Essay about Engaging with Society

There is a statistical difference in the current level of democracy between North and South Africa.

In our society we have a number of norms that we abide by. For example, there is an unwritten rule of how one should behave in an elevator. It is “proper” to face front, stand away from strangers, and not to look at others. When a social norm is broken people may respond with alarm, humour, fear, irritation, or an array of other emotions. When you think of a norm, you are probably thinking about simply being normal. But in psychology terms, norm means a standard or representative value for a group. A social norm is some sort of an expectation that our society has that is deemed normal by that society; they tell us which behaviors, thoughts, or feelings are appropriate within a given

In our society we have a number of society norms that we abide by. For example, there is an unwritten rule of how one should behave in an elevator. For example, it is proper to face front, stand away from strangers, and not to look at others. When a social norm is broken people may respond with alarm, humor, fear, irritation, or an array of other emotions. When you think of a norm, you are probably thinking about being normal. But in psychology terms, norm means, a standard or representative value for a group. The norm that is more common to people is a social norm. Meaning expectations about what behavior, thoughts, or feelings are appropriate within a given group within a given context.

Human beings are defined as ''social animals'' because in every aspects of life they live together, they form a variety of groups and improve relationships with each other. Interaction with others is a natural result of living in society. In the process of interaction, society and its rules has a social impact on each individual. If people face with any kind of social impact such as group pressure, great part of them show conformity by changing their behaviors, ideas, decisions in expected way. A person conforms if he or she chooses a course of action that a majority favors or that is socially acceptable. Some kind of conformity is natural and socially healthy but obeying all the norms, ideas, and decisions without thinking or accepting

Akers, R. (2006). Parental and peer influences on adolescent drug use in Korea. Asian Journal of Criminology.

One central and important study of sociology is the study of everyday social life. Everyday life and sociology are definitely two distinct terms and situations, but they hold a close relationship. While sociology studies human interaction, everyday life consists of everyday human interaction. Everyday life is filled by human beings interacting with one another, institutions, ideas, and emotions. Sociology studies the interactions with all of these and shows how mere interaction resulted in things like ideas and institutions.

Racism, discrimination and degradation faced by Blacks and other ethnic minorities under the apartheid system was not unlike the segregation and intimidation faced by African-Americans in the Jim Crow south. Jim Crow system of segregation that kept Blacks from fully participating in public and civic activities and relegated African-Americans to substandard conditions at work, school and even in the home. Blacks in South Africa were under the clutches of an overt, national policy of racism and segregation implemented by the country’s highest level of government. Civil and human rights abuses of Blacks in South Africa at the hand of the country’s white minority occurred long before apartheid officially began, but the system’s official start brought strict, sweeping laws such as the rule that all persons in South Africa to be categorized as white, Black, colored and Indian, without exception. Like in the U.S. during Jim Crow, Blacks and whites were not allowed to marry and sexual relations between members of different races was a criminal offense.

Social class refers to the system of stratification of the different groups of people in a society. These different forms of classification are, in most instances, based on gender ethnicity and age. Social class makes everyone’s lives extremely different. For example: How long one can expect to live. In a wide range of ways, from success, to one’s health class, social class influences people’s lives (Grusky,2003).

Sociology is a part of everyday life. People experience sociological changes when they get married, get a new job, or get discriminated against. All of these things can alter a person’s perspective on a group of people or even the world. Since the beginning of this class, I have personally endured several sociological changes in my life. I recently started a new job. I’m meeting new and wonderful people and I no longer dread having to go to work. I have also begun setting plans for my wedding to the one girl who I know will make everyday better than the one before. But, perhaps the one instance that has affected me the most and the deepest was when my parents got a divorce.

Weech-Maldonado et al., (2012) believes that these changes have created a more diverse workforce and clientele. Voutsas (2011) believes that the workforce would continue to be diverse in terms of culture, ethnicity, gender, and age. As the population becomes increasely diverse, health care organizations will be required to respond appropriately .Brown and Mack (2011) states that “in order for American industry to out-innovate the rest of the world diversity matters”. Gathers (2003) is of the opinion that organizations should mirror the communities and societies that they represents .Therefore, Cross (2010) states that organizations must adjust their missions, visions, goals, values, strategies, and cultures in order to reflect the diversity of

The Apartheid was initiated as a ploy for Europeans to better control the exploited populations for economic gain, as maintaining tension between the different racial classifications diverted attention from the Europeans as it fed hatred between groups. This assisted in minimizing unity between the exploited to rally against European control as it backhandedly induced “submission” for survival. One way of accomplishing this was by instilling laws that’d force segregation, classification, educational “requirements”, and economic purposes. The Population Registration Act of 1950 enacted, requiring segregation of Europeans from Afrikaans . Following shortly, the Group Areas Act of 1950 was enacted as a new form of legislation alongside the Population Registration Act. This detailed act separated tribes based on ethnics; consequently, further detailing segregation amongst the natives .

Many people do not care about where they come from. Many people are selfish with their time and effort, but not me I do care about where I came from and I devote most of my time and effort to make many people happy. I try my hardest to do the right thing and to give back when I know I should. Giving back to my community is an important thing to me. People should care and protect about their communities. Three reasons why giving back to my community is important to me is because my community has done so much for me, I take so much pride in where I am from, and because I want people to see how wonderful my community is.

As an idea social pedagogy first started being used around the middle of the nineteenth century in Germany as a way of describing alternatives to the dominant models of schooling. However, by the second half of the twentieth century social pedagogy became increasingly associated with social work and notions of social education in a number of European countries.

The world is a complicated place and today's standards of society make it even more difficult to live and act in one's own way. I sometimes wonder what life would be like if we could start all over and build a brand new society - a society that guarantees social justice for all groups and full rights to every individual. Would there be a way to make everything and everyone equal? From the beginning society has been judgmental in one way or another, rather it is through racism, sexism, or classicism. There has always been a group of people who declared themselves righteous above all others and if one was not a part of this group he or she was discriminated against simply for not being the same as the dominating group.

Community is very important and has many factors like kinship, unity, and identity. Community helps society because it creates solutions, provides security and reveals dedication. It discovers truthfulness. Communities are part of everyday life and have positive affects on its members.