SOCY 1101 - Intro to Sociology Assignment #9: WANTED, The Life Style of a Fugitive

Goffman points out the need to study how young black men who are on probation experience their everyday lives in their neighborhoods. Explain the two terms the author suggests explaining how they organize their everyday lives.

After being arrested for the 1st time, young Black men live in a climate of fear. Even though released on probation, young Black men risk being sent back to prison for minor infractions such as missing curfew, drinking, or not paying fees. In a world of perfect order, they would behave as good citizens and avoid all possible infractions. However, most end up committing some sort of minor infraction. Their fallibility is genuine and quite understandable as they suddenly changed from having complete freedom in their lives to being regimented like school children. This also combines with their poverty as one of the main reason people place warrants for arrest is the person's inability to pay tickets, dues, fees, and other financial penalties. Thus, the low socioeconomic status combined with previous felonies places young Black men in a semilegal status where the smallest deviance could plummet them back into prison. This affects their friends and family as well since the experience of being wanted puts a strain on their relationship.

 

As a result, young Black men, even often utilize 2 main strategies when avoiding the police. One, avoid possibly dangerous interactions altogether. Two, cultivate unpredictability by changing schedules frequently. Both strategies isolate the individual and make holding down jobs and family extremely difficult. Both strategies also feed into the labeling theory of secondary deviance where young Black men on probation act like fugitives because of the label placed on them after leaving prison. Both leading to poor future outcomes with the young men unable to fully acclimate back into society.

SOCY 1101 - Intro to Sociology Assignment #8: For-profit Education and the Rise of Credentialism

What is the relation between the new economy and its focus on credentialism and the expansion of for-profit colleges in higher education?

The slow and insidious creeping of credentialism into today’s modern workforce has its roots in the failure of the traditional higher education establishment. Prior to the explosion of college degrees, higher education was rarely a necessity in the workforce. Many students could get solid, decent middle-class wage jobs directly from high school thanks to unionized industrial jobs. However, with the rise of college enrollments and the subsequent boom of higher education campuses across the 50 states, came an increasing demand for college-educated staff. This was tied with the transition from an industrial production economy to a service economy. It was the “golden age” of higher education, where a college degree was a ticket to nice middle-class work. Unfortunately, rising enrollment and college credentialism lead to an excess in the supply of degrees. Anything in oversupply quickly loses its value and the college degree soon became the equivalent of a useless participation trophy in the 21st century. This normalization of a college degree meant that employers no longer saw college graduates as a possible pool of specialized labor. College applicants became just one of many job applicants looking for jobs. It also spelled disaster for those without a college degree because it superficially lowered their worth. Even though an employee with only a high school education still had the skills for the job or the years of experience, they were placed beneath college graduates because of their lack of “academic credentials.”

 

As the college degree quickly lost its value, market forces and employers looked to other metrics to sort their pool of job applicants. These shifting metrics became the ever-growing list of must-dos for college students if they wished to be employed in their industry right after graduation. Items on this new list ranged from internships to volunteering. The problem with these ever-growing lists of “must-dos” was the inflexibility of the traditional college structure as well as a broad generalization of learning. Learning for learning’s sake was no longer the top order of business. Jobs and employment rather than education became the running issue. General programs of liberal arts and studies not geared for a specific profession lost out as they could offer no concrete benefits. This conundrum was especially severe for adults coming back for a college education as they came to education to build stronger foundations for their already tenuous careers. The result was the proliferation of private, for-profit colleges that appealed to the sentiment of education as workforce preparation. They were also bolstered by their ability to sidestep issues like low SAT scores and poor school preparation because they cared more about the profits rather than low retention scores. Thus, we enter the new economy of education for credentials with the hope of finding jobs using said credentials. Born from the decreasing value of traditional college education, and the plight of desperate returning adults, for-profit colleges capitalized on the collapse of the old economy.