Sociology Notecards: Introduction to Sociology

Dr. Sarah LMU

What is the definition of sociology according to our textbook

Study of human society

Define sociology experiment

A study of how societies are organized and how the organization of a society influences the behavior of the people living with it in

Define sociological imagination

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Sociological Imagination between biography and history

exploring the relationship between our individual biography and history of society.

Define each of these terms:

Exploring relationship between personal troubles and public issues

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PI- foundational value combined by the public that seem threat and afer contested

Individual circumstances and social/historical context

Individual circumstances: personal actions, experiences, and problems

Social: social institutions, political arrangements, economic systems, and cultural values.

Sociological imagination: agency and social structure L: exploring the relationship between individuals agency and social structure

individual agency—individual freedom, choices, opportunities

social structure—social institutions, political arrangements, economic systems, and cultural values

Define Agency

Informed by individuals' biographies, personal troubles, and individual circumstances.

Constellations of what individuals perceive and experience as their individual freedom and opportunities.

What is social structure?

Informed by society’s history and the socio-historical context created by that history.

The constellation of social institutions, economic systems, political arrangements, and cultural values

Society’s social institutions, economic systems, political arrangements, and cultural values.

Economic systems

American=profits

more profit you make, higher the profits

Define culture

The sum of the social categories and concepts we operate in, in addition to beliefs, learned behaviors, and practices—everything but the natural environment around us

Define cultural values.

The meanings and importance we attach to the social categories and concepts we operate in, in addition to beliefs, learned behaviors, and practices.

August Cante

Social physics was the best way to understand human behavior thoruh logical or scientific

Positivism

emphasizes the scientific method as an approach to studying the objectively observable behvaior of indvidiuals

Harriet Martineau

1st person to translate Connet’s written works into english

earliest feminist social sciences

Addressed topics ranging from education to the relationship between federal/state governments.

Karl Marx

Conflict theory

did historical materialism which identifies class conflict as the primary cause of social change

Max Weber

Interpretive sociology (study of social meaning/symbolic interactionism)

Émile Durkheim

Functionalism

Microsociology

Branch of sociology that seeks to understand local interactional contexts Branch

Focus on face-to-face encounters and the types of interactions between individuals

Macrosociology

Branch of sociology generally concerned with social dynamics at a higher level of analysis

Focuses on big trends, patterns, and correlation using large data scales

History and Anthropology

Focuses more on particular circumstances than sociology does P

Psychology and Biology

examine things on more micro level than sociology does

Economics

quantitative discipline

Political science

Focuese on only one aspect of social relations: pwoer

Stratification definition

It is how the American social structure is organized

This is done through a hierarchical organization of a society with different levels of power.

What are the 5 forms of social stratification?

1. Estate system → hierarchical organization based on politics and power

2. Caste system → Stratification based on religion

3. Class system → based on economic resources

4. Status hierarchy system → based on social prestige

   1. Elite-mass dichontomy system → based on a few people holding power

How is American society stratified

1. income, wealth, education, and occupation

2. income: money received by a person of work, from transfers or from returns or investments

   1. wealth: a family’s or individual’s net worth

What is the consequence of stratification?

Inequality: the differing level of access to power, privilege, social prestige, or status and economic resources.

Inequality and American social structure

1. Inequality characterizes our structure

2. inequality has consequences for individual agency

3. Inequality can be a catalyst for change in the social structure.

Define sociological theory

abstracted systemic model to see how the world works

Sociological theories

also known as frameworks or appearances for understanding and explaining how the world works, understanding

Sociological Imagination

Explores the relationship between individuals’ agency and social structure

Three main sociological theories

Karl Marx: conflict theory

Max Weber: interpretive sociology (study of social meanings)

Emile Durkheim: functionalism

What is karl marx’s conflict theory

It explains the individual betwen social structure and the conflict between groups

conflict for scarce resources

emphasizes on economic systems

Stratification is the class system

the inequality that he created in the economic systems of the social structure

Social change happens when groups with less power and status come together to overthrow with the most power

Max Weber

Micro-level theory focuses on shared meanings, orientations, and assumptions, as well as the basic motivation behind people's actions.

meanings that attach to their behavior are what underlie/explain the relationship between social agency and structure

class and social status → behaviors that create inequality

inequality: how meanings and values attached to social behaviors are created and interpreted within a society

Social change: changing the meanings and values that we attach to individuals' actions and how actions are interpreted in society.

Emile Durkheim and Functionalism

functionalism defined: various social institutions and rituals exist to interpret social solidarity and play an important role in society

Social solidarity and individual roles are what underlie the relationship between social structure and society.

Everyone has an important role to play in the functioning of society; inequality also helps creat functional society.

Mixed Methods data

White Coat effect

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Reflexivity

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Golden Rules of Reserach

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Social construction

Based on things that are natural but are not real and natural in and of themselves.

Social Construct

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Three criteria for social construct

1. Meanings and values we attached to construct changes over time and place

2. The existence of the construct relies on social interaction between people and between individuals and social institutions.

3. Meanings and values we attach to the construct are contested, even though there is a shared understanding of these meanings and values.

Self, I, Me, Other: Developent of the self and the other Development

Self: The individual identity of a person as perceived by that same person

I: ones sense of having a consciousness, action, power and agency

Me: the self that one imagines other people think of oneself

Other: someone or something outside of oneself.

Charles Horton Cooley

Developed the theory of the social self

Looking Glass Self

Charles Horton Cooley developed the looking-glass self, which is the believe that we assume the point of view of others and how others see us

George Herbert Mead

Developed theory about how social self develops over the course of childhood

Generalized other

an internalized though of all expectations that we expect of others in different settings regardless of where we have seen them before.

Robert Merton

Developed theory for understanding social interaction between individuals

Role theory

It’s how people interact with one another. The idea is that we have different statuses and roles, and we interact with people based on those statuses. They are socially constructed.

Status

Recognizable social position that an individual occupies

Role

the duties and behaviors of someone that is in a particular status

Ascribed status

a status into which one is born

Achieved status

a status into one enters

Dramaturgical theory

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Face

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Sociolization

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Agents of socialization

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Adult socialization

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Total institution

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Social Construct

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Social construction

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Three criteria of a social construct

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Racial, Ethnic, and Nativity Stratification

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Racial, Ethnic, and Nativity Inequality

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Race

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Racism, types of racism

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Ethnicity

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Symbolic ethnicity

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Racism

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White privilege

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Nativity

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Emigration

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Immigration

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Ethnocentrism

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Xenophobia

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Sex

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Sex Categorization

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Gender

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Sexuality

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Sex, Gneder, and Sexuality Stratification

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Sex, Gender, and Sexuality Inequality

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Sex Binary

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Gender Binary

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Sexuality Binary

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Heteroarchy

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Heteronormativity

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Biocultural Framework

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Class stratiifcation

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Class inequality

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Marx and class

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Gilbert and class

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How do sociologist measure class

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Poverty

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Theories of the causes of poverty

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Cultural Capital

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History of Education

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Stratification and Inequality of Educational Institutions

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