User:Champtrain8

Hello

User: Thomas Rotar

About Me: I am currently an undergraduate student at The Ohio University enrolling in The College of Health & Human Services to major in either nutriton, physical therapy, or exercise physiology. I love health and fitness my friends and family see me as a "health nut", who spends countless hours at gyms and reading up on fitness magazines and nutrition articles about dieting and supplementation.

How did I start using Wiki: I started using Wiki seeing that Sociology pages were in need for help in that the information was either lacking or un-factual or both.

My first contribution: Conflict Theory page in which seemed to be lacking a good opener that was clear, brief, and factual. I saw that history was for the most part left untouched on Conflict Theory and added a brief note on the background. My contribtion are seen here in bold:

'''In Sociology, Conflict Theory states that society or an organization functions so that each individual participant and its groups struggle to maximize their benefits, which inevitably contributes to social change such as political changes and revolutions. The theory is mostly applied to explain conflict between social classes. Conflict Theory describes conflict between groups of people and the reasons why conflict is present and why we make the actions we do in society, however Conflict Theory is still questionable whether it directly represents the ideal human society. Although conflict has always been central to sociological theory and analysis, Conflict Theory is the label generally attached to the sociological writings of opponents to the dominance of structural functionalism, in the two decades after the Second World War. Its proponents on Max Weber and Karl Marx to construct their arguments, giving differing emphases to economic conflict and conflict about power. This is where history plays a role in determing what Conflict Theory is all about. Conflict Theory can also be traced back to Thomas Hobbes and Machiavelli. Conflict theorists such as Machiavelli and Hobbes would argue that all groups in society are born from conflict. An example might be that of labor unions, which are developed to fight for the interests of workers, whereas trade organizations are made to fight for the interests of the wealthier classes. This theory of groups is opposed to functionalism in which each of these groups would play a specific, set role in society. In functionalism, these groups cooperate to benefit society whereas in conflict theory the groups are in opposition to one another as they seek to better their masters. Conflict Theory is backed by four basic principles to why conflict occurs between social classes. These principles are competition, structural inequality, revolution, and war.'''

My sources: 1) http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O88-conflicttheory.html

2) http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Conflict_theory


 * My first source is from Gordon Marshall, who is a professor that became Vice-Chancellor in January 2003. Chief Executive of the Economic and Social Research Council until coming to Reading, Gordon Marshall was previously Official Fellow in Sociology at Nuffield College, Oxford. He is a distinguished researcher who has made important contributions to interdisciplinary and cross-national comparative work in the social sciences.
 * My second source is from the new world encyclopedia online which uses a Wikipedia style format but instead only expert users may make changes. The new world encyclopedia has high standards on any edits and users in which highly knowledgable individuals may add changes. This is a great way to get a good factual background in an area before research and may be included in research.

My second contribution: Social Movements in which the Marxist Theory was left out and due to Karl Marxx's infamous background I believe this theory should at least be mentioned. I was able to get the information off wsu.edu which is known for Social Sciences. Once again in bold is my addition courtesy of wsu.edu:

'''Marxist Theory Derived from Karl Marxx, Marxism as an ideology and theory of social change has had an immense impact on the practice and the analysis of social movements. Marxism arose from an analysis of movements structured by conflicts between industrial workers and their capitalist employers in the 19th century. In the twentieth century a variety of neo-Marxist theories have been developed that have opened themselves to adding questions of race, gender, environment, and other issues to an analysis centered in (shifting) political economic conditions. Class-based movements, both revolutionary and labor-reformist, have always been stronger in Europe than in the US and so has Marxist theory as a tool for understanding social movements but important Marxist movements and theories have also evolved in the US. Marxist approaches have been and remain influential ways of understanding the role of political economy and class differences as key forces in many historical and current social movements, and they continue to challenge approaches that are limited by their inability to imagine serious alternatives to consumer capitalist social structures.'''

My source: 1) http://www.wsu.edu/~amerstu/smc/glossary.html

My third & fourth contribution: Social Imagination page which I added two more examples of social imagination uses. Social Imagination can be difficult to grasp right away so I decided two more clear examples would help people understand social imagination right away. These are my contributions in bold:

'''Uses of Social Imagination in Sports As a baseball coach for a High School you notice that your players have increased there ability to hit the curveball, but remain to stuggle on hitting the fastball. As a coach your social imagination allows you to question why the poor performance on the fastball is present. Is it because you have been making your players practice the curveball too much? Is it an eye sight issue in which the players struggle to see the ball at a faster velocity? Is it because the players are nervous at the plate? Is it because the players swing has been thrown off from the cureveball? Do other teams know your team stuggles with the fastball to the point where they continue to throw it for strikes? Factors like this help the coach determine what actions can be done to change this force of behavior in his or her players to help them perform more efficiently at the plate. Social Imagination here allows the coach to analize the external or internal forces behind the actions of individuals in this case the players. In larger aspects, Professional Sports use statistics in which create social imaginations to arise. Statistics in sports play a large part in using are social imaginations to question from team performance to why a player may only be capable of hitting a single 25% of the time with a runner on third base. Things such as this help a social group like competitive teams accomplish goals and fix any problems. In social imagination in sports we look at the daily routines of the activity (in baseball you have hitting, fielding, base-running, and other plays) and look at them anew (why can we hit a ball?, why do we try and win the game?).[4]

'''Uses of Social Imagination in Daily Lives Consider the act of drinking a cup of coffee, first off coffee possesses symbolic value in that two people who arrange to meet for coffee are probably more interested in getting to know each other than that cup of coffee they are drinking, thus coffee is more than a beverage but a social interaction. Another way to look at drinking a cup of coffee as a means of social imagination is the fact that coffee contains caffeine in which is a drug that stimulates the brain. The trick here is that in some cultures caffeine is frowned upon where marijuana maybe acceptable, therefore making drinking coffee a socially unexceptable behavior. Sociologists question why these contrasts exist. A third social imaginative aspect of drinkiing coffee is in a social and economical relationship. Drinking coffee strecthes across the world and thus production, tranportation, and distribution worldwide brings people together both through trade and consumption. The social imagination of drinking coffee takes this common daily routine and looks at the social outcomes the action creates.'''

My source: Sociology 101 Textbook

1) Giddens, Duneier, et al. Introduction to Sociology. New York: Norton & Company,Inc.2007.Print