AICE Sociology, paper 1

Parsons

Functionalist

-structural differentiation.

-In most societies, women are expressive (nurturing) and men are instrumental (providers)

-families are primary socialization for children

-deviant subcultures are how teenages deal with having no place in the world, people turn to deviant acts when there is a gap between their goals and what they can achieve

Durkheim

-Societies can only be understood as relationships between institutions

-Society is an entity in its own right and order is kept though the general consensus on what is important (value consensus)

-People need to develop social solidarity for a society to form

-Durkheim helped to prove sociologists could show objective truths and made sociology more scientific through his suicide study

-Crime is functional (demonstrates sanction), inevitable and normal

Goffman

Dramaturgy, people are like actors who play roles in society.

Cooley

Looking Glass Self, we act how others courage and expect us to act , we understand who we are based on other peoples reactions to us.

Comte

-Questioned how the social order was created and maintained

-believed you could use the scientific method to study society

-Believed socities started as theological (religious) then became metaphysical (disordered and chaotic) before finally becoming positive (scientific)

-Consensus theory

Marx

-Believed that order was maintained through conflict

-Believed in four time periods, all categorized by different economic relationships and conflict stemming from the domination of one group over the other

-In capitalist societies, the conflict was the between the ruling bourgeoisie and the working class proletariat

-People can be controlled through force (violence) or persuasion (eg. religion)

-Class reductionist

Weber

-Believed that social change came bout because of the actions of groups and individuals acting prposefully, the groups could be spurred on by charismatic leaders.

-Believed that each social movement had to be seperately studied to find the conflict that caused it

Reliability

consistency of measurement

Validity

the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to

-Whether or not the data would check out/how accurate it is

researcher bias

condition in which the presence or behaviour of the researcher introduces uncontrolled variables into the research, making it unreliable or invalid.

positivism

-the application of the scientific approach to the social world

-Knowledge is created through making and testing hypotheses

-Sociologists must be objective

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interpretivist

-methodology based on the principle that social behaviour can only be understood subjectively, by understanding how people interpret situations and, by so doing, give them meaning. Participant observation is a classic interpretivist method.

-According to oberg, interpetivists use a "emergent research design, which include planning, data collection, and data analaysis.

Post Modernism

-the idea that people construct the stories to make sense of the world, they are not right or wrong, they just are

-Post-Modernists ar interested in "meta-narritives" big stories we tell ourseleves, ;ile religion, nationality or political ideology.

-According to lyotard, most modern societies are less willing to believe in meta narratives

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social problem

a social condition that a segment of society views as harmful to members of society and in need of remedy

socioogical problem

Two broad defnitions

1. Big fundemental issues in society, like food and shelter

2. According to Willis, a sociological problem s just a problem that demands an explanation

social control

the various mechanisms, such as rewards and punishments, that individuals and societies use to maintain order.

cultural universals

According to Murdock all cultures have universal symbols

age ■ family ■ language ■ status ■ symbols ■ beliefs ■ practices

Gender

-Women perform 60% of the labor worldwide and are paid 10% of the wages -. Eitzen and Baca-Zinn

-Women often have less oppurtunities in life due to patriarchy

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Structuralist

form of sociology, such as functionalism and Marxism, that focuses on analysing society in terms of its institutional relationships and their e" ect on individual beliefs and behaviours.

Determinism

the philosophy that holds that every event, action, and decision results from something independent of the human will

Functionalism

-Society is maintaned through sub-systems working in harmony

-Parsons (1937) argues that every social system consists of four 'functional sub-systems' - political, economic, cultural and family, each addressing a different problem

-The family solves socialzation, cultural solves social integration, economic solves physical survival, political solves order

How do instutions get people to conform according to Parsons

G: Goal Maitenence: reward people so they want to conform

A: Adaptation: People need a cooperative enviornment where they can learn

I: intergration, The institution must become a normal part of society, where those who confrom are rewarded and those who dont are punished

Latency: Institutio becomes a normal part of society and deviants are controlled through rules

economic determinism

the belief that human behavior and relationships are ultimately caused by differences in financial resources and the disparity in power that those gaps create

Marxism

-Work is the most important aspect of society

-The econonomic base is the foundation off which society is built.

-The political and idealogical superstructure rests on top of the economic base, and includes institutions of social (police, govt.) and idealogical control (education, religion)

Feminism

In contemporary society, mens interests are put above womens'

Interpersonal power: Violence against women and women being exploited for domestic labor

Cultural Power: Soceity is structured to benefit men and exploit women eg. men having more political and economic power

Interactionism

A sociological perspective that views social order and social change as resulting from all the repeated interactions among individuals and groups.

-society has no objective reality beyond our own behavior.

-the idea of labelling (or naming) is important because it shows how order is created through interaction

-A handshake is only a greeting because we have agreed that it is.

Structural differentiation

the idea that where social systems consist of connected sub-systems, changes within one causes changes in the others. (functionalist/parsons)

Action Theory & Social Change

-Social reality is malleable

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G.H. Mead

-How people behave depends on the social context

-Believes self awareness is learnt and the self has two aspects, the unsocialized self: our opinion of ourselves ad how we react to others, and the social self, how others expect us to behave in a given situation.

primary socialization

the process by which children learn the cultural norms of the society into which they are born, usually hrough family or early childhood friendship

secondary socialization

process of learning appropriate behavior within smaller sections of the larger society, important according to parsons because it helps to avoid dependence on primary attachments

The family and socialization

Primary unit of socialization, according to mead, parents are significant others who inform are basic norms and values, sanctions are often informal

peers and socialization

Primary. Teach conformity. Reinforce messages taught at home.

education and socialization

Jackson's hidden curriculum (obedience to authority etc)

Parsons believes school limits dependence on primary attatchements such as the family and helps children to experience a mini version of society, allowing them to learn norms and values, as well as adjusting personal and social values.

marxists like bowles and gintis believe school norms replicate workplace norms.

Mass Media and Socialization

According to potter there are 3 short term effects of mass media consumption, imitation, desensitization, and learning, and three long term effects, consumerism, fear and agenda setting

Religion and socialization

-Religion is important for ceremonial functions

-Religion is also an easy way to impart norms and values, and often has intense sanctions (eg. burning in hell)

Norms

rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members

-According to goffman, norms are interpretive and not set in stone

-according to merton, people not understanding norms leads to confusion or anomie,

Values

the ideas, beliefs, and attitudes about what is important that help guide the way you live

Power

-according to weber there are two types of power, coercive (power through fear) and consensual.

-leaders are typically either charismatic, traditional or legal

-Foucault says power is getting harder to see in modern society because coercion is much subtler

Lower-Class identity

-close knit communities

-based on traditional manufacturing and physical labor, but according to crompton, a new working class has emerged from the service industry, this new working class, according to goldthorpe, this new working class believes that work is a means to an end, like a comfortable home

Middle-Class

- the middle class is separated from the working class by three traits, 1. Being above the working class and wanting to remain separate from them and wanting to reach the lifestyle of the upper class. 2. Disgusted subjects: Lawler argues that the middle class seperates themselves through their disgust at perceived lack of taste. 3. social capital: The social connections one can make and what people will do for each other.

Upper Class

-Ex. Historically the upper-class was dominated by the land owning aristocracy, but is know dominated by ultra-wealthy business people and CEOs-Davies et al notes that only 1% of the world's population owns 40% of the wealth.

.Gender identities

Lips: gender is not biological, gender roles have changed through culture and time so gender roles are learned not innate.

connel et al: Gender is learned

Male identities

According to Connel there are two types of masculinites, hegemonic traditional masculinity and subversive masculinity which includes, subordinate (men who physically cannot perform manly tasks), Subversive masculinity (someone who challenges contingent masculinty) and contingent masculinty or the new man (someone who helps with housework and is more feminine)

As men has lost power in society, many men have turned to retributive (violent) and hypermasculinity in an attempt to gain power back from women.

Female identity

Contingent femininity: femininity to serve male interest, BMW, women are either sex objects, homemakers or mothers

Assertive feminity: resist male power without threatening to overthrow it froyum, includes girlpower identities, Modernised (girlboss) feminities and aging feminities.

Autonomous Femininities: Promotes competition with men on female terms.

Ethnic identity

Ethnicity is a combination of social differences, like religion, family structures, beliefs values and norms.-Winston suggests that ethnic identities develop when people 'see themselves as being distinctive in some way from others'

ethnic identities require maitenence through shared cultural symbols like festivals.

Wimmer (2008) argues that an important aspect of ethnic identities is how they are defined in relation to other ethnic groups by constructing a sense of difference

Conventional Hybridization

-The idea that the mixing of distinctive ethnic styles produces new identities.-Ex. Food from different ethnicities becoming staples of other cultures' food.

Contemporary Hybridization

-The idea that ethnic identities must go through constant change, maintenance and development.-Ex. Immigration and cultural globalization.

Modernity

: a stage in historical development characterised by things like industrialisation, urbanisation and the development of science and reason.

Functionalist view of culture

Mazrui says culture performs seven functions

1. Communication (language)

2. Perception

3. Identity

4. Value systems

5. Motivation

6. Stratification

7. Production

Conflict theory's view on culture

Contemporary societies contain competing control groups. As identity has become more fluid, there has been a distinction between high and low culture i order for the powerful to cking on to there elite identity.

Aldridge (2003), for example, notes that consumption in capitalist societies has two dimensions: 1 It involves the satisfaction of needs: the instrumental purchase of goods and services for practical purposes ñ the car as a means of transportí . 2 It has symbolic meaning: ëpeople exchange messages about class, status and identity the car as status symbol

Post-modernist theories

-a key social change is the development of global economic and cultural influences, which have opened up societies, communities and individuals to new and different experiences, behaviours and ideas.

-Primary sources of identity like class gender and ethnicity are becoming less important and rigid.

primary data

involves information collected personally by a researcher. they may use a range of methods, such as questionnaires, interviews and observational studies.

Strengths: Easier to control, more valid, reliable and representative

Weaknesses: expensive, time consuming, less ease of access

secondary data

information that already exists somewhere, having been collected for another purpose

Strengths: Saves time money and effort, may be the only data available, useful for historical research, official statistics are reliable and representative

weaknesses: Not very representative of wider opinions, may not suit the needs of socioligists

quantitative data

numerical data

strengths:Reliable and objective, easy to test hypotheses from correlation and causation

limitations: Not as valid, limited info, does not give a why, issues can only be measured if they are known already

qualitative data

descriptive data, looks to answer the why

strengths: valid, descriptive,

limitations: difficult to compare, not as reliable, time consuming

Questionairre

a written set of questions to be answered by a research participant

Strengths: reliable, efficent, easy to interpret, anonymonity leads to better validity.

limitations: low response rate, hard to examine complex topics, questions can be biased, subjects can misinterpret questions.

structured interview

a research procedure in which all participants are asked to answer the same questions

Strengths: Response rate of 100%, reliable because interviewer can clarify questions

Limitations: may contain unintentionally biased questions. the interview effect, people answer the way people think they should instead of honestly. Researcher effect: how the researcher acts or there identity could change how the subject responds.

Content analysis

research method used for the systematic analysis of media texts and communications.

strengths: can ID recurring themes like females doing housework. Concept mapping, researchers can quantify complex issues making them easier to understand.

Limitations: researchers can make subjective judgement. about what categories do and don't fit, hard to replicate, and does not really give us a how or why.

Experiments

Testing certain variables under controlled conditions

strengths: Both reliable and valid

limitations: impossible to control everything, ethical issues for lab experiments, Hawthorne effect.

Bobo doll experiment

Bandura et el: anursery school students observed an adult play aggressively (yelling & hitting) with an inflatable clown (Bobo); when children were later allowed to play with the Bobo, those children who witnesses the Bobo doll performed the same aggressive actions and improvised new ways of playing aggressively, showing a correlation between witnessing violence and perpetrating it. Example of a lab experiment

Field experiments

Experiments that take place in the real world

longitudinal surveys

a research method in which the same representatives are interviewed repeatedly over a period of time

Strengths: Summarize lots of information over vast swaths of time. Generate reliable and representative samples.

Limitations, Sample attrition, over time people will withdraw from the survey, lack depth and validity.

Cross sectional surveys

one time snapshots of population, use the same survey and different sample, focused on IDing groups with broad similarities.

Official Statistics

Existing sources of quantitative data compiled by government agencies such as the Home Office.

Strengths: may be the only source available, ca be very reliable and very representative for more objective things like births and deaths.

limits: Lack depth or detail, because it does not reveal reasoning or nuance, things may be recorded different ways, eg. does a rise in crime actually mean more crime or more crime being reported.

unstructured interview

An interview in which the question-answer sequence is spontaneous, open-ended, and flexible.

strengths: data is detailed and accurate, Allows subject to discuss sensitive topics if they develop a string rapport with the interviewer.

limits: Time consuming, convo could veer in another direction and the data would become irrelevant, interviewer effect

Group Interview

interview with one interviewer to multiple interviewees; also known as mass interview

stengths: Researcher has more control over the conversation, participants are encouraged to reflect on and elaborate their beliefs.

limits: not very practical, as there are many people to coordinate, data is less reliable and valid because researcher may lose control of convo.

Non-participant observation

when the researcher observes behavior without participating in that behavior

Strengths: Allows access to groups that may not otherwise want to be studied, allows behavior to be studied objectively.

Limits: Not very reliable, lacks ethics because people are observed without permission.

participant observation

a research method in which investigators systematically observe people while joining them in their routine activities

overt participant observation

the form of participant observation wherein the observed individuals are told that they are being studied

Strengths: recording data is easy because groups know they are being studied, reduces risk of observer going native and joining in on the activities, builds a detialed picture of the subjects lives

limits: Requires lots of time effort and money, some groups may not want to be studied.

covert participant observation

the form of participant observation wherein the observed individuals are not told that they are being studied.

strengths: may be the only way to study deviant groups or closed off groups, very detailed and insightful

limits: It may be difficult to get in, stay in, and get out of a group, additionally they are hard to replicate and recording data is difficult

case studies

a research method that involves the intensive examination of unusual people or organizations

strengths: valid and very detailed,

limits: not very practical, and difficult to get generalizations from.

Semiology

the study of cultural meanings embedded in media forms, often used to explore and interpret 'hidden meanings' embedded within texts

strengths: Semiology is very easy and cheap to carry out, provides useful tools for examining media, such as hw young women are used to advertise sexiness.

Limits: Researcher must have some grounding in the media being studied. Sometimes "hidden meanings" are just sociologists over interpreting messages.

documentary sources

an item produced by a person after experiencing a historical event

strengths: Practical because of thei low cost, can provide great detail.

Limits: may be hard to find documents, or they could be damaged or forged, hard to draw generalizations from.

Sampling

The process of selecting representative units from a total population

pilot study

a small study carried out to test the feasibility of a larger one

collective consciousness

the body of beliefs common to a community or society that give people a sense of belonging and a feeling of moral obligation to its demands and values-developed by durkheim

Positivist Methodology

To predict behaviour and to test theories of behaviour by testing hypotheses.

-primary goal is to explain rather than predict social behavior

-discover general rules that determine individual behavior

-scientists must be objective and use objective methods

-quantitative data is preferred

interpretivist methodology

-describe the meanings and interpretations of social behavior

- behavioral rules are bound by context.

-researchers must understand the context of certain behaviors which is why participant observation is popular

-greater emphasis on validity

Realism

-The existence of objective social structures

-subjective experience and the social construction of reality

-sociologists should use a variety of methods and combine different methodology

-what is discovered is more important than how it is discovered.

-valid knowledge is discovered when the world is looked at in its totality

Theoretical considerations

topic choice: what is the public interested in? what will receive funding?

choice of methods: Interactionists tend to avoid using statistical methods, mainly because they are not trying to establish causality. Positivists are more likely to take the reverse view, mainly because they not interested in descriptive accounts.

Practical Considerations

Time, Interest, Money, effort (time)

-Goffman studied mental instutions under disguise, which raised some ethical questions

Ethical Considerations

Sensitivity, Accessability and trust/confidentiality

Studying people who dont want to be studied: eg. Wallis's study of scientology where he spoke to former members

Tricking people into cooperating: eg. rosenhan having people fake schizophrenia to see if doctors could actually diagnose it.

Causing people distress: eg the milgram experiment

construct validity

the degree to which a test measures what it claims, or purports, to be measuring

ecological validity

The extent to which a study is realistic or representative of real life.

Representativeness

the degree to which a particular studied group is similar to, or represents, any part of the larger society

sampling error

an error that occurs when a sample somehow does not represent the target population

methodological pluralism

the practice of using many different research methodologies to address a particular question, such as combining positivism and interpretivism

Triangulation

the use of multiple research methods as a way of producing more reliable empirical data than are available from any single method

Bourdieu

cultural capital, school is built for the middle classes.

Bernstein

language is part of class and people use certain codes when speaking

Diana Reay

Working Class mothers do not have time to read to their children

Wilis

studied lads and earoles

Butler

studied muslim teenage girls in britain and how they adapted their beliefs despite staying firm in their identity.