NOTES FOR SOCIOLOGY SUMMER 2004
First of all, I’d like to apologize for the delay. Actually, some people still haven’t sent me their notes, but whatever, there’s enough. I also have some notes from a professor that taught sociology last semester so I’m putting his notes in purple at the beginning of each unit. Everyone’s name who submitted notes will be italicized and in the top right before their notes start. This way you can thank them if you want J. Personally, I think most of you did a great job in notes, the professor’s notes are garbage compared to your work. Good job. Have fun.
Unit 1
Lecture Notes
First let us start with a concept which we probably think we understand consider -
what
is Normal?
What would your expectations be of a normal person?
Further to
this, what is Sociology? - do you have an idea?
Sociology - is an academic discipline which begins with and investigates the
idea that humans are social creatures who are influenced by interaction,
social patterns and socialization
Where does a
sociologist start?
A sociologist starts with the concept that we are - from the moment of birth
and perhaps before - influenced by where and when we are living
Consider for a moment when you were born - birth date - what was happening to the society?
Social patterns of behaviour?
Your individual families? - how would this have influenced who you became? -
What would be the point of taking sociology?
An attempt to understand the social interaction, social patterns and principles of socialization in first our own society and with some investigation in other societies
What is social interaction?
It the process of relating to each other (either in groups or in dyads - dyads
are two individuals) in order to accomplish this what do we need?
What are some of our rules concerning some cases of social interaction?
- raising a hand?
What is a social pattern?
What sociologists are looking for are generalizations - things that reflect how we behave and probably will behave, our expectations of behaviour - what are some generalizations that would result in a social pattern?
If a person pukes on the floor - what will be our behaviour towards that person? Does it depend on our own relationship with that person? Does it depend on place and time?
Socialization is also another focus for sociologists
What is socialization?
The lifelong process of learning - it is how an individual becomes integrated within a social group - it is done through both conscious and unconscious means - you have all been socialized and are continuing to be - we may think some are better socialized than others but we are all being socialized - in fact some of the challenge for students of sociology is to be able to understand the process of socialization and how it works on individuals and society
give me an example of when and how a person is socialized - what have you been learning in your experiences here that identify university as a different place
Sociologists generally focus on five topics
a) society - the whole - often called macrosociologists - very interesting in the big picture - discussing the ways that people get along in groups and in society
b) social organization - largest unit of study society to the smallest unit of study those of dyads (two or more individuals)
c) institutions - important for large societies like Canada - where the institutions structure parts of our collective and individual lives - for instance schools, governments, criminal justice, health, religion and military
d) face to face interactions - interested in how individuals reflect on society and how society reflects back onto the individual
e) social problems - such as child abuse, sexism, racism etc
This evening we will be watching a film called Culture of Hate - We will then be discussing the concepts of social patterns, social interactions and socialization as they relate first to the film and then to ourselves.
Possibly - This evening's participation exercise - Discuss with the person next to you - your birth story - consider what you think it means about your qualities and traits - How would the story of your birth have impacted on your socialization? You should put your name and student number on this sheet and keep it for next week - next week you will be adding to it and then submitting it for a mark.
Bogdan Morun and Brandon Mosgrove
Key Approaches:
Structural-functionalism: the ‘value of integration of the components of society,
cohesion; shared values, consensus ( pg 17 of text)
Social Conflict: the ‘value’ of recognizing conflict/power inequities for explaining society and social change ( pg 18 of text)
Symbolic Interactionism: the ‘value’ of being conscious of the creativity of humans as we negotiate our lives and create social reality. (pg 20 of text)
Feminist: the ‘value’ of perceiving social organization from the standpoint of women, the ‘machinery’ of the sex/gender system ( pg 20 of text)
- regarding AIDS, review what was read and talked about in your groups!
Unit 2
The schedule for this evening is to finish the discussion from last week on different theories and the ways we can see democracy with them. We will then discuss media and war. Media is continuation of our discussion on institutions and war is about how we maintain, preserve or expand our institutions.
Mass media - impersonal communication directed to a vast audience
Media is communication used to serve and connect people
Forms of media - newspapers, radio, television, internet, film, music
How important is forms of media to the Canadian people? Television first introduced in 1939, has become the dominant medium - demonstrate ownership and viewing by province and gender, Canadian viewers watched television an average of 22.3 hours each week in the fall of 1998
Has the mass media improved its portrayal of minorities in Canada?
Does viewing sexual or violent programming hurt people as much as critics suggest? Why do the mass media constant so much sex and violence in the first place?
What shows did you watch last evening? For how many hours? What does this tell you about your understanding of television in your life?
If we say that the media influences us? How does it do this?
Functionalist Perspective of institutions including the media
a) replace members - the act of encouraging human
beings to reproduce
b) socialize members - the act of educating the young
c) producing and distributing goods and services -
institutions help us organize labour and economy
d) preserving order - internal - and external - how
do institutions help us preserve order
e) providing a sense of purpose - need to be
convinced that this society is a worthy society
Conflict Theorists or Marxist
understand the functioning of institutions to
maintain the status quo - to maintain the elite as it exists with the explicit
functioning of maintaining the structured inequalities - we also do this by
only allowing a certain number of people to own media
a) how would this be achieved?
deciding not to cover a story or and presenting a
story in such a way as to diffuse or bias its objective content
The role of advertising - The central task of advertisers is to convince us to buy their products - How do they do this? Through their advertisements they are convincing us of what is correct behaviour, correct attitudes, smells, actions - they are teaching us - they become powerful parts of our socialization -
Ravell did a comparison between coverage in
Newsweek and Maclean's what did he find? That the
Canadian coverage was more sympathetic to Native issues - Does this translate
into a knowledge base or a broad based understanding of Native issues in
Canada? What does the media example demonstrate about Canadians?
Participation Exercise (to be handed in with exercise from last week)
How does the image that you were presented as children through stories like
Peter Pan hold up under scrutiny? As sociologists try to
address the circumstances of social patterns, socialization and social
interactions that you see in the film on Residential Schools? How can
the media prevent or expand your understandings on this or any other issue?
What are some of the institutional dilemmas surrounding what to show and how
much?
Now if we were to extend the concept of media influence in a war - what would it look like? So lets try to understand from a sociological perspective - Why have war?
War: armed conflict between nations or politically distinct groups, is often part of national policy
Why?
Conditions for war
a) cultural tradition of war
b) two or more states confront incompatible objectives
c) fuels 1. revenge
2. dictate will
3. enhance nation's prestige
4. unite rival groups
5. protect or exalt position
6. satisfy national aspirations of ethnic groups
7. forcibly convert others to ideological beliefs
Compares with
1 - perceived threats
2 - social problems
3 - political objectives
4 - moral objectives
5 - the absence of alternatives
Dehumanization
a) increased emotional distance from others
enemy as subhuman
b) emphasis on following procedures
regulations are a means to an end
c) inability to resist pressures
group over individual responsibility
d) diminished sense of personal responsibility
following orders
Pursuit of Peace
1 - deterrence
2 - high-technology defence
3 - Diplomacy and disarmament
4 - Resolving underlying conflict
Methods
research method is a systematic plan for conducting research
the basic element of science is the concept - or the mental construct that represents some aspect of the world in a simplified form - for instance "family"
a variable is a concept whose value changes from one case to case
measurement is used to determine the value of a
variable in a specific case
see these as tools to investigate questions - you choose the method that most suits your case
Scientific Method
the experiment is a research method used to
investigate cause and effect relationships under highly controlled conditions
an hypothesis is an educated guess about how
variables are linked there are three steps in gathering the evidence to "test"
the hypothesis
a) measure the dependent variable (the effect)
b) expose the dependent variables to independent
variables (the cause or the treatment)
c) measure the dependent variable to see if the
predicted change took place, if yes then the hypothesis is supported, if not
then the hypothesis must be modified
successful experiments depend on carefully
controlling all factors that might affect what is being measured - in the
field - this control is not as easy
Seven Research Methods
a) surveys
Considered the most frequently used mode of observation in the social sciences
may be used for descriptive, explanatory and exploratory purposes chiefly used in studies that have individuals as the units of analysis
especially appropriate for making descriptive studies of large populations, survey data may be used for explanatory purposes as well
a survey is a research method in which respondents answer a series of statements or questions in a questionnaire or an interview
well suited to studying what cannot be easily observed for instance political
attitudes or religious beliefs includes a specific plan for asking questions
and recording answers
questionnaire - may be administered in two ways - self-administered or interviewers series of written statements - often the researcher lets the respondent answer from a series of choices (if not then the researcher has to make sense of the answer)
interview - the researcher asks the questions -
researcher maintains a knowledge of self to be sure that they are not
influencing the answers
Essential characteristic of interviewers is that they be neutral; their presence in the data-collection process must not have any effect on the responses given to questionnaire items
a probe is a neutral non-directive question
designed to elicit an elaboration on an incomplete or ambiguous response -
examples would include: Anything else? How is that? In
what ways?
Advantages
self-administered surveys over interviewer survey
a) economy, speed, lack of interviewer bias, and the possibility of anonymity and privacy
vs
b) fewer incomplete questionnaires, fewer misunderstood questions, higher return rates, greater flexibility in terms of sampling and special observations
Advantages vs. Disadvantages
economic especially to the amount of data collected
standardization of data possible
can be artificial and potentially superficial, difficult to gain a full sense of social processes in their natural settings through the use of surveys
participant observation - a research method by which investigators systematically observe people while joining in their routine activities
generally speaking you identify yourself in your
research position and gain entrance as someone who is studying the situation -
however you may also participate either in the practice in which you are
observing or in the community where you are living
often people use snowball sampling to gain access through other people to information
everything as much as possible is written down and then attempted to be understood in situ
Disadvantages
sometimes difficult to gain entry - bias not always understood by the investigator either of self or others, people will sometimes hide information - considered more valid (in the lived everyday experience) or less reliable than rigorous sampling and standardized questionnaires
qualitative interviews
generally closely related to surveys - in other words - you have a question that you are trying to answer but you leave the questionnaire more fluid - often referred to open-ended interviews where the questions have been thought out in advance but the secondary questions will proceed as the interview does -
also allows for other forms of analysis such as coding which can then be used in statisitical packages
secondary analysis
this involves taking data that already exists and using it for your analysis -
for instance many times I have used data from Statistics Canada to enhance my
research - I do not have the budget to engage in the same level of research
but I can use the data gathered by Stats Can to enhance my research -
sometimes you use the data but in different ways - the point you may be
attempting to prove may be very different from the point that the government
is seeing with the same data
documents
You may use as background and contextual information for your study documents
- I have found historical documents to be important for my work because I am
interested in establishing long term work histories in community so historical
documents belonging to a community give depth and understanding - certainly my
study would be weaker without these documents - sometimes you can even get
lucky and in your snowball sampling find people who know other people with
access to documents not easily found in the public domain
unobtrusive measures
ways of studying social behaviour without affecting
it in the process
content analysis is one of these - studying the process of communication either through recorded documents, video, books, pictures - all of these are appropriate units of analysis
standard probality sampling techniques are appropriate to use
difficulty can be to generalize overly to the specific or vice versa - usually linked with other methods
experiments
most frequently associated with structured science in general
experiments involve 1) taking action
2) observing the consequences of that action
to achieve this in social science requires that the
researcher selects a group or individual does something to them and observes
the effect of what was done
experiements are most
often used in nonscientific human inquiry - for
instance preparing a recipe
classical experiment tests the effect of an
experiment stimulus on some dependent variable through the
pretesting and posttesting
of experimental and control groups
important that the experimental and control groups
need to resemble one another
randomization is the generally preferred method for
achieving comparability
experimental findings may not reflect real life
Question - How do the students at the University of
Guelph
pay for their education?
Why is this important? Helps to understand limitations of student time? Frustrations with increasing tuition costs?
Hypothesis
Students at the University of Guelph are generally underwritten in the costs of their education by parental support.
A research method is a systematic plan for conducting research
Concept - or the mental construct that represents some aspect of the world in a simplified form - for instance "family"
Variable - is a concept whose value changes from one case to case
Measurement is used to determine the value of a variable in a specific case
Hypothesis is an educated guess about how variables are linked
Three steps in gathering the evidence to "test" the hypothesis
a) measure the dependent variable (the effect)
b) expose the dependent variables to independent variables (the cause or the treatment)
c) measure the dependent variable to see if the predicted change took place, if yes then the hypothesis is supported, if not then the hypothesis must be modified
Seven Research Methods
a) surveys
Most frequently used mode of observation in the social sciences
may be descriptive, explanatory and exploratory purposes chiefly used in studies that have individuals as the units of analysis
especially appropriate for making descriptive studies of large populations, survey data may be used for explanatory purposes as well
a survey is a research method in which respondents
answer a series of statements or questions in a questionnaire or an interview
well suited to studying what cannot be easily observed for instance political attitudes or religious beliefs
includes a specific plan for asking questions and recording answers
questionnaire - may be administered in two ways -
self-administered or interviewer administered which involves a series of
written statements -
often the researcher lets the respondent answer
from a series of choices (if not then the researcher has to make sense of the
answer)
interview - the researcher asks the questions - researcher maintains a knowledge of self to be sure that they are not influencing the answers
Essential characteristic of interviewers is that they be neutral; their presence in the data-collection process must not have any effect on the responses given to questionnaire items
a probe is a neutral non-directive question designed to elicit an elaboration on an incomplete or ambiguous response - examples would include: Anything else? How is that? In what ways?
Advantages of self-administered surveys over interviewer survey
a) economy, speed, lack of interviewer bias, and the possibility of anonymity and privacy
vs
b) fewer incomplete questionnaires, fewer
misunderstood questions, higher return rates, greater flexibility in terms of
sampling and special observations
Advantages vs. Disadvantages
economic especially to the amount of data collected
standardization of data possible
can be artificial and potentially superficial, difficult to gain a full sense of social processes in their natural settings through the use of surveys
participant observation - a research method by which investigators systematically observe people while joining in their routine activities
generally speaking you identify yourself in your
research position and gain entrance as someone who is studying the situation -
however you may also participate either in the practice in which you are
observing or in the community where you are living
often people use snowball sampling to gain access through other people to information
everything as much as possible is written down and then attempted to be understood in situ
Disadvantages
sometimes difficult to gain entry -
bias not always understood by the investigator either of self or others
people will sometimes hide information -
considered more valid (in the lived everyday experience) or less reliable than rigorous sampling and standardized questionnaires
qualitative interviews
generally closely related to surveys- you have a question that you are trying to answer but you leave the questionnaire more fluid - often referred to open-ended interviews where the questions have been thought out in advance but the secondary questions will proceed as the interview does -
allows for other forms of analysis such as coding which can then be used in statistical packages
secondary analysis
taking data that already exists and using it for your analysis
Documents
background and contextual information for your
study
Unobtrusive measures
ways of studying social behaviour without affecting it in the process
content analysis is one of these - studying the process of communication either through recorded documents, video, books, pictures - all of these are appropriate units of analysis
standard probability sampling techniques are
appropriate to use
can generalize overly to the specific or vice versa - usually linked with other methods
Experiments
successful experiments depend on carefully controlling all factors that might affect what is being measured - in the field - this control is not as easy
the experiment is a research method used to investigate cause and effect relationships under highly controlled conditions
most frequently associated with structured science in general
experiments involve
1) taking action
2) observing the consequences of that action
to achieve this in social science requires that the researcher selects a group or individual does something to them and observes the effect of what was done
experiments are most often used in nonscientific human inquiry - for instance preparing a recipe
important that the experimental and control groups resemble one another
randomization is the generally preferred method for achieving comparability
experimental findings may not reflect real life
Question - How do the students at the University of
Guelph
pay for their education?
Why is this important? Helps to understand limitations of student time? Frustrations with increasing tuition costs?
Hypothesis
Students at the University of Guelph are generally underwritten in the costs of their education by parental support.
going to finish the last common form of
investigation - experimentation and then
we will go onto the research model and a brief discussion of ethics in research
The Research Model
1. Selecting a topic - what are you interested in knowing about?
2. Defining the problem - this is important to narrow down the research and really get at the issue
3. Reviewing the literature - need to know what else has been written about and be prepared to change your perception of your question through this process
4. Formulating an hypothesis or research question -looking for relationships
between variables and using operational definitions
5. Choosing a Research method (s)
6. Collecting the Data
7. Analysing the data
8. Sharing the Results
Ethics - purpose of guidelines
openness - sharing of findings with scientific community
honesty and truth
forbid falsification of results and plagiarism
research subjects must not be harmed
protect the anonymity
must not misrepresent
Three examples used in the text
Brajuha
Scarce
Humphreys debate
Give them the issues to debate on pages 461 -
Can you see the ethical component
How do you feel about it
Do you feel the procedures described are ultimately acceptable or unacceptable
Cathleen Yoo
Doing Sociology (Text ~ Chap. 2)
In order to conduct sociological investigation there are two major requirements:
1. To look at the world using the sociological perspective.
Ø Seeing the general in the particular (chap.1)
Ø Seeing the strange in the familiar (chapt.1)
2. To be curious and ask questions.
These requirements will be the fuels for further studies being conducted in order to better understand observations that were notices and further questions that arise as a result.
4. “Science”
(Based on a logic system that relies on direct systematic observations that is Empirical evidence, information verifiable by our senses)
(“Science” can make us question our common sense which is develops as a result of convention truths we are exposed to, expert advice and pressure to accept opinions of those who are influential in our lives. Therefore it is important to assess “truths”, using scientific sociology.)
Science is as important in sociology as it is in the study of the physical world. Sociologists use scientific techniques in order to gather empirical evidence in order to access opinions.
~ Its use depends on measurement
~ Any variable can be measured in more than one way, can cause problems
~ It can be very difficult to measure sociological variables
~ Can be arbitrary since ppl definitions of variable may differ
~ Its use depends on measurement
Sociologists can face many potential problems that may affect accuracy, due to the large number of variables that can exist. It is important that with results are details on how variables were operational zed. Another problem is the large number of people that sociologists are trying to describe therefore they use statistical measures (ie. the mean or average) to describe large groups.
In order to ensure that results are accurate it is essential that measurements of variables are reliable and valid.
It is quite possible that repeated process shows reliability but you may not be valid for you choose a wrong measurement. For example if you want to investigate how religious people are and ask ppl how often they attend church, in actual fact you are investigating attendance since other factors contribute to results such as those who attend church out of habit. These individuals are not necessarily very religious.
(to see if this is the case it is necessary that there is control = ensuring all variables are kept constant except one to see its effects)
It can be difficult for sociologists to come up with the most accurate results due to the nature of their work. Since they work with people and human behavior is very complex there are often many other factors, which contribute to the results.
Personal opinions can pose a problem regarding scientific investigation, but everyone has opinions, therefore objectivity is essential (Objectivity = a state of personal neutrality in conducting research). This can include avoiding bias by carefully following scientific procedures.
Max Weber was a German sociologist that expected that the personal beliefs of a sociologist to affect their research even if they were to pick a topic, which was value-relevent, he believed value-free research needs to be done. Weber believed that the researcher need to be completely dispassionate in their work in order to study the world, as it should be rather then how they feel it should be. Weber believed that detachment was the crucial element, which set science apart from politics. Many accept that this detachment from the research can improve results, but this is something that is impossible. For this reason replication of the research by different people can reduce distortion due to personal values.
Using scientific methods in order to investigate society has many limitations
1) Human behavior is too complex to allow sociologists to predict precisely any individual’s actions.
2) Humans respond to their environment, because of this the presence of a researcher may affect the behavior being studied.
3) Social patters are changing constantly; something true in one place or time may not be the case elsewhere
4) Sociologists are PART of the world they study, making it difficult to be value-free
Subjectivity is more commonly seen as something negative, yet it is essential since creative thinking is important to sociological investigations. It is so because
1) Science provides rules that guide research, but a good sociologist needs to also be creative in order to provide insight fueled by their curiosity and ingenuity.
2) Science can help us collect large amount of info, but cannot take in to account human motives and feelings that come in to affect.
3) Scientific data cannot speak for itself, sociologists need to interpret (create meaning) from collected data.
Alvin Gouldner felt that Weber’s concept of “value-free” painted a “storybook picture” of sociology. Unlike Weber, he felt that every element of social life was political because there is always someone it benefited more then the other. Gouldner also believed that since all the work of sociologists was political they had to make a choice of which positions were worthy of support and the decision needed to be based on endorsing political objectives that would improve society. Gouldner’s viewpoint tends to be dominant in those that are guided by the ideas of Karl Marx (the point is not to simply understand the world but change it).
Gender plays a significant role in sociological work. Margrit Eichler identifies gender related threats to to sociological research
1) Androcentricity = issues being approached with a male perspective
Gynocentricity = issues being approached with a female prospective
(both equally damaging, but gynocentricity is less present, in our male dominant society)
2) Overgeneralizing = when data mainly from one sex is used to make conclusions regarding both
3) Gender Blindness = the failure to consider the variable of gender and it’s affects
4) Double Standards = applying different standards to the sexes when conducting research and drawing conclusions
5) Interference = the subject being studied reacts to the sex of the researcher
Since in the past a large portion of sociological research has been based on men, it has encourages contemporary researchers to investigate the lives of women. Those who support feminist research believe: 1) their research should focus on the condition of women in society, 2) research must be grounded in the assumption that women generally experience subordination. As a result feminist research is overly political and is conducted in pursuit of gender equality. Some feel that it should transform science itself , which they feel is a masculine form of knowledge. Unlike traditional science that strives for detachment from the research, feminist seek a connection between the researcher and the subjects. Conventional scientists follow extensively prepared plan with specific questions to be raised while feminist researchers favor a egalitarian approach which allow their subjects to be more verbal about their needs and interests.
All research, including sociological research has the potential to be harmful and helpful, therefore when conducting research this needs to be kept in mind. In order to ensure that the research is conducted in an ethical manner sociologists:
1) strive to be both technically competent and fair minded
2) strive to ensure the safety of their subjects and must terminate their research if it threatens the participants well being
3) protect privacy of all those participating
4) obtain the informed consent of participation by ensuring the participant understands the research and the risks and responsibility
5) include with their published results the source of all financial support (never accept funding from groups that would potentially influence the research for their own benefit)
When conducting research in different countries or with a multicultural group it is essential that the researchers are familiar and understand the society in order to respect their beliefs, feelings, limits and comfort
Experiment = a research method for investigating cause and effect under highly controlled conditions (quantitative)
Hypothesis = an unverified statement of relationship between variables
Experimental research attempt to answer but just what but also why this is called explanatory. In an experiment a hypothesis is tested in three parts: 1) measure the dependent variable, 2) expose the dependent variable to the independent variable, 3) measure the dependent variable again to see if hypothesized relationship exists. There are instances that occur when a change in the dependent variable is not because of the independent variable but other factors. When conducting experiments having a control group can reduce this.
The Hawthrone Effect
In some cases subjects being studied may change their behavior because they are aware that they are being studied, this can occur unintentionally, but nonetheless affects the conclusions of the experiment.
Survey= a research method in wehich subjects respond to a series of items in a questionnaire or an interview
Surveys can be very useful in sociological research since they can revel things that can’t be observed by a researcher such as political and religious beliefs.
Population and Sample
Population= the people who are the focus of the research
Sample = a part of the population that represents the whole
When researchers are surveying they must decide on a population. Speaking to everyone in that population is not an easy task and unnecessary if a sample is used. When choosing subjects to be a part of the sample it is important that random sampling is used in order to get the best representation of the whole population. Approaching random people in the mall would not yield the best representation since individuals at a mall tend to be often one group in society, ie. from a certain class.
Questionnaires and Interviews
Questionnaires = series of written questions a researcher supplies to subjects requesting their responses (quantitative)
~ Closed ended format = makes analyzing results relatively easy, but narrows the range of responses which could distort the findings (ex. Multiple choice)
~ Open ended format = subjects allowed to answer freely expressing various shades of opinion (ex. Short Answer)
~ Self administered = subject is asked to take the survey on their own and return (since no researchers present to help subject questions need to be inviting and clear)
It’s important to note that now all individuals are able to answer questionnaires such as young children. There is also the possibility that not everyone will respond.
Interview = a series of questions a researcher administers personally to respondents
Interviews can be closed or open ended, but are much more commonly open. When interviewing subjects researchers must be mindful that they are not influencing the subject’s response in any way.
In both questionnaires and interviews it is important to understand that the wording of questions can have a significant impact in the way in which respondents answer. The use of some words can inject an emotional element and respondents may answer negatively. Other words can lead individuals to answer in one way. Questions which are two parted such as, “do you think the government should cut spending and raise taxes to reduce the deficit,” can distort an individual’s opinion because they may partially agree and disagree.
Participant Observation = method in which researchers systematically observe people while joining in their activities (qualitative)
Participant Observation allows researchers to gain an inside look while participating in a number of settings. This method allows a researcher to be immersed in a particular setting for long periods of time, usually months or years. Though they need to participate the researcher also needs to keep a distance in order to be able to observe what is happening as an outside observer. A fine line exists between the two and balance is essential.
Secondary Analysis = research method in which a researcher utilized data collected by others
The most widely used statistics are gathered by government agencies. Using this data or data collected by other individuals can save a lot of money and time but it has its negatives also. Data may not be available in the format a researcher needs as well as there may be questions regarding its accuracy.
Content Analysis
The counting or coding of the content of written, aural, or visual materials such as tv and radio programming, novel, magazines and advertisements. This has been used greatly in sociology for many years. Secondary analysis also provides a key to investigate the past.
The great advances in technology has allowed sociologists to better conduct research by allowing them to better design experiments as well as better analysis of statistical information. Furthermore the use of Internet has allowed sociologists for an unprecedented amount of communication around the world with each other. The Internet also allows statistical information to be published in a manner which is easily accessible.
Although technology has greatly changes sociological investigation there are some research tasks which have stayed the same. Sociologist no matter how they gather data must transform facts in to meaning by building theories.
Inductive logical thought = reasoning that transforms specific observations into general theory
Deductive logical thought = reasoning that transforms general theory into specific hypotheses suitable for scientific testing
1) Define the topic of investigation.
2) Find out what others have learned about the topic
3) Specify the research questions
4) Assess the requirements for carrying out the research
5) Consider ethical issues
6) Devise a research strategy
7) Gather the data
8) Interpret the data
9) State your conclusions
10) Share your results
Unit 3
First we are going to finish the notes from last class and then we are going to move on the big picture - particularly focussing on Canada and our economy. We will have short films this evening one about cities and whether there can be such a thing as a sustainable city? The other film is on Maquiladoras (factories along the Mexican, Texas border) and how people live in these communities. This is to locate ourselves as Canadians within the global economy. Your participation exercise will be at the end and will be about this second film.
Much of this understanding of culture reflects how we are socialized and how we come to understand this for instance if we agree with Charon that:
Culture is learned - how?
Culture is a social inheritance - what does this mean - consider your values - are they new to you?
Culture is a body of truths - what do we hold as truths in our culture?
Culture is a set of values - which are reflected by action - how do we demonstrate this?
Culture is a set of goals ? What would our goals be?
Culture is a set of norms - What would some of these be?
Ultimately - culture is something that we have constructed as a group of people and go on constructing - we are constantly negotiating what we think our culture is - what its norms, values and "truths" are
Political Economy - Where do we fit as Canadians
Where do we start?
Where do we start? Unlike anthropologists - sociologists are very interested mainly in what happened with groups of people after the agricultural revolution -
Is this what has happened everywhere? - No - the agricultural revolution brought with it some prices one of these are the high density of populations that need food and ways to make a living - specialized groups turn into inequality -
Sociologists are very interested in what happened with groups of people after the agricultural revolution - I think this is because this is who they were trying to understand when they looked around the world -
Some of you may ask - is this sociology? Yes because if we are to understand our place in the world we need to understand the impacts that industrialization has had on us to bring us to this society here in this time - with all its complexities and layers
What are some of the things (events) that happened in the industrial revolution? For instance the invention of the steam engine what did this allow?
What are the key features of our post-industrial society? Why post-industrial - well has to do with the primary, secondary and tertiary ways of our current economy - what does this translate into?
The six characteristics of a post-industrial society
A) service sector so large that it employs the majority of workers
B) huge surplus of goods
C) extensive trade among nations
D) wider variety and quantity of goods available to the average person
E) the information explosion - the internet as example - who has access? Who does not?
F) the global village? What does this mean?
We can focus on two economies that many countries have those of capitalism and socialism
What is capitalism? An economic system that has these identifying features
A) private ownership of the means of production which is?
B) profit
C) market competition
There are various forms of capitalism for instance, laissezfaire capitalism and welfare capitalism and corporate capitalism -
What are these? - generally speaking there are forms of some kind of market regulation in all forms of capitalism - even in the Bahamas - which is very laissez faire there are government restrictions on gambling
Socialism - identifying features would be
a) public ownership of the means of production
b) central planning
c) distribution of goods without a profit motive
There are places where this is done democratically - often I hear in the media a confusion between capitalism and democracy as we will keep bringing up one is an economic system while the other is a system of representation
Where do Canadians fit and how do we fit in the World System?
Harold Innis an important Canadian sociologist had a very clear understanding of Canada in relationship to the United States - very briefly stated he pointed to the inherent dependency that we have as suppliers of natural resources and how this in turn does not encourage our own development of internal markets and this in turn leaves us with few dollars to spend on infrastructure
Participation Exercise -
After seeing
the film, reflect back on the key features of post-industrialism? Is this area
in Mexico post-industrial? What do you think it would be like to live here, in
the semi-periphery?
If we finish this very early - we may move onto bureaucracies.
Fiona Daly
Sociology
What is Culture?
Culture – the values, beliefs, behaviour, and material objects that constitute a people’s way of life.
Nonmaterial Culture – intangible world of ideas created by members of a society. (E.g. Beliefs, thoughts…)
Material Culture – the tangible things created by members of a society (e.g. Clothing, tools…)
Culture shapes what we do as-well as our personalities. (E.g. Warlike communities see children as naturally aggressive. Canada and Japan reward hard work…)
Culture Shock – personal disorientation that comes from encountering an unfamiliar way of life
- occurs when – people move to a new country
- when you move to another area in your own country (rural area to downtown Toronto)
Culture traits are not “natural”; rather it is the ability to create culture that is natural in all humans. Animals rely on instinct for their survival while humans rely on culture
Culture began to arise with the use of fire, tools, weapons, shelters, and clothing.
“Civilization” (based on permanent settlements and specialized occupations) began in the Middle East.
Culture pushed aside biological instincts and humans continued to fashion the environment for their purposes.
Culture – refers to the ideas, values, and artifacts that make up a shared way of life
Nation – is commonly used to refer to a political entity, a state or country; it also refers to a people who share a culture, ancestry, and history
State – a political entity in a territory with designated borders such as Argentina or Zimbabwe
Society – organized interaction of people in a nation, state, or other boundary.
Examples of Nations within Canada – francophone Quebec, First Nations, Inuit
How many cultures are in the world? Scientists have recorded over 5,000 languages à therefore they suggest at least this many human cultures on earth.
Actual numbers are skewed because of the increase in technological communication and immigration. Still, at least 1,000 cultures exist today – 100 of which are in Canada.
Culture is built on five major components
1. Symbols
- anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by people who share a culture
- Examples: whistles, flashing red light, certain animals (dogs in North America are pets, dogs in China are winter food)
- Symbols hold different meaning for different people (eg. Canadian flag is a symbol of National Pride for most Canadians, whereas separatists in Quebec may see it as oppressive)
- The meaning of symbols change over time (eg. Jeans were once just for working class, and now almost everyone has a pair)
2. Language
- a system of symbols that allows members of a society to communicate with one another
- written or spoken word
- Varies depending on worldwide location (writing left to right or right to left…)
- Worlds top languages – Chinese 20% (1.2 billion), English 10% (600 million), Spanish 6% (350 million)
- Only in west Africa is English not commonly used, every where else you can get by speaking it
- Cultural transmission – the process by which one generation passes culture to the next – through language, called oral cultural tradition
- Written language was invented approximately 5000 years ago
- Canada still faces problems with illiteracy (22% have reading disabilities, 26% can only read simple material à 48% in total
- Language adds to imagination à by connecting symbols in new ways, numerous future possibilities arise, we can dream and can envision a better world
- Language separates humans as the only species who are self-conscious, mindful of our limitations, and aware of our mortality
- Is language Uniquely Human?
- Most animals communicate to each other through the use of sounds, smells and actions à some use symbols as a means of communicating
- Kanzi – 12 year old pygmy chimp
- Learnt language through listening to humans speak
- Could “speak” by pointing to pictures on a special keyboard
- Could respond to questions he had never heard before, and had the language capacity of a two and a half year old
- Does Language Shape Reality?
- Sapir-Whorf hypothesis – people perceive the world through the cultural lens of language
- The ability to change and enhance language enables humans to change their perception of the world
3. Values and Beliefs
- Values – culturally defined standards by which people assess desirability, goodness, and beauty, and which serve as broad guidelines for living à statements about what ought to be
- Beliefs – specific statements that people hold to be true
- Values are abstract, beliefs are particular matters that people hold to be true
- These influence our personalities à while growing up our values and beliefs are “told” to us by family, friends, or religious organizations (to act and think a certain way, and have certain goals)
- Some countries, like Canada, do not have nation wide beliefs and values à Canada’s multiculturalism allows all people to have their own beliefs and values
- Values: Inconsistency and Conflict
- Values can be contradictory (eg. “me first” individualistic culture vs. help one another and contribute to society)
- Value inconsistency shows that culture in a place is given to change
- Eg. Hockey is central to Canadian culture, but this identity is changing as more woman’s leagues are starting up
- 50% of Canadians feel we should do more to separate our culture from the US, and 52% feel our culture needs to be protected against any outside influence
4. Norms
- Norms – rules and expectations by which a society guides the behaviour of its members
- Proscriptive norms – what you should NOT do
- Prescriptive norms – what you SHOULD do
- Norms are subject to change over time (eg. Pre-marital sex à for most of our history it rarely occurred, in the 60’s it became a recreational activity, in the 80’s it was reduced because of STD’s and AIDS, and today “safe-sex”)
- the most important norms are true almost anywhere (eg. The expectance of obedience from children)
- some norms are scenario specific (where to expect applause)
- Mores and Folkways
- Mores – a society’s standard of proper moral conduct (very important and defended publicly)
- Folkways – a society’s customs for routine, casual interaction
- Draws a line between right and rude (common courtesy)
- Social Control
- Sanctions – rewards or behaviours for appropriate (or inappropriate) conduct
- Social Control – various means by which members of a society encourage conformity to norms
- Internalizing these ‘rules of conduct’ allows us to make judgement on our own behaviour, and will encourage us to behave in culturally appropriate ways
- ideal culture – social patterns mandated by cultural values and norms
- real culture – actual social patterns that only approximate cultural expectations
5. Material Culture and Technology
- Artifacts of culture are tangible human creations (Chop-sticks in China, mats on floor in Japan, Robes in India…) à these artifacts reflect the important values in society
- Technology – knowledge that a society applies to the task of living in a physical environment à ties the world of nature to the world of culture
- Not all cultures are “technologically advanced” à some places do not disturb the natural environment at all, other places leave a great impact on the natural world
- Technology changes within a culture (high class vs. ghetto vs. old order Mennonites)
- new information allows us to generate culture through TV shows, cartoon characters, or brand “mascots”
- patterns of immigration
- 1961 à 90% of immigrants to Canada were from Europe, less than 5% from Asia and Middle East
- 1991-1996 à 19% from Europe, 57% from Asia and Middle East
- à increased cultural diversity in Canada (cultural mosaic)
- high culture – cultural patterns that distinguish a society’s elite
- popular culture – cultural patterns that are widespread throughout society
- Canada tends to praise high culture and put down popular culture (Mozart better than Motown) à but we should e slow to judge
- Not everyone in the elite group have the same tastes and interests
- Subculture – cultural patterns that set apart some segments of a society’s population à you can participate in more than one subculture (teenagers, the homeless, musicians…)
- sometimes many subcultures can lead to tension or violence
- cultural diversity involves variety and hierarchy à view upper class culture as better than lower class
- multiculturalism – social policy designed to encourage ethnic or cultural heterogeneity
- in Canada’s past, the European way of life was encouraged (done their way, seen in their point of view, followed their traditions), this is known as Eurocentrism (the dominance of European cultural patterns
- multiculturalism forces us to think about the norms and values at the core of our society
- Four positions on Multiculturalism
1. Defend it as a way to capture a more accurate picture of our past
- eg. Show that when Canada became settle by Europeans, the way they treated the Natives was harsh and left a great impact
- Highlight the achievements of historic men and women whose cultural background did not allow them to be recognized
2. Multiculturalism is a means to come to terms with our country’s even more diverse present
3. Multiculturalism is a way to strengthen the academic achievements of immigrant and visible minority children and others who find little personal relevance in traditional educational programs
4. Multiculturalism is a worthwhile preparation for all people in Canada to live in a world that is increasingly interdependent
- Multiculturalism undermines nationalistic prejudices by pointing out the importance of being globally connected
- Criticisms of Multiculturalism
- Encourages people to become part of the subculture, and not a part of Canada as a whole
- Presenting a heritage-centered view to children (educationally) prevents them from learning a wide range of skills
- Multiculturalism segregates those it wants to help
- Counterculture – cultural patterns that strongly oppose those widely accepted within a society
- Usually arises from adolescence
- Eg. Hippies in the 60’s were their own counter culture
- Alternate ways of dress, greetings, behaviour, and music
- Cultural integration – the close relationship among various elements of a cultural system
- Material culture (Technology) changes faster than nonmaterial culture (ideas of how people should behave)
- Cultural lag – cultural elements changing at different rates, causing various degrees of disruption in cultural systems (Surrogate mother hood, and ideas of parenthood)
- Cultural changes start in three ways
1. Invention – creating new cultural elements
2. Discovery – recognizing and understanding something that was not understood before à through research or by accident
3. Diffusion – the spread of cultural traits from one society to another
- what is normal or appropriate in one culture may be seen as wrong or immoral in another culture
- poor countries depend on their children to earn money for the family, whereas in industrialized Countries this is seen as wrong à we judge them on their immoral behaviour
- even habits within cultures can be seen as odd, or not normal for those from a different culture (Egyptians stand close to one another while talking; the Japanese name intersections, not streets; Morocco doesn’t have toilet paper)
- Ethnocentrism - the practice of judging another culture by the standards of one’s own culture à sometimes inevitable if people are emotionally attached to a cultural system, sometimes it generates misunderstanding and conflict
- Cultural relativism – the practice of judging a culture by its own standards à requires an understanding of the norms and values of the other society as well as ignoring the standards of your own society
- To succeed in business, an understanding of other cultures is needed à whether you are advertising (language translations) or speaking to someone about a business deal
- However, just because a habit is ok and normal in one society, it does not mean it is ok for everyone, everywhere à it is hard to find a global set of guidelines and norms
A Global Culture
- as different cultures are increasingly becoming in contact with each other it seems as though we are approaching a “global culture”
- some countries are still intolerant of those that hold different beliefs than they do
- societies around the world have more contact with each other through:
1. The Global Economy: the flow of goods
2. Global Communication: the flow of information
3. Global Migration: the flow of people
- Limitations
1. The flow of goods, information, and people is uneven throughout the world à urban areas attract more people and therefor have greater diversity and stronger ties to each other; rural areas are more isolated
2. The greater military and economic powers in the West influence the rest of the world more than they influence us
3. Global Culture would assume that everyone is able to afford the goods and services it provides
4. Cultural Traits are going to be interpreted differently depending on where you are from
- Recall: the Structural-Functional analysis sees society as a relatively stable system of integrated parts devised to meet human needs à therefor the different culture traits help maintain the operation of society
- Cultural stability is rooted in core values à idealism is the basis of human reality à values bind everyone together
- Look at Old Order Mennonites à using horses to plow a field (not a tracker) ensures hard work that goes along with the importance of discipline. The hard work and family meals bind them together in unity. Not using modern technology also makes them self-sufficient
- Cultural traits have functional and dysfunctional consequences à Old Order Mennonites will shun those who have violated the Mennonite mores à this could lead to increased tension and a split in unity
- Cultural Universals – traits found in every culture of the world
- Family – to control reproduction and to raise children
- Funeral rites – human response to death
- Jokes – to release social tension
- the structural-functional approach shows how culture is a compilation of systems that help to meet peoples needs
- However, this approach emphasizes stability, and does not take into account cultural change
- It also assumes that everyone will accept the norms, not taking into account cultural diversity
- Social inequality is generated by culture à culture meets the needs of some at the expense of others
- Values are shaped by a society’s system of economic production
- Materialism – how people fashion their material world effects other dimensions of culture
- individualistic and competitive values of Capitalist societies are tied to the economy à those who own businesses and factories are better off
- the rich and powerful are more talented and disciplined than others à the deserve the wealth they have
- Cultural Materialism (cultural ecology) – a theoretical paradigm that explores the relationship of human culture to the physical environment
- Climate, natural resources, and available food and water shape culture
- Eg. India has widespread hunger and malnutrition, as well as many cows, but they won’t kill the cows for food… why not?
- Cows are cheap to raise (they eat grass) and provide 2 important resources: Oxen (neutered offspring) and Manure
- The oxen are used to plow fields (they have no trackers) and the manure is processed into building material as well as burnt for fuel à economically they get more out of living cows than they would if they killed at ate them
- Criticism of approach
- Connections between the environment and culture can only rarely be drawn because of the subtlety and complexity of their relationship
- Less application to technologically advanced cultures (they manipulate the environment)
- Sociobiology – a theoretical paradigm that explores ways in which our biology affects how humans create culture à rests on the logic of evolution
- Living organisms change over long periods of time because of natural selection
- Four principles of natural selection:
1. All living thins seek to reproduce themselves
2. The blueprint for reproduction lies in the genes and genetic variation allows a species to “try out” new patterns in particular environments
3. Some organisms are more likely to survive
4. Specific gene patterns that allow for successful reproduction become dominant
- Criticism or Sociobiology
- Some feel that sociobiologists will revive biological arguments that were common centuries ago to say that certain races or sex is better than the other
- There is little evidence to support the theories
- we can’t live without culture, but it does have its drawbacks
- culture is largely a matter of habit (we fall into repetitive cycles of prejudice)
- competitiveness in our society prompts us to go for excellence, but this isolates us from others
- the quest for material goods takes our focus off of our relationships with others
- Our culture urges us to seek privacy, autonomy and security, but we fail to seek community to help with problems or troubles
- Biological instinct happens in a ready-made world; culture gives us the responsibility to make a world for ourselves
- Gives humans the ability to hope, create, and choose
-
1. Culture refers to a way of life shared by members of a society. Several species display a limited capacity for survival, but only human beings rely on culture for survival.
2. Culture relies on symbols. Language is the symbolic system by which one generation transmits culture to the next.
3. Values are culturally defined standards of what ought to be; beliefs are statements held to be true by people who share a culture.
4. Cultural norms guide human behaviour. Mores are of great moral significance; folkways are everyday matters of politeness.
5. High culture refers to patterns that distinguish a society’s elites; popular culture refers to widespread social patterns.
6. Canada stands among the most culturally diverse societies in the world. Subculture refers to distinctive cultural patterns adopted by a segment of a population; counterculture means patters of a population at odds with a conventional way of life. Multiculturalism is a social policy designed to enhance appreciation and acceptance of cultural diversity.
Society: people who interact in a defined territory and share culture
Social conflict: struggle between segments of society over valued resources
inequality rooted in how people produce material goods
Social solidarity: bonds unity traditional societies and their modern counterparts are strikingly different
Sociocultural evolution: the process of change that results from a society’s gaining new information, particularly technology
Hunting & gathering: simple technology for hunting animals & gathering vegetation
Horticulture: technology based on using hand tools to cultivate plants
Pastoralism: technology based on the domestication of animals
Agriculture: the technology of large-scale farming using plows harnessed to animals or, eventually mechanical tractors
Post industrialism: technology that supports an information-based economy
Capitalists: people who won factories and other productive enterprises
Conflict would end only when people overturned the capitalist system
Social institutions: major spheres of social life, or society’s subsystems, organized to meet basic human needs
False consciousness: social problems grounded in the shortcomings of individuals rather than the flaws of society
Communism: a social system in which the production of food and other material goods is a common effort shared more or less equally by all members of society
Class conflict: antagonism between entire classes over the distribution of wealth & power in society
Class Consciousness: recognition of workers of their unity as a class in opposition to capitalists & ultimately capitalism itself
Alienation: the experience of isolation resulting from powerlessness
Ideal type: an abstract statement of the essential characteristics of any social phenomenon
Anomie: a conditions in which society provides little moral guidance to individuals
Ø What makes a society?
Ø What makes society hang together?
o Lenski: members of society are united by shared culture & that cultural patterns vary according to a society’s level of technological development
§ Inequality divides a society as technology becomes more complex
o Marx: social division, not unity. class conflict as the hallmark of human societies throughout history
Ø How have societies changed over the course of human history?
o Lenski: differ primarily in terms of changing technology
o Marx: modern society is distinctive only because it brings social conflict out in the open
o Weber: changes in the way people look at the world (tradition vs rationality)
Ø Why have societies changed?
o Lenski: technological innovation that over time transforms an entire society
o Marx: materialism
o Weber: modes of thought have also contributed to social change
o Durkheim: expanding division of labour
Ø What makes other societies so different from the one familiar to us?
Ø What forces divide societies?
Ø What forces hold it together?
Ø Are societies getting better or worse?
Ø How technology shapes social life
Ø Technology breakthrough often has revolutionary consequences for society as a whole
Ø Sociocultural evolution: the process of change that results from a society’s gaining new information, particularly technology
Ø How societies change over centuries as they gain greater ability to manipulate their physical environments
Ø The greater the amount of technological information a society has in its grasp, the faster the rate at which it changes
Ø Technologically simple societies change very slowly
Ø Industrial, high-technology societies change so quickly that people witness dramatic transformation during their lifetimes
Ø Modern life has been changed in many ways by the spread of computer technology
Hunting & Gathering Societies
Ø Simple technology for hunting animals & gathering vegetation
Ø Only in lush areas where food is plentiful would hunters & gatherers have any leisure time
Ø The very young & the very old contribute only what they can, while healthy adults secure most of the food
Ø Have probably accorded men & women comparable social importance
Ø A shaman or spiritual leader enjoys high prestige but no greater material rewards than other members of the society & must produce food like everyone else
Ø Rarely use their simple handcrafted weapons for war
Ø Ravaged by the forces of nature
Ø Many die in childhood, many more perish before the age of twenty
Ø Recognize many spirits
Ø Study of this way of life has produced valuable information about human history and our fundamental ties to the natural world
Ø Lenski’s predicted that the 1990’s would be the end of hunting & gathering societies
Horticultural & Pastoral Societies
Ø Horticulture: technology based on using hand tools to cultivate plants
Ø Not all societies quick to abandon hunting & gathering in place of horticulture, those living amid plentiful vegetation & game, little reason to embrace new technology
Ø Formed settlements, moving only when soil was depleted
Ø Practise ancestor worship, God as Creator
Ø Pastoralism: technology based on the domestication of animals
Ø Domestication of plants & animals greatly increased food production
Ø Societies could now support hundreds of people
Ø Remained nomadic
Ø Viewed God having direct involvement in well-being of world
Ø Generated a material surplus, with more resources than necessary to sustain day to day living
Ø Gave time to create crafts, engage in trade, cut hair, apply tattoos, or serve as priest
Ø More specialized & complex social arrangements
Ø Some families produce more food than others, assuming positions of relative power & privilege
Ø Social advantages endure over generations & a formal system of social inequality emerges
Ø Advancing technology is never entirely beneficial
Agrarian Societies
Ø Agriculture: the technology of large-scale farming using plows harnessed to animals or, eventually mechanical tractors
Ø Dawn of civilization
Ø Technology encouraged agrarian societies to farm same land for decades, leading to humanity’s first permanent settlement
Ø Specialization made the early barter system obsolete & prompted the invention of money as common standard of exchange
Ø The elite were freed from manual work & could devote their time to the study of philosophy, art & literature
Ø Men move into social dominance, declining position of women in society
Ø Religious doctrine typically propounds the idea that people are morally obligated to perform whatever tasks correspond to their place in the social order
Ø Elite gain unparalleled power
Ø With the growing economy, political system becomes established as a distinct sphere of life
Ø Greater specialization & more inequality
Ø Advancing technology increases human control over the natural world
Industrial Society
Ø Industrialism: technology that powers sophisticated machinery with advanced sources of energy
Ø Dawning of Industrial Revolution 1750
Ø Societies were transformed more in a century than they had been in thousands of years before
Ø Making a large world seem smaller & smaller
Ø Information Revolution: dramatically increasing humanity’s capacity to process words & numbers
Ø Lost were close working relationships, strong kinship ties, & traditional values, beliefs & customs
Ø Often size up one another in terms of their jobs rather than according to their kinship ties
Ø Recasts the family, diminishing its traditional significance as the centre of social life
Ø Early industrialization concentrated the benefits of advancing technology on a small segment of the population
Ø Social levelling happens when industrial societies demand an educated & skilled labour force
Postindustrial Societies
Ø Post industrialism: technology that supports an information-based economy
Ø Cultural lag: process by which some cultural elements (technology) change faster than others (values & norms)
Ø Information is fast replacing objects as the centre of our economy, our ideas about property are still based on tangible things, legal system has not fully recognized the value of nontangible property
Limits of Technology
Ø No “quick fix” for many social problems (poverty)
Ø Has created new problems
Ø Humanity’s relation to the physical environment
Ø Can humanity continue to pursue material prosperity without subjection the planet to damage & strain from which it will never recover?
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Ø Understood human history as a long and complex process of social change
Ø Social conflict: struggle between segments of society over valued resources
o stems for inequality rooted in how people produce material goods
Ø Concentration of industry’s riches in the hands of a few
Ø Wrestled with a basic contradiction: rich societies contained too many who were desperately poor
Ø Motivated by compassion for humanity, sought to help a society already badly divided
Ø New social order
Society & Production
Ø Capitalists: people who won factories and other productive enterprises
Ø Conflict would end only when people overturned the capitalist system
Ø Social institutions: major spheres of social life, or society’s subsystems, organized to meet basic human needs
Ø Viewed the economic systems as the social infrastructure (infra = below)
Ø Have affluent people earned their wealth & do poor people lack skills & or motivation
Ø False consciousness: social problems grounded in the shortcomings of individuals rather than the flaws of society
Ø Industrial capitalism itself is responsible for many of the social problems
Conflict In History
Ø Change is partly prompted by technological advance
Ø Conflict between economic classes is the major engine of change
Ø Communism: a social system in which the production of food and other material goods is a common effort shared more or less equally by all members of society, there was little possibility of social conflict
Ø Horticulture introduced significant social inequality
Ø Victors forced their captives into servitude, irreconcilable pattern
Ø Power of both church & state defended feudal inequality by defining the existing social order as God’s will, exploitation veiled by religious & political illusions
Ø Merchants & skilled crafts workers formed new social category, bourgeoisie
Ø Bourgeoisie expanded trade & increased wealth, became true capitalists with power that soon rivalled that of the ancient, landed nobility
Ø Shifted control of European societies to the capitalists
Ø Manifesto of the Communist Party
Ø Two social classes, the dominant & the oppressed
Ø Capitalists & proletarians are the historical descendants of masters & slaves, nobles & serfs
Ø Class conflict: antagonism between entire classes over the distribution of wealth & power in society
Ø Class Consciousness: recognition of workers of their unity as a class in opposition to capitalists & ultimately capitalism itself
Ø Motivation for personal gain & fear of competition by other capitalists was the weakness in the capitalist armour, they were reluctant to bond together
Ø Capitalists keep employee’s wages low in their drive to maximize profits
Ø Capitalist would contribute to their own undoing
Capitalism & Alienation
Ø Alienation: the experience of isolation resulting from powerlessness
Ø Contradiction of capitalist society: as human beings devise technology to gain power over the world, the capitalist economy increasingly assume power over human beings
o Alienation from the act of working
§ Modern day replacement of human labour by machines
o Alienation from the products of work
o Alienation from other workers
§ Competitive rather than cooperative
o Alienation from human potential
Revolution
Ø Only way out of the trap of capitalism was to deliberately refashion society
Ø Envisioned a more humane & egalitarian productive system, Socialism
Ø “the proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains, they have a world to win”
Max Weber (1864-1920)
Ø Produced what many regard as the greatest individual contribution to sociology
Ø Idealism
Ø Power of ideas to animate society, especially beliefs & values are key to understanding society
Ø First to contrast the traditional thinking of many simple societies with the rational thought that animates our modern way of life
Ø Understood the power of technology
Ø Saw modern society as the product not just of new technology & capitalism, but of a new way of thinking
Ø Ideal type: an abstract statement of the essential characteristics of any social phenomenon
Two World Views:
Tradition & Rationality
Ø Differences in the way people view the world
Ø Members of pre-industrial societies adhere to tradition
Ø Members of industrial-capitalist societies endorse rationality
Ø Tradition: sentiments & beliefs passed from generation to generation, guided by the past
Ø Rationality: deliberate, matter-of-fact calculation of the most efficient means to accomplish a particular goal
Ø Contradiction of modern society: industrial technology promises material plenty for all, but capitalism concentrates wealth in the hands of a few
Ø Modern people choose to think & act on the basis of present & future consequences, what we put into something & what we expect to get in return
Ø Rationalization of Society: historical change from traditional to rationality as the dominant mode of human thought
Ø The willingness to adopt the latest technology is one good indicator of how rationalized a society is
Ø People in many societies discover keys to technological change, but only in the rational cultural climate of Western Europe did people exploit these discoveries to spark the Industrial Revolution
Is Capitalism Rational?
Ø Weber considered industrial capitalism as the essence of rationality, since capitalist pursue profit in eminently rational ways
Ø Marx dismissed capitalism as the antithesis of rationality, claiming that it failed to meet the basis needs of most people
Weber’s Great Thesis
Protestantism & Capitalism
Ø Contended that industrial capitalism was the legacy of Calvinism (Christian religious movement spawned by the Protestant Reformation)
Ø Calvinists were little moved to share their wealth with the poor, they saw poverty as a sign of God’s rejection
Ø Calvinist built the foundation of capitalism as the reinvested their wealth
Ø Weber concluded that industrial capitalism became established primarily in areas of Europe where Calvinism had a strong hold
Ø Striking evidence how the power of ideas to shape society
Ø Purpose was to counter Marx’s narrow explanation of modern society in strictly economic terms
Rational Social Organization
Ø Distinctive social institutions: rational strategy to address human needs more efficiently
Ø Large-scale organizations
Ø Specialized tasks: individuals in modern society pursue a wide range of specialized activities and have an enormous breadth of occupations
Ø Personal discipline: premium on self-directed discipline. Rooted in religious beliefs. Cultural values such as achievement, success, & efficiency
Ø Awareness of time: clocks began appearing in European cities 500 yrs ago, just as commerce was beginning to expand (Benjamin Franklin “time is money”)
Ø Technical competence: judge people according to what they are, their skills & abilities
Ø Impersonality: technical competence takes priority over close relationships, rendering the world impersonal. Concerned with particular tasks rather than people broadly concerned with one another. Devalue personal feelings & emotions as “irrational” (difficult to control)
Rationality & Bureaucracy
Ø The medieval church grew large but remained traditional
Ø Bureaucracy is the model for modern businesses, gov’t agencies, labour unions, & universities
Ø Clear expression of rational world view because its chief elements (offices, duties, & policies) are intended to achieve specific goals as efficiently as possible
Ø Inefficiency of traditional organizations is reflected in its hostility to change
Ø Bureaucracy transformed all of society in the same way that industrialization transformed the economy
Rationality & Alienation
Ø Industrial capitalism had unparalleled efficiency
Ø Modern society generates widespread alienation through regulation & dehumanization
Ø Envisioned modern society as a vast & growing system of rules seeking to regulate everything & threatening to crush the human spirit
Ø Modern society turns on its creators & enslaves them
Ø Feared that the rationalization of society would end of reducing people to robots
Ø Most optimistic of the three
Ø Social solidarity: bonds unity traditional societies and their modern counterparts are strikingly different
Ø Recognized that society exists beyond ourselves
Ø Patterns of human behaviour are the basis of established structures: they are social facts that have an objective reality beyond the lives & perceptions of particular individuals (cultural norms, values, religious beliefs)
Ø Society has the power to shape our thoughts & actions
Ø Studying individuals alone (as psychologists or biologists do) can never capture the essence of human experience
Function: Society As System
Ø Concept of function
Ø The significance of any social fact extends beyond individuals to how it helps society itself operate as a complex system
Ø Saw that crime has a vital function for the ongoing life of society itself, by recognizing & responding to acts as criminals do people construct & defend morality
Ø Rejected common view of crime as “pathological”
Ø Crime is quite normal for the most basic of reasons: society could not exist without it
Personality: Society In Ourselves
Ø Each of us builds a personality by internalizing social facts
Ø How we act, think & feel (our essential humanity) is drawn from the society that nurtures us
Ø Society regulates human beings through moral discipline
Ø Human beings are naturally insatiable, overpowered by our own desires (the more one has the more one wants)
Ø It is the least regulated categories of people that suffer the highest rates of suicide
Ø Anomie: a conditions in which society provides little moral guidance to individuals
Ø The desires of the individual must be balanced by the claims & guidance of society
Evolving Societies:
The Division Of Labour
Ø Collective conscience: strong tradition operates as the social cement that binds people together
Ø Mechanical solidarity: social bonds, based on shared morality that unites members of pre-industrial societies. Community moves quickly to punish anyone who dare to challenge conventional ways of life
Ø Organic solidarity: social bonds, based on specialization, that unite members of industrial societies
Ø Specialized economic activity: make individuals rely on one another
Ø Functional interdependence: depend more & more on people we trust less & less
Ø We put faith in people we hardly know because we cannot live with out them
Ø Modern society comes at the cost of receding morality and the danger of anomie
Ø Hoped that we could enjoy greater freedom & privacy while creating for ourselves the social regulation that had once been forced on us by tradition
Unit V
Welcome Back! - This evening we are going to complete our discussion on War and then move to Methods - the participation exercise will be on Methods and then we will if time permits move to beginning our conversations on Social Inequality
First to War -
War: armed conflict between nations or politically distinct groups, is often part of national policy
Why?
Conditions for war
a) cultural tradition of war
b) two or more states confront incompatible objectives
c) fuels 1. revenge
2. dictate will
3. enhance nation's prestige
4. unite rival groups
5. protect or exalt position
6. satisfy national aspirations of ethnic groups
7. forcibly convert others to ideological beliefs
Compares with
1 - perceived threats
2 - social problems
3 - political objectives
4 - moral objectives
5 - the absence of alternatives
Dehumanization
a) increased emotional distance from others
enemy as subhuman
b) emphasis on following procedures
regulations are a means to an end
c) inability to resist pressures
group over individual responsibility
d) diminished sense of personal responsibility
following orders
Pursuit of Peace
1 - deterrence
2 - high-technology defence
3 - diplomacy and disarmament
4 - resolving underlying conflict
Methods
research method is a systematic plan for conducting research
the basic element of science is the concept - or the mental construct that represents some aspect of the world in a simplified form - for instance "family"
a variable is a concept whose value changes from one case to case
measurement is used to determine the value of a variable in a specific case
see these as tools to investigate questions - you choose the method that most suits your case
Scientific Method
the experiment is a research method used to investigate cause and effect relationships under highly controlled conditions
an hypothesis is an educated guess about how variables are linked there are three steps in gathering the evidence to "test" the hypothesis
a) measure the dependent variable (the effect)
b) expose the dependent variables to independent variables (the cause or the treatment)
c) measure the dependent variable to see if the predicted change took place, if yes then the hypothesis is supported, if not then the hypothesis must be modified
successful experiments depend on carefully controlling all factors that might affect what is being measured - in the field - this control is not as easy
Seven Research Methods
a) surveys
Considered the most frequently used mode of observation in the social sciences
may be used for descriptive, explanatory and exploratory purposes chiefly used in studies that have individuals as the units of analysis
especially appropriate for making descriptive studies of large populations, survey data may be used for explanatory purposes as well
a survey is a research method in which respondents answer a series of statements or questions in a questionnaire or an interview
well suited to studying what cannot be easily observed for instance political attitudes or religious beliefs
includes a specific plan for asking questions and recording answers
questionnaire - may be administered in two ways - self-administered or interviewers series of written statements - often the researcher lets the respondent answer from a series of choices (if not then the researcher has to make sense of the answer)
interview - the researcher asks the questions - researcher maintains a knowledge of self to be sure that they are not influencing the answers
Essential characteristic of interviewers is that they be neutral; their presence in the data-collection process must not have any effect on the responses given to questionnaire items
a probe is a neutral non-directive question designed to elicit an elaboration on an incomplete or ambiguous response - examples would include: Anything else? How is that? In what ways?
Advantages
self-administered surveys over interviewer survey
a) economy, speed, lack of interviewer bias, and the possibility of anonymity and privacy
vs
b) fewer incomplete questionnaires, fewer misunderstood questions, higher return rates, greater flexibility in terms of sampling and special observations
Advantages vs. Disadvantages
economic especially to the amount of data collected
standardization of data possible
can be artificial and potentially superficial, difficult to gain a full sense of social processes in their natural settings through the use of surveys
participant observation - a research method by which investigators systematically observe people while joining in their routine activities
generally speaking you identify yourself in your research position and gain entrance as someone who is studying the situation - however you may also participate either in the practice in which you are observing or in the community where you are living
often people use snowball sampling to gain access through other people to information
everything as much as possible is written down and then attempted to be understood in situ
Disadvantages
sometimes difficult to gain entry - bias not always understood by the investigator either of self or others, people will sometimes hide information - considered more valid (in the lived everyday experience) or less reliable than rigorous sampling and standardized questionnaires
qualitative interviews
generally closely related to surveys - in other words - you have a question that you are trying to answer but you leave the questionnaire more fluid - often referred to open-ended interviews where the questions have been thought out in advance but the secondary questions will proceed as the interview does -
also allows for other forms of analysis such as coding which can then be used in statisitical packages
secondary analysis
this involves taking data that already exists and using it for your analysis - for instance many times I have used data from Statistics Canada to enhance my research - I do not have the budget to engage in the same level of research but I can use the data gathered by Stats Can to enhance my research - sometimes you use the data but in different ways - the point you may be attempting to prove may be very different from the point that the government is seeing with the same data
documents
You may use as background and contextual information for your study documents - I have found historical documents to be important for my work because I am interested in establishing long term work histories in community so historical documents belonging to a community give depth and understanding - certainly my study would be weaker without these documents - sometimes you can even get lucky and in your snowball sampling find people who know other people with access to documents not easily found in the public domain
unobtrusive measures
ways of studying social behaviour without affecting it in the process
content analysis is one of these - studying the process of communication either through recorded documents, video, books, pictures - all of these are appropriate units of analysis
standard probality sampling techniques are appropriate to use
difficulty can be to generalize overly to the specific or vice versa - usually linked with other methods
experiments
Question - How do the students at the University of Guelph pay for their education?
Why is this important? Helps to understand limitations of student time? Frustrations with increasing tuition costs?
Possible Hypothesis
Students at the University of Guelph are generally underwritten in the costs of their education by parental support.
Three steps in gathering the evidence to "test" the hypothesis
a) measure the dependent variable (the effect)
b) expose the dependent variables to independent variables (the cause or the treatment)
c) measure the dependent variable to see if the predicted change took place, if yes then the hypothesis is supported, if not then the hypothesis must be modified
Social inequality - in some ways we are moving down from the macro to the micro scale
What is social inequality?
Social inequality refers to differential access to resources and power
There are several ways we can examine this. We can look at Canadians within the global scale and suggest that in terms of the rest of the world, we are doing rather well;
Similar to world system theory - one group has the upper hand while the majority of the world does not.
Or we can understand ourselves in relationship to each and look to see if we do have levels of social inequality here.
What would this look like?
If we agree that stratification is necessary to the functioning of society, why would we think this?
What theoretical perspective does this attitude represent?
What would be the attitude of Marxist thought?
Charon makes the case the people in the United States have always had differential relationships to wealth and power?
Is the same true for Canada? Why or Why not?
What is class?
Quoting Marx and Engels from the Communist Manifesto
"a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank"
What is it related to?
Marx at first suggested two classes, the upper class (bourgeoisie) and the lower class (proletariat). What are these two classes related to?
over time this changed with the addition of a third class - the middle class still seen as an indication of development by many experts - why?
Economic class
a term used to define a grouping that is based on its members' relation to the means of production this in turn reinforces the amount of wealth and economic control that members can exercise.- this is one area that is more open to obfuscation that social class
Upper Class - owners of a great deal of property - old established families
Corporate Class - great bureaucratic authority in major corporations, very high salaries, high prestige, moderate amounts of property
Middle Class - individuals with high to middle incomes and occupations that give them some prestige - divided into upper middle (lesser corporate managers, doctors and lawyers) and lower- middle class (office workers and salespeople)
Working Class - little or no ownership of property, jobs give them low incomes and low prestige the working class is divided into skilled and unskilled
Lower Class - no property, often unemployed, no prestige - the lower classes remain the people who produce the surplus but have no rights over its distribution
How is this a useful way of understanding relationships between people and groups of people?
How would social interactions for each group be different, socialization? Social patterns?
Within a society, class is often considered the achieved status - in other words it should have little to do with where you are born - What do you think of this idea? Are there times when this might be ambiguous or contradictory?
What did Weber have to say about this?
That social identities based on ethnicity, religion, race, nationality and other attributes could overtake this concept.
And it is from Weber that we get the addition of social class which adds dimensions to our understandings of class.
Social class
a term used to describe people who have generally similar educational histories, job opportunities and social standing - associated with each social class is a differential degree of access to status and prestige and the ability to pass both on to one's children
How is this a useful way of understanding relationships between people and groups of people?
How would social interactions for each group be different, socialization? Social patterns?
What is left out when we try to understand relationships according to class?
Hodgson-Garcia
5-Becoming Human
Notes from chapter 5 of text - Socialization
Intro- Anna - discovered 1938 in Pennsylvania
- little human contact, little food for 5 years
- could not laugh, smile, speak or show anger
Therefore, without social experience, an individual is more an object than a person
-we become human through socialization - the lifelong social experience by which individuals develop their human potential and learn patterns of their culture
-humans only living species that must learn nuances of their culture in order to survive
-social experience is basis of personality, a person’s fairly consistent patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting
-no social experience = no personality
-socialization is the ongoing process of cultural transmission
Human Development: Nature and Nurture
Charles Darwin: the role of nature
- theory assumed humans had a fixed, instinctive nature like other animals
- examples include thinking that some are born criminals, woman are more emotional than men, or calling some traits as ‘ human nature’, and to justify colonialism
Social Sciences: The Role of Nurture
- John B. Watson ( 1878-1958) theory of ‘behaviourism - specific behaviour patterns are not instinctive but learned and therefore people all over the world had the same claim to humanity
- Margaret Mead ( anthropologist) said the differences between individuals are due to differences in conditioning, especially in early childhood and that the conditioning is culturally determined
- Rushton at UWO claimed scientific evidence to prove ’Orientals” are smarter - widespread outrage resulted- theory seen as racist
- sociobiology holds that human behaviour is primarily guided by the surrounding culture
-biology has some effect - family traits such as height, weight, eye colour, facial features, intelligence, probably have some genetic component
- but more important is the opportunities children are given to use their brains in early life
-for humans, nurture is more important than nature but the two are inseparable
Effects of Social Isolation on Nonhuman Primates
-psychologists Harry and Margaret Harlow ( 1962) = studied effects of social isolation on rhesus monkeys
- isolation disrupted development of baby monkeys
- short-term could be overcome, loner-term isolation effects were irreversible
Effects of Social Isolation on Children
- Anna- after intense social contact showed improvement - learned to smile, walk, feed herself
-however was permanently damaged - at 8 was at level with ave 2 yr old
- Isabelle- 6 yrs in isolation however improved greatly with program designed by psychologists - 6 yrs development in just 2 yrs
- Genie - 13 yr old was locked in garage for most of life
- recovered physically but language still that of young child
Conclusion - social experience is crucial to personality development
Understanding the Socialization Process
- a complex, lifelong process
Sigmund Freud - 1856-1939
- said humans respond to two general needs - 1 bonding
2 aggressive drive
- these opposing forces generate deeply rooted inner tensions
- Model of Personality - 3 parts - id, ego and superego
- id - drives that are unconscious and demand immediate satisfaction
- ego- a person’s conscious effort to balance innate drives with demands of society
- superego - operation of culture in the individual
-development - children can only feel good physically for first few years than can feel good or bad as they evaluate behaviour according to cultural standards
- conflict between id and superego is ongoing and managed by the ego , however if there are unresolved conflicts from childhood could result in personality disorders later on
- culture involves repression to coerce individuals to looks beyond themselves
Criticism - women ignored
Jean Piaget - 1896-1980
- 4 stages of cognitive development
Sensorimotor - 0-2 yrs
- use of 5 senses
- no use of symbols
Preoperational - 2-6 yrs
- first use language and symbols
- egocentric
- no comprehension of conservation of matter ( taller container has more water)
Concrete Operational - 7- 11 yrs
- can see things from other’s perspective
- can attach more than one symbol to a thing
Formal Operational - 12+ yrs
- can think abstractly and critically
- some people never reach this stage
Criticisms- does it apply to all cultures?
Lawrence Kohlberg 1981
- moral development
Pre-conventional - 0-2 yrs
- what’s right is what is good for me
Conventional - starts in teenage yrs
- shed selfishness and define right and wrong in terms of parents/ culture norms
Post conditional - beyond norms to ponder more abstract ethical principles
Criticisms- subjects were all boys
- does it apply to all cultures?
Carol Gilligan -1982- set out to compare moral development of females and males
- concluded the two sexes make moral judgments in different ways
- males - justice perspective - formal rules/ abstract principles
- females - care and responsibility perspective - personal relationships and loyalty
- Kohlberg treats male perspective as superior but should we use male standards as norms?
- 1990 - studied self esteem of girls - start out ok then it slips away in adolescence
- ideal woman still seen as calm, controlled, and eager to please
- believes this is due to cultural conditioning
George Herbert Mead 1863- 1931
- social behaviourism - environment shaped human behaviour, but thinking is humanity’s defining trait
- self- a dimension of personality composed of an individual’s self-awareness and self-image
-self is inseparable from society - self develops over time only through social interaction
- social experience is the exchange of symbols
- to understand intention, you must imagine the situation from the other person’s point of view
Looking Glass Self - Charles Horton Cooley ( 1864-1929), colleague of Mead
- the image people have of themselves based on how they believe others perceive them
- what you think of yourself depends on what you think others are thinking about
You - explains Gilligans findings about self esteem - girls lose confidence in a culture that discourages assertiveness
The I and the Me
- Mead - we initiate an action ( the I-phase of self) and then continue based on how others respond ( the me-phase of self)
Social experience is the interplay of I and Me
Development of the Self
- Mead - we gain a self as we learn to take the role of the other
- early child hood is critical for this task
- infants mimic, young children role play
- children learn to take roles of several others - key skill to move to playing complex games such as baseball with teams
-‘generalized other’ - term used by Mead to refer to widespread cultural norms and values that we use as references in evaluating ourselves
- socialization continues as long as we have social experiences
- multiple selves may develop in response to trauma ie childhood sexual abuse
Criticisms - rejected any biological element in the emergence of the self
- I and Me are often confused with the id and superego of Freud
- Freud ‘s id and superego are in conflict Mead’s I and Me work closely and cooperatively together
Erik H. Erikson (1902-1994)
-8 stages of development - previous people think child hood is crucial period where personality develops - Erikson said personality changes throughout the life course as we face the challenges linke dto each life stage
1. Infancy - challenge of trust- must gain a sense of trust that their world is a safe place
2. Toddler - autonomy - must gain self control and skills to cope with the world
3. Preschooler - initiative - must learn to engage surroundings or experience guilt of having failed to meet expectations
4. Preadolescent - industriousness - strike out more on their own and have pride in their accomplishments
5. Adolescence - identity - struggle to establish own identity
6. Young Adulthood - intimacy - establish and maintain intimate relationships
7. Middle adulthood - making a difference - contributing to the lives of other people
8. Old age - integrity - hope to look back on what we have accomplished with a sense of satisfaction
Criticism - does this apply to other cultures?
- does everyone meet these challenges in the same order?
- does being unsuccessful at one level prevent you from being successful at another level
Agents of Socialization
The Family
- most important agent because it represents the centre of children’s lives
-teachers children cultural values and attitudes about themselves and others
- not all learning in intentional
- parental attention is important in the development of children
-family confers social position ie race, ethnicity, religion, class
Schooling
-enlarges children’s social worlds
- ‘hidden curriculum’ - significance of race and sex
- cultural values - competitiveness, success
- morals
- emphasis on how they perform not who they are
- strict timetable
- socialize with regard to gender - boys more active
- girls - more sedentary
The Peer Group
- a social group whose members have interests, social position and age in common
- members gain experience in making friends and developing a senses of themselves apart from their families
- even during adolescence children remain strongly influenced by their families
- peers guide short term concerns such as clothes and music but parents more important for long term goals ie education
-anticipatory socialization - individuals are influenced by groups they would like to join
The Mass Media
-are impersonal communication directed to a vast audience
-in Canada, has enormous effect on our attitudes and behaviour
- ave Cdn watches 22 hours per week
- children about 16 hours per week - researchers have found that watching TV makes children more passive and less likely to use their imaginations
- Canada has 2nd highest rate of TV ownership among industrialized countries
-Criticisms of TV include : -it mirrors society’s patterns of inequality
- doesn’t challenge the status quo
- men and women portrayed according to cultural stereotypes
- wealthy shown favorably/ less affluent as ignorant
- minorities absent from programming until recently
- most shows originate in US
- conservatives say TV too liberal - politically correct and advancing socially liberal causes such as feminism, gay rights and racial equality
- violence - CRTC found link between violence on tv and violence in society
Socialization and the Life Course
Childhood-
- roughly the first 12 yrs of life
- childhood is seen as time of freedom and a time to learn complex skills required for adult life
- not the same in all countries - in poorer nations children must work
- childhood a recent invention in rich countries where not every one has to work
Adolescence
-time between childhood and adulthood
- establish some independence and learn specialized skills required for adulthood
- in our society adolescence is seen as time of emotional/ social turmoil
- ambivalent attitudes towards late adolescence - can vote/go to war but not drink in some provinces
-experience varies according to social class - for the wealthy adolescence is extended by university while in lower SES go directly to work/parenting
Adulthood
Early Adulthood
-personality formed
- time of pursuing goals
- learning to manage day to day responsibilities, parenting, intimate living
- juggling conflicting priorities
Middle Adulthood
-begin to sense that marked improvement in life circumstances unlikely
-capacity to assess actual achievements in light of earlier expectations
-more aware of fragility of health
- ‘empty nest’ syndrome affects women more
- divorce can lead to $ problems, especially for women
-physical decline ie weight gain, hair loss, wrinkles affects women more
- men - confront limited achievement
Old Age
-mid-60’s +
-pre-industrial/ traditional societies treat elders with great respect
- industrial societies seen as unimportant/obsolete
-leave roles - retirement
Dying
- ave life span in Canada is 77 yrs
- as proportion of women and men in old increases we can expect our culture to become more comfortable with death
An Overview
- two major conclusions - although each stage of life is linked to biological process of aging , the life course is largely a social construction and people in other cultures may experience a stage of life differently or not at all
- each stage has its own characteristic problems and transitions
- societies can organize human experience according to age but age cannot be isolated from the effects of other forces such as class, race, ethnicity, and gender
- life experiences differ according to when you were born
-cohort - a category of people with a common characteristic, usually age
Resocialization
Total Institutions- a setting in which people are isolated from the rest of society and manipulated by an administrative staff
- confined against your will - ie prisons / mental hospitals
- 3 distinctive characteristics - 1) staff members supervise all aspects of daily life
2) rigid system with standardized food, sleeping quarters, activities
3) formal rules and daily schedules
-goal of resocialization - radically altering an inmate’s personality through deliberate manipulation of the environment
-effect enhanced by isolation
2 part process - 1) take away inmate’s autonomy and identity
2) systematically build a different self
- effectiveness depends on person - may be changed, not changed at all, become hostile or bitter, or lose the ability to live on the outside ( institutionalized personality )
The professor’s lecture from unit 2 covers this chapter as well.
Unit 6
Katherine Hilts
Chapter 6: Social Interaction In Everyday Life
-social interaction: the process by which people act out and react in relation to others
Social Structure: A Guide to Everyday Living
-members of every society rely on social structure to make sense out of everyday situations
Status
-status: a recognized social position that an individual occupies
-sociological meaning different from everyday meaning of prestige
-basic element of social structure
-every status involves particular duties, rights, and expectation
-guides behaviour
-defines who and what we are in relation to others
-a key components to social identity
Status Set
-status set: all the statuses a person holds at a given time
-individuals gain and lose dozens of statuses over a lifetime
Ascribed and Achieved Status
-ascribed status: a social position that someone receives at birth or assumes involuntarily later in life
-achieved status: a social position that someone assumes voluntarily and that reflects personal ability and effort
-most statuses involve some combination of ascribed and achievement – people’s ascribed statuses influence the statuses they achieve
Master Status
-master status: a status that has exceptional importance for social identity, often shaping a person’s entire life
-for many, occupation is a master status since t conveys a great deal about social background, education, and income
-most societies of the world also limit opportunities to women, whatever their abilities, making gender a master status
-in a negative sense, disease also operates as a master status as is having a disability
Role
-role: behaviour expected of someone who holds a particular status
-another component of social interaction is role
-a person holds a status and performs a role
-both statuses and roles vary by culture
Role Set
-role set: a number of roles attached to a single status
-Robert Merton introduced term
Role Conflict and Role Strain
-members of industrial societies routinely juggle a host of responsibilities demanded by their various statuses and roles
-role conflict: incompatibility among roles corresponding to two or more statuses
-we experience role conflict when we find ourselves pulled in various directions by the many statuses we hold
-role strain: incompatibility among roles corresponding to a single status
-strategy for minimizing role conflict is “compartmentalizing” our lives so that we perform roles linked to one status at one time place and carry out roles corresponding to another status elsewhere at another time – eg. leaving the job at work
Role Exit
-role exit: the process by which people disengage from important social roles
-Helen Rose Fuchs Ebaugh
-was a Catholic nun
-studied role exit
-identified elements common to the process of “becoming an ex”
-1st: people reflect on their existing lives and grappling with doubts about their ability or willingness to persist in a certain role
-2nd: as they imagine alternative roles, they ultimately reach a point when they decide to pursue a new life
-“exes” retain a self-image shaped by an earlier role, which may interfere with the drive to build a new sense of self
-“exes” must rebuild relationships with people who may have known them in their earlier life and who may not realize just how new and unfamiliar their present role may be
-must also learn new social skills
The Social Construction of Reality
-identifies the process by which people creatively shape reality through social interaction
-stands at the foundation of sociology’s symbolic-interaction paradigm
-most everyday situation involve at least some agreement about what is going on, but participants perceive events differently to the extent that they are motivated by disparate interests and intentions
The Thomas Theorem
-names after W.I. Thomas
-Thomas Theorem: situations we define as real become real in their consequences
-applied to social interaction, it means that although reality in initially “soft” as it is fashioned, it can become “hard” in its effects
Ethnomethodology
-ethenomethodology: the study of the way people make sense of their everyday lives
-term itself has two parts: the Greek ethno refers to people and how they understand their surroundings; and methodology designates a set of methods or principles
-largely created by Harold Garfinkel
-wanted to explore how we make sense of countless familiar situation
-argues that the only effective way to expose how we make sense of events is to purposefully break the rules
-deliberately ignoring conventional rules and observing how people respond allows us to tease out how people build a reality
-because of ethnomethodology’s provocative character and its focus on commonplace experiences, some sociologists view it as less-than-serious research
Reality Building: Some Broader Considerations
-how we act, or what we see in out surroundings depends on our interests
-social backgrounds also direct our perceptions, since we build our reality out of elements in the surrounding culture
-in global perspective, reality construction even more variable – everywhere is different
Dramaturgical Analysis: “The Presentation of Self”
-Erving Goffman enhanced the understanding of everyday life by noting that people interacting behave much like actors on a stage
-dramaturgical analysis: the investigation of social interaction in terms of theatrical performance
-in theatrical terms, a status mirrors a part in a play, and a role serves as a script
-in any setting, a person in both actor and audience
-Goffman describes each individual’s “performance” as the presentation of self
-presentation of self: an individual’s efforts to create specific impressions in the minds of others
-presentation of self, or impression management, contains several distinctive elements
Performances
-an individual’s performance includes dress (costume), and objects carried along (props), and tone of voice and particular gestures (manners)
-people craft their performance according to the setting (stage)
-people design settings, such as a home or an office, to enhance a performance by invoking the desired reaction of others
Nonverbal Communication
-nonverbal communication: communication using body movement, gestures, and facial expressions rather than speech
-virtually any part of the body can be used to transmit nonverbal communication
-facial expressions form the most significant element of “body language”
-eye contact is also crucial – often used to initiate social interaction
-hand gestures – common hand gestures in our culture convey, among other things, an insult, a request for a ride, an invitation for someone to join us, or a demand that others stop in their tracks. Also supplement spoken words.
-Aboriginal people
-more likely than other Canadians to be arrested, indicted, convicted and imprisoned
-dealing with “foreign” and misunderstood legal system – particularly likely to plead guilty in courts
-body language and reluctance to establish eye contact with people in authority make them look guilty to those unfamiliar to Native culture norms
Body Language and Deception
-in everyday performances, some element of body language often contradicts out intended meaning
-because any performance involves so many expressions, few people can confidently lie without allowing some piece of contradictory information to slip through, arousing the suspicions of a careful observer
Gender and Personal Performances
-because women are socialized to be less assertive than males, they tend to be especially sensitive to nonverbal communication
Demeanour
-demeanour: general conduct or deportment (behaviour)
-reflects a person’s level of social power
-powerful people enjoy far greater personal discretion in how they act; subordinates act more formally and self-consciously
-since women generally occupy positions of lesser power, demeanour is a greater issue for them – women then craft their personal performances more carefully than men and display a greater degree of deference (respect) in everyday interactions
Use of Space
-men typically command more space then women do, wether pacing back and forth before and audience or casually lounging on the beach
-our culture traditionally has measured femininity by how little space women occupy – the standard of “daintiness” – while gauging masculinity by how much territory a man control – the standard of “turf”
-personal space: surrounding area in which an individual makes some claim of privacy
Staring, Smiling, and Touching
-eye contact encouraged interaction
-men have their own distinctive brand of eye contact – staring – by making women the targets of stares, men are both making a claim of social dominance and defining women as sexual objects
-smiling has a host of meanings
-in a male-dominated world, women often smile to indicate appeasement or acceptance of submission
-touching constitutes an intriguing social pattern
-mutual touching generally conveys intimacy and caring
-apart of relationships touching is generally something men do to women
Idealization
-complex motives underlie human behaviour
-according to Goffman, we construct performances to idealize our intentions
-we try to convince others (and maybe ourselves) that what we do reflects ideal cultural standards rather than selfish motives
-rarely do people concede to less honourable, although common, motives of seeking the income, power, prestige, and leisure that certain occupations confer – eg. physicians, university professors, lawyers, and other professionals
-idealization underlies social civility, since we smile and make polite remarks to people we do not like – makes social interaction easier
Embarrassment and Tact
-embarrassment: in dramaturgical terms, means the discomfort that follows a spoiled performance; or “losing face”
-embarrassment looms as an ever-present danger because
-1st: all performances typically contain some measure of deception
-2nd: most performances involve a complex array of elements, any one of which, in a thoughtless moment, may shatter the intended impression
-an audience usually overlooks flaws in a performance, thereby allowing an actor to avoid embarrassment – they also help a performer recover from flaws
-tact: helping another person “save face” – eg. mild laugher may indicate that they (the audience) wish to dismiss what they have heard as a joke
-embarrassment provokes discomfort not simply to one person but for everyone
-Goffman’s research shows that, while behaviour is spontaneous in some respects, it is more patterned than we would like to think
Interaction in Everyday Life: Two Illustrations
-two very important, yet quite different, elements of everyday life – language and humour
Language: The Gender Issue
-in everyday life, language conveys meaning on more than one level
-besides the obvious message in what people say, a host of additional meanings is embedded in our language – one of these messages involves gender
-language defines men and women differently in at least three ways – control, value, and attention
Language and Control
-the language men use often reveals their concerns with competence and control – eg. attaching a female pronoun to a motorcycle (or car, yacht, etc..)
-a more obious control function of language relates to people’s names. – traditionally in Canada, and in many other parts of the world, a women takes the family name of the man she marries (Quebec is an exception – women, by law, must keep their family name)
Language and Value
-language usually treats a masculine whatever has greater value, force, or significance – this pattern is deeply rooted in the English language
-the positive adjective virtuous, meaning “morally worthy” or “excellent” is derived from the Latin word vir meaning “man”
-the derogatory adjective hysterical is derived from the Greek word hyster, meaning “uterus”
-traditional term like king, or lord have positive meaning, while terms like queen, madam, or dame, have acquired negative connotations in contemporary usage
-use of the suffixes “ette” and “ess” to denote femininity generally devalues the words which they are added – eg. “major” has higher standing then “majorette,” as does “host” in relation to “hostess”
Language and Attention
-according to traditional grammatical practise, we use”he” along with the possessive “his” and the objective “him” to refer to all people – this practise reflects the traditional cultural pattern of ignoring the live of women
-the English language has no gender-neutral, third-person-singular personal pronoun. Recently the plural pronouns “they” and “them” have gained currency as singular pronouns – this usage remains controversial because it violates grammatical rules
-Canada’s national anthem
-our national anthem, the symbol of our democratic spirit, excludes half the population
O Canada! Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all they sons command.
Humour: Playing With Reality
-humour plays a vital part in everyday life
The Foundations of Humour
-humour is a product of reality construction; specifically, it stems from the contrast between two, incongruous (unreasonable) realities
-1st: conventional – corresponding to what people expect in a specific situation
-2nd: unconventional – representing a significant violation of cultural patterns
-humour arises from this contradiction, ambiguity, and “double meanings”, generated by two differing definitions of the same situation
-bisociation: jokes move between two distinct frames of reference
-within 24 hours after a sensation event (even a tragic event), jokes about that event are circulating
The Dynamics of Humour: “Getting It”
-to “get” humour, members of an audience must understand the two realities underlying the joke well enough to perceive their incongruity
-getting a joke can be difficult – comics may deliberately omit some of the information listeners must grasp
-once we understand a complex joke, we gain favoured status as an “insider” in the larger population. These insights explain the frustration that accompanies not getting a joke: the fear of mental inadequacy coupled with a sense of being socially excluded from a
pleasure shared by others
The Topics of Humour
-living in diverse cultures, the world’s people differ in what they find funny, so humour does not travel well
-but, for everyone, humour deals with topics that lend themselves to doubt meanings or controversy
-the controversy inherent in humour often walks a fine line between what is funny and what is considered “sick”
-in Medival Time the word humours, derived from the Latin word humidus, meaning moist, referred to a balance of the bodily fluids that regulated a person’s health
-“laughter is the best medicine” because maintaining a sense of humour reduces a person’s level of unhealthy stress
-people’s religious beliefs, tragic accidents, or appalling crimes are the stuff of “sick” jokes
-urban myths are also conversations with ourselves wherein we can express our fears, concerns, and cultural contradictions
The Functions of Humour
-from a structural-functional perspective. Humour serves as a social “safety value,” allowing people to release potentially disruptive sentiments safely
-by means of humour we can acceptably discuss a host of cultural taboos, from sex to prejudice to hostility towards parents
-having strayed into controversy, an individual may also use humour to defuse the situation
-jokes and urban myths can function as forms of gossip – it is typically thought of as trivial or malicious
-gossip as three social functions (according to Spacks)
-integration, connection or the establishment of intimacy; the demarcation of group boundaries; and the exertion of social control
-on a social level, gossip can function as “healing talk,” socially constructing/reconstructing reality and morality – gossip can be far from trivial: serious moral concerns can be articulated and weighted, issues can be privately and publicly argued, particular incidents can be generalized and given broader meanings
Humour and Conflict
-can be used to oppress others
-humour may be a sign of real conflict in situation where one or both parties choose not to bring the conflict out into the open
-“put-down” jokes may function to make one category of people feel good at the expense of another
-at times, people in minority situations turn the jokes on themselves
-disadvantaged people, of course, also make fun of the powerful – although they usually do it discreetly
-humour amounts to a means of mental escape from a conventional world that is not entirely to our liking
Global Sociology
Emotions in Global Perspective: Do We All Feel The Same?
-Paul Ekman and colleagues
-studied emotions around the world
-concluded that people throughout the world experience six basic emotions
-anger, fear, disgust, happiness, surprise, and sadness
-moreover, people everywhere recognize these feelings in the same distinctive facial gestures
-noted three ways in which emotional life differs significantly in global perspectives
-1st: what triggers an emotions varies from one society to another
-2nd: people display emotions according to the norms of their culture
-3rd: societies differ in terms of how people cope with emotions
-in sum, emotional life in global perspective has both common and variable elements
Applying Sociology
Hide Those Lyin’ Eyes: Can You Do It?
-Paul Ekman suggests that paying close attention to four elements of a performance – words, voice, body language, and facial expression – to detect if a person is deceiving you
-1st: words – good lairs mentally rehearse their lines, but they cannot always avoid a simple slip of the tongue
-2nd: voice – tones and patterns of speech contain clues to deception because they are hard to control
-3rd: body language – subtle body movements give certain impressions
-4th: facial expressions – because facial expressions are hard to control, they give away many phony performances
-the more complicated the deception, the more likely a performer is to make a revealing mistake
Exploring Cyber-Society
Social Interactions: Reaching Across Cyberspace
-social interactions based on electronic communication, and the Internet in particular, has become an increasingly important part of the experience of Canadians
-students and workers communicate and even work through the computer/Internet – eg. like our DE classes
-disembodied and unconstrained by time and place, students and workers alike are engaged in productive activity through cyberspace
Controversy & Debate
Is Technology Changing Our Reality?
-technology is changing our reality. How?
-1st: computers and other information technology have altered the Canadian Economy – the production of materials goods that defined the Industrial Age is steadily being replaced by the creation of ideas and images
-2nd: new information technology is eroding the importance of place in our lives
-3rd: technology is reconstructing the workplace
-4th: there is no more basic foundation of our sense of reality than the timeless adage “seeing is believing”. But digital imagery now allows photographers to combine and manipulate pictures to show anything.
-5th: new information technology is reshaping the university and college scene – much more of classes are based on the computer – booked being replaced by CD-ROM’s
What Have We Learned From This Unit
-that we create our social reality through interacting with others (within the constraints of cultural norms and social structure)
-that our statuses, while abstract, encompass the patterns for out patterns of playing our roles in the game of life
-that, as we play these roles, all aspects of our representation of self indicates an “idealized” performance
-that language, in its multiple forms, is the quintessential medium for human interaction
-that language is used to play with our reality. Jokes, urban myths and gossip are conversations with ourselves and can function I) to express dominance and subordination or integration, II) as political discourse about taboo topics or as public discourse about our concerns
Katie Sutcliffe
Unit VI : Humans Interacting
Chapter 6 : Social Interaction in Everyday Life
Social interaction : The process by which people act and react in relation to others.
- The key to creating the reality we perceive is social interaction
- People interact in accordance to social guidelines
Social Interaction : A Guide to Everyday Life
Status
Status : A recognized social position that an individual occupies.
- The sociological meaning of the term “status” differs from its everyday meaning of “prestige”
Ex. A president and professor are both statuses although one is higher up than the other
- Statuses that people occupy guide their behaviour in every different type of setting
- Statuses define who and what we are in relation to others
Status Set
Status Set : All the statuses a person holds at a given time
Ex. A woman can be a daughter, a wife, a mother, etc. Also jobs and organizations can enlarge our status set.
Ascribed and Achieved Status
Ascribed Status : A social status that someone receives at birth or assumes involuntarily later in life.
Ex. Daughter, teenager, or being part of a certain ethnic group
- With ascribed status people have no or very little choice over
Achieved Status : A social position that someone assumes voluntarily and that reflects personal liability and effort.
Ex. The individual has some choice in the matter (Honour roll student, Olympic athlete)
-Most statuses involve some combination of ascription and achievement
- Ascribed statuses influence the statuses you achieve
- People born into privileged families are more likely to achieve a desirable status, rather than those who are less privileged
Master Status
Master Status : A status that has exceptional importance for social identity, often shaping a persons entire life.
- Occupation is a master status since it conveys a great deal about social background, education, and income
- Disease can function as a master status ( dehumanizing people with disabilities by perceiving them only in terms of their illness)
Role
Role : A behaviour expected of someone who holds a particular status.
- People hold a status and perform a role
- Role performance varies according to an individual’s unique personality, in every society
Role Set
Role Set : A number of roles attached to a single status.
Ex. As a professor you have a teaching role, colleague role, etc.
Role Conflict and Role Strain
Role Conflict : Incompatibility among roles corresponding to two or more statuses.
- We experience role conflict when we find ourselves being pulled in different directions by the many statuses we hold
Role Strain : Incompatibility among roles corresponding to a single status.
- Performing the roles attached to even one status may involve a balancing act
Role Exit
Role Exit : The process by which people disengage from important social roles.
- People initiate the process of role exit by reflecting on their existing lives struggling with doubts about their ability to persist in a certain role
- Past roles can continue to influence a person’s life
The Social Construction of Reality
Social Construction of Reality : The process by which people creatively shape reality through social interaction.
- Stands at the foundation of sociology’s symbolic-interaction paradigm
The Thomas Theorem
Thomas Theorem : Situations we define as real become real in their consequences.
-Thomas’s insight means that although reality is initially “soft” as it is fashioned, it can become “hard” in its effects
Ethnomethodology
- The symbolic-interaction paradigm posit that reality is created by people in everyday encounters
Ethnomethodology : The study of the way people make sense of their everyday lives.
- Harold Garfinkel, the creator of ethnomethodology, wanted to explore how we make sense of countless familiar situations
- Deliberately ignoring conventional rules and observing how people respond, allows us to tease out how people build a reality
- Ethnomethodology has succeeded in heightening awareness of many unnoticed patterns of everyday life
Reality Building: Some Broader Considerations
- Social background also directs our perceptions, since we build reality out of elements in the surrounding culture
- In global perspective, reality construction is even more variable
- People build reality from the surrounding culture
Dramaturgical Analysis: “The Presentation of Self”
Dramaturgical Analysis : The investigation of social interaction in terms of theatrical performance.
Presentation of Self : An individual’s effort to create specific impressions in the minds of others.
- Presentation of self, or impression management, contains several distinctive elements
Ÿ Performances
- An individual’s performance is crafted by dress, objects carried along, tone of voice and particular gestures, and setting
Ÿ Nonverbal Communication
Nonverbal Communication : Communication using body movements, gestures, and facial expressions rather than speech.
- Facial expressions form the most significant element of “body language”
- Eye contact is also a crucial element of nonverbal communication
- Common hand gestures in our culture convey insults, a request for a ride, an invitation, or for others to stop, etc.
Body Language and Deception
- The key to detecting deceit is to scan the whole performance with an eye for inconsistencies and discrepancies
- Lies are detectable, but training is the key to noticing relevant clues
Ÿ Gender and Personal Performances
- Gender is a central element in personal performances
Demeanour
- Demeanour is general conduct or deportment that reflects a person’s level of social power
- Since women generally occupy positions of lesser power, demeanour is an issue of gender as well
Use of Space
- Using more space conveys a nonverbal message of personal importance
- Our culture traditionally has measured femininity by how little space women occupy, the standard of “daintiness”
Personal Space : Surrounding area in which an individual makes some claim to privacy.
Staring, Smiling, and Touching
- By making women the targets of stares, men are both making a claim of social dominance and defining women as sexual objects
- Smiling has a large amount of meanings
- Women usually smile to indicate appeasement pr acceptance of submission, therefore women smile more than men
- Touching constitutes an intriguing social pattern, apart from close relationships touching is generally something men do to women
Ÿ Idealization
- Complex motives underlie human behaviour, we construct performances to idealize our intentions
- What we do reflects ideal cultural standards rather than selfish motives
- Idealization is woven into the fabric of everyday life in countless ways
Ex. Professionals idealize their motives for entering their chosen careers
- Idealization underlies social civility, since we smile and make polite remarks to people we don’t like
Ÿ Embarrassment and Tact
- Embarrassment means the discomfort that follows a spoiled performance
- An audience usually overlooks flaws in a performance, allowing an actor to avoid embarrassment
- Tact amounts to helping another person “save face”
- Tact is a common response because embarrassment provokes discomfort not only for one person but for everyone
Interaction in Everyday Life: Two Illustrations
Language: The Gender Issue
- Language is the thread that ties members of a society together in culture
- Language defines men and women differently in at least three ways
Ÿ Language and Control
- The language men use often reveals their concern with competence and control
- Traditionally in Canada the woman takes the family name of the man that she marries, though in other cultures this can be a statement of a man’s ownership of a woman
Ÿ Language and Value
- Language usually treats as masculine whatever has greater value, force, or significance
- Language thus both mirrors social attitudes and helps to perpetuate them
Ÿ Language and Attention
- Language also shapes reality by directing greater attention to masculine endeavours
- The English language has no gender-neutral, third-person singular personal pronoun
- English is now evolving to accept gender-neutral constructions
Humour: Playing with Reality
- Humour plays a vital part in everyday life
- As with many aspects of social life, though we largely take humour for granted
Ÿ Foundations of Humour
- Humour is a product of reality construction
- Two incongruous realities are:
1. Conventional- corresponding to what people expect in a specific situation
2. Unconventional - Representing a significant violation of cultural patterns
- The greater the opposition or incongruity between the two definitions of reality, the greater the potential for humour
Ÿ Dynamics of Humour: “Getting It”
- Our enjoyment of a joke is heightened by the pleasure of having completed the puzzle necessary to “get it”
- An explanation completely relieves that audience of an mental involvement, substantially reducing its pleasure
Ÿ The Topics of Humour
- People throughout the world smile and laugh, signifying humour as a universal trait
- The social diversity of our own country means that people will find humour in different situations
- Humour deals with topics that lend themselves to controversy
- “Laughter is the best medicine”, because maintaining a sense of humour reduces a person’s level of unhealthy stress
Ÿ The Functions of Humour
- Humour allows us to challenge orthodox ideas and to explore alternatives to the status quo
Ÿ Humour and Conflict
- If humour holds the potential to liberate those who laugh, it can also be used to oppress others
- Humour amounts to a means of mental escape from a conventional world that is not entirely to our liking
List of Key Terms
Social Interaction
Status
Status Set
Ascribed Status
Achieved Status
Master Status
Role
Role Conflict
Role Exit
Social Construction of Reality
Thomas Theorem
Ethnomethodology
Dramaturgical Analysis
Presentation of Self
Nonverbal Communication
Personal Space
Unite 7
Week 11 - Course evaluations - I am supposed to remind you to please fill in the course evaluation that you have on WEBCT - remember that this is important to us as professors - it helps us get better
Thanks!
This evening we are going to go back and have a discussion about socialization within all the different theories that we have been discussing and then we will go on to the topic for this evening - Tonight we are going to focus on when socialization breaks down or differs from what society expects -
For the participation exercise we are going to see a very rough film on child prostitution in Vancouver called Stolen Lives - After we view this - I will be staying to discuss it with you as you need to - I do warn you in advance that it is a rough film - there will be many questions about it on the final exam
I am also
going to be referring to The Social Creation of Stigma - that I asked you to
read for this evening - We will be looking at some information on this in
relation to what we consider deviant
Social Order, Social Deviance and the Criminal System in Canada
This evening we will be having a class on constructions of social order, social deviance and we will start the discussion concerning the Criminal Justice System in Canada.
Terms that are important to understand in the conversation
1) social order - the actions between individuals which are predictable, orderly, patterned, and based on rules. Action is based on mutual expectations.
2) Social control - the various ways a social organization attempts to control the individual actor.
Although both are considered necessary for the effective continuation of social organization they should not simply be understood as beneficial. In other words, both social order and social control may be done in ways that do not encourage individuality and freedom. As Charon suggests the central question is - How much control and order is necessary? What are the limits on control and order.
3) Linked to both of these concepts is the understanding of social interactions that lead to social patterns. If we consider the consequences of violence becoming part of a social structure then we can consider the consequences of this perspective.
4) mechanical solidarity - introduced by Durkheim - societies where people work at common understandings and little division of labour - mainly based on gender and age - this relates to the face to face understandings that people share
5) organic solidarity - introduced by Durkheim - to explain the functioning of societies which have multiple job divisions, each part making a contribution to the whole but no part understood in the same ways
these are used by Durkheim to demonstrate the structure and functioning of various forms of society
6) social control in terms of Marxist understandings places the onus of creating social order on people who hold power in society - this power comes in the form of economic power, social power and influence
Charon points out that both are correct in their observations but more than this social order holds everything in place
Social order depends on socialization
7) remember that socialization is a lifelong process so how would social order be formed and reformed through socialization?
This ties into our conversations about family, the primary groups who socialize us and the secondary groups which will be more willing to use negative sanctions to "improve" our behaviour.
8) Loyalty - is a concept introduced by Charon to help us understand our willingness to participate in social order created by social institutions (which are social patterns)
What are some of our ordinary expectations of loyalty and how would they be expressed?
We have already discussed negative and positive sanctions but we will recap these briefly to make sure that these are concepts that we have understood.
We are going to explore the chart 9-1 on page 143 and give examples of each of these -
9) Social Deviance - an action defined by society and its defenders to be outside the range of the acceptable. Deviance is created by society . What would be the purpose of labelling some action deviant?
10) Is Deviance universal? -
- worshipping cows
- ritualized homosexuality
- polygyny
- polyandry
- using drugs to reach spiritual awareness
- tattooing
- piercing
- incest
11) What would be the usefulness of understanding deviance as a universal concept but not a universal act?
The Social Creation of Stigma - How do we construct ideas about stigma? We will be considering Goode's article and discussing obesity as a way of constructing deviance
The discussion of social deviance relates well to our understandings in this society of a criminal justice system.
We can generally agree that the criminal justice system in our society is there for some kind of purpose - what would this be?
How effectively does it succeed?
What are the limits that we impose on the system as a society? How have these limits changed?
Participation Exercise - This evening you will be viewing the film Stolen Lives - which will be put back on reserve for those of you interested in viewing it again - there will be several questions on the final exam about this film
In terms of the different theories that we have considered - Conflict Theory (Marxism), Structural Functionalism, Symbolic Interactionism and Feminism - how would the three groups be considered (use the film as an example to answer this)
Pimps
Street Workers and Police
Sex Workers
Lindsay Gemin
Chapter 7: Social Devience
Key Terms:
Deviance: Recognized violation of cultural norms.
Crime: Category of deviance. The violation of norms a society formally enacts into criminal law. (traffic violations to murder)
Juvenile Delinquency: Subcategory of crime. Refers to violation of legal standards by the young.
Criminal Justice System: A formal response to alleged violations of law on the part of police, courts, and prison officials.
Labeling Theory: The assertion that deviance and conformity result not so much from what people do, as from how others respond to those actions.
Stigma: A powerfully negative social label that radically changes a persons self-concept and social identity.
Retrospective Labeling: The interpretation of someone’s past consistent with present deviance.
Projective Labeling: Audience remains mindful of an individual’s deviant identity when assessing any future action. People will continue to find evidence of deviant behaviour in future actions of stigmatized individual.
Medicalization of Devience: The transformation of moral and legal issues into medical matters. (alcoholism, obesity)
Differential Association: (Sutherland’s Theory) Any person’s tendency toward conformity or deviance depends on the relative frequency of association with others who encourage conventional behaviour or norm violation.
White Collar Crime: Defined by Edwin Sutherland in 1940 as crimes committed by persons of high social position in the course of their occupations. (Embezzlement, false advertising, marketing of unsafe products)
Types of Crimes
Violent Crimes: Crimes against people that involve violence or the threat of violence. (murder, sexual assault, robbery)
Property Crimes: Crimes that involve theft of property belonging to others. (motor vehicle theft, breaking and entering)
Victimless Crimes: Violations of law in which there are no readily apparent victims. (Prostitution, gambling)
Plea Bargaining: A legal negotiation in which the prosecution reduces a defendant’s charge in exchange for a guilty plea.
Retribution: 1st Justification for punishment. A moral vengeance by which society inflicts suffering on the offender comparable to that caused by the offender.
Deterrence: 2nd Justification for punishment. Attempt to discourage criminality through punishment. (Pain of punishment outweighs pleasure of mischief)
Rehabilitation: 3rd Justification for punishment. A program for reforming the odffender to preclude subsequent offences.
Social Protection: 4th Justification for punishment. Refers to rendering an offender incapable of further offences either temporarily through incarceration or permanently by execution.
Criminal Recidivism: Subsequent offences by people previously convicted of crimes.
Primary Deviance: Norm Violations. Deviance that has little reaction from others and little effect on person’s self concept. This includes skipping school, underage drinking… (Edwin Lemert)
Secondary Deviance: Repeated norm violations and then begins to take on a deviant identity. (Boozer is pushed out of social circle and forced to find a group who condones such behavior)
True-False
1. The vast majority of conformity behaviour takes place simply because people think it’s the right and natural thing to do? (True)
2. William Sheldon posited that body structure might predict criminality? (True- Said that boys with muscular/athletic build were the most delinquent. Glueck confirmed this to be true but that parents of these types of boys were more distant from these children and in turn they grew up to be less sensitive to others.)
3. The vast majority of serious crimes are committed by people whose psychological profiles are not normal. (False- Deviance committed by normal psychological profiles. It is “unsuccessful” socialization that causes deviance. “Good boys” have stronger consciences and coped well with frustration, “Bad boys” had weaker consciences and little tolerance for frustration. Reckless and Dintz said that personality reigned on impulses towards deviance and called this experiment the “containment theory.”)
4. In Merton’s adaptive category called “innovation” there is seen to be a balance between cultural goals and means to attain these goals? (False- Not everyone has the resources to attain such goals as wealth etc… Those who are raised in poverty see little hope of attaining wealth legally and so they turn to seek wealth through crime. )
5. According to Cloward and Ohlin deviance or conformity grows out of the relative opportunity structure that frames young people’s lives. (True- Criminal deviance results not simply from limited legitimate opportunity but also from available, illegitimate opportunity.)
6. Primary deviance is the type where an individual engages in repeated norm violations and begins to take on a deviant identity. (False- This is Secondary deviance.)
7. Thomas Szaz argues that mental illness is a myth and is a label used by the powerful in society to force people to follow dominant cultural norms.(True- He thinks the notion of mental illness should be abandoned. Illness is physical and only affects the body whereas mental illness is a myth. Mental illness is just “difference.”)
8. Our authors suggest that during the last fifty years there has been a trend away from what is known as the “medicalization of deviance.” (False- Individuals diagnosed with a sickness instead of being bad. For example, alcoholism, drug addiction and obesity.)
9. Hirschi suggests that people who have little to lose from deviance are most likely to become rule breakers. (True- He says everyone finds at least some deviance tempting. Family condemnation, career consequences are usually enough to keep people from deviance, but those who do not have those worries have little consequence.)
10. The social-conflict perspective suggests that even the powerful do not have the resources to resist deviant labels. (False- Those with money and power are not usually the ones condemned for deviant behaviour. For example, corporate executives that order to have hazardous waste dumped are not held responsible. As well as O.J. Simpson, because he was rich he had the resources to resist being labeled as a criminal.)
11. Rates of suicide among Aboriginal youth are five to six times higher than among their non-Aboriginal peers. (True- This is because of copycatted suicides in related families and communities. There are four contributors:
1. psycho-biological factors. 2. life history or situational factors.
3. socioeconomic factors. 4. cultural stress.
Multiple Choice
1. This Researcher worked in prisons and discerned that criminals had distinctive physical features… C. Cesare Lombroso was an Italian physician. His research was soon found to be flawed because even outside of prison there were people who had these physical attributes said to belong only to those of prisoners. (ex. Protruding ears, excessive hair, prominent jaws and cheekbones etc.)
2. Which is not a social foundation of deviance according to our authors?
a. Deviance exists in relation to cultural norms.
b. People become deviant in that others define them that way.
c. Both norms and the way people define social situations involve social power. (Rule breaking/making involve social power)
d. All are identified as foundations of deviance.
e. None are identified as foundations of deviance.
D. All are identified as foundations of deviance.
3. Which of the following is not one of the functions which Durkheim suggested deviance serves.
a. Deviance affirms cultural values.
b. Responses to deviance clarifies moral boundaries.
c. Responses to deviance attacks social unity.
d. Deviance encourages social change.
C. Deviance encourages social change.
Functions of Deviance:
1. Deviance affirms cultural values and norms. (No good without evil, no justice without crime.)
2. Responding to deviance clarifies moral boundaries. (When defining someone as deviant, you automatically draw a line between what is right and wrong.)
3. Responding to deviance promotes social unity. (Collective reaction to deviance brings a community closer together. Ex. Memorials )
4. Deviance encourages social change. (Ex. Rock and Roll used to be seen as deviant and is now a multi million dollar industry.)
4. Kai Erikson’s historical research on the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay supports:
a. Durkheim’s structural functional perspective concerning the functions of deviance.
b. The psychological theory of containment
c. The genetic inbreeding theory of deviance.
d. The body structure theory of deviance.
e. The social conflict theory of deviance.
A. Even the Puritans, though highly disciplined/religious, created deviance to clarify moral boundaries. Deviance is a necessary condition of “good” social living.
5. Merton’s strain theory has been criticized for…
a. Explaining only some forms of deviance.
b. Ignoring the dislocation between goals and a means in society.
c. Limiting the definition of success to wealth.
d. A and B
e. A and C
D. Explaining only some forms of deviance to be better then others. As well not everyone seeks wealth in conventional ways because everyone in society has different values.
6. What is the term for the behaviour of an individual who engages in repeated norm violations and begins to take on a deviant identity.
D. Secondary Deviance
7. When, after stigmatizing a person, people begin interpreting someone’s past consistent with present deviance they are engaging in?
D. Retrospective Labeling
8. Crimes committed by persons of high social position in the course of their occupations is called.
A. White collar crimes
9. Which of the following are categories included in the Canadian Uniform Crime Reporting?
D. Violent crimes and property crimes.
10. Crime rates in Canada are highest for…
a. individuals between 25-44
b. males
c. blacks and native people
d. a and b
e. b and c.
E. Males, blacks and native people.
11. A legal negotiation in which the prosecution reduces a defendant’s charge in exchange for a guilty plea is called.
D. Plea bargaining
12. Which of the following is not one of the usual justifications for punishment?
a. retribution
b. sanctification
c. deterrence
d. rehabilitation
e. social protection
B. Sanctification >>> See key terms.
Fill In The Blanks
Define and Short Answer
3. Social functions of deviance: See Question 3 of Multiple Choice
4. The characteristics that are likely to have people labeled as being a member of a “problem population” according to Spitzer are: Those who impede the operation of capitalism. (poor who steal from rich, people who resist authority)
5. ?? Differential association theory explaining devience??
6. Medicalization of deviance: See Key Terms
7. Factors responsible for high crime rate in U.S.: Cultural emphasis on individual economic success, Americans not guaranteed a minimum income and also do not provide funds for child care programs. This fuels frustration and therefore crime. Another factor is the high level of unemployment and underemployment that creates a poorer society and forces them to find other illegal means of income. Another factor is also the widespread private ownership of guns.
8. Four justifications for use of punishment against criminals: See Question 12 of Multiple Choice.
9. Social foundations of deviance: See Question 2 of Multiple Choice
Articles
Suicide Among Aboriginal People
- is a cumulative effect of 300 years of colonial history: lands occupied, resources seized, beliefs and cultures ridiculed, children taken away, power concentrated in distant capitals, homes for honourable co-existence dashed over and over again.
- Attributed to social conditions not individual troubles.
- Aboriginal rates 2-3 times higher. Youth 5-6 times higher.
- There are four contributors:
1. psycho-biological factors. 2. life history or situational factors.
3. socioeconomic factors. 4. cultural stress.
- Solutions: community solidarity, social integration
Is Spanking Allowed in Canada?
- Long term consequences: child is more likely to develop a psychiatric illness or abuse drugs and alcohol. (Canadian Centre for Studies of Children at Risk)
- Criminal code says children are the only group in society we are allowed to hit. (The most vulnerable members of society…)
- Criminal code says any teacher, parent or person in place of parent is allowed to use justified force for correction as long as it does not exceed what is reasonable under the circumstances.
- Most North Americans approve of corporal punishment.
What Can Be Done About Crime?
- 46% of Canadians think crime has increased in their neighbourhoods.
- 27% of (42% of women) are afraid to walk alone at night.
- Hirschi traits of criminals: young, people who have short term view of their life. (no goals)
- Characteristics of offenders= low self control
- “stiffer” sentences have little effect on crime. By the time they are sentenced they are already growing past the “crime years.”
- Attention should be drawn toward teens before they commit crime in order to prevent it. Also we should teach children self control… Responsibility falls on parents.
Simon Strudwick
Sociology Unit VII: Social Deviance
Notes: Simon Strudwick: sstrudwi@uoguelph.ca
Deviance (rule breaking)
- Violation of cultural norms
Moral Entrepreneur
- Person who defines what is deviant
Rule Enforcer
- Person who ensures conformity
Rule Breaker
- Person defined as deviant
Sociologists interested in
- How we identify deviance
- How we explain or interpret deviance
- How we curtail deviance
In the past people believed that a deviant person could be identified by biological characteristics (stigmata):
- witches: growths on skin (keratoacanthoma)
- Aristotle: Man who looked like a lion was a brave man
- people with athletic build (mesomorphic), men with XYY Chromosomes
People exhibiting these signs stigmatized as a threat, discredited
Psychobiological approach: medicalizes deviance (eg: diagnose deviants with disorders such as conduct disorder turns them from “bad” to “sick”)
Sociological Approach: based on the recognition of 3 basic principles of deviance
1) Deviance varies according to cultural norms
- Durkheim: Structural/functional – deviance is functional for society, performs 4 important functions
I – affirms cultural norms and values
II – clarifies moral boundaries
III – promotes social cohesion
IV – encourages social change
- Merton: Strain theory – categorize the ways in which we respond to the normative goals of society
I – Conformists: pursue normative goals using conventional means
II – Innovators: pursue normative goals by unconventional means (eg: illegal)
III – Ritualists: use conventional means, without expecting the goal
IV – Retreatists: reject both goals and means, withdraw from society (alienated)
V – Rebels: reject or substitute both goals and means (ie they create new goals and new means) work toward social change
Two forms of deviant behaviour
1) Aberrant Behaviour: A violation of norms for self interest
2) Non-Conformist Behaviour: A violation of norms motivated by values or principles
Opportunity Theory: one’s location in the opportunity structures of society affords one the opportunity to deviate or conform.
2) People become deviant as people define them that way
- Labeling Theory: a deviant career is the endpoint in a process
I- Primary Deviance: unremarked(able) norm violation
II- If Primary Deviance is reacted to, individual is stigmatized and may internalize the deviant label. Self fulfilling prophecy – shapes future behaviour
III- Individuals past and future behaviour is also stigmatized
- Sutherland: Differential Association: the company you keep influences your behaviour
- Hirschi: Control Theory: analyzes why people sty on the straight and narrow despite temptation. (The more you have to lose the less likely you are to deviate)
I – Attatchment: strong social attachments encourage conformity
II – Opportunity: the higher one’s commitment to legitimate opportunity the greater the advantages of conformity
III – Involvement: extensive involvement in legitimate activities inhibits deviance
IV – Belief: strong beliefs in conventional morality and respect for authority figures restrain deviant tendencies
- Symbolic Interactionist: all of us deviate, but only some of us are defined as deviant
3) Rule making and rule breaking both involve social power
- Goode: In every society some members have more power than others. These members may have their ideology translated into the criminal code to maintain the status quo.
- Quinney: “Capitalist justice is by the capitalist class” (p224)
- Capitalist Economic: based on private property, hard work, and obedience.
Social-Conflict analysis: individuals with power in society create conventions which help maintain the status quo.
- white collar criminals do more social harm than street criminals, but are less likely to be prosecuted.
Crime: violation of statues enacted in criminal law
- two elements, the act and the intent
- types. Violent, property, victimless
Criminal Justice:
- Police maintain public order (theoretically by uniformly enforcing the law
Assessments that guide the actions of the police
1) seriousness of the offence
2) what does the victim want done
3) have they arrested the suspect before
4) are bystanders present
5) suspect’s race
- Courts:
Plea bargaining pressures defendants to plead guilty rather than face a trial where there is a risk of greater punishment if found guilty. Undercuts the rights of defendants by circumventing adversarial process.
Feminist: Conflict approach.
- Rape as an act of power not a sexual act
- Victims Stigmatized in the past (in male dominated societies)
- Rape myths protect men. Internalized by both women and men. Prevent reporting.
Weber:
power: the ability to carry out one’s will despite resistance
Authority: three types
1) Traditional Authority: Social order is maintained by following the directives of the past
2) Charismatic Authority: leader is seen as extraordinary, leads by force of personality. Charismatic leaders look to utopian future for guidance. Threaten status quo.
3) Rational/Legal Authority: rests on reasonable rules (laws). We agree to these rules. This is Bureaucratic Authority. Rules can be re-written to fit changing conditions. Rules are only effective in that institutional jurisdiction.
Weber contended Rational/Legal authority was most stable and efficient. There can be problems at it can be impersonal and rule-bound.
Formal Types of punishment available to curtail deviance
- Retribution: Subject offender to parallel suffering (eye for an eye)
- Deterrance: threaten punishment to discourage deviance
- Rehabilitation: resocialize individual
- Social protection: temporary incapacitation (eg. Imprisonment)
Informal types of social control
- Shunning
- gossip
- ostracism
- stigmatizing
Crime-control social model
1) unintended consqeunces
- prisons become schools for crime
- jails can alienate inmates, who are dehumanized
Concluding comments
- Sociologists take a social constructivist approach to deviance. Ie. Deviance is culturally relative.
- As we create rules we create deviance.
- We deviate because we question the rules.
- Rules are not always attainable, so conformity may require illegitimate or innovative means.
- Deviance may function to change rules.
- We condemn violators of social norms, even through label might result in secondary deviance
- Deviance and social control are intimately related to power
- There are formal and informal means of controlling and curtailing deviance
Unit 8
The professor’s notes from unit 7 covers unit 8 as well.
….
Ok, I thought I had notes for this from someone, but I was looking through my email and the person said she’d do it within the next week. SO, sorry about that. I’ll all of you them when I get them.
Unit 9
(none from professor)
Cescolini, Sabrina
Unit 9- Religion (Not Theology)
This chapter discussed the proper role of religion in social life. What religion is, changes in religion and the controversies between religion and the modern world.
Religion: Basic Concepts
Theoretical Analysis of Religion
1) Functions of Religion: Structural Functional Analysis
Durkheim wondered if society has an awesome power and existence of its own beyond the life of the individual, Thus concluding that some form of religion is found everywhere because society itself is “godlike”.
a) Providing Social Cohesion- shared symbols, values and norms of religion unite people (e.g. love and commitment underscore our moral and emotional ties to others).
b) Ensuring Social Control- Every society uses religious imagery and rhetoric to promote conformity (e.g. societies infuse many cultural norms like marriage and reproduction with religious justification).
c) Providing Meaning and Purpose- religious beliefs offer the comforting sense that the vulnerable human condition serves greater purpose (e.g. people are less likely to despair when faced with obstacles in life).
2) Constructing the Sacred: Symbolic Interaction Analysis
· Peter Berger asserts that “society is a human product and nothing but a human product, that yet continuously acts back upon it producer”.
· From a symbolic functionalist point of view, religion is socially constructed through rituals, prayers and annual observances.
· E.g.) Marriage, when viewed as a legal contract can be terminated at any time, but defined as a holy matrimony, their relationship makes a stronger claim on them.
· Critical Evaluation: The symbolic interaction approach views religion as a social construct, placing everyday life under a ‘sacred canopy’ of meaning. This pays little attention to religion’s part in maintaining social inequality.
3) Inequality and Religion: Social Conflict Analysis
Religion and Social Change
1) Max Weber: Protestantism and Capitalism
· Weber contended that new ideas were often engines of change (e.g. Calvinism, sparked the industrial revolution in Western Europe).
· Calvinists believed that you either went to heaven or hell, with this they began to find signs on earth that they were divinely blessed by god. Wealth was one of these signs and sharing with the poor was out of the question because they were seen as being rejected by god.
· Driven by religious motives, Calvinists laid the groundwork for industrial capitalism. Weber concluded that industrial capitalism amounts to a “disenchanted” religion.
· Liberation Theology: a fusion of christen principles with political activism, often Marxist in nature.
· This social movement began in the 1960’s in Latin America’s Catholic Church.
· Along with spiritual work, the Christian activists help people in the least developed countries to end poverty.
· The message of Liberation Theology: ‘social oppression runs counter to Christian morality and is also preventable. Therefore as a matter of faith and social justice Christians must promote social equality’ (Pg 484).
Types of Religious Organizations
|
Church |
Sect |
|
Listen passively to their leaders |
Less formal and spontaneous in worship |
|
Intellectualized religion |
Expresses the personal experience of divine power |
|
Distant God- “Our father who art in Heaven” |
Immediate God- “Lord, bless this poor sinner kneeling before you now” |
|
Leaders are more trained and ordained |
Leaders exhibit divine inspiration in the form of charisma |
|
Well-established churches tend to include people of high social standing |
Attract more disadvantaged people |
|
Sects breakaway from the more stable, established churches. |
Highly value conversion, usually blossom and then disappear in a sort time. |
Religion in History
World Religions
1) Christianity
o Most widespread religion with 2 billion, mostly due to early colonialism by the western European countries.
o Began as a cult broken off of Judaism, propelled by the charismatic leader Jesus of Nazareth (promising that faith and love would triumph over sin and death).
o An example of monotheism, yet Christianity has a unique vision of the Supreme Being as a sacred Trinity (God the Creator).
o The claim that Jesus was divine rests on accounts that he was tried and sentenced to death in Jerusalem for being a threat to political leaders. It is then believed that he rose again 3 days later proving that he was the son of god.
o 4 centuries later after Jesus’ apostles spread Christianity through the Mediterranean, it became the official religion of the Holy Roman Empire.
o Christianity later took various forms, the Roman Catholic church, the Orthodox Church the protestant Reformation, etc.
2) Islam
o 1.1 billion People follow Islam in countries around the world. The majority of Muslims live in the Middle East, but there are significant numbers of Muslims in northern Africa and western Asia.
o Islam is the word of Allah as revealed to the prophet Muhammad (born in Mecca), who was Allah’s messenger and wrote the word of Allah in the Qur’an, which is sacred to Muslims.
o Islam means submission and peace, and the Qur’an urges submission to Allah on the path to inner peace.
o Islam spread rapidly after Muhammad’s death and although there are some divisions, all Muslims accept the Five Pillars of Islam: 1) recognizing Allah as the one True god and Muhammad as the messenger. 2) Ritual prayer. 3) Giving alms to the poor. 4) Fasting during the month of Ramadan. 5) Making pilgrimage at least once to the sacred house of Allah in Mecca.
o Similar to Christianity in that those who live obediently will be rewarded in heaven and evil-doers will suffer unending punishment.
o Muslims are obligated to defend their faith which has led to several holy wars against unbelievers.
o It is often perceived in the west that Muslim women are the most socially oppressed people on earth, but most women accept the mandates of their religion and find security in a rigid system that guides the behaviour of both women and men.
3) Judaism
o In terms of numbers, Judaism’s 14 million followers worldwide makes it something less than a world religion, moreover only in Israel to Jews represent the national majority.
o The largest concentration of Jews is found in North America (6 million).
o Jews look at the past as a source of guidance in the present and future.
o Judaism began in Mesopotamia, some 4,000 years before the birth of Christ. At this time Jews were animistic, but this changed when Jacob (grandson of Abraham) led hid people to Egypt, where they endured centuries of slavery.
o Moses was called by God to lead the Jews from bondage, celebrated today as Passover. Once liberated Jews became monotheistic.
o A distinctive concept in Judaism is the ‘covenant’, a special relationship with God by which Jews became the chosen people. It also implies the duty to observe God’s law (Ten Commandments revealed to Moses).
o Jews regard the Bible (Old Testament) as their history specifically the first five books know as the Torah which is a statement of the obligations of Jewish life.
o In contrast to Christianity’s central concern with personal salvation, Judaism emphasizes moral behaviour in this world.
o Judaism is composed of four main denominations, Orthodox Jews, Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism.
o Jews share a cultural history of considerable prejudice and discrimination. Centuries of slavery in Egypt, conquests by Rome and persecution in Europe; has shaped Jewish identity.
4) Hinduism
o Hinduism s the oldest of all the world religions, originating in the Indus River Valley around 4,500 years ago.
o Predominantly practiced in India and Pakistan, Hindus number some 793 million people worldwide.
o Hinduism and Indian culture have become intertwined and (unlike the three religions above) has not spread to very many other countries.
o Hinduism is not linked to any single person; it has no sacred writings comparable to the Bible or the Qur’an and as a result is sometimes described as the “ethical religion”.
o Hindus recognize a moral force in the universe that presents everyone with responsibilities, termed ‘dharma’ (which calls people to observe the traditional caste system).
o Another Hindu principle is ‘karma’, which refers to the spiritual progress of the human soul. All actions have spiritual consequences.
o Karma works through ‘reincarnation’, which is a cycle of death and rebirth. Hinduism has no ultimate judgment by a supreme god, although in rebirth, past lives determine the moral quality of all your lives to come.
o ‘Moksha’ is the state of spiritual perfection, only when a soul reaches this level is it no longer reborn.
o Hinduism is both monotheistic and polytheistic.
5) Buddhism
o More than 325 million people embrace Buddhism and almost all are Asian.
o Created 2500 years ago in India, Buddhism resembles Hinduism in doctrine, but its inspiration springs from one individual.
o Siddhartha Gautama was born into a high caste family, at the age of twenty-nine he underwent a radical transformation when he set of to travel and meditate for years , his journey ended when he achieved ‘bodhi’ (true wisdom)
o Understanding the essence of life, Gautama became a Buddha.
o Energized by Buddha’ charisma, followers spread his teachings ‘dhamma’ across Asia.
o Buddhists believe much of life involves suffering and that this cannot be resolved with materialism. Instead he taught that we must transcend our selfish concerns and desires through meditation to eventually reach a state of nirvana.
o Again, similar to Hinduism, Buddhists believe there is no god of judgment and also in reincarnation (can only be liberated once enlightenment is found).
6) Confucianism
o Confucianism from 200 B.C.E until the beginning of the 19th century was an ecclesia- the official religion of China. After the 1949 revolution, communism suppressed religion.
o Hundreds of millions still practice Confucianism and is mostly in China, although immigration has spread the religion to other parts of Southeast Asia and North America.
o Like Buddha, Confucius was deeply concerned about people’s suffering and he instructed his followers to engage the world according to a strict code of moral conduct.
o Confucianism is enshrined in the Chinese way of life and can therefore be considered a national religion.
o A central concept is ‘jen’, meaning humaneness (must always subordinate self interest to moral principle).
o Confucianism is lacking a clear sense of sacred, some see it as less a religion than a model of disciplined living (this explains Chinese skepticism towards the supernatural). But Confucianism does share in religion a body of beliefs and practices that have as their goal goodness, concern for others and the promotion of social harmony
Religion in Canada
Unit X
(also, professor didn’t cover)
Hammond, Shannon
Unit X
Family - the family is a social institution that unites individuals into cooperative groups that oversee the bearing and raising of children.
Kinship - a social bond, based on blood, marriage, or adoption, that joins individuals into families.
Family Unit - a social group of two or more people, related by blood, marriage, or adoption, who usually live together.
Marriage - a legally sanctioned relationship, usually involving economic cooperation as well as normative sexual activity and childbearing, that people expect to be enduring.
Extended Family - a family unit including parents and children, but also other kin.
Nuclear Family (conjugal family) - a family unit composed of one or two parents and their children.
Endogamy - marriage between people of the same social category.
Exogamy - marriage between people of different social categories.
Monogamy - a form of marriage joining two partners.
Serial Monogamy - Canada’s marital practice
Polygamy - a form of marriage uniting three or more people
Polygyny - a form of marriage uniting one male and two or more females.
Polyandry - a form of marriage uniting one female and two or more males.
Patrilocality - a residential pattern in which a married couple lives with or near the husband’s family.
Matrilocality - a residential pattern in which a married couple lives with or near the wife’s family.
Neolocality - a residential pattern in which a married couple lives apart from the parents of both spouses.
Descent - system by which members of a society trace kinship over generations.
Patrilineal Descent - a system of tracing kinship through men.
Matrilineal Descent - a system of tracing kinship through women.
Bilateral Descent - a system of tracing kinship through men and women.
Homogamy - marriage between people with the same social characteristics.
Functions of the Family : Structural-Functional Analysis
1) Socialization
2) Regulation of sexual activity (eg- incest taboo)
3) Social placement
4) Material and emotional security
Inequality and the Family : Social-Conflict Analysis
1) Property and inheritance
2) Patriarchy
3) Race and ethnicity
Constructing Family Life: Micro-Level Analysis- explore how individuals shape and experience family life day to day
Symbolic-Interaction Analysis
- in ideal terms family living offers an opportunity for intimacy (families forge emotional bonds)
- parents act as authority figures and this sometimes inhibits their communication with children, but as they reach adulthood they confide in and turn to one another for emotional support.
Social-Exchange Analysis
- courtship and marriage as forms of negotiation
- individuals seek to make the best “deal” when selecting a partner
- physical attractiveness is one critical element
- men have traditionally been assessed for financial resources
Stages of Family Life
Courtship
- industrialization erodes the importance of extended families and weakens traditions while enhancing personal choice in courtship
- young people expect to choose their own mates and delay doing it until they are financially secure and have the experience to choose a suitable mate
- dating sharpens courtship skills and may serve as a period of sexual experimentation.
Arranged Marriages- traditional societies are culturally homogeneous so any member of the opposite sex has been suitably socialized to perform the roles of spouse and parent, thus parents can arrange marriages with confidence that virtually any couple will be culturally suitable regardless of whether they are personally compatible.
Romantic Love (basis for marriage)
- the experience of affection and sexual passion for another person
- because feelings change romantic love is a less stable foundation for marriage than social and economic considerations
- all societies “arrange” marriages to the extent that they encourage homogamy ( marriage between people with the same social characteristics)
- we exaggerate the importance of romantic love to reassure ourselves that we may control our own lives
Settling In : Ideal and Real Marriage
- only after marriage do many spouses regularly confront each other as they carry out the day to day routines of maintaining a household.
- sex can also be a source of disappointment.
- couples with most fulfilling sexual relationships experience the greatest satisfaction in their marriages.
Child Rearing
- economically speaking, industrialization transforms children from a vital asset to a burdensome liability.
-as our society has afforded it’s members more choice about family life more adults have opted to delay childbirth or remain childless.
The Family in Later Life
- by about 50 most have completed raising children and the remaining years of marriage bring a return to living with only one’s spouse.
- more adults in midlife must care for aging parents.
- death of a spouse is extremely difficult and one partner is left with loneliness.
Canadian Families - Class, Race, and Gender
Social Class
- frames a families financial security and range of opportunities.
- what women and men think they can hope for in marriage and what they end up with is linked to their social class.
Mixed Marriages
- most spouses have similar social backgrounds with regard to class, race and ethnicity but over the course of the past century ethnicity has mattered less and less.
Gender
-husband’s and wives with the best mental health deliberately share responsibilities for earning income, raising children, and doing housework.
Transition and Problems in Family Life
Divorce Causes
1) Individualism is on the rise.
2) Romantic love often subsides.
3) Women are now less dependant on men.
4) Many of today’s marriages are stressful.
5) Divorce is more socially acceptable.
6) Divorce is legally easier to accomplish.
Who Divorces?
- at greatest risk are young spouses, especially those who marry after a brief courtship, have few financial resources, and have yet to mature emotionally.
- people of lower social position.
- people who are not religious.
- one or both partners has alcohol or substance abuse problems.
- if both partners have stressful careers.
Divorce as a Process
6 distinct adjustments divorcing people make
1) Emotional Divorce- distancing oneself from the former spouse usually begins before the formal breakup. A deteriorating marriage can be fraught with indifference, disappointment or outright hostility.
2) Legal divorce
3) Psychic reorganization- many divorced people suffer not just from loneliness but from a sense that ending their marriage represents a personal failure
4) Community reorganization- ending marriage requires both partners to recognize friendships and adjust relations with parents and other family members who are accustomed to seeing them as a couple
5) Economic reorganization
6) Parental reorganization - custody of children
Remarriage- 4 out of 5 people who divorce remarry (creates blended families)
Family Violence- emotional, physical, or sexual abuse of one family member by another
Alternate Family Forms
One Parent Families
- percentage of one parent families is growing rapidly
- four times more likely to be headed by women
- may result from divorce, inability to find a suitable husband, or an unmarried woman’s decision to have a child
- increases a woman’s risk of poverty
- poverty raises the odds that a young woman will become a single mother
Cohabitation- the sharing of a household by an unmarried couple
Looking Ahead- Family in the 21st Century
1) Divorce rates are likely to remain high
2) family life will be highly variable- variety of family forms
3) men are likely to continue to play a limited role in child rearing
4) we will continue to feel the effects of economic changes in our families
5) the importance of new reproductive technologies will increase
Thanks everyone!
Have a great summer. Drink responsively.
