#quantsoc

[ang-usfcasoc-blog]

This graph illustrates the relationship between social media and political engagement. This mainly focuses on young adults and their use of social media to participate in civic and political life. The survey found: 38% of those who use social networking sites (SNS) or Twitter use those social media to “like” or promote material related to politics or social issues that others have posted. 35% of social media users have used social media to encourage people to vote. 34% of social media users have used the tools to post their own thoughts or comments on political and social issues. 33% of social media users have used the tools to repost content related to political or social issues that was originally posted by someone else. 31% of social media users have used the tools to encourage other people to take action on a political or social issue that is important to them. 28% of social media users have used the tools to post links to political stories or articles for others to read. 21% of those who use SNS or Twitter belong to a group on an SNS that is involved in political or social issues, or that is working to advance a cause. 20% of social media users have used the tools to follow elected officials and candidates for office. These results are interesting because young adults are often thought of as not being civically engaged. Social media has given young adults a platform to become civically engaged.

I consider this chart to be reliable because the information was from the Pew Research Center, a notable non-partisan American “fact-tank.” They are known for conducting public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis, and other empirical social science research. Even though this data was collected in 2012, I think it still relevant and applicable today. For instance, a lot of the young voters really made use of social media to promote their candidates during the 2016 Presidential Election.

Source:

http://www.pewinternet.org/2012/10/19/additional-analysis-2/

[mariskak-blog1]

According to recent studies, the numbers of Americans with tattoos has increased rapidly within past decades. Now, one in five Americans have a tattoo, including thirty percent of college graduates. The stereotype for years was that people with tattoos had lower paying jobs and lived lower class lives. The market is defying all stereotypes for tattoos, with people of all ages and professions having them, from doctors to politicians. Thirty-six percent of people aging from eighteen to twenty-seven years old have tattoos, as well as forty percent of people aging from twenty-eight to forty years old. This shows how the influence of the older generation with tattoos will eventually affect the new generations to come, with their parents having tattoos and with the idea of them being acceptable implanted into their minds. The quantitative data shown is from Astanza laser company, with all of their statistical observations and data coming from their own encounters with tattooed people and people who have the tattoos removed over a long period of time. Despite the facts shown in this picture, the stigma attached to tattoos, especially in the workplace, remains. It is important to understand that the tattoos themselves do not define the person as “bad” or “criminal”, but that it is society that places these stigmas upon those individuals. It is interesting to see the rise in people getting tattoos, but not so much of a decline in stereotyping against it. In order to understand the sociology of tattoos, one must first realize the growing magnitude of people with tattoos from all walks of life, and their historical significance.

[sociologyofusprisonsystems-blog]

For the quantitative research portion of this project I turned to the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the International Centre for Prison Studies website. The Bureau of Justice Statistics is a government run website which records and compiles large amounts of raw data that relates to the criminal justice system in America. Through the website I was able to find lots of interesting quantitative data about the united states prison system. The International Centre for Prison Studies is a site run by an organization which collects data about prisons all over the world and compares them.Through the site I was able to look into the prison population growth rates, incarceration demographics, and conviction rates overtime. In examining these statistics I hope to bring attention to some of the problems that the United States prison system is currently facing. According to findings from the International Centre for Prison Studies the United States leads the Incarceration rates per 100,000 people internationally. The United States incarcerates 670 people per 100,000 and has more than 2.2 million in our prisons and jails. For a nation as “civilized” as the United States I find it interesting that we need to imprison more of our citizens than any other nation on earth. Incarceration rates within the United States have increased by more than 500% in the last 40 years. Throughout our nation's history the prison population had been increasing steadily since 1972 and had continued to increase yearly in spite of a steadily decreasing crime rate beginning in the early 90s. Although it seems rather contradictory I believe that a growing incarceration rate in spite of the decreasing crime rate shows that there are larger social forces at work. An example of this is how the practice of mass incarceration has not affected all people equally. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics people of color are much more likely to be incarcerated than white people. The Bureau found that the likelihood of incarceration for a white man was 1 in 17, 1 in 6 for a latino man and 1 in 3 for an African American man. These worrying trends are also reflected in the female population. I am curious as to why the black and latino population who are minorities are disproportionately likely to be incarcerated. These unusual statistics point towards the problems that lurk within the bowels of our criminal justice system.

Sources: https://www.bjs.gov/ , http://www.sentencingproject.org/criminal-justice-facts/ , http://www.prisonstudies.org/

[jiespino-blog]

According to Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University, despite popular belief, Millennials are having fewer sexual partners than the generations before them. In a survey of 33,000 people between 1972 and 2012, the Baby Boomer generation had 11 sexual partners in adulthood compared to Millennials who averaged only at 8 sexual partners. The data is reliable because it uses the same age group of 25 years old between the different generations to compare the number of sexual partners of each generation. This data is surprising especially due to the fact that resources like Tinder are readily accessible for use. The data also shows that the recent hookup culture that we are experiencing seems to date back longer than we thought. This graph shows the trends of the hookup culture to be going down. Some speculate that the decline in the sexual activity of Millennials is due to the practice of safer sex to reduce the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases. You can also see the trend that as hooking up becomes more of the norm and expected, the more the average drops in number. This shows that maybe the pleasures that come from sex stem from the deviance that come along with the act, meaning that since sex with multiple partners has become less of a taboo act, the less desireable it is. With sex being as open of a concept as it is today, you may assume that Millennials are having crazy amounts of it, but in reality the spotlight that is placed on the topic seems to be putting off more people than it attracts.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/05/06/why-millennials-have-sex-with-fewer-partners-than-their-parents-did/?utm_term=.4bea9fa46c4c

[mydressisnotayess-blog]

The National Sexual Violence Resource Center reported in the United States: 

One in five women and one in seventy one men will be raped at some point in their lives.

Nearly one in ten women have been raped by an intimate partner in her lifetime, including completed forced penetration, attempted forced penetration or alcohol/drug-facilitated completed penetration.

Approximately one in forty five men have been made to penetrate an intimate partner during his lifetime.

One in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before they turn 18.

Rape is the most under-reported crime, 63% of sexual assaults are not reported to police,

The prevalence of false reporting is between 2% and 10%.

81% of women and 35% of men report significant short-term or long-term impacts such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

This data shows that rape is truly a situation in the United States that much of our society tends to ignore. Clearly there is an issue if one in five women experience rape at some point in their life. Rape is an uncomfortable subject to talk about but one that truly needs to be in the discussion more. There needs to be awareness and education surrounding this topic in order to truly inform the general public. I also found it interesting that in the article about qualitative research that those being interviewed said they would not participate in the Slutwalk because it had not affected them personally, when this report had said that so many individual have in fact been affected by it. How is it that so many people can be affected by such a tragic event yet our society makes excuses and ignores the data supporting that millions are affected by sexual assault.

http://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications_nsvrc_factsheet_media-packet_statistics-about-sexual-violence_0.pdf

[mydressisnotayess-blog]

In the article “You Know Who the Sluts Are”: A Qualitative Analysis of the “SlutWalk” by Todd G. Morrison, Joshua Bertram, Travis A. Ryan and C. J. Bishop set out to discover what the word slut truly means. This article was written by Psychology Professors, Todd G. Morrison and Joshua Bertram who both teach at University of Saskatchewan and Travis A. Ryan and C. J. Bishop who both teach at University College London. The article was published online July 2014 online at http://www.scirp.org. All of the article submitted to the website must be peer reviewed and edited before publication. The authors studied Canadian undergraduate students to determine what the definiton of the word slut is and if the Slutwalk was an effective form of “feminist political action.” They studied a group of men, women and then an evenly mixed group of men and women. The authors found that the word “slut” has three implications; “it’s a negative term, it applies to women rather than men and a “slut” is identifiable based on her appearance and/or sex-related behaviour.”(184) The word is also commonly used as an insult that was considered very offensive but is ultimately hard to rid yourself from this label. Many of the individuals interviewed noted that they were aware that the word was gendered and that there was a different standards for men being called a “slut” than a women being called one. In many cases women are shamed from participating in “sluty behaviors”, such as sleeping with many different partners, men are praised for the same actions.

When the discussing the effectiveness of the Slutwalk many of the participants said that the name should be changed because it's giving off the wrong idea. They said that if the authors had not told them that the walk was about raising awareness of sexual assault they would have had no idea. They also said that they probably would not participate in the walk because sexual assault had not personally affected them unlike other types of awareness walks like cancer.

The data shows that the word slut does not have one specific meaning and can not be measured in any way. None of the individuals being interviewed could clearly state what exactly a “slut” was but they all said that it was specifically a women. If you google the definition of slut it says “A woman who has many casual sexual partners.” It’s very interesting that the word slut is meant for the usage and degrading of women. There is no set amount of partners that anyone can have, even those being interviewed could not answer the question yet we as a society label women sluts when they have too many but praise men for the same thing. How is it okay for men to have many partners but not women?

I find it even more interesting that the participants specifically stated that they would not participate in the event solely because they have never been personally affected by sexual assault. It is absolutely crazy to me that people don’t even recognize sexual assault as an issue unless having personal experience with it. Being sexual assaulted is a traumatizing experience that many people have to live with for the rest of their lives while others do not even recognize or educate themselves on the topic.

http://file.scirp.org/pdf/AASoci_2014073011190354.pdf

[kidsorcriminals-blog]

Quantitative Data #2:

In Nancy Calleja’s study that compares recidivism rates of juvenile sex offenders and non-sex offenders, she found that juvenile sex offenders had significantly lower recidivism rates than any other type of juvenile offender. This particular study was conducted over the course of three years (2005-2008) with a total of 116 male juvenile offenders. The majority of the participants within the “sex-offender” category committed the most extreme sexual offenses including rape. According to Calleja, 58.4% were general offenders, 23.1% were sex-offenders, while the remaining 18.5% were substance-using offenders. The subjects stayed in the facility for an average length of 10.2 months, but the length of their sentence depended on the severity of their crime. The researcher examined the behavior (whether or not they were incarcerated again) of some of the participants for up to two years after their release.

Through her research, she concluded that, “only 3% of the juvenile sex offenders reoffended compared with 19% of the juvenile substance-using offenders and 32.9% of the juvenile general offenders.” Using subjects who committed different crimes as well as tracking their criminal behavior two years after their release, the researcher was able to carry out an effective and credible quantitative study. Although her research focuses on a specific group of juvenile offenders, it gives reason to believe that the current method of punishing adolescent sex offenders (i.e. lengthy sentences) might be unnecessary. Currently, sexual offenses are considered some of the most serious of crimes and as a result, sex offenders in particular are punished severely. That being said, the results of this study could also be used to argue that these harsh punishments are working. In other words, the low recidivism rates for juvenile sex offenders could suggest that giving juvenile sex offenders long sentences decreases the likelihood that they will commit the same crime again. This study begs the question, however: why are juvenile sex offenders less likely to reoffend? Regardless of what one decides to argue based on this data, the importance of this research is that it shows that there is still a lot about juvenile delinquency that we do not understand. If we cannot say with certainty why specific types of juvenile offenders reoffend more than others, how can we expect to know the appropriate punishment for each type of crime?

Source:

Calleja, Nancy G. "Juvenile Sex and Non-Sex Offenders: A Comparison of Recidivism and Risk." Journal of Addictions & Offender Counseling 36.1 (2015): 2-12. SocINDEX. Web. <http://0-eds.a.ebscohost.com.ignacio.usfca.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=b27c80a1-00dc-4b93-84a7-830ebd3bbd25%40sessionmgr4009&vid=15&hid=4108>.

[sociologyassignment-blog]

I chose this study because of it’s clear goal of determining the level of addiction with social media. Despite the country of study being Turkey, I believe that the concepts found will be relatively generalizable to the rest of the world. Despite different views either individualistic or collectivistic we all use social media for many of the same reasons. Social media platforms are almost the same across nations as well such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. I also chose this study for it’s views in regards to the topic, discussing how social media is used across all ages however primarily the younger generations. It is without a doubt on the rise, and so is addiction to its usage. This study took a survey approach to gather a significant amount of information on the subject. The surveys sample size was somewhat smaller than I would have liked, however 271 participants is a start in the right direction. Students were used between the ages of 13-19 which I think was a perfect demographic to target. It was found that gender had no difference on social media addiction however daily time spent using it, frequency of usage and age were contributing factors. It was found that addiction was less prevalent around 14 years of age which then increased significantly around 17 years and began to decrease once again at 18. I think the overall finding of prevalence within social media addiction with younger generations is a great starting point for a solution towards the future.

LINK: http://iscsjournal.com/Makaleler/671028450_3c3s_11.pdf