sociologists might aspire to ask questions, point out contradictions, and contribute towards a better future? It’s only strange, I feel, that more people don’t listen.”

The other day, I was standing in the local supermarket, here in Copenhagen, Denmark, ready to buy a watermelon as a Nigerian woman asked me about the coloring of the melon in question, as mine was striped where the one she had found was full colored dark green. She shared with me, there in the line, how there in her country, was a different melon growing, similar to a watermelon, yet with an entirely different taste and that she thus wanted to check that our two melons were in deed the same kind. She had her little son with her, mulatto as his father was of Danish heritage.

(story continues here — http://www.sociology.org/lead/one-world-in-60-seconds )