Sadie,+Beatrice,+Joodi

PAPER: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Qo4MBt3nQNHlnQ_m5_GdwFVNI7v0gds3308oHOQqScw/edit?hl=en&authkey=CIDv9YwI PRESENTATION: http://www.sendspace.com/file/alk8hk SMALLER FILE of ppt:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ra90f_2rKeUkJHKNhzv2JcP0G0GkIH_LGc5PoqZ2S44/edit?hl=en&authkey=CMeY3_kC

1) Graffiti that is found in college male and female bathrooms in both Korea and the US 2) (3 colleges* 2 buildings* 3floors - bathrooms* 2 stalls)*2 for men/women Take photos of all three walls (Left, Door, Right) 3) Female bathrooms in the U.S. will have the most graffiti and male bathrooms in Korea will have the least amount.

Hypothesis: Female bathrooms in America will have the most graffiti and male bathrooms in Korea will have the least graffiti. We believe American bathrooms will have the most because I, Sadie, have seen in quite frequently. We believe that Korean bathrooms will have the least amount because compared to me, Joodi and Beatrice have not seen as much in Korean bathrooms.

BEATRICE

Summary of “[|A Social Analysis of Graffiti]”

This document defines graffiti as hand-written self-expression on walls and other surfaces, and explains how the long history of graffiti (from the paintings of Lascaux to spray-painted images) hows that it reflects an almost intrinsic need to leave a mark and not be forgotten. As great amounts of money is being spent to remove graffiti, graffiti is seen as vandalism, and according to the “Broken Windows” theory even a social signal that stimulates delinquency. On the other hand, graffiti is also seen as a form of art – for an example works by Haring and Basquiat. Graffiti has become a popular mode of communication due to its accessibility and anonymity. The relationship between gender and graffiti has been frequently studied. Masculinity is often mentioned as a motivation for graffiti. Although researchers differ in their arguments regarding gender and graffiti, many agree that restroom graffiti is “a method of counteracting... the pressures toward gender conformity.” The document mentions, specifically, restroom graffiti, which we will observe – “In the gender-neutral... washrooms of eighteenth century Paris, graffiti reflected questions, comments, and answers. This signals the rise of ‘graffiti languages’: men had the tendency to write comments of hostility, while women display more romantic ideas...” Through our research, we will be able to determine whether these tendencies are still shown in 21st century college bathrooms. The document also mentions that a school’s effectiveness and the amount of graffiti have a positive relationship – by examining the amount of graffiti we might be able to estimate how content the college students are with their education. A bulk of the document’s information is about gender and graffiti. We can later compare the results of our research to those mentioned in the document.

Summary of "[|A Sociologist's Look at Graffiti]"

This article is about sociologist Snyder’s findings and opinions about New York’s graffiti. He argues that “[The graffiti writer’s] identities are as writers first, and as members of ethnic, religious, and other subgroups second.” Snyder argues that graffiti is both art and vandalism at the same time. Graffiti writers seek fame for their actions, thus they prefer locations where the number of potential viewers is large and the possibility of the graffiti being removed or painted over is low. Snyder discovered that many graffiti writers take their experience of illegal pursuits to the next step through their careers. Many graffiti writers “went to college; started magazines, Web sites and real estate businesses; opened tattoo parlors; and pursued careers in art and marketing.” Snyder comments that graffiti writers’s experience and effort of defying society for cultural pursuits is “paying off.” Snyder mentions that graffiti writers prioritize their identities as writers – if this proves to be true, our observations of graffiti in bathroom stalls for different genders and different nations will show that the graffiti writers express themselves “by what they do” despite their race, ethnicity, or gender. The amount of graffiti we discover will tell us whether the bathroom stalls are “good spots” or not – do a lot of people use the stall? Do the janitors clean the walls often? The bathroom graffiti that we will observe and the aerosol-spray mural graffiti that Snyder observed are of different natures – it will be interesting if we come to conclusions different from that of Snyder.

Graffiti on Bathroom Stalls: Lit Review If asked to make a list of the things that fascinate people, things written on the walls of bathroom stalls would not be anywhere near the top. However, after searching and reviewing the present literature on graffiti in bathrooms, it quickly became clear that many people, especially sociologists are very interested in those random and most of the time offensive things displayed on many a stall. In fact people have been paying very close attention to graffiti in bathrooms for some time. Many sociologists agree that the graffiti usually reflects a society’s sexuality in a very blunt and honest manner. However, sociologists disagree on exactly how to interpret the raw data and what it is really saying about our society as a whole. Most of the sociologists who have spent time staring at bathroom walls and writing down what they have seen come up with the same basic conclusions; men write (or draw) sexually charged things often phallic or anal, women write (or draw) relationship or love based things. However there are discrepancies among the research. Some newer research states that women are more and more likely to write sexually based things now than they were 60 years ago. The researchers attribute this to women having more sexual freedom in today’s American culture. Still other articles state the graffiti is in act committed because of sexual or racial oppression. So if women are more sexually free, why are they acting out more and more? There is really no definitive answer in the literature which seems to be attributed to the methodology that is used in each experiment. While reading the research available, it can become confusing which side of which stall this researcher studied or which researcher only looked at drawings but also referenced the writing in the stall. This is because each article describes a very different method of studying the graffiti. The major problem with each method of studying the graffiti is that each on categorized it in very different manors. Some broke the graffiti down into phallic, anal, homosexual, heterosexual and so on. Others simply compared the general graffiti found in male bathrooms as opposed to female bathrooms. Because the graffiti was categorized differently, the same research evolved into very different conclusions. As stated previously, the amount of literature on graffiti in bathrooms is astonishing and will most likely be a valuable resource when beginning a new experiment. The multiple different experiment techniques discussed will help us make a very specific thesis and procedure for our research. We can look at the experiments described in articles and pick and choose which elements we would like to try or not try in our research. This will allow us to begin our actual experiment much quicker because we know what has failed and succeeded for those who did research before us. A name that continued to pop up while researching graffiti in bathrooms was Kinsey. He did research in the early 1950’s regarding the relationship between graffiti in bathrooms and male and female sexuality. He discovered that males were far more likely to draw or write sexual graffiti on the stalls and he concluded that this was because males were aroused by such vulgar speech and women were not. The first article that I read, //A Partial Replication of Kinsey’s Graffiti Study// by Jo-Ann H Farr and Carol Gordon, was not Kinsey’s research directly but a very similar experiment done in the 1970’s testing whether Kinsey’s findings were still true then. The more current researchers discovered that homosexual graffiti had decreased and women had become more frequent and more erotic with their graffiti. In my opinion, these results are logical. Homosexuals were becoming less oppressed by society so they could share their feelings more openly and did not have to do so on a bathroom stall. The rise in erotic graffiti in female bathrooms could be because women believed that they could explore and experience their sexuality without being punished by society. This study is almost identical to the one my partners and I developed so it will be very useful in our research. This article helped me to understand that it is only necessary to categorize types of graffiti if you are interested in specific sexual tendencies in society. That is not what our research will focus on so categorizing the graffiti will not be as important. The next article I found, //Confronting Racial Harassment// by Valentine Hart, was much less focused on sexual graffiti and more so on racially charged drawings. The research was done in a historically white high school that had quickly become much more racially diverse. The feelings about the differing races in the school were reflected in the relatively fresh graffiti that was filled with slang and derogatory terms. Many of the students and teachers talked to the administration about this and instead of just painting over it, the principal sent many students from many different cultures to a leadership conference. The research states that the amount of graffiti decreased and so did the discomfort from the different races. This article was helpful because it reminded me that there is more than just sexual graffiti and that racial graffiti should not be overlooked. However, this study focused on a community that had suddenly become very diverse where as the college where I will be conducting my research has not recently had such a large change. The third article I read, //Secrets of the Women’s and Men’s Rooms// by Barbara Wickens discussed Jane Gadsby who had a similar research method as most others but came up with slightly different results. She concluded that men’s graffiti is sexual, filled with jokes, and not exactly deep. On the other hand she stated the women’s graffiti was often philosophical or debated moral or political issues. If women did talk about the opposite sex it was about love or marriage. This research is similar to my future research because she looked at graffiti as a whole and only categorized by male and female. She also talked about people especially women having “conversations” on the stall which is something I never considered. The last article I read entitled //Off the Wall at UMass// by Joel Greenberg basically negated everything that the other articles proposed. Even though he toted the same basic research method, he concluded that women are far more erotic in their graffiti and males are relatively tame. He agreed that women are more likely to address social issues however they are much more aggressive than men who have a sense humor in their graffiti. The fact that this conclusion was so different from the others will make it easier for me if our research also reveals that in fact women are more erotic in their graffiti. However, with so many other sources finding that women are less erotic in their graffiti it is hard to find merit in this particular study. Who knew that bathroom stalls and what people write on them could be so fascinating? The literature that I discovered proved that there are dozens of different ways to collect and categorize the graffiti data. It also showed that researchers disagree on exactly what the graffiti means. All I know is that I have never been so excited to go check out bathrooms and more importantly what messages and pictures people have left behind.

(Jane) Comments: I think this project is going to be very interesting. It's a great idea. Are you testing male vs female bathroom graffiti, or American vs Korean bathroom graffiti? Or both? Will you be analyse or interpret the different graffiti or just how much was present in the bathroom? (Trace) Comments: You might want to try and narrow down your location a bit for the research. Yes a college is a good location but there are hundreds of stalls at ISU alone and you could be going around for hours looking for some. You could try to see you could go into different area's of studies buildings or become a little bit more specific then just college

Sadie's Raw Data: The letter-number system stands for the floor number-stall number- gender. Our raw data was due by today so I haven't analyzed any of the pictures yet but I will post them by tonight! Hope that's ok!


 * Art Building || No Graffiti || Text || Image ||
 * F1-S1- F ||  || X || X ||
 * F1- S2- F ||  || X || X ||
 * F1-S1-M ||  || X || X ||
 * F1- S2- M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2- S1- F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2-S2-F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2-S1-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2-S2-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S1-F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S2-F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S1-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S2-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * Notes || About to be renovated ||  ||   ||


 * Cook || No Graffiti || Text || Image ||
 * F1-S1- F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F1- S2- F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F1-S1-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F1- S2- M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2- S1- F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2-S2-F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2-S1-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2-S2-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S1-F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S2-F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S1-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S2-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * Notes ||  ||   ||   ||


 * Moulton || No Graffiti || Text || Image ||
 * F1-S1- F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F1- S2- F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F1-S1-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F1- S2- M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2- S1- F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2-S2-F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2-S1-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2-S2-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S1-F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S2-F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S1-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S2-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * Notes ||  ||   ||   ||


 * Felmley || No Graffiti || Text || Image ||
 * F1-S1- F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F1- S2- F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F1-S1-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F1- S2- M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2- S1- F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2-S2-F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2-S1-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2-S2-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S1-F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S2-F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S1-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S2-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * Notes ||  ||   ||   ||


 * Schroder Hall || No Graffiti || Text || Image ||
 * F1-S1- F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F1- S2- F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F1-S1-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F1- S2- M ||  || X || X ||
 * F2- S1- F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2-S2-F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2-S1-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2-S2-M ||  || X || X ||
 * F3-S1-F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S2-F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S1-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S2-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * Notes || F1 had graffiti on out of order sign ||  ||   ||


 * Library || No Graffiti || Text || Image ||
 * F1-S1- F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F1- S2- F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F1-S1-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F1- S2- M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2- S1- F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2-S2-F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2-S1-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F2-S2-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S1-F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S2-F || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S1-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * F3-S2-M || X ||  ||   ||
 * Notes || Looked as if the stalls had just been wiped clean ||  ||   ||