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sociology
the study of human society
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Who argued that in the effort to think critically about the social world around us, we need to use our sociological imagination to see the connections between our personal experience and the larger forces of history?
C. Wright Mills
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sociological imagination
the ability to connect the most basic, intimate aspects of an individual's life to seemingly impersonal and remote historical forces
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social institution
a complex group of interdependent positions that perform a social role and reproduce themselves over time; also defined in a narrow sense as any institution in a society that works to shape the behavior of the groups or people within it
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Who invented what he called "social physics" or "positivism"?
Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
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Comte's three historical, epistemological stages
- 1. Theological stage
- 2. Metaphysical stage
- 3. Scientific stage
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Comte's stage in which society seemed to be the result of devine will
theological stage
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Comte's stage in which scholars might consult the Bible or other ecclesiastical texts
theological stage
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Comte's stage in which Enlightenment thinkers such as Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, and Thomas Hobbes saw humankind's behavior as governed by natural, biological instincts
metaphysical stage
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Comte's stage in which to understand the nature of society, we needed to strip away the layers of society to better comprehend how our basic drives and natural instincts governed and established the foundation for the surrounding world
metaphysical stage
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Comte's stage in which we would develop a social physics of sorts in order to indentify the scientific laws that govern human behavior
scientific stage
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Who was the first to translate Comte into English?
Harriet Martineau (1802-1876)
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works of Harriet Martineau
- Theory and Practice of Society in America (1837)
- How to Observe Morals and Manners (1838)
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Who is considered one of the earliest feminist social scientists writing in the English language?
Harriet Martineau
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founding fathers of the sociological discipline
- Karl Marx
- Max Weber
- Emile Durkheim
- sometimes: Georg Simmel
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most famous fo the founding fathers?
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
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the term Marxism (an ideological alternative to capitalism) is derived from his surname
Karl Marx
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Who criticized Marx for his exclusive focus on the economy and social class, advocating sociological analysis that allowed for the multiple influences of culture, economics, and politics?
Max Weber (1864-1920)
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works of Max Weber
- Economy and Society (1914)
- lengthy essay - "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
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Verstehen
- German: understanding
- this concept forms the object of inquiry for interpretive sociology - to study how social actors understand their actions and the social world through experience
- Weber suggested that sociologists approach social behavior from the perspective of those engaging in it
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founding father from France
Emile Durkheim
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founding father from Germany
Max Weber
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founding father who settled in London
Karl Marx
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works of Emile Durkheim
- The Division of Labor in Society (1893)
- Suicide (1897)
- The Elemental Forms of Religions of Life
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anomie
- a sense of aimlessness or despair that arises when we can no longer reasonably expect life to be predictable
- to little social regulation
- normlessness
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positivist sociology
a strain within sociology that believes the social world can be described and predicted by certain describable relationships (akin to a social physics)
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received less credit as one of the founders of sociology, although as of late is gaining wider recognition
Georg Simmel (1858-1918)
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established what we today refer to as formal sociology - that is, a sociology of pure numbers
Georg Simmel
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emergence of American sociology characterized by which of the following:
focus on big, sweeping theories
more focused empirical research
more focused empirical research
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"looking-glass self"
- Charles Horton Cooley
- the self emerges from an interactive social process
- by refining our vision of how others perceive us, we develop a self-concept that is in constant interaction with the surrounding social world
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"social self"
- Charles Horton Cooley and George Herbert Mead
- the social environment shapes the individual
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most important black sociologist of the time and the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard
W. E. B. DuBois (1868-1963)
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first sociologist to undertake ethnography in the African American community
W. E. B. DuBois
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double consciousness
a concept conceived by W. E. B. DuBois to describe the two behavioral scripts, one for moving through the world and the other incorporating the external opinions of prejudiced onlookers, which are constantly maintained by African Americans
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Who theorized that the breakdown of norms resulting from the sudden and newfound freedom of former slaves caused high crime rates among blacks (at least in the South)?
W. E. B. DuBois
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considered a marginal member of the Chicago School, yet many of the movement's thinkers drew some of their insights from her applied work
Jane Addams
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founded the first American settlement house, Hull House, an institution that attempted to link the ideas of the university to the poor through a full-service community center, staffed by students and professionals, which offered educational services and aid and promoted sports and the arts
Jane Addams
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Where were the ideas of the Chicago School put into practice and tested?
Hull House in Chicago
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functionalism
the theory that various social institutions and processes in society exist to serve some important (or necessary) function to keep society running
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organicism
- the notion that society is like a living organism, each part of which serves an important role in keeping society together
- The state or government was seen to be the brain; industry was the muscular system; media and mass communications were the nervous system; and so on
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conflict theory
the idea that conflict between competing interests is the basic, animating force of social change and society in general
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symbolic interactionism
a micro-level theory in which shared meanings, orientations, and assumptions form the basic motivations behind people's actions
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feminist theory
- emerged from the women's movements of the 1960s and 1970s
- shares many ideas with Marxist theory - in particular, the Marxist emphasis on conflict
- emphasize equality between men and women and want to see women's lives and experivences represented in sociological studies
- focused on defining concepts such as sex and gender and challenging conventional wisdom by questioning the meanings usually assigned to these concepts
- focuses on inequalities based on gender categories
- studied women's experiences at home and in the workplace, in social institutions such as schools, the family, and the government
- sociologists remain interested in how power relationships are defined, shaped, and reproduced on the basis of gender differences
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Ann Oakley
- Sex, Gender, and Society (1972)
- argued that much of what we attribute to biological sex differences can be traced to behaviors that are learned and internalized through socialization
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focuses on big theories of society
macrosociology
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focuses on how face-to-face interactions create the social world
microsociology
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postmodernism
a condition characterized by a questioning of the notion of progess and history, the replacement of narrative within pastiche, and multiple, perhaps even conflicting, identities resulting from disjointed affiliations
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social constitutions
an entity that exists because people behave as if it exists and whose existence is perpetuated as people and social institutions act in accordance with the widely agreed upon formal rules or informal norms of behavior associated with that entity
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midrange theory
a theory that attempts to predict how certain social institutions tend to function
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microsociology
seeks to understand local interactional contexts; its methods of choise are ethnographic, generally including participant observation and in-depth interviews
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macrosociology
generally concerned with social dynamics at a higher level of analysis - that is, across the breadth of a society
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research methods
approaches that social scientists use for investigating the answers to questions
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quantitative methods
methods that seek to obtain information about the social world that is already in or can be converted to numeric form
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qualitative methods
methods that attempt to collect information about the social world that cannot be readily converted to numeric form
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deductive approach
a research approach that starts with a theory, forms a hypothesis, makes empirical observations, and then analyzes the data to confirm, reject, or modify the original theory
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inductive approach
a research approach that starts with empirical observations then works to form a theory
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correlation or association
simultaneous variation in two variables
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causality
the notion that a change in one factor results in a corresponding change in another
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reverse causality
a situation in which the researcher believes that A results in a change in B, but B, in fact, is causing A
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dependent variable
the outcome that the researcher is trying to explain
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independent variable
a measured factor that the researcher believes has a causal impact on the dependent variable
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hypothesis
a proposed relationship between two variables
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operationalization
the process of assigning a precise method for measuring a term being examined for use in a particular study
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validity
the extent to which an instrument measures what it is intended to measure
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reliability
likelihood of obtaining consistent results using the same measure
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generalizability
the extent to which we can claim our findings inform us about a group larger than the one we studied
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reflexivity
analyzing and critically considering our own role in, and affect on, our research
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population
an entire group of individual persons, objects, or items from which samples may be drawn
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sample
the subset of the population from which you are actually collecting data
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feminist methodology
a set of systems or methods that treat women's experiences as legitimate empirical and theoretical resources, that promote social science for (think public sociology, but for a specific half of the public), and that take into account the researcher as much as the overt subject matter
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participant observation
a qualitative research method that seeks to observe social actions in practice
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forms of qualitative data
- interviews
- participant observation
- survey
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survey
an ordered series of questions intended to elicit information from respondents
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historical methods
research that collects data from written reports, newspaper articles, journals, transcripts, television programs, diaries, artwork, and other artifacts that date to a prior time period under study
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comparative research
a methodology by which two or more entities (such as countries), which are similar in many dimensions but differ on one in question, are compared to learn about the dimension that differs between them
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experimental methods
- methods that seek to alter the social landscape in a very specific way for a given sample of individuals and then track what results that change yields
- often involve comparisons to a control group that did not experience such an intervention
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content analysis
a systemativ analysis of the content rather than the structure of a communication, such as a written work, speech, or film
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golden rules of research
- do no harm
- informed consent
- voluntary participation
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"Do no harm"
- first golden rule of research
- do not want to cause physical, psychological, or emotional harm to subjects
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informed consent
- second golden rule of research
- subjects have a right to know they are participating in a study and what that study will consist of
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voluntary participation
- third golden rule of research
- people ahve a right to decide if they want to participate in a study
- they also have the right to stop participating at any point with no penalty
- protected populations: minors, prisoners and other institutionalized individuals, pregnant women and their unborn fetuses, the disabled; these people need additional approval to study
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public sociology
the practice of sociological research, teaching, and service that seeks to engage a non-academic audience for a normative, productive end
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culture
- a set of beliefs, traditions, and practices
- the sum total of social categories and concepts we embrace in addition to beliefs, behaviors (except instinctual ones), and practices
- that which is not the natural environment around us
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culture = human - nature
- a set of beliefs, traditions, and practices
- technology by which humans dominate nature
- Latin origins: to refine crops to meet human needs
- ideologies and symbolic representations
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culture = superior man - inferior man
- ethnocentrism
- believing that your own culture is superior
- viewing all cultures from your own culture's perspective
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culture = man - machine
- culture as pursuit of perfection
- the best which has been thought and said
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public sociology
using sociology to influence social change
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material culture
- everything that is part of our constructed environment
- everything that is attached to a meaning or value
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nonmaterial culture
values, beliefs, behaviors, and social norms
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norms
social rules based on values
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subcultures
- a group distinct from the larger culture, united by shared meaning
- the distinct cultural values and behavioral patterns of a particular group in society; a group united by sets of concepts, values, symbols, and shared meaning specific to the members of that group distinctive enough to distinguish it from others within the same culture or society
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what's in a name?
- names follow socially-structured patterns
- reflect cultural trends and fashions
- sometimes imply race
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socialization
- process of internalizing values, beliefs and norms
- learning to function as a member of society
- cultural scripts: as you grow up, you're learning how to play the role of a human being; behaviors and understandings that are not universal or natural
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reflection theory
- culture reflects society's underlying realities and structures
- limitations: requires context to understand; does not explain why some cutural products remain popular, fade away, or change meaning over time; unidirectional says culture has no impact on society
- the idea that culture is a projection of social structures and relationships into the public sphere, a screen onto which the film of the underlying reality or social structures of our society is projected
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media
formats or vehicles that carry, present, or communicate information
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hegemony
- the power that the media holds
- dominant group creates popular consensus with persuasion (subtle power of persuasion)
- hegemonic power of advertising: sets the tone, sits in the background, and nurtures consumerism
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consumerism
- belief that happiness and fulfillment can be achieved through material possessions
- selling emotion associated with product, not the product directly
- parent companies
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ethnocentrism
the belief that one's own culture or group is superior to others and the tendency to view all other cultures from the perspective of one's own
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ideology
a system of concepts and relationships, an understanding of cause and effect
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cultural relativism
taking into account the differences across cultures without passing judgment or assigning value
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culture jamming
the act of turning media against themselves
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self
the individual identity of a person as perceived by that same person
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I
one's sense of agency, action, or power
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me
- the self as perceived as an object by the "I"
- as the self as one imagines others perceive one
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other
someone or something outside of oneself
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generalized other
an internalized sense of teh total expectations of others in a variety of settings - regardless of whether we've encountered those people or places before
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agents of socialization
- family
- school
- peers
- media
- adult socialization
- total institutions
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primary unit of socialization
family
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for children, the primary locus of socialization largely shifts to:
school
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around school age, these become an important part of our lives and function as agents of socialization
peers
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resocialization
the process by which one's sense of social values, beliefs, and norms are reengineered, often deliberately through an intense social process that may take place in a total institution
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total institution
an institution in which one is totally immersed and that controls all the basics of day-to-day life; no barriers exist between the usual spheres of daily life, and all activity occurs in the same place and under the same single authority
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status
a recognizable social position that an individual occupies
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role
the duties and behaviors expected of someone who holds a particular status
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role strain
the incompatibility among roles corresponding to a single status
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role conflict
the tension caused by competing demands between two or more roles pertaining to different statuses
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status set
all the statuses one holds simultaneously
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ascribed status
a status into which one is born, involuntary status
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achieved status
a status into which one enters; voluntary status
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master status
one status within a set that stands out or overrides all others
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gender roles
sets of behavioral norms assumed to accompany one's status as male or female
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symbolic interactionism
a micro-level theory in which shared meanings, orientations, and assumptions form the basic motivations behind people's actions
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three basic tenets of symbolic interactionism
- 1. Human beings act toward ideas, concepts, and values on the basis of the meaning that those things have for them
- 2. These meanings are the products of social interaction in human society
- 3. These meanings are modified and filtered through an interpretive process that each individual uses in dealing with outward signs
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dramaturgical theory
the view (advanced by Erving Goffman) of social life as essentially a theatrical performance, in which we are all actors on metaphorical stages, with roles, scripts, costumes, and sets
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face
the esteem in which an individual is held by others
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ethnomethodology
literally "the methods of the people", this approach to studying human interaction focuses on the ways in which we make sense of our world, convey this understanding to others, and produce a mutually shared social order
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triad
group of three or more
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unique characteristics of dyad
- most intimate form of social life, partly because the two members are mutually dependent on each other - continued existence of group is entirely contingent on the the willingness of both parties to participate
- no third person exists to buffer the situation or mediate between the two
- members do not need to be concerned about how their relationship will be perceived by a third party
- the group itself exerts no supra-individual control over the individuals involved
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mediator
member of a triad who attempts to resolve conflict between the two other actors in the group
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tertius gaudens
- the new third member of a triad who benefits from conflict between the other two members of the group
- latin for "the third that rejoices"
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divide et imera
- latin for "divide and conquer"
- the role of a member of a triad who intentionally drives a wedge between the other two actors in a group
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small group
a group characterized by face-to-face interaction, a unifocal perspective, lack of formal arrangements, and a certain level of equality
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party
a group that is similar to a small group but multifocal
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large group
a group characterized by the presence of a formal structure that mediates interaction and, consequently, status differentiation
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primary groups
social groups, such as family or friends, composed of intimate face-to-face relationships that strongly influence the attitudes and ideals of those involved
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secondary group
groups marked by impersonal, instrumental relationships (those existing as a means to an end)
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in-group
another term for the powerful group, most often the majority
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out-group
another term for the stigmatized or less powerful group, the minority
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reference group
a group that helps us understand or make sense of our position in society relative to other groups
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social network
a set of relations - essentially, a set of dyads - held together by ties between individuals
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tie
a set of stories that explains our relationship to the other members of our network
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narrative
the sum of stories contained in a set of ties
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structural hole
a gap between network clusters, or even two individuals, if those individuals (or clusters) have complementary resources
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social capital
the information, knowledge of people, and connections that help individuals enter, gain power in, or otherwise leverage social networks
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organization
any social network that is defined by a common purpose and has a boundary between its membership and the rest of the social world
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organizational culture
- the shared beliefs and behaviors within a social group
- often used interchangeably with corporate culture
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organizational structure
the ways in which power and authority are distributed within an organization
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isomorphism
a constraining process that forces one organization to resemble others that face the same set of environmental conditions
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social deviance
any transgression of socially established norms
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crime
the violation of laws enacted by society
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special cohesion
- social bonds
- how well people relate to each other and get along on a day-to-day basis
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mechanical or segmental solidarity
special cohesion based on sameness
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organic solidarity
social cohesion based on difference and interdependence of the parts
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social control
those mechanisms that create normative compliance in individuals
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formal social sanctions
mechanisms of social control by which rules or laws prohibit deviant criminal behavior
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informal social sanctions
the usually unexpressed but widely known rules of group membership, the unspoken rules of social life
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social integration
- how well you are integrated into your social group or community
- low: egoistic
- high: altruistic
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social regulation
- the number of rules guiding your daily life and more specifically, what you can reasonably expect from the world on a day-to-day basis
- low: anomic
- high: fatalistic
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egoistic suicide
suicide that occurs when one is not well integrated into a social group
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altruistic suicide
suicide that occurs when one experiences too much social integration
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suicides based on religions
- Judaism: low, bonded over persecution and rejection
- Catholicism: lower than Protestant
- Protestant: highest rate of egoistic suicide among major European religious groups; low sense of community due to encouragement of direct personal relationship with God; integrative structures of Catholicism are stripped away
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anomie
- a sense of aimlessness or despair that arises when we can no longer reasonably expect life to be predictable
- too little social regulation
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anomic suicide
suicide that occurs as a result of too little social regulation
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fatalistic suicide
suicide that occurs as a result of too much social regulation
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strain theory
Merton's theory that deviance occurs when a society does not give all its members equal ability to achieve socially acceptable goals
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conformist
individual who accepts both the goals and strategies to achieve them that are considered socially acceptable
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ritualist
individual who rejects socially defined goals in order to live within his or her own means
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innovator
social deviant who accepts socially acceptable goals but rejects socially acceptable means to achieve them
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retreatist
one who rejects both socially acceptable means and goals by completely retreating from, or not participating in, society
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rebel
individual who rejects socially acceptable goals and means but wants to alter or destroy the social institutions from which he or she is alienated
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labeling theory
the belief that individuals subconsciously notice how others see and label them, and their reactions to those labels, over time, form the basis of their self-identity
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primary deviance
the first act of rule-breaking that may incur a label of "deviant" and thus influence how people think about and act toward you
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secondary deviance
subsequent acts of rule-breaking that occur after primary deviance and as a result of your new deviant label and people's expectations of you
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stigma
a negative social label that not only changes your behavior towards a person but also alters that person's own self-concept and social identity
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broken windows theory of deviance
theory explaining how social context and social cues impact whether individuals act deviantly: specifically, whether local, informal social norms allow deviant acts
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street crime
crime commited in public and often associated with violence, gangs, and poverty
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white-collar crime
offense committed by a professional (or professionals) against a corporation, agency, or other institution
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corporate crime
a particular type of white-collar crime committed by the officers (CEOs and other executives) of a corporation
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deterrence theory
philosophy of criminal justice arising form the notion that crime results from a rational calculation of its costs and benefits
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recidivism
when an individual who has been involved with the criminal justice system reverts back to criminal behavior
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total institution
an institution in which one is totally immersed and that controls all the basics of day-to-day life; no barriers exist between the usual spheres of daily life, and all activity occurs in the same place and under the same single authority
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panopticon
a circular building composed of an inner ring and an outer ring designed to serve as a prison in which the detainees can always be seen and the observer, housed in the inner ring, is hidden from those being observed
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Questioning the reasons why people choose to attend college and the importance of a college degree is an example of ______.
using the socialogical imagination (allowing yourself to recognize how the social world works and why)
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According to Karl Marx, throughout history social change has been sparked by _______.
class conflict
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Which of the "founding fathers" of sociology put forth the idea that sociologists should examine social behavior from the perspective of those engaging in the behavior?
Max Weber
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Sociology is the study of ____, ____, and ____.
- what seems natural or normal to a given group of people
- human society
- how groups interact with one another
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using our sociological imagination helps us _____.
make the familiar strange
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the examination of everyday human social interactions on a small scale
microsociology
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3 examples of social institutions
- education system
- government
- marriage
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an example of an application of midrange theory (recall that midrange theory attempts to predict how certain social institutions tend to function)
exploring the role of churches in rural areas
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postmodern theorists argue ...
all phenomena have multiple meanings and no one meaning can be more valid than another
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this theory examines the interactions between people with a focus on how they talk, dress, and use body language
symbolic interactionism (a micro-level approach that focuses on how face-to-face interactions create the social world)
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This American sociologist applied Durkheim's theory of anomie to explain African American crime rates
W. E. B. DuBois
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correlation
simultaneous change in two variables
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three factors needed to establish causation
- correlation
- time order
- ruling out of alternative explanations
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the claims that the relationship proposed between two variables does not exist
null hypothesis
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this allows people to ignore complex, underlying issues that are difficult to talk about
use of stereotypes
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the idea that culture is a projection of social structures and relationships
reflection theory
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