Subculture: subculture is a cultural group within a culture that differs in one or more ways from the culture. This would include differences in interest, behaviors or beliefs, like religion, ethnicity, and social or economic status.

Examples of subcultures include bikers, Mormons, Trekkies and bodybuilders. Teen subcultures are referred to as cliques. Since the term refers to a smaller culture within a culture, all groups of people with similar interests, customs, beliefs, professions and backgrounds can belong to a subculture, according to It's possible to belong to more than one subculture. For example, a member of Alcoholics Anonymous who is also a body builder belongs to at least two subcultures. One subculture includes the AA organization and all the people who attend meetings and subscribe to the AA philosophy, and the second includes bodybuilding enthusiasts.

Bell Hooks & Her Books

Bell Hooks & Her Books

Bell Hooks is an American author, feminist and social activist. The context of her books focuses primarily on the interconnected nature of social categorisations such as race, capitalism and gender. Furthermore, she describes each and every ones ability to produce and perpetuate major systems of oppression and class domination. 

Cultural critic Hooks wrote 'Ain't I a Woman?' which examines the historical impact of sexism and racism on black women in particular. She expresses strong statements revealing the reality, being the constant devaluation of black women, portrayed in a bad light and the extreme marginalisation. The book is deeply critical of the racism inherent in the thought of multiple middle-class white feminists who have failed to address issues concerning race and class. She insists that the struggles to end racism and sexism are inextricably intertwined. 

Her book was influenced by African-American abolitionist and feminist Sojourner Truth, who delivered the empowering speech 'Ain't I A Women?' 

Globalization

Globalization

Globalization is the process by which the world is becoming increasingly interconnected as a result of massively increased trade and cultural exchange.
Although globalization has increased the production of goods and services and helped create more wealth in developing countries, it is not helping to close the gap between the world's poorest countries and the world's richest.
The role of less economically developed countries in the world market is mainly to provide the North and West with cheap labour and raw materials. This allows the richest countries to take full advantage and continue to dominate the world trade at the expense of developing countries. This is shown in 'The Globalization Tapes', a film made by union members from palm oil plantations in Indonesia to document their exploration of globalization and how unions around the world can support each other.

A particularly empowering quote from the documentary is:
"If are united in our struggle against worker oppression, united in our search for truth amidst lies, united for a truly participatory democratic economic system, the possibilities are only limited by our courage, our determination, and our capacity to imagine"

Link to the documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPy5t7BVYCg&list=PL82A7BE1E55D6B075&feature=player_embedded

Conformity

CONFORMITY

Conformity: The process of yielding to majority influence (a response to social influence). 

ASCH'S EXPERIMENT:

    

Asch proposed an experiment to find out whether people would conform to a majority's incorrect answer in an unambiguous task. 123 naive male undergraduates were tested individually with a group of 8 confederates. They judged line lengths by saying which comparison line matched the standard line. Asch discovered that when there were 2 confederates, conformity levels increased by 14%, furthermore when there were 3 confederates conformity rose to 32%. This reveals that as group size increased, the rate of conformity increased in correlation to this. Additionally, another controlled variable was unanimity - the presence of a fellow confederate dissenter - showed that conformity levels dropped to 20%, due to the confederate feeling a sense of social support. Overall, this suggests that normative social influence may have played a part in the study, as individuals conformed in order to be accepted by the overwhelming majority. 

DEUTSCH AND GERARD:

Deutsch and Gerard developed a two-process theory based on the two central human needs - the need to be liked , and the need to be right. Both theories, Informational social influence and normative social influence, give a reason as to why an individual may feel the need to conform in a situation. 

Informational social influence is a psychological phenomenon whereby people assume someone has the better information. This cognitive process may result in the individual accepting the majorities answer in order to be right. Studies and experiments by Lucas et al show that as ambiguity increased in the task, conformity increases, due to individuals perceiving themselves as less mathematically able compared to the group. Evidently, this shows that people are more likely to doubt themselves and assume others know better, especially in more difficult situations. This individual will conform for the sake of being right. 

Whereas normative social influence is an emotional process whereby an individual feels pressured to conform in order to be liked and accepted by a group. Asch's experiment demonstrate this theory, as individuals conformed by accepting the majorities answer, despite the task being straight forward. This was proven to be a result of the participants fearing rejection. 

However, this evidence cannot be accountable or a representation of all responses to NSI. The theory doesn't account for individual differences. Research by McGhee and Teevan shows that NSI does not affect everyone'es behaviour in the same way. They found that students high in need of affiliation were more likely to conform. These students have been categorised as nAffiliators. On the other hand, people who are less concerned about being liked are less affected by NSI. Overall, this shows that the desire to be liked underlies conformity for some people more than others. 

Furthermore, additional evaluation of the two-process theory suggests that both processes work together; instead of the initial approach being that 'behaviour is either due to NSI or ISI'. In Asch's study results shows that conformity reduced when there was another dissenting participant. The dissenter may reduce the power of NSI by providing the social support to the other naive participant. However the dissenter may also reduce ISI as they have now become an alternative source of information.