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Theory

a lens used to explain why things happen in society and how society can change.

Theory as Liberatory Practice (hooks, 1991)

• Theory helps us make sense of our everyday lives.

• Helps us understand social reality and how it could be changed.

• Uses critical thinking to challenge problems and empower people.

Example: Learning about sexism can help someone understand that their experience is not just personal, but connected to larger social inequalities.

Sociological Imagination (Mills, 1959)

• The ability to connect personal experiences to larger social, historical, and political forces.

“quality of mind” - mills

• seeks to connect personal troubles to social issues.

The Sociological Imagination Troubles vs. Issues

• Troubles: Personal challenges.

• Issues: Problems grounded in broader social structures and conditions

Structural Functionalism

• society is made up of interconnected institutions that work together to maintain stability, order, and consensus.

Society = interconnected parts working together.

• If one institution fails, another may have to help fill the gap. (creates disruption and weakness across institutions.)

Institutions: Organizations or patterns that perform important functions in society.

Manifest functions

• The intended and obvious purpose of an institution or activity

• Example: You go to university to earn a degree.

Latent Functions

• The unintended or less obvious benefits/functions of an institution or activity.

Example: You go to university to earn a degree, but you also:

• Make friends

Conflict Theory (Marx and Engels, 1848)

• Not just 1 conflict theory (group of different theories focus on inequality, power, and conflict in society

• Society is shaped by conflict between groups competing for limited resources, power, and wealth.

Conflict Theory Historical materialism:

• People need basic things like food, shelter, education, and money.

• Different social classes have different levels of access to these things.

• This inequality creates conflict between classes.

• That conflict can lead to social and political change.

Conflict Theory Bourgeoisie

• Own the means of production; are profit-seeking: want to

  maximize worker effort and maintain/minimize pay. Retain surplus

  value.

Conflict Theory Proletariat

• Working class, who must sell their labor to satisfy material needs, who are instrumental in creating surplus value.

Bourgeoisie and Proletariat

• Contrasting interests because owners want to maximize profit, while workers want better wages and working conditions.

Conflict Teheory Class Consciousness

• Workers becoming aware of their exploitation and organizing to improve their working conditions.

Example: Workers realize they are being underpaid and organize a union.

Max Weber (1864 – 1920)

• studied inequality and social change but believed that economics was not the only important factor. He also looked at things like religion, status, politics, race, and ethnicity.

Marx vs. Weber

Marx:

• Economics and class are extremely important.

Weber:

• Economics matters, but status, religion, politics, and other factors matter too.

The Protestant Ethic - Weber (1904)

Central Argument: Culture and religious beliefs can influence economic behaviour and help create capitalism.

• Argued that certain Calvinist religious beliefs encouraged behaviours such as hard work, saving, discipline, and frugality, which helped create an ideological environment favorable to capitalism.

Religion → work ethic → capitalism

• He was not criticizing Protestantism. He was trying to understand how religious beliefs helped encourage capitalist development.

The Protestant Ethic Predestination

• A belief within the Calvinist denomination that certain individuals had been fated to make heaven.

The Protestant Ethic Asceticism

• Hard work + discipline + avoiding luxury → seen as signs that someone might be destined for heaven (salvation).

Symbolic Interactionism

• A theory that focuses on how people create meanings through everyday interactions. (micro-level)

Symbolic Interactionism macro-level

• Looks at society as a whole and large social structures.

Symbolic Interactionism micro-level

• Looks at interactions between individuals in everyday life.

Example: "LOL" → same symbol, but different meanings depending on the interaction/context.

The Social Construction of Reality

• The idea that our understanding of reality is created and shaped through social interactions, meanings, norms, and shared beliefs.

• Society teaches us what things mean.

E.g. Give up your seat for someone else on the bus (formed interactions with others)

Berger and Luckmann (1966) 3 STEPS

1. Externalization

2. Objectivation

3. Internalization

Berger and Luckmann (1966) Externalization

• Expressing subjective ideas, beliefs and practices to others/the external world.

We create it.

Berger and Luckmann (1966) Objectivation

• Ideas take the character of objective values which exist independently of their creators. (Laws, customs, norms, values, languages).

It becomes established.

Berger and Luckmann (1966) Internalization

• Ideas become unquestioned, taken-for-granted, ‘natural’ realities. Incorporated into the sub-conscious.

We accept it as normal.

• Taken for granted norms that we live by (E.g. going to school k-12)

William Isaac Thomas

• Argued that when people define a situation as real, their actions can make it real in its consequences.

• What people believe can have real effects.

Example: You play music loudly on a train. Other passengers think you are being rude. They stare at you or complain.

Feminist Theory

• Rooted in conflict theory assumptions but primarily consider sex and gender as analytical dimensions of social life and inequality.

• Fundamental rejection of biological determinism

Feminist Theory Biological determinism

• The belief that biological differences between men and women determine what roles they should have in society.

• Ultimately, feminist thought seeks to highlight and disrupt sexist

  forms oppression and inequality, not to reinscribe hierarchies.

Quantitative Research

• Reliance on numerical values; things that can be measured and counted. Used to show the relationship between two variables.

Quantitative Research Deductive reasoning (Top-down)

• Researcher develops and tests theoretically-driven hypotheses using data.

Examples: surveys, graphs, mathematical models.

Quantitative Research Reliability

• can findings be replicated and be consistent across similar situations?

Quantitative Research

Research that uses non-numerical information to deeply understand people's experiences, meanings, behaviours, and social situations.

Qualitative Research Inductive reasoning (bottom-up)

• Develop new theory based on emerging empirical observations

Example: Interviews (structured and unstructured), participant observation.

Qualitative Research Content Analysis

• Identifying the presence of words, themes and concepts in the structure of qualitative data.

E.g. election time (what issues they stand for/against)

E.g. Speech by mark carney measuring how many times the word “economy” pops up 

Qualitative Research Discourse Analysis

• Gauging the social context of qualitative data.

• Try to understand social context, underline meaning 

E.g. How does mark carney address the topic of unemployment/poverty, what is general demeanour 

E.g. Reading a good novel, the novel does a good job of conveying emotion (social context)

Reflexivity

• Recognizing and thinking about how our own values, beliefs, experiences, assumptions, and social position influence how we understand and conduct research.

Think: How might my own perspective affect what I see?

Example: A researcher studying hockey culture recognizes that growing up in Canada may influence what they consider "normal" hockey behaviour.

Subjectivity

Definition: The influence of personal experiences, beliefs, values, and perspectives on how someone understands the world.

Think: My perspective

Example: Two people can see the same event but interpret it differently because of their experiences.

Objectivity

Definition: The attempt to understand or study something without allowing personal biases or beliefs to determine the findings.

Think: Trying to be neutral

What is Culture?

• A shared system of values, beliefs, behaviours, meanings, practices, and material objects that people learn and pass between generations.

Culture includes much more than ethnicity.

Examples:

• Language

• Food

• Clothing

• How we greet people

• How we behave in class

• Ideas about family

• Ideas about success

• How we communicate online

Culture Is Not Just Ethnic

• Often the word is employed to describe select practices of ethnic groups (i.e., language, food, clothing), but it encompasses much more.

• Essentially, everything is cultural because our behaviours and ideas are influenced by the society we live in.

Examples:

• Staying quiet while the professor is talking

• Raising your hand before speaking

Culture is not just 'high culture'

• You may have heard statements like “you are uncultured”, or “get you some culture!”

• Statements like this infer that culture is a selective property of some that others must aspire to acquire. This is wrong.

• Everyone has culture. Culture is not something only certain people have.

Culture as a Toolkit (Swidler, 1986)

• Culture is like a toolkit that gives us different habits, skills, and ways of behaving that we can use in different situations.

Culture is learned

• nobody is born with culture. Rather, we constantly absorb cultural practices as we grow.

Culture can be expressed in tangible or intangible ways

• can be a dressing style, dietary choice, or a social value that you must care for the sick and elderly.

Culture is shared

• culture spreads - knowingly or unknowingly - through human interaction.

Culture is transmitted

• For cultures to survive, they must be passed down through generations

Culture is cumulative

• culture is not static: It is constantly refined and modified to meet changing needs.

Culture is contested

• we do not all interact with each other in the same manner or derive identical meanings from our interactions. Thus, we do not practice culture in the same manner.

Why is Culture important?

• Because it gives meaning to our sensory experiences. It provides a framework through which we interpret social situations.

• Can foster a sense of belonging or estrangement.

• Provides a road-map for day-to-day individual and group interactions.

• Can increase or constrain human freedom.

Ethnocentrism

• Judging another culture using your own culture's values and standards, often believing your culture is better or more normal

Example: Saying another culture's clothing is "weird" simply because it is different from what you normally wear.

• "Our way is the right way."

Cultural Relativism

• Understanding a culture according to its own values, beliefs, and standards instead of judging it using your own culture.

• The opposite of ethnocentrism

Subculture

• A community that shares certain elements of the parent culture, but has also developed unique beliefs, norms and behavioral patterns

• May be have evidenced by symbols, rituals, modes of dressing, exclusive privileges, etc.

Counterculture

• A community that rejects rejects the conventional norms of the parent culture and instead develops alternative modes of being.

Functionalist Perspective

• Culture helps keep society together.

• Culture teaches and passes on values, norms, and behaviours.

• Cultural practices help maintain stability and order.

• Cultural objects can show social status.

Example: Education teaches skills and behaviours that are useful in the workplace.

• If culture fails to provide clear rules and norms, people may experience normlessness.

Emile Durkheim Collective Conscience

• The shared values, beliefs, and norms that unite members of society and act like a moral glue.

Emile Durkheim Mechanical Solidarity

• Social unity based on similarity, where people share similar lifestyles, beliefs, occupations, and traditions.

• We are similar.

Emile Durkheim Organic solidarity

• Social unity based on interdependence, where people have different specialized roles and depend on one another.

• We are different, so we need each other.

Emile Durkheim Anomie

• A state of normlessness that occurs when shared social values and rules become weak, disrupted, or unclear.

• "I don't know what the rules are anymore."

Conflict perspective on Culture

• Culture is not neutral. It is connected to power and inequality.

• The powerful/ruling class can influence culture and what people think is normal or desirable.

• Culture can help maintain differences between social classes.

• The dominant class can influence our tastes, preferences, and beliefs.

• Dominant ideology: Beliefs that support the interests of the ruling class.

Example: Ideas about what a “healthy” body should look like can be influenced by dominant cultural beliefs.

• Every year, a new iPhone is released with small improvements. Consumer culture encourages people to keep buying newer products, even when their current phone still works. This shows how companies can influence consumer wants and behaviours.

Symbolic Interactionist perspective on Culture

• The perspective that culture is created and recreated through everyday social interactions and the meanings people give to symbols.

Example: "LOL" is a symbol whose meaning depends on how people understand and use it.

Feminist perspective on Culture

• The perspective that examines how culture creates, teaches, and reinforces gender roles and inequalities.

• How does culture teach us what it means to be a man or woman?

Example: Telling boys to "be a man" teaches expectations about masculinity.

Feminist perspective on Culture Interpellation

• The process of absorbing and accepting dominant ideas as normal or natural.

Society gives us ideas → we internalize them → we see them as normal.

Combining Perspectives

A feminist + symbolic interactionist approach could examine how everyday language such as "throw like a girl" helps create and reinforce gender expectations.

Important: The perspectives are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Postmodernism

• A perspective that argues that truth and knowledge are socially constructed and shaped by historical, cultural, and political contexts, rather than assuming there is one universal truth.

Think: "Who decides what counts as truth or normal?"

Hyperreality

• A situation where representations, images, or media become so powerful that they can seem more real or meaningful than reality itself.

Example: The Matrix presenting a simulated reality

Socialization

• The lifelong process of learning the norms, values, beliefs, and behaviours needed to function in society.

• it is how we achieve social acceptability, that is, becoming aware of ourselves

  and the suitability of our behavior in relation with others.

• Concerned with PROCESS not ouotcome.

How Socialization occurs

• Through human interation with the social environment. By social environment, I am referring to all the tangible/intagible, macro/micro elements that make up a functioning society

• Can also occur by entering and exiting a variety of roles (being an employee, being on a sports team, etc)

Primary socialization

• The stage where children develop basic ideas of the self. Mainly influenced by family and immediate-peer groups. Foundational for all other socialization experiences.

Secondary socialization

• Occurs during adolescence and beyond. Takes place outside the home. Involves institutions outside of the family i.e., mass media, school, sports teams, part-time jobs, etc.

Anthony Giddens (1991)

• Actors outside of the home are more influential than ever before in our primary socialization.

• A blurring of the boundaries between primary and secondary socialization.

Blurring of Primary and Secondary Socialization

• The boundaries between family-based and outside influences become less clear because institutions, media, technology, and online figures can influence children from an early age.

Example: A child may learn ideas about beauty, relationships, or success from YouTubers before learning them from their parents.

Anthony Giddens (1991) Expert systems

• Pediatricians, developmental psychologists, educators, mass media.

Anthony Giddens (1991) Technology

• Think about the influence of content creators.

Disruptive Technologies (Manyika et al., 2013)

• Technological innovations that fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and

  re-arrange our value pools.

Examples: Social media, AI

Context Collapse

• When different social groups and social situations come together in the same space, especially online.

• The social cues we rely upon (body language, tone, dressing) are absent

Aspects of Socialization

• The context in which socialization occurs

• The actual content and processes people use to socialize others

• The results arising from those contexts and processes

Other Processes of Socialization Anticipatory Socialization

• Preparation for a role we aspire to occupy in the future (new job, living situation)

Other Processes of Socialization Resocialization

• Replacing an existing set of values, beliefs and practices (voluntary or involuntary).

Agents of Socialization

• Family

• Schools

• Workplace

• Peers

• Mass Media

Family

Traditionally the most important agent of primary socialization, teaching children basic behaviours, values, identity, language, habits, and expectations.

Example: Parents teaching a child to respect others.

Family and Political Socialization

• The process through which people develop political beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours.

• A child developing political opinions through conversations with parents, friends, school, or media.

Ojeda and Hatemi (2015)

• Children are more likely to adopt their parents' political beliefs when they have a strong relationship with them.

Schools

• Primary agent of secondary socialization: that is, socialization occurring outside the home.

• This can occur in manifest and latent ways (remember the functionalist perspective?)

Example: Going from preschool to kindergarten, now you just can't complain when you want something, now you have to use your words

The Hidden Curriculum (Jackson, 1970)

• The unspoken norms, values, behaviours, and expectations that people learn through institutions without them being officially taught.

Example: A teacher may never explicitly teach “wait your turn to speak,” but students learn to raise their hands before speaking.

Becoming a vegan (voluntary resocialization)

• a conscious replacement of existing values, beliefs and norms with new ones

The Self

• The collection of characteristics and ideas that make up a person's understanding of who they are.

Important: The self can change as we have new experiences and interactions.

The Looking-Glass Self

• The idea that we develop our understanding of ourselves by imagining how other people see and judge us.

The Looking-Glass Self “I”

• The spontaneous, impulsive and unpredictable self that initiates, innovates and reacts.

• Your immediate reaction.

• “I want to yell at my professor.”

The Looking-Glass Self “Me”

• The socialized self that factors in and internalizes the expectations of others.

• The part of you that thinks, “What am I supposed to do here?”

• “I shouldn't yell because professors and students are expected to behave respectfully.”

Looking Glass Self beliefs

1. We imagine how we appear to others.

2. We imagine what their judgment of that appearance must be.

3. We develop feelings because of our imagining of other judgments.

• Social media, friend group dynamics, job interviews

Looking-Glass Self (C. H. Cooley)

Central argument: We define ourselves in the context of our socializations

1. We imagine how we present ourselves to others

2. We imagine what their judgment of that appearance must be.

3. We develop feelings because of our imagining of other judgments.

• “I am not what I think I am, and I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.

Higgins Self-Discrepancy Theory Three domains of the self

1. The actual self

2. Ideal self

3. The ought self

Higgins Self-Discrepancy Theory The actual self

• A representation of the attributes that you or someone else thinks you possess.

• Who you believe you currently are.

Higgins Self-Discrepancy Theory Ideal self

• Personal representation of the attributes you or someone else would like you to possess (hopes, aspirations, or wishes)

• Who you would like to become.

Higgins Self-Discrepancy Theory The ought self

• A representation of the attributes you or someone else believes you ought to possess (duties, obligations, or responsibilities)

• Who you believe you are expected or obligated to be.

Role Theory (Coser, 1975)

• The idea that people occupy different social roles, and each role comes with expectations about how they should behave.

Example: Being a student means you are expected to attend class, study, and complete assignments.

Role Conflict

• When the expectations of two or more roles clash with each other.

Example: Your boss expects you to work, but your professor expects you to write an exam at the same time.

Code-switching

• Changing how you speak or behave depending on the social situation or people you are interacting with.

Example: Dad when talking to us (family) vs when hes talking to coworkers