Juvenile Delinquency

I'm doing my service hours at Salt Lake Peer Court and my social issue is juvenile delinquency. I want to discuss Functionalism and Symbolic Interactionism and how they can be applied to juvenile delinquency.

Functionalism deals with social roles and social institutions. Often times at Peer Court, I see that youths tend to act out when they are going through a difficult time at home. Recently, we had a case of a twelve year old being referred for disorderly conduct. He lives with his grandmother because his father is deceased and his mother is an alcoholic. The grandmother says that since his mother stopped coming to get him and his other two siblings on the weekend, he has really been acting out at school and also at home. The absence of his mother in his life is hurting him inside and causing him to behave a certain way. So, family can be one institution that affects certain behaviors. Symbolic Interactionism includes perceptions, meanings, and relationships. I feel that once youths act out or engage in illegal activities, society will perceive them as criminals. So, even if they try to do better, there is already that perception of them being criminals.

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Nichol's article response.

There LGBT communities in many African countries, but very few are known because they are afraid of coming out since they are not accepted by the society in fact in countries like Uganda LGBT people get killed by their government. Back home, I didn’t even know about LGBT because no one talked about it and if people of the same sex had sexual relationship, people were just saying that “it’s a taboo and a sin against God and there is something wrong with these people”, but no one knew that it was their identity. Just like any other minority group, LGBT members face many problems in their communities in terms of employment, social, education, family,….. and we can say that they face discrimination like other minority groups.

We found Conflict Theory in this article where homosexual people face power struggle and inequality from people who are not homosexual (those who are considered to be normal by the world). Homosexuality can prevent people from accessing opportunities like scholarships, leadership, employment because of their identity.

Symbolic Interaction: Not being accepted by the society makes homosexual people blame themselves, feel isolated and that’s why we have a big number of suicides among them. The fact that even their own families don’t accept them sometime, makes the situation worse.
Functionalism: An example of countries like Uganda where the government authorizes the law of killing LGBT people and the fact that many states in USA don’t accept marriage between same sex people, is a sign that this world is far away from accepting LGBT communities.

Members of LGBT communities and their supporters have to fight had for their freedom and acceptance and this will take educating the young generation (who can prevent this discrimination in the future), law makers,.... However, i think the main point that infuence discrimination against LGBT communities is that many people believe that LGBT members have choice and control over their identity (that they made a choice of being homosexual and that they can chose to change that identity). Either this is really a choice or not, i don't know.

Nichols' Article Response

In Nichols’ article each of the three perspectives we have been studying can be applied, Symbolic Interactionalist, Functionalist and Conflict Theory while discussing Homosexuality, particularly in high schools.

For a Symbolic Interactionist, he/she may suggest there are hidden messages throughout this issue. For example, teachers and their personal beliefs and perspectives on such ideas. Even though a teacher or professor my not express his/her personal opinion verbally, body language and behavior are clear signs of their beliefs. Deaths are also a factor for S.I. sociologists. Suicides and homocides are the main alarm that there is a problem that needs to be addressed. Unfortunately, the issue has gone too far before able to be resolved.

The Functionalist approach in Nichols’ article relates to laws and policies and the lack of protection they provide for kids in the school systems. Bullying has become explosive and now getting to the point where suicides, filming and other forms of awareness and exposure will lead to more legislation. Another Functionalist idea is the example “left handed person in a right handed world”. Being apart of a minority group (homosexuals) is just the strict and lack of diversity that our basic society structure is.

A Conflict Theorist may bring up the issues of homosexuals being a minority. Being a minority, homosexuals typically have less resources available to them, especially in the sense of biases and racism. Two examples are employment and availability of academic scholarships.

Nichols Article

This article was very interesting, personally it gave me a lot information that I didn’t know. I remember years ago when this was a totally taboo for our community. It was something that nobody wanted to talk about. Now days is different, I don’t want to say that it is accepted in our community but we are realizing that the LGBT community face a social problem. The true I don’t have much information or interaction with LGBT people but in a lot of my trainings with domestic violence we see how under represent is the LGBT community. It is the same problematic that any other minority group face. If I have to see from the point of view of my religion it could be very difficult to try to understand but if I see it from the sociological point of view it is different. I think that there is need to be informing about what the LGBT community face and how we can help. Because the problem is that when we don’t understand the interaction and the negative social consequences that a group can have we don’t change anything but if we could understand how to be part of a solution it will be easy for us and for the LGBT community to integrate in our society.

Nichols Article

The Nichols article highlights the treatment of homosexual youth and the adversity they face in various aspects of society. Social institutions such as education socialize individuals and educate them to be a part of social norms, values and expectations. Often in education there is an underlying message that homosexuality is not normal and often seen as a problem. This message affects youth who are still figuring out their social identity and confuses them if they are homosexual. Often students who are viewed as different are bullied, unfortunately this also frequently affects students who come out as gay. The fear of being bullied as well as rejection from other peers often leads kids to drop out from school, start drinking/smoking, and even commit suicide.

Conflict theory examines how labeling or perceptions can affect individuals. Labels are very harmful for teens who are still unsure of their identities. Being labeled in a negative way has serious consequences. Unfortunately homosexuality is still something that is viewed as not normal. Conflict theory attempts to challenge the status quo which i precisely what homosexuality does in society. It has become more and more acceptable but we still witness unfair treatment and high amounts of prejudice pertaining to the gay community. I personally believe that in 20 years from now we look back and think we were crazy for not allowing homosexuals to be married or have the same rights.

Nichols Article

I found this article really interesting. I thought that it presented a lot of important ideas and facts. The main point of this article is the lack of awareness and tolerance of schools and students within of diversity specifically homosexual as part of our culture. The three theories can certainly be linked to this article.
Conflict theory is competition and inequality. The author discussed homosexual being a minority and the fact that it caused a lack of resources like scholarships. Because of certain people's preference, it decreases their risk of getting resources. Symbolic Interactionism is meanings, perceptions, symbols, and relationships. The article talked about hidden messages within the curriculum and the fact teachers have the authority. Also, student's perception of safety. They don't feel safe at school because they know they can't be protected. Functionalism includes social roles and social institutions. In the article, it mentioned laws and policies not protecting homosexual kids in school. It also talked about how the lack of support from the family can lead to a paticular student dropping out and also increase his/her risk of committing suicide.