Example

 Making Connections Journal Entry No. 1

Name:  Jane Blaine
Date:  August 20, 2004

Leight, Hopper, 2004. “Boy, 12, Begins Medical School.” New York Times, February 23, 2004.

 
This news article provides an example of a status inconsistency, a contradiction or mismatch between a person’s statuses.  A 12-year-old boy named Sho Yano becomes a first-year medical student at the University of Chicago.   Sho Yano is a getting his Ph.D. along with his medical degree and is one of the youngest people ever to attend a university professional school. 

 This is clearly out of the ordinary and not what we would typically expect from a “child.”  How will his friends and family relate to him?  How will he relate to them?   We also wouldn’t expect a medical student to be so young.  How will his professors, fellow college students, and patients interact with him?  It seems, at first glance, that this status inconsistency is a positive thing, because we want people to be smart, get a good education and job.  Sho Yano is doing all the “right” things that we want people to do, but I wonder if it will negatively affect his emotional and psychological development?