Sociology Chapter 1 - Sociology in the Changing World

Sociology

Systematic study of the relationship between individuals and society.

Sociological perspective

To see and understand the connections between individuals and the broader social contexts in which they live.

Reveals that interaction exists between the social conditions that shape our lives and the actions we take as individuals.

C. Wright Mills

Provided the best-known description of the sociological perspective or what he called the sociological imagination: our individual condition (biography) depends in part upon larger forces in society (history).

Do you have to be a professional sociologist to look at the world from a sociological perspective?

NO

Popular expressions reflect a commonsense folk wisdom that assumes a sociological perspective, but…

Relying on commonsense folk wisdom can produce contradictory claims.

Social sciences

Sociology, political science, economics, psychology, anthropology

Modernity (18th-19th century Europe)

Characterized by

• growth of democracy and personal freedom

• increased reliance on reason and science to explain the natural and social worlds

• a shift toward an urban industrial economy

Sociology arose during this period

Cultural revolution (Modernity)

• Declining influence of religion

• Rise of scientific thought

• The Age of Enlightenment

Political revolution (Modernity)

• Declining power of monarchies; American and French revolutions

• Uprisings of 1848

• Growth in democracy and individual rights

Economic and social revolution (Modernity)

• Decline of agricultural life; industrialization and rise of consumer society

• Capitalism

• Urbanization

Science

Uses logic and the systematic collection of evidence to support its claims about the world.

Enlightenment

An intellectual movement that combined a belief in individual freedom and respect for individual rights with the logic of the natural sciences.

Placed a new emphasis on reason and science, creating the conditions for sociology to emerge.

What dominated intellectual European life during the Middle Ages?

The Church and its clergy

Effects of revolutions and the 1848 uprisings

Stimulated interest in achieving a more equal society and improved living conditions, but they provoked condemnation from conservatives.

Desirability of social order versus social change

Industrialization

Use of large-scale machinery for the mass manufacture of consumer goods.

Urbanization

The growth of cities, particularly when people from rural areas migrate to urban areas.

During the Industrial Revolution, many workers had to move closer to each other and large factories and mills.

August Comte (early sociologist)

• Coined the term sociology in the early nineteenth century.

• Comte theorized that throughout history, societies progressed through several stages: the theological, the metaphysical, and the positivist.

Theological stage (Comte)

Ruled by religion

Metaphysical stage (Comte)

Ruled by philosophy

Positivist stage (Comte)

Ruled by the belief that accurate knowledge must be based on the scientific method

Herbert Spencer (early sociologist)

Argued that society is a “social organism,” much like a human organism.

Social organism (Spencer)

Society is made up of separate parts, each with a unique function, that works together to sustain the entire organism.

Emphasizes the overall structure of society, and he believed that society progresses as it evolves.

Karl Marx (key founder)

Revolutionary thinker who advocated radical change to advance the interests of workers.

•He sought to explain how and why so much wealth and productivity could coexist with such widespread poverty and misery.

•His analysis of industrial capitalism was insightful in specifying the connection between wealth and poverty.

•His work also highlighted a core concept of sociology: power.

Marx’s key issues and key work

• The nature of capitalism

• Conflict and inequality

• Capital

Emile Durkheim (key founder)

Established sociology as an academic discipline by founding the first department of sociology.

• He was interested in the question of social solidarity.

Social solidarity (Durkheim)

The collective bonds that connect individuals

As societies grew and became urbanized and industrialized, however, people increasingly differed from one another.

Division of labor (Durkheim)

People specialize in different tasks, each requiring specific skills.

Required by complex economies

Crime and punishment (Durkheim)

Are fundamentally about solidarity, as crimes are acts that offend the collective conscience

Collective conscience (Durkheim)

The shared norms, beliefs, and values in a community

Anomie (Durkheim)

Social normlessness that results from a society without the moral constraints of the collective conscience

Suicide (Durkheim)

Depends on social integration, or strength of social ties that allow people to feel they belong to a group, and social regulation, the strength of social norms that control people’s behavior

Egoistic suicide (Durkheim)

Too little social integration; committed by people who feel isolated and detached from society.

Ex: divorced, widowed, and unmarried people

Altruistic suicide (Durkheim)

Too much social integration, leading individuals to sacrifice themselves (literally) for the sake of the collective.

Ex: Japanese kamikaze pilots

Anomic suicide (Durkheim)

Absence of regulation in the form of social norms and boundaries

Often results from a sudden and dramatic change in the level of social regulation, which leaves the individual without clear rules about how to adapt.

Ex: those experiencing the loss of a job or celebrities with too much money and attention

Fatalistic suicide (Durkheim)

Too much regulation; committed by people who see no hope or way to escape desperate conditions.

Ex: slaves, prisoners, and terminally ill people

Durkheim’s key issues and key work

• Nature of social solidarity

• Shared values and morals

• Suicide

Max Weber (key founder)

• In The Protestant Ethic, Weber argued that culture had helped promote the early development of capitalism in northern Europe.

• He also argued that cultural beliefs could influence economic development.

• He contributed to sociological theory through his effort to explain the shift from traditional to rational action.

Rationalization of society (Weber)

Long-term historical process by which rationality replaced tradition as the basis for organizing social and economic life.

Weber warned against societies becoming too rational and bureaucratic in their pursuit of efficiency.

Weber’s key issues and key work

• Decline of tradition

• Rationalization of society

• The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

W.E.B. Du Bois (key founder)

Groundbreaking sociologist who fought for racial justice.

• Published The Philadelphia (Spanish word for black) (1899), the first sociological study of a black community.

• Explored the idea of a “double-consciousness” in The Souls of Black Folk (1903).

• Founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and edited its magazine, The Crisis, for 25 years.

• After years of U.S. government harassment, he emigrated to Ghana, where he died in 1963.

Double-consciousness (Du Bois)

The view of oneself and the view of how the world views you

Du Bois' key issues and key work

• Race and discrimination

• NAACP cofounder

• The Philadelphia (Spanish word for black)

• The Souls of Black Folk

Harriet Martineau (recovered voice)

Martineau is considered to be the first female sociologist.

• Her work focused on issues of gender discrimination and slavery.

• Her work included Society in America and How to Observe Morals and Manners.

• She also made an important contribution by translating Auguste Comte’s work to English.

Martineau’s key issues and key work

• Gender, slavery, and discrimination

• Society in America

Jane Addams (recovered voice)

Social reformer and the founder of Hull House.

•She was the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.

•Her social reform work and research on social life in Chicago’s South Side had a significant influence on the development of urban sociology.

•Her work includes Hull House Maps and Papers and Democracy and Social Ethics.

Hull House (Addams)

Settlement house that provided a wide range of social services in the poor immigrant communities of Chicago.

Addams’s key issues and key work

• Urban social problems

• Hull House founder

• Hull House Maps and Papers

Theory

An explanation of observations. They answer the “why?” questions, and they help explain the data.

Social theory

Set of principles and propositions that explains the relationships among social phenomena.

Key dimensions of social theory

Social theories exist on these three dimensions/spectrums depending on what they focus on:

1. Consensus and conflict

2. Subjective and objective reality

3. Micro-level and macro-level analyses

Consensus

Refers to solidarity and cooperative interaction, often due to shared values and interests, which can contribute to social stability.

Conflict

Refers to tensions and disputes in society, often resulting from the unequal distribution of scarce resources, which can contribute to social change.

Objective conditions

Material aspects of social life, including the physical environment, social networks, and social institutions. Exist outside of us

Subjective dimension

Includes the world of ideas, including our sense of self, social norms, values, and belief systems. Exist “in our head”

Micro level of analysis

Focus on small-scale, usually face-to-face, social interaction

Meso level of analaysis

Focus somewhere between very large and very small social phenomena; ex: on organizations or companies

Macro level of analysis

Focus on large-scale social systems and processes such as the economy, politics, and population trends

Structural-functionalist theories

Focus on consensus and cooperative interaction in social life, emphasizing how the different parts of a society contribute to its overall operation.

• Robert K. Merton distinguished between manifest, latent, and dysfunctional functions.

• Roots in Spencer’s and Durkheim’s work, concerning working together and upholding shared values

Manifest function (Merton, structural-functionalist theories)

Recognized and intended consequence of social phenomena.

Latent function (Merton, structural-functionalist theories)

Largely unrecognized and unintended consequence of social phenomena.

Dysfunctional function (Merton, structural-functionalist theories)

Inhibits or disrupts the working of a system as a whole.

Conflict theories

Focus on issues of contention, power, and inequality, highlighting the competition for scarce resources.

• Emphasizes that to meet common needs, people attempt to acquire scarce and valuable resources.

• Conflict theories see power as the core of social life.

Symbolic interactionist theories

Focus on how society emerges from people’s use of shared symbols in the course of their everyday interactions.

• Strongly associated with the subjective and micro-level dimensions of social life.

Feminist theories

Focus on inequality between women and men and could be considered in the tradition of conflict theories.

• Provide insight into how those inequalities are created and reinforced in daily interactions.

• There is no single feminist theory.

Core concepts universal to sociological theories

1. Culture

2. Structure

3. Power

Culture (core concept)

Collection of values, beliefs, knowledge, norms, language, behaviors, and material objects shared by a people and socially transmitted from generation to generation.

• Culture is not “natural” or biologically based because it must be taught or learned through the process of socialization.

Culture in structural-functionalist theories

Represents the consensus values and norms of a society into which individuals are socialized.

Culture in conflict theories

Conflicting parties use culture to advance their interests. Those in power perpetuate their privilege by socializing people into dominant values and norms. Those who are oppressed develop countercultures that challenge the dominant worldview.

Culture in symbolic interactionist theories

Through the use of symbols, people create culture based on their interpretation of social reality. They pass on these ideas and values in the socialization process.

Structure (core concept)

Refers to the recurring patterns of behavior in social life.

• Structures must be reproduced through continuing patterns of behavior, or they can be changed through changes in that behavior.

Structure in structural-functionalist theories

Society is a stable system made up of interconnected structures. People act within structural constraints so that change is typically gradual and temporary, returning societies to a stable equilibrium.

Structure in conflict theories

Structure is the social order maintained by dominant groups primarily through coercion and the threat of force. Collective action challenging the existing order is often the source of structural change.

Structure in symbolic interactionist theories

Social structure is produced through recurring individual actions that create a pattern. Structure is inherently unstable and changeable since it must be reproduced continually through individual action.

Power (core concept)

The ability to bring about an intended outcome, even when opposed by others.

• Closely tied to inequality.

Power in structural-functionalist theories

Power is the ability of a social system to achieve its collective goals. Inequalities between groups serve a positive function in society by motivating the most qualified to fill the most important positions.

Power in conflict theories

Power is often concentrated in the hands of a dominant group that uses it to exploit or oppress others. Inequality is the result of struggle between groups for scarce resources.

Power in symbolic interactionist theories

Power is rooted in the social relationships between people. Inequality results from the actions of individuals and therefore can be changed.

Economic power

Power to allocate resources

Political power

Power to make rules and decisions

Cultural power

Power to define reality

Postmodernity

Historical period beginning in the mid-twentieth century characterized by the rise of information-based economies and the fragmentation of political beliefs and ways of knowing.

Key features of premodern society

• Economy: agricultural

• Social life: rural

• Politics: religious sanctioned leaders

• Dominant culture: religion

Key features of modern society

• Economy: industrial

• Social life: urban

• Politics: democracy

• Dominant culture: rationality and science

Key features of postmodern society

• Economy: information-based, service-oriented

• Social life: suburban mega-cities

• Politics: disengagement, cynicism

• Dominant culture: fragmented, multicultural

10 features of postmodern society

• The expansion of media and commercial culture.

• The threat to the natural environment.

• The decline of U.S. cities and the rise of suburbs.

• The global economy.

• The aging population.

• The changing family.

• Troubled political institutions.

• Increased diversity and multiculturalism.

• The changing nature of violence and warfare.

• The changing role of religion.