Sociological Observation

Symbolic interactionism is a theory is defined as, ”a theoretical perspective in which society is viewed as composed of symbols that people use to establish meaning,

Symbolic interaction theory is symbols that give a meaning. Society is viewed as subjects and social status and that they are given symbols. Homeless people are approached through symbols. Symbols can be anything like for instance the way they act, the clothes they wear and the kind of food they eat.

Symbolic interactionism is a theoretical perspective that people use definitions, meanings, symbols, interpretations, and human interactions to compare themselves to others (Henslin, 2010, p. 15). Herbert Blumer, whom attended University of Chicago with one of the founders of the

a. Symbolic Interaction/pg. 23: a theoretical perspective in which society is viewed as composed of symbols that people use to establish meaning, develop their views of the world, and communicate with one another.

I began my Sociological Observation Paper at the town’s local baseball field. It was about 8:30 p.m. when the game began, and it was about this time when I noticed the connections between the baseball players and the weary watchers. The event can be called a sort of an aggregate, a term used to describe a group of people found at a certain place at a certain time which I became acquainted with on the 25th of June towards the end of the class lecture. While there, I was a bit absent-minded, seeing as I had take notes of the behavior of the people watching while keeping close ties to the players’ interactions with one another.

As cliché as it seems, from a young age I knew I wasn’t like most other kids my age. My parents made no pretense of the existence of urban legends like Santa Claus. My parents were born in China in the 1960s, and grew up at a time when the Cultural Revolution was in full swing. During this time, practice of religion was forbidden and Maoist thought fostered an emphasis on hard work in school. Despite indirect effects on me, it was - and still is - hard for me to fathom such a drastically different environment compared to modern American society.

Symbolic Interactionism is described in the book as the ongoing use of languages and gestures in anticipation of how the other will react. Basically this theory is how we use every day verbal and nonverbal language to interact with others and create meanings. These interactions can bring different meanings depend on the relationship and how the sender uses the symbols. It can also mean different things based on the culture and the society. A moment I can recall where I experienced symbolic interaction was when I first seen my girlfriend. She signaled to me asking for help by interlocking her fingers and holding them under her chin. She was about to get tossed in a pool at a party we were and if I didn 't recognize her sign for help she would have gotten soaked that day.

Symbolic Interactionism was formulated by Herbert Blumer. This perspective relies on the symbolic meaning that people develop and subconsciously rely upon in the process of social interaction. The youtube video presented illustrates the premises of symbolic interactionism in Chicago. It showed chicagoans replacing their car spaces with a lawn chair. These chairs were being put out in the snow to reserve a parking space. The importance of symbolic interactionism is shown through their views on objects. In this case, the chair is the object of choice. Assuming one person decided to claim their parking spot by leaving a chair in place of their vehicle, it gave the chair a different meaning. Instead of the chair being the object to use for sitting,

The field of sociology has a different approach to social problems compared to other fields. Sociology provides the perception that social problems are caused by the structural arrangement of various organs of society or the social forces. The discipline of sociology concerned with the relationship between people and the various structures of society that include social institutions such as the family, education, and the military (Leon-Guerrero, 2015). Unlike other sciences, sociology presents the objective and systematic ways of understanding the possible causes of social problems. Again, sociology holds that social problems and their solutions do not just involve people, but rather, social structures plays a significant role in creating

“Sociology is the study of groups and group interactions, societies and social interactions, from small and personal groups to very large groups (Cresswell, p.9).” Social interactions makes it possible for us (humans) to function properly every day in this world. Imagine a world without society and culture. "Culture encompasses a group’s way of life, from routine, everyday interactions to the most important parts of group members’ lives (Cresswell ,p.9).” Whereas a society is group of people who live in a defined geographic area, who interact with one another, and who share a common culture (Cresswell, p.9). I see myself as an individual but, society will identify me by a women who is African American with a Caribbean ethnicity, lower-class, straight, and Christian. Growing up in a predominately white Christian school environment, I was surrounded with people who shared the same religion as myself. It was a culture shock to come leave that environment to interact with people who may not share the same beliefs and surround myself with people of the same race as me. Thankfully, my mother taught me to be an un-judgmental women and learn that being different is good too.

Isn’t it amazing that so much happens around us that people don’t notice the little details? For example you might be speaking to someone and while you’re speaking you might not notice certain facial expressions they are making. Some people might act differently because they want you to notice something but you don’t notice the little things. There are many different concepts that happen throughout every interaction, some people do not even notice them. Throughout my daily life in October, I observed two interactions that were examples of either deviance or front region and back region.

What I learnt from this article was that many sociologists have different opinions and theories about religion. I did not know that sociologists were studying in depth about religion and how it has changed at the same time that society also was changing. I did not know about secularization neither about the different perspectives that sociologists have about it. It is interesting to see that religion is a topic that not just psychologists are interested to study, but that there are other professionals who are passionate to study about religion like anthropologists, sociologists among others, each of them seeing religion in their own ways and also coming up with their own theories that we can all learn from for us to have our own opinion about

First of all, Symbolic Interaction Perspective explains that most of the people think or judge any situation by their own opinion based on what they believe not what is objectively true. This theory also, clarify that human behavior is learned through social interaction. However, a person's interpretation of the world depends upon his reading of the different symbols and details of everyday life.

When heading to the local mall, we don’t stop and think about all the different types of people we will be seeing as we walk down the aisles of our favorite shops. We figure out what we need or what it is that we need to look for and we don’t look back until all of the shopping is complete. Never have I ever stopped to think about what everyone else might be doing there, until now. It is very important for us to understand what types of situations, people may be in and why they act the way they do when at the town shopping mall.

During my inductive exercise, where I analyzed the sociological interactions in the organic chemistry teaching lab, I noticed something puzzling about the lab. There were fewer female students taking the upper level chemistry classes than male students. This was an interesting observation because as a female student studying Materials Science and Chemistry, I wanted to figure out the reason behind this phenomenon. I personally changed my major from Biological Sciences to Materials Science and Chemistry because I felt more confident and enjoyment studying those subjects due to my high school background. However, I did notice that there were fewer female students in my physical sciences, mathematics, and engineering courses than in the life science courses. Without female perspectives in the physical sciences and engineering, there is a lack of making the strange familiar and the familiar strange. Although engineers are supposed to create new products for diverse groups of people, each with their own requirements, this lack of diversity of female physical sciences and engineering students hinder creativity. This phenomenon really made me utilize my perspectives in order to question how our society functions as a whole. To explain why fewer female students were taking upper level chemistry courses at Northwestern University, I found that Merton’s role theory and Goffman’s dramaturgical theory best explained this observation. However, other explanations to this observation