We live in a time where women have significantly greater and much more important rights than they ever have in our history. Though we are not yet where we want to be and still have a long journey ahead of us, we must acknowledge the major changes that women have fought for and created for us today. One of these changes being that it is much more socially acceptable for women to attend a university and give themselves the opportunity to receive a higher education. This is a much more recent social change for women, and in fact is creating a big wave of baby boomer women who are now going to school for the first time since graduating high school decades ago. The conversation posted and article last September called “Baby Boomer Women Make Up for Lost Study Time and Head Back to University.” In this article, they describe this social change as an upward trend. Between 2012 and 2015 there has been a rate of nearly 2 times more baby boomer women attending university every single year. Woman of this age are coming closer and closer each year to having the same number of baby boomer women as there are baby boomer men with college educations.

A woman who was interviewed for this article says she was one of 63 women who were above the age of 60 who managed to finish their post graduate studies at a university in Australia. If there are 63 baby boomer women who have successfully finished their post graduate research then I can only imagine how many other baby boomer women went to a 2 or 4 year university to receive their AA or their BA. Another reason women of older ages are ow having such a strong interest and choosing to invest all these years and dollars into a higher education is for mental health reasons. It is proven that the more active your brain is the greater the chances are for you to avoid dementia or Alzheimer’s, in your later years of life. So, what better way to help your brain, and be able to make use of a degree. At 55 women still have enough time to gain their degree and work in their field for several years. This is an amazing opportunity that should have been available for women from the beginning. There is no going back to change what has happened and these women are making the most of the cards they’ve been dealt by proving that they always have been capable of getting a degree and working in a “mans job”. (word count 439)

https://theconversation.com/baby-boomer-women-make-up-for-lost-study-time-and-head-back-to-university-82915

World Economic Forum posted an article in August of 2017 called “The Earth’s Population is Going to Reach 9.8 Billion by 2050”. They discuss that in the past 33 years there was a 31 percent increase in our world’s population, thus the science and history are pointing to a major increase by 2050. As of the year the article was written, 2017, the current international population was 7.5 billion people. This article does a great job of showing individual countries from where they were many years ago, where they were at the time of the article being written, and where they are expected to be by 2050. They use India and China, which are the two most populated countries in the world, as 2 examples of how this population increase will affect them, and predicts the population for them both to greatly increase by 2050. In fact, the entire continent of Asia is predicted to increase from it 750 million people population to an outstanding 5.2 billion. This is a much greater change than what is expected in the Americas, of a .2 billion person increase to eventually have 1.2billion people. However, in all of the population increase around the world this is not the same everywhere. Europe is projected to have a decrease in population from 745 million people to only 736 million people. 

This goes to show that population control is completely within our reach as a world because if we don’t get it under control soon then either our population will have no resources left and everybody will struggle or there will be heavy consequences for those who over populate.

The second half of this article discusses how all 7+ billion of us share the same earth and all of its very limited resources. Because of these resources being so scarce and having so many people depending on them now, we will use them all up and there will be no more for us to restock these resources. When oil, coal, or livestock runs out then there will be a very big and brutal awakening to this world. Not only will everybody who lives on this planets lives be changed resource wise, but it will be highly frowned upon to reproduce. As a woman who has a dream of someday becoming a mother I am deeply saddened that my children may not be able to have those same dreams. (word count 406)

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/08/the-earths-population-is-going-to-reach-9-8-billion-by-2050

Psychology Today recently wrote an article called The Fundamentals of Family Dynamics in regard to the ways families function from one culture to another. They talk about the stereotypical family aspects and who is who. The rates of depression in children tend to be much lower for those kids who have           good and healthy relationships with their immediate family members. They also discuss the relativity of so many other factors. These include birth order of the children, if there are only children, who the family has problems with or who they are closest with. These all go into raising the children and factors into who they will become. In the nature vs nurture debate, these factors will all be on the side of nurture as the definition of nurture says that nurturing is the way people are raised, and treated growing up affects the ways that they act as an adult. These have to do with a happy family, who are financially stable, and genuinely enjoy each other’s company. 

I believe that my family has so many positive family dynamics and this article articulated so many things I did not even know I was so blessed to have. I was raised by my two parents, who have been dating since they were 16 years old. I was raised with a younger sister who is only 18 months younger than me and she has been my best friend for as long as I can remember. My parents are a nurse and a firefighter, and have had these jobs since before I was born which offers them more time than typical parents to be around with my sister and I, and they are able to fully support our family, while at the same time teaching my sister and I the importance of working hard and earning our own money. 

The most important family dynamic I believe in, personally, is quality time. This is where families are able to learn about each other, support each other, and bond over mutually enjoyable activities. These are what promote happy and healthier children, is happy and healthy relationships with their parents. Though some families seem to function in other ways or some children who still suffer from depression even though they have loving and supportive families. Everybody goes through things so differently, and even in the “best situation” you can still go through your own struggles.  (Word count: 404)

Just 3 days ago U.S. News wrote a report on the Teachers strike in West Virginia. This strike began last Tuesday, but they are just the first. There are news reports that say later in the week schools in Oakland, California are planning to go forward with this strike. The article states that the reason for these strikes is “as much about the structure of our school system and services for our students as it is about a living wage for educators” The problems they are hoping to resolve all revolve around the funding for charter schools (public schools that are run with the freedom to act independently). These schools lack government funding because they do not strictly follow the government guidelines for typical public schools in the districts, yet they are not private schools and cannot charge the students any tuition to attend, so there is not enough, or not constant funding going into these types of schools and their programs. The superintendent of one of these West Virginia school districts is hoping that 

I believe that all students and academic programs deserve equal and proper funding. If there is a public school receiving funding for their activities, or higher pay for teachers then any charter school deserves these benefits. This should be about helping the teachers and students, because the more invested a teacher is the more students will benefit and that should be the ultimate goal of any educational program. I don’t doubt that they do their best to achieve this goal, but when there are very limited resources, due to the lack of funding, teachers can only provide so much for their student. Charter schools will typically be specialized for subjects such as math or sciences, or others focus on students who have a particularly difficult time learning the same way their peers do. These are schools that form the education around the capabilities of these students, and if the government does not open their eyes to the fact that not all students learn the same way or at the same rate then they are holding back so many kids from their fullest potential. These teachers have every right to be striking on this issue as I am sure they watch some of their students really struggle with the materials, or some who are getting the hang of it so well that they need to be challenged and pushed to reach their fullest potential. (Word Count: 412)

TIME magazine wrote an article last may called “Behind the TIME cover story: Beyond ‘He’ or ‘She’”. They discuss how in the past there is male and female, or hetero and homosexuals, but in current time the society has opened the ideas to not only having 2 ways of identifying yourself. With new terms like bisexuals who are attracted to both male and females. There are trans people or people who just do not identify as either/any gender in general. Now with the very well-known LGBTQ+ community they feel more comfortable with coming to terms with themselves or coming out to others around them. The author of this article wrote about how the most difficult part for this community to face is explaining their gender and sexualities as it is a fluid scale. The other difficulty is those who choose to not conform to either gender and they choose to not be identified in general. For people to go from calling them he or she and now calling them ‘they’ can be hard. It is something that these people must correct in order to feel the respect they deserve, and be able to fully identify themselves in the manner in which they choose to be seen. The author also talks about the harassment and abuse this community receives every single day. They have come so far, from being a major taboo, to now being able to legally identify as they want to, and legally marry whoever they choose to. 

I believe this community has fought so hard to gain the respect they properly deserve, yet are still being frowned upon and discriminated so often. If we all just became more educated, and accepting to those then we could offer them a safe and comfortable place to open up about it. If the LGBTQ+ community has fought so hard to receive the disappointingly small amount of respect they are given then maybe the rest of the world could fight to understand and come to terms with the fact that times are changing and people are coming to terms with who they are meant to be. As a human race, we should be able to embrace that this is what is going on and be supportive of our peers. I believe all people are created equal. Regardless of their race, their sexuality, or the way they choose to identify themselves, we are equal. No matter how somebody appears to be, they deserve the respect of others around them to address them with the proper pronouns, and to be given the respect that they have given the rest of the world who has done nothing but create more obstacles for them.  (word count 452)

On November 1^stof 2018 Science Daily published an article titled “Fear and Disloyalty Drives Bias Against Bicultural Immigrants. The whole idea of this article is that anybody who is mixed culture tends to be denied, or is looked down on by those who are completely one side of the culture, or the “minority group”. For example, a child who is half black and half Chinese would be looked at by the Chinese as black, but would be seen as only Chinese by African-Americans. Until the child can prove his or her loyalty and faithfulness to one of the several cultures it could have to choose from. The fear of the majority group is that the minorities loyalty would be divided and they would not be able to properly prioritize their culture. This article confirmed the hypothesis, based on their experiments and the data it provided, that the “majority group concerns about the loyalty of a minority group are strongly influenced by the perception of threat and by the minority group preference for a dual identity.”

I believe that this is extremely biased and only applies to those of a minority group. As we saw in the video of the Japanese woman who was out for a jog and questioned by a white male about her race, it is quite unusual for a white person to be asked about what type of mixture is in their blood. I know for me personally it is too many different ones to count. So why is it socially acceptable for people to choose what they think about you based on where your ancestors came from? Whether you are Asian, African-American, European, Pacific Islander, or come from any other ethnical background nothing should be assumed about you. What is on the outside is just your physical characteristics. Just because I have Irish in my blood doesn’t mean I would walk around with an Irish accent. Yet my red hair shows the Irish in me. There are so many small parts to each person but not every bit of it is shown through their physical appearance. 

This also has so much to do with racial, or even gender, based assumptions and stereotypes we place on complete strangers just based on what we see of them. An example would be that you see an Asian and assume they would not be a good driver, but Kyle Miyata Larson is an Asian-American Nascar driver. You might see a blonde girl and assume she is just a pretty face, with nothing in her brain, Jodie Foster, a well-known actress, is a Yale alumna who is fluent in almost 5 languages. I believe all people are more than what everybody would cut them out to be, and if we all look past the stereotypes and stop making assumptions on people than we can open our perspective to see people for who they are and what they are capable of. 

Word count: 492https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181101133858.htm

I found an article from late July of 2018, in regard to our social class flaws. The article, America’s middle class is slowly being ‘wiped out’. I believe that even though this article is not necessarily current, it is still a major issue in our country and if anything has only gotten worse, rather than better.  This article focuses on the middle-class citizens and how the bottom of the middle class is looking more like lower class every year. He used the example of two teachers who earn an income of $69,000 a year each, yet have picked up small side gigs (such as Uber driving) in order to afford they small “starter home” which is priced at about $680,000. The most interesting fact I found within the article was that before 2008’s economic crash only 25% of Americans viewed themselves as lower class, but since the recession there is now up to 40% of Americans who claim to be lower class. They then surveyed what types of things that families of the middle class spent the majority of their earnings on, and found that day care, nannies, and any form of child care services was where families would spend an average of 20%-30% of their incomes. These necessities should not be priced at such a luxury for somebody that is in dire need of help to ensure their child’s safety.

The stories written in this article as examples of how much the middle-class struggles are heartbreaking. Parents who are working several part time jobs on top of their, already challenging enough, full time job. The most common among these are teachers, or professors who struggle just to make ends meet after working countless hours in and out of the class rooms. These professors and lawyers and anybody who attended a university for an extended period of time are sitting in so much debt. So much, in fact, it is almost a 60% increase from the rates that were in 2004. This is just one more example of what a downhill spiral our country is spinning down. We live in a world where the poor are somehow becoming poorer, our middle class is starting to suffer, and our upper class is still getting richer by the year. As a country, we need to come together to figure out how to resolve this issue, but that would mean the upper class needs to make some cuts and sacrifices. That will be the toughest challenge in becoming a less diverse social class nation.  (word count 425)

Yesterday the Education Nextwrote an article in regard to the Los Angeles teacher strike. In the article, “Los Angeles Teachers Strike a Deal, But Miss and Opportunity”, it discussed how the LA strike has come to an end after a week of picoting lines, wanting smaller classroom sizes and demanding a pay increase for all teachers, and their district. Throughout the past 4 years there has been a gradual increase of teachers pay by nearly 24%, yet a decline of teachers by 13%, causing for much larger class sizes. Fortunately for them they have ended this strike, and are walking away with the promise to decrease class sizes, and a 6% pay raise. These teachers have all come together, and all have a common interest to help themselves and their peers. Throughout this past week, of so much time and dedication to fight for what they believe to be fair they have met many new teachers, and staff members who will, most likely, remain a group of people they can turn to if or when times become tough, like in recent events.

A primary group is defined as a close knit and intimate group of people. These are your close friends or family who all have one or many of the same interests that you do as well. A secondary group is an impersonal or temporary group of people who come into your life for one or two specific reasons, but will not go outside of that specific reason. What started as a secondary group, teachers all fighting for one common belief that they deserve more, has blossomed into them gaining more and more primary type friendships. They now not only have their colleagues from their own schools to lean on, but from the whole district to turn to when needed. All of these teachers experience similar, if not the same, day to day life and situations in their classrooms and confiding in one another, or asking somebody who has already been through something for advice can be one of the best and simplest ways to resolve one’s current issue.

I believe it would take something big, such as this strike, to turn people from a secondary group, to a primary. Fighting for what they want. And in the end, they have proved that any group of any people who are passionate enough can be rewarded with, and achieve their overall goal. (word count 405)

This week in sociology we discussed the nature vs. nurture debate, which has always fascinated me. It is crazy to me that I could be who I am because that is just the way I was born, or I can be the way I am due to the way I was raised and what I was surrounded with in my early stages of life. An article on Very Well Mindwas written last November, discussing how this is one of the toughest arguments for psychologists to depict. They referenced Descartes saying “Genetic traits handed down from parents influence the individual differences that make each person unique” which I agree with more than other references saying that when we are born we are each a “blank slate.” 

I believe that everything we go through makes up so much of who we are and would strongly affect how we choose to go about certain situations that life could throw at us later in life, but things such as race, ethnicity, or even just the way we look could strongly sway us to one side of a situation rather than another. An example in this article is whether somebody with tons of academic success is smart because they are just born genetically smart or because they work for it. What about if a violent person is just born with violent tendencies, or did they grow up in an abusive household and that is all they know? Honestly these are very tough to decide. This could go either way and that is why psychologists have such a tough time deciding which outweighs the other. You never truly know what somebody grew up around, or if what they saw when they were 5 was truly what was going on. 

Psychologists that study these two different viewpoints are broken up into two separate categories. On one side, you have the biopsychologists who focus on our brain and the way neurotransmitters will affect our behavior, and how much they impact the way we look at situations. The other side of this debate is the social psychologists, who look at how what happens in your past, specifically when you are forming your social skills as a young child, or in today’s world of social media, and all other forms of pressure one would feel, that influences them one way or another into becoming who they are. 

This article does not say whether nature or nurture is the correct answer, in fact there may be no “correct” answer, as these both contribute to making us who we are. We are all unique, individual beings, who are all shaped so differently that we may never know what exactly it is that makes us who we are.