Intro to Sociology and Sociological Imagination

Making the familiar strange * Finding ways to improve on old practices * Identify flaws and keep what works/has to stay
Sociological Competence * Is formed from early interactions with people around * The “norm” and social behavior
Study of human society * “Going beyond getting by” * Study of external forces that determine human behavior
Lack of sociologists in pop culture * Absence of books/movie characters * People don’t recognize how important/impactful * However, addresses important societal problems * Racism * Vaccine Resistance * Education System * Wealth Inequality
Uses scientific method * Has limits, since social behavior cannot be quantified as well as other sciences can
Has overlap with other disciplines * History and anthropology * Particular events/cultures * Sociology is more general * Psychology and Biology * On a micro level and examines internal forces * Sociology is more the examination of a larger picture and the effects of external forces * Economics * Quantitative * Sociology can’t always be quantified * Political science * Focuses on only one aspect of social behavior/dynamic, i.e power * Sociology discusses power and how it comes to be but also examines other behavior
Why is Sociology unique? * Focuses on making comparisons across cases and finding patterns * Used to create hypotheses about how society works/has worked * Examines how people interact with one another and large groups
Parsons: * Professor at Harvard * Universal theory of Actions * Thought human behavior can be reduced to a formula * Foundational sociology was written by a conservative man
Emile Durkheim: * French sociologist * Society is sui generis: objective reality that is irreducible to the individuals that compose it * Society is greater than the sum of its parts * Focus on group and not the individual * Text called “suicide” * How we can measure the rates of events happening around the world to predict occurrences beyond individual trauma. * Shouldn’t care why a person committed suicide or why their life came to an end * Rather care about why we see more suicides in a certain group than other * However the patterns he suggested (Protestants more likely to commit suicide than Catholics) still hold true * Protestant: individual relationship w/ god, Catholic: community relationship w/ god; community relationship keeps people more tethered to their lives * Used numbers and data to provide empirical evidence that supports his hypotheses about why the world works the way it works
C. Wright Mills * Our individual lives are strongly shaped by where, when and to whom we were born * Our opportunities and potentials are always influenced by the inequalities and injustice that we encounter (i.e opportunities impacted by factors outside of our control) * Different from psychology since it takes into account things you cannot change (i.e circumstances around ones birth) * Availability of essential resources (sucha s good nutrition and clean water) early in life can heavily impact future development * Coined the term “sociological imagination” * Term that connects personal experiences to society at large and to greater historical forces * Makes the familiar strange * Facilitates a more active and effective participation in the world around us
Sociological imagination in practice * Why go to college * If you can teach yourself, why pay your professors to do it? * Because it provides you access to a variety of resources that you wouldn't have access to otherwise * Get a piece of paper which certifies you as an expert * Social benefit * Challenges basic impulses to see aspects of life as inevitable/natural * Provides insight into stereotyping and active discrimination * Discrimination * Behavior, practice or policy that harms, excludes or disadvantages individuals on the basis of their group membership * Cleveland Clinic banning smokers * Discrimination vs Legal discrimination * Legal: based on race, religion, sex, gender identitity, sexuality, * Although they don’t “condone” smoking because it does not match the institutions value, they contribute to a system that supports an unhealthy lifestyle that doesn’t prioritize the well-being of its workers * Smoking high among people live in low poverty situations * More smoke shops * Less education about healthy coping strategies * Know its bad, but gives instant gratification and is very difficult to quit * Peer influence * Smoking isn’t random * Follows patterns that coincides with socio-econominc status, race and gender * So is the Cleveland Clinic’s policy well intentioned or a de facto (not through legislation) discrimination policy

Facilitates more active and effective participation in the world around us
False Consciousness * Lack of Sociological Imagination and tendency for people to be able to see things/fight situations in which they have less power * especially exploitation and oppression * Stereotyping vs Discrimination * Stereotyping: emotions * Discrimination: actions * Karl Marx: * Why do oppressed people [who have the ability to understand their situation] fail to understand? * People who are most oppressed, are the ones who have the least amount of time to think about the fact that they are being oppressed * Hence can’t fight against because they know that someone else would be willing to take their spot if they left * The ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas
American Dream * Example of Social Mobility * Unattainable for most americans (even those who fit the racial and heteronormative standards) * Agency v. Structure * Agency: the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices * Can choose one’s own path * Allows one to navigate the structure * Structure: the recurrent patterned arrangements which influence or limit the choices and opportunities available. * The path that a person must navigate * May not be equal for everyone (marble staircase v broken ladder) * The structure of the American Dream and american society makes it prohibitive to certain groups of people * American Dream works (or is thought to work) on the foundation of a meritocracy → people who work harder must be on top * People working different jobs work different levels of “hard” * I.e they have a different structure, and their respective structure may define the “hard work” and the extent of that hard work differently
Pierre Bourdieu * How are structures reproduced from generation to generation and how is social stability preserved? * Habitus refers to the deeply ingrained habits, skills and dispositions we possess due to our life experiences * Acquire a sense of one’s place in the world (not create) * A “point of view” from which one is able to interpret one’s own actions as well as the actions of others * Cultural capital refers to nonmaterial goods such as educational credentials, types of knowledge and expertise, verbal skills, and aesthetic preferences that can be converted into economic capital * Our taste * Our knowledge of how to handle certain situations * How is habitus dangerous?
Tree Vs. Forest * Individual First * Composed of individuals who choose to act instead of experiencing chaos * Bad rules >> no rules * Micro-model * Society First * Larger institutions teach individuals the rules and this influences what they do * Socialization: process by which people learn the “rules” of a functioning society * Alienation (Marx): the dehumanizing sense that one's society is opposed to individual human interest. The separation of a person from what they create. * Structure separates us from society by dehumanizing us a s functioning parts * Anomie (Durkheim): Lack of moral regulation or common social rules leading to social isolation and anxiety * Lack of ability to assimilate with rules of world/ or cope w/ anxiety that comes from unfamiliar rules can be very disturbing for individuals * Pat Sharkey’s Research * Violence in neighborhood → lower test scores in children who didn’t know about the violence * Environmental changes can have impact on the individual * Way people interact with the environment and each other changes, hence causing behavioral changes * Agency within Structure * Habitual practices are simultaneously a result of social rules and of individual flourishes * We normally comply to rules * But, we always have the potential to resist * The impact of our actions is dependent on the structure around us * Charlotte Perkins Gilman * Wealthy white woman born in 1860 in the northeast * Feminist sociologist * Suffered from baby blues or post-partum depression after giving birth * Treatment was to lock the her in the room * Realized that all her life’s decisions were being made by the men in her life * Wondered if things would be better if women were allowed to have input about their own care * Was also controversial * Racist and Anti-semitic writings * Support of eugenics movement * Gave rise to feminism but it was only exclusive to rich, white women * Could not see the worries of women unlike herself * Had a limited sociological imagination

WEB Dubois * Wanted to go to Harvard * First black valedictorian in an all balck school * Mother has a stroke * Cope and still excels, only to be told he is not Harvard material * “I have stepped within the Veil, raising it that you may view faintly its deeper recesses, --the meaning of its religion, the passion of its human sorrow, and the struggle of its greater souls…” * By this, Du Bois intends to introduce his readers (WHITE READERS) to the experience of living within the dominant white culture for blacks. * He suggests that white people would like to ask him “How does it feel to be a problem?” but usually, he, and other blacks tend to keep this experience to themselves. * Double Consciousness * The sense that you always need to look at yourself through the eyes of another—measuring your worth by the “contempt and pity” that others within the world view you with * Freedom has not really occurred yet for Black men * “the shadow of a deep disappointment rests upon the Negro people,--a disappointment all the more bitter because the unattained ideal was unbounded save by the simple ignorance of a lowly people.
Conley’s Definition of culture: * A set of beliefs, traditions and practices * Culture is everything except nature * Not biological, but rather things that are passed down * Learned through families and other institutions in society * “Being cultured” * Accounts for only a few cultures * Creates a hierarchy that places certain cultures “better” or “more powerful” than others * Giving power to a certain culture
Ethnocentrism * the sense of taken-for-granted superiority in the context of cultural practices and attitudes * the belief that our own culture or group is superior to others * the tendency to view all other cultures from the perspective of our own.