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Allison Collins

Dr. Miller

Sociology 115

2 May 2014

Sociological Autobiography

When thinking about anyone's given story it is impossible to consider the person and

their experiences as solely theirs. No one exists and acts completely on their own accord. People

are greatly influenced by many external factors that aeffect how an individual is socialized. This

socialization primarily occurs during the formative years of childhood and adolescence but in

reality, we continue to be shaped by external factors throughout the whole course of our lives.

We are most notably shaped by family, friends, peer groups, and society as a whole. I have seen

these factors shape my own story and the course that my life has taken. My family, peers, and

society have shaped the way I view and am influenced by race, class, and gender and my

understanding of myself in relation to these is interwoven with my life story.

I was born on March 27, 1995 in a suburban town called Beverly located about thirty

minutes north of Boston, Massachusetts. Living in the northern suburbs I was mostly surrounded

by lots of people who were racially very similar to myself. My community is mostly white with

a few minorities sprinkled in here and there. I have always found myself as a part of the majority

culture and so, true to form, have not been frequently been confronted with issues of race. Being

a part of this majority has given me what sociologists have termed white privilege. Because this

is something that has always been a part of my life, I did not see its effects but when compared

with the experiences of those who do not fall under this category, it becomes very clear. I do not
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experience being more closely watched when in stores, passed over for consideration of a given

position, or seen as a threat based off the color of my skin.

Race is a socially constructed notion. Those around us teach that we should identify

based on the physical features that characterize a group of people. Only because we are

conditioned to think in this way does race hold a bearing over us. When I was in the lower

grades of elementary school I always thought it was best to stand out, one up, and be different

from my peers. I had the notion that it was cooler to be of a minority then to be like everyone

else and for this reason I was always jealous of friends and peers whose heritage was either from

countries that I considered to be unique. For reasons I cannot recall, it was common practice to

discuss where our families came from and in my mind it was always better to have more

countries to claim.

From a fairly young age we were always taught about discrimination and the civil rights

movement in school. In first grade this meant reading a picture book about Rosa Parks and

listening to a guest speaker share about how Martin Luther King Day was important to her as an

African American. I remember listening to the woman (who was the mother of one of my class

mates) share about who King was and how he had impacted her and feeling guilty for being of

the majority. I also felt a strange sense of jealousy that they had a story to tell in which they over

came hardships and prevailed. In retrospect I was likely also just jealous that they did not have

anything to be guilty about. American culture creates this guilt of a striving for equality. If

inequality is recognized then blame must be assigned and being on the higher end of the bargain

I felt guilty that they had to endure hardships while I lived an easy life.

Growing up I attended a very small Cchristian school. The size of each grade ranged
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from about 5-12. This did not leave a lot of room for racial diversity and because of this my

exposure to people of other races through elementary and middle school was rather limited. For

high school I enrolled at the public high school in my town which opened me up to a greater

diversity then before but still limited. One interesting thing about race that I noticed in high

school was that people of different races tend to befriend others with whom they can identify

with . This often results in racially segregated groups of friends. Once this grouping has

occurred, it becomes easy to label such groups as a certain race which helps facilitate stereotypes

by generalizing them and stripping them of their individuality.

The racial demographic of my neighborhood, school, and church was always very

limited. Just like me, most of the people I interacted with were white. One of the first times that I

was put into a situation where I was the minority was on missions trips that I took in high school

to the inner cities of Philadelphia and Washington D.C. There the majority race was African

American. Turning the tables like that allowed me to see just a glimpse of what it was like to be

on the other side of the spectrum. On these trips, though, I still had my team members which

diminished the feeling of alienation. As recently as a month ago I had another experience where

I was blatantly out of place and in the minority. This time though I was by myself and I even

more so felt that I was out of place. For my communication and diversity class I attended a

sSunday service at an African American church. The people were incredible warm and

welcoming but I still felt uncomfortable because I felt different from them. By my perception

everyone knew that I did not belong there and was out of my element. There was also a level of

personal interaction that was very unfamiliar compared to the anonymous worship services that I

am used to. These represent cultural differences between them and I. They are not differences
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that are inherent due to the fact that we are of different races but instead they learned. They

steam from differences in our socialization that have developed out of the socially constructed

distinction that we call race.

Until very recently I was of the mind that racism would finally be defeated and pure

equality finally achieved when we no longer saw a person's color. For example, when Barack

Obama was elected President in 2008 I was annoyed by how much the press focused on the fact

that he was America's first black president and the progress that was shown through that. The

way I saw it, progress was not truly being made because they were so concerned with the fact

that he was black and that a true mark of progress would be when the media said nothing about

the skin color of the President elect. I have since beguan to develop a different ideology

pertaining to this subject. While no one should be discriminated against due to their race, race

needs to be acknowledged. Where people come from is a huge part of their identity and

individuality. It was not until very recently that I discovered that the correct term for this is

color-blind racism and that it is in fact a form of discrimination and racism. My place within the

majority culture allowed me think that color-blindness was the correct solution because I do not

witness any inequalities first hand. Because inequality exists by negating racial differences the

blames for of inequalities falls unjustly on the individual (Divided by Faith 69). Though I am

thankful that I have not had to feel the effects of this myself I am working to develop a changed

thinking and sympathy for those who have.

Socio-economic class also has played a part in the development of my story. I am a part

of a middle class family. We have always middle class but have moved around within the middle

class. From an early age it was understood that class was not an acceptable topic of conversation.
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When I was young my family was closer to upper middle-class. My three siblings and I went to

private school and there was an expectation that we would go away on vacations. Much of my

social circle came from my school community which meant that many of them were in the same

socio-economic class situation. As I got older things began to change. My father worked as a

mortgage officer at a local bank but as the housing market began to decline so did our family's

income. My dad switched banks several times though the course of my adolescence sometimes

with a period of lay-off in between. Money got tighter and I began to understand the impact of

economic class. Despite our decline in economic class we did not change social context largely

because my parents kept us in the same school. With the help of some impression management it

was assumed that there was no change in our situation. My father has always been very image

conscious. Regardless of what was actually going on he was always more concerned with what it

looked like was going on. Therefore employing impression management was nothing new. We

did not cut back on anything especially visible. We still bought the same brands and went to the

same school so that all appeared well while the struggle existed under the surface.

In the process of ensuring that this assumption was maintained, stress was added to home

life. Even when my dad got new found new positions and banks to work at he was still not

making anywhere close to what he had been before. To make up some of the difference, my

mother began to take on a larger case load in the clinical social work practice. She took on

clients from the public as well as private practices and even got a job working in retail. These

circumstances taught me to be very money conscious. I realized that there were many things that

could be cut back on that made little to no effect on my level of enjoyment in life. Our society

over values not only comfort but also excess and convenience which can be done without.
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Our family no longer went on vacations of any kind and there developed a new

expectation that I contribute financially to my own expenses. Through these changes it became

increasing clear to me that the majority of my friends were of a higher economic class then me. I

began to find that my friends were not as aware of money as I was or were not aware of it at all.

In order to go to camp every summer I had to pay for a portion of the cost and earn any spending

money that I would want while I was there. The girls who I went with on the other hand were

not even conscious of how much the camp cost and were given money from their parents to

spend. In response I was proud, but also annoyed. I took pride in the fact that I had worked for

my money and was able to contribute to financially to my activities but I was also annoyed that

my friends did not even have to think about their spending because their parents supplied them

with whatever they wanted. While they went on shopping sprees in the camp store I was always

careful to spend as little as possible and kept a record of everything I spent money on.

We live in a society of competition. Everyone is always striving to be on the top. For this

reason it was shameful to step down a socio-economic class. Sociologist Max Weber suggested

that income, wealth, and control of the means of production are not the only factors to

determining social class but status also plays a key role (Introduction to Sociology 261). While

as a family our income had decreased bumping us down in the scale of class through a deliberate

maintenance of status we were able to stay put as far as socio-economic class.

Just like white privilege goes unnoticed by the white majority, lower economic class

goes unnoticed by those of upper classes. It is like the saying you don't know what you have

until it is gone those who have the privileged position do not recognize it. Those who are

frequently confronted with class are those who get the bottom half of the inequalities. This is
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also completely relative to ones reference group since my reference group is always of a higher

class then mine I can discern differences in our situations. If the tables were turned and I was

using a reference group of a lower class then by comparison I would not recognize the inequality

because I would be on the high ground of the situation.

Even in going off to college I have come to realize that nearly all of the friends I have

made here are of a higher economic class than myself and my family and me. Part of this can

undoubtedly be attributed to my meeting these people because we all attend an expensive private

college and therefore many of the people here are of upper middle or upper class. This

generalization does not cover all of the students who attend her because there is the provision of

scholarship and financial aid. While I receive need-based financial aid I was surprised to find

that many of my friends do not qualify. I have been so conditioned by my family to present and

manage a mimicry of upper-middle class life that I have bought into the assumed label myself.

This assumed label is what I attribute my pattern of making friends up the class scale from me

to.

Gender has also contributed greatly to my story and how I relate to society. I am the

youngest of four children. So I grew up along side two older brothers and a then tomboy older

sister. My dad also has a more traditional view of gender roles meaning he felt he deserved to be

the final authority on everything in our household regardless of his qualifications on the subject.

He strongly believed that he was the head of the household and had a right to exercise that

position. My father's patriarchal view on family life as well as the influence of my older siblings

taught me to see a right and a wrong in engendered differences. I grew up thinking that it was

okay to be a girl but not to be girly. This meant that toughness was imperative, emotions were
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to be kept reined in, and crying was a sure sign of weakness and a cause for shame. Crying was

generally met with my brother telling me not be a wimp, or stop trying to get attention or my

father would tell me to stop feeling sorry for myself. For this reason I still hate crying to this day

and perceive it as an embarrassment and weakness.

Growing up, my brothers did not necessarily get along so the younger of my two brothers

always made me do the activities that he wanted to do. This meant that I spent a lot of my time

playing crab soccer in the basement, games of horse on the driveway, and football in the

backyard. Most of the things that we did in our family were societally labeled male activities.

Our Saturdays were spentd running from one sporting event to the next and on Sundays I always

watched the Patriots game with my dad. In my perception it was more socially acceptable to

emulate male type mentalities and activities because they were the dominant and gender. There

was even a period of my life when my sister and I refused to wear dresses and both of our

wardrobes consisted mostly of soccer shorts and t-shirts. Instead of acknowledging the

differences that exist between the genders and embracing them I developed an attitude of

resistance toward the notion.

This notion was reinforced by several factors or instances in my life. For example, when

I was in youth soccer the kindergarten age group was coed. One of the boys on the team made a

comment to his mother who in turn told me mother who eventually told me that I was good for

a girl. While this comment conjured up a sort of back-handed sense of pride it was just that,

back-handed. In making this comment the boy implied that because I was a girl I could not

achieve as high and was only held to stunted standards. In a sense to be male in society puts you

in the in-group and while being female put you in the out-group and I unfortunately fell (by no
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fault of my own) into the out-group. Society makes jokes about a women's place being in the

home and jokes about women's sports. In my experiences women have always been patronized

and our achievements belittled.

This is very clear in corporate America today. Men are typically in the highest ranking

position and hold the most authority. It is much harder for a woman to rise up the ranks in the

corporate world partly due to constructed notions of women's abilities and nature. Historically

males have always held a higher place in society than women. This datesDating all the way back

to the beginning of time when God placed man/humans? in charge of his creation. As I attempt

to view the world through a Christian lens and shape myself accordingly it becomes difficult at

times to sort what aspects of gender roles are due to discrimination and inequalities and what is

by God's design. The church is a significant institution in shaping my views and writing my

story. Looking at the views that it generally holds and deciding where I stand along side those

issues aeffects everything that I do.

How society and my family have modeled and defined race, class, and gender hashave

had a great impact on how my life story has been written. They have shaped my definitions of

what it means to be white, middle-class, and a female. How I have learned to define these

identity markers and how I perceive expectations pertaining to these have everything to do with

how I was socialized within my family and the social culture of the American northeast. My

beliefs, personal expectations, and actions reflect this directly. No one is above society. Everyone

is profoundly influenced by social forces and societal expectations whether they are able to see

them at work or not. Outside forces shape and form us and in turn we react to them. This tug and

pull always us to see how the individual and society work together. In light of this it is clear that
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no one's story is solely theirre own.

SOCIOLOGICAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY RUBRIC

Name: Allison Collins
Sociological Content (25 Points)
Race 1-6 5 a good start with what it means to be white, could go further: why were you
generally in these mostly white settings?
Class 1-6 6 good discussion of class including status and reference groups
Gender1-6 5 good connection between your fellow soccer players comment and social
structures, say more about broader expectations in American society for men and women
Other areas of social influence 1-3 1.5 some mention of family/faith/Northeast
culture but could do more with these influential factors race/class/gender arent the only
factors involved
Structural (vs individualistic emphasis) 1-2 2 good connections to broader society
Creativity/engagement/complexity 1-2 2 nice job weaving together your
experiences and sociological analysis
Form/writing (10 Points)
Clear/understandable/grammar 1-3 2 some proofreading things to clean up throughout
Introduction/strong thesis 1-3 3 introduces a more structural approach to
understanding people and presents a clear thesis
Conclusion 1-2 2 good summary with some interesting statements
Transitions b/w paragraphs 1-2 2 okay but could be more engaging
TOTAL: __30.5__ out of 35
Comments: This analysis is off to a very good start as you analyze your experiences in light of
sociological concepts and theories. Still, there are some areas for improvement where you could
develop your ideas even further and comprehensively analyze your story.