SOC Final
Week 6: Gender & Sexuality Judith Lorber: "The Social Construction of Gender"
- Gender constantly created and recreated out of human interaction, social life. - A human prduction that depends on everyone constantly "doing gender" - Gender status can be Transvestite (a person who dresses in opposite-gender clothes) and transsexual ( a persona who has had sex-change surgery) - Gender starts with assignment to a sex category based on genitalia at birth, then babies are dressed,named, etc. - Sex doesnt factor in until puberty, sexual feelings/practices have been shaped by gender norms and expectations. - Gender roles change (father taking care of little children) - Gender as method for humans to organize their lives. Gender as a Process - creates the social differences that define woman and man. Inds learn what is expected, act and react in expected ways and thus simulataneously contruct and maintain the gender order. In almost every encounter, human beings produce gender by behaving in ways appropriate for their gender or resisting/rebelling against these norms. Gender as a Stratification Process - gender ranks men above women of the same race and class. -Gender boundaires tell the individual who is like him or her, and all the rest are unlike. From society's vp: one gender is usually the normal. - two factors emerge as helping men maintain their separation from women and their control of technological occupations: active gendering of jobs and people and the continual creation of sub-divisions in the work processes, and levels in work hierarchies, into which men can move in order to keep their distance from women. Gender as a Structure - gender divides work in the home and in economic production, legitimates those in authority, and organizes sexuality and emotional life. - Sexual statuses reflect gender statuses - Structured inequality, the devalued genders have less power, prestige, and economic rewards than the valued genders. Paradox of Human Nature: it is always a manifestation of cultural meanings, social relationships, and power politics, not biology but culture, becomes destiny. Gendered ppl emerge from the exigencies of the social order.
Week 6: Gender & Sexuality Robin Leidner: "Serving Hamburgers and Selling Insurance..."
- Gender-segregated service jobs reinforce the concept of gender differences as natural. Arguments 1) The impression that gender differences in personality, interests, character, and appearance are all natural/not social constructs plays into the idiom of sex-typing being flexibly applied to what jobs women and men happen to be doing. 2) Leidner argues that jobholders and audiences make this interpretation under unlikely conditions- when the work might be interpreted as more suitable for the other gender and when many aspects of the works presentation of self is closely dictated by superiors and not spontaneous expressions of the worker's character, personality, interest. Workers need to consider how work relates to own identification, including GID In service jobs, they have to manipulate identities, separate themselves from identities to achieve a certain tone (friendliness) and end (sale) Methodology Studied two jobs at extremes: both were neither gender neutral nor entirely saturated with assumptions about gender. (McDonalds and Combined Insrance Co. of America) through ethnographic observation/field work. Both companies have control over their employees presentation of selves McDonalds - Standardization - Uniformed/Clean cut - Not allowed to argue with angry customers - Told to be themsleves, but not much range of self-expression Combined Insurance - Most Insurance Agents are white men - Door-to-Door sales in rural areas and small towns, increase volume of sales is the goal. - Trainees taught what to do/say - Positive Mental Attitude Paradox: you should do everything the way we tell you, but strength depends on character Gender Neither company suggested significantly different approaches to Male/Female. McDonalds= women on window instead of grill. At McDonald's, many workers and managers considered it natural, even self-evident, that women were best suited to deal with customers. At Combined Insurance, women were generally seen as ill equipped to handle such work. The insurance agents were able to define their job as masculine by emphasizing those aspects of the work that require "manly" traits (control and self-direction) and by reinterpreting some of the more "feminine" job requirements in ways that were not degrading. Maintain control in interactions with prospects at the Insurance Co- conceptualization of the work as an arena for enacting masculinity. The Combined Insurance agents sustained the belief that women could not handle their job, even though the work required some skills and qualities typically associated with women. Can make it harder to break glass ceiling. Final Argument that despite the existence of culturally shaped gender designations of work activities, employers and workers retain the flexibility to reinterpret them in ways that support jobholders' gender identities. Despite this flexibility in the interpretation of gender appropriateness, these two work settings the association of the work with either women or men was made to seem natural-an expression of the essential natures of women and men. Even though the workers' behavior was largely dictated by routines they had no part in creating, and even where the job drew on traits associated with both femininity and masculinity, job segregation by gender was interpreted largely as an outgrowth of inherent gender differences in attitudes and behavior. gender segregation of service jobs contributes to the general perception that differences in men's and women's social positions are straightforwardre flectionso f differencesi n theirn aturesa ndc apabilities
Week 7: Family "Leave it to Beaver" and "Ozzie and Harriet"
1950s family hailed as the most basic institution in society/baby boom Most salient symbol and immediate beneficiary of their newfound prosperity was the nuclear family. Nearly entire increase in GDP attributed to consumer desirables, and residnetial construction. Increasingly moving to suburbs for a single-family home and car effort to create a home that would fulfill all its members personal needs. 1950s increase in women doing housework. Dramatic Post War films, public images of Hollywood stars - commitment to marriage and stability - acceptance of domesticity was mark of middle-class status and upward mobility - working class and ethnic men not control wives - families of middle class men were well behaved.
Week 12: Commemoration & Memory Emile Durkheim Excerpt
A whole group of ceremonies whose sole purpose is to awaken certain ideas and sentiments- to attach the present to the past or the individual to the group. Society requires reaffirming collective sentiments/ideas which make its unity and personality. There is something eternal in religion which is destined to survive all the particular symbols in which religious thought has enveloped itself. A new faith with new symbols, not sure if they will resemble the past or not, and whether or not will be adequate for reality which they seek to translate
Week 9: Deviant Behavior Goffman: The Moral Career of the Mental Patient
Concept of career 1) Two Sidedness: one side is linked to internal matters held dearly and closely, such as image of self and felt identity; the other side concern official position, jural relations, and style of life, and part of publicly accessible inst. complex. Career moves back and forth b/t personal and public, between self and society. Institutional approach to the study of self. (moral aspects of career - sequence of changes that entails in the persons self and in his framework imagery for judging himself and others. Category of "Mental Patient" pcyhiatric view alters his social fate, the person is put through hospitalization. power of social forces that uniform status of mental patient can ensure a common fate. Deviant subgroups are psychodynamically formed in society as a result. career of mental patient falls into 3 phases 1) prepatient phase (period in prior to entering hospital) 2) inpatient phase (period in the hospital) 3) ex-patient phase (period after discharge from h) 1) found themselves losing their minds/control, most threatening in our society. attempt to conceal from others 2) realization that he has been deserted by society and turned out of relationships by those closest to him, become antisocial and avoid others each moral career, and behind this, each self, occurs within the confines of an institutional system, whether a social establishment such as a mental hospital or a complex of personal and professional relationships. The self can be seen as something that resides in the arrangements prevailing in a social system for its members. Moral career of the mental patient has unique interest bc it can illustrate the possibility that in casting off the raiments of the old self- or having this cover torn away- the person needs not seek a new robe and a new audience before which to cower. He CAN learn to practice arts of shamelessness.
Week 12: Memory & Commemoration Robert Bellah Excerpt
Constitutive role memory plays in maintaining communities. Storytelling is central to this role, the articulation and repetition of constitutive narratives.-- understood as "practices of commitment"-- sources of social solidarity. "Community of Memory": one that does not forget its past How? retelling its story, its constiutive narrative, offering examples of men and women who have emboied and exemplified meaning of the community. REVISIT
Week 8: Class & Inequality Lecture 2
Contextualize Individuality - Born into a community -Isolated individual as a product Beleif that we live in a meritocracy (people who are doing better are because they deserve to) How to fix it: 1) have equal starting points, not so easy when people are born into certain situations 2) Concerted Cultivation: Annette Lareau. This parenting style or parenting practice is marked by a parent's attempts to foster their child's talents by incorporating organized activities in their children's lives. Disadvantage is relative to privilege- makes it feel like someone wants to take it away from you. Desires are socially produced, notion of deserving, fairness. 2 main mechanisms for how class is reproduced: 1) Through parental investment in upbringing 2) Inheritance - Income inequality does not reproduce inequality, wealth reproduces inequality - proportion of wealth transferred form white to white generationally is higher than blacks to blacks- via averages Homosocial Reproduction: hangout with people who are like us. Distinction between old money and new money Class is reproduced - income vs. wealth - varieties of capital economic social: build down to who you know/ what job depends on who you know/ position in society, degree of connectivity in society cultural: not who you know, its what you know, colleges are machines for gaining cultural capital, how to think about the world in an abstract manner. Sociological Approach: not meant as an accusation, but a demand to think about the context in which you live/exist... moral/political call to recognize redistribution policies.
Week 7: Family Lecture 2 Notes
Family is a claim that people in society make. Endogamy: Allowed to marry within a group Exogamy: Allowed to only marry outside of group What is a group? Defined locally. Come from a culture where family expects who you will mate with. Loving Vs. Virginia: can marry across races We sort ourselves into mating patterns. Hot or not? Culturally sorting by beauty that is sanctioned in pop culture. Mating is not random and not based on looks Other factors influencing mating - Physical proximity - wealth - religion - race/ethnicity Sociological Theories of Family - Structural Functionalism: suggests that the family performs various tasks that contribute to the stability of society.. - Family Function Function does it fulfill? Manifest Function: stated/obvious goal-- educate children Latent Function: unrecognized/unintended- Keep kids out of trouble, like a model of a prison, daycare for parents, obedience. Reproduction Socialization/Child-rearing Conflict Resolution/defense Economic Organization/work - Conflict Theory: suggests that the family perpetuates social inequality. - Conflict Perspective Property/Inheritence: Engels traced the need for men in the family to transmit property to their sons Patriarchy: men determine their heirs by controlling the sexuality of women Race/Ethnicity: racial and ethnic categories persist over generations only to the degree that people marry others like themselves - Symbolic Interactionism: Focuses on how individuals shape and experience family life on a daily basis.
Week 7: Family Lecture 1 Notes
Family or kinship? Extensive vs. nuclear Matrilineal vs. Patrilineal vs. Bilateral Endogamy vs. Exogamy Assortative mating Laws Definition of family makes it difficult to make it ***** house. To deal with situations of complexity Concept of family is an ideological one, not scientific-- how do we do family Nuclear Family: Couple and their dependent children. In reality very few people live with two parents, statistics don't reflect nuclear family Kinship: biological relations amongst a group of people Matrilineal: Names passes through mother Patrilineal: Names passes through father
Week 8: Class & Inequality Loewen: The Land of Opportunity
High school students are terrible sociologists and blames this situation on the content of those social studies and history texts. They think america is the land of equal opportunity HS History Textbooks - cover certain high points of labor history, the most recent is mentioned atleast 50 years ago. - do not describe any continuing issues facing labor (coprs export jobs overseas) - distort labor history as something long ago like slavery. - never anchored in an analysis of social class, no mentioning of it in an index - many mentionings of middle class, like US is a middle class counry Social class is most important from womb to tomb If you are the child of low income parents, the chances are good that you will receive limited and often careless attention from adults in your high school" Social class correlates to higher sat scores, college attendance, and type of college chosen. 55% of Republicans blamed poor for their poverty, 13% blamed system 68% of democrates blamed the system, 5% blamed the poor. see titanic, and vietnam war Since history textbooks present the American past as 390 years of progress and portray our society as a land of opportunity in which folks get what they deserve and deserve what they get, the failures of working-class Americans to transcend their class origin inevitably get laid at their own doorsteps If textbooks acknowledged inequality, then . they could describe the changes in our class structure over time, which would introduce their students to fascinating historical debate. Publisher Pressure First and foremost, publisher censorship of textbook authors. "You always run the risk, if you talk about social class, of being labeled Marxist/' the editor for social studies and history at one of the biggest publishing houses told me poor school performance helps convince them as well as their peers in the faster tracks that the system is meritocratic and that they themselves lack merit. In the end, the absence of socialclass analysis in American history courses amounts to one more way that education in America is rigged against the working class
Week 9: Deviant Behavior Howard Becker: "Outsiders-Defining Deviance"
Howard Becker is an American Sociologist. His book "outsiders" provides foundations for labeling theory and pioneer of modern sociological thought on deviant behavior, also known for establishing an early foundation for the interactionist theory of deviant behavior. The central fact about deviance is that it is created by society. Outsiders= individuals who break a rule agreed on by a group. Becker also claims that rule breakers may perceive a person who enforces the rule as an outsider. Facets of deviant behavior are relative. The outsider has a diff view, may not accept rule. The Rule may be formally enacted and enforced in law or informal agreements with the sanction of age and tradition, may die from lack of enforcement. common-sense premise that there is something inherently deviant (qualitatively distinct) about acts that break (or seem to break) social rules. different groups judge different things as deviant Definitions of Deviance 1) Statistical: anything that varies too widely from the average, or from what is common. Limitation= The statistical definition of deviance, in short, is too far removed from the concern with rule-breaking which prompts scientific study of outsiders. 2) Pathological/Disease: human organism when working efficiently and experiencing no discomfort is said to be healthy, when not, a disease is present. deviance as the product of a mental disease. medical metaphor limits. sociologists look at society and see if to reduce its stability, thus lessening its chance of survival, then label such things as deviant or identify them as symptoms of social disorganization. functional vs. dysfunctional. Functional View: A political question: when wondering what the function/purpose (goal) of a group is and what things will help or hinder the ahceivement of that purpose of a group. Factions within the group disagree and maneuver to have their own definition of the group's function accepted.. so its political conflict not nature in the organzation... then leads to which rules are to be enforced, what behav is deviant, and which labels are outsiders.... so must be POLITICAL. Relativistic View (closest to Becker): Deviance as failure to obey group rules. establish rules, and if people violate them= deviant. VIEW OF BECKER: social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling them as outsiders, a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an "offender." The deviant is one to whom that label has successfully been applied; deviant behavior is behavior that people so label some people may be labeled deviant who have not in fact broken a rule, because rules are so personal and subjective/ category lacks homogenity and fails to include all cases. people who have been labeled deviant have in common= they share the label and the experience of being labeled as outsiders. The Response of Others 1) Variation over time.. there are drives against various kinds of deviance, enforcement officials may decide to make an all out attack on ppl. Yet it might be worthwhile to refer to such behavior as rule-breaking behavior and reserve the term deviant for those labeled as deviant by some segment of society Outsiders may be the people who make the rules he had been found guilty of breaking. social rules are highly differentiatated across social class lines, ethnic lines, occupational lines, and cultural lines. Groups do not share common rules. their may be disagreement between and across groups, such labeling is not universally agreed, it is part of the political process of society.
Week 6: Gender & Sexuality Emily Martin: The Egg and the Sperm: How Science has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles
Image of egg and sperm drawn in scientific accounts of reproductive biology relies on stereotypes central to our cultural definitions of male and female. Female biological processes are less worthy than their male counterparts. Female Menstruation viewed as a failure, menstruation as the "debris" of uterine lining. Imply that a system has gone awry. Male Whereas the female sheds only a single gamete each month, the seminiferous tubules produce hundreds of millions of sperm each day. Production of something deemed value, menstruation does not provide this. Could start to describe male and female processes as homologous... females producing mature ova one at a time each month and describe males as having to face problems of degenerating germ cells. Egg behaves feminily and sperm behaves masculinily.
Week 8: Class & Inequality Barbara Enhrenriech: Nickel and Dimed: On (not) Getting By in America
Key West area, understanding what it is like living in poverty and toil. Women more or less trying to live off the land. Struggle to find affordable housing from trailers to flophouses. Tourists compete w=for living space with the people who clean their toilets and fry their hash browns. low-wage work is not a solution to poverty and pOSSibly not even to homelessness. First applies to be a housekeeper at hotel. Winn-Dixie online application and online interview because apparently no human is deemed capable of representing the corporate point of view. 6 dollars an hour She works at a restaurant in the hearthside hotel. 2.43 plus tips So if you wonder why Americans are so obese, consider the fact that waitresses both express their humanity and earn their tips through the covert distribution of fats. managers are there for only one reason-to make sure that money is made for some theoretical entity that exists far away in Chicago or New York, if a corporation can be said to have a physical existence at alL You give and you give, and they take lined up in the corridor, threatened with locker searches, peppered with carelessly aimed accusation healthcare plan is not ideal, lost paperwork and now has to wait, so she pays 9 dollars per pill. realizes she will be 100 dollars short on rent this month at the wage. Works 2 jobs at a new place, Jerry's- unhealthy food, bad sanitary conditions, never sit down for 8 hours. The religious folk leave no tips. Some people are mean. Gets job as housekeeping, 6.10 an hour and one week vacation. At the end she walks out, I had gone into this venture in the spirit of science, to test a mathematical proposition, but somewhere along the line, in the tunnel vision imposed by long shifts and relentless concentration, it became a test of myself, and clearly I have failed Insight: - How former welfare recipients and single mothers will (and do) survive in the low-wage workforce, I cannot imagine - Hard to hold 2 jobs, not enough money on 1 and she had an advantage of already being healthy, stamina, and a car. In reality they are likely to be fraught with insult and stress. But I did discover one redeeming feature of the most abject low-wage work-the camaraderie of people who are, in almost all cases, far too smart and funny and caring for the work they do and the wages they're paid. The hope, of course, is that someday these people will come to know what they're worth, and take appropriate action
Week 8: Class and Inequality Lecture 1
Major axes of distinction in modern society 1) class 2) race 3) gender Minor axes of distinction in Modern Societies 1) region 2) occupational sector 3) age/generation These axes of distinction create different life chances and thus result in different outcome probabilities. SE status, status attainment, health, and happiness as other factors. Different Possible Stratification Systems - Slavery - Caste - Estates class Veil of Ignorance: Wealthy- want inequality Poor- more redistributive Characteristics of Class - Classes are fluid - Class positions in some part are acheived - Class is economically - Class systems are large-scale and impersonal Categories 1) upper 2) middle 3) working 4) under Rich Getting Richer Graphic - In 2005, the 14,588 families who made more than $9.5 million had 5% of income.
Week 7: Family Andrew J. Cherlin: "The Deinstitutionalization of American Marriage
Marriage has undergone a weakening of the social norms that define partners' behavior in a social instituion such as marriage- over the past decades. Two transitions 1) The instructional marriage shift to the companionate marriage. 2) The individualized marriage in which the emphasis on personal choice and self-development expanded. Transition 1 The single earner homemaker marriage usually adhered to sharp division of labor, be eachothrs companions and friends to an extent not imagined in insitutional marriage of previous era. Gratification of playing marital roles well- good providers, homemakers. Beginning in 1960s- marriage dominance began to diminish, stayed single into late 20s. Cohabitation became much more common before marriage. Childbearing outside marriage more common. Transition 2: Individualized Marriage Gradually companiate marriage was overtaken in the 1960s by forms of marriage such as husbands and wives working outside home. 1) Self Development: PPL began to think more in terms of own sense of self and feelings instead of sacrifcing to partner. 2) Roles within marriage should be flexible and negotiable 3)Communication and oppenness in confronting problems are essential. TRANSITION FROM ROLE TO SELF Other Causes - "stalled revolution": men doing more home work, but still a wide variation. changing division of labor at home - increase in childbearing outside marriage -cohabitation: complexity in stepfamilies, formed by cohabitation instead of marriage... couple may marry later (but stats dont reflect later marriage) - same sex marriage Obergefell vs. Hodges (2015) federal legalized gay marriage "family of choice": voluntary ties among individuals who are not biologically or legally related. - The declining power of social norms and laws as regulators for family life, and expanding role of personal choice. Pure relationship: partnership entered for its own sake, logical extension of increased individualism and deinst. of marraige... not tied to any inst such as marriage or desire to raise children, independent of social insts. or econ life. Reasons to Marry Practical importance of marriage has declined, BUT its symbolic significance has remained high and increased. Marker of prestige and personal achievement. Enforcable Trust: a public commitment to a long term, lifelong relationship. expressed in front of relatives, friends, religious. Cohab only requires a private commitment, easy to break. Low-Income: as a future goal, once all ducks in a row. financially ready. Examples of symbolic significance
Week 10: Healthcare Lecture 1
Medicilaziton relates to James Coleman's Assymetrical Society
Week 10: Medicilization Lecture 1
Medicilzation in relation to James Coleman's Asymmetrical Society - Proliferation of formal organizations - In the past, local country doctor, personal arrangement, a primary care physician use to run the practice solo. - Now you have call centers that have nurses to talk to you.. in past you could call the physician directly. - Now there are groups of physicians (satellite of a large hospital system- formal organization if you will) because it is more cost effective than private office. Where the individual is interacting with large formal organizations. Medicilzation in relation to Ritzer's Mcdonaldization - standardized, cost-efficient, not much variability, being treated as a number. In medicine- large scale mcdonaldization of healthcare delivery. - standard of care= ensures you're receiving the appropriate right treatment based on symptoms.. flows over to "standard care", sometimes you might need more than standard care. Defintion of sick is not a medical characterization, but a social designation. The sick role (persons): Functionalist Theory 1) Sick person not responsible 2) sick person entitled to rights and respond to rights and responsibilities, thus exempt from normal duties 3) sick person expected to be compliant/cooperative. Sick role varies by different illnesses 1) unconditionally legitimate sick role (terminally ill, not responsibile) 2) Conditionally legitmate sick role (some responsibility) 3) Illegitimate sick role (stigmatized
Lecture Gender & Sexuality Part II
Or, in contrast, both sex and gender are socially constructed products. -Not only is gender a purely social creation that lacks a fixed essence; the human body itself is subject to social forces that shape and alter it in various ways Ex 1: For instance: A society in which masculinity is characterized by physical strength and tough attitudes will encourage men to cultivate a specific body image and set of mannerisms. Ex 2: Biology can even be made and remade in society. Who you mate with can be made and remade. Who you are around, who you are allowed to be with, birth control is a social intervention in biology. Anthropological Diversity- variety of ways people do with gender "Pluralization of gender identities": do gender differently in different contexts. Man: only in front of certain only in certain areas. Gender operates through a series of norms 1) statistical reference- expectations, numbers 2) Command- requirement that carries normal weight. Norms as rules of behavior, most are implicit. C. Wright Mills: put personal issues in light of public issues Gender Inequality: differences in the status, power, and prestige of women and men and of sexual identities/practices. Do women and men have equal access to valued social resources? Enter question of what social resources are valued- food, money, power, time? Do women and men have equal, or equivalent life options? Inequalities at Work: Rates of employment, sectors of employment (gender segregation), gender typing (leadership vs. service/support, independence vs. community building), harrassment, pay gap, glass ceilings Inequalities at Home: work/family balance, division of labor (housework): second shift, equity vs. equality.
Week 12: Memory & Commemoration Kirk Savage: "The Politics of Memory: Black Emancipation and the Civil War Monument"
Question: Not which heroes or which victories ought to be celebrated, but what IDEAS deserved representation. Idea of warfare= unfit stone or metal soldier standing intact and ready on a simple pedestal. Reasons for Monuments -One commemorative impulse unites monuments of north and south- to perpetuate the memory of men who had fought and died. - argument that ppl are forgetful and need social memory bolstered by powerful mnemonic aids - mem safe in present but monuments needed to transmit across gens. - counterargument that heroism is undying and will outlast even monuments, which are built as proof of memory's reality and strength. Real Reasons -common assumption that shared memory, inhering within "the people" was vital to that people's strength and independence. So monuments perp. mem in external deposits, located not within people but within its ;shared public space. -Monuments serve to anchor collective remembering - towns wanted to participate in shared memory Sectional Reconcilation was founded on the nonconciliation of African-Americans. Black Americans do not have monuments. In the south, reconciliation and commemoration were two social processes that eventually converged upon a shared, if disguised, racial process. Statue of Lee in Richmond, VA Commemoration of Lee rested on a suppression of black memory, black truth The northern press was less defiant and accepted that lee was an american hero. Statues built by people with power to marshal public consent for their erection... so monument represents a kind of collective recognition- legitamcy- for memory deposited there. commemoration of the civil war in physical memorials is ultimately a story of systematic cultural repression, carried out in the guise of reconciliation and harmony. Public monuments are important bc impose memory on the very landscape within wheich we order our lives. In as much as the monuments make credible particular collectivities, they must erase others, or they erase the very possibility of rival collectivities. The cultural contest that monuments seem to settle need not end once they are built/dedicated... countermonuments
Week 7: Family Hochschild: The "Daddy Hierarchy" and Beyond
The hierarchy: Top: Daddy who spent time with daughter and built her doll house Middle: Daddies present but preoccupied repairing broken cars.. or dads who loved their children but spanked them too hard Bottom: Daddies who disappeared from their children's lives. Five Points 1) Men's ideal of manhood, in competition with new father (nurturing, involved) 2) This ideal is in tension with other ideals 3) The reality of fatherhood is increasingly diversified (breadwinner fathers are marginilized on 1 side by "new father" and on the other by "dead-beat dad". 4) The spread of the ideal new father and econ situation are likely to increase the number of active fathers. 5) BUT men may become more active fathers in a culture in which the quality of childhood is declining. Western Culture New Father= challenges older notions of fatherhood associated with male honor, lots of kids, money, authority, etc. Ideal of Fatherhood corresponds to a transfer of resources from father to child. Emotional Capital: paternal emotional involvement helps reproduce individual class standing Diversity of Fatherhood: - Mainstream father as sole breadwinner is being edged out by father as co-provider but not only BW. - New father and Dead Beat Dad emergece: former earns money and provides meotional care, latter does neither. - New father emerges in response to new mother in response to declining power of men, a result of global competition on male jobs. New Men: fully sharing the care of the children and home and fully identifying themselves as men through this sharing. Opposite for divorce- associated with weaken bonds between father and children. To phantom relationships (fathers imagine a relationship at one end that a child does not feel at the other) 1/2 marriages end in divorce. Three Ways to Support Active Fathering 1) A nationwide policy of work sharing. Employ a company based family friendly reforms which allocates parents more control over their work time (flexible and shorter hours). 2) Attempt to turn bad divorces into better ones, per say. Expansion of mediation programs and counseling services that help young couples make sure they are getting the best care for their children 3) The creation of a father-friendly environment for preschool children in daycare centers and in homes b/c early childhood communication systems are designed to promote interaction between female parents and female staff. 4 lite: need to enrich the overall culture of childhood. Enlarge and support parenting communities, instead of quickly dropping off at daycare or school. Fatherhood as something one does and less as what one is. Becomes a matter of active choice as kinship weakens. They cherish their children, but devalue the work of raising them. They focus on their children, privately, one by one, but largely ignore the social world in which they grow up
Week 10 Medicalization
Relationships with previous texts: Medicalization relates to James Coleman's Essay, George Ritzer's Mcdonaldization in reference to healthcare delivery systems, deviance, and Nature/nurture distinction.
Lecture Gender & Sexuality
Sex vs. Gender: Belief that sex is biologically determined and gender is social learned Gender Socialization: Is gender socialization a smooth process of learning and coming into identities, or a rough process of being forced into roles? Society acts as a machine that is ascribing statuses. Major axes of Distinction in Modern Societies= class, race, and gender Minor axes of Distinction in Modern Societies= Region, occupational sector, age/generation The identity gender makes on us is unique to our time and place, gender roles have changed. Gender is different than race or class because it has a biological component. Nature/Nurture: False/Spurious" While XX and XY are real in a biological or material sense, world is not as easy as XX and XY (EX: 1 in 2000 babies are referred to ("ambiguous genitalia") there are more people in the world with ambiguous genitalia than Jews.
Week 12: Memory and Commemoration Eviatar Zerubavel: "Social Memories" Steps to a Sociology of the Past."
Social Environment affects the way we remember the past. Pychologists and memory, they typically go to the other extremes and focus primarily on the individual in psychoanalysis (concerned with personal memories) Personal: We each have our own autobiographical memories, made up of personal experiences that we don't share. Nonpersonal: we also have memories we share with some people but not with others. Common nature of memories indicates they are clearly not just personal, but can also be confined to a particular thought community means they are not universal either. The Social Context of Remembering Other people may have better access to certain parts of our past, than us. Earliest memories are from recollections of stories we heard about in childhood. Much of what we remember is filtered (and distorted) through a process of interpretation- takes place within social surrounding. Mnemonic Socialization: Family plays an important role. All interpretations of our early recollections are only reinterpretations of thew ay they were originally experienced and remembered within the context of our family. Social rules of remembrance: what we should remember or what we must forget. Power of society to relegate the past, time to put something behind us. Division of the past into a memorable "history" and a practically forgettable "pre-history"or irrelevelent "Discoveries" Memory of columbus: As a discovery. so American history begins in 1492, ignores the millions of Native Americans. Also ignores pre-columbian euro encounters. The idea that nothing before 1492 can be considered American history. Mnemonic Communities much of what we remember we did not expereince personally. We do so as members of families, organizations, nations, and other communities. Sociobiographical memory: a sense of pride, pain, or shame we sometimes experience with regard to events that had happened to groups and communities to which we belong long before joining. (ex: sense of shame germans feel for attrocities of Nazis) Social Memory: invention of language freed human memory from the necessity of being stored in the minds of individuals. "share" Preservation of social memory through ruins, old buildings, etc. Collective Memory: A social memory involves not only impersonal but also collective recollections... shared by an entire community. Various different personal pasts into a single common past that all members of community come to remember collectively. Memory is commonly shared and jointly remembered. co-remember past events on holidays Mnemonic Battles: Native Americans vs. Colombians Pearl Harbor vs. Hiroshima Eurocentrists vs. multiculturalists. Memory is not an entirely subjective phenomenon bc mnemonic battles involve entire communities. Memory is more than just a personal act is evident from the fact that major changes in the way we come to view the past correpond to major social changes that affect not just inds but entire mnemonic communities... memory as a social intersubjective phemonmen.
Week 9: Deviant Behavior Lecture 1
Social Forces= Norms Emile Durkheim: - - social order is a moral order - set of rules, boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable behavior and commitments. morality- violation of a basic rule homosexuality marijuana smoking deviant behavior and social control Normal vs. Deviant Crimes - violent - property - organized - white collar - corporate and governmental Lifestyle (festishes) Political Mental Illness (skitsafranics possessed by spirits) Disability birth defects - stigma Explaining Deviance Who is likely to be deviant? Predicting deviance - physiological theories -neurological/pyschiatric theories -pyshcological theories - socialization - Sociological theories Deviance is pervasive - acts versus identities.
Week 8: Class & Inequality Hochschild: Trump's Biggest Fans
Sociologist writing about Americ's ever-widening political divide Left far left Berkeley to far right Louisiana to interview 60 people in all. High cancer, lot of pollution, low education rates, Trailerpark, Crestwood, take medicaid and food stamps (like mama) Felt that the federal government (under Obama) was bringing down the hardworking rich and struggling middle while lifting the idea poor. Many men do not want a handout, content with life. The more money you earned, the more you could give to others, giving was good. (ambition key to goodness- basis of pride) If you could work, receiving a government benefits was a source of shame You are patiently standing in the middle of a long line stretching toward the horizon, where the American Dream awaits. But as you wait, you see people cutting in line ahead of you. Many of these line-cutters are black—beneficiaries of affirmative action or welfare. Some are career-driven women pushing into jobs they never had before. Then you see immigrants, Mexicans, Somalis, the Syrian refugees yet to come. As you wait in this unmoving line, you're being asked to feel sorry for them all. You have a good heart. But who is deciding who you should feel compassion for? Then you see President Barack Hussein Obama waving the line-cutters forward. He's on their side. In fact, isn't he a line-cutter too? How did this fatherless black guy pay for Harvard? As you wait your turn, Obama is using the money in your pocket to help the line-cutters. He and his liberal backers have removed the shame from taking. The government has become an instrument for redistributing your money to the undeserving. It's not your government anymore; it's theirs. This story reflects pain, you've done everything right but you're falling back. Blame on an ill-intentioned government. She was doing her level best but wondered why the travails of others so often took precedence over families such as her own. Affirmative-Action blacks, immigrants, refugees seemed to so routinely receive sympathy and government help. a liberal sympathy machine had been set on automatic, disregarding the giving capacity of families like hers. You're not in the 'in' crowd if you're not a liberal. You're an old-fashioned old fogey, small thinking, small town, gun loving, religious, "The media tries to make the tea party look like bigots, homophobic; it's not." They resented all labels "the liberals" had for them, especially "backward" or "ignorant Southerners" or, worse, "rednecks." Trump opened divide, those in the middle class wanted to halt the "line-cutters" by slashing government giveaways. America needed set of values that rewarded the good and punished the bad. in 1960: white men with education and without education life looked the same: Most were married and stayed married, went to church, worked full time (if they were men), joined community groups, and lived with their children. in 2010: the top looked the same, but the bottom blue collar did not have both parents, less church, less trust, low hours, sleept longer, watch more TV Loss of moral values as answer or loss of morale? alcohol abuse and suicide are signs of not loss of abandoned values, but of lost hope....see rescue in phrase "Great Again"] Trump solves a white male problem of pride Thus, Trump offers the blue-collar white men relief from a taker's shame: If you make America great again, how can you not be proud?
Week 8: Class & Inequality Lareau: "Invisible Inequality": Social Class and Childrearing in Black Families and White Families
Two Parenting Strategies: 1) Middle class parents engage in concerted cultivation by attempting to foster children's talents through organized leisure activities and extensive reasoning. Also, these children gained individually insignificant but important advantages. 2) Working class and poor parents stress the accomplishments of natural growth, providing the conditions under which children can grow but leaving leisure activities to children themselves. These children did not display the same type of entitlement or advantages. Few researchers have attempted to integrate what is known about behaviors and attitudes taught inside the home with the ways in which these practices may provide unequal resources for family members outside the home.
Week 9: Deviant Behavior Katz: "Sneaky Thrills"
What does Katz mean by sneaky Thrills? Why is he so interested in this dimension of crime? Katz means that these types of crimes frequently thrill their practitioners, it is this thrill that motivates them to participate in nonviolent property crime as a sneaky thrill. Katz is interested in this dimension of crime because it can suggest that we rethink the relationships of age and social class to devious property crime- a clear sociological approach - Young people - no desire for aquisition, sometimes not steal anything - getting away with something in celebratory style is more important than keeping anything - it is not the taste for pizza that leads to crime; the crime makes the pizza tasty. Sneaky thrill is created because 1) a person tacitly generates the experience of being seduced to deviance 2) reconquers her emotions in a concentration dedicated to the production of normal appearances. 3) appreciates the reverberating significance of her accomplishment in a euphoric thrill. *rethink relationship of age and social class to devious property crime. experience of seduction of an object, a romantic encounter the act of smoking weed is a technical requirements, possibly intimidating, attracted to at first, all ppl know its deviant . objects already defined as deviant by social convention may reveal their seductive powers only after practiced use.
Week 9: Deviant Behavior Lecture 2
What is deviant behavior? can not be seperated from conformity, even deviant people are normal most of the time Conformity- If I don't conform I will cause trouble for myself. Afraid we will get caught....hinge on rationality There is a whole bunch of urges..except jail is not good. (Fear of Punishment is reason you don't misbehave.) Physiological theories Thieves- small wandering eyes, thick and close eyebrows. is false Pyschological Theories - defective socialization - insanity - freud's pyschoanlytic theory; personality; deviance connected to childhood experience - but deviance is actually normal. Sociological Theories 1. Rationality - calulcation of costs and benefits - poverty leads to crime - opportunity leads to deviance - we conform most of the time out of habit - latent function of school: obedience enscribed on our bodies. 2. Criminal Subcultures subculture theory: aka differential association - reinforcement; learning processes - contrary to mainstream values 3. Strain Theory - Merton's "Anomie and social structure From Causes to Consequences - social circumstances that give or hold back resources to individuals. Formation of Deviant Identities - subcultures - secondary deviation: identities people take on that constitute a deviant understanding. - Labeling Theory: is the view of deviance according to which being labeled as a "deviant" leads a person to engage in deviant behavior- Phemonenological theory cognitive deviance "Sneaky thrills" Institutional Theory Institutions cause deviance - prisons as schools of violence - mental hosptials - total institutions. Individual Strategies Techniques of Neutralization - denial - relativizing - rationalizing - minimizing - covering - passing Three Main Trends in dynamics of deviance of social construct 1) politicization 2) criminalization 3) medicalization 1) Politicization of Deviance 1) Conflict Theory/New Criminology - deviance as deliberately chosen, political in nature 2) Social Control as Repression - norms are the exercise of power - imposition of squareness - heteronormativity Politicization= recognizing that rules are made by people and groups for particular purposes (power) - identity and lifestyle (recognition as difference) - contributions of sociology (norms vs. patterns), anthropological diversity and historical transformation - Value relativization - blasé attitude 2) Criminalization = choice to penalize actions and severity. - change from retribution to restitution- is this accurate? - change from physical to moral punishment- arch of humanization - prohibition against torture- physical vs. mental Consequences of Criminalization - crime rates - recidivism - ripples in the pond - individual, family, community 3) Medicalization Process by which nonmedical problems become defined and treated as medical problems Contexts: 1) secularization 2) professionalization 3) surveillance (also criminalization) Examples: hyperactivity, mental illness, child abuse, alcoholism/addiction, obestiy, gender dyshoria, PMS, ADD/ADHD. Demedicalization= masturbation, childbirth, homosexuality, disability process by which a problem ceases to be defined as an illness or a disorder
Week 9: Deviant Behavior Rosenhan: On being Sane in Sane Places
What is- or is not= "normal" may have much to do with the labels that are applied to people in particular settings. More generally, there are a great deal of conflicting data on the reliability, utility, and meaning of such terms as "sanity," "insanity," "mental illness," and "schizophrenia." patients present symptoms, that those symptoms can be categorized, and, implicitly, that the sane are distinguishable from the insane... but questioned based on theoretical and anthropological considerations. but also on philosophical, legal, and therapeutic ones, the view has grown that psychological categorization of mental illness is useless at best and downright harmful, misleading, and pejorative at worst. Psychiatric diagnoses, in this view, are in the minds of observers andare not valid summaries of characteristics displayed by the observed. psychiatric diagnosis betrays little about the patient but much about the environment in which an observer finds him. despite their public show of sanity, the psuedopatients were never detected, each were discharged with a diagnosis of schizophrenia "in remission" Psychiatric diagnoses, on the contrary, carry with them personal, legal, and social stigmas.It was therefore important to see whether the tendency toward diagnosing the sane insane could be reversed The consequences of labeling and depersonalization We tend to "invent" knowledge and assume that we understand more than we actually do. need to remediate behavioral problems is enormous....but rather than acknowledging that we are embarking on understanding, we continue to label patients as insane, etc as if these words capture an essence of understanding. SO... diagnoses are not useful or reliable, cannot distinguish sane from insane. how many ppl are sane but not recognized as such in mental institutions? Psych diagnoses in error are rarely found, so the label sticks, a mark of inadequacy forever. Appear sane outside hospital, but insane inside it... Goffman calls the process of socialization "mortification", a metaphor that includes a process of depersonalization that have been descried Conclusions 1) cannot distinguish sane from the insane in psychiatric hospitals because the hospital itself imposes a special environment where the meaning of behavior can easily be misunderstood.-- consequences to patients hospitalized in env= powerlessness, depersonalization, segregation, mortification, and self labeling counterproductive to therapeutic way. 2) community mental health facilities tend to avoid pyschiatric labels, focus on specific problems and behaviors, and retain the individual in a relatively non-pejorative environment. 3) need to increase the sensitivity of mental health workers and researchers to the catch22 position of psychiatric patients. Reading materials in this area will be of help to some .... more research into social psychology of such total institutions will both facilitate treatment and deepen understanding.
Week 12: Commemoration & Memory Jay Winter: "From Remembering War: The Great War Between Memory and History in the 20th century"
Winter makes clear the complexities of the connections between war and memory. Introducing the concept of "historical remembrance" Historical Remembrance - In between mems of war are varied cultural practices that may be described as forms of historical remembrance. - Overlaps with personal/family remembrance and religious remembrance. - Draws on history and memory, documented narratives, and statements. Different from personal/family remmebrance: capacity to unite people who have no other bonds drawing them togethor. Different from religious remebrance: because it is being freed from preordained religious calender and santificied ritual forms. ..but still has family and sacred. War is influential in the market for historical remembrance.. keep alive name of those who passed. Remembrance as an act of symobolic exhance between those alive and those no longer here.. so we give them recognition and acknowledgment. Acknowledgement= active knowledge expressed in public as recognition (restating aloud of claims- moral, political,) that other humans have on us...claimants are victims of war and violence. Acknowledgement is a public act, a kind of remembrance expressed by groups of people prepared to share past togethor. Psychiatric Injury as form of remembrance... perfectly sane ppl become insane after war..political ramifactions (pensions, public expenditure, material compensation) Some doctors and pension officials reluctant behind every claim of pych injuries, some more liberal.