Sociology Semester Project
by Miles Eubanks
Sociology of Sport
- One of the things that we learned about this semester was how we can see sociology in sports. In many different ways sports influences our society, some influences are positive but there are also an equal if not higher amount of negatives.
- Often sports teaches kids and teens good values such as teamwork and working together with others efficiently.
- It also helps people to keep healthy which is another positive.
- For many students, sports are way for students to get a college offer which also is a benefit.
- sports can trigger aggression, and even promote violence.
- Sometimes sports can cause arrogance in certain people and that also is not a good quality to have in our society.
- In America many feel that sports has taken over and that students view sports as more important than education.
Sports and Prejudice
Another connection that we made between sports and sociology, was the connection between sports and prejudice.
- In several occasions sports has brought people together that don't usually associate.
- Sports has broken several important social barriers in America.
- One of the first occasions where sports broke a social barrier was on April 15, 1947 when Jackie Robinson was brought onto the Brooklyn Dodgers Association, the first Black professional baseball player.
- Women were also introduced to a new idea of playing baseball during WW2 in 1943.
- Women before that time never played any professional sport, they were not look at as athletes only housewives, so the idea of them now being athletes broke another barrier in society.
- Integrating a black player into the Major League Baseball association caused black athletes around the world to be integrated into other sports
- Starting a Women baseball association showed the world that women can be much more than housewives, it showed the world that women can be anything they want.
- In both occasions, sports brought together the American society and broke social barriers.
Gender Roles
Gender roles is a major part of what we learned this year.
- We learned about how there are stereotypes between men and women, boys and girls.
- Men are viewed as the ones who make money and provide for their wife and kids
- Women are viewed as house wives who cook clean and take care of the kids.
- Before the 60's some people could not stand the idea of women working and going to college.
- We learned from the movie Mona Lisa Smile, that young women back then didn't even know that going to college was really an option
- Throughout their lives the only thing that they knew was to take care of their husband and children
- We still have somewhat of a gender stereotype in today's society, women get payed less for the same job a man would have
- And today we still have people who don't think women should work, they think they should stay home and take care of the society, but the problem is much less severe than it was in the 50's and 60's
Culture
One of my favorite topics that we discussed this semester was culture. We learned that;
- Culture has a big affect on your personality and that culture is something that starts when we are born.
- Culture has a bigger affect on you than your instincts that you naturally have do
- Culture changes over time, culture has changed over time in drastic ways, and example of that would be hippies and there culture, and hip hop in the 90's culture.
- Culture has a large affect on your age group, usually a certain culture will affect an entire generation.
- We leaned about other cultures also, cultures from other countries and their customs and traditions like the Greek and Chinese cultures.
- We learned that things we might do here like gestures such as a hand shake or a middle finger mean completely different things in other places.
- We also learned that other cultures view family differently than we might do, like in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding we learned that Greek families are big because they always stay together
- In the movies we also learned that Greeks like to only marry other Greeks so they can keep their family Greek.
The Importance of Socilization
One of the first things that we talked about this semester was the importance of socialization.
- We learned that socialization has everything to with your personality
- Socialization even has to do with the way you walk and talk. There were several examples of people that we learned about who experienced de-socialization from the rest of the world from a young age and now they act like animals
- They have to get resocialized by getting sent to mental institutions because they don't know what it is like to be a modern day citizen
- We watched the movie Cast Away, in which a man is stranded on an island and he has to try to figure out how to stay alive and at the same keep sane so that when he gets back he can be normal
- Throughout the movie you can see how desocialization takes a tole on him.
- One of the important things that we brought away from that movie was that if you are not socializing from the rest of the world for long time, then you can loose some of your normal characteristics
- When you get back from being away from the world you really are not the same person that you were when you left
- For some it takes years to re-socialize and get back into the swing of things
How Does Sociology Apply to Me?
Well I think that learning about sociology is important because people need to know about culture and race and certain prejudices in the world. I think that it is important to know about how people around the world do thing differently so that way you are not shocked if you visit one of those places. To me race and religion is very important because I am biracial and my dad is from Mississippi so I have seen racism in my life to where it has had an affect on me. Also religion is most important to me because I am a Jehovah's Witness so I make sure that I am living up to the right moral standards and that I am living my life according to my beliefs. So to me sociology is very important and I think that it is something that people should learn about.