Joel Foley Journal #6

Questions:
1) I know a little about language because I have taken foreign language courses in high school and I have participated in two study abroad programs. This will help me because I am somewhat familiar with the foreign language program and how it is taught as well as the experience of traveling abroad.
2) I feel that our topic is a fairly easy one to gather information on considering VT has such a diverse population and you are always hearing different languages around campus. Finding out how second languages are important to VT students will be an interesting look into cultures unlike my own.
3) I want to know how VT's foreign language program affects students because I am actively trying to get into the Chinese program. Seeing what roles language and culture play on the college campus will be an interesting topic to look into.
4) We have touched on foreign language and foreign cultures in class but I have not learned anything new that I can put into a fieldwork study. Other than the fact that I should look at the field study from their perspective rather than mine to avoid as much culture bias as possible.
5) I believe that there are a lot of multicultural people on campus and we just don't realize it because they are assimilated into our culture so well.
6) All foreign exchange students at tech as well as students speaking, learning or affected by languages other than English are part of our topic.
7) Student at VT, Foreign, Bilingual, Study Abroad participants, Foreign language studies.
8)I belong to the VT students, study abroad participants and soon to be foreign language studies groups
9) I am part of the dominant culture because I was not raised with a second language and speak almost only English  I am part of a marginalized culture because I have studied abroad, and that group is far smaller. This could affect my research because it will be hard not to see multicultural students from a western perspective, regardless of my attention to biases.
10) I should keep in mind that not all people are interested in a foreign language because they are simply not studying it or do not have to. While others are either required to study it or are even majoring in a foreign language. This difference in passion about the subject will affect their answers just as peoples involvement in art could affect their beliefs on the importance of a arts education or major.

Eric Breedlove-Journal #6

As of now what I know about my fieldwork project is that there is a pretty large movement for cancer awareness, but it is unsure how successful it is at the moment.  I feel this is a good topic to do fieldwork in because cancer affects a lot of people and it is important to get the message out to as many people as possible.  I would like to know more detail on the programs that are set up to spread information around about cancer.  This topic affects me because there are a lot of people in my family that have gotten some kind of cancer, and through that process I have learned a decent amount about them and I think it's important that other people learn as well.  Unfortunately, I do not think that cancer awareness programs are very successful or as successful as they would like to be.  I think that there are a lot of people that still don't get it.  For example, I would go to relay for life near my home and it would be a huge event that a ton of people from my high school would go to.  However, it turned into just a different place to go hang out for a night and most of them did not really know much about cancer or how bad it affects people.  Any community is part of our topic because anyone can be affected by cancer, but for the purposes of our fieldwork we did decide to stick to Virginia Tech students.  The identity groups that I belong to are male, student, Christian, and American.  I am part of a dominant culture first because I am American and our entire country was built on being dominate and colonizing here.  When interviewing I need to make sure I do not show bias or include any of my own personal interests or thoughts.  Also I need to stick to more open ended questions than closed ended so that the interview will go smoother and be more natural like a conversation than an interview.  

Brian Crittenden Journal 6

Today’s Questions

1.     Since my inquiry essay topic is the same, I know quite a lot about procrastination. I know what it is, what causes it, how it affects people, how many people procrastinate, and how long it has been an issue throughout history.

2.     I feel that most college students procrastinate on some or all of their work. In addition, I feel like technology (i.e. social media, cell phones, TV) influences procrastination to a certain degree.

3.     I want to know how many people struggle with procrastination at Virginia Tech, and if technology has an affect on the level of procrastination.

4.     This topic affects me directly because I have been guilty of procrastinating homework from time to time. I know what procrastination feels like and I know how it affects me later on. Technology increases my procrastination at times.

5.     I assume that procrastination has a negative connotation associated with it. I believe that everyone has at some point in time procrastinated something.

6.     Students and some teachers at Virginia Tech are the subject of the fieldwork.

7.     Virginia Tech students and teachers, no specific gender or ethnicity, different majors (i.e. business, engineering, undecided)

8.     I belong to American, White, student, middle-class, young, male

9.     Group Dominant culture: in modern times, most young adults go to college because it is the “accepted” or “best” way to do things according to society. All of us are in college so we are in the dominant group.

Group Marginalized Culture: Our group contains diversity. Minorities are apart of the marginalized culture

My Dominant Culture: I am apart of the dominant college student culture. I am apart of the dominant ethnicity culture, dominant gender culture, and dominant class culture.

My Marginalized Culture: Looking at the whole world, the youth can be considered a ‘marginalized’ group. I am apart of the youth.   

10.  Things to keep in mind are to be objective while interviewing, record and present correct information, ask a wide variety of people, ask appropriate questions to obtain the best results, and listen to the interviewee.

Tony Jackson Journal #6

Tony Jackson

2/28/13

Today’s Questions:

1.       In regards to our fieldwork topic, I currently know that we will get a wide group of opinions from the large population of undergraduate, graduate, and faculty that we have access to at this large university.

2.       I think this topic is extremely relevant and important to me, my group, and the rest of the students that we will be interviewing and/or surveying because it pertains to our immediate future.

3.       I want to know what the general consensus is on how well students expect to be prepared for the workforce by their collegiate experiences and I also want to see the other side of the coin from the faculty that went through college and are now professionals.

4.       I interact with this topic daily because I am currently in college and am preparing to be on the doorstep of starting a professional career.

5.       I believe that college will give us the necessary requirements to be successful in the workplace. I think a research university such as this will set one up to be inquisitive, think on their feet, be self-help, and a problem solver.

6.       The Virginia Tech community of undergraduate, graduate, and faculty are all a part of the topic we are studying.

7.       Our subjects of study will can from upper, middle, and poor classes, any race, any cultural background, and either sex, simply because this is a diverse university and any opinion from a student or faculty member would aid our research in helping us finding the truth.

8.       I belong to the middle-class, African American, and male identity groups.

9.       The dominant culture here as far as students go would be the white population and the males because those groups make up the majority of this campus. The marginalized groups would be the minorities and the females because they are less represented than their counterparts at this university. I am a part of the dominant culture because I am a male, but am a part of the marginalized culture because I am African American. I think being a part of both groups in some way will give me the advantage of seeing both sides of the fence and being able to rationalize with both.

10.   I think identity group membership should be kept in mind when interviewing and surveying because people that are from different backgrounds, from different “social classes”, and are pursuing/have pursued different careers will have fluctuating perspectives for a what collegiate experience yields in translation to their respective fields.

Haleigh Hutcheson Journal #6

Actual Cancer Awareness in College Students and its Correlation to Cancer Awareness Education Programs

  This fieldwork topic is about cancer awareness, and whether or not people’s awareness of cancer-related programs correlate with the person’s actual awareness. I already know a fair amount of information about this topic as it is also related to the subject of my inquiry essay. I am aware of general cancer statistics, as well as how many people are affected by cancer in the United States, and this fieldwork project will be very useful in helping me understand how many people are actually aware of the dangers of cancer. I still want to know more about my topic, specifically in regards to what programs are out there, and which ones have been most beneficial to the communities’ awareness. I have been affected by cancer greatly over the course of my life; between losing grandparents to cancer and watching friends experience it, it has always been around me. I know a lot of people who are not really aware of how much cancer affects people, so looking to see the actual statistics involved and which programs create most of the awareness will be extremely interesting to me. 

  For this project, I will be assuming that a lot of people will be aware of the cancer related programs; however, I feel that despite this general awareness, people will still be missing the actual knowledge about how dangerous cancer is. I assume that the results will show that a lot of people recognize that cancer is dangerous, but not many of them will be able to truly be considered ‘aware’ of the real dangers. Since cancer is such a widespread disease, I believe that this will affect anyone in the world; however, for our survey, we will be looking at college students in Virginia Tech. The current college students were one of the first generations to actually begin gaining cancer awareness, and not many generations before them were aware of the dangers. Because of that, we want to look at that specific age group to see how much they naturally know. It seems that most people are diagnosed with cancer when they are older, or after college, so we want to see how aware people are of cancer at the age before they are likely to get it. We will be looking at males and females, approximately ages 17-24, who are students at Virginia Tech. We will not be looking at specific cultures or ethnicity. 

  If I were to place myself in an identity groups, I would say I am an American Caucasian 18-year-old female, able-bodied. I could be placed in a group for private school children, as I have been in a private school for my whole life before coming to Virginia Tech. I could be classified from the Northern Virginia area. I can be classified by the fact that I work multiple jobs while attending school and that I am double majoring in  Psychology and Human Development on a Pre-Med tract, which is a ‘marginalized’ culture. There are several other classifications that I could also be placed under, if needed. 

  For this project, our group will be looking at the dominant culture in that we are not looking for anything specific other than age and student-status. We are not quite looking at a ‘marginalized’ culture, except the fact that we will be focusing only on Virginia Tech students. I can be placed in the ‘dominant’ culture because I not considered a minority and for the most part, I am similar to the general description of a lot of people in the United States. I am ‘marginalized’ in that I have been in a private school for my whole life. I am from Northern Virginia, and my major/school goal could be considered a ‘marginalized’ culture, as well as the fact that I am a working student. 

  While we are interviewing and surveying people, we must keep several things in mind. We must make sure that none of the questions are ‘leading questions’ in that they force the survey-taker/interviewee to give a specific answer simply because that is what we want. We also must make sure that they surveys can give us enough information to make sure that we are able to accurately show our findings. For the interviews, we have to make sure that we act as good listeners and make sure that the interviewees are comfortable in giving information to us. We have to coordinate these interviews and get in contact with those that we interview, and the same goes for the surveys. We have to make sure that all our questions are not offensive and well thought out. 

Carrie Ortel- Journal #6

As of right now, I don’t know much about my fieldwork topic. My group decided on cancer awareness and how effective the awareness projects we have been exposed to are.  Growing up, we were all surrounded by Race for the Cure and Relay for Life, along with D.A.R.E. and Just Say No, but I am curious how having those constant reminders around us really changed our everyday choices now.  I personally don’t have anybody close to me with cancer, and as fortunate as I am to say that, I know that this lowers my awareness about cancer.  I am very curious how aware people around me are to cancer, and what made them that way.  Throughout my entire life I have interacted with the topic of cancer awareness, but I want to know if that makes me more aware than others, or if I am ignorant of the disease and don’t even know it.  I believe that as part of the first generation to have had classes about healthy choices and had so many events all around me, that my generation is probably more aware than the one before us at our age.  This also makes me hope that the trend will continue and the next generation will be even more aware than we are. 

The college community will be the group used in our study because we want to see if the D.A.R.E. and Just Say No Classes had an effect on us, or if the constant news reports and events affected us.  Something that we will need to keep in mind is that the college community here at Virginia Tech is more educated than the average person, and therefore might be more aware.  Some identity group that we could use are year in school (freshman, sophomore…), gender, race, age, hometown, and college major. 

We could be part of a dominate culture, because we are so aware, and have been educated.  In a way our study will be measuring how dominate or marginalized our culture is, because if we are ignorant of cancer, such an important topic, than it is clear our society needs to educate more.  I would consider myself part of a dominate culture, pursuing a higher education and experiencing many new opportunities.  

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Joel Foley, Journal #3

From my first read I learned that learning a foreign language is an essential part of future globalization. The article said that the notion that English is the universal language is nothing more than a fairy tale. Sure it may be common in airports and business, but if you find yourself away from those settings in a country that doesn't use your native language then you are out of luck. It also pointed out how learning a first foreign language opens up the pathways in your brain to learning a second or even a third with relative ease. This is why children raised in a multilingual household are more able to readily take on a third language to their first two. I feel that my topic has been solidified by reading this source, it is now a tangible report that I will be able to do and not just some idea I cooked up on a piece of paper. This source reinforced my belief that learning a second language is important in today’s world. This source brought up the question of whether or not the government will realize this need for language and stop cutting funds from school programs dedicated to foreign language. This information strengthened my own views on the issue because I felt that the government should not discourage linguistics in schools because it will most certainly hurt us in the long run. The author speaks from the academic point of view and almost certainly is biased towards their side of the issue. I could easily go into detail with future sources about how the government’s cuts are affecting the language programs and how this has affected me and my learning.

http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2011/pr-second-language-berman-050611.html

From my second article I learned that there are more students in china learning English as a second language than there are total students in the United States. This highlights two things; one how vastly outnumbered the number of English speakers in the world are, and two how far behind the rest of the world the united states is with regards to education and language learning. I learned that language and culture are going to be part of the global economy for the next century and that the rest of the world is striving to learn English quickly in order to do business, meanwhile we are doing nothing and hoping that English becomes the dominant language. Completely disregarding the other cultures and assuming they will have no effect on the United States in the coming future. Businesses are looking for people who can communicate with clients directly and create a bond not formed through an interpreter with them. These skills are shown as the most important in the coming years and raised questions about the education standards in the western world which is vastly outnumbered by the speakers of the rest of the planet. This article is biased towards the side of global education and the author is involved with many language organizations leading me to believe that he is both credible yet heavily biased at the same time. I am noticing a very obvious trend in the world of education and business towards increased leaning in language and culture. This trend should be followed by the academic system of the united states if we want to remain competitive in the near future of business.

http://www.bizjournals.com/triad/stories/2005/08/29/editorial2.html?page=all

Kevin Stefanye Journal #3

            My first source was extremely informative. It talked about the definition of procrastination, the history, why people do it, how many people do it, and many more things. I think that finding out why people procrastinate is actually an interesting process because I can see a lot of myself in this study. It talks about what goes through people’s mind when they give themselves excuses to do the work later, and to be honest, a lot of what they are saying goes through my mind as well. This source actually brought up a lot of aspects of procrastination that I would not have thought of, such as organization, mood, and gender. These new topics will strengthen my argument by giving me extra talking points and factual information to support my argument. As this is a scholarly source, the author speaks from experience, as the author has extensively researched procrastination, the motives for procrastination, the effects of procrastination, and the people who procrastinate. The author is speaking for himself, I suppose. The author has done an incredible amount of research, and clearly knows every detail about what he has studied, but the author cannot speak for everybody, because perhaps others have contradicting research, and his sample size is not large enough to speak for an entire population. His audience would be anybody who is looking for an extensive account on procrastination. The audience would also have to have some previous knowledge about procrastination, and would likely need at least a high school education to be able to finish the article and comprehend its contents. The author may have a bias in that he does not procrastinate, therefore it is difficult for him to really get inside a procrastinator’s head and tell what they are thinking. I am seeing a trend in age, as young people with less responsibility tend to procrastinate more than older people with a larger consequence in waiting should they fail to complete their work. I think I may be able to delve deeper in that last idea, because I’m thinking that procrastination may be correlated with maturity, especially brain development.

            My second article focused more on student procrastination than the previous one, which did talk about students, but also went on to broader topics that included more than just students. I thought the last one pertained to me, but this one was even more so relevant to my life. I can see how a lot of the key ideas in this article were familiar to my own thought process. This source talked more about the brain process, and the motivation behind procrastination, and also provided some case studies. It made me think about what really goes on in our brain to tell us to do that, and how much of procrastination is from the way we are raised versus the electrical impulses in our brain telling us to do things later. This new information strengthens my topic by giving me a new insight as to why people procrastinate, by talking about the workings of the cognitive brain and how the tiniest things that go on inside of our brains have a massive effect on what we do. The author speaks from the point of view of a psychology professor at the University of Houston, so he is truly an expert on the topic. I think this source has the same exact audience as my previous source. It is a scholarly journal, so this would be directed at somebody who wanted an in depth article about procrastination. The only difference is that this source was more focused on student procrastination rather than general procrastination, so perhaps this source would be more helpful to young students than it would be to adults who procrastinate in the working world.  The audience would have to have at least a high school education to understand some of the terminology of this article,  as well as to get through the whole thing, as it is lengthy. There does not seem to be much bias, but one possible bias would be that since he works with the inner workings of the brain every day, he may think that it plays a larger role in procrastination than it really does. This source has a lot of the same points as the last source, and I am starting to see a lot of common factors that many professionals can agree on. I think I can focus my argument even more on the brain, and how the occurrences inside the certain lobes have a crucial effect on what really goes on inside the conscious brain.

Jake Bustamante Journal #3

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/110862/data-mining-the-ineffective-future-affirmative-action-in-education#

The first source I found was interesting in that it looked at Affirmative Action through a technological standpoint. The debate whether to end Affirmative Action has been going on for the majority of our lives and many courts have banned racial preferences for students going to universities. After the university of Texas and the University of California were unable to get enough diversity through alternative means, a new plan was a adopted called data mining. Advertisements companies use data mining to calculate the potential socioeconomic status of a resident living in a certain area. The more data collected, the more a company will know about one's socioeconomic status and race. I learned that the College Board adopted this technique to search for potential students using algorithms from a program called Descriptor Plus, giving colleges the edge in searching for diversity. The program takes "clusters" of neighborhoods that encompass certain groups and gives them priority without relying solely on race. This is because there is a factor of misrepresented students that is taken into account.

http://aer.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/01/14/0002831212470483.abstract

In this article, I learned that when Affirmative Action is withdrawn, not only does the diversity of undergraduate students decrease, but the graduate students population's diversity dwindles as well. Some of the most important fields are being affected in this lack of diversity, making the United States unable to "compete effectively in a global market". The studies that are suffering the most from this change are engineering, the natural sciences, and social sciences, three critical areas of study where jobs are competitive after one finishes their academic career. I also learned that there is currently a court case in process called Fisher v. University of Texas, Austin in which the Supreme Court will debate whether race should be a factor in a student's acceptance to an institution of higher learning. Also, eight states have banned the use of Affirmative Action, even though legally, it is allowed to be practices, albeit under strict guidelines.

Mickenzi Schank Journal #3

Giulianotti, Richard, and Roland Robertson. "The Globalization of Football: A Study in the Glocalization of the ‘Serious Life’." The British Journal of Sociology 55.4 (2004): 545-68. Print. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.lib.vt.edu:8080/doi/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2004.00037.x/full

I learned several new things after reading this article such as the fact that since soccer (football) is such a widespread sport that it is sometimes used as a baseline in some sociological studies and analyses, especially pertaining to globalization.  I also learned that the widespread popularity of soccer was not only a result of globalization, but also is a reciprocator of this process.  Finally I learned about the phenomena of “glocalization” which is essentially the bridge between globalization and local communities, where local communities pick and choose which general ideas and practices best apply to the particular community and then adapt these ideas and practices to best fit their needs and wants.  This article definitely reinforced many of my views about how widespread soccer is in the world and how it involved in with a large percentage of the world population.  But I was surprised how complex and intricate this involvement is; whether it is economics, culture, recreation, ect.,the interaction depends on so many things that outcomes are not uniform globally or even locally for that matter.  I do not think that this article has challenged my topic rather it has it has challenged my preconception of what I would find, because I figured that if soccer rose to popularity that it has in Europe the soccer would play a similar role in American culture, but according to this article, the correlation of cultural impact is linked to much more than popularity.  This has given me more to explore because I have more root causes to look for.  The authors are speaking from an informative and objective point of view.  I believe that his intended audience is for people who plan on doing sociological research about globalization and culture because they provide a new perspective to globalization through soccer.  Also there is the use of the word glocalization which, apparently, is well known in the field of global sociology.  One bias that I noted was that the article chose globalization as the key reason that soccer has been spread throughout the world, but places like central Africa where there is minimal use of cell phones, computers, the internet or the things normally associated with globalization, yet soccer is very popular in Africa so other reason must be used to explain this fact.

Carter, Kelly. "A New World Order on the Soccer Field." Emerge 1996: 72-72. Print.

http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.lib.vt.edu:8080/docview/230831650#

I learned that race played a very different role in soccer before I started playing.  This article was published in 1996, just before I started playing.  The article focuses on displaying the great leaps and bounds that soccer in America has taken to be fair to all races.  I never experienced this issue or felt race was a means for exclusion in my soccer career.  But apparently if I had grown up playing in the 1970’s things would have been much different.  This raises the question what else has soccer done as a sport to not only to be diverse but to promote equality.  This article reinforced my views about soccer as a progressive sport and its ability to be a platform of equality.  The author speaks from a point of view that seen the progress of soccer to become racially indifferent and she thinks highly of this progress.  Whereas I had never given it much thought because I experienced this issue first hand.  This article is intended for a much more broad audience than the other article.  This one is much shorter, it uses quotes from well-known players, it does not include technical terms and it is not structured like a research paper.  In the indexing detail the journal subject is tagged under general interest periodicals.  A bias that this article could have is that it only focuses on top level soccer in the U.S. for example the men’s and women’s national team, L.A. Galaxy a MLS (Major League Soccer) team and the Cosmos (another MLS team).  It does not address the youth and high school programs which are a large part of soccer in America.  I am considering looking into the history of soccer in the U.S. to see what other information I can discover.

Brandon Kang Journal #3

Brandon Kang Journal 3

                The first source elaborated on what critical period is considered in psychology and what is expected to happen during critical period. It has been found that kids have been more successful than adults in learning a new language. The lack of teaching the language at the age could be an underlying factor, but an experiment showed that deaf kids that got hearing devices at age two learned a language faster, then the kids at age four. After reading this article, I feel that there is a greater chance the correlation between learning at language is easier at younger age is easier, whether it’s the extra attention parents pay to their kids at their young age or whether a critical period of learning actually exist. This article explains to any curious reader what a critical period, and its correlation to language acquisition. This article also explains some theories and hypotheses about the critical period. This article was written to inform how and when people learn the best. When reading the second source, I found that it agreed with the idea that the older a person gets older, then harder it is for that person to learn a new language. Although correlation does not mean causation, the correlation between age and learning allows us to consider the critical period as a viable reason for difficulty of learning a new language, while considering other options, such as parenting, location, or language difficulty. This article is unbiased, so it appeals to both sides of an argument. The article also states that older kids learn syntax and morphology quicker, then little kids. This statement can disprove the critical period theory or be explained as a person having different critical periods for different types of learning. I feel that this article is more appealing to someone who doesn’t know what critical period or a person debating on what theory is correct.

https://www.boundless.com/psychology/language/theories-language-development/examining-critical-periods-and-statistical-learning/

https://www.boundless.com/psychology/language/theories-language-development/examining-critical-periods-and-statistical-learning/

Sofia Gasperino Journal #3

I learned that a large percentage of people polled thought that diversity education is necessary. I learned that many firms have training on diversity issues. Women are more likely than men to see the positive side of diversity. This is probably because women understand what it feels like to be in the minority or treated like it. However, men don’t have more negative views towards diversity than women do. There are many positive aspects to diversity in the workplace but there are also many negative aspects. I learned that the diversity training they received wore off after about a year. I think that diversity training is less impactful than forming relations with people of different cultures on a more personal level because you are learning to respect the differences but you might not understand exactly why they are different. However, not everyone is interested in doing this. For those people, a mandatory diversity training class might be the only way to help people work together. It challenges my view because it brings up the fact that there are some negative aspects to diversity in the workforce. The author is reporting the procedures and results of his study. I think his audience might be corporations who are thinking about implementing a diversity-training course for their employees and how to go about it. I want to expand my inquiry past diversity in the workforce.

The Effects of a Diversity Learning Experience on Positive and Negative Diversity Perceptions

Todd J. Hostager and Kenneth P. De Meuse

Journal of Business and Psychology , Vol. 23, No. 3/4 (Dec., 2008), pp. 127-139

I learned that the majority could sometimes feel misrepresented, dismissed, or even left out. I still feel that it is important to learn about other cultures. This new information makes me more sensitive to the way people in the majority may feel. I also understand why they would not want to study literature only about other cultures. I think that people can be afraid or uninterested in things that are different from them and so they would be more comfortable reading literature based on their own culture because they can relate to it better. I did not develop any new questions about my topic after reading this. This information strengthened my views on my topic because it reinforced the idea of coming out of your comfort zone and opening your mind to new things. Not everything or everyone you come across in life is going to be familiar to you. The author is speaking from the point of view of a teacher and third party in the conflict. She is speaking for teachers who have students that struggle with the culturally diverse literature they give them.  The bias she may have might come from the nature of being a teacher. By this, I mean that teachers are supposed to be well educated and knowledgeable about the world. Also, many literature pieces are from another time period or culture and so naturally they are learning about these other cultures. I want to delve further into why many people are uncomfortable in learning about other cultures. 

Carol G Nelson - The English Journal