Intro to Sociology

Sociology

The study of how societies are organized and how that organization affects the behavior of the people who live in them.

Examples of what Sociologists Study

Markets, small group behavior, attitudes, voting behavior, customs & traditions

‘Individual Actors’

crowds, groups, etc.

‘Individual Motivations’

social relationships, social contexts

‘‘Rational’ Thinking

emotion, social ‘costs’ and ‘benefits’

the sociological imagination

The capacity to think systematically about how things we experience as ‘personal’ issues or ‘problems’ are really social issues widely shared by others living in a similar time and place as us.

The Nuremberg Code

the first international code of ethics for research on ‘human subjects’ (avoid all unnecessary suffering to subjects, risks must be justified, must have informed consent, and researchers must end a study if they discover significant risks).

research methods: experiments

a structured, controlled procedure carried out to test a hypothesis, discover an unknown effect, or to establish cause-and-effect relationships.

benefits of experiments:

• all factors can be carefully controlled

• possible to isolate the impact of a single factor

• can prove causality (and not just correlation!)

limitations of experiments:

• unsure of findings reflect ‘real world’ when conducted in labs

• so much control over the environment of research subjects means you need ethical reflection

research methods: surveys

a set of questions asked to a group of people to collect information

benefits of surveys

• affordable way of collecting comparable data on large numbers of people

• can be broadly generalizable

limitations of surveys

• closed-ended answers (can’t understand why people do things, but can learn what people do)

• self-reporting things can lead to bias & people lying & people dont know the ‘best’ answer OR answer what they think the person wants to hear

in-depth interviews

a structured conversation where one person asks questions to another person to gather information

benefits of interviews

• allows researchers to ask open-ended questions

• allows researchers to ask more in-depth and meaning-centered questions

limitations of interviews

• difficult to develop a ‘representative sample’

• reliant on respondent’s answers

• people may not know why they do things

• people tell researchers what they think they want to hear

• people might not want to tell a stranger their deepest feelings

variables in an experiment: observable characteristics

any trait, condition, or factor that can be directly seen, measured, or recorded as data

variables in an experiment: independent variable (x)

a variable that causes a change

variables in an experiment: dependent variable (y)

changes when x changes

variables in an experiment: co-variation

the tendency for the values of two or more variables to change or vary together in a related way.

units of analysis

what you want to observe for a study/what you want to collect data about (ex. individuals, organizations, families, countries)

hypothesis

statement about how you believe variables are related

correlation

change in one variable is related to change in another variable

causation

change in one variable causes the change in the other

spurious relationship

an unrelated variable is actually impacting the observed outcomes

generalizable

if someone replicated the study on different people, in different places, or at different times, would you expect them to find the same relationship between variables?

social structure

• boundaries we confront as we make decisions

• social forces that enable and constrain individual and group action

social structures: enabling

provide regular patterns that we can all count on in our daily lives

social structures: constraining

do not control behavior, but do make some choices/behaviors easier or more difficult for some people than others.

social status

a person or group’s socially determined positions within a large group or society

social hierarchies

social status ranking systems

ascribed status

assigned to a person by society without regard for the person’s unique talents, efforts, or characteristics; this often happens at birth

achieved status

a status that results from your efforts

social role

the set of expectations concerning the behavior and attitudes of people who occupy a particular social status

role conflict

inconsistency between two or more roles

groups

two or more people with similar values, expectations, and norms who interact with one another on a regular basis.

networks

a series of social relationships that link a person directly to other individuals and indirectly to even more people

institutions

enduring practices and rules (both formal & informal) that organize a central domain of social life

socialization

the experiences that give us an identity and teach us the values, morals, beliefs, and ways of acting and thinking that are expected in our society

socialization & the self concept

our sense of self develops from our social experiences and interactions

“looking glass self’’

the way our perception of how others see us affects our sen

‘generalized other’

• the values and norms of the larger culture

• what is considered appropriate in a particular time or place

‘agents of socialization’

the individuals, groups, organizations, and institutions that influence your sense of self and help you learn how to be a member of society

stratification

a system that puts categories of people into a hierarchy

social class

a group of individuals who share a similar economic position based on income, wealth, education, and occupation

income

the amount of money you earn each year from employment or investment

wealth

the total amount of money you have accumulated over time

dennis gilbert’s model of class structure in the US

gilbert-kahl model of class structure

social mobility

changing social class

inequality

the unequal distribution of valued goods & opportunities

culture

everything we consume and symbolic and expressiv aspects to social life (beliefs, values, traditions, practices, activities)

emile durkheim said….

• the function of culture = social order and cohesion

• religion/culture divides world into sacred versus profane

symbols (emile durkheim said)

material or immaterial objects that groups affix meaning to

rituals (emile durkheim said)

routinized and highly important group activities

Karl Marx: Context

• rise of industrial capitalism

• low wages and worsening conditions for workers in cities

• 1818-1883

Karl Marx: Big Ideas

Believed that all societies throughout history were based on social conflicts — class conflict is inevitable because groups with different research and interests always struggle

Emile Durkheim: Context

• major economic and technological changes fundamentally changing society

• 1858-1917

Emile Durkheim: Big Ideas

• different kinds of societies maintain solidarity and integration differently

• sociology is a science

Emile Durkheim: Mechanical Solidarity

• characterized traditional societies

• people are highly integrated (like family)

  • all the parts of a society are connected; if one person is missing, a system can break down

Emile Durkheim: Organic Solidarity

• characterized new industrial societies

• people who aren’t closely connected, but are interdependent

  • if one person is missing, system can still function; society is more resilient but people feel more expendable

Marx Weber: Context

• rise of industrial capitalism

• (1864-1920)

Marx Weber: Big Questions

• how do individuals understand their actions?

• what do they mean to them?

Marx Weber: Big Ideas

• our values influence our behavior

Jane Addams: Context

• the industrial revolution in the US

• activist, sociologist, founder of field of social work, huge influence on ‘chicago school’

Jane Addams: Contributions

• studied poverty, education, women in chicago via ‘socially engaged scholarship’

• collected data with people from impacted communities

W.E.B Du Bois: Context

• African-American intellectual living in a racist society

• Activist, sociologist, a founder of NAACP

W.E.B. Du Bois: Big Contributions

• impossible to understand American society without considering role of slavery and race relations

• challenged idea that slavery and capitalism are incompatible

• challenged Marx’s idea that slavery was replaced by capitalism

• collected historical and statistical evidence that slavery and capitalism were mutually reinforcing.

Industrial Revolution

The rapid development in the late 1700s and throughout the 1800s of manufacturing and industry, enabled by technological changes in machinery and power sources.

Division of Labor

economic arrangement in which workers, and even entire communities, specialize in particular tasks or products, rather than producing everything they need themselves.

Relational Sociologist

The idea that individuals are defined by their relationships with others and with social institutions such as the economy.

Alienation

The feeling of being disconnected from others, from work, or even from our own sense of humanity.

Organic Solidarity

some members are only very distinctly connected with eachother, but members increasingly rely on eachother.

mechanical solidarity

older and simpler societies are defined by this. all parts are intricately connected, the society is extremely cohesive, and people are highly integrated with one another.

Integration

how tied you are, as an individual, to others

Regulation

all groups have rules, formal and informal.

Norms

Expectations for your behavior.

anomie

people do not have clear moral standards or social expectations to guide their behavior.

Methodical Individualism

in order to make sense of the world, it’s important to focus on the individual

social action

the behaviors that produce structures

Interpretive Understanding

perspective that individuals should be at the center of any study of society

Solidarity

patterns of connections between people in a society

Hull House

founded by Jane addams as a center for social reform to house, educate, and support poor women and their families.

Chicago School

influential group of sociologists at UChicago who engaged in innovative research on cities and the patterns of how people live within them.

Socially-engaged scholarship

research that includes community members as researchers and data gatherers and that focuses on their experiences

Psychological wage

symbolic rewards that White people receive from a system that values whiteness

Status

our social standing relative to others