Test 1 Flashcards
Study Notes for Test 1
Sociology
- systematic study of human action in social context
- relations with other people create opportunites for us to think and act but also set limits on our thoughts and acton
Ontology vs. Epistemology
Ontology: What is real?
-Objectivist: objects have objective existence independent of herself or any other research
-process of finding things already there
-Constructivist: meanings social actors attach to social phenomena are constructed by actors
-dynamic meaning
Epistemology: How do we know what we know?
-Positivist: he can best know things through experiments + collection + analysis of data
-Interpretive: how ppl make sense of world around them
-understand subjective meaning of social action
Birth of Sociology
Scientific revolution (16th c.): encouraged the use of evidence. Democratic revolution (18th c.): human action can change society. Industrial revolution (19th c.): gave sociologists their subject matter
Sociological Perspectve
- identify general patterns in behaviour of particular individuals
- society acts differently on various categories of people
Sociological Explanation of Suicide
-Émile Durkheim
-varied as result of differences in degree of social solidarity
-Altruistic: group’s interest
-Egoistic: lack social ties
-Anomic: lack of shared morality/norms
Social Solidarity
- degree to which group members share beliefs and values
- the intensity and frequency of their interaction
Social Structures
- patterns of social relations affect our thoughts, feelings, actions, and identity
- 3 levels
- how are they maintained?
Microstructures:
-intimate social relations (friends, family)
Macrostructures:
-outside intimate relations (class relations)
Global Structures
-organizations, economic relations
Sociological Imagination
- see links between the personal problems and social issues/structures
- occupation, income, education, gender, age, ethnicity, family, mass media and others
The Social Effects
- Opinions • Values • Beliefs • Knowledge • Habits • Tastes • Desires • Dreams
Reality
-shaped by society
Origins of Sociology
- Auguste Compte 1838
- scientific method of research + vision of ideal society
Theory
explanation of aspect of social life
Sociological Research
observation of social reality to test theory
-objective:
- Describing
• Understanding
• Influencing or improving the social world
Values
- right/wrong, good/bad
- neutral: refrain from imposing own values on research
- relevance: research can never be value free
- how it impacts research, understand role it plays
Functionalism
- behaviour - patterns of social relations
- structures maintain stability
- based on shared values
- re-establish equilibrium
- Talcott Parsons - institutions must work together
- Robert Merton - manifest/latent functions
Conflict Theory
- focus on macro
- inequality produce stability/change
- ongoing power struggle between classes
- decrease privilege = decrease conflict
- Marx - communist
- rich get richer
- class consciousness - unions
- Weber: growth of service sector
Symbolic Interactionism
- understand meanings + motives
- George Herbert Mead
1. focus on face-face + micro social setting
2. understanding meanings we attach to social circumstance
3. ppl create social circumstance
4. increase understanding + tolerance of ppl different
Feminist Theory
Harriet Martineau - first female sociologist
- focus on patriarchy
- male domination - structures of power + social convention
- operation of patriarchy in macro/micro setting
- gender inequality - way brought up, barriers to equal opportunity, unequal domestic responsibilities
Attributes vs. Variables
Attributes: characteristics that describe people, cases or things (Man or woman)
Variables: logical groupings of attributes (Gender)
data and theory
Data: are empirical facts, meaningful when they are considered in relation to a theory
Theory: a tentative explanation of some observed regularity
Social Constructionism
- when people interact, they typically assume things are naturally
- sustained by social processes that vary historically and culturally
dialects of social research: Idiographic
vs. Nomothetic
Idiographic: explaining one case in great detail
Nomothetic: explaining a set of cases using a handful of factors
dialects of social research: Inductive vs Deductive
Inductive: Thinking moves from observations to the
general (observation - theory/explanation)
Deductive: Thinking moves from the general to a specific (theory - prove/disprove)
dialects of social research: Quantitative vs Qualitative
Quantitative: numbers
Qualitative: themes, opinions, feelings
dialects of social research: Pure vs. Applied Research
Pure: Research interested in understanding Applied: Research interested in application
Affinity vs. Dogmatism:
Theories
Concepts
Theories = models Concepts = clusters of cases that allow to distinguish two things from each other
approaches to science:
Objectivity vs. Subjectivity
Objectivity – Observation occurs in a neutral fashion without being influenced by theory or cultural or personal assumptions
- doesn’t matter who is looking
Subjectivity – Observation influenced by theory or cultural or personal assumptions
-notice different patterns
Main Methods of Research
- Field Methods
- Experiments
- Surveys
- Analysis of existing documents and official statistics
Values Role in Research
- help decide problems worth investigating
- formulate + adopt theories for explaining/interpreting problem
- interpretations influenced by previous research
- methods used mould perceptions
- choice: values play role every time choice is made
Agreement vs. Experimental Reality
Agreement: knowledge is part of culture
Experimental: knowledge from experience
ordinary human inquiry
- Uses Causal and Probabilistic Reasoning
- Tradition & Authority –> Provide us with starting points, but should not be the end
Errors in Inquiry - Inaccurate Observations
- Overgeneralization
- Selective Observation: focus on situations that fit pattern
- Illogical Reasoning
Reality: Premodern, Modern, Postmodern View
Premodern: saw things as they were
Modern: accepts diversity, sees things as subjective
Postmodern: nothing is real, only images from different POVs, personal viewpoint colours perception
Culture
-knowledge, language, values, customs, and material objects passed on from one generation to the next in a human group or society
-made up of ideas, behaviors, and material possessions
-How we think, How we act, What we
own, what we think and how we feel (“human
nature”)
Material culture
physical creations that we make, use, and share.
houses, tv
Nonmaterial culture
- abstract human creations of society that influence people’s behaviour
- Language, beliefs, values, rules of behaviors, family
- learn through interaction
5 Characteristics of Culture
- Culture is shared
- Culture is learned
- Culture is taken for granted
- Culture is symbolic: meaningful to members
- Culture varies across time and place
Culture Shock
- disorientation after being exposed to other cultures radically different
- believe their culture is natural
Language
-influences our perception of
reality
-how we use it changes meaning
-language we use impacts how we understand/perceive something
Components of Culture
- Symbols: Is something that meaningfully represent something else
- can have different meanings depending on context - Language: system of symbols that expresses ideas and enables people to think and communicate with one another
- Values: collective ideas about what is right and wrong, good or bad, and desirable or undesirable
- Norms
Ethnocentrism
Tendency for person to judge other cultures by standards of their own culture
Danger: hierarchy of cultures, prejudice & discrimination
Cultural Relativism
Judging cultural practices and beliefs exclusively in the cultural context in which they appear
Danger: mostly incompatible with idea universal human rights
Globalization
process where separate economies, states, and cultures are tied together and people become aware of growing interdependence
-expansion of international trade and investment
Dominant Culture
culture of most powerful group in society
-cultural form that receives most support from
major institutions and constitutes the major belief system
Pop Culture
beliefs, practices, and objects mass-produced and mass distributed
- music/films
- share public opinion and behavior
- Shapes perception and awareness of social issues
- Promotes narrow definition of who people are and what they can be (Body, Race, Gender, Sex, etc)
- available to everyone
Consumerism
Tendency to define ourselves in terms of
goods we purchase (e.g., we are what we wear, drive, etc.)
-motivated to make purchases because of
bombardment of advertising
-buy items that help define us as members of particular subculture
-acts as social control mechanism preventing countercultures from disrupting social order
(i) transforming deviations from mainstream into means of making money
(ii) enticing rebels to become entrepreneurs
Countercultures
subcultures that oppose
dominant values and seek to replace them (hippies, environmentalists)
Culture as Constrictive/Enabling Influence
constraining: limits choices
enabling: increases choices
Cultural Diversity
- more to choose from: taste of food, music, clothes
- inter-racial marriage
- multicultural
- piece together own cultural interests, practices, identity
Multiculturalism
Disagreement over school curricula
- want school curricula to:
- Reflect growing ethnic and racial diversity
- Stress that all cultures have equal value
- Promote self-esteem and economic success
Rights Revolution
-socially excluded groups struggled to
win equal rights under the law and in practice
-increased democracy
Culture Change
- response to changed conditions
- change through cultural diffusion
- result of innovation
- can be imposed
Homogenization of Cultures
-creates sameness
Customs/Practices
- ensure smooth operation
- meet human needs
- fulfill important functions
Formal Norms
-laws: enforced by formal sanctions
-civil(disputes)/criminal(public safety)
Sanctions: rewards for appropriate behaviour/penalties for inappropriate behaviour
-authority
Informal Norms
unwritten behaviour understood by ppl
-informal sanctions: frowning, negative comment
Folkways
informal norms that can be violated without serious consequence (deodorant, not brushing teeth)
- not often enforced
- culture specific
Mores
strongly held norms, moral, ethical connotations
-severe sanctions (prison, ridicule)
Taboos
strong mores, extremely offensive
-punishable by group + supernatural
Subculture
a set of distinctive values, norms, and practices within larger culture
High Culture
- upper/middle class
- classical music, opera, ballet
- used to exclude subordinate
- learn through uni, deny access to lower class from jobs
Culture: Functionalist Perspective
- helps ppl meet needs:
1. biological: food, procreation
2. instrumental: law, education
3. integrative: religion, art - pop culture unify ppl
- can promote against values such as violence, crime
Culture: Conflict Perspective
- norms+values create+ sustain privilege + social inequalities
- pop culture for capitalist economy
- promotes consumption of commodities
- ideas used by ruling class to control lower class
- link negative stereotypes
Ideology
integrated system of ideas
Symbolic Capital
rep for competence, respectability, honourability
Culture: Symbolic Interactionist Perspective
- negotiate social realities
- reinterpret (values, norms) in each soc situation
- controlled by culture (money)
- relativize everything with $
- highlights how ppl maintain/change culture through interaction
Culture: Post-Modern Perspective
- eurocentric (euro culture is universal culture)
- social life simulates reality through media
- hyper-reality (simulation more real than thing itself)
- experience sub of appearance of power over lack of real power (rides)
- should deconstruct beliefs + theories
Socialization
lifelong process by which people
- Learn their culture (norms, values, roles)
- Become aware of themselves as they interact with others (ppl are reactive to us)
- Unleash one’s potential(becoming fully human)
formation of the self
- individual identity that allows us to understand who we are and to differentiate ourselves
- Formation begins in childhood and continues in adolescence
- rapid change in adolescence then slows pace in adulthood
Theories about self
• Freud – only social interaction allows the
self to emerge
• Cooley – Looking-glass self: how we see ourselves reflects how we think others see us
• Mead – I (individual impulses, reflects on Me, self as subject) and Me (generalized other, self as
object, reflect upon)
• Goffman – Multiple Selves
-fluidity of self
-selves in different context
Gender socialization
process of learning to become feminine and masculine according to expectations current of society
- sociological factors help explain differences in sense of self that boys and girls develop
- boys are more difficult to raise when it comes to discipline, physical safety, and school.
- Girls are most difficult when it comes to self esteem issues and communication at a later age
Agents of Socialization
Families
Schools
Peer Groups
Mass Media
Agents of Socialization: Families
Most important agent of primary socialization
Agents of Socialization: School
responsible for secondary socialization
Agents of Socialization: Peer Groups
- not necessarily friends but about same age and of similar status
- help develop independent identity
- influential over lifestyle issues (appearance, social activities, and dating)
- From middle childhood through adolescence, often dominant socializing agent
Agents of Socialization: Mass Media
-Internet allowing self-socialization: choosing socialization influences
Primary Socialization
process of mastering basic skills required to function in society during childhood
Secondary Socialization
socialization outside the family after
childhood
Latent Function
- hidden curriculum that teaches students what will be expected of them in society (sharing, respect, discipline)
- helps sustain overall structure of society, with its privileges and disadvantages
Status
- recognized social position an individual can occupy (parent)
- status set: all statuses occupies at given time
Resocialization and Total institutions
- Takes place when powerful socializing agents deliberately cause rapid change in ppl’s values, roles, self-conception, sometimes against their will
- Can occur in total institutions: people are isolated from larger society and under strict control and constant supervision , not easy to leave (military, convent, prisons, boarding schools, and psychiatric hospitals)
- reboot of values, role, self
Flexible Self
- Factors contributing to growing flexibility of the self are:
- Globalization
- Growing ability to fashion new bodies from old
- Internet, access to information, building a ‘profile’
Social Interaction
-process by which people act toward or
respond to other people and is the foundation for all relationships and groups in society
-structured around statuses, roles, and norms
-structure face to face interaction
Roles
- performed (caregiver, educate)
- behavioural expectations associated with status
- role expectation: societal expectation of how role should be played
- role ambiguity: unclear expectations
Prescriptive Norms
Suggest what a person is expected to do while performing a particular role
Proscriptive Norms
Suggest what a person is expected not to do while performing a particular role
Norms
- established rules of behavior or standards of conduct
- exert constraining pressure
- NOT universal and often change over time
Social institutions
set of organized beliefs and rules that establish how a society will strive to meet its social needs
- Replacing members
- Teaching new members
- Producing, distributing, and consuming goods and services
- Preserving order
- Providing and maintaining a sense of purpose
Exchange theory
- social interaction involves trade in attention and other valued resources
- give-and-take of valued resources, such as attention, pleasure, approval, prestige, information, and money
Rational choice theory
Focuses on way interacting people weigh benefits and costs of interaction
-try to maximize benefits and minimize costs
Social Interaction: Conflict Theory
- statuses often are hierarchically arranged with people on top enjoying more power than those on bottom
- degree of inequality strongly affects social interaction
Social Interaction: Symbolic Interactionism
- ppl are active, creative, self-reflective
- understand meaning based on context
- not all people attach same meaning
- always interpreting meaning
Ethnomethodology
study of methods that ppl use unconsciously to make sense of what others do + say
- interaction could not occur without shared norms and understandings (Hi how are you?)
- requires agreement between actors about what is normal/expected
Dramaturgical Analysis
interaction as a play where ppl present themselves so they appear in best light
- ensemble of roles pp play in various social contexts
- front stage (public) + backstage
- impression management: make good impression
- face saving behaviour: rescue performance
Emotions
-learn from culture what emotion and when emotion is appropriate
Emotion Management
obeying “feeling rules”, responding appropriately
Emotion Labour
emotion management part of jobs (flight attendant, teacher)
Adult Socialization
- take on new statuses, social identities
- can choose roles
- learn how statuses best performed
- marriage, parenting
Ascribed vs. Achieved Status
- Ascribed: given at birth (ethnicity, age)
- influences achieved
- Achieved: assume voluntarily (occupation)
Master Status
most important status (poor/rich)
influences self-worth
Status Symbols
material sign informing ppl of their status (cars, luxury)
Role Exit
disengage from social roles central to identity
- doubt
- search for alternatives
- make final action
- creation of new identity
Self-fulfilling Prophecy
false belief produces behaviour that makes it true (believing they are good - not studying)
Social groups
two or more people who interact frequently with
one another and share a sense of
belonging
-people who identify with one another, and
adhere to defined norms, roles, or statuses
Primary groups
- norms, roles, and statuses are agreed upon but not put in writing
- strong emotional ties, over long period, and involves wide range of activities
- knowing one another well (family)
Secondary groups
- larger and more impersonal
- social interaction in narrow range of activities, shorter period of time, weaker emotional ties (Sociology class)
- lose membership=lose interaction
In-group vs. Out-group
In-group members: Those who belong to a group
Out-group members: Those who are excluded
-In-group members create characteristics needed for membership, separating themselves from out-group(athletic ability, academic talent, physical attractiveness)
-keep out-group from crossing the line
-legitimate vs. illegitimate (qualifications vs. discrimination)
Network
web of social relationships that link person with others and, through them, with more ppl those people know
-Patterns of exchange determine boundaries
-exchange resources(info) more frequently with one
another than with nonmembers
-may be formal (defined in writing), but are
more often informal (defined only in practice)
Organizations
groups pursuing tasks with specific purpose
- have organizational rules, conditions written
- Individuals have different ‘roles’ to play
- bigger=roles more specific activities
- specialized according to the tasks they perform, recruited according to skills and attributes
Utilitarian organizations
pays people for their efforts + time(business, government)
Normative organizations
to pursue some goal they think is morally worthwhile (voluntary, community service)
NGOs: Non-for-profit organizations
operates independently from government, advocates for social aim (lobbying)
Coercive organizations
involuntary memberships
- forms of punishment (prisons)/treatment (psychiatric hospitals)
- security measures, overlap to totalitarian
Bureaucracy
- Large, impersonal organization
- clearly defined positions hierarchically arranged
- permanent, salaried staff of qualified experts
- written goals, rules, and procedures
- common + efficient
Characteristics of bureaucracies
- Division of Labor: split task
- Hierarchy of Authority
- Rules and Regulations: bigger=more rules
- Qualification-Based Employment: based on what you can do
- Impersonality: about working together toward task
Drawbacks of bureaucracies
- Inefficiency and Rigidity: more concerned with procedure than getting job done correctly
- Resistance to Change: hierarchy creates barriers
- Perpetuation of Gender, Class and Race Inequalities: provide different paths for different categories of workers
Iron law of Oligarchy – tendency to become ruled by the few: handful make crucial decision
Changing Organizations
- interested in whole person: disposition, personality
- Interest in ‘emotional intelligence’
- monitoring employees: finding more about person
- some freedom of moving in and out of organizations: flexibility between responsibility
Mcdonaldization
- Efficiency – fastest time possible (assembly line)
- Calculability – quantitative aspects of products sold (portion size, cost) and service offered
- Predictability – product will be the same over time and in all locales
- Control – standardized + uniformed employees, non human tech
- Irrationalities of Rationality: dehumanizing/informality+spontaneity gradually replaced by efficiency administered formal rules+procedures)
- high turnover rate
Network organization
- likely to dominate future organizations
- Fluid, agile, quickly adapt to new circumstances, no central control and authority
- Technology allows efficiency and communication
- more ppl shape direction
Network Enterprise
less dependent on 1 person
-more ppl have say
Social groups shaping our actions
- implicit (norms, values, socialization) -> groupthink, solidarity, conformity
- explicit (obedience to authority)
Groups shaping our actions and identities
-through socialization and social interaction
-shape our sense of self, belonging, identity
-define ourselves by the groups we used to belong to, we belong to now and those we would like to
belong to in the future
Aggregates vs. Categories
Aggregates: same place, same time
Category: may have never met, share similar characteristics
Formal Organizations
-achieve specific goals in most efficient manner (uni, military)
Reference Groups
strongly influence person’s behaviour + attitudes
-evaluate ourselves by group standards
Group: Functionalist Perspective
-meet instrumental(cooperation) + expressive needs(emotional needs)
Group: Conflict Perspective
-power relationships where needs of members not equally served
Group: Symbolic Interactionist Perspective
- how size influences kind of interaction
- more ppl=more possible # of interactions
Group: Post-Modern Perspective
-superficiality + shallow social relationships
Group Size: Dyads, Triads
- small group=personal+intense interactions
- Dyad: 2 ppl, intense bond, need both participation
- Triad: 3 ppl, group can still function without 1
