The second annual observance of Earth Hour, is scheduled world wide for 8 to 9 PM tonight (local time, not simultaneously), Saturday March 29. Cities, communities, corporations, and individuals around to globe are being asked to voluntarily turn off all the lights, TV, stereos, computers, microwaves, and other electricity consuming accouterments of modern life for one hour.
The idea is for each city/community to cut the power at their own time zone's 8:00 PM, so that there is an effect of rolling darkness following the setting sun.
The first Earth Hour in 2007 was a project of the World Wide Fund for Nature Australia and the Sydney Morning Herald. More information is available at the Earth Hour - North America web page and The Daily Kos (where there are some nice comments about thing people might do instead). .
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Socialization and Drinking Behavior
A very interesting NYT article Can Sips at Home Prevent Binges? by wine and dining writer Eric Asimov eplores the question as to whether parents can teach responsible wine drinking to teenagers through introducing them to wine as part of meals and celebrations while condemning drunkenness. Asimov cites some solid research that suggests that
I grew up in a teetotaling home, where no alcohol was present. At 18 I left home to go to college 2500 miles away, where there was little adult supervision and alcohol was readily available. However, the young people who made up my friendship circles from freshman year on, were all raised in upper middle class homes where the drinking of wine had been integrated into family meals and celebrations, while drunkenness had been highly discouraged. Consequently, their college drinking behavior, although unsupervised by adults (and underage) was responsible and did not lead to drunkenness or excess. As part of these social groups, I learned to view wine drinking as an appropriate part of a fine meal, not as a path to getting "blitzed."
I would maintain, based on experience, that not only can parents teach responsible wine drinking, but that young people who have learned such behavior at home can teach it to peers in college.“If you are taught to drink in a ceremonial way with food, then the purpose of alcohol is taste and celebration, not inebriation,” he [Dr. George E. Vaillant, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard University] added. “If you are forbidden to use it until college then you drink to get drunk.”
I grew up in a teetotaling home, where no alcohol was present. At 18 I left home to go to college 2500 miles away, where there was little adult supervision and alcohol was readily available. However, the young people who made up my friendship circles from freshman year on, were all raised in upper middle class homes where the drinking of wine had been integrated into family meals and celebrations, while drunkenness had been highly discouraged. Consequently, their college drinking behavior, although unsupervised by adults (and underage) was responsible and did not lead to drunkenness or excess. As part of these social groups, I learned to view wine drinking as an appropriate part of a fine meal, not as a path to getting "blitzed."
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Time Travel with Tonka Trucks
I've always thought that the folks at Tonka had a good product development department -- they produce toys that are sturdy, long lasting, and fun. But it would appear that they have also got some theoretical physicists who have developed time travel as well. Last night I saw a television commercial for Tonka's “wheel drivers scoot and scoop” that made me believe I was back in 1960. This little commercial informed me that "boys are built different" and that Tonka toys are built for boys. My husband (the humorist) immediately remarked that must mean that the toys had "wee-wee holes" in them so that boys delicate equipment wouldn't get smashed or squashed during play.
After doing a bit of Googling this morning, I discover that my outrage is a bit behind the times. This particular commercial first aired in October 2007 during the big toy push prior to Christmas. Many other people have blogged on this advertisement. An article in Salon by Catherine Price does a very nice job of talking about the advertisement and the issues.
If I go by my own students and their comments about child raising, there are many parents today to whom this type of advertising definitely appeals. Parents who have substantial anxieties about gender and sexuality, and are conservative in their construction of those roles. However, there is also evidence out there in the blogosphere of many parents who find these rigid gender roles, and gendered toy advertising offensive and disturbing. A great blog post on this advertisement, with responses from 22 parents can be found on Table For Five.
As a sociologist, the question that I find most intriguing (and for which I do not as yet have an answer) is: Are advertisers (and toy makers) simply responding to the gender preferences of parents, or are they actively attempting to shape those preferences? There is certainly research evidence to support the contention that advertising has been used in the past (specifically research on advertising campaigns in the decade after World War II) to attempt to shape gender roles, in a way that would encourage women back out of the work place and into the home.
P.S. If you haven't see the ad, go to http://www.hasbro.com/tonka/ Under the product pictures – click the “watch video link” while the “wheel drivers scoot and scoop” image is showing.
After doing a bit of Googling this morning, I discover that my outrage is a bit behind the times. This particular commercial first aired in October 2007 during the big toy push prior to Christmas. Many other people have blogged on this advertisement. An article in Salon by Catherine Price does a very nice job of talking about the advertisement and the issues.
If I go by my own students and their comments about child raising, there are many parents today to whom this type of advertising definitely appeals. Parents who have substantial anxieties about gender and sexuality, and are conservative in their construction of those roles. However, there is also evidence out there in the blogosphere of many parents who find these rigid gender roles, and gendered toy advertising offensive and disturbing. A great blog post on this advertisement, with responses from 22 parents can be found on Table For Five.
As a sociologist, the question that I find most intriguing (and for which I do not as yet have an answer) is: Are advertisers (and toy makers) simply responding to the gender preferences of parents, or are they actively attempting to shape those preferences? There is certainly research evidence to support the contention that advertising has been used in the past (specifically research on advertising campaigns in the decade after World War II) to attempt to shape gender roles, in a way that would encourage women back out of the work place and into the home.
P.S. If you haven't see the ad, go to http://www.hasbro.com/tonka/ Under the product pictures – click the “watch video link” while the “wheel drivers scoot and scoop” image is showing.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
plague of plagiarism
I just put an 8 week on-line sociology class to rest; entered the grades and said farewell. I was, up until the very last moment, about to have an all time record for on-line classes. For the first time since I began teaching on-line classes in 2000, I was about to have a class in which everyone who had not officially withdrawn actually completed the entire course with a passing grade. Some of those grades were going to be D's, but they were still going to pass. Normally there are several students who neither complete the course nor take the time to formally withdraw and thus end up with failing grades -- an "E" in our system.
Unfortunately, when I got to the very last student (both alphabetically and because she had waited until the last day of class to turn all her papers for the whole eight weeks), all the work she turned in was plagiarized. Some were papers taken in their entirety from one of the free on-line paper mills, other she apparantly did the work of hunting down paragraphs to copy from the internet herself. Plagiarism is always upsetting and disruptive, but this coming as it did at the last minute to ruin what would otherwise have been a class for the record book, was crushing.
I have less plagiarism in my classes since I got seriously tough on it, and created ways of getting the message across to students at the beginning of the class (borrowed some great "For Better For Worse" cartoon strips from Lynn Johnston -- with references of course) that drive home the point. But even with all the warnings, students still do it. I don't remember have these problems when I first began teaching 30 years ago.
As a sociologist I have to wonder, is plagiarism more common today or is it just easier for teachers to check for it? If it is more common (which I suspect but cannot prove) why is it?
For a time I thought that what I perceived as an increased incidence of plagiarism was only because the types of students that I taught had changed. I began teaching at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, and then moved on to the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, now I teach at a community college, in a poor, rural area. Was the increase plagiarism due to my students having poorer preparation and poorer college skills? Since discovering the Rate Your Students blog, I realize that the problem of plagiarism goes well beyond my little corner of academia.
So if, as I believe (but cannot prove), plagiarism has increased, the question is why? I know lots of people who would jump to "declining values" as their first response. That answer reminds me of a quote from sociologist Abraham Kaplan "We do not explain why there is a lion in the garden by pointing out that in fact there are two of them in there." If values have changed what caused them to change? Values are a cultural phenomenon, they are the result of social processes, and do not float down from the ether. For there to have been widespread changes in values, there have to be widespread changes in society that produce those value changes.
What has changed? One thing that has changed is opportunity. The technology of computers and the Internet has certainly made plagiarism far easier than it was in my college days. I would liken it to changing the channel on the TV -- from the time I was 5 until I was 34, when I wanted to change the channel on the TV I got up, walked across the room and turned a nob to change the channel. I didn't change channels often, and used the TV Guide to look up what I might watch before changing channels. Then I got a remote control, and overnight I became a channel surfer, and changed my viewing habits just like that. My values and attitudes about television viewing changed after the fact, as a result of access to a new technology.
Something else that has changed is that a much higher percentage of high school students (and the population in general) are going to college, than did when I went to college. While the increased access to college has benefited many people who want to go to college who might have been left out forty or fifty years ago, it has also meant that many people who aren't really interested in what colleges offer (academic learning) are nonetheless attending college. They are attending college because that is what the job market demands. As a society we have lost alternative career paths -- even though there are shortages in fields that don't really need college (electricians, plumbers, construction, repair work). When economic necessity is forcing you to get a diploma, but you don't care for the activities that are required to get that diploma, short cuts become appealing.
These are just two ideas I've had about the sources of plagiarism. I think that there are more things, and I'd like to hear other people's thoughts.
Unfortunately, when I got to the very last student (both alphabetically and because she had waited until the last day of class to turn all her papers for the whole eight weeks), all the work she turned in was plagiarized. Some were papers taken in their entirety from one of the free on-line paper mills, other she apparantly did the work of hunting down paragraphs to copy from the internet herself. Plagiarism is always upsetting and disruptive, but this coming as it did at the last minute to ruin what would otherwise have been a class for the record book, was crushing.
I have less plagiarism in my classes since I got seriously tough on it, and created ways of getting the message across to students at the beginning of the class (borrowed some great "For Better For Worse" cartoon strips from Lynn Johnston -- with references of course) that drive home the point. But even with all the warnings, students still do it. I don't remember have these problems when I first began teaching 30 years ago.
As a sociologist I have to wonder, is plagiarism more common today or is it just easier for teachers to check for it? If it is more common (which I suspect but cannot prove) why is it?
For a time I thought that what I perceived as an increased incidence of plagiarism was only because the types of students that I taught had changed. I began teaching at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, and then moved on to the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, now I teach at a community college, in a poor, rural area. Was the increase plagiarism due to my students having poorer preparation and poorer college skills? Since discovering the Rate Your Students blog, I realize that the problem of plagiarism goes well beyond my little corner of academia.
So if, as I believe (but cannot prove), plagiarism has increased, the question is why? I know lots of people who would jump to "declining values" as their first response. That answer reminds me of a quote from sociologist Abraham Kaplan "We do not explain why there is a lion in the garden by pointing out that in fact there are two of them in there." If values have changed what caused them to change? Values are a cultural phenomenon, they are the result of social processes, and do not float down from the ether. For there to have been widespread changes in values, there have to be widespread changes in society that produce those value changes.
What has changed? One thing that has changed is opportunity. The technology of computers and the Internet has certainly made plagiarism far easier than it was in my college days. I would liken it to changing the channel on the TV -- from the time I was 5 until I was 34, when I wanted to change the channel on the TV I got up, walked across the room and turned a nob to change the channel. I didn't change channels often, and used the TV Guide to look up what I might watch before changing channels. Then I got a remote control, and overnight I became a channel surfer, and changed my viewing habits just like that. My values and attitudes about television viewing changed after the fact, as a result of access to a new technology.
Something else that has changed is that a much higher percentage of high school students (and the population in general) are going to college, than did when I went to college. While the increased access to college has benefited many people who want to go to college who might have been left out forty or fifty years ago, it has also meant that many people who aren't really interested in what colleges offer (academic learning) are nonetheless attending college. They are attending college because that is what the job market demands. As a society we have lost alternative career paths -- even though there are shortages in fields that don't really need college (electricians, plumbers, construction, repair work). When economic necessity is forcing you to get a diploma, but you don't care for the activities that are required to get that diploma, short cuts become appealing.
These are just two ideas I've had about the sources of plagiarism. I think that there are more things, and I'd like to hear other people's thoughts.
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