Page 40 - Sociology and You

10 Unit 1 Sociological Perspectives
come together. For example, in 1999 the Denver Broncos won the Super Bowl championship. Following the game, a few otherwise law-abiding Bronco fans, as a group, disrupted the peace and challenged the police in ways they would not have done as individuals.
Tragedy, as well as joy, can change group behavior. The intense rivalry be- tween the Texas A&M Aggies and the University of Texas Longhorns was ban- ished the year twelve Aggie students died while preparing for the traditional football pregame bonfire. During the halftime, the Longhorn band played the song “Amazing Grace” and taps, and saluted the victims and their families by re- moving their hats. At a joint Aggie-Longhorn candlelight vigil two nights before the football game, the A&M student body president said that the communal shar- ing of the grief changed the relationship between the two schools forever.
Why do people conform? Groups range in size from a family to an en- tire society. Regardless of size, all groups encourage conformity. We will study conformity in more detail later. For now, you need to know only that members of a group think, feel, and behave in similar ways. For example, Americans, Russians, and Nigerians have eating habits, dress, religious be- liefs, and attitudes toward family life that reflect their group.
Student Web Activity
Visit the Sociology and
You Web site at soc.glencoe.com and click on Chapter 1—Student Web Activities for an activity on social patterns.
Another A Native
Time
American’s Speech
Virginia colonists had offered to “properly edu- cate” some young Indian boys at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg.To the surprise of the colonists, the benefits of a white gentle- man’s education were not highly valued by the tribal elders. Below is a Native American’s reply to the white men’s offer.
We know that you highly esteem the kind of learning taught in . . . [your] colleges. . . . But you, who are wise, must know that dif-
ferent nations have different conceptions of things; and you will not therefore take it amiss, if our ideas of this kind of education happen not to be the same with yours. We have had some expe- rience of it; several of our young people were for- merly brought up at the colleges of the northern provinces; they were instructed in all your sci- ences; but, when they came back to us, they were bad runners, ignorant of every means of living in the woods, unable to bear either cold or hunger, knew neither how to build a cabin, take a deer, nor kill an enemy, spoke our language imper- fectly, were therefore neither fit for hunters, war- riors, nor councellors; they were totally good for nothing.
We are however
not the less obligated
by your kind offer,
though we decline
accepting it; and, to
show our grateful
sense of it, if the gen-
tlemen of Virginia will
send us a dozen of their sons, we will take care of their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them.
Thinking It Over
1. Describe your reaction to this passage. What does it tell you about the importance of per- spective in interpreting the social world?
2. Describe a social encounter where you per- sonally experienced a “clash of perspectives” with someone from another culture.
3. Do you think your education is preparing you to succeed in the world outside school?