SOC 100 Midterm #1

Winter 2023

What are the 3 broad goals of sociology?

* explain social life and behaviours in the social world 
* critique social inequalities
* Work to affect social change through analyzing social policies to ensure they benefit society

equality

everyone is seen as the same; everyone deserves the same

equity

based on fairness; people receiving different things based on their needs

sociology

the systematic or scientific study of social behaviour in human societies; the social science that studies the development, structure and functioning of human society

August Comte (1798-1857)

coined the term ‘sociology’

society

a group of people who occupy a particular territory, feel they make up a unified and distinct entity, and share a standard set of assumptions about reality

macrosociology

examines populations and social systems on a large scale including whole societies

What are the 2 types of macrosociology?

* study of large social organizations (CBC, pharmaceutical industry, public school system)
* study of large social categories (persons with disabilities, women, youth)

microsociology

focus on face-face interactions in small groups (worker/child interaction, doctor/patient interaction)

What questions was the emergence of sociology as an academic discipline in Canada tied to?

macro-questions

Lipset

* focused on the difference between Canadian character versus U.S. character 
* macro-question: what explains Canada’s unique character

What differences between Canada and the US did Lipset notice?

* U.S. had a revolution to escape british rule; whereas, Canada did not 
* U.S.: life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness (individualistic approach)
* Canada: peace, order, good government (collectivist approach)

Porter

* wrote a book called The Vertical Mosaic which is considered the most important sociological work ever produced in Canada
* looked at what Canada promised, how others saw Canada, and how Canada sees itself which is as a middle class society without major racial categories like in the U.S. as well as a meritocracy (his researcher showed this was false) 
* also looked at politicians or those with power in Canada and saw disproportionate distributions of power (aka mainly white men in power)

What are the 4 different lenses used for understanding issues?

* biological
* psychological
* sociological
* cultural

biological perspective

focuses on biological aspects such as hormones, chemicals, diet, etc.

psychological perspective

focuses on looking at the individual, their personality, cognition, using psychoanalysis, etc.

sociological perspective

focuses on the society where it exists, what in society led to this, why does this society treat it this way, etc; doesn’t negate other aspects just focuses on society 

cultural perspective Th

focuses on how it’s presented in the media, how it is written about, how it is viewed in popular culture

The “Sociological Imagination”

* a vivid awareness of the relationship between personal experience and the wider society
* looking to social causes for individual issues
* refers to the knowledge that many individual problems are social problems (e.g. divorce, suicide, unemployment)

C. Wright Mills (1959)

developed the “Sociological Imagination“ concept

What are 3 sociological theories?

* structural functionalism
* critical theories
* symbolic interactionism

What are the 2 critical theories?

* conflict theory
* feminist theory

structural functionalism

refers to the way different parts of a society are organized to maintain societal stability; most popular sociological theory until \~1960s; grew out of work of *Emile Durkheim* 

What is the analogy for a stable society?

stable society is a pyramid of stacked cans with each can representing an institution (such as families, healthcare, justice system), together each can contributes to the stability of the pyramid

Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

was a French, Jewish man that saw French society moving toward industrialization and urbanitions in the late 1800s and thought that society was falling apart due to these new changes; went to live with an indigenous group in Australia and was impressed with how everyone worked for the betterment of everyone (no stealing cause it’s like stealing from yourself); went back to France and became interested in suicide rates in Europe and concluded, based on hospital records, social causation: lack of social integration and lack of collective moral regulation

According to Durkheim who is more likely to die by suicide? Why?

* umarried people - connected to someone 
* protestants - not as strong community because it’s about your personal relationship with God (no confessions to preists)
* men - women share more with others so feel more connected to others 
* during peacetime - war brings people together; us vs. them

anomie

social instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values; opposite of social cohesion; associated with Durkheim

What are 2 types of anomie?

* personal anomie
* societal anomie

personal anomie

society is cohesive but I don’t feel cohesive with society; I don’t belong 

societal anomie

entire society is not function as a group 

conflict theory

views society as an arena of continual struggle between groups competing for resources and power; asserts that come groups have privileged access to resources and power; associated with work of Karl Marx

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

witnessed exploitation of proleteriat by capitalists (bourgeoisie) during industrial revolution; believed that proletariat would eventually overthrow the capitalists to establish a communist society; believed that capitalism was alienating (it alienated people from each other and from the products of their labour); believed capitalism is always exploitative

communism

classless society; where the public owns the means of production and workers paid based on ability and need (5 present today: China, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea, Cuba)

alienation

estrangement of people from their true human potential

The Jungle

a fictional book, based on reality, from the early 1900s written by Upton Sinclair; about a family who moves from Lithuania to Chicago and the father looks for work in a meat packing factory; workers go to the factory everyday hoping to be one of the few selected to work that day; workers are not trained and selected based on physical abilities and speed

feminist theory

extends conflict theory to the study of gender inequality; looks at tension and inequality between power/resources between men and women; challenged male-bias in social theorizing; gathered significant strength after 1970s

Dorothy Smith (1926-)

Canadian sociologist and feminist theorist; critical of the absence of women’s voices/experiences in sociology; *The Everyday World as Problematic (1987);* standpoint theory

standpoint theory

focused on the importance of understanding the ‘lived experience’; male perspective is different from female perspective, indigenous women perspective is different from caucasian women perspective  

Kimberle Crenshaw (1989)

first to coin term ‘intersectionality’ to address legal system limitations 

intersectionality

theoretical approach that examines the interlocking nature of social identity categories (such as ethnicity, class, and gender) that creates more complex, interpredent systems of oppression and marginalization; approach increasingly applied in inequality studies owing to its introduction during the 3rd wave of feminism in 1990s; requires acknowledgement of both the ‘layers of disadvantage’ experienced by some and the ‘layers of advantages’ experienced by others  

3rd wave of feminism in the 1990s

recognition of matrix and that “white middle-class women” can not speak for all women 

*DeGraffenreid v General Motors (1976)*

*as a result of a turn of the economy many African-American women were disproportionately laid off from General Motors so they launched a lawsuit; General Motors argued they had many African workers and many women workers so they could not have fired them for those reasons; General Motors won the case because the court failed to notice the intersectionality at play* 

symbolic interactionism

use of everyday forms of social interaction to explain society as a whole; people’s actions in each situation can be understood only by first understanding the meaning they ascribe to that situation; approach grew out of work of Max Weber

Max Weber (1864-1920)

individuals act according to their interpretation of the meaning of their world; need to see the world as \[the group being studied\] sees it; must first understand how people interpret a situation to then understand why they behave a certain way; vertsehen  

verstehen

German word meaning ‘to understand’

What scholar is associated with symbolic interactionism?

Max Weber

What 2 scholars are associated with feminist theory?

* Dorothy Smith
* Kimberle Crenshaw

What scholar is associated with conflict theory?

Karl Marx

What scholar is associated with structural functionalism?

Emile Durkheim

the scientific method

systematic organized series of steps that ensure maximum objectivity and consistency when researching a problem

What are the 7 steps of the scientific method?

* define the problem
* review the literature
* formulate the hypothesis or research question
* select the research design
* collect the data
* analyze the data
* report the findings

Why is reviewing the literature important?

* to learn current state of knowledge on the topic 
* to become acquainted with key players within field 
* to ensure that your question has not been previously answered 
* to identify gaps in field of knowledge 

cocktail party conversation

you’ve done an adequate literature review when you can attend a cocktail party with main theorists or researchers in the field and hold a conversation with them 

quantitative

hypothesis; involves numerical data; surveys with statistics

qualitative

research question; interviews about peoples experiences

hypothesis

speculative statement about relationship between variable; How x influences y

independent variable

hypothesized to influence

dependent variable

hypothesized to be influenced

What are 4 research designs?

* lab experiments
* surveys
* field research
* existing data

lab experiments

least used by sociologists

surveys

most used by sociologists; low cost and create reach many people

field research

participant observation in-depth interviews existing data; qualitative

What are 2 types of field research?

* participant observation
* in-depth interviews

participant observation

* researcher participates in a certain grouping; valuable because it explores communities or areas we would otherwise know nothing about  

Street Corner Society

early study where researcher went into poor Italian community and studied the Italian community; how they interpreted their poverty, how they experienced that, negotiated that, etc.; example of participant observation 

Down to This

researcher lived in tent city in Toronto and diarized experience there; example of participant observation

The People of the Abyss

went to London and tried to get a job, and house, and live experience of impoverished homeless Londoners; rented room from poor family who couldn’t afford to burry their child; said people weren’t poor cause they drank but drank because poverty was so devastating; example of participant observation

Nickel and Diamond

responding to politicians refusing to raise minimum wage; took sabbatical from job and tried to live off minimum wage (waitress/house cleaner/Walmart) and it couldn’t be done; example of participant observation

in-depth interviews

means of understanding lived experience within  given society; often used to answer the question why

Reading After Pills

introduced birth control pill to Zimbabwe; idea was introducing pill would give women choice to choose how many times to get pregnant and thought once introduce they would be popular; however, the pills were resisted; in many communities the families status was elevated if they had more children as well as were distrustful of the technology due to history of colonization; written by a sociologist; example of in-depth interviews

Too Few to Count

P4W used to be the only maximum security prison for women in Canada; this book interviewed the 13 women in the prison at the time; there were many similarities in their backgrounds such as coming from impoverished areas and were victimized as children; written by sociologists; example of in-depth interviews

Brothel

researcher applied to only legalized brothel in the US but she was denied until many years later; man would be let in through gates, be greeted with a group like \~10 women, could pick one and then go to the bedroom to conduct their business; written during a time when legalizing the sex trade was a big topic because it would make it safe; this book argued legalizing it would not necessarily make it safe because women may have men at home forcing them to work or surrender their earnings; written by a physician; example of in-depth interviews

existing data

secondary data analysis such as historical research; qualitative 

content/thematic analysis

looking for a theme within a larger topic such as advertisements  

Erving Goffman (1976) Gender Advertisements

seeked to understand how gender was represented in advertisements during the 60s/70s; women are often featured in vulnerable positions, with less power, sexualized; example of content/thematic analysis

Hooked

looked at all films where drug use was a prominent feature; in the earlier movies there was a Caucasian women who was lured by a racialized man who would get her addicted to drugs and by the end of the movie the women was saved by a Caucasian man (often father); example of historical research

Leilani Muir

idea during this time was that mental illness or development delays would be passed to children; many were institutionalized due to lack of medications and treatments which led to a fear of taxes increasing in order to pay for their care; argument became if they were sterilized there would be no increase in number of people requiring institutionalization; 1927-1972 more than 2800 Albertans were sterilized; Muir was a woman who was sterilized; successfully sued Alberta government  

reliability of data

extent to which the measure produces consistent results

validity of data

degree to which measure of scale truly reflects phenomenon under study 

value neutrality

must report data regardless of findings

report findings

conclusion, what you found in relation to hypothesis or research question; acknowledge that your work is not the last word; pose future study questions; acknowledge short-comings of work 

culture

learned through socialization process; directs social behaviour

cultural literacy

solid knowledge of popular or mainstream culture allowing one to communicate effectively with other members of society 

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(e.g. knowing something about hockey, Margaret Atwood, the advantages of snow tires, Kraft Dinner, and the music of *Tragically Hip*)

elements of culture

elements of social life with meanings that social actors interpret and convey

What are the 15 elements of culture?

* language
* symbols
* texts
* values
* norms
* sanctions
* art
* music
* discourse
* attitudes
* beliefs
* world views
* folkways
* knowledge
* ideas

language

reflects priorities, history, and spirit of a culture; includes slang, argot, euphemisms, non-verbal communication; different languages provide people with different conceptual tools to organize and interpret reality

argot

language developed precisely to exclude other people

euphemisms

using words that are kinder/gentler than the exact words

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

language influences cognition

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(e.g. mailman; fireman; anchorman)

symbols

symbols inform about a groups culture; symbols people outside of Canada primarily recognized was the maple leaf; other symbols include mounties; beavers; inukshook 

texts

may reveal tension, prejudice, inequalities within a culture 

values

reflected in our norms and sanctions

What are the top 6 values Canadians identified in surveys?

* freedom/democracy 
* multiculturalism/diversity
* respect for nature 
* helping others 
* equality and fairness 
* commitment to peace and non-violence

norms

established standards of behaviour maintained by a society

What are 5 types of norms?

* formal norms
* taboos
* mores
* informal norms
* folkways

formal norms

laws; professional certification requirements

taboos

vehemently prohibited behaviour such as incest

mores

reflect our most cherished principles such as protection of children; cherishing of children which led to laws protecting children

informal norms

standards of behaviour such as giving up bus seat to elderly person, queue in hall until classroom is empty, face doors in elevator 

folkways

type of informal norm without morality around them such as wearing white after labour day