compared to only 5.4% of unemployed white people (Street,2007). These statistics represent racial inequality which caused a lot of internal, and external damage to the black population. Rogue Sociologist, Sudhir Venkatesh’s (2008) novel called Gang Leader for a Day, reveals this disparity. In 1989 Sudhir participated in qualitative research, by studying the lives of people from the projects of Chicago. The projects are a subsidized housing development, provided by the government which requires low rent
Gang Leader For A Day SECTION 1 1.) How would you respond if a graduate student from an elite university turned up at your door and announced his intention to study you? If a graduate student from an elite university showed up at my door with intentions to study me, I think that I would allow him access. I would like the chance to hear what they had to say about my lifestyle. I’ve always questioned the way I live and if other peoples lives’ are similar. I don’t think that I live an odd
Innovate Your Life In the book, Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh, a sociology student from the University of Chicago starts out simply trying to understand “how it feels to be poor and black,” and ends up spending years and years figuring out the ins and outs of a gang society (Venkatesh 14). Sudhir receives the chance of a sociologist’s lifetime to see first-hand what life is like in the projects. He follows gang leader, J.T. around and studies his life at the Robert Taylor homes for
unfamiliar with the black culture within Chicago. In his book Gang Leader for a Day, he tells of his sociology research within one of the roughest housing projects in Chicago. Sudhir starts his research by talking to a few elderly gentlemen he played chess with at the park. His conversation with them led him to the Robert Taylor Housing Projects which was described as one of the worst Ghettos in America. His research began the first day he arrived with his clipboard of questionnaires ready to ask
Gang Leader for a Day Book Review It takes a lot of guts and no small amount of courage and cunning to infiltrate a street gang in the tough neighborhoods of Chicago, but that is what Sudhir Venkatesh did as a 23-year-old graduate student at the University of Chicago. In order to find out first-hand how a gang that earns its money selling crack cocaine functions from the inside, Venkatesh dared to get involved on a superficial basis with the gang. But Venkatesh wasn't seen as person who was
Having read the book Gang Leader for a Day: a rogue sociologist takes to the streets by Venkatesh (2008), based on my childhood education (formal and informal), life circumstances, personal and professional life experiences, I perceive JT to be a lawbreaker. Moreover, based on how our society informally defines a criminal or lawbreaker, JT is clearly someone who does not or will not conform with our collective legal standards or requirements based on the majority opinion of the wider public
AP English Language Ms. Donohue Gang Leader for a Day Chapter Summary CH. 1- Characters 1 's Name: Sudhir Venkatesh. Sudhir is Indian, he was born lived in California. He walks into the projects and stays overnight with a gang even though he knows he doesn 't fit in. Sudhir respects J.T. 's rules and isn 't intrusive with the gang. Sudhir is a university student wanting his degree in Sociology. Sudhir is also intelligent because he goes undercover into a gang for his project that will gain him
I would describe the gang that the author, Sudhir Venkantesh, studies in this book as a deviant group because they are not following usual or accepted standards in social behavior. “Deviance is a behavior, trait or belief that departs from a norm and generates a negative reaction in a particular group”. (Real World, Kerry Ferris, Jill Stein, p 153) According to this definition we can definitely see gangs departing from a norm by committing many crimes and not obeying the laws. One example to deviant
Chicago’s public housing soon found themselves in dilapidated, drug-infested, crime-filled, isolated centers of despair. During a time in which most American citizens could easily turn their eyes from the struggles of the poor, Sudhir Venkatesh’s Gang Leader for a Day took readers into the depths of the world in which the poor resided. Through Venkatesh’s work, readers are inadvertently introduced to broader sociological concepts such as, collective efficacy within communities, the concentration effect,
Central Purpose and Core Theme Author Sudhir Venkatesh wrote “Gang Leader for a Day” to produce an in-depth ethnography on how people make a living with the use of underground economies in marginalized communities. He does so by providing descriptions of encounters with a crack-selling gang named the Black Kings, operating in Chicago, Illinois’ projects. The central take Venkatesh uses to explain how one makes money and the most popular way that young African-American males made money was by selling