Sociology Midterm Review

Mill’s concept of the sociological imagination

The capacity to think about our own personal experience in relation to a larger set of forces that influence every aspect of our lives

• History vs biography

Agency

Our ability to act given the structural rules and resources that impact our behavior

• Our ability to act is influenced by social structure

Structure

The boundaries, roles, and social positions people confront as they make decisions about their individual and collective actions

Qualitative Data and Methods

Based off of human experiences and opinions, interviews (fewer people, deeper data), ethnography, observation.

Quantitative Data and Methods

Numbers and using statistical analysis/framework, surveys, secondary data analysis, existing statistics, experiments.

Self

Person’s perception of themself (identity) as a separate entity different from others. Something that is developed, not there initially at birth.

Looking glass: The way our perception of how others see us affects our sense of self (Cooley)

Significant other

Someone that you have a romantic situation with, such as a husband, wife, boyfriend, or girlfriend. It can also refer to a person whose close relationship with an individual effects that individual’s behaviors and attitude.

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 society

• We are never done socializing, norms change and we join different groups

• Determine status positions

Resocialization

The process of adopting/relearning new social norms and identities that guide our behavior in a changing society.

Agent 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. 

• Ex. peer group, education, family, mass media, play

Role

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

• Ex. college professor, sister, wife, celebrity

Role conflict

 Inconsistency between two or more of the positions we fill

• Student vs friend, student vs employee, student vs sibling

Status

Person’s or group’s socially-determined positions within a larger group or society

• Ex. professor, faculty member, wife, spouse, etc.

Achieved status

Results from occupation, level of education, class, marital status, etc. Voluntary or earned social position.

Ascribed status

 Assigned to you by society without regard for your unique talents, efforts, or characteristics. Often happens at birth/involuntary. Ex. race, ethnicity, sex, age 

• Social hierarchies

• May influence achieved status

Norms

Informal (hold the door) or formal rules for behavior in a group or society.

Institutions

Enduring practices and rules that organize a central domain of social life. Social arrangements to meet key societal functions.

• Mills: Public issues “...often involve disorganized institutions.” 

• Ex. Mass media, government, economy, family, health care system, education, religious

Gender

Socially-constructed characteristics of men and women - norms, roles, and relationships among and between different groups of men and women

Sex

Different biological and physiological characteristics of males and females such as reproductive organs, chromosomes, and hormones

Gender binary

The classification system that allows for only two separate gender categories

Intersectionality

The ways in which different types of social relations are linked together in complex ways, creating different experiences for different groups of people

Doing gender (Martin)

We perform actions that produce gender, we do gender in interactions with others, and we take into consideration what is appropriate for our gender

Doing gender at the individual level

Posture, movement, voice, how you are dressed and carry yourself

Doing gender at the interactional level

How kids play with each other and form that masculinity or femininity (roughhousing - boys, dressing up - girls), teachers may influence us, and greeting a friend

Doing gender at institutional levels

Ideas/structure/process about gender built in larger systems, two genders and they are different from one another, beliefs and expectations (big strong boy to help me move desk), two separate bathrooms

Gender as a social construction

How meanings of gender are created through interaction among others and norms

• Uptalking and vocal fry (associated more with women)

• More broad than “doing gender”

Race

A categorizing system that humans created to classify and stratify groups of people based on skin tone and phenotypic characteristics (eye shape, hair texture, etc.)

• NOT about biology or genes

Ethnicity

Common culture, religion, history, or ancestry shared by a group of people

• Ex. Hispanic Americans, Irish Americans, Vietnamese Americans, and Jewish people

Race as a social construction

A concept that humans invented and gave meaning to in order to understand or justify some dimension of the social world

• Ex. Differences in skin tone or physical markers

Phenotype

Set of our visible/physical features or characteristics like the color of our skin, hair, and eyes that people may use as markers of race

• Affected by genetics and our environment

Redlining

Banks refuse to lend money to purchase or improve property within the particular neighborhoods, cities, or tracts according to the racial makeup of the residents (it is illegal today)

Invisible knapasack/white privilege

Peggy McIntosh’s description of ways in which White people have various, often unnoticed advantages in everyday life that people in other racialized social positions may not have

• Ex. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented

White flight

When neighborhoods begin to become integrated, White families began to sell their homes to avoid loses, often prompted by real estate agents

Segregation

The practice of requiring separate housing, education, and services for people based on their race or color.

• Also impacts communities economically