Sociology

13.9.

Last time sociological imagination, COFFEE

— stuff on Moodle

Reasons for Unemployment

  • Work practice change

  • Technology change

  • No access to education/retraining

Why theory:

  • Social theory invokes linking a set of interrelated concepts and or observed phenomena in an attempt to establish a cause-eddect relationship

  • Without theories, science would be a futile excercise in statistic

  • A good theory allows itself to be tested and supported or disputed

— A graphic on the history of knowledge; changes according to societal, technical and scientific advances

  • Father of sociology, Auguste Comte

  • Emile Durkheim, maybe the first sociologist to use the scientific method

    • Studied suicide rates in different societies (prior to that it was deemed to only come up from personal struggles)

    • Notices the importance of social cohesion

  • Grand theories in sociolody

    • Society

    • Functionalist perspective

    • Conflict perspective

    • Interactionist perspective

  • Karl Marx

    • Bourgeroisie vs proletariat

    • Societal life is a competition over resources

    • Struggle of lower classes against those who own everything

  • George Herbert Mead

    • Points to focus on interactions between ordinary people

    • Both actor and world

    • The individual mind can only exist in telation to other minds and the world

    • Symbolic interactionalism

  • Max Weber

    • Focus on purposefully acting individual

    • Ideas, culture

    • Concept of ideal types

    • Rationalism; society moves towards bureaucracy, and types of authority

    • Charismatic, Legal and ? Authority

  • Harriet Martineau

  • Jane Addams

    • Focus on solving social problems

    • Hull House

    • Need fot morality to evolve with scientific research

Prep for exam:

What are the main differences between every day and sociological knowledge?

  • Everyday knowledge is often based on personal experiences and common sense, whereas sociological knowledge relies on systematic research and analysis to understand social patterns and behaviours.

Explain the concept of glass ceiling and how it is related to gender stratification

  • The glass ceiling refers to the invisible barriers that prevent women and other marginalized groups from advancing to higher positions in the workplace, despite having the qualifications and skills necessary for those roles. This concept is closely related to gender stratification, as it illustrates how societal norms and institutional practices perpetuate inequality and limit opportunities based on gender. Symbolic interactionism is a sociological theory that develops from practical considerations and alludes to humans' particular use of shared language to create common symbols and meanings, for use in both intra- and interpersonal communication.is phenomenon highlights the intersection of gender and power dynamics within organizations, revealing how systemic biases can hinder professional growth and reinforce traditional gender roles.

Which perspective – conflict theory, functionalism or symbolic interactionism – do you think is the most suitable to explain the institution of family?

  • Conflict Theory: Society is in a state of perpetual conflict because of competition for limited resources.Conflict theory views the institution of family as a site of power struggles and resource allocation, where differing interests among family members can lead to conflict. This perspective emphasizes how family structures can perpetuate social inequality, as they often reflect broader societal hierarchies related to class, race, and gender. For instance, the distribution of labour within the family may reinforce traditional gender roles, where men are seen as breadwinners and women as caregivers, ultimately impacting their opportunities in society. → Karl Marx

  • Functionalism: The central idea behind functionalism is the belief that every aspect of society serves a purpose. E.g. the family socializes children, it provides emotional and practical support for its members, it helps regulate sexual activity and sexual reproduction, and it provides its members with a social identity. (too deterministic imo, as it assumes all families are nuclear, women stay home, and everyone strives for the same values and norms)

  • Symbolic Interactionism: Symbolic interactionists argue that shared activities help to build emotional bonds, and that marriage and family relationships are based on negotiated meanings (George Herbert Mead). The interactionist perspective emphasizes that families reinforce and rejuvenate bonds through symbolic rituals such as family meals and holidays.

Sociological imagination: a term used in the field of sociology to describe a framework for understanding social reality that places personal experiences within a broader social and historical context.[1] —> C. Wright Mills, individual vs societal

Culture: Culture is defined as shared beliefs, values, and practices, that participants in a society must learn. Sociologically, we examine in what situation and context certain behaviour is expected, and in which situations perhaps it is not. Rules are created and enforced by people who interact and share culture. Divided into material (art, books, food) and immaterial (religion, values, language).

Norms: a fundamental concept in the social sciences. They are most commonly defined as rules or expectations that are socially enforced. Norms may be prescriptive (encouraging positive behavior; for example, “be honest”) or proscriptive (discouraging negative behavior; for example, “do not cheat”).

Values: a culture's standard for discerning what is good and just in society. Values are deeply embedded and critical for transmitting and teaching a culture's beliefs. Beliefs are the tenets or convictions that people hold to be true.

Socialization: the process of internalizing the norms and ideologies of society. Socialization encompasses both learning and teaching and is thus "the means by which social and cultural continuity are attained".[1]: 5 [2]

Primary groups: the shared culture of a person's primary group. This is the group of people closest to the individual and the people the person interacts with each day.

Secondary groups: large groups of people who are not related or emotionally connected, yet work together to achieve a common interest, purpose or goal.

Stabilisation of adult personalities: How a person achieves emotional security through a marital relationship (parsons, functionalist). This comes after primary socialisation (aka childhood)

Social institutions: The established patterns of beliefs, behaviors and relationships that organize social life. The five major social institutions in sociology are family, education, religion, government (political), and the economy

Conformity: The process whereby people change their beliefs, attitudes, actions, or perceptions to more closely match those held by groups to which they belong or want to belong. Peer pressure, fashion trends, body image.

Social deviance: Sociologies attempt in explaining why some/how some do not wish to conform into the societys values/norms. Structural functionalism argues that deviant behavior plays an active, constructive role in society by ultimately helping cohere different populations within a society. Conflict theory suggests that deviant behaviors result from social, political, or material inequalities in a social group. Labeling theory argues that people become deviant as a result of people forcing that identity upon them and then adopting the identity, aka stigma.

Social control: The process of a group regulating itself according to its beliefs, principles, and values. A major purpose of social control is to stop or prevent negative deviance, which is a break from established laws and values that may be damaging to others. Durkheim refers to it as regulation. A new example could be cancel culture.

Social stratification: refers to a society's categorization of its people into groups based on factors like wealth, income, race, education, ethnicity, gender, occupation, social status, or derived power (social and political). It is a hierarchy within groups that ascribe them to different levels of privileges.

Social mobility: The movement of individuals, social groups or categories of people between the layers or within a stratification system. Open stratification systems are those that allow for mobility between, typically by placing value on the achieved status characteristics of individuals. A polar opposite could be e.g. caste system (which affects the person their entire life)

Blue, pink and white collar jobs:

  • A white-collar worker is a salaried professional,[3] typically referring to general office workers and management.

  • A blue-collar worker is a member of the working class who performs manual labor and either earns an hourly wage or is paid piece rate for the amount of work done.

  • A pink-collar worker is also a member of the working class who performs in the service industry. The term was coined in the late 1970s as a phrase to describe jobs that were typically held by women; now the meaning has changed to encompass all service jobs

Gender: a social classification based on one's identity, presentation of self, behavior, and interaction with others. Sociologists view gender as learned behavior and a culturally produced identity

Glass ceiling: the invisible systemic barriers that women and minorities face as they try to advance their careers.

Race:

Ethnicity:

Intersectionality:

Social change:

Social movements

Contributors to Sociology:

August Comte: Father of sociology,

Harriet Martineau:

Emile Durkheim: (collective consciousness)

Karl Marx:

C. Wright Mills: (sociological imagination aka individual vs society)

Max Weber:

George Herbert Mead: (symbolic interactionism)

Talcott Parsons: (functionalism)

Pierre Bourdieu:

The basics of sociological research:

Types of norms:

Types of economic systems:

Types of political systems:

Types of social change:

Types of social movements:

Social control mechanisms in a society:

Stratification systems throughout time and space: