2016 from notes

what is the purpose of the life course perspective?

to understand people’s lives in their social and historical context

what does the concept of ‘cohort’ mean?

groups of people born during the same time period, experiencing particular social changes with a given culture in the same sequence at the same time

what are characteristics of a cohort?

• shared sense of social history and identity

• differ in size —> impacting opportunities for education, work and family

• cohorts develop positive/negative strategies for the circumstances they face

what does the concept of life transitions mean?

change in roles and statuses that represent a distinct departure from prior roles and statuses (e.g work, education, family)

• life course has many transitions

• timing is socially determined - normative or non-normative

how do life transitions affect life trajectory?

transitions can reinforce or change life trajectory, cumulatively

what does the concept of life trajectories mean?

a long term pattern of stability and changing, usually involving multiple transitions

• can be defined/guided by social expectations

what does the concept of life events mean?

significant occurrences involving relatively abrupt change that may produce serious and lasting effects

how do life events vary?

• can be anticipated or not

• positive/negative

• meaning of same life event can be different for different people

what does the concept of turning points mean?

life events or transitions that produce a lasting shift in the life course trajectory

• may cause change in how person views self in relation to world

• can reinforce or change life trajectory

characteristics of life events becoming turning points:

• opens or closes opportunities

• cause lasting change in person’s environment

• change a person’s self-concept, beliefs and expectations

When can transitions become turning points?

• occurs with/causes crisis

• family conflict over wants/needs of individuals over greater good of family unit

• if “off time” (non-normative)

• followed by unforeseen negative consequences

• requires exceptional social adjustments

what are the 6 major themes of the life course perspective?

• interplay of human lives and historical time

• timing of lives

• linked or interdependent lives

• human agency in making change

• diversity in life course trajectories

• developmental risk and protection

describe the theme of ‘interplay of human lives and historical time’

• people’s life trajectories shaped by historical events and social change

• different cohorts experience unique opportunities and constraints

• COHORT EFFECTS emerge when shared formative experiences shape generation’s life course

Describe the theme of ‘timing of lives’

• life transitions occur in relation to AGE norms

• AGE categorised into BIOLOGICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL, SOCIAL, SPIRITUAL dimensions

• transitions normative/non-normative

Describe the theme of ‘linked or interdependent lives’

• lives interconnected through FAMILY, SOCIAL NETWORKS, INSTITUTIONS

• family main arena through which social and historical context is experienced

Describe the theme of ‘human agency in making choices’

• life course informed by actions individiuals take with opportunities and constraints of history and social phenomena

What are Bandura’s descriptions of agency relating to: ‘human agency in making choices’ ?

personal agency: decision enacted by individuals themselves

proxy agency: decision enacted through others (with more resources)

collective agency: group action

Describe the theme of ‘diversity in life course trajectories’

life courses vary based on SOCIAL class, CULTURE, GENDER, RACE, INDIVIDUAL AGENCY

(result in opportunity or adversity)

Describe the theme of ‘developmental risk and protection’

early life experiences can be ADVANTAGEOUS or DISADVANTAGEOUS

• risk factors

• protective factors

effects are cumulative

What does Barnett mean by Critical Being?

Critical self reflection: self - behaviours, patterns, internal dialogue

Critical action: world - society, physical environment, policies, norms

Critical reason: knowledge - ideas, concepts, evidence

what does it mean for organism and environment to be co-defining?

help define each other

what does it mean for organism and environment to be co-constitutive?

help build each other up

• meaning is inseparable from each other

• give order and form to each other

• essential qualities of one cannot be understood without the other

What is functional coordination?

ongoing, continual transacting in process of coordination in order to preserve or enhance their experience, to achieve harmony with their situation

what is embodiment?

continuous relationship with the environment (a process), where bodies are activities that we live through

• products of social, physical, cultural environmental transactions from beginning of life

• embody communities, learn to act through associated living

what are habits?

predisposed ways of response, often without effort or thought

• can be mental, physical, and shared across society

how do habits form?

through ongoing coordination (patterns of transactions) with predictable environments

• influenced by past experiences, memories, imagined futures

What does habit configuration mean?

to use a collection of habits to functionally coordinate with everchanging environments

(use as tools to respond to problematic situations)

How do problematic situations arise?

when habit configurations cannot functionally coordinate with the situation

What happens in response to problematic situations?

start by choosing from current configurations, add new habits if insufficient

What is growth, defined by Dewey?

unending opportunities to freely and equally embody and function in concert with an always changing and uncertain situation

What does Dewey mean by freedom for growth?

freedom: the power to be an individualised self, making a distinctive contribution (benefit others) and enjoying in its own way the fruits of association (community life)

What does growth result in, according to Dewey?

people using their habit formation and habit configurations to functionally coordinate with their situations - generating new possibilities and imagined alternative futures

What does Dewey mean by equality for growth?

the equal potential to realise individual capacities through associated living - encourages uniqueness and diversity

What does Dewey mean by ‘enacted situated inquiry’?

gaining knowledge through action (learning by doing) in response to an indeterminate situation, with the goal to create a determinate one.

what are characteristics of situated actions?

• collision of past, present and future transactions (not isolated)

• use habit configurations to achieve a desirable outcome, or ‘ends-in-view’

What are ‘ends-in-view’?

actions towards an imagined future

• influenced by past and present

• values driven

• broad

• changes when learning from actions, developing creativity and imagination

drives functional coordination

What are the stages of behaviour change?

Pre-contemplation: unaware of the problem

Contemplation: aware of the problem and of desired behaviour change

Preparation: intends to take action

Action: practices the desired behaviour

Maintenance: works to sustain behaviour change

Social structure:

patterns of social interactions - cultural customs, social institutions, etc

What does the social skeleton incorporate?

individual health and illness —> social groups —> social institutions —> culture

agency:

the ability people have to influence their own lives and the society they live in

what are social determinants?

“the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age and inequities in power, money and resources that give rise to them”

-              Biological

-              Behavioural

-              Social

-              Ecological

-              Access to healthcare

What is “Sociological imagination”?

an ability to connect personal experience with larger social structures, allowing us to link personal challenges to broader social issues.

What are the different factors that influence sociological analysis?

Historical factors: How have past events influenced the present?

Cultural factors: What influence do tradition, cultural values, and particular belief systems have on our behaviour and social interaction?

Structural factors: How do various forms of social organisation and social institutions affect our lives? How do these vary over time and between countries and regions?

Critical factors: Why are things as they are? How could they be otherwise? Who benefits and who is disadvantaged by the status quo? What 'alternative futures' are possible? How do sociological insights relate to our own life experiences?

CanMOP

Meaning, purpose and possibility of occupational participation are all shaped by context.

Based on the CanMOP, what does purpose refer to (four basic needs - SARC)?

- Safety and survival - the individual & community needs for safety & survival are intertwined

- Autonomy - a person feels their action is consistent with their own & community values

- Relatedness - a sense of being connected with others

- Competence - a sense of being effective in occupations that are important

What does “history” refer to in the CanMOP?

1) Individual lives unfold over time as people grow & develop;

2) people live in particular historical times & places;

3) events earlier in a person’s life effect later experiences;

4) people’s lives are linked with those of others;

5) people’s situations provide opportunities for & constrain the action they are able to take.

Collective level: draws on Community History approach

What are each of the levels of context in the CanMOP?

Micro level – refers to the direct interactions people have with others

e.g., friends, family, group members, providers of health & social services, as well as direct interaction with the physical environment.

Meso level – refers to factors that are beyond individual control

e.g. eligibility for services, availability & cost of travel, accessibility of built environment

Macro level – refers to the broader socio-economic & political context. These are also beyond the control of the individual and this level regulates the meso level by, for example, determining what is and isn’t allowed and what is funded.

e.g., policy & legislation enshrines certain socio-cultural beliefs & values.

What were Karl Marx’s thoughts on capitalism?

• form of exploitation - profit is form of theft

• alienates works from themselves and their creativity/creations

• bad for mental and physical health

• distorts judgements of ourselves and world: ‘false consciousness’

What is primitive accumulation - capitalism?

3. Workers get paid little, while capitalists get rich  shrink wages of workers to gain large profit

What are societal assumptions stemming from capitalism?

• leisure is negative - indulgent

• a person who doesn’t work is worthless

What are characteristics of modern work (Karl Marx perspective)?

• work leads to alienation - identity, meaning and purpose is diluted

  • from what they produce

  • from control over production process

  • from having to sell what makes them human

  • from other workers

• work is insecure, people lose jobs easily

What are examples of social structures?

Families, work, the economy, the legal system, religion

Describe Intersectionality Theory - Kimberle Crenshaw

- Social justice issues are often overlapping, creating multiple levels of social injustice

e.g gender, social class, sexuality, race, ability/disability

According to Michel Foucalt, how are we made subjects of power?

? Taught how to be human, how to act, think, react to the world

How do POSTSTRUCTURALISTS see power in society?

n power relations… actions brought to bear on other actions/ actions modifying other actions. Power comes from knowledge and discourse.

What sites of struggle does Foucault focus on in terms of where power is operating?

• Struggle against DOMINATION (e.g religious, ethnic groups)

• Struggle against EXPLOITATION (class)

• Struggle against SUBJECTION (ways pressured, encouraged to adopt subject positions/identities/roles)

How is discourse a form of power?

knowledge and language are always political, imbued with power

All knowledge is ‘grounded in specific economic, gendered and historical moments’

What does disciplinary power entail?

Institutions exercising coercive power to discipline and regulate the behaviour of individuals.

What are the different ‘ways of knowing’?

1) The Universalistic position

Scales, diagnostic criteria are universal

2) Split-relativist position

Some diagnoses are universal, some culturally specific

3) Radical relativist position

All criteria as products of western psychiatry, advocate for culturally specific understandings

What is symbolic interactionism?

how the social is necessary in making meaning (shared meaning is made through ongoing and everyday interactions through language, text and body language)

Blumer’s Three Principles for Symbolic Interaction

1) Human actions depend on the meaning of the object

2) We give meaning to things based on social interactions and experiences (subjective, based on culture)

3) Meaning of symbols are not permanent and can change over time, demanding that people define and interpret situations

What does the ‘looking glass self' mean (symbolic interactionism)?

Context-specific understanding of the self

people imagine how they are viewed by others and act accordingly

The self as two levels ‘Me and an I’ (George Herbert Mead):

Me - the social self. It is how a person thinks others see them. OR: it is the mask a person wears depending on the situation and the role they play in that situation.

I - how a person sees themself. It refers to the individual's view of themself across their many roles/contexts.

‘Generalised other’ (George Herbert Mead), as part of Me, I and Generalised Other:

individual's understanding of the community's attitude and expectations

• can involve multiple perspectives, sometimes conflicting

• laws have codified certain beliefs into our generalised other

• figures of power can sway generalised other beliefs

What is a result of contemporary modernism on the sense of self?

• unstable

• generalised other diverse, changing

• self is reflexively made (reflecting on reflections, possible outcomes, and actions) - constant need to evaluate, reflect

According to Hochschild, emotions are…

socially constructed and conceptualised relative to history, culture and discipline

Emotion management:

managing and producing a feeling in according with desired social values

Emotional labour:

managing and producing a feeling in accordance with institutional/work rules

Emotion work:

managing and producing a feeling for unpaid work

Emotion culture / emotion ideologies:

identify how a person should feel in certain situations, what emotions / feelings are appropriate

Feeling rule:

Norm of how a person should feel in specific situation in terms of intensity, direction (positive or negative) and duration

Display rule:

When it is appropriate to present the physical form of these emotions

Emotion Management processes (body, cognitive work, surface, deep acting):

• body work - changing biological/physiological response

e.g deep breathing, clenching fists

• cognitive work - changing thoughts to conform to feeling rules

e.g reconceptualising angry customers as frightened

• surface acting - changing outer expressions to try to elicit the correlated emotion

e.g smiling, laughing

• deep acting - changing inner state to conform to feeling norms

e.g remembering the frightened passenger

Du Bois (1897) – “Double consciousness”:

sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others

“code switching”

when people adapt their behaviour, appearance or language to fit into a predominantly Western world/ dominant culture.

What are some taken-for-granted assumptions in society about ableism?

• Consider facts about bodies to be universal (anatomy, physiology)

• Variation from ‘normal’ body (normativity) is a problem to be ‘fixed’

• Reductionism : reduce disease to biological, molecular, genetic levels – downplays social contexts

• Body-as-machine metaphor (e.g heart as pump, vascular system as plumbing, joints as hinges)

Bibiomedical perspective of gender

• sex hormones

• body and brain

psychological perspective on gender

• Masculine & feminine personality characteristics – can be high on either regardless of man/woman

• Criticised by sociologists for functionalist assumptions (role expectations of men & women) – ignores questions of power & privilege

sociological perspective of gender

• Structuralist approach – the organisation of the workplace causes gender inequality at work (e.g. women & people of colour in positions of limited power)

• Interactionist approach – we ‘do’ gender in our interactions -“behaviours are enforced, constrained, and policed during social interactions”