Isela Pena

Professor Doutherd
English 5M
13 November 2017
Difference with Social Science
Part 1:
Students taking a sociology course study human behavior, cultures, and society. This is a
course that I took and was required to study a specific social group. For this assignment I decided
to study the culture of gangs and had to determine if it was a subculture or counterculture. To do
this assignment I was required to interview someone and collect data on my own.
In this essay, I discussed such things as the culture of gangs; their symbols, language,
values, norms, and sanctions. It further discusses how and why gangs are formed. I wrote this
essay to explain and show the audience that gangs are part of a subculture whose purpose is not
going against society, but tend to do things that are against the law. Furthermore, this essay also
focuses on gangs habits and how they differ to society. In this writing, I interviewed a friend to
help the audience further understand the culture of gangs. Therefore, the exigence of Culture of
Gangs is to understand gang members culture and how it influences their behavior. To
understand the culture of gangs, the audience (teacher) must consider the social context of gang
members and how it influences their social groups to form. The purpose of this essay was to
inform the audience and prove how gangs are part of subculture. What gave rise to the context is
that the person I interviewed lives in a place where people consider dangerous. She has heard
many stories about gang relationships from others but has never actually spoken to someone who
was in a gang. If she had spoken to someone who was in a gang, the information given to me
could have been more credible. Doing this essay allowed me to learn more about a social group
and see a different view about gangs.
The audience's opinions on gangs can have an impact on how they accept this writing.
This can be a constraint to the writer because the audience may have different opinions to the
writer or the person I interviewed. Our society has different opinions on gangs that is influenced
by personal experience or if they are a gang members themselves. Another limitation in the
writing, is that the information given is all based on the interviewee's opinions. In the essay
Culture of Gangs, it only has the intervewees knowledge about gangs and didn't use any
credible sources for my data. I only had an outsider's view of gangs and was trying to explain the
culture and reason why people join and behave the way they do. There are no reliable sources
used to back up this essay and causes it to lose credibility.
Doing this essay allowed me to understand more about a social group in our society. I
was able to do this by interviewing a friend and allowed me to see a different perspective than
my own. It allowed me to see possible reasons why they form and understand more about their
culture.
Part 2:
Child Development is in the department of Social Sciences with Education at Sacramento
State University. Social Science focuses on the study of society by developing theories and
studying humans behavior. It is important for students considering this major to know the
expectation in writings to be successful throughout their career. Knowing the writing
expectations for any major is important for the student to know and will allow them to get help if
needed.
 According to Writing and Researching in the Social Sciences from the CSUS
Handbook Reading, there are certain types of writings that students will face; such as interviews,
case studies, ethnographies, and research reports. Researching is something very important for
this field because data collection is a big part in social science. With data, people are able to
expand and explain why things are the way they are, and helps create theories. For example, in
child development students are often times asked to analyze people's behaviors since they focus
on the development of children, how the environment affects them, how people learn, how their
minds work, and child behavior.
In addition, students are expected to write with a purpose, share, and challenge theories.
They need to be able to read and determine the argument when reading, or create an argument
when writing. The exigence in writing in the field of social science is collecting data and
studying human behavior. It is important for students to be good at analyzing and reflecting on
data since many careers in this field require understanding human behavior, and how their
surrounding created the person they become. The context used in this field is social context that
influences people's perspectives and behavior toward a situation. Lastly, the audience for
writings in this field, would be those who are researching and studying human behavior.
Part 3:
If the essay discussed in part 1 was turned into an instructor in Social Sciences, it would
be towards the direction of being successful, but not completely. In Writing and Researching in
Social Sciences from the CSUS Handbook, it demonstrates how Social Scientist use reading,
writing, and researching to explore questions about human behavior.(CSUS Handbook Reading,
pg 118) With that being said, readers can see how how Culture of Gangs meets this
requirement since the author researched about a certain group, created theories, and questioned
gang members behavior. The goal for writing in this area is for student and others to be able to
expand or create new theories. Therefore this essay is something similar that students should turn
into an instructor, since it focuses on a social group and tries to understand its culture.
Social science attempts to improve people's lives by studying and trying to create change.
This is is done by researching and collecting data; similarly, in the essay described above, the
writer collects data by conducting a interview of her friend. Interviews are a form of data
collection in social science that is seen in the essay. (CSUS Handbook Reading, pg 120)
Another reason why it's good for turning it into a social science instructor, is because this
essay specifically focuses of a group within the society (gangs). The writer discusses the culture
of gangs and how a group's behavior is based on their environment. Gangs culture is described
by including things such as their symbols, values, taboos, language, characteristics and more.
Most importantly, the writer conducts her own theories after reflecting on the information given
by the interviewee. For example, she states that gangs form because the people in them share
similar experiences and crave power. Reflection and creating new theories is one of the things an
instructor would want to see in writings, that is seen in Culture of Gangs.
However, this essay would be more acceptable if it also included reliable sources. The
data used for the essay is only based on an interviewee who can be bias. The data loses its value
so if the writer were to use credible sources it would make the essay stronger. Also, the writing
focuses on the culture of gangs and does not go in depth of how their surroundings/being in a
gang has an impact on their behavior. This is one of the most important concepts in social
science that the writer lacks to explain.