Page 161 - Sociology and You

Chapter 4 Socialization 131
In the thirtieth-year reunion of the Class of ’52, the past firmly occupied center stage. A carefully crafted, chronological narrative of the senior year, entitled “The Way We Were,” was read, in which major class activities were recalled month by month. . . .
In the fiftieth-year reunion, we find a dramatic disappear- ance of all ritual activities. According to the president of the Class of ’32, his class had held reunions every ten years since graduation, and in earlier ceremonies they had given awards, but this time, “none of the folks in the reunion committee felt like doing that kind of thing.” It seemed that attendees at the fiftieth- year reunion, for the most part, had risen above concerns of past and present and were content to celebrate together the simple fact that they all still had the vigor to attend a reunion.
Source: Keiko Ikeda, A Room Full of Mirrors. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998, pp. 143–145.
Working with the Research
1. Ask an adult to describe the activities at one or more high school reunions that he or she has attended. Compare the de- scription with Ikeda’s findings.
2. Suppose you had a class assignment to study an upcoming re- union at your school. Select a research question you would want to ask. Identify the research methods you would use.
Cathy, © 1990, Cathy Guisewite, Universal Press Syndicate. (Reprinted with
permission. All rights reserved.)