Social and Moral Order

This week my blog post on social and moral order is a response to Ashley.

This is the link to her post.

http://smasheslerat.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/prison-for-dummies-wk8.html

Weider detected a code which was operative at a halfway house. This code was a set of activities that they should and should not engage in, showing loyalty to the other residents and avoiding spending time with the staff. Part of the code states that a resident must not trust staff. This is mentioned in Ashley’s post. Ashley works at a youth refuge in the Illawarra and sometimes feels uncomfortable confronting residents. This is probably because the residents display a strong sense of loyalty to one another and it may be intimidating to a staff member who is on the “outside”.  

I stumbled across another article by Einat and Einat (2000) that touches on the inmate subculture in Israeli prisons. The behavioural and moral code may be seen as a collective and functional stand for coping with the prison environment. It alleviates the suffering caused by deprivation, inhospitable conditions, social heterogeneity of peers, confusion between two worlds, lack of stability, relative inactivity, boredom, and an unclear future. Punishments for breaching the code are severe and strong negative sanctions are applied in the form of verbal and physical violence, social isolation, withholding food, and withdrawal of commodities such as cigarettes and drugs.

“A prisoner who becomes a snitch will be ambushed, knifed, his face will be cut… So everybody will know who he is, and that they should never act like him.”

Another example of this inmate code is seen in the film The Longest Yard, where a group of inmates forms a gridiron team to play against a well-drilled team of prison guards. Throughout the film the inmates are determined to show the guards who is boss on the sporting field.

   

I totally agree with Ashley, there is an element of apprehension when dealing with criminals, big or small! Even when you have the “authority”. 

References

Einat, T & Einat, H 2000, ‘Inmate argot as an expression of prison subculture: The Israeli case’, The Prison Journal, vol.80, no.3, pp309-325.

Weider, DL 1974, ‘Telling the code’, in R Turner (ed.), Ethnomethodology: Selected Readings, Penguin Education, Harmondsworth, pp144-172.

Ethnomethodology

Ethnomethodology is definitely a new addition to my vocabulary dictionary.. This seems to be a common thing in SOC 250! After exploring Garfinkel's reading, this new concept became somewhat more familiar and I now realise that such a ridiculous word really isn't that scary. 

I stumbled across a reading by Dalvir Samra-Fredericks, who outlines aspects of ethnomethodology's contribution to the study of "face" and the doing of face-work in terms of an interactional accomplishment. This reading was of interest to me because it incorporates elements of Goffman and Garfinkel.

Garfinkel is well-known for his "breaching experiments" and the moral accountability of interaction. Garfinkel's famous words were we all "hold each other to account in terms of a practical reasonableness and appropriateness". Garfinkel talks about the reprimands when "background expectancies are breached and the natural attitude of everyday life is disrupted", and how this can create anger and righteous indignation.  

An example of a breach of the acceptable and localized norms or protocols of interaction is “walking in unison” to a stranger on the street. I found this YouTube which is an experimental video in which a group of people decided to break the unspoken rule by walking next to a stranger on the street at the same pace they are walking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeGk-NPXu7c

“Strangers on the street do not walk together. Even if travelling at the same speed, people will walk in a staggered formation unless the pathway is too crowded to avoid it. In the event that one person wishes to pass another, the passer will accelerate and overtake the person being passed, who might choose to slow down a bit until the pass is complete. Then both people resume their normal walking speeds.”

Here is the reading by Samra-Fredericks which I'm sure will provide you with insight!

http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/science/article/pii/S037821660900335X

References

Samra-Fredericks, D. 2010. Ethnomethodology and the moral accountability of interaction: Navigating the conceptual terrain of 'face' and face-work. Journal of Pragmatics 42, pp.2147-2157.

Data Presentation

So this was my YouTube video and Prezi presentation for my data discussion.. 

I am going to expand on new concepts in my research project, these were just my initial ideas! 

Let me know what you think!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqiD0KTZrKE

http://prezi.com/ao0n4r3heul2/data-discussion/

Life As An Actor

This week my blog post is a response to a posting by Alexandra. This is the link to her post! 

http://alexandrasoc250.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/dramaturgy-and-social-networking.html

Goffman's reading on "life as an actor" made me realise that we undoubtedly create numerous faces for ourselves, each one aimed at impressing a different audience. It seems almost fair to say that our life is an ongoing performance and we control the way in which are perceived. Charles Horton Cooley called this the "looking-glass self":

"I am not what I think I am and I am not what you think I am; I am what I think that you think I am."

In response to Alexandra's blog post, Facebook is indeed the very best example of how we are all actors in our own social worlds. We only post what we want people to see. We delete things that may portray us as uncool, ugly, boring or fat. The majority of Facebook pages that you come across are exploding with vain selfies, new relationship status updates, and countless check-ins. Facebook has changed the way we interact with others - there is no longer the need to call your friends and ask them what they did on the weekend, who they were with, or what they were wearing. You can find all this information on Facebook. I think Facebook's "status update" option says it all..  

I agree with Alexandra – Facebook is a front stage interaction that we utilize to create a “profile” of ourselves, projecting a positive image to maintain our social status.

We are all performers, and Goffman's reading covers this perfectly.      

The Concept of Self

It's a Saturday night and I am at my desk attempting to string some words together for this blog.. Some would consider staying in on a Saturday night "social death", but I have an obligation as a student to eventually post something to my blog. So here goes.

This week's topic focused on the "self", and how we portray our own "self" with particular deference and demeanor. The words "obligation" and "expectation" frequently featured in the reading by Erving Goffman. Goffman explores the idea that obligation and expectation are the social grounding for our everyday rules of conduct. This led me to daydream about real life examples of my own, such as my own obligations and expectations within the many roles I conform to each day. 

I am a student, a babysitter, a waitress, a sister, a daughter and a friend. Each one of these roles is bound with different obligations and expectations, and I'm sure most would agree that you learn to adapt to these different roles, obligations and expectations very quickly. The sense of responsibility and the different demeanor for each role is blatant, and I find myself juggling from one to the other, several times a day. No role is any more important than the others, it is simply how I present myself in each situation that lends insight into the deference and demeanor associated with each one. 

In addition to the reading by Goffman I found an interesting piece by Lynass et al. (2012), which studies the social expectations and behaviours within the school environment. I found this reading rather interesting because it provides insight into where we learn our social expectations and how these are enforced from an incredibly young age.  

            

http://pbi.sagepub.com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/content/14/3/153.full.pdf

References

Goffman, Erving. 1967. The Nature of Deference and Demeanor. Pp 47-96 in Interaction Ritual; Essays on Face to Face Behaviour. New York: Pantheon Books.

Lynass, L., Tsai, S., Richman, T. D. & Cheney, D. (2012). Social Expectations and Behavioral Indicators in School-Wide Positive Behavior Supports: A National Study of Behavior Matrices. Journal of Positive Behaviour Intervention, 14(3), 153-161.