Sociology Exam 1

Chapters 1-5 + 11-12

The Sociological Imagination

Figuration

The ability to see the relationship between the individual and their culture which shapes their choices and perceptions

• look at macro level to understand micro level

Use of sociological imagination

Intersectionality

How race, class, gender, and other characteristics overlap.

Society

Groups of people who live in defined geographical areas and share a common culture.

Social Factors

Each society has laws, morals, and values that govern social life.

Social Institution

Complex group of interdependent positions that, together, perform a social norm and reproduce over time

• any institution which shapes the behavior of the groups/people in it

Sociology term coined when?

1780

Auguste Comte “Father of Sociology”

Positivism

A General View of Positivism (1848)

Scientific study of social patterns with an emphasis on objectivity.

• could make the world better

Harriet Martineau

Science in America (1837)

• one of few women in the field

• translated french work to reach english sociologists

Karl Marx

Conflict Theory (hint: reject positivism)

Communist Manifesto (1848)

Social change comes through conflict.

Emile Durkheim

• Body Analogy

  anomie

Supports Positivism

• If one function of society doesn’t work then society as a whole cannot function

• Health of society

Aimlessness or despair

Georg Simmel

Formal Sociology

Anti-positivist

Pure numbers.

Addresses social conflict.

• observe small groups

• individual cultures for creative capacity

George Herbert Meade

Identity through interaction.

Significant Others

General Others

Symbolic Interactionism

Specific individuals impact a persons life.

Organized/general attitude of a social group.

People interact with things they subscribe to. e.g. you love to read books because of positive association or positive reinforcement

Max Weber

Verstehen

Anti-positivism

The Nature of Social Action

Understanding in a deep way; deeply understanding the world around them.

Embracing subjectivity to understand social processes, cultural norms, and societal values.

W.E.B Du Bois

Double Consciousness

Paradigm; struggle African Americans face in remaining true to Black culture while simultaneously conforming to/navigating white society/supremacy.

• Addressing race in social research

• Highly detailed empirical research, replicable to increase validity

• Founded NAACP

• Refute race science

Paradigms

Dominant perspectives, theories to make sense of social facts.

Feminist Theory

Gender is a site of inequality.

Post Modernism

Shared meanings have eroded in our culture, multiple meanings attached to one thing based off different groups.

Social Constructionism

Something created and reinforced as an entity because it is widely agreed upon in society.

Quantitative vs. Qualitative Sociology

Quantitative: stats and large populations (positivist)

Qualitative: seek to understand behavior

Empirical Evidence

Evidence comes from experience, scientifically gathered data, or experimentation.

• use of the scientific method

• questions should be narrow enough to study, yet broad enough to have value for outside people, and can inform the outside environment.

Primary source collection

Collect data from direct source.

Secondary data analysis

Using data collected by others but applying new interpretations.

Literrature Review

Research thats already been done in the broader field.

• formulate hypothesis

Correlation vs Causation

Correlation: measure that describes the relationship between two variables

Causation: one event is the result of another, causal relationship

Operational Definition

Define the concept in terms of concrete steps it takes to measure it.

Reliability

Validity

Participant Observations

How likely results are to be replicated.

How well the study measures what it was designed to measure.

• draw conclusions

Researcher immerses themselves in a group or social setting in order to make observations from an “insider” perspective.

Culture

Society

Shared beliefs, values, and practices.

People who live in a community and share a culture.

Material Culture vs. Nonmaterial Culture

Material Culture: Objects or belongings

• e.g. tools, weapons, utensils, machines, arts, buildings, monuments, written records, religious images, clothing, etc.

Nonmaterial Culture: Ideas, attitudes, and beliefs of a society

• e.g. individualism, success, hard work, money, etc.

Cultural Universals

Patterns or traits that are globally common to all societies.

Values and Beliefs

Values: ideals or principals and standards held in high regard, deeply embedded, “what is good? what is bad?”

• potray an ideal culture

• not static, change over time, vary from culture to culture

Beliefs: convictions that people hold to be true, personal and collective

Socialization

How we are taught to be good citizens, how to be aware or societal values.

• rewarded

  • deviance leads to sanctions (social control)

Preindustrial Societies include:

1. Hunter-gatherer

   • dependency on land

2. Pastoral

   • pastures

3. Horticultural

   • cultivation of plants

4. Agricultural

   • mills, processing factories

5. Feudal

   • hierarchy of power based on land ownership

Industrial Revolution include:

1. Steam power

2. Manufacturing reduced production time’

3. Rise of urban centers

4. Change in wealth distribution

Postindustrial Societies

Production of information and services.

Emile Durkheim and Functionalism

Collective Conscious

Mechanical Solidarity vs Organic Solidarity

Common beliefs, values, morals, and attitudes towards society.

Mechanical Solidarity: social order maintained by collective conscious of a culture, have always been done that way

• preindustrial societies

Organic Solidarity: social order based around acceptance of social differences

• industrial societies

Karl Marx and Conflict Theory

Capitalism

alienation

False consciousness

Class consciousness

Economic Structure

Individuals own companies and corporations

• Bourgeoisie and Proletariat

  • creates conflict from exploitation and arrogance

From the product of one’s labor, process of one’s labor, takes away any decision-making on the part of the laborer, from others (because of competition), from yourself (final outcome)

• no control over your own life

The beliefs, ideas, ideologies, of a person are not in the person’s best interest.

Awareness of one’s rank in society.

Social Group Agents

Family

Peer Group

Immediate and extended

• family history impacts how a child is raised

• socioeconomic status

• race, religion, gender, class, national origin, ethnicity

People in similar age who share same interests.

Moral Development

3 Stages are:

Degredation ceremony

The way we learn how to be “good” or “bad” people within our society.

Preconventional (children experience through senses), conventional (teens and young adults become aware of others’ feelings and take them into account), postconventional (believe in morality and abstract concepts or universal terms outside one-to-one relationships; might have moments of this final stage, but not consistently)

One is torn down in order to get built back up as a different person.

Nature vs Nurture

Nature: genetics, biological makeup

Nurture: environment and societal influence

• Sociology is interested in the nurture aspect

The Thomas Theorem

//self-fulfilling prophecy//

If people define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.

• Self-fulfilling prophecy: an idea that becomes true when acted upon

Roles

• role-set

• role-strain

• role-conflict

Status

• ascribed vs achieved

Presentation of self

Patterns of behaviors that represent a person’s status.

Role-set: array of roles attached to a particular status

Role-strain: too much is required of a single role

Role-conflict: one or more of an individuals roles clash

Responsibilities and benefits that a person experiences according to their rank and role in soctiey.

Ascribed: born with

Achieved: something you earn

Presentation of Self

Role Performing

Looking-glass Self

How a person expresses their role.

We base our image on what we think other people see. We imagine how we must appear to others, then react to this speculation.

Sex

Three broad categories:

Intersex

Physical/biological characteristics which people are determined to be assigned at birth.

• social institutions maintain dyadic sex system

• an action rather than inherently determined; performative

Female, male, intersex

Sex characteristics neither male or female exclusively, biological variation not medical disorder.

Gender

*Gender is a kaleidoscope

Socially constructed binary, correlate to identity

• should be a spectrum

• shaped by culture practices, norms, roles, identities - determine whats “allowed”

• binary is the assumption of solely 2 sexes, genders, and sexualities

Cisgender, transgender, nonbinary and queer

• Cisgender: identify with assigned gender

• Transgender: identify with gender not assigned at birth

• Nonbinary and queer: dont identify within binary

Gender Socialization

Gender Roles

Process which people learn cultural norms, attitude, behaviors appropriate to their gender

• proper behavior is reinforced and improper behavior is sanctioned

Commonly assigned tasks or expected behaviors linked to an individuals sex-determined statuses

• happens through socialization

Glass Escalator

The Pay Gap

Structural advantage that men possess in women-dominated occupations, tends to enhance men’s careers.

• sexism is a prejudiced belief

Men hold higher positions and are paid more than women.

• second shift, women come home and continue household labor after their paid labor

• keeps women subordinate

• it takes the calendar year plus the next years month to reach the dollar that men make within the previous fiscal year

U.C.A.M.

U-unistable: gender identities and roales change over time due to influence of economic, political, and global social systems

C-contingent: on societal beliefs and expectations

• e.g. women were once considered mens property

A-arbitrary: does not inherently decide or dictate what people are capable of or who they are

M-multiple: there are multiple genders, but people do gender in many different ways throughout their lives

Sexuality

Heteronormative society

Heterosexism

Sexual orientation

Social construction of sexuality

The broad grouping of identities and behaviors that define our sexual selves, including whether we have (or desire) sex, and with whom.

….assume sexual orientation is biologically determined and unambiguous

….ideology and set of institutional practices that privilege heterosexuals and heterosexuality over other sexual orientations

….pattern of romantic or sexual attraction to others in relation to one’s own gender identity, can manifest itself differently throughout time

• you can have behaviors that don’t align with your orientation

Queer Theory

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

Interdisciplinary field sharing common goal that questions the manner in which we have been taught to think about sexual orientation.

Race

Racialization

A social construct; categories based on real or perceived biological differences between groups of people.

• historically, the concept has changed across eras

New racial identity by drawing ideological boundaries of difference around a formerly unnoticed group of people.

Early Modern World

• modern racial thinking traced back to mid 17th century

• explosion of colonization

• tried to explain people who looked different, first using religion then “science”

• development of racial hierarchy

Scientific Racism

Francis Bernier 1684

Ethnocentrism

Ethnicity *pan-ethnicity

New geography based on the body, devising 4/5 races:

• Europe

• Africa proper

• Asia proper

• Lapps (northern regions of Finland and Russia)

  • using features and skin color, everyone below Europeans

Belief that your culture and way of life are better and the only ‘right’ way.

Culture, socialization, historical experience, stemming from common national or regional backgrounds that make subgroups of a population different from one another.

• pan-ethnicity are closely associated ethnic groups, which may share some cultural, linguistic, shared history, or other backgrounds, and are sometimes considered as a group

  • grouping can depend on context

Racism

3 key beliefs:

color-blind racism

Socially produced, unjust outcome for some racial or ethnic groups.

• idea that different races have unequal traits

• more than prejudice or discrimination

• institutionalized

1. divided by bloodlines and/or physical types

2. bloodlines linked to distinct cultures, behaviors, personalities, and intellect

3. certain groups are superior to others

Ideology that removes race as an explanation for any form of unequal treatment

• avoidance of racial language

Discrimination

Institutional

Actions, policies, withholdings, or barriers against a group of people.

• stem from internal biases and are outcomes

Wide-spread and enduring practices that persistently disadvantage some kinds of people while advantaging others.

Privilege

Unearned advantage accorded to people of dominant social groups.

• living in a stratified society

• often invisible to the privileged themselves

Critical Race Theory

*legal theory

Race is a social construct and is used within institutions and laws.

Implicit Bias

Attitudes or stereotypes that are embedded at an unconscious level and may influence our perceptions, decisions, and actions.