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Social structure
External forces, mainly social hierarchies, norms, and institutions, that provide the context for individual and group action
-Ordering of behavior and relationships in relatively predictable patterns
Role
The expectations for behavior attached to the status
Status: Parent
Role: Take care of child, provide for basic needs, mentor and guide
Role theory
A sociological idea that emphasizes the importance of the roles individuals take on in shaping their behaviour
Role conflict
When two or more discordant demands are placed on individuals, rendering them unable to fulfill their own or others’ expectations
Role strain
The stress caused by the demands of a single role
Life course
The transitions individuals make as they age through life; Ex: childhoodd, adolescence, transition to adulthood, etc
Social hierarchies
Any relationship between individuals or groups that’s unequal and provides members of one group more status and power than others
Status group
A term invented by Max Weber to describe any group that forms a common identity and develops ways of distinguishing insider from outsiders
Master status
Cuts across multiple statuses; can’t seem to shake it; ppl perceive it (“hits them first’) before anything else, even if that’s not your primary status for that setting (e.g disabled doctor)
Status inconsistency
Incongruent statues that defy role expectations
Ascribed status
Statues that you’re born with; Ex: Siblings/ various family statues, race, and sex, etc.
Achieved status
Statues that you earn
Schemas
The ways that individuals form ideas and categories that provide framework for understanding and interpreting the world.
Privilege
The ability or right to have special access to opportunities, rewards, or recognition
Social closure
The process by which organized groups seek to establish or maintain privileged access to rewards or opportunities
Social movement
The process by which organized groups seek to established or maintain privileged access to rewards or opportunities.
White-collar jobs
Jobs that don’t require physical labor, in which employees work in office or at desks, as opposed “blue collar” jobs that involve physical labor
Post-industrial economy
When the agricultural and manufacturing industries employ only a small percentage of all workers, and professional service industries (health, education, etc.) are dominant forms of employment
Institutionalization
The process by which a social practice becomes an institution
Organizations
A social group or social network that’s unified by a common institutional structure, such as a government agency, a school, a business firm, the military, a religion, and may others.
Culture
System of belief and knowledge shared by members of a group or society that shape individual and group behavior and attitudes
A way of life
Norms
Expectations for behavior
Folkway
Norms that stem from and organizes casual interactions
More
Norm that structures the differences between right and wrong
Law
Norm that is formally inscribed at the state or federal level
Social network
The ties or connections between ppl, groups, and organizations
Symbol
Something that communicates an idea while being distinct from the idea itself
Value
A judgment about what’s naturally important or meaningful
Habitus
-introduced by Bourdieu
-Refers to the diverse ways in which individuals develop intuitive understandings and engrained habits reflecting their class background and upbringing
Tool kit
The view that culture is a set of ideas or strategies that ppl learn throughout their lives and can deploy strategically in different situations
Language
A comprehensive system of words or symbols representing concepts and meanings, which is often (but not always) spoken
Material
The physical objects or “things” that belong to, represent, or were created by a group of people within a particular culture
Non-material culture
The “ideas” of culture that influence behavior and direct socialization.
Cultural universal
A cultural trait common to all humans and societies
Mainstream culture
The widespread culture throughout a society that applies in part or whole to all members of the society
Subculture
Subset of mainstream that doesn’t go against mainstream values/norms
-Ex: Amish or motorcyclist
Counterculture
Founded for the purpose of rejecting dominant cultural values/norms
Ethnocentrism
Using your own culture as the “yardstick” to measure others
Cultural relativism
Viewing the behavior of ppl from the perspective of their own culture; seeing traits by the role they play in the culture in question
Culture shock
The difficulty ppl have adjusting to a new culture that differs markedly from their own
National culture
The norms, behaviors, beliefs, customs, and values shared by the population of a sovereign nation
Cultural capital
Our education, tastes, and cultural knowledge and our ability to show sophistication (or a lack of) in our speech, manners, and other everyday activities
Embodied cultural capital
-Non-material
-Things like accents, etiquette, language, mannerisms, etc
Objectified cultural capital
-Material
-Things like the make/model of your car, art on your wall, the brand/style of suit you wear
Institutionalized cultural capital
-Includes material and non-material things
-Things like awards, honors, exclusive club or society memberships
Cultural appropriation
The act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture
Cultural appreciation
Appreciating another culture in an effort to broaden their perspective and connect with others cross-culturally
Deviance
A violation of cultural norms
Social group
A collection of individuals formed around some kidn of social identity or for some specific purpose
Symbolic boundary
The distinctions ppl make between themselves and others on the basis of taste, socioeconmic status, morality, or toher differences
Statistically deviant
Behavior that’s different/unusal but not a violation of social norms
Socially deviant
Behavior that violates the written or unwritten rules of society
Social control
The institutions, norms, and rules through which societies attempt to shape and control individuals. Behaviors that violates social rules is typically punished eithir formally or informally
-Ex: Shaming criminals by publishing them in the newspaper
Socialization
The way we are taught to behave in society or particular social settings and come to understand expectations and norms
Civil disobedience
A form of protest in which protesters refuse to comply w/ laws they believe are unjust, usually associated w/ the use of nonviolent tactics
Stigma
A negative characteristic or credential attached to an individual that implies disgrace or any other attribute widely regarded as disgraceful
Moral behavior
Behavior that’s guided by a belief about what’s right and proper to do
Opioid epidemic
The rising number of deaths due to overdoses of opioid drugs, which has been shown to be concentrated in certain communities and among certain people
War on drugs
The US’ effort to reduce the sale and consumption of illegal drugs by increasing police surveillance and punishment of drug offenders
Strain theory
Merton’s theory builds of anomie (Durkheim) and structural strain:
Disjunction between culture (goals) and social structure (means)
Conformity
Achieves the goals of society and uses non-deviant ways to do so
Innovation
Uses illegal/ deviant means (ways) to reach societal golden standards due to not having proper access/ being limited
Ex: A person stealing food to feed their family
Ritualism
Someone who accepts the means, but never achieves the goal
Ex: Senior who’s in the 5th year of school accepts/ takes classes to graduate, but never really graduates
Can come w/ informal sanctions like being judged
Retreatism
-People who reject the goals of societal and don’t use any means to achieve it
Ex: Flower Children
Labeling theory
A theory of deviance that stresses that many kinds of behaviors are deviant solely cause they’re labeled as such
Differential association theory
Deviant and criminal behavior results from associating w/ ppl w/ attitudes favorable to deviant or criminal behavior
The greater association w/ ppl whose behavior is deviant, the greater the likelihood that own behavior will be deviant
State deviance
Deviant behavior by governments or government agencies
Socioeconomic status (SES)
Composed of one’s income, occupational status/prestige, and education (in years)
Prestige
The symbolic value attached to a personal attribute or achievement
Inequality
The unequal distribution of valued goods and opportunities in society
High-end inequality
Economic inequality that arises from the highest earning households and/ or firms pulling away from everyone else
Income
The receipt of money of money or goods over a particular accounting period (hours, weeks, etc.).
May include wages from a job, benefits from gov’t program of pension, or investments
Wealth
The net value of all assets owned by an individual or family, including the value of their home, minus their debts
Middle Class
A group of ppl who occupy the middle positions in terms of income and status in economic systems
Class
Refers to a group of ppl who share similar social and economic position in society
Subjective definition of class
Categories are ordinal (CAN BE RANKED)
No clear distance between each category
-Ppl often have a skewed perception of their own position in the social structure w/ self-categorizing
Objective definition of class
(PREFERED BY SOCIOLOGITS)
-Categories are interval-ratio (ranges where the stuff in between matter like temperature, credit score 500-800)
-Means there’s a measurable distance between each step
Multiple dimensions of class can be measured through SES, takes into account status inconsistencies
Immobility
A situation where ppl are unable to move from one economic or social class into another
Social mobility
The movement of individuals from one social position into another
Meritocratic Ideology
-The American Dream that anyone can make it if they just work hard enough
Implies that ppl who aren’t rich aren’t working hard enough; implies ppl who aren’t rich do work hard
Neglects structural factors and is overly individualistic
Food insecurity
A condition in which an individual or family doesn’t have the means to assure an adequate amount of food
Homelessness
An extreme form of poverty defined by a lack of permanent shelter to live
List a few causes of poverty
Growing gap between rich and poor
Wages stagnating for those w/ lower edu
Labor marker (ie, unemployment)
List a few consequences of poverty
-Children are often the ones that suffer the consequences of poverty
Perform worse at school
Live in poverty as adults
Have connection to the child welfare system
What are some ways we can reduce inequality?
End racial segregation
Increase minimum wage
Invest in education
High quality early education can increase economic mobility
Has the gap between the rich and the poor in the U.S. has increased/decreased in the last 2-3 decades?
Increased!!
Is the gap between the rich and the poor in the U.S. is bigger/smaller here than it is in many other democratic/capitalist/industrialized nations in the world?
Bigger!!
Race
-NOT “skin color”
-A system for classifying ppl who are believed to share common descent, based on perceived innate physical similarities
-Social construct
Ethnicity
-Perceived cultural similarities
-Nationality (e.g, Haitian, French, Indian)
-Religion (e.g., Jewish, Muslim)
Racism
Prejudice and/or discrimination against individuals who are members of particular racial or ethnic groups
Individual discrimination
Action carried out by an individual or small group that harms, excludes, or disadvantage members of certain group
Structural/ Institutional discrimination
Occurs when the actions or policies or social institutions exclude, disadvantage, or harm members of particular group
-Doesn’t need to be intentional
Prejudice
Negative beliefs or attitudes held about entire groups based on subjective, selective, or inaccurate info
Prejudiced discriminator
-Someone who’s prejudice and discriminatory
-”All weather bigot”
Unprejudiced discriminator
-Not prejudice, but will discriminate if socially pressured
Prejudiced non-discriminator
-Ppl who work at places that have discriminatory polices or shop owners who are racist behind close doors, but then talk ad joke with the group of ppl that they’re racist to
Unprejudiced non-discriminator
-Doesn’t discriminate and isn’t prejudice
-”All weather liberal”
Defining Racism/sexism
Systems that advantages/privileges the dominant/ majority group in society
Differences between prejudice and racism
Prejudice:
-Points that fingers at “bias”
-Individual
-intentional
Racism:
-widens our lens to the “unintentional
-Focuses on impact/effect
-Societal/ systematic
Antiracism
Process of actively identifying and opposing racism
-Like walking down the escalator which is difficult to do but possible
Note
Flashcard