The Theory Of Social Life

What information about diversity in the United States has helped you better understand or relate to others in ways that you may not have in the past?

Pluralism is where different religions or cultures come together in a society and accept different beliefs and cultures. Assimilation is where different cultures influence one another and become mixed. This has an effect on the rite of passage on some individuals because they may start to wonder about their culture by learning facts about other cultures and may not want to be a part of.

Attending community college twice a week brings another diverse view of society. Observing students walk by in twos and threes who are in many instances of different ethnicities is a wonderful sight to see. Again, I tend to gravitate to classmates who are ethnically similar to me without a conscious thought. It all goes back to what Brooks was writing about in his article, that “what I have seen all around the country are people making strenuous efforts to group themselves with people who are basically like themselves.” (Brooks 62) I really do think and love the idea of diversity in this nation of different people.

The models of one way assimilation and ethnic hierarchy are what stand out the most within these two works. One way assimilation because one racial group often tends to judge another racial group because they don’t assimilate to their culture, but the other group would never assimilates to theirs. They don’t believe they should change their views for others,

Pluralism is when society consists of a variance of people; however, people stay in groups in which they can identify themselves with causing culture differences to live on. Pluralism is different than assimilation significantly. This is because pluralism is when people group themselves with similar people to keep living their unique cultural lifestyle and assimilation is when people of unique cultures conform to the culture that surrounds them (48). Rather than promoting the blend of culture, the idea of assimilation, also called Americanization, in the past ensured the English language would thrive and the early institutions would remain for years to come (48-49). This varies to pluralism which welcomes the idea of racial, ethnic and cultural differences.

Since freshman year I have lived in Rosemead, Los Angeles. The residences are mostly Mexican, Chinese, Vietnamese but without a caucasian in sight. This is totally different than what I expected of America, and definitely different than the little village of Pawling in upstate New York where I attend a lily white boarding school. However, I started to blend in; I played basketball. I rode bikes, and I hung out with other teens. We all were basically the same but just embraced different cultures. For instance, the Vietnamese insisted on entire families

It is inevitable in a new community that one will meet people with different backgrounds. I graduated from a very diverse high school, but Texas A&M University in College Station has a different kind of diversity. Students from various parts of the country and the world come here to get their education. Having spent most of my years outside of Texas, eleven of which in another country,

Is America diverse? America might be diverse as a whole but how about in our local communities? There are many ways of defining diversity: ethnicity, culture, religion, language, etc. Diversity is more apparent in our communities now compared to the past, but it doesn’t mean we are fully diverse as individuals. In local communities, people often chose to be close to people with the same ethnicity, religion, background, and culture. For example, on the Eastside of St. Paul resides the majority of the Hmong population in the Twin Cities. They choose to live close to each other because of the same ethnicity, background, and culture. This creates segregation and limits diversity from happening in the local communities. Most people tend to choose

I have always thought that I have been culturally diverse being the fact that I lived so close to the giant melting pot that is Denver Colorado. At the time you may think that you are jumping into a diverse world every time you go out to each dinner. Italian food gives you a peek at Italy, Chinese food gives you a picture in the life of a chinese citizen. The truth is that you don’t actually know diverse the world is until you immerse yourself into other countries and cities.

The concept of cultural pluralism suggests that immigrants should assimilate to American culture by enriching American traditions with those that other cultures bring with them, expanding the American cultural landscape of art, cuisine, education, history, law, music, language, medicine and other aspects of life.

I was born in Japan and spent my life there until seventh grade. Even though my environment was very fulfilling, my community had little diversity. Everyone was from the same area, we all have same culture, and same race. Individual could had variety of thought but our basic mind was very similar since we all grow up in the same environment. I can say that I had little more diversity in my life than other people around me since my mother was Korean, I had some Korean people around me. Korea is a country located right next to Japan, but they do have different culture, language, and people. It gave me a little push to become diverse person. However, there was a big change when I moved to America as an international student in seventh grade. For the first time in my life, I was surrounded by people who were not "my people". When I walked into the class, everyone had different race, culture,

Social interaction occurs between all individuals in society and can be studied through the use of the sociological imagination. A sociological imagination allows one to link their everyday activities and situations to society as a whole. I can study my own personal social interactions and the situations I encounter by applying concepts, theories, and perspectives that sociologists have developed for analyzing society and social situations. Although I encounter situations on a day-to-day basis, one notable example would be when I volunteered at the soup kitchen, where I had to control my emotions and play a specific role as part of my volunteer position.

Social lives start and finish with leisure activity. Leisure activity starts social lives because it generates the time that can be spent to engage in recreational time or leisure time. Furthermore, an individual’s activity does not have to be a group activity it can be a solo activity because when the individual is not with friends or families the activity that their doing will be because of a certain socio-cultural factor. Therefore, an individual will workout because of the gender identity and the double bind of masculinity. The reason for this is because most men will workout to change their appearance to become more masculine and powerful but are not suppose to care about their appearance.

Without knowing it, social order is very important in everyday life. As Elizabeth Silva says ‘social order is a key principle of living together’ (Reflections on Ordered Lives, 2009, Audio). The ordering of social life can be looked at in many ways. However, two theories stand out when looking at the making of social order, that of Erving Goffman and Michel Foucault. Both of these theories are concerned with how society is produced and, more specifically, how social order is made and remade. While the two theories aim to understand a broad picture of understanding society, they do so in very different ways. They both split the big questions down into smaller ones, Goffman looks at how an individual creates order, and Foucault looks at how

Though I may not come from a physically diverse family, I do come from a very diverse socioeconomic background. Demographic variables that influence me as a person are things like the age of my parents, the level of education within my family, economic status and affiliations. My own culture is also influenced by the different exposures to diverse status variables and socioeconomic standings.