W15.1 June 10 (Mon)-Chaehyun Lee

 What did I learn from this class?


Through the course "Introduction to Sociology," I was able to understand social phenomena in Korea, China, and around the world. I was able to think about things that we take for granted and experience in our daily lives, such as "Why is Korea obsessed with plastic surgery?" or "Why do boys have louder voices than girls?" and discuss them with my professor. I was also able to expand my thinking by listening to the answers to other students' questions and hearing different opinions.
 
 In this course, I was able to learn the theories of sociologists that form the foundation of sociology. I found it most interesting to learn about Karl Marx, who advocated the 'class struggle theory', which states that conflict between the dominant and subordinate classes is inevitable. I think it is very challenging for society that the conflict between classes is a key driver of social change. He pointed out the marginalization that workers experience under the capitalist system. Also. He argued that workers lose their connection to the production process, the products of their labor, and even their humanity. Despite the fact that he was a 19th century sociologist, I think his arguments are still relevant in the 21st century, hundreds of years later. It is interesting that he sharply analyzes social reality from various aspects such as class conflict, historical development, alienation, and revolution.

One of the activities we did in class was to choose a country and analyze its democratic freedom from various aspects. I analyzed the democratic freedom of Venezuela. Venezuela has a very noticeably low level of democratic freedom on the African continent, and I was able to see how the economic hardships that Venezuela has experienced have had a significant negative impact on their political structure and political participation. This activity gave me a visual indicator of democratic freedom around the world and allowed me to analyze how democracy is organized in each country.

The next activity I found interesting was comparing the gender gap between South Korea, China, and Japan. All three countries are within the same East Asian cultural region, so they have similar socio-cultural conditions, but Japan ranks lower than the other two countries. This is due to the fact that Japanese women workers have a much higher proportion of precarious, non-regular jobs in the other two countries. Therefore, most women in Japan have significantly less economic independence, and this has affected other areas as well. Through this activity, I was able to see that even countries within similar conditions have their own sexist characteristics. 

 The blog assignments before each class introduced me to religion, government, and various sociological theories. I found it beneficial to think about the different topics that make up sociology. I believe that this class has helped me develop a deeper understanding of society and analytical skills. Furthermore, I was able to cultivate interest and empathy for social issues and a practical attitude towards social participation and change. Overall, this class will help me grow into a mature citizen by understanding society.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

April 29 (Mon) Kim Chae Eun

 1. Summary Arnett described the goal of socialization as follows. 1. Impulse control and development of conscience. 2. Preparing and performing roles, including professional roles, gender roles, and roles in institutions such as marriage and parental roles. 3. The source of meaning, the cultivation of what is important, valuable, and to live. Socialization is the process of preparing humans to function in social life. Socialization is relative to culture and does not force evaluation judgments. Since socialization is the adoption of culture, it differs from culture to culture and from subculture to culture. It should be noted that socialization is a key sociological process in the development of individuals who can function in human society, but not all aspects of human behavior are learned. Socialization is generally divided into two parts. Primary socialization occurs early in life in childhood and adolescence. Secondary socialization refers to socialization that occurs througho...
Read more

Introduction to the blog

This blog is a digital forum where students from Spring 2024 class in Invitation to Sociology at the Hanyang University in Korea will discuss their weekly readings and activities. Each week you are expected to post a blog post on at least 3 pages worth of the readings assigned for next week on our blog (here)  and make a comment on another student's post. As you are expected to do the assigned readings FOR the lectures they are assigned to, you are expected to post your blog and comments BEFORE that lecture. Deadline: Saturday midnight, for main blog posts and Sunday, midnight for comments. Exception: blog posts for the first week can be posted during the first week of class as if they were for the second week. An ideal commentary should be about a third of a page in length (~200 words), divided into three clearly labeled sections in which you: 1) summarize in your own words of materials you read; 2) mention any new, interesting, or unusual items learned; 3) identify at l...
Read more

W12.1 Blog for reading materials

1.Summary Goffman's dramaturgical theory has been applied to various social phenomena, including social movements, online identity construction, and theatrical performances. 2.Discussion The pursuit of essence is human beings' superficial understanding of things, and the pursuit of differences is human beings' deep understanding of things. Essence can be applied and labeled. It is a superficial understanding of things and is the process of people's understanding of the world. Lazy means. It is believed that as long as you master the essence of things, you have mastered everything about them, that is, you can transform cognition into action. Therefore, I believe that constructing essence is the first step to understand things, and constructing differences is the most important thing to understand things. People should construct their understanding of differences by constructing essence. Whether it is playing games, reading novels, getting drunk, or skydiving, all kinds o...
Read more