My stumbling blocks include the belief that I cannot automatically assume that there is anything that transcends cross-cultural understandings and experiences of death. However, the mind (at least, my mind) seeks to understand by relating Buddhist and Tibetan concepts with what I already know.

I already know a bit about death. I know about grief, I know about the suffering it causes. I know about the wish for the eternal, the ever-present, the secure. I understand the need for comfort, for release.

How did the Buddha understand this? At the core of Buddhist beliefs is the idea that suffering is a fundamental quality of life. It isn’t just something you experience at death, but something that is at times an undercurrent, at times and obvious feature, of everyday life.

What I want to know is, how do Tibetan Buddhists make sense of death? In addition, how do people cope with grief in Tibet (the delok accounts admit that its there; the grieving family is warned not to lament openly in order to spare the deceased further suffering and confusion in the bardo state).

Discuss concepts of intermediate state and drops

In Tibetan Buddhism,  death isn’t seen as an ending, but a liminal phase in which one’s subtle energy may experience a profound transformation.  According to the Buddha, one of sentient beings’ most crucial cognitive errors is belief in an uncreated, immortal, unchanging self (Powers p. 71). Instead of an essential “self,” the Buddha is said to have posited the existence of “5 aggregates”: form, feelings, discriminations, compositional factors, and consciousness (Powers, p. 71).  Taking influence from tantric theory, Tibetan Buddhists include these initial 5 attributes in a list of 25 “coarse substances” that make up the psycho-physcial compostion of an ordinary human (Powers, p. 332). According to tantric Buddhism and medical theory, these 25 coarse substances dissolve throughout the death process, culiminating in a state Western medics would consider to be “death” (Powers, pp. 332-4, Cuevas pp. 23-4, Thurman p. 41-44).

(borrowing from Tantric thought) posit that what does remain between lives are “drops,” or subtle energies.

In Tibetan Buddhism,  death isn’t seen as an ending, but a liminal phase in which one’s subtle energy may experience a profound transformation.

Although ritual texts suggest that individuals of all capacities can use death as an opportunity to escape cyclic existence altogher, advanced tantric practitioners are particularly well-equipped to take advantage of this opportunity. (describe the process) They can do so by practicing “soul transmission,” a process whereby the tantric yogi

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Atkinson etc. talk about things people do in everyday life, and the overall idea seems to be that the people who are doing this are participating in it in an attempt to be or become normal/normative.  People who would read this as a “political” activity see “odd/disfigured” bodies as an attempt to critique norms, and at least has feminist potential – they’re trying to set themselves apart from norms, self-consciously.

My issue is, what’s actually happening here? It seems like maybe there’s potential to be “revolutionary” on stage, and maybe such an analysis is more applicable to an act that is obviously a performance, like burlesque.  The “feminist” or “post-structuralist” reading might be a useful way to interpret the behavior of people who use invoke those discourses to explain what they’re doing (so they might be doing drag, or performances that are obviously political).  However, it’s doubtful that everyone in the subculture is doing so. Moreover, in everyday lives, both “political” and “apolitical” burlesque artists are probably are trying to appeal to a sense of what is “normative” locally (in which case I am better off reading behaviour that only seems “different” the way Atkinson does – as a way of establishing one’s place within the “figuration.)”

I have an empathy for a politicized reading, particularly a feminist one. I want to think that there is something feminist about what these women are doing, and at times they do talk about themselves in feminist terms (the “heckling” incident inspired a conversation about what women “ought” to be doing that was overtly feminist).  But it’s difficult to say one way or the other – on the one hand, women may see this as empowering – on the other, being on stage may cause a woman to self-regulate to a greater degree (I note the tendency for women to put themselves on a diet/exercise regime around the time they start performing).

So my research question is really something like, “is a politicized reading necessarily the best way to approach the topic of women in burlesque? Under what circumstances might a politicized/post-structuralist/feminist reading apply?”

What interests me personally about this topic?

I am interested in this topic because my experiences within the subculture have been both “liberating” in some ways, and “constraining” in others.  On the one hand, it has been a creative outlet, express my gender in a way that would have severe consequences in my everyday life (ie, the aggressive hell-spawn/Cycle Slut), provided social opportunities/allowed me to access sexual partners (I explore sexuality as a consequence of a particular sexualized self-presentation, and sometimes experience eroticism during the performance as well). It’s been a creative outlet and escape from the pressures of everyday life.

It’s also constraining inasmuch as it is a fairly straight-forward-ish presentation of sexuality – some of the situations we construct rely on the tired male dom/female sub trope. The Cycle Slut was bad-ass, but only because she used her sexuality, not because she say, received an Honors Degree in Women’s Studies (ha!).

I want to know how other women/performers understand and percieve their identity/role as a burlesque performer. I see both opportunities for freedom, but I have a certain “gender-consciousness” that some women may not share (or at least not in the same way). I percieve a number of limitations with what women can achieve politically doing this, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t important on a personal level, even if symbolically what burlesque performers do can send mixed messages.

So I want to explore a phenomenon, but I also want to understand what “burlesque” means to the women who do this and within the community. What these performances mean outside the community is beyond the scope of this project (how the “subculture’s” and the “cultures” symbols interact.

Onwards towards the purpose of my study. From the Methods book I have at hand, it seems as though I want to describe. To an extent, a portion of my work involves relating the stories the women tell to me, and transcribing verbatim.

However, I also want to understand the discourse/narrative they use when they talk about their lives and the subculture. I want to view their worlds as they see them, and draw out something interesting about this perspective.

Unit of analysis: I am analyzing individuals in order to say something meaningful about a group.  I am not analyzing “burlesque subcultures” as a group, and comparing them to other social groups.  Since I only have a few people in my study, I can’t generalize about all burlesque dancers in Calgary either.

Time dimension: This is cross-sectional, and I don’t need to worry about causality or making inferences over time.

Space Dimension: The field independent/dependent question is tough to answer for my study.  Feminist/post-modern epistemology tends to assume that historical/social/cultural space always matters to research outcomes, so if that’s true, we’re always in the “field”.  My project is similar to a field-dependent one in that I am doing a qualitative/somewhat-unstructured interview to elicit more “natural” responses, not the types of responses someone would give to A Researcher or Psychologist (or some other person with authority).

However, my project is dissimilar to “field-dependent” research in other ways. Researchers working from feminist/post-modern perspectives don’t use ideas like “nature” to justify interviewing in a particular way, but appeal to notions of “equality” instead.  In addition, we’re like experimental researchers (field-independent ones) in that we try to “control” the interview situation for power differentials that might affect the interview process and lead to the interviewer’s agenda dominating the show.

So I’m not really sure how to answer this question.  To an extent, I want to do this in an “anthropological” way, but I am using a technique (interviewing) that is more obtrusive/controlling of outcomes than field research tends to be.  However, I am using the least-obtrusive interviewing I can (semi-structured).

Thinking this through: I might want to consider and evaluate a relevant debate within sociology – are the distinctions between “culture,” “subculture,” “counter-culture” are still relevant or useful? Some of the ambiguity within my current proposal is there because I don’t really know where I stand here. Those distinctions make it easy to categorize and study people, but we live in a world in which social/group affiliations, cultures, and identities are complex (if the term “counter-culture” evokes the 1960′s in my mind). Can it really be said that, say, the BDSM community is a “subculture” when many symbols of this group have been taken into “popular” discourses – Lady Gaga music videos, for example? Or are there values/ideologies/narratives/practices that are unique enough to locate this group within a sub-category of “culture”?

Similarly, I have to figure out whether or not “women who are into burlesque and could possibly be doing something interesting with gender norms/ideologies of gender, but maybe not, and maybe some are, but maybe some aren’t” count as a “sub” or “counter” culture. If not, is there a better way to theorize what they are doing?

But assuming they do count as a subculture for a minute, I could ask questions that try to tap into the discourse and ideolologies within this subculture. But then there are a number of things that are interesting here. I can figure out how they are relating to “cultural” norms and ideologies of gender, or I can try to capture the “narrative” used within this group (understanding it on more of a “micro” level).

Then I have to find a way to ask questions that aren’t full of academic language and whatever my assumptions might be (not with the intent of eliminating them, since I’m assuming that’s impossible, but with the intent of figuring out how my own location as a researcher/woman/white person/etc. affects what I do). There’s a lot to think about!

Proposed Topic of Study

I am interested in studying “burlesque” subcultures to determine why local women are engaging in a practice that can alternatively be read as a “simplistic display of the flesh” or a form of social critique (Nally, 2009, p. 622).  Arguably, the local burlesque subculture does both; it is exemplified by groups such as the Fake Moustache Drag King Troupe, and those involved in the annual variety show “Demonika’s Symphony of Horrors.” Although some burlesque troupes perform gender in more or less “straightforward” ways, others take up the art form’s historical use of satire, “performing” gender in ironic, “campy,” exaggerated, or “humorous” ways to critique gender norms (Nally, 2009, pp. 622 – 3,631 – 3). I am interested in understanding why local women are engaging in these practices. Do they offer a form of “freedom” from conventional femininity, allowing women to embrace “composite” sexualities and explore their desires (as some theorists claim)(Nally, 2009, p. 628)? What are these performances intended to signify within these subcultures, and how are they taken up by those outside the subculture (ie, by friends outside of these subcultures, co-workers, authority figures)? How do women negotiate their sexualized “subculture” identities with other social roles? Although “burlesque” groups in the UK and United States have received some attention from academics (and feminists), this project presents an opportunity to understand how local women are engaging with broader cultural trends.

Working Literature Review

From the literature I have reviewed so far, it seems like the topic of “sexualized self-presentations” (typified in neo-burlesque, as well as websites such as Suicide Girls, God’s Girls, etc) tend to be studied from a “post-structuralist feminist” and/or “critical race feminist” perspective (Magnet, 2007, p. 577; Nally, 2009, p. 622). Many of these perspectives discuss possibilities for agency within these “cultural” practices, yet express anxiety about the “libratory” potential of such practices when “subculture identities” have become commodified, and “meaning-making” of women’s identity work is an intersubjective process (and thus not entirely within individual women’s purview) (Magnet, 2007, p. 593, Nally, 2006, pl 621; Pitts, 2003, p. 73). On the other hand, the study of “body modification” itself is not always explicitly framed in “feminist” or “post-structuralist” terms; some approaches to the study of body modification “de-emphasize” these “politicized” readings, to focus on the ways in which “body projects” facilitate and gain meaning within social “figurations” (Atkinson, as cited by Pitts, 2004, pp. 382-3). Of course, there are also interesting perspectives from feminism and queer theory (Pitts, 2003, p. 87). The concept of the “queered body” might provide a useful way to read some of the more “non-heteronormative” gender work I might come across in my study (Pitts, 2003, p. 91).

Preliminary Research Questions:

• Do these women’s  “performances of femininity” constitute a self-conscious “performance” of gender?
• What meanings are encoded onto burlesque performers’ gendered, sexualized, and possibly modified bodies?
• How are these messages “read” by women themselves, other subculture participants, and those outside the subculture?
• Are these projects/performances indented to “subvert” the male gaze?
• Are these women engaged in “stylistic,” “discursive” or “behavioural” resistance, or some combination of all of these (LeBlanc, 1999, pp. 17 – 18)?
• Do they “succeed” in doing so (and what constitutes “success”)?
• How and why do women engage with “grotesque” representations of femininity (Braunberger, as cited by Magnet, 2007, p. 581)?
• Do women experience burlesque performances as acts of sexual transgression or eroticism (Pitts, 2003, p. 99)?

Preliminary Methods:

Qualitative Interview:

• Population: women involved in body modification and burlesque subcultures in Calgary
• Sampling method: Purposive/judgmental or snowball sampling; ie, “word of mouth”, postings on Facebook and mailing lists ) (Baxter & Babbie, 2004, pp. 134 – 5)
• Obtain 3 – 5 participants
• One semi-structured interview with each participant, one hour in length (Baxter & Babbie, 2004, pp. 329 – 330)
• Topics: how do they define/describe themselves, personal or social significance of body modification, experiences within either the “burlesque” or “body modification” subcultures, gender identification, whether or not gender is important in one’s “embodied practices,” how they feel about their social location (as a “woman,” “performer,” “body modifier” etc.), experiences of sexual harassment/abuse as a result of their “different” identities (presuming they describe themselves as such)
• Possible questions/prompts:
  • Can you tell me about experiences within (a particular “scene”)? (Baxter & Babbie, 2004, pp. 329 – 330)
  • How did you develop/create (a body modification or performance)?
  • Tell me more about (an experience/concept the participant identified) (Baxter & Babbie, 2004, pp. 329 – 330)
  • What does (a symbol such as an article of clothing, a particular body modification, or an event such as a performance) mean to you?
  • How do you think women typically experience (a scene, body modification, performance)?
  • Do you think women tend to experience sex/sexuality differently than men? In what ways?

Working Bibliography

Baxter, L.A., & Babbie, E. (2004). The Basics of Communication Research. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Leblanc, L. (1999). Pretty in Punk: Girls’ Gender Resistance in a Boys Subculture. Piscastaway, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Magnet, S. (2007). Feminist Sexualities, Race, and the Internet: An Investigation of SuicideGirls.com. New Media and Society, 9(4), 577 – 602. Doi: 10.1177/1461444807080326

Nally, C. (2009). Grrrly Hurly Burly: Neo-Burlesque and the Performance of Gender. Textual Practice, 23(4), 621 – 643. Doi: 10.1080/09502360903000554

Pitts, V.L. & Atkinson, M. (2004). Review Symposium: Health and Body Modification. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Heath, Illness, and Medicine, 8(3), 373 – 386. Doi: 10.1177/1363459304043479

Pitts, V.L. (2003). In the Flesh: The Cultural Politics of Body Modification. New York, N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan.

I alternatively identified with and despised the heroine; she falls in love with an American GI after inspiring him with her innocence after he had resisted being corrupted by the seedy underbelly of Saigon. He promises to return to her so they can consummate their love and live happily ever after, even proving his masculinity in the face of her racialized betrothed. She waits for him; after singing many songs about how he (and another man/boy, their son) is all she lives for, she bravely (?) speaks of her hopes for her future, and the redemptive power of their love. She waits for him; at one point I thought to myself, “let me know how that works out for you,” anticipating that she would somehow sacrifice her life while hanging on to something that would never materialize. In the end, it never does because her man convinces himself that he can start over with his American wife (whom I also identified with, as the “other woman”). Our heroine sacrifices herself through suicide; in the closing act the main characters hang their heads as Scylla and Charybdis look on. Who didn’t see either outcome occurring?

Of course, this is a (fairly straightforward and underdeveloped) critical/feminist analysis of the play. What most struck me was how almost all of the women in the play were either sex objects or victims; the racialized women (and men) simply had even fewer choices than say, the American GI and his wife. While some would say “that’s what happens in a war,” I would say, yeah, it does – but why does this have to happen at all, and how does the play perpetuate the idea that This Is The Way Things Have To Be? What bothered me the most was the heroines’ insistence that “love would conquer all,” although I am not certain if the play ultimately endorses or questions ideologies of Romantic Love. Although most of the play seemed to be trumpeting the redemptive powers of love (and American idealism) in the face of corruption, the death scene in the end could be read as a confirmation of this ideology (she dies, but their love lives on in the child that is saved) or refutes it (look what happens when you believe in this sort of thing). Similarly, by portraying an American GI as a hero (and the betrothed as easily corruptible and power hungry) the play seems to be lamenting the “tragedies of war” without really criticizing the Americans’ role in constructing this tragedy in the first place (while the Vietnamese, on the other hand, are either corrupted or “pure” and in need of the American’s “salvation,” which is where the charges of “racism” apply. Of course, this isn’t to suggest that I think the Vietnamese were entirely in the right either; some “leftist” interpretations of the Vietnam war – as one of Imperialistic aggression – are problematic/overly-simplistic as well). On the other hand, even our hero makes calculations that the play positions as selfish (while the married couple want to blindly start over in the US with Kim’s child, the “chorus” – the GI’s friend – warns them that they are being selfish by choosing to forget about our heroine Kim).

In the end, although our hero does fall victim to hubris, yet I am not sure that admitting to the individual soldiers’ moral failings adds up to a criticism of the US’s role in the war in and of itself; the fact that Vietnamese are never really portrayed as anything but helpless or corrupt puts doubt into my mind that this is a critique of “the US’s involvement in the Vietnam war” or just “the tragedy of war” itself. My gut feeling, and the bit of analysis I have done, leads me towards the latter conclusion. I suggest that our hero’s moral failings make him a hero in the sense that Achilles was – his “humanity” is there to make him seem like someone to whom the audience can relate, but it is not a vulnerability that calls the American’s involvement in the war itself into question.

I kind of want to go back to my reaction to the play’s endorsement/possible questioning of ideologies of romantic love; although I was critical of portrayals of communists as mindless and racialized “others” as victims, my reaction to the idea of “love” in the play was definitely coming from a more emotional place. I initially dismissed the relationship between the American GI, Chris, and the heroine, Kim; in one night of passion they fall in love and dream of building a life together. Oh please, I thought to myself; although I could appreciate how one could fall in love in an obviously desperate situation, I was already thinking that their long-term prospects were pretty grim. To compare possible outcomes, I submit the film Hedwig and the Angry Inch. For those who don’t know the film, our hero from the wrong side of the Berlin Wall is a beautiful young boy with an abusive mother and few prospects in life. He falls in love/lust with an American GI, and goes through a sketchy sex-change operation so he can marry the GI and leave Berlin. Hedwig ultimately finds her/himself abandoned in a trailer park, confused about her gender identity, and betrayed by the American dream when she finally arrives in the USA (no doubt, this film is playing with the ways in which gendered relationships are portrayed within more “conventional” films about war; this more cynical/critical reading of the American imperialistic wars and relationships between the genders definitely suits my sensibilities a bit more). However, when I realized that my reaction to Miss Saigon had something to do with my own experiences with Romantic Love and was not entirely made on intellectual grounds, I decided that I would consider the possibility that our heroine’s death could be read in a few ways (although there is definitely a reading I favor).

I’ll discuss the emotional reaction soon; this reaction notwithstanding, my final verdict on “gender in Miss Saigon” is similar to that of my (underdeveloped) analysis of race. It is not much of a stretch to imagine that a film that generally portrays women as helpless victims who need to be saved by American men and only find a sense of agency when they align themselves with men is *actually* trading on gendered stereotypes and re-enforcing ideologies of romantic love instead of problematizing these. I do believe that the original play was made a number of years ago, before it was so common to portray gender roles and relationships in an “ironic” or cynical fashion (Hedwig does this brilliantly, IMHO); for that reason, my “straightforward” reading seems to be the more plausible one. Considering the other possibility (as I said I would), it seems to be a bit of a stretch to imagine that the death scene in the end is suggesting that women shouldn’t wait for their hero, when most of the dramatic and emotional content of the movie comes from her longing, not any sense of agency she might have. It would be a different movie, if say, she tried to start over in the same way as her man did (granted, I am not entirely sure what her options would have been in that situation; maybe waiting for him was her best choice, and my underdeveloped feminist analysis should therefore rest in peace as well). It is difficult for me to imagine that this play isn’t saying anything about love that hasn’t been repeated again and again within Western culture – and like Romeo and Juliet, they do find themselves together in the end, if briefly.

My final verdict? This is a play about the power of love between a man and a woman in the “modern” setting of the Vietnam war (making a critical analysis based on race possible); yet it doesn’t seem to be offering any ideas about love that we haven’t seen before. It suggests that Love has the power to “redeem” the corrupt or emotionally damaged, yet in order for it to persist someone (usually a woman) must sacrifice herself for the other (others have noticed that this “self-sacrificial love” is a very “Christian” form of love as well; I will not get into that reading in much detail, simply because I don’t feel like I have the background in religion to make a compelling case for interpretation as well. I bring that reading up because it is definitely related to the gendered analysis above inasmuch as some readings of the Bible can be said to be responsible for some of the ideas we have about gender now).

For the time being I am going to hold off on getting to involved in analyzing the “emotional” aspect of my response to this play. However, it is probably obvious to anyone who knows me that my cynicism towards Romantic Love is not entirely unrelated to my own experiences believing in the self-defeating ideas the heroine of Miss Saigon held. In short, I believed that I also sacrificed a bit of my life as I held on to something that would never materialize. I appreciate the play for being honest about what that belief will do to a person of any gender, even if it doesn’t suggest any alternatives (ie, holding onto the idea that someone is going to come along and save you is probably going to end up in a wasted life – metaphorically or literally – and a broken heart). Quite honestly, I really liked the ending (and the entire second act) because although it wasn’t obviously critical, ironic, or cynical, it did seem to call the purpose of the war and at least some of the American’s idealism/hubris into question (even while trading on racialized and gendered stereotypes). Quite honestly, while death is a Romantic ending as well (and it is Romanticism I doubt), I preferred that to another possible ending (the GI and the heroine move to the USA and live happily ever after). Quite honestly, I would have thrown up or laughed uproariously if that had happened, and no one would have wanted that.

To a certain extent, I don’t expect to see a love story that plays into my sensibilities and thinking on Love because I think most people want to believe in True Love, even if I’ve rejected the possibility. A story that casts doubt on the possibility of “True Love” would be a story so depressing I wouldn’t even want to watch it (at the end of the day, even I want to think I experienced it, even if it was painful and ended terribly). I write about these issues because I am time and again reminded that I have become deeply cynical, and even I am surprised by this. I am starting to think that my own experiences with Romantic Love changed me in ways that probably aren’t reversible, and that’s a bit of a scary thought. At the same time, as a Canadian woman who is not trapped in a war, I realize that I have the opportunity to analyze my past and make choices. I don’t have to re-live victim scripts; although I am severely emotionally fucked-up, I hesitate to claim that I am a “victim” per se (if only because I realize that I am fucked up; a realization that lends itself to the possibility of agency, even if I have no idea about what to do about it yet. That’s probably why I’m looking for answers in plays and movies, come to think of it). At any rate, it is ironic (or inevitable?) that the ideology of Romantic Love has taken yet another female victim (even an unwilling one), and I realize that experience and my subsequent rejection of this ideology informs how I see and act in the world (including how I analyze media). If I were a modernist thinker, I would say something about this experience indicating the existence of some sort of paradigm, but I am not arrogant enough to think that my situation has much to do with that of actual Vietnamese women. Of course, I may have a bit in common with the “Vietnamese Woman” as constructed through hegemonic discourses (but only the “woman” part, not the “Vietnamese” piece); to the extent that women are constructed through these discourses as passive victims, I could be occasioning some sort of “survivor identity” in a misguided, artificial act of resistance (I’m sure there is a Lacanian analyst out there who has come up with one that applies to me).

At this point, I should be applying my critical thinking skills and my tenuous grasp on post-modern thought to my assignments. For anyone who might be hoping for it, this means I am not going to do any more probing into my emotional state (at least, I won’t be writing anything I care to make public). Part of my “act of resistance” (or, alternatively, evidence of complicity with a victim script) is a disavowal of anything approaching vulnerability. What I’ve said here is about as good as it gets in terms of any “willingness to be human.” I could write something about an unwillingness to be vulnerable indicating an internalized sense of misogynist self-loathing; alternatively, I also suspect that my entire analysis and the feminist perspective it articulates may be an example of slave morality, in the Nietzschean sense. However, those are pieces for another time.

Education – formal learning that takes place in settings that are primarily designed to deliver courses, learning activities, or credentials in an organized way (ie, there is a ciriculum, streaming of courses, enterance requrements, etc).

Informal learning – lifelong learning that takes place outside of formal education systems; occurs when people take it upon themselves to learn about certain phenomena/proceses.

Socialization – includes formal learning (schooling/education) and informal learning; people learn these things in order to understand and negotiate the social world.

1. a) How has formal education (schooling) become a central social institution (describe changes and continuities in formal ed. in Can.)?

-How has education in Canada changed over the years?

Then:

-Most Canadians spend some amount of time in formal schooling, which wasn’t always the case:  Schooling was more sporadic and short-term in the nineteeth century – kids entered at later age and left earlier (by early teens).

-Poor economic conditions contributed to transence and poverty; these factors in turn affected attendance:  In the nineteen century, parents were more likely to send kids to school when times were good. When crops were failing and parents needed help at home, they’d pull kids out of school.

-Regional differences in access to education:  Some communities didn’t have schools or qualified teachers

Now:

-Changes:

-Schools are now larger and more sophisticated architecturally and technologically

-Students exposed to a greater diversity of teachers, subject matter, work projects

-Students display and experience a greater degree of cultural and personal variation

-Increased access to learning opportunities

-Continutities:

-Educational activities are still very regimented, superivised, and distinct from other social activities

-Regional variation in educational quality and opportunities still exists, as well as differential access depending on what social category you fall into

-What are the dimensions/features of educational growth in Canada?

-Institutionalized fairly recently: Formal educational systems have become increasingly common in Canada – ie, it’s an institution now

->Expanded in Canada after WW2 – in the early ’50s over half of the Canadian pop didn’t have more than a gr. 9 ed; now we’re one of the most hightly ed. pops in the world (nearly half of Canadians now have post-secondary)

->Most of this growth happened in 60s-70s, co-inciding with baby boom

-Factors promoting growth of formal ed/instutitionalization of ed:

->Education increasingly available in Canada

->More common for members of the Canadian public to attain some type of credentials as a result.

->Immigrants allowed into Canada more likley to have high credentials

Economic aspect:

-Formal education wasn’t seen as being so significant, nor were opportunities as widely available because most occupations didn’t require formal ed in the  late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Now employers are far more likely to seek out credentials when selecting candidates, and credentials are now requred for some field – hence the growth of post-secondary.

-Function of schools have changed: It wasn’t the credentials that were necessarily important;  ppl relied on schools to help kids develop skills and knowledge, but schools also served to socialize and look after kids.

-Focus on teachers as good role models, discipine, rote learning

-Belief in the importance of formal education: Instutionalization/growth patterns are connected to public opinion – Canadians generally believe that formal ecducation contibutes to individual personal growth and promotes social need for knowlege, innovation, credentials.

-Transition from a private to a public good:

-In 19th and Early 20th Centuries, education was delivered informally, through parents, businesses and churches – now the state is responsible for ed in Canada

-Difference between formal ed and other “sites” of learning:

-More flexible and comprehensive cirruiculum than that offered by parents, churches, and businesses

-Centralization/consolidation of smaller schools into larger schools/districts

-1900′s – schools starting to be consolidated into larger schools and school districts

-1940s-60s – smaller schools/districts increasingly amalgamated into larger ones

1990s – number of school boards in each province continues to decline; decreasing numbers of public schools (ed is increasingly available in other forms; increased enrollment is being “absorbed” within larger schools and by over-crowding smaller ones)

-life-cycle changes – we spend more of our lives in the institution:

-People start school earlier and attend school for longer – more common to continue into post-secondary and re-enter schooling later in life

-Post-secondary is more common; content oriented towards uni credit instead of vocational training:

-Used to focus on specific vocational training; community colleges in particular made university credit courses more accessible

-What are challenges associated with this growth?

-Public ed required taxation, which some resisted

-Regional variation in the availablity of qualified teachers and quality of education (increased specialization wrt to teacher’s credentials and curriculum in urban areas)

-Demand for schooling sometimes exceeded schools’ capacity to provided teachers, textbooks, facilities

-Disputes between school boards and community members re: curriculum

b) Why has formal ed become a central social institution (explain changes in formal ed. in Can.)?

-Demographic changes, particularly during the 1960′s – 1970′s, ie, the baby boom – increased number of school aged children after ww2

-Changing views re: the purpose of education: No longer seen as a primarily a “moral/social training” ground and a place to put kids when parents were busy; Now education is seen as an activity that promotes the personal as well as the social good (ie, social needs for knowledge, innovation, credentials)

-Economic changes - transition from an economy based on primary and secondary industries to a “knowlege economy.” Credentials are required to obtain job opportunities, even in fields that didn’t always require these  (the class exampe of the aluminum manufacturing plant that came to require a college diploma even though that wasn’t required for the job comes to mind – too many applicants, which is linked to demographic changes).

-A successful claims-making process: Public schools played the socialization card, convincing the public that formal ed was the best way to promote individual and social goals

-Consolidation/amalgamation facilitated by proliferation of transportation networks, as well as financial/administrative difficulties in smaller schools/districts

-Availablity/content of post-secondary caused by labour market changes, demographic changes, expansion of community college system

2) What are forms of lifelong learning beyond formal education (ie, how do ppl learn informally)?

lifelong learning – Occurs when people engage in education (formally or informally) beyond limits mandated by the state (you usually “have to” attend b/t ages 5-18 in most provinces, but many ppl go for longer than that)

New Economy/knowlege-based economy -

-Characterized by an increasing reliance on IT and scientific advancements in all spheres of social life.

->Learning activities are relevant throughout all stages of the lifecycle, in whether in your career (through formal ed and on the job training, testing products/services, processing info, building individual’s capacity to manage/process/integrate info) and personal life (significance of informal learning)

->Capacity to learn, integrate, apply, and transfer knowlege is central to the personal and professional oppotunities available to a person.

Informal learning – Occurs when groups/individuals take it upon themselves to acquire new knowlege that they can apply to work, personal, or community circumstances – ie, teaching yourself how to play poker

->More common among highly literate segments of the population

->More common among those with formal ed

globalization - Flow of goods/services, media, info, labour b/g countries around the globe; controlled and co-ordinated by private-sector interests unconstrained by state regulations

->formal ed and lifelong learning are associated with globalization; these factors are associated with economic development, which is an objective championed by the private interests that run the globalization show (seen in modernization/development projects).

->formal ed is associated with a high SofL; where formal ed is limited incidence of disease, unemployment, crime, etc increases

3) What are theoretical perspectives socis use to explain educational systems, practices, outcomes?

Conflict: How does education perpetuate power differentials and inequalities within society?

Structural Functionalism: Focuses on education’s contribution to social needs and economic goals.

Symbolic Interactionism/microsociology: How do interactions between those who participate in educational processes shape/change these processes?

Feminist: How is education gendered? Can talk about differential access, how formal education perpetuates “masucline” values such as competition, how men and women have different experiences within classrooms.

4) What is the relationship between education and social inequality?

There is a strong relationship between SES and educatinal attainment. Formal education is a significant determinant of the social and economic opportunities available to certain groups, depending on gender, race/eth, and class. It is becoming increasingly important factor in the experiences of members of each group.

5. a) How does the relationship between educational systems and participants shape education (ie, content of ed, what it means to be educated) and educational outcomes?

b) How does the social context in which ed inst. operate shape educational processes and outcomes?

6) What are major educational issues right now? Outline the debates and evaluate merits/weaknesses of each position.

digital divide

What is “the family”?

Family is a social institution:

-pattern of social relationships

-endures over time

-result from an enduring set of ideas about what is important in society and how best to accomplish these goals

1) How do families vary?

a) Family is defined in various ways (ie, who makes up the family differs)

-ie, Nuclear family, census family, extended family, modified extended family, household

b) Patterns of relationships within the family vary

-ie, monogamy or polygyny (polygamy or polyandry)

c) Legal relationships differ

-ie, arranged vs. free-choice marriage

d) Patterns of Authority and descent vary

-authority: patriarchal or matriarchal/matrifocal

-descent: patrilineal, matrilinal, bilateral

2) How have sociologists conceputalized/explained family patterns?

-Political Ecnonomy approach, structural functionalist, social constructionist/symbolic interactionist, feminist, post-modern

3) What are some issues within Canadian Families?

-Wife abuse, divorce/repartnering, affordable childcare, assisted conception/low fertility, sharing domestic work.

4) What are demographic trends in Canada?

The details on each topic follow.

1) Variations in family life:

What do most definitions of “the family” assume?

-members of a family are related

-they share a dwelling

-”family” is determined by legal obligations members have towards one another, not by bonds of care or services provided to one another

-usually defined by the (hetero)sexual relationship between a couple

What did academics used to assume?

-Families were related by blood/adoption/marriage

-Parents maintained a sexually exlusive relationship with one another

-shared a dwelling/earnings/other resources

-Parents reproduced and raised kids together

-Family members protected one another (see S/F perspective – many of these assumptions are evident here)

a) The Definitions:

nuclear family: Parents and children sharing a dwelling

Census family: Consists of a married couples  sharing a dwelling, and co-habiting couples living together for over one year. May or may not have never-married children. Also includes lone-parents with never-married children, and was changed in 2006 to include same-sex couples (and NMC’s).

household: Individuals sharing a dwelling, not necessarily related.

Extended family: Several generations of adult siblings, thier spouses, and kids.  They share resources and a dwelling.

Modified extended family: An extended family that lives in close proximity to one another and rely on one another for economic and social support, ie, like extended family but they don’t share a house.

-Most Canadians live in nuclear families, but culture (and related historical experiences, immigrant status, SES, traditions, and religious beliefs) also determines family form – ie, both extended families and mod. EF’s are common among immigrants from the Middle East and South Asia; EF’s are common among First Nations, Southern European immigrants, and some Asians.

-Contrary to what sociologists used to believe (ie, Parsons and Bales) nuclear families have always been more common among North Americans and most Europeans;  extended families were not more prevalent prior to industrialization (which contradicts one of the Political Economist’s main assumptions).

b) Patterns of relationships within the family vary

-ie, monogamy or polygyny (polygamy or polyandry)

Polygyny – multiple spouses.

Polygamy (multiple wives) is the most common form of polygyny. It allows many children to be born into one family, which is useful if the family is the main unit of economic production. In societies that use patrilineal descent, this also ensures that resources stay within the father’s line; it is difficult to determine where the wife, children, and associated resources goes if no one knows who the father is (which is a probable occurance within polyandrous unions, ie, if a woman had many husbands).

-Polygamy is assoicated with patriarchy (families are structured to suit men’s interests) and wide age gaps between husbands and wives.

-First wives gain status when he takes other wives – she acts as a supervisor.

Polyandry: a woman has many husbands – they are usually all brothers. This keeps a parcel of land intact (if the men went off and started thier own families with different wives, the land would have to be divided amongst them).

-Polyandry is thus not necessarily associated with matriarchy/matrifocal authority systems.

c) Legal relationships differ, ie different marriage systems:

Arranged:

Assumes: Family status (including potential hiers, solidarity), alliances between families, family’s reputation, resources available to a family, and parental wisdom forms the basis for legal union.

Related terms:

dowry – Price paid BY the bride’s family TO the grooms family.

-So a dowry consists of furnishings, money, servants, land, etc. that come “with” the bride, which allows her to attract a better husband (ie, wealthier, more respected, better family).  It also secures alliances between families, and it may help the couple establish thier new household (if it doesn’t become property of the groom’s family).

-Can also provide bride with some material security in case of a difficult/abusive marriage, but this depends on how much control women have over resources in the society.

bride price – Price paid TO the bride’s family FROM the groom’s family.

-So it’s something the groom’s family gives to the bride’s in “exchange” for their daughter (nice and sexist, that).  Bride is worth more if she’s pretty and/or comes from a wealthy/respected family.

Common among: Middle Eastern and South Asian immigrants

Free choice:

Assumes:  Love/sexual attraction between a couple forms the basis of legal obligations.

Related terms/ideas:

Dowry tradition is reflected in wedding reception, honeymoon (I suppose the bride’s family is expected to pay for these things?)

Bride price reflected in ring exchange – he “buys her love,” with gold and diamonds, as it were.

d) Patterns of Authority and descent vary

Systems of authority:

Patriarchal:

Assumes:  Men have more power than women.  Eldest male is the head of the household, controls resources, and is the “public face” of the family.

Examples:  Seen everywhere.

Matriarchal/Matrifocal

Assumes: Women have more power than men.

Related terms: In matrifocal societies, wives/mothers have control over resources, contribute to family income, and a say in important decisions.

Examples: New Guinea – Tchambuli people

Systems of descent:

Patrilinial: Married couple belongs to groom’s family and lives with/near them. Property is passed from elder males to younger males.  Kids inherit dad’s last name.

Matrilinal: Married couple belongs to bride’s family and lives with/near them. I assume that property is passed through the mother’s line, and kids can inherit mom’s last name.  Sociologists prolly haven’t worked out the specifics because it is doubtful that a “pure” matrilinial descent system exists anywhere (I’d have to double check anthropologicial record to be sure of that though).

Bilocal: Married couple has social obligations towards both bride’s and groom’s families.  Couple can live where-ever they want (usually on their own, away from either family), can inherit from both sides, and take either mom’s or dad’s last name (still usually dad’s).

2) Theories that attempt to explain how/why certain families come into being, and what changes family structures:

Political Economy:

Assumes:  One’s relationship to the economic cycles and power structures informs how they think (ideas/beliefs) and behave (interpersonal relationships);  so family structure is related to economic and political conditions.

Change:  Is caused by conflict between groups in society  -ie b/t those who control production and make laws, and those who don’t

Thinkers:  Marx & Engels

Examples:  Nuclear family arose as a result of urbanization/industrialization.  Family was changed from a “unit of production” to a “unit of consumption” as it became cheaper to manufacture goods in factories (located in cities) than within the family unity (on a farm).  Patriarchal authority diminished as men moved into factories, and an employer’s requirements (not the patriarch) determined how “family” and “personal” time was structured. The apparent divide between the “public” and “private” spheres (and current gendered division of labour and associated ideologies of masculinity and femininity) was not caused by traits inherent to genders, but only “seemed” natural due to the way work is structured under industrial capitalism.

Structural-functionalist:

Assumes: Societal rules and expecations create various family structures/systems, not economic changes or personal choice.

Change:  Doensn’t adequatly explain social change because it assumes that people/groups act in certain ways in order to conform to societal expecations, implying a stagnant society.  Difference is framed in terms of deviance, which the larger group attempts to regulate.

Thinkers:  Parsons & Bales

Examples:  Family functions to socialize children and meet personal needs of family members.

Related terminology:   

Institutional approach – the idea that this entity exists as a result of some common agreement on what is good for society and how best to fulfil the social good, and these ideas do not really change over time

heirarchy of generations – the idea that older generations socialize younger generations into socially necessary roles

Instrumental role – husband deals with outside world and provides

Expressive role -Wife supports relationships and nurtures family members

Social Constructionist/Symbolic Interactionist:

Assumes:  Niether economic/political conditions nor unconciously-held expecations inform family structure. Instead, we create certain families by interacting with one another AND EXERTING WILL.  Ideas we hold about what a family inform family structure; we actively construct our social world as we think about it and interact with others.

Change: occurs when ideas and perceptions change through interaction and reflection

Thinkers:  Cooley,  Mead, Blumer

Examples: How people’s percetptions and definitions of a situation (ie, a conflict) changes the situation itself

Related terminology:

verbal and non-verbal cues – speech, symbols, body language, etc.

Self – an entity that is capable of subjectivity – can create itself and reflect on the world;  and objectivity – can be the object of it’s own thought and that of others

anticipatory socialization – explicit, implicit learning in preparation for a future role

Feminist:

Assumes:

Power dynamics between men and women influence family structure. These play out at a micro and macro level; at the macro level this occurs through a gendered division of work that places women in the home/in caregiver roles.

-Can take a structural approach (ie, the political enonomist’s perpective with a “gendered” lens) or a social constructionist/SI approach (ie, looking at how interpersonal relationships, verbal and non-verbal comms, and meanings are gendered)

Change:  Ideas about how social change occurs depends on what side of the “structure/agency debate” your feminist thinker falls.

Examples: Structural feminists might focus on unequal/gendered division of labour within families; interpretive feminists might focus on women’s different moral characteristics or ways of relating/speaking

Related terminology: gendered division of labour, gender

Post-modern:

Assumes:  Truth is relative and depends on your social location (ie, gender, race, culture, historical time period)

Change:

Examples:

Related terminology:

3) Issues facing Canadian Families:

Sharing domestic work

wife abuse

assisted conception

affordable childcare

divorce/repartnering

4) Demographic Trends

 I had thought that more specific requirements for this assignment would have been on blackboard or the course outline somewhere; these were nowhere to be found.  This seems to be par for course in this class; I anticipate it will challenge another deeply-ingrained habit; ie, trying to figure everything out on my own. I am going to assume then, that this assignment is exactly as informal as was indicated in class; if I cannot trust my perceptions to impose a reliable form of order on the world, I hope I can trust my comprehension of what was said in the lecture today.

 I haven’t said much about myself in the past few paragraphs, but I have probably given a few things away indirectly. It would be reasonable to assume that I am a very cautious, meticulous, untrusting person from what I’ve written so far; that assumption would be correct. Recent and historical life experiences have revealed the lies in many assumptions of order; as a result, I test the waters in many life situations and have a difficult time trusting any decision deeply enough to commit to it wholeheartedly. This hasn’t worked very well, and I am attempting to develop coping strategies that will, to borrow the phrase used in class, maximize my outcomes in life. Many of these strategies involve re-training my mind; right now these efforts are oriented towards reducing the anxiety that forms the background noise to my consciousness and makes every activity seem like a life-or-death situation.  The emotional and intellectual paralysis that results from this hasn’t facilitated success in life, and I would like that to change. This is actually one of the many reasons I am choosing to stay in this class; there may be an intimidating 65-page paper due by the end of it, but I anticipate that the process will help me develop the skills I need to manage perfectionism and procrastination more sucessfully.

So, I am a perfectionist, cautious, and anxious. Perhaps I could say something that would make me seem somewhat endearing as well. It was suggested in class that many of us have extraordinary talents and exciting life experiences. I suppose I could say that I do; I have another life outside of academia in which I perform in burlesque troupes, dance, and model. Over the past summer, I learned how to teach yoga; I feel extremely fortunate to be paid to do something I love after working the gamut of part-time student jobs for well over a decade. After a ten-year hiatus, I am teaching myself how to play music again.  I used to consider myself a fairly creative person, and over the years I have let many of those talents atrophy. My only outlet now is writing; because that is associated with academia I have to fight a great deal of emotional baggage when I write.  Since I have fewer expectations of other forms of expression, these activities help me put that “inside world” out there more effectively than writing does sometimes.

 To define myself by my work, I am taking a major in Women’s Studies and a minor in Political Science.  This is a worthwhile pursuit in my mind because I have always been interested social justice issues; I am interested in learning about the ways in which social structures and power dynamics within society shape our identities, the opportunities we have in life, and how we experience, understand, and explain the world.  Consequently, this is also why I am interested in social psychology.  It might not fit “exactly” but it will (hopefully) explain the relationship between who we are on an internal level and what exists (or what we think exists) in the external world. I am particularly interested using some of my journaling in this class as a forum for an interdisciplinary conversation. I know some of the schools of thought I have encountered through Women’s Studies and in courses on the sociology of gender tend to take issue with some of the perspectives that inform mainstream psychology (particularly evolutionary psychology). I am interested in learning about the “other side,” if only to enrich my understanding of my own discipline’s perspective (and even to modify or change my ideas in light of new information).I found some of the comments made in the first lecture somewhat amusing, simply because I haven’t made it through to latter portions of my undergraduate degree under the delusion that I am an individual. In many ways, I am likely typical of someone my gender and socio-economic class background. However, recent life experiences have inspired me to look a bit deeper into “who I am” to draw out which aspects of my identity and behaviors are simply reactions to my social environment, how much of that is really “me,” or if it is even possible to sort out the difference between the two. I am willing to take on the challenges of this course (65-page paper and all) in order to find out a bit more what “human agency” really means.

http://fetlife.com/sit_on_santas_lap

Thanks to aenux for letting me know about this. Fetlife poses an even greater threat to my productivity than Facebook, so I’ve been avoiding that place during my travels through internet-land as of late. The items I chose would be a welcome addition to my collection, so I’m crossing my fingers for this one.