Social 270 Midterm Review

social structures

Characteristics of groups

• operate as forces that influence our behavior

norms, values, institutions, roles

research data & methods

• statistical analysis (quantitative)

  • survey

  • experiments

  • automated data

• coding analysis (qualitative)

  • participant observations

  • interviews and focus groups

what sociologists do

explore social issues

• relationships between social structures and individuals

• make observations

• have an idea about what is going on

• create and/or use existing data

social problem

A condition or pattern of behavior that:

1. contradicts some other condition and is defined as incompatible with the desired quality of life

2. is caused, facilitated, or prolonged by factors that operate at multiple levels of social life

3. involves intergroup conflict

4. requires social action to be resolved

theory

• lens or perspective to think about or understand a problem

• an approach or idea that has broad assumptions about how society works (think Democrat or Republican)

• has a preferred or implied direction for seeking both the causes and corrections of the social problem

social construction

• Social problems are socially constructed

• social problems arise as people define conditions as undesirable and in need of change

• in terms of the particular acts and interactions that problem participants pursue

• and in terms of the process of such activities through time

• helps us understand why/how social problems are emphasized over others

• social problems get defined, addressed, or ignored as a result of socially interpreted realities (subjective)

questions: how do particular conditions and issues come to be widely accepted as problematic? no universal condition or issue is inherently bad (conditions are labeled as bad by people in society)

ex: domestic violence, abortions, climate change

claims

• social construct

• about the social problem

• assertion about the positive or negative aspects of a situation, condition or attribute

ex: document how particular claims gain authority (public policy, media)

claims-makers

• social construct

• those who seek to impose a particular definition or realty

• SC analyze the claims-making process

• how are people arguing this issue is or isn’t a problem

• The process of trying to convince the public and public officials that an issue should be viewed as a social problem

• organize by examining how social problems become formalized

structural functionalism

• focuses on social systems

• how different parts of society maintain order

  • structural components

  • cultural components

• views problem as involving a system of interdependent parts

  • parts are interrelated and exert pressure to maintain the system

• society is like a car

  • norms: shared expectations about behavior

  • roles or status positions: behavior associated with particular positions in the social structure

  • institutions: a grouping with a collective means of dealing with basic social functions

  • values: things preferred because they are defined as worth having

• questions: how might a problem contribute to a society? how might a problem be sustained by structures (parts) within a society? how do societies develop and evolve

different parts of society

• norms: shared expectations about behavior

• roles or status positions: behavior associated with particular positions in the social structure

• institutions: a grouping with a collective means of dealing with basic social functions

• values: things preferred because they are defined as worth having

Herbert Spencer

• Society as an integrated system

  • biological organism

• Competition: leads to slow evolutionary improvement

• Social order is a product of human rationality

  • Rationality: expressed in the form of a system

• The structural selection pressure that transforms simple societies into complex, highly differentiated, and interdependent systems.

• The mechanism by which individuals adapt to competition, organizing their relationships through voluntary, non-coercive market transactions.

structural functionalism

Emile Durkheim

• felt Spencer oversimplified the functionality of society

• if rationaility were basis of society, it would lead to competition

  • division of labor not just an economic or individual phenomenon, but about morality

• solidarity: common sentiment among people

  • pre-contract of solidarity is necessary to permit humans to trust each other to enter into contracts to expect they will be upheld

• collective consciousness: beliefs and feelings (shared norms) held in common as basis used to maintain social order (regulation and solidarity)

Robert Merton

• strain theory: differential access

  • value of achievement → approved route → no access → illegitimate means → crimes (social problem)

  • socialization of success + no path

• examine social institutions to see how they uphold social order or how society functions

  • and how the different parts might lead to dysfunction or social problems

outcomes of social change

• manifest function: intended purpose of social change

• latent function: unexpected consequence of social change

critiques/problem with functionalist approach

• Assumes that consensus (agreement) on goals and processes, are society wide

• Ignores the fact that some groups have their own special needs

• ignores fact that individual or group interest conflict with one another

• Ignores the role of power, and who has it

conflict theory

• view: society does not work for everyone

• contradictory interests, inequalities between social groups and resulting conflict and change

• assumptions

  • human are rational beings acting to maximize their self interest

  • resources humans seek are limited

  • pursuit of scarce resources by rational self-interested actors will necessarily lead to conflict

• ways to analyze

  • who is suffering from problem? who is getting hurt or deprived?

  • could some group be profiting from the existence of the problem

  • if the social problem were addressed, does one group get privilege over the other (in reality or in theory)

  • poverty exists because of the structure

• maintain control

  • social institutions

  • decision making process

  • access to resources

  • media

  • legislature

  • courts

  • economy

• conflict theories argue

  • the system responsible for problems (not individual failures)

  • false values: not a consensus, not all can legally obtain

  • alienation: many people isolated

  • need a new society: change the faulty of structure of the system

stratification

• population into hierarchically superposed classes; layers organized by levels of importance and power

• manifested in existence of upper and lower social layers; superposed classes placed on or above something else

• consist in an unequal distribution of rights and privileges, duties and responsibilities, social values and privations, social power, and influences among members of society

examples of research from conflict perspective

• Karl Marx: class/power relations between capitalists and workers were inherently exploitative and would lead to class conflict

  • central fact of society: some people have more power and privilege than others

  • Marxism: social, political, and economic philosophy

  • focus on capitalism as inherently flawed

    • there are people who are in higher power; people is less power work for those in higher power

• ida b wells: examined the practice of lynching and black people’s socio-economic mobility in US

• WEB DuBois: racial inequality as a social dimension of study

• Wright Mills: sociological imagination examined systems of power and the ways government, military, and corporations formed a power elite in US

  • sociological imagination: describes the type of insight offered by sociology

    • awareness and connection between individual experiences and broader society, context, and world we are situated

critiques of conflict

• consensus theory argues by saying human beings are likely to cooperate and share scarce resources justly

• stability of social institutions: ignores way in which some social institutions may be providing key functions in societies

• agency: does not give people agency, instead sees people as passive objects within a structure and system

symbolic interaction

• views society as the product of individuals interacting with one another

• focus: how people perceive and define events that influence their lives

• society: not one overarching power structure but is millions of separate interpretations made by individuals

  • on going process of negotiating

  • similar to social construction

    • no claims and claims makers → individual perceptions and meanings

research questions

• how do people become involved in problematic behavior

• how do people come to define issues as social problems in the first place

• how people perceive and define the events that influence their lives

  • attitudes + ideologies = behavior

• Herbert Mead

  • meaning emerge through interaction

  • close observational work

  • understanding underlying forms of human interaction

• key focus/assumptions

  • human beings are distinctly symbol-manipulating

  • process and emergence

  • the social world as interactive

  • underlying pattern or forms of social life

critiques of symbolic interactionist theory

• ignore social structure: people are stuck within structural set of opportunities/institutions

• ignores power: many people can’t change or challenge the framing of their circumstances

• ignores history: not just interactions but history, set cultural way of doing things

  • strong force

poverty

• a state in which income is insufficient to provide basic necessities

  • food, shelter, medical care, clothing

extreme or absolute poverty

lack of income necessary to satisfy basic food needs

relative poverty

lack of income necessary to satisfy essential non food needs

human poverty

lack of basic human capabilities

International poverty line

• derived as the mean of the national poverty lines of 15 poor countries

how would we measure human poverty

lack of basic human capabilities measured by

• illiteracy

• malnutrition

• shorten life span

• poor maternal health

• illness from preventable diseases

Multidimensional poverty index

• International measure of acute multidimensional poverty

• Index designed to measure acute poverty

• Complements measures of monetary poverty by adding acute deprivations in

  • health, education, and living standards

• 3 dimensions made up of 10 indicators

  • nutrition, electricity, assets, child mortality, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, housing

ways US government measures poverty

poverty threshold/status

• statistical purposes, census data, determines nation average

poverty guidelines

• determines benefits

• Dept of Health and Human Services

Supplemental Poverty Measure

• better reflects life in the 21st century including

  • contemporary social

  • economic realities

  • government policy

Why Place and Geography Matter

• racial segregation and discrimination in housing

• Proximity or isolation from opportunity

  • jobs

  • quality, affordable housing

  • schools, social services and health care providers

  • retailers and banking

• exposure to harm, threats, or stress

  • crime and violence

  • environmental and public health

• mobility and accessibility

  • travel time, transit options, and walkability

  • class mobility

• cultural and social dimensions

  • networks, social organizations, and social capital

intersectionality

• intersectionality is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects. it’s not simply that there’s a race problem here, a gender problem here, and a class or LBGTQ problem there

social problem: house-less

People who lack stable, identifiable residences

could be short-term, episodic, or long term

Cynthia Bogard “Claims makers and contexts”

• 1970 and 1980s and how became new national social problem

  • examined claims making activites: specific material and symbolic context matter and shape movement

  • look at the construction of concept of homeless and “frames”

  • different ways advocates framed

  • environmental context

Construction of homeless people in DC vs NYC

DC

• focus on the character of the homeless people

• short term solutions to ensure their survival

• religious orientation (taking care of fellow brethren)

NYC

• crimes committed by vagrants

• advocates pursued a nonpublic political strategy, medicalization

structural perspective on causes of homelessness

1. decline in low cost housing

2. increase in poverty

3. deindustrialization

4. deinstitutionalization

decline in low cost housing

• realignment of political economy (Thomas analysis)

  • In Thomas’s analysis, the key idea is that housing availability is not just about individual choices; it is also shaped by government funding decisions and the priorities of the housing market.

• allowed for changed in Federal tax structure in 1980s

  • decrease in federal support for welfare, specifically for low cost housing

• current context: construction aimed at top at market, decline in low cost

• Reduced federal support for low-cost housing + market focus on higher-priced housing → fewer affordable options → greater risk of housing insecurity and homelessness.

deindustrialization

William Julius Wilson (structuralist)

• shift from manufacturing jobs to lower-paying

• growing pool of unemployed or working poor

• broader argument - not just about homelessness, but poverty

Black Underclass

• deindustrialization

• shift from goods producing to service

  • think manufacturing plants

• segmented labor market

  • technological innovations

  • service industry

• relocation of manufacturing industries

• black and white flight: white people moving to suburban areas creating poor areas

skills mismatch

• tech jobs require specialized education, give benefits income

• service - low education, but precarious hours, wages

leads to social isolation

• lack of contact w/ different race/classes

• lack access to jobs and job networks

• lack of available marriage partners

• poor quality of schools and involvement

• lack of exposure to conventional role models

deinstitutionalization

• policy (a) moving severely mentally ill people out of large state institutions and then (b) closing most of those institutions

cultural explanations (sub theory under SI)

• explanations often used to understand differences between racial and ethnic groups success rates

• cultural understandings

  • motivations, attitudes, preferences, cultural values and traits

Oscar Lewis “culture of poverty”

• cultural perspective

• based on the notion of American society as a meritocracy

  • poor people adapt to deprived condition

  • their lifestyle keeps them poor

  • shared feelings of marginality, helplessness, dependence, inferiority

  • lack of impulse control

  • present time orientation

  • people essentially learn how to become poor

  • transmitted generation to generation

Ivan Light

cultural

Research asking why Asian American business more successful that African American

• Asian Immigrants: Brought traditional, informal banking systems with them (rotating credit associations). Members pooled their money together, and each member took turns using the lump sum to buy real estate or start a business. This relied entirely on kinship, regional ties, and cultural trust.

• Black Americans: Centuries of slavery and forced legal subjugation had systematically dismantled traditional African social structures and kinship networks. Without these pre-existing, informal tribal or regional associations to lean on, Black entrepreneurs had to rely on formal banks, which systematically denied them credit through redlining and discrimination

argued:

• Asian American business stimulated by discrimination: they had to provide for there different needs (different clothes and food; black americans just had whatever white people had)

• trust

• rotating credit associations

• ascriptive characteristics: membership

• cultural kinship ties, ethnic values and social organization

conflict theory

• poverty is not natural, people are not flawed

• poverty is caused by flaws in society

• capitalistic society promotes owner’s interests

• requires pool of low skilled workers

• internal contradiction: a system that produced so much ended up making so many poor

Doug Massey and Nancy Denton

• structuralists

• argues with Wilson

• race and racism, they say

• hyper-segregation

  • The book popularized the concept of hypersegregation, showing how Black residents in many major U.S. metropolitan areas remain isolated across multiple dimensions simultaneously (even as socioeconomic status rises).

    • Massey and Denton’s argument is that white actions, discriminatory institutions, and government policies helped create and maintain segregation

    • redlining, racial covenants

• immigrants who were white were able to transition out of inner-city ghettos, but Black people were not

apartheid

• a policy or system of segregation or discrimination on the grounds of racialization of a population

• was the official system of political and economic discrimination in South Africa between 1948- 1994

  • Land Acts, Pass laws, Black people were not citizens, separate schools and content, prohibited intermarriage, police officers could commit violence

Focus on Inner City isolation

• focus both on causes of the isolation

  • they argue purposeful racism

    • white people preferences and fears

  • discriminatory practices

  • Fewer employment opportunities contribute to poverty.

  • Poverty can limit access to useful networks and resources.

  • Limited networks make finding employment more difficult.

Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro

Wilson: the true disadvantage is about the rising significance of class position and opportunities

Massey and Denton: black people are disadvantaged due to racism and anti-blackness

Oliver and Shapiro: it’s a combination of factors

• historical accumulation of racial disadvantages

social mobility

movement of individuals, families within or between layers or tiers in a system stratification

can be a measure of inequality in a society, less SM = more inequality

inter-generational mobility

traditionally measured by in changes between parents and children:

• social class

• occuptional status mobility - based on a status hierarchy

• individual earnings

• household income

• education

wealth inequality

• caused by

  • technological change

  • globalization

  • decline of unions

  • eroding values of minimum wage

Inequality for all

• Robert Reich

Virtuous cycle

focus on education and higher education

• wages increase → people buy more → companies hire → taxes generated → government invests → more access to education → widen prosperity → more prosperity

Herbet Gans

• structuralist

• the low class does dirty work

• life makes easier for affluent

credit

• people have different access to credit markets

• people can accumulate wealth

• loans

• traditional vs non traditional markets

assest debt

• Low income and low net have different circumstances

• Holding an asset differs from having a substantial financial buffer

• the amount owed differs from the resources avaiable for repayment

Scott Allard

• poverty is consuming suburban areas more

• poverty is growing three times faster

• location can limit access to things

US Poverty threshold

determines national average

US Poverty guidelines

determines benefits

Kevin Leicht

• Examined the world recession 2008-2010

• $50 Trillion lost in 2008 world market, U.S. lost 7 million jobs

• Structural fixes (Manifest) - "bank and car industry bailout"

• Consequences (Latent) corporate profits and "anemic"
  job creation

• U-6 rate = 13% (unemployed, under-employed, marginally attached, discouraged)

• Precariously employed

Marieka Klawitter

• Translational discussions and products (WCPC)

• Analyzed credit, debt and asset-holding across households

• How do low-income families differ from other families?

• Specifically examine:

• Financial and Non-Financial Assets

• Credit Use and Debt

• Findings:

• Lower ownership of both financial and non-financial assets

• Different type of debt

• Low-income - high interest, non-traditional market debt

The "Job Creator" myth

• Common claim: Wealthy individuals and businesses drive job creation through investment, an argument frequently used to justify lower taxes and deregulation.

• Counterargument (Robert Reich & Nick Hanauer): Consumer demand, primarily driven by middle-class spending, is the true engine of economic growth and hiring.

• Core critique: Businesses expand workforce only when customer demand requires it; concentrating wealth at the top leads to higher savings or capital investment rather than direct everyday consumption.

Vicious cycle

• wages stagnate → workers buy less → companies downsize → tax revenues decrease → government cuts spending and investments in education → fewer opportunities and skills → widening inequality and further wage stagnation