One of the biggest thing in today’s society is created social change for the better. Social change is that transformation of a culture over times. We can create social change in many different ways, and one of those ways is through social movements. We have seen several movements in the past, and until this day we still see movements, and activist. Activist bring social change, and everybody is capable of activism. Everybody has different opportunities for activism. Collective behavior is a behavior that follows from the formation of a group or crowd of people who take action together toward a shared goal. Crowds may form for different reasons, while groups may gather for different purposes. Another form of collective behavior is social movements. Social movements tend to last longer, and also create social change. Social movements are any social group with leadership, organizations, and an ideological commitment to promote or resist social change.

A northeastern assistant professor named Sarah J. Jackson, a scholar of social movements stated, “ a key part of many successful activist movements is a precipitating event.”  

One of the biggest movement that started in 2007, was created by activist Tarana Burke. The #MeToo movement, exploded on twitter and the red carpet in 2018. Tarana created the campaign as a way to reach sexual assault survivors in underprivileged. The movements #MeToo, and #TimesUp brought the systemic sexual harassment of women to level of public consciousness. These hashtags began on social media like any other and it became social and political movements which inspired real action. The campaign, made popular by an actress named Alyssa Milano. The celebrities who used the hashtag #MeToo brought it to global attention. But while they brought it to global attention they left out of the conversation women of color and people in lower wage jobs.

Another big movement was #BlackLivesMatter, #DACA, #MUSLIMBAN, #NOBANNOWALL and these moments will continue to rise. Immigrant and refugee rights will continue to be big issues, particularly under Donald Trump’s presidency. The precipitating events for the #BlackLivesMatter movement were the murders of unarmed black people by police. While the precipitating event in immigration issues was President Trump’s travel ban, issued in early 2017. Through these movements it can create social change, and make the world a better and safer place for everyone no matter what. These movements will have a huge impact in the future as they have been doing in the moment.

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https://news.northeastern.edu/2019/01/10/want-to-know-which-hashtags-will-dominate-in-2019-look-to-what-worked-in-2018/

Migration is the last demographic variable which means the movement of people from one geographic area to another for the purpose of resettling. Related concepts are immigration and emigration. Immigration is entering one country from another to take up permanent residence. Emigration is leaving one country to live permanently in another. There are several reasons for why people leave their country to move to another. Sometimes is to be able to send money back to their family back home who need their help. Many people come to the United States in search for a better life, and the “American Dream.” Most of these people usually tend to come at a young age, and later start a family.

In Denver a family gathered to say goodbye to their family, a few hours before his meeting with the immigration officials. Jorge Zaldivar crossed into the country illegally in 1997, and he has been trying to get legal residency through his wife. Christina Zaldivar has been a citizen for over a decade. Christina married her husband in 2005, when she was a single mother of three kids. She was never concerned about his immigration status, nor did she believe they would ever be in this situation. Christina stated how she fell in love with him due to him treating her right after her abusive marriage. Jorge and Christina have 5 children whom are United States citizens, Josefyna, 23, Yolanda, 20, Dyego, 14, Aanahny, 10, and the youngest Francysco. Children are usually the ones who get affected when their parent(s) get deported. For example Christina’s older daughter had to skip college to be able to help pay her father’s legals fees. Her middle son, has started lashing out at teachers in school, but he is not able to explain to them what him and his family are going through.

The Zaldivar home was filled with relatives at the dinner. During the dinner, Ms.Zaldivar had received an email earlier that day, and she called for silence. She proceeded to say that their fathers stay was denied, while she looked at her children she told them that when their father checks in tomorrow, he will not be turnin. The family was devastated, and they all wanted this to be over and for everything to go back to normal. The next morning, they arrived at the federal immigration building and there were a few activists who arrived to show their support for the family. Mr. and Mrs. Zaldivar crossed the road while holding hands and their children watched. 20 minutes later both of the Zaldivars walked out of the building’s glass doors. Jorge was granted one more month long postponement. Although this allows the family to have a little bit more time before their fathers gets deported he will need to come back with a ticket whether being a bus or plane ticket indicating he will be going to exit within the next 30 days. This is one of the many stories. Several families go through this on the daily. Some families live in fear, not knowing if today will be their last meal with their family.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/08/us/immigration-deportation.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FImmigration%20and%20Emigration&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collectionWord Count: 522

We must know is that the development of intimate romantic relationships, it is socially constructed. In modern western cultures monogamy is still considered the only legal form of marriage, which means marrying only one individual at a time. In different areas around the world polygamy, polygyny, polyandry and polyamory does exist in today’s day. Polygamy is having multiple spouses. One of the more commonly known form of polygamy is polygyny which means a man is married to multiple wives. While polyandry is in which a woman has multiple husbands at a time. The last one is polyamory which includes a multiple-person partnership. These types of marriages do have pros and cons to them. Polygamy represents multiple of cultures and regions, and polygamy has existed all over the African continent. Polygamy marriages have been present in Africa’s history more than any other continent in the world. These types of marriages allow for families to be bigger than a monogamy marriage, which African societies believed that children were a form of wealth. If the family had more children they were seen as wealthy and powerful compared to those who did not have as many children. In Africa polygamy marriage was considered to be way to be able to build an empire. As you can see in this society polygamy marriage is very important factor to be able to have more power. Polygamy was very commonly known in the west part of Africa, but over time the popularity of polygamy reduce to due to the restrictions that appeared to the number of wives. Even the president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma has openly declared that he agrees with plural marriages and he is currently married to 3 wives. Jacob has 20 children with his current wives including his two previous wives that he had in the past.

Sudan is another country where the polygamy marriage is accepted. The president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir states how these multiple marriages are allowed in this country in order to be able to increase the population of Sudan. Every country do not have the same reasons and beliefs in why they allow and push these types of marriages. These areas all over the world all are under different circumstances which allows difference cultures, and norms.

Polygamy can be found all over Africa, but it is more commonly practiced among the animist and the muslims communities. There is also the mormons who also live in polygamous families.

https://www.polygamy.com/articles/89746509/polygamy-in-africa

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As a society, we firmly believe that education is the key to achievement and success, but educational institutions can replicate systems of inequality. Sociologists have studied education from a variety of perspective. One of the studies, look at inequalities in schools, and is consistent with a conflict perspective. Which sees society as a system characterized by inequality and competition. Many parents and students in the wealthy school districts believe that educational inequalities is a thing of the past. Which unfortunately it’s not, and it still continues until this day.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/property-taxes-and-unequal-schools/497333/

Although Connecticut is one of the wealthiest states in the union, yet thousands of children here attend schools among the world’s worst in the country. For the students who live in a higher incomes towns like Greenwich, and Darien have better resources and easier access to those resources than compared to the students who live in a high poverty town like Bridgeport, and New Britain. These students have easy access to guidance counselors, school psychologists, personal laptops, and up to date textbooks. The districts of the high poverty, tend to have more students who need that extra help, due to not having those opportunities, and sometimes due to their family situation. But yet these districts have fewer guidance counselors, tutors, psychologists, lower paid teachers, and bigger size classes. Students who live in high poverty town, and do not have those resources, they are more likely to not get a higher education. Some students will be living with a single-parent who works full time to be able to provide for them. Sometime those students do not have the knowledge to apply to scholarships, colleges, universities and even financial aid which for that reason they won’t get a higher education. Sometimes the counselors can have a busy schedule so they will not always be able to help them. Those are only a few of the challenges that students will face that live in a high poverty town. The districts in high poverty should be able to receive funds as much or more than the students who live in the high-income. Most of the time we see students who live in the high-income and go to good schools, take for granted those opportunities, in which those who are in poverty can take advantage of. Unfortunately this is a nationwide problem, and Connecticut was not the first and will not be the last to wrestle with the a difficult problem caused by relying heavily on local property taxes to fund schools.

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The most important thing today is gender identity, because a lot of people do not support the LGBTQIA+ community. There are two different types of gender identity. While our gender identity may or may not correspond with the sex we have been assigned at birth. When our sex and gender identity does match, we are considered to be cisgender. When individuals sex and gender identity do not align, we use the term transgender. As a society I feel like sometimes we are ignorant because we do not realize what people have to go through when they are apart of the LGBTQIA+ community face on a day to day basis. One of the biggest reasons that people sometimes hide their true identity from the people they love, family, parents, friends or coworkers is due to the discrimination they face. The discriminations that LGBTQIA+ person faces can be from subtle social exclusion to violent assaults. When people are coming out, they tend to be scared to not be accepted and supported by their families, or friends. Some parents are fully supported of their child’s decision, but others are not. It’s difficult on those who have no support from their loved ones. Sometimes not being accepted by their family or friends, can even lead to suicide. Some even fear becoming a victim of hate crime. Almost 20% of all hate crimes are motivated by anti-sexual orientation or anti-gender identity biases.

https://www.hrc.org/resources/violence-against-the-transgender-community-in-2018

The article, “Violence Against the Transgender Community in 2018,” states that in 2017, advocates tracked at least 29 deaths of transgender people in the United States due to fatal violence. These victims were not just killed by strangers but as well as acquaintances, and partners. While some of these cases do involve anti-transgender bias. While each cases is different, it has been made clear that fatal violence disproportionately affects transgender women of color. In 2018, 26 transgender people have been shot or killed. Viccky Gutierrez who was 38 years old and was a transgender woman from Honduras was stabbed and had her body set ablaze inside her Los Angeles home on January 10. Another woman who was killed was Sasha Wall who was 29, and  was a transgender woman of color, was fatally shot on April 1 in Chesterfield County, South Carolina. Nikki Enriquez,  who was 28, was one of four women killed in Sept. in what local officials describe as a “serial killing spree” allegedly carried out by an intel supervisor for the U.S. Border Patrol. Nikki also went by the name of Janelle, and was apaprt of the LGBTQ community. These are just 3 of the many stories of people who are apart of the LGBTQ community who were killed. It’s sad to know that this world is filled with hate, instead of love and peace. Everybody should be able to feel free, accepted and live without fear due to their gender identity, sexuality, and sexual orientation.

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Race and ethnicity influences all aspects of our lives. From our health, education, work, family and interactions with the criminal justice system and even health care. For Native Americans this is what they go through. Most people do not have that knowledge about Native Americans and what it is like to live in a reservation. Some people believe that Native Americans, are alcoholics and drug addicts. What people do not know is the struggles Native Americans face day to day because living on the reservation is never easy. The suicide rate of Native Americans of all ages are higher than the overall United States rate.

https://youtu.be/ie4m9LAVDGw 

Lakota in America, is about a young teenager telling her story about her growing up in the reservation. Her name is Genevieve Iron Lightning and she is a Lokato dancer on the Cheyenne River Reservation. Cheyenne River Reservation is one of the poorest communities in the United States. Unemployment, addiction, alcoholism, and suicide are challenges that the Lakota Reservation faces. For over a hundred years, it was illegal to practice Lakota customs. Now, the Cheyenne River Youth Project is working with young people to be able to create a stronger economic and cultural future, and they’re using the Lakota heritage to achieve their goal.  

When Genevieve was young her uncle, Emmett had passed away. Due to his death, her mother got really depressed and to start consuming alcohol, and became an alcoholic. When her mother started drinking her mother started treating her and her younger brothers different. Her mother eventually started bringing a guy over to their place, whom is stranger. Around that time that her mother started drinking, she would start disappearing for certain amount of days. One day, Genevieve overheard a conversation with her mother and the guy, about how they were going to shoot up something. The young girl immediately called her grandmother, and her grandmother picked them up. Ever since her and her brothers have been living on the reservation with her grandmother.

Living in the reservation for many different reasons, but also the environment is not the best. The houses are not nice, garbage everywhere, broken cars, broken windows and parents do not take care of their children unless they have a job. Living in an area where there is no opportunities, people tend to turn to alcohol, and meth has been a big issue in their community. Native Americans did not choose to be there, the reservation where build in to keep them segregated. Living in poverty, and addiction is a struggle that Native American face on the reservation. Going through those challenges they tend to forget that their kids are watching them, and they will drink or use drugs in front of them. The kids are a reflection of the surroundings that they are in, and grew up. If those kids do not have the guidance that they need, they will follow the same footsteps they saw growing up. If these kids do not have the opportunity and the resources, then it makes it difficult for them to break the cycles and those stereotypes. These kids do not choose this life, it was the life they brought into, and they have to work twice as harder than most kids to be able to get to where they want to be in life. Sometimes due to all these challenges they end up committing suicide because they feel like there is no way out. This is one of the many stories about living in poverty on the reservation.

Not everybody has the same opportunities , and some of us have to work twice as hard to be able to be where we at. Belonging to a certain social class has profound consequences for individuals in all areas of life. From their health, family, education, work, income and even criminal justice. The majority of the time depending how the children do in school will determine whether they go attend college, and where they attend. As well as what professionals they enter, and the amount they get. Usually the ones who have a higher education tend to get paid more. Some students have the opportunity to be able to get a higher education without worrying about the money, due to their family’s income. While there’s others who do not attend college, not because they don’t want to but because they are not able to afford it. Some students drop out of high school, to help their parents financially.

https://youtu.be/4K5fbQ1-zps

This video explains life of privileges in a $100 race. In the beginning of the video the man starts explain the rules of the race, while there were about 20 or more students standing at the starting line. The man will make some statements during the race, and if the statements apply to the individuals they will need to take two steps forward. If the statements do not apply to the individuals, then they will stay where they are at. The first statement was if they students parents were married, and the majority of the students took two steps. The second statement was if the students grew up with a father figure at home, and some stayed behind while others took two steps. Throughout this video he continues to make several statements, while other advanced, the others didn’t move. By watching the video the majority of the people who moved from the beginning continue to move. The people who didn’t move in the beginning of the race either stayed at the starting line, or only moved two steps forward. These statements where real life situations. Not everybody gets the same opportunities as the rest, and sometimes we are too blind to see that. Sometimes people who are privileged take these opportunities for granted.

The people who are close to the finish line are instructed to look behind them, and to realize that not everybody has the same opportunities. But, just because those individuals do not have the same opportunity as others, does not mean they cannot run the race. Some people are given a head start in life, and the one who don’t have the privileges still have to run the race no matter what. Even if it means working twice as hard as the students who are privilege. The man later explains who ever has won the race, should utilize it to learn about other people stories. He also explained if the race (life) was fair, that the people who do not have the same opportunities would possibility beat them. This video is such an inspiring video, and helps us recognize that not everybody has those opportunities, that we may possibly have.

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https://youtu.be/PBHSUftI2ZI

Deviance is a negative reaction in a particular group that has generated a behavior, trait or belief that departs from a norm. There is three different perspectives of deviance, which are the biological perspective, psychological perspective and the sociological perspective. The sociological perspective discovers deviance at the act. While the biological and psychological perspective discovers deviance in the person. There are several different theories, but the one that has caught my interest was the differential association theory. The differential association theory developed by Edwin Sutherland was that we learn to be deviant through our associations with deviant peers. The most vulnerable people for peer pressure are teenagers. Teenager fall into peer pressure for several reasons, and one of the main reasons is to be able to fit in. Most kids who do end commiting crimes, and follow negatives habits is due to having those bad influence at a young age. If they grew up in a neighborhood where a lot of crime is committed, drugs, and dealing occurs on a daily basis then it more than likely that they will follow that path. Most teenagers will say that’s what they grew up seeing, and never had that positive influence which has caused them to do what they are doing and be who they are.    

This video is about Green Hill High School which is a medium to maximum security fenced facility that provides male offenders education and vocational training. This particular video of gateway is about JJ who is currently on his third year of taking a college class at GHS. When JJ was 16, he was sentenced to 20 years of prison. JJ discusses how he wanted to be like those people that got respect in the streets. He also talks about that how he grew up to idolize. When JJ was still a baby his father was involved in the gang life, and his mother was consuming drugs, as well as in out of jail. He was raised by his aunt, and grandparents but then he eventually moved with his father due to losing his grandparents. One day home from school he found his father dead, and he moved with his mother who was just released out of prison. Eventually his mother was sent back to prison, and he got kicked out of school. All he knew was the streets within a 6 months period he eventually got locked up as well. JJ states “ As a kid I was told that you would end up dead or in prison, I feel like they jinx’s me.” JJ is just one of many stories about teenagers who end up in the system due to not having those good influence around.

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One of the biggest question there is today whether are we the people that we are due to our genetics or our socialization. Twin studies, feral children, isolated children and institutionalized children, allow sociologists be able to examine the effect of both nature and nurture on behavior. Socialization is such important factor in a child’s life. Socializations means the process of learning and internalizing the values, beliefs, and norms of our social group. The socialization process begins when we are infants through our life time. There are several agents of socialization, but the major agents are family, schools, peer and mass media.

Feral children is a human child who has lived in an isolated area for several years or since a young age. Therefore has little to no experience of human care, behavior or human language. There has been several cases of feral children. Most people that hear about feral children, they might automatically think living in the forest, but that’s not always the case. In some cases the children do live at home and are neglected by their parents, and even abused. Feral children find more comfort in animals than humans which is very heart breaking. No children deserves to go through this, but sadly it occurs. An article called, “Feral: The Children Raised By Wolves,” by Fiona Macdonald. This article gives different stories of feral children from 1959 to the most recent in 2013. Feral children go through traumatic experiences, and their mental, emotional, and physical state is horrible. The kids that have been found it is difficult for them to transition to behave like humans due to being isolated. Some children’s never recuperate back from those experiences. One of the stories that occured in the child’s own home was in Ukraine in 1991. The little girls name was Oxana Malaya and she was found living in the kennel with dogs. She was only 3 years old when her alcoholic parents had left her outside. Due to being cold she had crawled up to the dogs which she had lived with them for 6 years. Due to her being raised by dogs she ran on all four, panted with her tongue out and even barked like a dog. Since she did not have any human interaction, she had no human language, besides the words, “yes” or “no”. Another story very similar to Oxana was in 1978 in Fiji. Sujit Kumar parents locked him in the chicken coop, later on his mother had commited suicide and his father was later murdered. Eventually his grandfather took over the responsibility to raise him, but he didn’t. He left Sujit in the chicken coop. Sujit was not found until he was 8 years old, by then he was pecking at his food, and behaved like a chicken himself. These are just two of the many stories of feral children.

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http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20151012-feral-the-children-raised-by-wolves

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2018-08-17/survey-14-percent-of-adults-have-changed-their-mind-because-of-social-media

There is several different types of research methods. Each method is used for certain types of research. For example there is interviews, surveys, ethnography, participant observations and experimental method is all the different types of research methods that can be used. All these methods have advantages and disadvantages. Surveys are usually means a large amount of people are involved, which allows different opinions, and different answers. Usually surveys are questionnaires that can be multiple choices or short answers. Also surveys is usually quantitative research which means it translates the social word into numbers that can be studied mathematically. Meanwhile interviews is more about qualitative research which indicates that it uses non numerical data like texts, photos and recording to help us understand how the social life works. Interviews can have open-ended question or closed-ended questions. Open-ended questions allows the responders to talk as much as they want, and go into depth when answering the question. Meanwhile close-ended questions is more to the point answers for examples yes or no answers.

An article that I was a good example of on of the research methods was called, “Social Media Makes People Change Their Views.” This article states how a new survey has discovered that social media is one of the main reason people have changed their point of views. There has been 14 percent of the people who have changed their views on politics or social topic due to something they seen on social media. Social media has such a huge influence on everything especially on teengers. People see something on the media, and they automatically believe it without having any facts or without having the full story. This survey indicates that only 6 percent of the people who are 65 years old or older have changed their views due to social media. While 23 percent of the people are ages from 18 to 29. Meanwhile only about 14 percent are ages 30 to 49 and 50 to 64. The survey also discovered that one important variable that had to do with peoples changing their point of views was the connection they had with social media. Whether they used social media for personal political engagement and activism, or entertainment. The people whose views did change, they stated that social media was not use to engage in political or social issues. Most people on social media usually tend to try to find people who they are able to share their beliefs with, and have that connection with one another.

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