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Creative Sociology for Social
Responsibility and Understanding
by
Anonymous
On the web is a short
video called “Children See, Children Do,” (2006) which
calls our attention to a problem in which we all
participate, know it or not. The genre of video that it
represents could be called Creative Sociology because it
takes a well known Sociological concept, behavior
modeling, and creates scenarios to make that concept
very clear. In so doing, this glimpse at human behavior
makes all viewers stop and take a look in the mirror.
What we do when children are around is the makings of
socialization. We are walking mirrors; in the
reflection lies our responsibility to humanity. The
reflection is taken and carried on by little ones coming
after us, and in this sense we all have children.
Most Sociology
takes behavior and tries to shape it into concepts so
that students of Sociology can make sense of the people
and groups around them. This video works in the
opposite direction: it takes a concept of Sociology and
superimposes it with actors who act out the mirroring
process that is behavior modeling. We usually idealize
children in images depicting socialization: the happy
child and glowing parents, radiating social values; the
obedient child approaching a hop-scotch game; the alert
one in the center of the desks in the classroom with her
hand up; the pledge of allegiance to the flag--this is
what we like to think of as socialization. Typically
these child-rearing images are positive. In this video,
it is the reverse. All the children learn our nasty
ways.
While
effective, this is not an image we wish to see, and this
is the very power of the video. The not-wanting to see
that we can make a child smoke, litter, curse,
discriminate, accuse, and ultimately brutalize is the
very power that delivers the opposition to our hearts.
This is the power of Creative Sociology.
Another
popular video on the web is of an acceptance speech for
an award is Pangea (2006). In it, a woman award
recipient speaks nervously about the power of video. It
is as if the power of video is in her very excitement
which makes her nervous. The power of video is
exciting. It belongs not to the woman receiving the
award; it remains, as she says, to the subjects of the
video, the life of whom is the dynamic of any
sociological video.
Video is a
powerful form of Sociology, whether it conveys details
and reality of humans in our world, as this woman
advocates and delivers, or whether it takes one concept,
like behavior modeling, and conveys it better and more
quickly than a dozen text books. Anyone who views
Children See, Children Do (2006) gets a good dose of
what behavior modeling means and its disastrous effect
when the model is of fear, small mindedness, and
negativity.
To test people's awareness of their responsibility to
children, I created a brief survey that ... then data,
finding, and conclusion-solution.
Citation:
Children See, Children Do.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6JfHB2cruJU (2006)
Pangea
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkWHsoR33sA (2006)
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