A different perspective

Here is a blog that one of my friends made for our Social Theory class, take a look :)

http://socialtheoryatsmu.blogspot.ca/

At-risk Youth

At risk youth is a term used to describe young adults who don’t have the best conditions growing up or don’t have the best conditions in their life as of now, which puts them “at risk”. Future problems of the at-risk youth would be things such as poor mental health, criminality, drug misuse and teenage pregnancy (France, 2008). Even if a couple of risk factors are present in their life, they are deemed as a risky individual. Risk factors, in this formula, might include childhood poverty, dropping out of high school, living in a rural area, having a single mother, or being a visible minority (Foster, 2011 p.127). At risk youth are usually pegged as the bad kids who aren’t going to go anywhere in their life, who enjoy their frowned upon lifestyle and don’t want to change. They may also be seen as choosing this lifestyle purposely, not because of their unfortunate circumstances that they’ve been dealt with. This is usually the opposite of the truth, most at-risk youth are more motivated than other kids their age who aren’t in the same situations, to change.

Panopticism

The panopticon is a type of jail that has a main tower that looks upon each one of the cells in the building. Each cell is completely open and you have no way of hiding from the person who is watching you in the tower. The person who is on watch in the tower cannot be seen by the inmates because of the backlight that shines, therefore they never know when they are being watched and by whom. With the panopticon it doesn’t matter who is in power and watching you “any individual, taken almost at random can operate the machine: in the absence of the director, his family, his friends, his visitors, even his servants” (Foucault). Foucault also says that with the panopticon, physical confrontation is avoided. I think panopticism in the description that Foucault gives, is about being watched constantly and not knowing who is watching you. You have to present yourself in a favorable way and stay out of trouble because you don’t know if you’re ever going to be caught doing something wrong.

Ideology

            Stuart Hall refers to ideology as “the mental frameworks that different classes/social groups deploy in order to make sense of, define, figure out and render intelligible the way society works”. By this he means how society/different classes or even large social groups have different aspects and ideas about what they think is the “norm” for living in your everyday life.