Exploring Society: Insights from a Sociology Class

As we started Sociology Class six weeks ago, I never thought that I would gain so much information about how our society works. As we discussed many topics during these six weeks, Mr. Soto, our professor, explained the many conflicts and behaviors of people in society. This course also covered the scope of study that extends from concerns of local communities to the problems of mass society. Some topics of discussion and analysis included: the sociological perspective and research, groups and organizations, social class, social stratification, culture, status, roles, norms, deviance, race, gender, social institutions, social structure, and social problems. I, as well as my classmates, participated in a variety of individual and group discussion.

This topic was fascinating. If I had not learned such information, I probably would never look at people from a sociological perspective as I do now. From all theories studied in class, symbolic interaction theory felt to be the most interesting. This theory presented a valid concept about how our society works. The perspectives from this theory provided a framework for understanding observations on topics such as deviance, in which symbolic perspective of sociology views society as a product of everyday social interactions of people. Throughout my life, I have experienced symbols that society uses to create meaning. As I looked at events in the theatrical stage of my personal and military life, I found very captivating how people in everyday situations define their own deviance, which differs between different cultures and settings. Society and racism play a symbolic role in our daily lives. Every day is a struggle to hide from prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination to one another. Racism and discrimination challenged my beliefs, my ideas, and helped me discredit the principles of race as a true

This revolution of media exposure has been long suspected to have negative effects on children, teenagers, and their behaviors for a number of reasons. First, media is usually a passive sitting activity that replaces physical activity. Therefore, I believe is a major contributing factor to the obesity problem in young children and adolescents in the United States. Second, significant exposure to violent images in the media is suspected to promote or to encourage violent behaviors among this nation 's youth. This latter opinion has grown in force since the occurrence of multiple school shootings by adolescents in the past decade or so. Another fascinating documentary shown in class was "The house I live in." Mr. Soto liked to call it "bring it home." This movie focused on how drug dealers and drug users make decisions as to when and where to distribute, or to even kill someone. These same offenders’ interactions with other criminals reinforce their own criminal tendencies towards their self-destruction. This movie also exposed the way law enforcement is more prone to profile minority ethnic groups such as Latinos and African Americans by using “probable cause” to detain, frighten, search someone, and ultimately places them under arrest. In my opinion, one way to lower drug crimes in the United States would be to advocate for programs that