SOC150 Midterm

2 parts of the Sociological Literacy Framework

1. The Sociological Perspective

2. The Sociological Toolbox

5 Essential Concepts of the Sociological Perspective

1. The sociological eye

2. Social structure

3. Socialization

4. Stratification

5. Social change and social reproduction

The sociological eye (sociological literacy framework, sociological perspective, essential concept #1)

Understanding sociology as a distinctive discipline

Social structure (sociological literacy framework, sociological perspective, essential concept #2)

The impact of social structures on human action

Socialization (sociological literacy framework, sociological perspective, essential concept #3)

The relationship between the self and society

Stratification (sociological literacy framework, sociological perspective, essential concept #4)

The patterns and effects of social inequality

Social change and social reproduction (sociological literacy framework, sociological perspective, essential concept #5)

How social phenomena replicate and change

5 Essential Competencies of the Sociological Toolbox

1. Apply sociological theories to understand social phenomena

2. Critically evaluate explanations of human behaviour and social phenomena

3. Apply scientific principles to understand the social world

4. Evaluate the quality of social scientific methods and data

5. Use sociological language to inform policy debates and promote public understanding

Empirical evidence

Evidence obtained through scientific observation and experience

Claim vs. Evidence: claim: giving police departments more money creates safer neighbourhoods

Evidence: no consistent association between police funding and crime rates (statistical analysis → quantitative)

Claim vs. Evidence: claim: vaccines cause autism

Evidence: living in close proximity to another child with autism increases the likelihood of diagnosis (statistical analysis → quantitative)

Claim vs. Evidence(s) (2): claim: people’s racial identity stays stable over time

Evidence A: incarceration can change people’s perception of race (statistical analysis → quantitative)

• 95.9% of white peoples who were not incarcerated were still seen as white the following year, while only 89.6% who were incarcerated were

  • i.e. the social status of being in prison leads to racially ambiguous ppl being classified as Black, etc.

Evidence B: some people use genetic ancestry results to change their racial/ethnic identification (interviews → qualitative)

• People interpret their 23andMe test results as “genetic options” & selectively choose to ignore ancestry results/adopt them as racial identities based on personal aspirations & how they think others will perceive them

Question vs. Answer: question: does anti-colonial education build solidarity between immigrants and Indigenous people?

Answer:

• Anti-colonial education = important ∵ disrupts immigrants’ taken-for-granted assumptions about Indigenous ppl

• However, immigrants did not go beyond sympathy to act in solidarity w/ Indigenous ppl

• After engaging in anti-colonial education, immigrants often expressed resentment toward indigenous ppl for “dragging their history along with them”

Sources of knowledge

• Informal observation

• Selective observation

• Overgeneralization

• Authority

• Research methods

Informal observation

Making observations without systematic processes for observing/assessing accuracy of what is observed

Selective observation

• When we only see the patterns we want to see

• When we assume that only the patterns we have experienced directly exist

Overgeneralization

When we assume broad patterns based on limited observations

Authority

Socially defined source of knowledge that might shape our beliefs about what is (un)true

Research methods

Organized & logical way of learning & knowing about social world

Census

Organized, logical way to gather data about ethnic and racial diversity at local and national scales

Ontology

Beliefs about the nature of reality

Ontological approaches

1. Interpretivist

2. Positivist

Interpretivist approach

No single reality & must seek to understand various views

• i.e. social constructionist, relativist

• Reality is in “the eye of the beholder”

Positivist approach

Reality is objective and can be understood by scientific methods

Epistemology

How we know what we know

• i.e. methods of uncovering knowledge

Science

Particular way of knowing that attempts to systematically collect & categorize facts/truths

Sociology as a social science

Uses organized & intentional procedures to uncover facts/truths about society

Basic research

Sociology for sociology’s sake (conducted out of the researcher’s interest)

Applied research

Sociology conducted for some purpose beyond/in addition to a researcher’s interest in a topic

Public sociology

Application of sociological theories & research to matters of public interest

Why should everyday people be empowered as intellectuals?

• Increased diversity

  • Black, Indigenous, and other marginalized groups often underrepresented among academic sociologists, so knowledge not been given academic legitimacy

  • Patricia Hill Collins: not all intellectuals are academics/middle class

    • Argues Black female musicians, artists, and writers should be considered intellectuals ∵ represent interests of Black women as a group

Why are academic sociologists necessary?

• Craig Calhoun: sociologists should be wary of aligning too closely w/ particular political causes/social movements

  • Worries that if public sociology becomes too partisan/aligned w/ activism, → risks losing objectivity & academic rigor

  • Says there is no such thing as a “unified public”

  • Intellectual rigor should not be abandoned in favor of activism, but public relevance of sociology should be extended while intellectual roots are stuck to

Qualitative methods

Results in data that can be represented as pictures or words

• e.g. field research, interviews, ethnography

• Aim to gain an in-depth understanding on a smaller # of cases

Quantitative methods

Results in data that can be represented and condensed into numbers

• e.g. survey research, census analyses

• Offer less depth & more breadth ∵ typically focus on a much larger # of cases

Intrinsic cognitive load

Inherent complexity of material being learned

• Cannot be eliminated but can be managed by breaking down complex material into smaller chunks & presenting in logical sequence

Germane cognitive load

Mental effort required to build connections between new information and existing knowledge

• Can be increased by actively engaging w/ material, reflecting, elaborating, and generally engaging in higher order thinking

What would Marx say about using AI?

• Concerned about alienation of human beings from the products produced under capitalism

• Allowing AI to take on tasks of thinking & writing → alienation form products of labour, learning processes, other learners, self

Research cycle

Cyclical process of using theory to understand empirical observations, and using those observations to build on and improve theory

• Theory → hypothesis → empirical observations → analysis → theory →

Levels of analysis

• Micro

• Meso

• Macro

Micro-level analysis

Focuses on individuals & one-on-one interactions

Meso-level analysis

Focuses on groups, communities, organizations

Macro-level analysis

Focuses on large systems & structures e.g. nations, economies

Studying gangs from different levels of analysis

• Micro: getting to know gang members’ experiences & how they differ from prevailing stereotypes about young Black men devaluing education & preferring gang life

• Meso: analyzing interactions within/between different gangs & how gangs move in a “corporatist” direction, where factions = similar to a corporate franchise where members hold offices & specific roles

• Macro: analyzing how shifts in the social & economic order of American society results in changes in gang organization

Sociological paradigm

An analytic lens, a way of viewing the world, and a framework from which to view human experience, i.e. ontological and epistemological approaches

4 main sociological paradigms

• Positivism

• Interpretivism/social constructionism

• Critical paradigm

• Postmodernism

Positivism

Guided by principles of objectivity, knowability, and deductive logic

• Auguste Comte argued that sociology should be a positivist science

• Calls for value-free sociology → where researchers aim to abandon biases & values to seek objective, empirical, and knowable truth

Social constructionism

Says that “truth” is a varying, socially constructed, and ever-changing notion → we create reality ourselves through interactions and interpretations of those interactions

• Key idea that social context & interaction form our realities

• Not solely individualistic → can apply to groups as small as couples & as large as nations

Critical paradigm

Focus on power, inequality, and social change

• Social science can never be truly objective/value-free

• Operates from the POV that scientific investigation should be conduction w/ the express goal of social change in mind

Postmodernism

Challenges every other paradigm

• Denies positivist idea that there are objective and knowable truths

• Denies social constructivist idea that the truths that exist “in the eye of the beholder” can be known

• Questions the critical paradigm idea that power, inequality, and change shape reality & truth (whose power, inequality, whose reality, whose truth?)

Sociological theory

A way of explanation or as “an explanatory statement that fits the evidence”

3 main sociological theories

• Structural functionalism

• Conflict theory

• Symbolic interactionism

Structural functionalism

Focuses on interrelations between various parts of society & how each works w/ the others to make society function in the way it does

Conflict theory

Focuses on questions of power & who wins/loses based on the way that society is orgnaized

Symbolic interactionism

Focuses on how meaning is created & negotiated through meaningful (i.e. symbolic) interactions

Inductive reasoning

Moving from specific observations → general propositions

• i.e. specific to general, data to theory

Results from the matchmaker study

Inductive reasoning—inductive coding (specific → general)

• For both men and women, matchmakers provide a way to date for those w/ time constraints or in “thin” dating markets

  • Women = empowered by circumventing gendered ageism, greater safety

• Matchmaking process also preserves the greater agency of straight men & reinforces traditional gender roles

• Matchmaking services maintain social inequalities through high service fees and traditional capital exchanges and gender relations in the matching process that privilege wealth & whiteness in men, and youth & beauty in women

• Matchmakers have to provide constant reassurance & emotional support for demanding clients

Deductive reasoning

Starting with theory, then testing theory w/ empirical observation

• i.e. general to specific, theory to data

Results from the multigenerational housing study

Deductive reasoning—hypothesis testing (general → specific)

• Multigenerational co-residence = associated w/ lower odds of living in unaffordable housing

• Size of the association between co-residence & unaffordable housing varies by ethnicity

  • 56% lower odds of living in unaffordable housing for Black families, 46% for non-Black families

• Multigenerational living is associated with greater reductions in unaffordable housing for White families than other families

Exploratory research

Usually conducted when a researcher has just begun an investigation and wishes to understand a topic generally

Three types of fathers

• Committed

• Conflicted

• Receptive

Committed fathers

Fathers who proactively and consciously contest gender boundaries

• “I try not to use gendered language to children. [...] My wife and I have decided to educate our children this way, but [...] they do learn it from their friends and teachers at preschool.”

Conflicted fathers

Fathers who hold flexible views about men and women’s roles when they take leave, but still hold rigid views about children’s gender socialization

• “There should be no distinction between women’s roles and men’s role [...] I hope [my son] also embodies some of more traditional understanding of manliness, [so I tell him things like] ‘men shouldn’t cry,’ ‘you need to go to the military to protect the country.’”

Receptive fathers

Fathers who hold egalitarian views but are less proactive than committed fathers

• “At the very least, I think my child is growing up without stereotypes that it is mom’s job to feed him, change his diaper, or do housework.”

Descriptive research

Aims to describe or define a topic

Explanatory research

Aims to explain why particular phenomena work in the way they do

Relationship between depression and physical activity

• Two-way causal relationship

• Lower physical activity = more depression, more depression = lower physical activity

• Past depression = lower physical activity later on, but past physical activity ≠ depression later on

• Depression has a greater effect on physical activity than vice versa

Three questions to ask when defining research questions

1. Is it empirical? (Can be answered by real experience in the real world)

2. Is it sociological? (Has to do with human groups, social patterns, and deviations from social patterns)

3. Is it a question? (In the form of a question, focused, not yes/no, has more than one plausible answer, considers relationships among multiple concepts, is unbiased)

Idiographic research

Aims to describe something exhaustively

Nomothetic research

Aims to provide a general, sweeping description

Goals of qualitative studies

• Generally: Understand the multitude of causes that account for the specific instances the researcher is investigating

• Hypotheses: Aim = theory development/construction, ≠ testing expectations against empirical observations

  • Researcher may begin with some vague expectations about findings

Goals of quantitative studies

• Generally: Often to understand more general causes of some phenomenon > the idiosyncrasies of one particular instance

• Hypotheses: Goal often to empirically test hypotheses generated from theories

Causality

Idea that one event, behaviours or belief will result in the occurrence of another subsequent thing (i.e. cause and effect)

• Correlation ≠ causality

Spuriousness

Where an association between two variables appears to be causal but can in fact be explained by some other common variable

Disney movies and car thefts (spurious relationships)

• As Disney released fewer movies overall, there were fewer car-related films → reduced interest in automobiles

What makes for causality

For a relationship to be causal, it must be:

1. Plausible

2. Nonspurious (not explainable by some other common variable)

3. Temporal (the cause precedes the effect)

Quantitative research and causal relationships

Quantitative research may point qualitative research toward general causal relationships that are worth investigating in more depth

Units of analysis

Entity that you wish to be able to say something about at the end of your study

• e.g. individuals, groups, organizations, social phenomena, policies and principles

Units of observation

The item that you actually observe, measure, or collect in the course of trying to learn something about your unit of analysis

• e.g. individuals, documents

• Can be, but is not always the same as the unit of analysis

Ecological fallacy

When claims about some lower-level unit of analysis are made based on data rom some higher-level unit of analysis

• e.g. when claims are made about individuals but only group-level data have been collected

Reductionism

When claims about some higher-level unit of analysis are made based on data from some lower-level unit of analysis

• Claims about groups or macro-level phenomena are made based on individual-level data

Hypothesis

A statement, sometimes but not always causal, describing a researcher’s expectation regarding findings

Null hypothesis

Hypothesis that predicts no relationship between the variables being studied

• If rejected, → stating X and Y = somehow related

Examples of research ethics violations in history

• 1,500 sets of twin children taken against their will in Nazi Germany & subjected to abusive procedures & surgeries

• Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment (Alabama, 1930s-1970s) → used placebos etc. on infected Black men to observe the effects of untreated Syphilis

Informed consent

Voluntary agreement to participate in research based on a full understanding of the research and of the possible risks/benefits involved

Research ethics board

Tasked with evaluating the risk of professional sociological research involving human subjects on participants and whether the researcher is doing everything they can to mitigate the risk

Anonymity

Even the researcher is unable to link participants’ data with their identities

• e.g. many surveys are anonymous

Confidentiality

Only the researcher can link participants with their data & promise not to do so publicly

• e.g. face-to-face interviewing cannot allow for anonymity, but can allow for confidentiality

Conflicts between research ethics and the law

Russel Ogden

• Graduate student in criminology at SFU subpoenaed to appear before Vancouver Coroner’s Court in 1994

• Has been conducting research into medical assistance in dying (MAID) for patients w/ HIV/AIDS and the coroner believed Ogden knew the identity of the people who allegedly assisted in a suicide

Collette Parent and Chris Bruckert

• UOttawa researchers researching sex workers

• Years later, former interview subject was arrested and charged with murder

• Subpoenaed to access interview transcript

• Quebec judge denied police access → would jeopardize important research on sex work

Triangulation

Using a combination of multiple and different research strategies

Triangulation of measures

When researchers use multiple approaches to measure a single variable

Triangulation of theories

When researchers rely on multiple theories to help explain a single event/phenomenon

Measurement

Process by which we describe and ascribe meaning to the key facts, concepts, or other phenomena being investigated

Observational terms

Things that can be seen with the naked eye simply by looking (easiest to observe)

• “Terms that lend themselves to easy and confident verification”

Indirect observables

“Terms whose application calls for relatively more subtle, complex, or indirect observations, in which inferences play an acknowledged part. Such inferences concern presumed connections, usually causal, between what is directly observed and what the term signifies”

• e.g. to know someone’s income or birthplace, they would need to be asked (not directly observable)

Constructs

“Not observational either directly or indirectly”

• e.g. bureaucracy, ethnocentrism

• Abstract theoretical notions which represent ideas whose meaning we have come to agree on

Measurement is a process because…?

Is occurs at multiple stages of conducting research

Concepts

Notions of images that we conjure up when we think of some cluster of related observations or ideas

• e.g. culture, class, masculinity, neoliberalism, multiculturalism

Conceptualization

Process of defining concepts involving writing out clear & concise definitions for them

• e.g. how do you know masculinity when you see it? Does it have something to do with men? With social norms? etc.

Conceptualizing masculinity

Hegemonic masculinity (R.W. Connell): the dominant form of masculinity in a given society that legitimizes male power and maintains gender inequalities

• Represents idealized form of masculinity most men = expected to aspire to

  • Not about particular traits but about relationships of power

• Compared to subordinated masculinity: masculinity associated with queer men

Conceptualizing multiculturalism

• Demographic reality

• Philosophy of how to live in a diverse society

• Specific policies that give group-based rights

• Popular sentiment expressing support for diversity, but not necessarily backed by policy