Sociology 3701: Outline--week 9

I. Gender and appearance survey (Spring 2007): the results (after throwing out the survey that reported 26 hours a week on appearance and $3000 a month).... N= about 30

Comparing this survey with a similar survey 5-6 years ago, results were pretty similar. Males were actually down on both hours and money into appearance; women were up on hours and down on money. Quite a few (41%) of women in the earlier survey reported dieting in the previous year. In both surveys, men were more likely to be satisfied with both their weight and their appearance. A majority of both men and women indicated that their concern with appearance peaked in high school, with junior high a close second (quite a few listed both equally).

What does it all mean? Where do we get our self-images? How do we draw our conclusions about what's attractive and what is not? Why are we so particularly hard on ourselves in high school and junior high? What is the role of primary groups? Do you think it would have been similar a hundred years ago? In other cultures?Why do you think girls and women put more time and resources into trying to get the right look (and judge themselves more harshly)? Why do girls and women have so many more eating disorders? More generally, what would you list as disadvantages for each sex?

II. Television, self, and other.

A. Survey of television viewing.

B. To what extent do peer groups mediate the impact of the media: In your peer group at different ages, how would you compare the importance of talk about television shows vs. talk about music? Or did people in your peer groups tend to talk about something else entirely?

C. Bernard McGrane: The UnTv and the 10 mph car

1. Watching someone watch tv. "I watched my roommate watch TV. Her face was blank. She looked possessed."

2. Life Magazine, December 1992. "Would you swear off TV forever?" For almost half of Americans, it would take $1 million to make that worthwhile, and one fourth wouldn't give it up even then.

What would it in dollars for you to give it up (no cheating)?

III. Class and Race

A. Video: "People Like Us"

B. Perry: "Shades of White"... 2 high schools, one majority white and suburban, one inner city and multi-racial (though only 11% white)... her interest in race and culture and especially the social construction of whiteness and whether whiteness involves culture... I am also interested in the social construction of "normal... and we should certainly think a bit about how the researcher's own race/gender/age might have affected her results, a topic she does consider thoughtfully.

1. Valley Groves (white and suburban)...(How does Valley Groves differ from Anderson High?) the "mainstream" white kids--popular, athletic, college-bound--were in the honors and other high-tracked classes... What did they say about their experience with other races?

a. Did they see themselves as "white?" Did that have cultural meaning for them?

b. In both high schools, she looks at the meaning of "homecoming?" What was homecoming like at Valley Groves?

B. Clavey High School: 54% African American, 12% white, 23% Asian American, 8% Hispanic, 3% "other"

1. Student cliques and subcultures were "marked. " "In a word, peer group activities racialized youth." What does this mean?

2. How did students dress?

3. What was the "white" experience at Clavey? Did they see themselves as a distinctive cultural group? Did they think of themselves as white?

4. What was the significance of the tracking system? How did it work? (compare to Mercer, Labeling the Mentally Retarded)

5. What about events that were specifically labeled as multi-cultural, in which groups had a chance to reprent their race or ethnicity? How and why did whites relate to those events?

C. Think about these two schools in relation to "People Like Us" and to the schools in the Durham study about girls, peers, and mass media.

III. Video: "The Merchants of Cool"