Breaking Folkways

Folkways, the social norms we all follow in our everyday lives. It makes us "normal" or somewhat close to that. This week in class we had to break folkways and watch the reactions of people around us. To be honest, it was really hard! To do something that people don't normally do and to get weird looks from people takes a lot of courage. Especially because we were purposely doing it. Making sure we weren't breaking mores (do something that goes against our morals) or laws (the rules of our society!).

For my project of breaking a folkway I went to stores and paid in all change. No paper money involved. Quarters, nickels, dimes, and pennies. It was kind of intimidating to go up to the cashier and take out a big bag of change and start counting. I felt really awkward. Some people would give me dirty looks because I was slowing everything down. One person even yelled at me to hurry up and count faster. They would watch me with hawk eyes making sure I was counting it correctly but they wouldn't help me out. Out of all ten times I did this, there was one person who helped me and didn't make any rude faces or comments. I don't think that people understand that when they yell or make rude faces it just makes the situation worse and embarrasses the person. But after a couple times I got used to the faces and comments.

Overall, I think that people are really rude! I learned a lot from this project how fast-paced our society is. Everyone wants to get in and out without any hold ups. I don't think a lot of them realized that the more they interrogated me about it, the longer it took. I would look up then have to restart counting or I they would start taking some away and I would lose track. I think our society needs to slow down and take a chill pill. Because something so small as paying with change really made people mad. This shows a lot about the way our society is run and the way no one will go against what it is.

American Culture and Society

After taking a look at American culture and society, I think that we are looked down upon from many other societies and cultures. With all of the inappropriate things that are just plain normal to us, to other cultures it is against the law or just downright wrong. We talked a lot about kissing in public. It goes back to the article we read in class about the man kissing the Indian girl in a public place in front of people and that was considered illegal or wrong. The Indian culture doesn't allow this kind of behavior. And walking through the hallways or just seeing it on the streets or in public areas, we have no rules against public display of affection. It seems as though  people have made babies standing by their locker at my school. It's gross and not something that should be displayed for all to see. I don't think making it a law is really necessary, but to at least have some rules or guidelines would make the situation a lot less awkward for those around the situation.

I also think that American culture and society is very big on being perfect. We all have this standard that we are supposed to live up to. And it's really annoying because the only people who live up to that standard are the unhealthy, not-going-to-eat-till-you-can-see-my-ribs kind of person. Going against the fact that we all have that standard of being perfect, America has a huge problem with obesity. A whole lot of our population is considered to be obese. This lifestyle is also unhealthy for the human body.

Overall, I think American society is given a very bad reputation because of the things it comprises. If we could set guidelines or boundaries to some things, I feel that we could change our reputation to be something good. But until everyone starts to work together, American culture and society will, unfortunately, be looked down upon.

American Society

This picture of a female model represents American culture because this is the so-called "picture perfect" look. Everyone wants to look like these girls. Skinny, tall, perfect hair, perfect smile. Our American society tries to live up to these unrealistic expectations. This is the cause of eating disorders and self esteem issues. Nobody actually looks like this "perfect person" everyone talks about.


Facebook is big in American society. Everyone has one. It leads to making new friends, to making enemies. Facebook can be good in ways, but usually people have a bad conotation about this social networking site. At first, one had to be 18 years or older to use this website. But it soon became very popular and now it seems as though the whole world has one. This is a big communication tool that people use which makes it so popular in American society.


Reality television is one of the biggest influences on people around the world, especially the American society. We get these ideas and thoughts put into our heads about sex, drugs, drinking, etc. This overall hurts a persons self esteem, ruins their reputation, or digs them into a deep hole. Everyone watches some kind of reality tv show and if you don't you still know about one or two and you're influenced by them. This gives American culture a bad name when Americans are focusing on all of these bad things instead of presenting ourselves in a good manner.


Fast food restaurants have become a social norm to American society. Our society is very fast-paced and busy with tasks that we usually don't have time to sit down to a nice cooked meal for dinner. So where do most Americans turn? Food that is fast, simple, and easy. But it is also horrible for our bodies and doesn't help us whatsoever. Americans have become known for all the fast food eating we do because of the number of obese people we have living in our country. This is a bad representation of American society but it's probably the biggest of them all.


Even though we are pressured to look small and skinny, most of our society is very overweight. 85% of adults and 20% of children are overweight or considered, "obese". This is a huge problem in American society. It goes along with fast food, where we eat and eat and eat but we don't feel full because we aren't putting good things into our bodies. America has a reality tv showed called Biggest Loser, a show to see who can lose the most weight in a given amount of time. I think that's when we know American society has a problem and should think about changing its ways.

Sociology On The Streets

This week I saw sociology while walking in the hallway. I tried to look at the different aspects of groups and the barriers that go along with it. Different cultures have different customs and different things that they do in every day life. This fits into West Chicago Community High School because all of the different groups have different "customs" or different ways of living their lives. They don't necessarily talk in different languages but every group functions differently. Some groups talk about everything openly and some groups keep everything to themselves.

While I was in the hallway yesterday and I walked past a group of people screaming and then a group of people not saying one word to each other. All of the people within the groups are completely different from each other too. People don't hiss at each other or know each other by their specific numbers but they act so differently. I don't think people know how to act exactly the same which is good but it makes things really confusing. That's why there is so much drama that goes around because everyone clashes with each other. I think that after awhile everyone learns how to deal with each other and move on in life. That's part of life I guess.

The past few weeks we have been talking about groups. Who makes up different groups and what their interactions are with the people around them. Making a web of all the groups I'm involved in shocked me. I never realized how many groups I was a part of. And also, all of them have different names! My favorite is interest groups because you get to pick what you want to be a part of. It's much more fun when you choose to do it rather than being forced to be in it.

While we were on the topic, I tried to pay close attention to the groups that surrounded me while I was at cheerleading. There's the whole gym, which is a group altogether. Then it breaks down to being on a youth, junior, or senior team. Then it breaks down to all the different levels and teams. Then it breaks down even further to the different friend groups in all of the teams. It could even go down to the different schools everyone goes to. It amazed me watching and being involved in all of these different groups when all I did was sign up for cheerleading. I like how when everything is broken down like that everyone gets a name or a label. The whole gym is Cheer Alliance. Then teams would be kittens, lions, pink panthers, jaguars, cheetahs, and pumas. Groups divide all of our lives into little sections and splits everyone up. It's actually really interesting.

People Watching!

This past weekend I had a cheerleading competition with over 35,000 cheerleaders competing. So I took some time to watch people and their quirky things they did when they thought no one was watching them. This sounds really creepy to me so I probably wasn't too good at it but I tried my best! The first person I saw was a little boy probably 5 or 6 years old. He was sitting outside of the competition watching all the girls in the half uniforms with huge bows and 10 pounds of make up on. Nobody really seemed to notice him. Then he started to kick his feet back and fourth and as another cheerleader walked by he kicked her and started to giggle. He then made an effort to kick every girl that walked past him. It was like he was playing his own game inside of his head.

The next person I decided to watch was a group of girls cheering on their friends team as they performed. They stood right up close to the stage and were screaming their heads off for the girls. They was jumping up and down and about halfway through the routine one of the girls got so into it her shoe lace somehow got wrapped around on the baracades lining the stage. So now as she was yelling and screaming for this team she was also trying to get her shoe off of the baracade. It looked as though she didn't want any of her friends to notice though. So at the end of the routine she kicked her shoe off and let her friends get a little in front of her before she bent down to grab it and run off.

The last person I wasn't really watching, it just kind of happened. On my flight home I was sitting next to my sister and one of my friends and the flight attendant kept giving us really weird looks. We thought we did something wrong so we were acting on our best behavior. But as I watched I noticed that she was giving everyone really weird looks. This was weird to me because usually flight attendants are really nice and happy. So we sat through our flight and once we landed my sister went to the bathroom and overheard the flight attendant say she thought she was pregnant on the phone to someone. Which explained all the nasty looks and the attitude of stay away. I thought it was interesting to watch someone be so angry for no reason but then realize they acctually have a good reason.

This weekend showed me how weird some people are. I don't know if I just was coincidentally catching people at really bad times but it was a train wreck. I think with so many people around this weekend and all the cheerleaders being, well, cheerleaders it was just a long weekend for everyone. Very entertaining on my end though! My sister, my friend Kristi and I all enjoyed this sociology assignment!

Theft

This week in class, we have been asked the question, "Will the kindness of strangers stop theft?" This goes along with socioloy because it's pointing fingers at different groups of people and figuring out if society would help them or if they would just turn their backs on them in time of need. We learned that if just asked the question, "would you help a stranger by stopping a theft?" everyone would say yes of course, because they want to look like a good person. But when their identity is hidden, it's a completely different story. Most people would say that it depends on the situation. Some people even said that they wouldn't help at all. I think when one answers depending on the situation it could mean a lot of different things; if the theft was a male, if the stranger was obnoxious, if the stranger was a teenager or an adult, etc. The location, time, and the amount of people around could have a major effect on if someone would help or not, also.

This week my older sister told me that she saw a theft take place from across the street. And I asked what happened and what she did about it. My sister said that a man went up behind an older lady and grabbed her purse and ran. She told me that she felt bad for the lady who just had her stuff stolen but my sister was too scared to go over and help. She also said that a man walking down the street tried to chase the theft down but never came back. I think overall, stopping a theft depends on the situation.