Undergraduate Academic Work

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https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/111462

Collection of unpublished undergraduate work.

Submissions are sponsored by Faculty for inclusion. For details on how to submit Undergraduate Academic Work see: Undergraduate Work in PRISM

For more information about University of Calgary Undergraduate Programs see: Undergraduate Degree Programs

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Browsing Undergraduate Academic Work by Department "Sociology"

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    Critical Commentary: Canadian Educational Systems as Structures of Indigenous Oppression
    (2021-05-02) King, Abigail; Reid, Sasha
    I was inspired to write the topic of my critical commentary through Episodes 1 and 4 of Sasha Reid’s Podcasts titled Sociology of Indigenous People (2021a; 2021b). In Episode 1, Reid (2021a) gave a brief review of Indigenous history in Canada and touched on topics such as the Indian Act and Residential Schools. Further, Reid asked multiple true or false questions testing students understanding of Indigenous people and discussed her previous classes misconceptions (Reid, 2021a). In Episode 4, Reid delved into the relationship between education and Indigenous people and education as a significant determinant of health (Reid, 2021b). Reid furthered the discussion with the concept of Indigenizing education to combat the negative consequences of a Eurocentric curriculum that stereotypes and misrepresents Indigenous people (Reid, 2021b). The four topics from the lectures I discussed above; the Indian Act, Residential Schools, widespread misconceptions around Indigenous peoples and Eurocentric education, demonstrate Canada’s transition from explicit to implicit oppressive tactics on Indigenous peoples. I believe Canada’s educational system, besides being a major health determinant for Indigenous people, is also working to further the cycle of racism. In the late 1800s to 1900s, Canada used a combination of overtly racist policies and practices including the Indian Act and Residential Schools along with widespread negative stereotypes to create nationwide prejudice against Indigenous People (Reid, 2021a). The stereotypes justified the Canadian government’s control and domination over Indigenous people. Now, I argue Canada uses public education to produce both negative stereotypes about and structural subordination over Indigenous peoples. These topics introduced the question: to what extent is Canadian public education used as a structure of oppression and domination over Indigenous people? To better understand this, I will examine biases within the development and content of the curriculum and how this engenders the cycle of racism. The purpose of this examination is to expand the readers’ knowledge regarding education as a prominent and necessary tactic in the government’s continued racist perspective on Indigenous people and to make more complete, my understandings of Episode 4.
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    Playing Gender: An Analysis of Femininity in the Popular Culture Phenomenon League of Legends
    (2019-05-11) Kuk, Bryan; Tézli, Annette
    Video games are immensely popular in contemporary society, and it conveys explicit and implicit messages to the consumer. The author investigates the presence of gender portrayal and how the popular culture phenomenon League of Legends depict and represent women. The author analyzes its content, such as roles and appearances, to develop an understanding of its accuracies regarding femininity in the game, and to expand upon the general body of knowledge on video games. A literature review was conducted by the author analyzing the presence of gender in various forms of media (books, television etc.), and gender in video games, and how women are portrayed in them. As prior literature shows, women are underrepresented, stereotyped, and presented in a sexualized manner. The author contends that media including video games, have an impact on an individual’s identity, socializing them to imitate the content that they see in video games under the pretense that it is ‘normal’ and ‘the way it is’ in reality. As a result, the author draws on the theories posited by George Gerbner and Ann Swidler in order to explain the implications of their theories on socialization. The author then engages in a qualitative content analysis of the roles in the game, and twelve female characters or ‘champions’ in League of Legends to uncover any themes or patterns, in relation to their roles, personality traits, occupation, and appearances etc. In addition, the author briefly discusses the male characters in the game to understand if the results on the female characters were unique only to them and not the male characters. Results suggest that women were more likely to be placed in typically male-coded roles, such as leaders and protectors, but at the expense of being depicted in scantily-clad clothing and sexualized manners. Presented research reflect some of the conclusions drawn in previous studies, but opens the field of video games to more research topics regarding League of Legends as a case study. It is an evolving video game with new content added frequently, as a result, the game can be re-investigated to explore developments on gender representations of men and women.