Music in society.

                                                       MUSIC

                                        By Emily Tatum ( extra credit blog)



                                      




In society there are lots of way to entertain yourself, but one that we all have in common is music. You will never meet someone who has never listened to music. Music is natural, from people humming or tapping, to parents singing lala byes to their young, to singing in the shower. Music is all over the place. So what id like to do is research how music effects each of us in different ways. For example hard rock music could cause someone to be angry or smash something."Music can change a person’s mood in few seconds" (Radwan 20011). This study shows that what people listen to is what they are feeling in the inside the most. This is why angry people listen to rock, love struck to romantic music, and sleepy to symphony's. I find this true for the most part, i like the genre of country, when im feeling love stuck i listen to some love country songs, when i am on long road trips i listen to songs that are good to sing along with and when im sad i listen to the sadder country songs. But when i feel like dancing i usually listen to something with a fast beet and sick bass. When i run i like to listen to up beat music and keep my pace up that way. I believe that music has a big impact on the way we act. There have been studies that show baby's being smarter from listening to classical music, this is because classical music is thought of as mature  People don't realize how big of a impact music has on their day, but now i hope they do . 

Sources. 

http://www.2knowmyself.com/How_music_affects_people_moods

http://www.finerminds.com/mind-power/what-music-does-to-your-brain/

Functional Incarceration and rehabilitation

As many know the United States uses incarceration as a form of rehabilitation for the men and women that commit crimes. Although the U.S. has the highest number of incarceration's per year then any other country, so whats this say for the people in the U.S.

With respect to those that are incarcerated most of them are being reshaped to what society expects of them and that is the functional part of incarceration even though not all that get incarcerated become rehabilitated so that poses a non functional aspect of incarceration

Drinking in College

               Going to college? Chances are, you’re going to take some classes, meet new people, and drink, a lot. Statistics show that 83% of college students drink. Also, 41% of college students engage in binge drinking. Binge drinking is generally defined as consuming five or more drinks in one sitting. Some research even suggests that many college students drink far more than five drinks in one sitting.

               That’s quite a bit of drinking. But is where people initially take up this behavior? The research says no. College-aged people, 18-24 years old, may account for more heavy drinking than any other age group, but drinking goes back even further. By their senior year in high school 72% of students have consumed alcohol, 55% have been drunk, and 26% are binge drinking. Yes, high school students are drinking, but college students are consuming far more.

               What is it about college that is causing people to drink more than they ever have, or ever will? One way to look at this is through the eyes of a functionalist. A functionalist would be looking for how drinking is functional for students in college. Drinking is functional for college students because it is almost always associated with social events. These social events allow people to make new friends. College students who are drinking can also be functional in other ways. Students that drink at bars or clubs are functional for those places because they provide a consistent flow of revenue. Students may also be able to relieve the large amounts of stress that comes with college by drinking and socializing.

               Drinking can also be very dysfunctional for college students. Studies suggest that college students engaged in drinking are at higher risks for grades problems, fights, and death.

               I’m not saying that drinking in college is good or bad. Drinking has its functions and dysfunctions for those who participate. It’s up to you to look at each side and form an opinion of your own that’s based on research.

Bibliography:

Melissa Goslawski, Mariann R. Piano, Jing-Tan Bian, Emily Church, Mary Szczurek, Shane A. Phillips, Binge Drinking Impairs Vascular Function in Young Adults, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Available online 23 April 2013, ISSN 0735-1097, 10.1016/j.jacc.2013.03.049.

(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0735109713015866)

Keywords: Alcohol; endothelium; vasculature

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. n.d. “Research Findings on College Drinking and the Minimum Legal Drinking Age.” Retrieved (http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/CollegeDrinkingMLDA.pdf).

Religion

Religion is the practice of a spiritual belief or faith and the act to worship those beliefs. Going to church is religious and it can be the same with having food on the table is being religious. Why are so many people religious? A functionalist would suggest that people tend to be religious because it sets up a system of norms and regulations to follow, keeping society whole, pointing everyone in the "right" direction, or doing things that are the norms. When Emile Durkheim studied totemism, the practice of worshiping a unique totem pole, he explained that "the totem is a sacred symbol and is the object of worship." Like a church being the symbol of worshiping God, food is the object of worship. People set up tables, preparing to eat dinner because it is the norm. By having the affirmation of what is normal, people stayed religious because of it.

Reference: http://www.markedbyteachers.com/gcse/sociology/functionalist-perspective-on-religion.html

Alexander Clawson

Sociology

Sophia

                                                                  Race

      I believe in the beginning when each race was in their own region that people differentiated each other to know where they stand in case a war or disaster happened. A good example of this is Europe and China. Europe’s structure of serfdom lead to commoners trying to set themselves unnoticeable as possible to get by in life but nobles wanted to show off this lead to a racism of who is from where and does he respect me and my king. We still do this today as seen in gangs like west side to east side. In china which is much larger than any European country they fought over land and ideology, as well as individuals fighting over who was the strongest or their clan was better than others. Now when new individuals began coming to their countries the leaders were highly respected because they came a long way to learn from or teach to them. However, as they became more common and instead of integrating with the natives they isolated themselves from others making them seem weird and different. This led some people who disliked the foreigners for any number of reasons like financial competition, jealously over physical attributes like height, or for male’s penis size is an example, and those reasons lead them to start telling others to watch out for them. Now why would a normal person be scared of someone unless they were trouble? So rumors were made and this brought angry over stupid things or problems they couldn't blame anyone else on but themselves or nature. In Africa is where what we know of slavery started. This spread to the Muslims but slavery was also in the north, the Vikings, and in Asia. Asian slavery was for money and prisoners of war. They were treated fairly if they did what they were supposed to and granted status if they did very well and vice visa killed or worse if they did badly. The Vikings only got their slaves through prisoners of war, buying them, or they were born slaves. Viking slaves often were granted status if they did good things for their masters or their family was free after long years of service. These slaves were treated better because they looked like them, when the Muslims started buying slaves from a major Africa Kingdom the queen ruling realized what may happen if everyday people were enslaved so trying to apprize the more advance Muslims she made it so that only non-Muslims could be enslaved. As Christians had have slaves known as serfs to protect them, when African slaves began to be on the market around the same time as Columbus went to the Americas, they had no such protection. This got worse when so individuals wanted to treat them worse for their own reasons. This spread to the Americas where there wasn’t as much rules so mistreatment grew. Now that there are laws against such mistreatment there is a reverse affect due to other races trying to regain years of should have been fairness was unfairness. This can be seen as black power Asian town and etc. The best way to fix this is by teaching children what truly happens when people try to be better than others by lowering them and the unfairness it brings.

Ever Changing Race

Do races affect the future?

Currently within the US, Hispanic and Asian immigration rates rival those of European immigration rates of the 1900s. In 2011, the US immigration population was the highest in the world at a little more than 40 million immigrants. According to the Migration Policy Institute, 20% of all international migrants reside within the US. The US's population is only 5% of the world population. Of these 40 million immigrants, 18 million cite as being of Hispanic or Latin heritage, while 25% of immigrants stated they were of an Asian descent. 

The rate at which Hispanics and Asians are migrating to America today is comparable to the rate in which Europeans immigrated to America in the 1960s. However, unlike today, no ethnicity or culture represented more than 15% of the total immigrant population in the 1960s, as stated by the Migration Policy Institute (2011).  

The immigration statistics of the US Census Bureau and the Migration Policy Institute in concordance with Anthony Perez and Charles Hirschman help to show the trend of a decrease white majority. 

In 2008 the US Census Bureau released a report that projected "non-Hispanic whites would no longer be a majority of the population by 2042" (Perez & Hirschman, 2009). This projection shows the decreased white majority due to both increased Hispanic and Asian immigration and more interracial marriages. 

From the interactionist's point of view, the former stigma of being of a mixed-race couple has declined significantly. Due to the decreased "anti-interracial couple" perception, people of different races or ethnicity are more likely to birth mixed-race offspring. In society today, being in an interracial marriage is not uncommon. Due to the genetics of Hispanics and Asian, any offspring between a member of Asian or Hispanic origin and a white individual will be predominantly of the Asian or Hispanic persuasion. 

According to Perez & Hirschman, immigrants of Latin and Asian roots commonly claim their original race/ethnicity than a white or black American. These American's often notice little ethnic or racial difference. While the Asians and Hispanics will categorize themselves as "Asian American" or "Hispanic" (2009). This is another form of the race and ethnic perception within the US and can be attributed to the trend of increased intermarriages and decreased white majority.  The table below depicts the self-proclaimed ethnic identity of those in the United States. Perez and Hirschman state that only 8% of American's do not fit into the list of these racial categories.  The 8% don't fit into the racial categorize because they wish to further distinguish their race/ethnicity. 42% of Hispanics marked themselves SOR or of "some other race." 15.4 million Americans regularly identify as of an "other race," 97% of those 15.4 million being Hispanic (Perez & Hirschman, 2009). The trend of increased Hispanic or Asian race is demonstrated within the table.

Functionalists would look at interracial marriages as being functional for the current minority populations as their offspring will be more of the minority ethnicity than of the white race. Intermarriages will eventually allow for the minority groups to become the majority with whites becoming more of a minority. The trend of increased immigration would be considered useful to society because many immigrants provide necessary labor for many institutions within the US and therefore an increase in Asian and Hispanic immigration rate will only further supplement the current immigrant workforce, therefore strengthening the economy. 

As more immigration and intermarriages occur, the distinction between the white and Hispanic and Asian races/ethnicity will decrease. Eventually the population will reach a point where the Hispanic and Asian genes will be the dominant phenotypes within society. Interactionism will explain how the perceptions of mixing races and ethnicity will no longer be considered taboo. Functionalists may be able to explain that the mixing of heritages will help the current minorities to gain status within society because more individuals of these current minorities will be more active in the advancing society.   

Works Cited

Britz, Emma., & Jeanne Batalova. January 2013. "Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United  

         States." Migration Policy Institute. Retrieved from: http://www.migrationinformation.org/USfocus/display.cfm?id=931

Perez, Anthony D. & Charles Hirschman. March 2009. "The Changing Racial and Ethnic Composition if the US Population:   

         Emerging American Identities." Popul Dev Rev 35(1), 1-51. DOI: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2009.00260.x

US Census Bureau. "An Older and More Diverse Nation by Midcentury." 2008. Internet Press Release. Retrieved from:  
          http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/population/012496.html

Gender Representation

As I am sure that everyone has noticed there is a large difference in the number of men and women in certain fields. Although these numbers are changing and becoming more even there is still an imbalance. For example there tend to be more females in fields such as nursing, MIT, teaching, and secretarial work. Men are more commonly thought of in fields such as construction, accounting, law, and mechanics. This is very apparent on our campus. OIT has a large amount of students in engineering and medical imaging programs. If you are sitting in and engineering class and you are female, chances are you will be outnumbered by males. On the other hand in classes like A&P or medical terminology you will find that the males are in the minority. In 2003 women made up 92% of nurses according to the United States Department of Labor ("Women's bureau," 2012).

 There are many reasons for this. People tend to see girls as nurturing, caring, gentle; these are all qualities that go well with health fields and working with kids. Women may also be seen as social, good communicators and good at multitasking which are good qualities to have if you are a secretary. There are several institutions in place that help make up these perspectives. Family can be a big part of this. You see where your parents wok and what they do and that is the example you have of what kind of jobs men and women should have. Also media through shows and movies, a lot of times you look up to the people on TV and you want to be like them. Peers play a part in this as well; your peers have a lot of power. If you do something that is different in grade school you will likely get teased and you will probably stop doing it.

In the last year the number of women in computer engineering has about doubled ("Women in high," 2010). More people are branching out into fields that they would not typically be found in. The numbers are still nowhere near even and genders are still not equal in in the same field, but it is becoming more common for men to go in to nursing or teach elementary school and for women to become lawyers and engineers.

Women in high techjobs. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.dol.gov/wb/factsheets/hitech02.htm

Women's bureau. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.dol.gov/wb/factsheets/Qf-nursing.htm