Lecture 7: Standard Stories and Social Structure

Question 1

Factors that cause and explain outcomes in the social sciences

Answer 1

Individuals and social structures

Question 2

Individuals:

Answer 2

Agency, choices, and actions
Lower-level, micro-factor
Make up societies

Question 3

Social structures:

Answer 3

Public policies, economic systems, social hierarchies
Higher-level, macro-factor

Question 4

Individualist explanations

Answer 4

Individuals play a large role in explanations

Question 5

Tilly’s issue with stories in sociology

Answer 5

Sociology’s strongest insights do not take the form of stories, and they undermine the stories people tell

Question 6

Standard stories

Answer 6

Sequential, explanatory accounts of self-motivated human action

Question 7

Why stories matter

Answer 7

Explanations are stories
There’s a preference for some types of stories in science, but these types don’t capture what explains or causes outcomes in the social sciences

Question 8

Beginning parts of standard stories

Answer 8

~ characters, such as individuals or organizations, are independent and self-motivated
~ limit the time and space in which characters interact
~ make sure things happen as a result of their actions
~ supply characters with resources
~ furnish situations with barriers or opportunities
~ set them in motion (set story to outcome or from outcome recounting)

Question 9

What sociologists think social inequality results from

Answer 9

Indirect, unintended, collective, and environmentally mediated effects that fit very badly into standard stories

Question 10

What do standard stories highlight?

Answer 10

Cause and effect relationships centered on actors’ deliberated actions
~ associated with reductive focus, lower-level factors (protagonist determines outcome)

Question 11

Factors that conflict with the standard story

Answer 11

~ collective actors (classes, nations)
~ abstract causal forces (mentalities, cultures, technologies, forms of power)
~ “Non-story structures” (markets, networks, self-sustaining cultures, physical environments, capital, goods, labor)

Question 12

Cases where it looks like social structure explains

Answer 12

~ low SES (dust mites and cockroaches) and education
~ Jason and the city bus
~ diet and low SES

Question 13

Main idea regarding Tilly’s standard stories

Answer 13

The standard model focuses on individuals and lower-level factors in a reductive manner.

Question 14

One main alternative explanation type

Answer 14

Structure of social structure as the main cause, explanatory factor as the outcome
~ structure, network of interactions, constraints, etc.