Sociology and Main Social Concepts - Term Paper Example

?Introduction Social concepts will always be a significant part of one’s life as it impacts not only one’s personal development but also their socialdevelopment. An individual is always a part of a group, a society or a culture, wherein they adapt with, they challenge or they form themselves. Social interactions are always present as humans are social beings. Sociology will always be part of one’s life whether we like it or not. It is present in all our interactions and even in our own personal development. Everything we do is an effect of our society, our culture and our dealings with other people. And this is the starting point of a better understanding of how we behave, why we behave and how we would possibly behave in the future. My Childhood and Adolescence The initial and primary point of one’s social development happens during childhood. This is the period wherein a child learns to socialize and adapt to the social rules set within the family. The first and foremost form of socialization happens first within the family. The background of the family has an impact on how a child behaves and develops as this is where one starts to learn the beginnings of social development and personality development. One’s personality is usually an effect of how he was raised as a child. My family was not well off although we always had food on the table. I belong to a middle-class family, wherein parents are usually busy at work, making sure that the needs of the family is met. This initiated my understanding that to have a good life, one must work hard enough to be able to give the family the basic needs of food, shelter and clothing. This coincides with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. I have been given the needs at the base of the pyramid, physiological and safety. But going up the pyramid, I felt that I lacked in it. I do not blame it on my parents rather I blame it on the middle-class working culture or the bourgeoisie fate. Always focused on work, my parents were inactive in my school life and social life. Not that I want them to attend my social circle activities but I would have appreciated it if they attended my track meets and the like. In this scenario, Maslow proved to be correct that when the upper half of the pyramid is not met, the individual feels tension, stress, frustration and unhappiness. I felt there was still something missing although I was raving my successes with my friends. Another point wherein I realized that I was yearning for a motherly affection was when I was becoming the “mother” of my group. I learned to resolve conflicts and become the mediator and caretaker of my friends. Although I accepted that role, I became more of a follower than a leader, and I believe this was also a rub-in of the social role of a mother, wherein they are followers to their husband rather than a leader. At an early age, I realized that being a mother was tough as I had to keep secrets while keeping peace within the group. Of course, social influences are not absent while I was growing up. I learned to party and do some naughty stuff. Because I was so attached to my group, not the same with my family, I felt that I was more at home with them. And so, I followed my friends whatever they were doing and wherever they are going. I wanted to feel the belongingness as I knew that going against them will have me as an outcast. At an early age, I felt the beginnings of peer pressure, which is one of the most crucial events in a teenager’s life. There are a lot of times that this pressure pushes teens to do deviant behavior, and I did. Although this did not lead me to more serious deviant behavior, I have learned now that it was still because of how I was raised by my parents. My parents, although not always present, were strict and very firm on their decision. They cannot be swayed easily. As a child, I found them tough but when I got older, I realized that if they hadn’t been that way I could have been easily swayed to do all the wrong things. I learned how to follow rules, although there are times that I break the small rules my parents have set, like curfews and phone or TV time. But I believe that my fear of punishment is larger than my craving to break their rules. This started my socialization on how to follow orders from authorities. I knew I can get away with some minor rule-breaking at some point in time, but I have been trained not to. It is not more of the fear that I felt when I was older, it was more of the fear of losing trust and confidence, as well as the fear of disrespect. As I got to learn in my Sociology class, the social interactions that we have in childhood and adolescence impacts what we do in our future dealings with other people. Now a mother of two, I have realized that it is important that I do not only give them the basic needs of food, shelter and clothing. I should also be able to give my children security, happiness and personal fulfillment, just to name a few. With this, they will be even more prepared to be independent and learn better how to adapt with different kinds of people. Although socialization with friends allows one to understand better how to adapt to the cultural variations of our society, it is better if this is taught primarily at home, by teaching the children how to behave properly at different situations. Discipline and values start at home, not at the school, and it is only reinforced by the social rules that govern the school. Although the school might look a little stricter in their rules and regulations, this is actually a preparation for the children’s journey outside the school. There are even more rigorous preparations during college years, as the social rules sometimes collide with the administrative rules of the school. One of the most important issues that springs from adolescence is discrimination. Because of the many groupings and classifications set on different races and cultures, an individual is faced with different personalities and values that may be similar or different from what he has been socialized with during his childhood years. Actually, the behavior of an individual towards a certain value or behavior was fed upon by the cultural inclination of the family. Learning how to deal with different kinds of culture is very important as part of the socialization process. If this is not properly nurtured, the individual may become ethnocentric, someone who believes that the only important or superior culture is his own. This is not right as each culture has its own strengths and weaknesses. Also, not all culture see eye to eye on different traditions and ethics. This is similar to societies using different types of government, based on what they believe in. If an individual is blinded by his own prejudice against other people, then they harness hate and frustration against his own society for accepting these people within the circle they are living in. Because of the migration of different groups from one place to another, different cultures and societies are able to mesh and integrate each other’s own values. With this, one culture is not pure anymore as all cultures affects and impacts one another, especially with the dawn of the World Wide Web. Before one culture only reads about another country through books and the news but nowadays it takes only one click in Google and we can get all sorts of information from another country or even century. The changes in technology impacted not only the youth of today but also older generations as one begins to open himself up to the different facets of our present society. The trends in social development is not limited to personal and face-to-face interaction anymore rather it is spread wide all over the world because of social networking sites. This also increases one’s ability to accept other traditions and cultures. This indicates that the changing times also impact the social interaction of people and in return, it influences how different individual relate to each and improve their social development. The Present Time The different social interactions that I have experienced all throughout my life affected not only my personal development but also the way how I treat my own children. And actually this is another social concept, transferring my values to my children, the same way as my parents transferred what they believed in to me during my childhood. Since my parents were not particularly active in my school life, I felt there was something missing in my childhood. I didn’t want my children to feel the same way, and so I learned the value of giving them the time that wasn’t given to me. I realized that being active in my children’s school activities allowed me to understand better who they are and what they were doing outside of home. This is important as the school becomes the vehicle for reinforcing the values and traditions that I am teaching my children at home. Although, the method may be different as the school has its own regulations, the discipline that they have molded the children is really an asset in the years to come. Also, being more involved with my children’s school activities, I have bridged the gap between their generation and mine. As I mentioned earlier, the different social changes influences the individuals who are part of the society. The effect of the social changes may increase what is called the generation gap because of the different traditional values and culture that the older generation has. Since children are more adaptable to change than older people, they are more malleable in terms of being swayed from one tradition to another. This may increase the generation gap, especially if the older people have a hard time accepting the social changes that may be totally be different from what they grew up with. One of the major social changes that I believe impacts everyone more than the anything else right now are the technological advances, like the Internet, CGI and the like. These technological advances impact the movement of the society and influence not only the different businesses and industries but also history, time and communication of people. It makes our society more fast-paced, more upgraded and we are quickly adapting to this by moving faster and quicker. A more concrete example would be communication. Before it is slower, as we only had mail, but now in one click we are able to read the letter of another person thousands of miles away after they send it a few seconds ago. Even faster is the chat, and the development now is that we can actually see the person we are talking to. This creates a bridge between people, but we don’t realize is that this technology can increase the gap between people as the interactions become more and more focused on using the Internet instead of really getting together and talking face-to-face. With this, we can say that there are various pros and cons for the improvements that technology has brought us. The rise in social networking has the greatest impact in personal interactions. It increased the communication of people but it also decreased the face-to-face interactions, which is also very important as it creates a deeper and more meaningful relationships. We may exchange virtual hugs but the physical touch is still important as it creates a deeper bond between people. This is what I have been teaching my kids as they are growing up. Although the virtual world increases their ability to contact their friends, it is also important that they do activities outside of this world and increase their physical interactions with their friends as it creates a deeper relationship. Personally, I would rather receive a hug from my child rather than a text message that says hug as it makes me feel better and more connected with my kid. The virtual world also decreases the children’s physical activities as what they are doing are simply sitting down and chatting and typing. Physical activities are still very important, as what I have learned during my childhood as it improves health, and values, especially when doing sports. You cannot learn sportsmanship through chatting and playing computer games, right? Media technology, such as the computer-generated imaging, also has increased the interest of people in movies and computers. People became interested in creating these effects as they generated life-like images on the screen. We are seeing a lot of use for the computer nowadays, not only for communication but also for improving the different sectors of our society. Media is a very important vehicle of transferring our culture and tradition. When used properly, it can educate people and direct people towards a certain perspective. With this, it may become a very dangerous tool as it can be used to direct people towards a perspective that may be against a certain person or government. One example are the reality shows that have been sprouting in television. Amazing Race is great in the fact that they actually feature the different sites in the world, it teaches us about history and geography. But shows like The Bachelor, for me, teach very shallow values that are not fit for children. How can you actually make sure that the person who chose you will stay with you forever when he was moonlighting with different girls all throughout the show? Is that the type of guy a woman wants to be with? Someone who needs to choose in a row of girls to see who he wants? I think I don’t want my children to be in those shoes. Quiz shows are very educational and those shows are very interesting as it teaches us that there are some things worth remembering even if they are just small information we got during childhood. Conclusion Sociology cannot be separated from our daily lives. It influences and affects us in so many ways as we always have social interactions. Man cannot live alone, and we always have a need for interaction. This, alone, is a social concept worth looking at. The different social interactions that we have throughout our life are important as it teaches us different values and traditions. It is important though that we are able to filter the different values that the society is influencing us. It is still our own responsibility to be able to judge whether what we are being influenced on will be good for us or not. Most importantly, all the social experiences that we encounter in life are meant to teach us something whether or not we choose to have it affect us or not. Read More