Identifications Of Medicalization: A Case Study Of Sociology

Sociology Final
Identifications:
1. Medicalization: Medicalization is defined as “the process by which problems or issues not traditionally seen as medical, come to be framed as such.” (pg.416). Medicalization includes various examples in which we are presented with on a daily basis. Take obesity for example, it is commonly labeled onto people who are overweight. In May of 2013, it officially became categorized as a disease all over the world by the American Medical Association. This so called “disease” can be said that it runs within the family so therefore it is in one’s genes to be obese. Obesity can be treated by changing eating habits and exercising more often so that one can get healthy.
2. Tracking: Tracking is how students are placed/categorized
Mumford defines the city as “a theater of social action”, (taken from Architectural record, 1937).” Mumford overlooks the physical parts of a city and rather sees it as a “social institution” where social networks can be built. He directly says that “the city creates the theater and is the theater” (Mumford,1937). The city creates “drama” while a suburb lacks it. Mumford states that” Without the social drama that comes into existence through the focusing and intensification of group activity there is not a single function performed in the city that could not be performed.” This is where the physical comes into play. The physical organization can make the drama drop or increase. Everything found within the city; politics, art, education, and commerce only adds to the drama and gives it a better plot, so to say. He then goes on to exemplify how the environments role in this so called theater is that it is a properly designed stage and makes the performances of the actors on it better. All of this is taken into consideration when one is determining factors such as the layout of the city and the things that comprise this- size, area and density. The social aspect creates various opportunities. Louis Wirth believed that there was something distinct about residing in a city that changes the way people interact and behave with one another. In particular living in a city causes something to our way of life and even our personalities. According to Wirth a city was distinguish
To start off with, what caught my eye about Mumford’s argument was that he used a more artistic approach. Both of his structures; primary and secondary structures are dependent on each other. The primary being the neighborhoods and families and the secondary is composed of the politics, schools, arts...etc.. He believed that the residents are the ones who keep the secondary structures going. I fully agree with this. For example, without the people we might not have school teachers or art classes. These activities which are fostered by the people are what make the city so different from a suburb which might not have all