The Social Construction Of Reality By Berger And Luckmann

How has technology affected mankind over time? How has it affected the youth of our country? How has it affected the adults? We rely on the internet for almost everything, do we still have the power to detach ourselves from it? The article, “The Virtues of Reality” written by Ross Douthat caught my attention with a thesis that is quite realistic. Douthat theorizes that the main cause of both the youth becoming safer over time along with the adults growing more immature is the virtual reality that the internet provides us with. Douthat then leaves the readers with a thought to ponder about. He questions if we as human beings have become so reliant on technology, that we can’t take a step back. What I wish to know is why should we need to take a step back when the world that we live in has infused technology along with the internet into everything that we do in life?

Murray, Harry. "Deniable Degradation: The Finger-Imaging Of Welfare Recipients." Sociological Forum 15.1 (2000): 39. Academic Search Premier. Web. 28 May 2013.

Chapter three explains different theories that help us understand how we perceive, judge, explain, and our expectations matter of our social worlds. How we use our thinking and how it impacts the judgments we make. How our beliefs, attitudes, and values affects our roles and perceptions in the society. We perceive our social worlds on how people form impressions of and make inferences about other people. For instance, we interpret things differently saying someone is “okay” can be a good for one or bad for another.

Chapter 3 of Essential of Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach by James M. Henslin discusses the topic of socialization, which is the process by which people learn the characteristics of their group—the knowledge, attitudes, skills, norms, values, and actions thought appropriate for them. Sociologists try to determine how much of a person’s characteristics comes from “nature” (heredity) and how much from “nurture” (social environment). Studying feral, isolated, and institutionalized children, such as The Skeels/Dye Experiment, have helped them understand how “society makes us human.” The theories and research of Charles Horton Cooley, George Herbert Mead, and Piaget to explain socialization into the self and mind. Cooley’s looking-glass self theory focuses on how we believe others perceive us.

The foundational concepts of sociological imagination, social construction of reality and socialization help us learn more about ourselves and the world.

At a campaign rally in 1976 Ronald Reagan talked about welfare queens and poverty. He said, “She used eighty names, thirty addresses and fifteen telephone numbers to collect food stamps, social security and veteran’s benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran husbands as well as welfare. Her tax free cash income alone has been running 150,000 thousand dollars a year.”The welfare system is full of gender stereotyping. Stereotyping is when we make perceptions on what we make about others. In the past forty years America welfare system has been designed around Reagan’s fake welfare queen (Black, Sprague). This slur has had negative effects for the families on welfare that urgently need support and are struggling. This paper will discuss the lies of the welfare queen and how it originated and its negative effects on African American families and young girls.

David Zucchino’s captivating book, Myth of the Welfare Queen, sticks to his journalistic roots and reads like an extended news article as it captures two separate yet interconnected stories of women struggling to get by in Northern Philadelphia. Philadelphia was—and is—an impoverished city in many ways, with huge percentages of the population struggling to get by at or bellow the poverty line. Zucchino spent much of 1995 with woman and families on welfare as it was a time when welfare was a particularly hot topic directly preceding the passing of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act. Zucchino strove to cut through the stereotypes and misinformation surrounding welfare and those relying on it. In his own words, “this book is the story of

Through interviews with welfare workers and recipients, Hays demonstrates the high costs welfare has had on the moral, economic, physical and mental well-being of poor women and their children due to what she considers to be the conflict between the two opposing aspects of reform: work values and family values. She believes that these conflicting values and the inherent weaknesses in the Act contribute to serious and ongoing problems for welfare recipients.

The welfare systems are based on the principle of public responsibility on equitable wealth distribution and equality of opportunities to citizens who are unable to afford minimal levels of quality and good life, through provision of universal education programs, health care and subsidised housing. In most of the states, welfare systems are not used in the right manner they are intended to. Although the systems are meant to reduce the poverty level and at least assists individuals to get decent jobs, many recipients develops news ways every year to prolong their dependency in the system. Statistics show that women easily abuse the welfare system by simply having more children each year since this means that more money will come in their mails. Most of the recipients on welfare are able to work

The social construction theory is based on the reality that the society has created that may seem obvious to a person who agrees to it. In other words, our life experiences and interaction towards others is the way we create our reality through social interaction. This means that we were not born with this sense of knowledge, but was taught through social interaction and our life experiences (Orem 2001a, 7). Social construction is based on the categories of difference which are race, gender, and social class (Ore, 2011a: 8).

SociologyPoverty is an issue that many social workers are likely to address and tackle throughout practice. Cunningham & Cunningham, (2008) state that 'Social work service users are amongst the most impoverished people in Britain and for many, poverty defines their lives'. (p32) Poverty can result from a number of factors that include political, social and economic dynamics. This assignment shall be based on two sociological theories of poverty. The Individualistic theory; which blames the responsibility of being poor with the individuals themselves, and the Marxist theory which views poverty as a social problem that has been produced and reproduced by structural forces in society. This assignment shall explain why it is important for

Edin and Lein wanted to discover the surviving strategies of single mothers who are on welfare or work on a low-waged job. They argue “neither welfare nor low wage work gives single mothers enough income to meet their families’ expenses” (253). To find out the set of survival strategies of single mothers to make ends meet Edin and Lein interviewed 379 low income single mothers. They chose their interviewees from different cities, different aged group, and different ethnic background. Most mothers who are on welfare wanted to find a job and be out of the welfare but the primary problem that single mothers face was that “family economics”. With the minimum wage income it was impossible for the single mothers to bring the ends meet. Neither working nor being on welfare was enough to survive therefore mothers who are on welfare supported their budget by generating substantial supplementary income. Edin and Lein states that “welfare recipients generated extra income by working at side jobs, obtaining cash from network members, community groups and local charities”. They also get cash help from the family members, child’s fathers, and from a boyfriend. Because they were afraid to lose welfare benefits they did not tell anyone about the extra income they have. To survive they needed both the welfare benefits and the extra income. It was very difficult to establish a trust with the interviewees in the beginning because they were afraid if they talk about it they might lose the

This evidence made it clear that dependency was linked to misfortune rather than misconduct (Trattner, 1999). The new conclusions about poverty made way for reform in poverty relief; within this reform where the roots of the Settlement House Movement lie.

Reality is not an objective thing that is imposed upon us, but is created by us. Reality does not exist externally but internally, as each individual or group interprets it, and is always changing. Due to these concepts sociologists often speak about the “social construction of reality” which is essential to understand when attempting to explain human social behavior. Since realty is the basis of people’s actions, W. I. Thomas states, “If people define situations as real, they are real in their consequences”. The “social construction of reality”, human social behavior and W. I. Thomas’s statement are three concepts that fit hand in hand and are important when trying to explain one another.

Imagine for a moment that you are talking to a famous sociologist via your telephone. Now, picture in your mind the sociologist upside-down, standing on his head; he has been standing on his head for all of his life. This sociologist perceives reality very differently than you and I, although he would see everything that you and I see; his explanation for how things happened would all be upside-down. For example, if a cup of coffee tipped over then he would tell you the opposite of what we know, he would say that the coffee fell up.