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The following little editorial is a response to an article in our local small town newspaper, the St. Albert Gazette. They write a response to current issues called “Our View” and in the one I am responding to, they make …
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The US Special Forces is a bizarrely gendered world, as I found out when I joined it to write a book about war. This all-male bastion is sexualized in a truly perverted way, particularly in its methods for turning young …
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As Darwin pointed out in the The Origin of Species (1859), species often exhibit enormous variation. Darwin was a pigeon breeder and described at length the astounding variation that, with the help of artificial selection, pigeon breeders had succeeded in cultivating in …
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Does it seem like the world is going to hell in a hand basket? Hard to conclude otherwise when children are massacred as in recent fashion. If you want to understand why however, maybe it is time to put aside “stock” answers and look past clichés about God, madness, and guns. If you are interested in a deeper look at the world we live in, sociologists can help.
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Let’s begin by making it clear that Sam Bacile’s “film,” The Innocence of Muslims, is a piece of crap. The film is embarrassingly terrible. Imagine the worst Saturday Night Live sketch that you have ever seen and then multiply it …
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A brave new world has emerged for our children. Whereas once bullying was confined to the school yard, or the back hall, now bullying penetrates into every aspect of their life space. At night, alone, in their bedroom, surrounded by family, our children have become targets, and victims. What are we going to do and who are we going to turn to? As Nat King Cole once sang, “Straighten out and fly right…”
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You never stop to think that sending your kids to school can be a problem, but it can be. From the residential schools of First Nations infamy to the violence of straps and the horror of school yard bullying, schools are not always safe places. The truth is, children can experience physical, emotional, and even sexual abuse at the hands of students, teachers, priests. ministers, reverends, etc.. The research demonstrates that abuse of all forms undermines self esteem, lowers social productivity, causes depression, and contributes to long term social problems. Isn’t it time we recognized the horror and stopped hurting our children?
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What makes us put up with violence? Why, when we see abuse around us do we pretend it’s not abuse. This is a question that as a sociologist and parent of two school age children I find myself asking a lot. Why don’t we see the violence that our kids are subjected to on a daily basis? Why do we normalize, minimize, and ignore abuse? What’s even more of a concern, why can we see it for what it is in some situations, but be totally oblivious in another. Inquiring minds, research scientists, and concerned parents want to know.
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One of the first things the sociology initiate learns is about the “sociological imagination.” This concept is used to illustrate, the power of sociology. Sociology can help you, you are told, if you just use its concepts to understand your life. Here is an example of what it means to apply the sociological imagination. Drawing on research in gender, criminology, sentencing biases, and a number of common sociological themes, this author examines his own life through a sociological lens, applying the “sociological imagination” to explode a common bias and blind spot in our modern cultures. Think you can do the same? You’re welcome to submit.
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You think we live in a functioning democracy? You think you’re a powerful actor in a sea of democratic choice? Think again. According to this psychologist we are nations of people broken by a socialization process that teaches passivity, fear of authority, and a-social competition, a medical process that applies chemical straitjackets to the emotional sequelea of oppression, and a psychological establishment that pathologizes children who refuse to conform.
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