SA150: Midterm 1 Flashcards
Sociological imagination
Term coined by C. Wright mills
Capacity to shift from one perspective to another
Who was the first person to make a systematic study of sociological subjects and write it down?
Arab scholar Ibn Khaldun
Examined diff types of societies and their economies/histories/cultures
More affluence leads to demise
Why did sociology become popular in the west?
Because of industrialization, urbanization and big population increases in Europe (19th century) and Canada/US (19th-20th century)
Max Weber (vay-ber)
German sociologist
Identified values of embodied in early Protestantism that he believes lead to the development of modern capitalism called Protestant (work) ethic (everyone wanted to be in the group of people saved by Christ in the second coming, done by getting success by working hard and accumulating capital through thriftiness)
Didn’t pay attention to role of colonialism in rise of capitalism
Sociology
Development, structure and functioning of human society, especially seen as in group interaction, social relations, social institutions and social structures
Different kinds of sociology are split into two groups which are…
Sociology by the approach used
Sociology based on intended audience for the work and how socially critical the sociologist is
Sociology by approach
- structural functionalism
- conflict theory
- symbolic interaction
- feminist theory
- postmodern theory
Primary vs secondary socialization
Primary: socialization that an individual undergoes in childhood
Secondary: socialization that occurs later in life
Determinism
Degree to which an individual’s behaviour, attitudes, and other personal characteristics are determined/caused by a specific factor (hard or soft versions)
Biological determinism
Nature in the nature vs nurture debate
Most of what we are is determined by our genes
Behaviourism
Type of psychology with strong cultural determinist position
Social environment creates personality
No agency
Law of effect (rewards make you do things)
Behaviour modification (changing someone’s behaviour using rewards)
John Watson
Believer in hard behaviourism/determinism
Sigmund Freud
Father of psychoanalysis
Believed the mind had three parts (ego, superego and id=instinctive drives)
Balance between biological and sociocultural
Agents of socialization
Groups that have impact on one’s socialization
Mead’s idea of significant other, generalized other and sense of self
Belief that children develop their sense of self from being socialized by significant others (people closest to them) and generalized others (others in society) in their lives; they internalize norms and values they observe and use them in their own personality
Mead’s stages of development through socialization
1- preparatory phase (imitation)
2- play stage (role-taking)
3- game stage (takes perspectives of several roles)
Looking-glass self
Charles Horton Cooley
A person’s self-image based on how a person thinks they are seen by others
Culture and personality school of thought
Attempted to identify and describe an idealized personality type for diff societies and attach it to a specific type of family socialization
Studies broadened to include national character (personality type of an entire nation)
Swaddling hypothesis
Russian moodiness due to being swaddled too tightly as a baby
Is there a link between violent TV shows/video games in childhood and aggression in adulthood?
Longitudinal studies say yes, it is related in men and women
Proposed observational learning theory and desensitization theory
Habitus
A wide ranging set of socially acquired characteristics (ex: manners, good taste, leisure pursuits, ways of walkings, etc)
Bourdieu’s definition of reproduction
Means by which classes (particularly the upper or dominant class) preserve status differences among classes
Resocialization
Happens whenever an individual shifts into a new social environment
Can be voluntary (starting a new job) or involuntary (residential schools; involves total institution and degradation ceremonies)
Structural functionism
-approach that has deep roots in sociology
-two parts:
1- functionalism: how social systems operate and produce consequences (Durkheim)
2- structuralism: way of explaining social forms and how they contribute to social cohesion (organic explanation)
-idea has lost favour recently bc not every social structure has functions (ex: poverty, inequality, etc)
Emile Durkheim
- one of the founders of sociology
- structural functionalist approach
- social fact idea
Durkeim’s social fact
-patterned ways of acting, thinking and feeling that are outside of each person but control all people
Ex: social characteristics like race age religion etc
-three characteristics:
1- developed before and separate from any one person
2- can be seen as being a characteristic of one particular group
3- involves a force that pushes people to act a certain way
-example of suicide (certain groups in France more likely to commit suicide than others)
Merton’s three types of functions
1- MANIFEST functions (intended and easily seen)
2- LATENT functions (unintended and hard to see)
3- LATENT DYSfunctions: unintended and make socially negative consequences
Conflict theory (conflict approach)
Based on 4 C’s
1- conflict (exists in all big societies)
2- class (factor in all large societies)
3- contestation (functions can be challenged based on Q, what group does this function best serve?)
4- change (society should or will be changed)
Karl Marx
- conflict theory
- conflict all about class
- conflict of capitalists (bourgeoisie) VS workers (proletariat) = socialist revolution that would produce a classless, equal society
- didn’t happen but main ideas still valid
Symbolic internationalism
- approach that looks at meaning of daily social interaction of individuals
- social psychologist George Mead (self and how it’s created/used)
- Herbert blumer (symbolic interaction; social systems don’t exist outside of individual relationships and interactions)
Macrosociology vs microsociology
Macro: focus on big picture of society (weber, Durkheim, Merton, Marx)
Micro: focus on plans/motivations/actions of individual or group
Goffman’s dramaturgical approach
- conducting research as if life was happening on a stage of a theatre
- backstage (out of public eye) vs front stage (in public)
- behave diff
- called impression management
Erving goffman
- symbolic interactionalist approach
- microsociology
- total institution: an institution that controls every aspect of a person’s life
- sided with patients
Two branches of conflict theory
Feminist theory
Postmodern theory
Feminist theory
- must recognize that female perspective is vital to forming an accurate idea of the roles women play in society -Harriet martineau
- Dorothy smith (standpoint theory=objective vs subjective research and analysis; believed that subjective position was good bc knowledge comes from life experience position)
Postmodern theory
- voices that speak in society and represent variety of life experiences and social locations
- concerned with recognizing that there are many voices and that they shouldn’t be overpowered by big voices of power
- Michael Foucault (totalitarian discourse=any universal claim about how knowledge or understanding is achieved; discourse=distinct way of speaking about an aspect of reality; ex: saying the brain is like a computer)
- discourse becomes totalitarian when it’s promoted by people with power and widely accepted as the only right interpretation
- archaeology of knowledge (digging through past of a discourse to figure out what was behind it)
Sociology by audience (4 types)
-categorizing sociology based on the audience and how critical the sociologist is 1- professional 2- critical 3- policy 4- public
Professional sociology (sociology by audience)
- audience=academic world
- research designed to get specific info with aim of applying it to a specific problem or question
- written in technical or specialized language
Critical sociology (sociology by audience)
- main goal is to be the conscience of professional sociology
- reminds reason of existing/values and proposes different foundations by which to do research
- audience=same as professional sociology but with diff goal (aim to make sure they don’t lose sight of important social issues by focusing on statistics)
- conflict theory fits here
Policy sociology (sociology by audience)
- new branch that is about get sociological data for governments and large corporations
- used in developing laws, rules, plans
Public sociology (sociology by audience)
-addresses audience outside of schools
-three key traits
1- they discuss sociological concepts in language that college educated people can understand
2- wide variety of interests, even if their research is only in a few fields
3- ability to avoid bad parts of professionalism (overly cautious, footnote everything, bury analysis in statistics)
First Canadian university with a sociology department
McGill
Social gospel movement in Canada
Attempt by people trained by the ministry to apply Christian principles of human welfare to the treatment of social, medical, and psychological ills
Brought on by industrialization and unregulated capitalism
Created social service council of Canada
Political economy
Interdisciplinary approach involving sociology, political science, law, economics, anthro and history
Looks at relationship between politics and economics of production, distribution and consumption of goods
Marxist (focus on conflict)
What was argued to have formed the economic and social development of Canada?
Availability of staples like fish, fur, minerals and wheat
Cultural mosaic vs melting pot
Cultural mosaic: metaphor for Canada’s multicultural society where everyone can keep their identity (reality is a VERTICAL mosaic= systematic discrimination makes hierarchy of racial ethic and religious groups)
Contrasts the melting pot image used to portray the assimilated society of the USA
Culture
Systemic of behaviour, beliefs, knowledge, practices, values and concrete materials including building, tools and sacred items
Not always agreed on
Authenticity
Culture is contested over the question of authenticity
Involves traditions but changes over time
Two oppositions of different kinds of culture
1- dominant culture vs subculture and counterculture
2- high culture vs popular culture and mass culture
Dominant culture vs subculture and counterculture
Dominant culture: uses political and economic power to impose its values, language and ways of behaving interpreting behaviour on a given society (in Canada= white English speaking people of Christian and European stock, middle class)
Countercultures: fall outside cultural mainstream; feel the power of the dominant culture and exist in opposition to it
Subcultures: fall outside the culture mainstream; differ in a way to the dominant culture but don’t directly oppose it
High culture vs popular culture
High culture: culture of the elite (distinct minority); associated with the arts and a fancy palate; needs certain knowledge and skills to acquire the specific tastes that marks someone as high culture (CULTURAL CAPITAL)
Popular culture: culture of the majority/people who don’t have power
The two are different in terms of AGENCY (ability of the people to be able to be creative or productive with what the dominant culture has given them)
Mass culture
Term used by people who believe that we have little or no agency in the culture we consume
Big companies control what we consume
One feature: simulacra (stereotypical cultural images produced and reproduced in the media and sometimes in academics; hyperreal= considered more real than what actually exists)
Decipherment vs reading
Decipherment: process of looking at a text for the intent of the culture industry who created it; mass culture believers think it’s about looking for message from mass media that they present without allowing people to challenge or reject it
Reading: process of treating what is provided by culture industry as a resource that we can interpret as we want (believers of popular culture)
Norms
Rules or standards of behaviour that are expected of members of a group, society or culture
Not always agreed upon
Sanctions
Positive sanction: supporting how someone follows or doesn’t follow norms; reward for “doing the right thing” with a high five, smile, money bonus, etc
Negative sanction: reaction made to tell offenders that they are violating a norm like glare, eye roll, etc
Three kinds of norms based on how they are respected and sanctioned (Sumner)
1- FOLKWAYS: norms that govern day to day matters; should not rather than must not; least respected and most weakly sanctioned; change over time
2- MORES: taken more seriously than folkways; must not violate them; either law or meet serious disapproval; change over time
3- TABOOS: norm that is so deeply engrained in our social consciousness that just mentioning it brings disgust and revulsion; different between cultures
Symbols
Cultural items that have important meaning within a culture or subculture of society
Tangible objects or non-material objects like songs or memories of events
Values
Standards used by a culture to describe abstract qualities such as goodness beauty and justice
Used to assess behaviour of others
Hard to understand and accurately represent
Ethnocentrism
Happens when someone holds up one culture as the standard by which all cultures are to be judged
Usually translates into declaring that there is only one way to run a business, handle finances or manage social policy
-larger scale: used in colonizing efforts of powerful nations that force their political, economic and religious beliefs on the indigenous populations of land they “discovered”
Potlatch act of 1884
Potlatch: traditional ceremony of northwest coast aboriginal people involving getting your family name by showing worthiness; serve to maintain strength and social unity of group; also involving giving away gifts and possessions
1884: Canadian gov scared of native people so made potlatch illegal
1951: ban was repealed
Eurocentrism
Involves taking general European position to address others and assuming the audience shares that position
Used a lot in textbooks etc
Cultural globalization
Intensification and expansion of cultural flows across the globe
Americanization of the world
Big companies try to appeal to westerners
Reverse ethnocentrism
Involves assuming a particular culture that is not one’s own is better than one’s own in some way
Ex: Noble savage: idealized representation of primitive culture that symbolizes the innate goodness of humanity when free of corrupting influence of civilization
Ex: children of immigrants abandoning their parents culture
Cultural relativism
-approach to studying the context of an aspect of another culture
-exists at two levels
1- level of understanding (bc culture=holistic (everything connected in a system) so nothing can be understood outside of its social/historical/enviro context)
2- level of judging (one view suggests that people shouldn’t be judged by the practices of their culture)
Sapir-whorf hypothesis
Principle of linguistic determinism suggests that the way we view the world is shaped by the language we speak
Thomas theorem
Situations we define as real become real in their consequences
Definition of the situation
Concept that given a particular situation, different people will define the situation differently and in contradictory ways based on their own experiences
Why do most sociologists not study small-group interaction?
1- work was product of structural functional perspective = not popular anymore
2- lack consideration of gender, race, ethnicity and other sociological factors that are now considered essential
3- studying small groups in a lab setting is artificial
Status
Recognized social position that a person occupies
You can have many statuses at a time (roles)
Your collection of statuses = status set
Status lies in what you do, not how you feel (ex: gay person marrying opposite sex would not be recognized as homosexual)
Achieved vs ascribed status
Achieved: you get a status at some point in your life but you weren’t born into it; usually assume personal ability, accomplishment or act
Ascribed: you were born into the status or entered it involuntarily
Social mobility
The degree to which a status is achieved or ascribed depends on how much social mobility exists in the society (how hard it is to change your status or gain a status)
Passing
A person who wants to avoid discrimination and whose appearance doesn’t clearly give away their true race can claim dominant racial status or pass as another race
Master status (Hughes)
Status of a person that dominates all of his or her other statuses in most social contexts
Plays biggest role in forming persons social identity
Can be job, ethnicity, gender, etc
Not always what you want it to be
Status hierarchy
Statuses can be ranked from high to low based on prestige and power
Status consistency
When all of your social status hierarchies line up
Opposite= status inconsistency
Marginalization
Process by which groups are put into categories that set them within the dominant society or outside of the margins
Social segregation
Outcome of being marginalized as well as a strategy to deal with marginalization
Women Doctor only working with women and babies, black teacher working at black school, etc
Role
Set of behaviours and attitudes associated with a particular status
Roles attached to a particular status can differ across cultures
Ex: role of elder being valued or not in certain cultures
Role set=all roles attached to a status
Role strain
Develops when you have conflicting roles within a role set of a particular status
Can also affect a single role (ex: parent who feels better around one of their kids but tries to give them equal time and attention)
Role conflict
Happens when a person is forced to play out incompatible expectations generated from two or more statuses they hold
Ex: being a mother and a student
Role exit
Process of leaving a role that has been central to one’s identity, and attempted to come into a new role
Social organization
Social and cultural principles around which things are structured, ordered and categorized
Can be used when talking about cultures, social institutions and cooperations
Ex: culture could be organized around principle of egalitarianism (society based on equality) or hierarchy and further organized in terms of the type/form that the egalitarian or hierarchical structure takes (it’s social organization)
Cosmology
Account of the origin and ruling principles of the universe, especially the role of humans in relationship to non-humans (living and not living)
Heart of organizing principles in ways in which a culture produces knowledge about the world
Critical management studies
Critical of traditional theories of management Points out that there isn't much in organizational theory and behaviour with race, ethnicity, class it gender even though there are high rates of women and people of colour in the labour force
Three types of feminist organizational form
1- formal social movement organizations (professionalized, bureaucratic, inclusive, make few demands of their members)
2- small groups or collectives (organized informally, require a lot of time loyalty and material resources from members)
3- service provider organizations (combine elements of both formal and small group organizations)
What’s worse: internal or external oriented organizational conflict
-oriented internally around issues of identity or ideology is worse than oriented externally (internal divisions minimized and increased solidarity OR combat-orientated climate that creates hierarchical divisions of labour)
Bureaucracies
- started with formation of states and writing systems
- earliest bureaucrat=scribe
- official documents and gov paperwork
- big hold ups especially in developing countries
- necessary for functioning of complex societies
Weber’s formal rationalization (rationality)
-looked at bureaucracy
-rationalization=term heard often in business reports as a euphemism for firing workers and cutting jobs to reduce costs/become more efficient
-four basic elements:
1- efficiency
2- quantification
3- predictability
4- control
-emphasis on forms, compared to other types like substantive rationality (substance of values and ethical norms)
-started during industrial revolution
Weber’s critique of rationality and bureaucracy
- rationality leads to irrationality (causes lack in magic, fantasy and mystery=disenchantment of the west)
- bureaucracy is dehumanizing (views people as easily replaceable and makes people feel valueless)
Sir Francis Galton
Father of modern statistical analysis
Developed methods to measure capabilities and productivity in individuals
Taylor’s scientific management
Aka Taylorism
Designed to discover the best way of doing a job
Team of efficiency experts studied time methods and tools required for a proficient worker to do the best job possible
Goal=eliminate inefficient motions or movements
Weakness of Taylor’s scientific management
Didn’t allow worker to develop a broad set of skills because they were doing the same thing over and over
Caused workers to be alienated from their work
Team approach
- goes against Taylorism
- from Japan
- incorporated worker input and fostered the idea that workers could be involved in many stages of the manufacturing process
- generates better sense of product ownership
McDonaldization
Process by which the rationalizing principles of the fast-food restaurant are dominating American society and the rest of the world
- uses Weber’s four elements of formal rationality (efficiency, quantification, predictability and control) to examine fast food restaurants
- EFFICIENCY: streamlined movement in time and effort of people and things; breaking up big tasks into smaller, repeated tasks
- QUANTIFICATION: efficiency of process is measured by a large number of quantifiable tasks
- PREDICTABILITY: everyone knows what’s expected of them ; uniformity of rules
- CONTROL: always hierarchical division of labour; replacement of human judgement with the dictates of rules, regulations and structures
Anomie (Durkheim)
State of confusion caused when the bond between individuals and social institutions break down
Ex: disconnect between parents and school system
Why was public education is Canada seen as important when it started?
To achieve economic modernization
Social order
Social control
Assimilating Irish labours fleeing potato famine
What did the Canadian economy after world world 2 need?
A better educated work force
This fuelled an expansion of universities and colleges across Canada to match the economic boom
Said to be for increasing access to education to all classes, but argued to be economically motivated (aka human capital thesis)
Human capital thesis
Believes that industrial societies invest in factories and equipment to attain greater efficiency, so they invest in schools to enhance the knowledge and skills of their workers
-when applied to social inequality: argues that marginalized groups earn less money than dominant groups bc possess less human capital in the form of education, skills and experience
The assimilation model of public education in Canada
Edu in Canada has historically been based on a MONOCULTURAL model that emphasized assimilation into the dominant culture
-flaw: failure to recognize that racial bias and discrimination inside and outside the school system makes the equality almost impossible
Ex: focus on English literature in school and not translated works
Multicultural education in Canada
1971: official policy of multiculturalism
-launched initiative to include all cultures in education
-based on three fundamental values:
1- learning about your own culture will improve edu achievement
2- “ … “ improves quality of opportunity
3- learning about OTHER cultures reduces prejudice and discrimination
Problem: teacher uneducated about other cultures and favoured “museum” approach AND failed to recognize that racism is systematic in Canadian society
Anti-racism and anti-oppression model of education in Canada
-problem: multicultural education didn’t talk about racial inequality
-meant to eliminate institutional and individual barriers to equity
-make a classroom enviro where:
1- stereotypes exposed
2- critical examination of info sources
3- alt and missing info provided
4- students equipped to look critically at info received
5- reasons for unequal social status of diff groups can be explored
-started in Canada in 1980s
-affected how teachers were taught and chosen
What kind of curriculum do our institutions have?
Eurocentric curriculum
The hidden curriculum
Hot topic in sociology of education
Definition varies depending upon the issue being discussed and the viewpoint of the sociologist discussing it
-Merton’s three functions: serves the latent (not openly stated in syllabus or course outline) function of a course (or latent dysfunction)
-structural functionalist sociologist: performs positive function bc teaches norms of society
-conflict sociologist: reproduces class system thereby performing a negative function
-concept of cultural capital
-discipline as a reinforcement
Docile body
-group that has been conditioned through specific set of procedures/practices to behave exactly how administrators want them to
-three modern forms of disciplinary control:
1- hierarchical observation
2- normalized judgment
3- examination
Cultural reproduction theory
Education system, as part of hidden curriculum, reproduces class divisions
- used to assess tracking (=students divided into categories so that they can be assigned in groups to various kinds of classes)
- her findings show that it’s based as much on race/class/ethnicity as perceived ability
- argued that disproportionate rep of lower class and bob white students in lower track ref elects prejudices of teachers and councillors
- lower track leads to lower class jobs
Legitimization of inequality
Key of cultural reproduction theory
-if students accept that their differential tracking placement is fair, that legitimizes the inequality reproduced by the edu system
Reproduction of the social structure
- important part of cultural reproduction theory
- institutions like education help upper class kids grow up to be upper class adults and so on
Homework and it’s sociological effects
- benefits middle and upper middle class kids because they have better resources and educated parents
- high amount of homework reduces family time
- affects family relationships bc power struggle and fights
Disqualified knowledge
Knowledge that has been deemed inadequate to their task
Ex: lack of aboriginal writers represented in textbooks
Credentialism
Practice of valuing credentials (degrees, diplomas, certificates) over actual knowledge and ability in hiring and promotion of staff
Often blocks aboriginal attempts to improve education
Five best practices that are related to aboriginal student success in education of Canada
1- collaboration between school district people of all levels and local aboriginal communities
2- commitment by administrators and teachers to incorporating aboriginal content into the curriculum
3- creation of influential positions dedicated to aboriginal education
4- relationship building between aboriginal and not communities in the district
5- willingness of school district authorities to share responsibility for making decisions with aboriginal communities
Adjunct instructors and their struggle
- number increasing bc more uni students, reduction of gov funding, increasing levels of private corporate funding, rising influence of corporate culture
- don’t get benefits
- originally people with other careers who taught for prestige and extra money
- low pay (relative deprevation)
- bad working conditions
- “class war” with full time profs
Online teaching
- happened bc wanted to increase access to education but also from cuts to edu funding
- driven by private organizations specializing in delivering edu packages over the Internet
- profit may not be real bc expensive tech staff and equipment
- commodification (making edu like a package you can buy)
Alienation
Marxist concept
Separation and disconnect between people and the work that they paid to do
Involves hierarchical control of a product
Intellectual property
Critical vs instrumental education
Instrumental: courses are narrowly directed to a particular set of tasks (ex: online edu)
Critical: analysis of ideas and classroom discussion
Underemployment’ two meanings
1- involuntary part time work for people looking for full time employment
2- low wage, low skill employment for people with valuable skills experience or academic credentials
Underemployment is a result of…
- rate of unemployment
- regional disparity (lack of jobs and resources)
- discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, disability, lack of appropriate credentials
What factor greatly contributes to plagiarism?
Social distance
If you know your prof personally, you’re less likely to cheat
Victimless crime = less guilt
Medical sociology
Based on the view that medical practices and beliefs are intensely social
Policy sociology
About generating sociological data to help governments and health pros develop the policies that drive healthcare
Critical sociology
Contributes significantly to medical sociology, especially when the focus shifts to the practices of the multinational pharma companies, medical schools and privately run (for profit) clinics and hospitals
Parson’s sick role
Talcott Parson (structural functionalism)
Being sick comes with certain expectations
Critique: only for privileged people, doesn’t take gender, ethnicity, etc into account, too general
-proposed that sick role contains 5 new expectations now
1- patients in the new economy are responsible for their own illnesses
2- patient is instructed to tread lightly on the system + cannot be trusted (assumed to be abusing the system)
Social course
Every disease or disorder has a lifespan that it goes through (catch it, get sick, get better or sicker) Affected by sociological factors like gender ethnicity class etc
Biomedicine vs alternative medicine
Biomedicine: involves application of standard principles and practices of western scientific disciplines (like bio) in diagnosis and treatment of symptoms of illness (all meds and therapies)
Alternative medicine: anything other than biomedicine, like yoga, acupuncture etc, looks at enviro for causes
***are not always mutually inclusive (ex: in hospital births with midwife)
Psychoneuroimmunology
Study of the effect of the mind on health and resistance to disease
Reductionist perspective of biomedicine
Attributes medical conditions to single factors treatable with single remedies
Fails to take into account the many factors of a person’s health
Absolutist (biomedicine)
Failing to recognize that there are different cultures to medicine, each with their own way of interpreting medicine that reflect/reinforce other aspects of their own culture
Medicalization
Related to biomedicine
Process by which certain behaviours/conditions are defined as medical problems (rather than moral or legal problems) and medical intervention becomes the focus of remedy and social control
Ex: obesity
Promotes commodification of healthcare
Illich’s radical monopolies
-happen in industrial societies
-impose a society wide substitution of commodities for use values by reshaping the milieu and by appropriating those of its general characteristics which have enabled people so far to cope on their own
Ex: medicine taking away people’s ability to take care of themselves and each other
Illich’s iatrogenesis (radical monopolies; medicalization)
Medical system taking away people’s freedom to heal themselves or prevent their illnesses
1- clinical iatrogenesis: various ways in which diagnosis and cure cause problems that are bad or worse than the health problems they are meant to resolve (ex: catching a worse illness in the hospital)
2- social iatrogenesis: occurs when political conditions that make society unhealthy are hidden
3- cultural iatrogenesis: happens when knowledge and abilities of the medical community are mythologized to the point where the authority of the health profession takes away the credit to the patient of their recovery
The racialization of disease
Illness or disease becomes strongly associated with people of a particular background and people of this background are treated negatively because of it
Ex: SARS = cultural syndrome (chinese people)
Women doctors or more likely to… And less likely to… Compared to men
More likely:
- screen their patients for preventable illnesses
- spend time counselling patients about psychosocial issues
- become family physicians
- leave the profession sooner
Less likely:
- become surgeons
- be sued for malpractice
- join professional organizations
Inverse care law
Medical care is most exposed to market forces, and less so where such exposure is reduced Means lower class suffers for from medical probs cause lack of healthcare
Four areas in the sociology of health and medicine that illustrate Quebec being distinct from other provinces
1- relative number of male nurses
2- number of female med students
3- number of people without regular doctors
4- cost of tuition fees for med students
Deviance
Straying from the norm or the usual (neutral term)
Via=path in Latin (stray from the path)
Changes with time/place/culture
About relative quantity, not quality
Definitions of deviance often reflect power
Overt vs covert characteristics of deviance
Overt: actions or qualities taken as explicitly violating the culture born
Covert: unstated qualities that might make a particular group a target for sanction (ex: age, ethnic background and sex)
Three theories of deviance
- strain theory
- sub cultural theory
- labelling theory
Merton’s strain theory of deviance
Strain=disconnect between society’s culturally defined goals and the uneven distribution of the means necessary to achieve those goals
Can’t achieve American Dream, turn to criminal deviance
It’s a choice
Cohen’s sub cultural theory of deviance
Effort to challenge Merton’s strain theory
- model of delinquent subculture
- Status frustration=failing to succeed in what your status expects from you so turn to another subculture
- non utilitarian stealing (not because of need, but because the act of stealing is respected within the deviant subculture)
- not inborn; kids learn to delinquent through their peers
- wrong in mainstream culture = right in delinquent culture
- inverting of sanctions (reactions)
- issue: appears as if delinquency is directly made against mainstream society which isn’t totally useful
Becker’s labelling theory
Labels applied to individuals and groups outside the mainstream become internalized both by those called deviant and by the majority group
Vision quest
Important rite of passage for young aboriginal people where they leave on their own, don’t eat, and go without sleep in the hopes of having a vision
Deviance is contested
Not everyone always agrees about what is deviant in one culture
When someone disagrees=conflict deviance
Ex: legality of marijuana
Social constructionism vs essentialism
Social constructionism: Puts forward the idea that certain elements of social life are not natural but artificial, created by society or culture (deviance, gender, race, etc)
Essentialism: argues that there is something natural/true/universal and therefore objectively determined about these aspects of social life
Stigma and the three types according to Goffman
Human attribute that is seen to discredit an individual’s social identity or label the stigmatized individual or group as deviant
1- bodily stigmata
2- moral stigmata
3- tribal stigmata
***deviance not a QUALITY of the act a person commits, but a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an “offender”
The other
Image constructed by dominant culture to characterize subcultures, or by a colonizing nation to describe the colonized
Racializing deviance
Making ethnic background a covert characteristic of deviance, as if all people of an ethnic group are involved in the same supposedly deviant behaviour
Racial profiling
One way in which deviance is racialized
Any action that is done for reasons of safety/security/public protection that relies on stereotypes about race, colour, ethnicity, religious or place of origin rather than on reasonable suspicion
-assumes that the personal characteristics of an individual can be used to predict his or her actions or their tendency to engage in illegal activity
-includes incidents involving landlords, service providers, criminal justice system, police, etc
Patriarchal society
Society dominated by men
Misogyny
Hating women
Patriarchal construct
Refers to social conditions being thought of or structured in a way that favours men and boys over women and girls
Schools-to-prison hypothesis
Idea that in schools located in poorer, often racialized neighbourhoods , there’s a biased application of practices such as “zero tolerance” which creates a misleading perception of higher crime rates (more suspension and expulsion, random locker and student searches, metal detectors, security guards, etc)
Social resources
Knowledge of law and legal system, influential social connections, capacity to present oneself in a way that is deemed respectable Lower class has less access
Impression management
Control of personal information flow to manipulate how others see you and treat you
Upper classes are better at this
Sutherland’s white collar crime
-defined as crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation
-split into OCCUPATIONAL and CORPORATE crimes
-problematic because suggests that most crime is committed by non whites
And that certain crimes that are viewed as white collar like identity theft seem to only be done by white collar people=not true
Ideology of fag
Way of influencing people, especially young males, to behave accordingly to gender role expectations
Social inequality
Long term existence of significant differences in access to goods and services among social groups
Main term used: class
Marx’s means of production
Resources needed to produce good (and therefore wealth)
Went from land to capital
Marx’s capital
Money needed to build factories, purchase raw materials, and pay labourers to turn those raw materials into manufactured products
**defined by author as funds and properties necessary for typical large scale manufacturing and trading
Two possible relationships: you either OWNED them or WORKED for those who did
Aristocrats vs peasants
Aristocrats: owners of means of production
Peasants: workers
Capitalists (bourgeoisie) vs proletariat (Marx)
Owners of capital in industrial-era Europe
Class=bourgeoisie
Proletariat: class of workers (succeeded the peasant class of the industrial era)
Petty/petite bourgeoisie vs lumpenproletariat
Petty/petite bourgeoisie: small time owners with little capital
Lumpenproletariat: small time criminals, beggars and unemployed
The Factory Act of 1833
- targeted booming textile mills of Britain
- considered radical bc interfered with natural course of business by severely limiting the hours that people were allowed to work
- liberal rules applying to people under 18, not adults
Class as a social identity (Marx)
- has corporate/organic identity as real social group
- shared sense of common purpose among each class
- class consciousness (Highland clearances example, profit over people)
- working class has false consciousness (belief that something is in its best interests when it is not)
Weber’s critique of Marx
- didn’t agree with Marx’s theory of class relations
- Marx’s materialist approach=too simplistic (more to social inequality than just who owned the means of production)
- Weber stressed wealth, prestige and power as three elements that contribute to social inequality (wealth/material resources doesn’t just include factories or other property directly involved in making money, but also properties that are highly respected by members of society in question like flashy car, expensive house etc)
Problems with Marx’s class perspective
- employees of large companies are termed workers, even though their incomes put them on par with some owners and vice versa
- need for factors of ethnicity and nation state
Applying Marx’s class paradigm to Canada, we get three different classes
1- dominant capitalist class (made up of people who own or control large scale production)
2- middle class (mixed working people)
3- working class/proletariat (made up of people who lack resources or capacities apart from their own labour power)
Mobility sports
Sports that offer people from poorer socio-economic backgrounds the chance to reap large financial rewards as professional athletes
Professionalization of sports
Making sports more expensive through getting more professionals to coach rather than parent volunteers
Ideology
Set of beliefs about society and the people in it
Usually forms a particular economic or political theory
Dominant ideology
Set of beliefs put forward by and supportive of society's dominant culture or classes Marxist terms: reflects class consciousness of ruling class Ex: trickle-town theory in North America (wealth from rich will eventually make its way to the middle and lower classes)
Counter ideology
Offers a critique of dominant ideology, challenging its justice and universal applicability to society
Liberal ideology
Dominant ideology that views the individual as a more or less independent player on the sociological scene
Reflects a belief in social mobility
The American Dream
Belief that anyone can make it if they are willing to work hard for it
Reflects liberal ideology
Failing to achieve the American Dream often leads to blaming the victim
Gramsci’s hegemony
Non-coercive methods of maintaining power
Belief that ruling classes use more than just military and police forces to maintain a calm society
Digital divide
Technology making a gap between rich and poor
Class reductionism
Occurs when sociologist studying a situation attributes all forms of oppression to class, ignoring or downplaying other factors
Caste system
Different kind of social stratification that exists in Hindu societies of South Asia
Castes=ranked classes that people are born into
Associated with certain occupations, dharmas (duties in life), rights to food, colours of clothing, religious practices and imputed personal qualities
Five castes:
1- brahmins (highest; political leaders priests teachers)
2- Kshatriyas (military leaders, land owners)
3- vaishyas (merchants and craftspeople)
4- sudras (natural labourers)
5- Dalits or untouchables (butchers, leather workers, street cleaners)
**three highest castes known as twice born
-banned after independence but caste system is still there informally
Strata
Used an units of analysis in stratified sampling aka an approach in statistical research where a sample is taken from each stratum/level of the population rather than taken at random from the whole population
Creates more representative sample
Two kinds of stratum used in sociological research
Quintile: one of five equal groups into which a population is divided, according to distribution of values of a particular variable (ex: family income)
Useful for comparative purposes
Deciles: created with similar methodology but population of census families is divided into 10 not 5
Makes finer distinctions with greater capacity to detect inequality
Food bank users
38% under 18, 4.4% over 65
More men than women
10% aboriginal, 11% immigrants and 4% students
Mostly families, especially single parent families
Social assistance is biggest money source for these families
What is the distinguishing feature of humans in contrast to other animals?
Production
Social process; starting point to study human societies
Historicity of capitalism
Primitive communalism (tribal society)
Slave society/antiquity (Greeks Romans)
Feudalism (capitalism’s immediate predecessor)
Feudalism
Serfdom; unequal relations between landlord and peasant
Capitalism (ppt)
Exploitation of working class or proletariat by owners of the means of production
Socialism
Collective ownership of means of production
Three dimensions of production
1- appropriation of means of production aka private or collective
2- how is labour performed aka communally, slavery, etc
3- extent or prevalence of market
Themes of enlightenment
- reason and rationality
- observation and empirical evidence
- critical thought of everything
- perfect ability of human beings
- change institutions to enhance human condition
A trouble vs a social issue
Trouble is a private matter belonging to individual
Social issue is public matter, value of publics
Durkheim’s study of suicide
Dismissal of obvious reasons
Integration and regulation cause high rates
Have to find right levels through better relationships between state and family and occupational associations may function as communities
Integrate person into strong civil society
Four types of suicide
1- egoistic (melancholy, low integration)
2- altruistic (sacrifice, high integration)
3- anomic (melancholy, low regulation)
4- fatalistic (high regulation)
Social action
All human behaviour when the acting individual attaches subjective meaning to it
Must take account of the behaviour of others and is thereby oriented in its course
Pierre bourdieu
A theory of reproduction (elaborating a sociology of how dominant groups reproduce their domination thru symbolic power)
Symbolic power
Social space (organized with differential distance, space of lifestyles and status groups characteriZed by diff lifestyles)
Habitus (mental structures used to interpret social world, product of internalization)
Symbolic capital
Two forms of struggles
Objective (demonstrations by social movements, goal of showing strength etc)
Subjective (movements or theorists trying to change perception and appreciation of social world and structures)
World making
Symbolic power
Making divisions and constructing groups in the world
Personality
Persons fairly consistent patterns of acting thinking and feeling
Nature vs nurture in human development
Nature (genes): human life depends on functioning of the body and heredity plays a big part in shape, intelligence, musical talent and personality
Nurture (culture): current values and behaviour are so diff from grandparents who share genes with us so learning must be essential
Freud’s three parts of the mind
Id: instinct and unconscious drives (Eros=life and pleasure, Thanatos=death and aggression)
Ego: mediates between conscious and unconscious to make sense of everything
Superego: represents conscious and moral messages from socialization
Repression (Freud)
Any society must coerce people to look beyond themselves
Sublimation (Freud)
Transforms selfish drives into socially acceptable activities like sports and marriage
Critical review of Freud
Generalized from male behaviour
But showed that we internalize social norms and childhood experiences are very important
Erich From and personality (2 types)
Temperament: genetically inherited
Character: formed in social interaction.
Mead’s the self
Part of individual’s personality composed of self awareness and self image
Inseperable from society
Taking role of others=humans defining trait
Social self develops with social experience (exchange of symbols)
Must have theory of mind to understand intention
Development of the self
Learning to take role of other
Childhood=crucial
Emerges over time with social experience
Generalized other
Widespread cultural norms that we use in reference while evaluating ourselves
Freud vs mead in self
Freud: id and superego in conflict
Mead: I and me cooperate
Nature and nurture are inseparable!
Organizational features of capitalism
Rise of large formal organizations
Organized to achieve goals efficiently
Proliferate in gov schools factories hospitals etc
Weber’s fears about bureaucracy
Actual bureaucracies may entrench oligarchy (rule by the few)
Pessimistic about future
Humanity might end up serving formal organizations
Crush human spirit=dehumanizations
Humanizing bureaucracy
Fostering a more democratic organizational atmosphere that recognizes and encourages contributions of everyone Ideal type: Hiring and advancement Lifetime security Holistic involvement No specialized training Collective decision making
Plato’s view of education
Need to educate future leaders in philosophy so they can lead society to justice and good behaviour
We can agree on desired content but need to discuss best method to intro it to people’s minds
Rousseau’s view on education
It’s about allowing people’s natural insights and inclinations to emerge in supportive enviros
Assumption that people are born good and virtuous
Maslow’s view of education.
Self actualization is the goal
Edu should help individuals get and use all needed resources to become best selves
Manifest vs latent functions of education (functionalism, Merton)
Manifest functions: intended and readily visible; basic skills in numbers and reading, prepare for world of work, etc
Latent: unintended and out of view; teaching obedience and submission to authority, hidden curriculum
Conflict perspective on education
Focus on latent functions Teach students proper place in society according to sex and class Routine subordination and boredom to prepare for work force
Symbolic interactionism (education)
Focus on symbols
Their creation transmission and interpretation and cultural capital
Universities preserve status and privilege of high income kids
Structure functionalism view on health
Smooth running of society depends on health of its members
Sick role
Allopathic or conventional medicine
Sick roles rights and duties
Rights
1- exempted from normal society roles
2- free of blame or responsibilities
Duties
1- to want to get well
2- seek technically competent help
Friederick engels and health
Shows negative health consequences of early capitalism
Rough lives in shelters with no privacy cleanliness or quiet
Little money for food and quality of food in cities was bad
Medicalization (ppt)
Expansion of what in life is relevant to medicine
Maintenance of absolute control over technical procedures by allopathic medical profession
Levels of analysis of health
Macro world level
National or societal level
Individual-lifestyle level
Experiential level (social psychology)
Why has life expectancy increased?
Improved nutrition and hygiene thru sanitation
Water purification
Advances in birth control
What could improve Canada’s health care system?
Community level interventions intended to alleviate inequality
Like guaranteed income
National daycare program
Prenatal care for low income mothers
Make the system preventative not curative
Kuznet’s curve
Technological advances = more social stratification
Marx’s vs Weber’s view of class structure
Marx: ownership or not of means of production
Weber: market situation and life chances
Marx on stratification
Mode of production comprises:
Means of production
Social relations of production
Research goals in power in production
Understand mechanisms through which surplus labour is appropriated
Marxist conclusions about social stratification
Basis for formation of interests and collective action Dynamic theory of class struggle Class reductionism prevents proper analysis of culture and class
Weber extends Marxist view on social stratification
Power not only based on economic sphere
Concentration of means of power in small minority
Separation of majority from means of power
Status groups can usurp power (take it)
Weber’s parts of social stratification
Class
Status
Political power/party
Key questions from Marx and Weber about social stratification
Marx: who controls means of production and destination of surplus value?
Weber: who controls means of power for controlling and dominating human beings?
Classes according to Weber
Stratified according to their relations to production and acquisitions of goods
Status groups: Stratified according to principles of their consumption of goods represented by diff lifestyles
