ch 4 questions

what do sociologists mean by "social construction of reality"? how does the idea of social construction bring into question certain elements of everyday life, like gender roles?

-a social construction is something that only exists because everyone agrees upon it and gives it meaning through interactions -gender roles are a good example of this. biologically, there aren't many differences between boys and girls (other than the obvious). but in society men and women have vastly different roles: to be seen as masculine or feminine, there are a lot of expectations

how does the case of anna affect your assessment of early-socialization programs like head start?

-anna highlights the importance of social interaction at a young age and to start the process of socialization as young as possible in order to foster intellectual growth -it makes programs like head start seem great because they start challenging children early -however according to the research, the program actually doesn't give any benefits passed 3rd grade -as long as you are intellectually stimulating your children the head start program doesn't provide a huge advantage

how does the concepts of the generalized other explain why you become silent at the beginning of class when the professor starts speaking?

-because you are socially conditioned to shut up when a teacher is talking -even if you havent experienced it before, you would notice when everyone around you stops talking

how does sharing music across the world differ from sharing music locally? how does technology affect how you interact?

-it would be way different because people across the globe can have vastly different music tastes, whereas people in the same local community would probably have similar tastes and not expose each other to anything new -technology opens up new worlds of interaction. people that never would have acknowledged the existence of certain other groups are suddenly connecting and sharing ideas

how does socialization thru families potentially reproduce social inequality?

-rich parents make their kids focus on education, giving them the best opportunities, giving them structured activities after school, tutoring, etc -poor parents leave the kids activities more up to them, they are not as intellectually stimulated -these differences could be why rich kids tend to stay rich and poor kids tend to stay poor

what are some things we learn from schooling and how does this learning differ from what we are taught by our teacher? how are things like gender and performance shaped in school?

-the teacher teaches spelling and grammar and writing and math and all that stuff, but there are others things we learn that the teacher doesn't teach us -we learn to recognize the front of the classroom and to sit facing that way -we learn to be quiet when the teacher is talking -we learn to respect adult authority - boys and girls learn gender roles: how to dress, how to interact with members of the same sex, how to interact with members of the opposite sex, etc

you are a college student, and one day your professor comes to eat at the restaurant you work at. use role theory to describe the awkward interaction

-there would be some role conflict here -in class, you could see your professor and a role model or mentor of sorts, and you want him to see you as a high achieving student with high aspirations -but now at the restaurant you are waiting on the professor, and its a totally different setting -how do you act? should you be friendly, as waiters typically are, or should you keep it more professional? the roles conflict