Chapter 1: The Promise, ch 3-An Intersection of Biography and History , Chapter 7: finding Out How the Social World Works, Ch 4: Theoretical Perspectives in sociology, ch3 intersection of biography and history-Sociology, c...

Trask's paradigm/fixed arrangement/pattern

"If you are thinking of visiting my homeland, please don't. We don't want or need any more tourists, and we certainly don't like them. If you want to help our cause, pass this message on to your friends." (120)

Emile Durkheim

"Normal state": when all parts of society fulfill their functions"Abnormal" or "pathological" state: when parts of a society are not fulfilling their functions

Robin Williams

He identified ten core U.S. values. (49, 52)

poststructuralism and postmodernism

Claude Lévi-Strauss—these theoretical schools seek to account for the apparent disintegration of modern culture over the past several decades.

fear

Part of what we ___ is losing what we think is the truth if we are sociologically mindful, however, we know that we never possess the absolute, complete truth.

interpretation

Questions of ____ ask what the meaning of something is, and can be raised by any fact, object, gesture, phrase, or behavior

systematic research

Schwalbe explains the advantages of using ______ to study the social world

Emile Durkheim

The great French sociologist whose writings form the basis for functionalist theory; was one of the first sociologists to make use of scientific and statistical techniques in sociological research (1951).

connections

The more we pay attention to and understand ____, interdependencies, and contingencies, the better we can see how our ways of thinking and acting affect others' chances for good lives

Deinstitutionalization

Weakening of the social norms that define people's behaviors in social institutions

Michael Schwalbe

Who wrote finding out how the social world works?

positive sanction

a reward given for following norms, ranging from a smile to a prize (45)

value cluster

a series of interrelated values that together form a larger whole (52)

DV

behavior

mindful

being ___ in these ways puts us on alert against fraud

Pathology of Power

by the 5th day, guards adopted roles fully due to their power they gained many guards stayed during their off days

theory

different explanations of social phenomena and provide a lens or perspective to help ua understand our social world

DVs

interaction of two groups individual reactions in reports

participant observation

interactionists use close contact and immersion in the everyday lives of the participants is necessary for understanding the meaning of actions,

Guard Uniforms

khaki shirt, khaki trousers, whistle, wooden baton, sunglasses

Prisoner Uniforms

loose smock, ankle chain, no underwear, stocking cap, rubber sandals, ID number

Design

none

folkways

norms that are not strictly enforced (47)

mores

norms that are strictly enforced because they are thought essential to core values (47)

paradox of domestic service

on one hand cleaning houses was degrading, on the other hand it can be high paying

Distress by Prisoners

one prisoner released because of emotional disturbance others were "on parole"

Functionalism

takes the position that society is a whole unit composed of interrelated parts.

looking at how the research was produced and consider alternatives that allows us to steer a path between nihilism and fanaticism

what is mindful skepticism

no that you don't know what you've seen but that what you've seen isn't enough to support the conclusion you've reached

what is the problem in each case?

Charles Horton Cooley on self image

"Looking at Glass-self." We imagine how we look by looking at people around us, think how others react and evaluate us, which frame out feelings and ideas about ourselves

Setting

basement of psychology department at Stanford University designed by former inmates (more realistic)

1931

when did LaPiere tour the country with the chinese students?

empirical and interpretive

research is a good way to answer ___ and ___ questions

check up on each other

research lets us ____

Theme links

+control +mundane realism +ecological validity +application -ethics -demand characteristics

Social Structure

Arrangement of systems by which people in a society interact

material forces of production

Everything needed for production to take place, including capital, land and labor

Family choice

Formed largely through voluntary ties among individuals

Curiosity, Care, and Hope

Helps us analyze the social world so we need curiosity, care, and hope. Makes a spark and a desire to pay attention

Method

Lab controlled observation study

Patriarchal Family

Men have greater authority over women (ex: Japan, South Korea)

mindfully

One should be ____, rather than indiscriminately, skeptical of new information

What are the three major factors that changed the meaning of marriage during the 20th century in the U.S.?

Out of wedlock births, cohabitation, and gay marriage

The Notion of Agency

Suggest that workers in all fields actively take at least some control of their own destinies

cultural diffusion

The process by which people of different cultures borrow elements of material or nonmaterial culture from one another.

Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf

These two anthropologists argued that language not only reflects thoughts and perceptions but that it actually shapes the way people think and perceive the world. (44-45)

feedback loops

Within the boundaries of the system, exchanges among the parts ordinarily lead to homeostasis.

interpret

adjust to these actions only because we are able to denote them symbolically and treat the actions and those who perform them as symbolic objects.

250; once

after visiting ___ hotels and restaurants, they were refused only ___

Role-making

all situations and roles are ambiguous requiring us to create those situations and roles to some extent before we can act.

symbolic culture

another term for nonmaterial culture (39)

Social conflicts

conflict approach emphasizes a materialist interpretation of history, .

eufunctions

consequences that are positively functional for a society

f

f

asking for clarification

how can we sometimes get an answer?

exchange theory

proposes that social behavior is the result of an exchange process. The purpose of this exchange is to maximize benefits and minimize costs. George Homans and Peter Blau.

valid and reliable

we need to check if our knowledge/info is ___ and ___

Conclusion

A prison environment has more effects on a healthy mind than individual differences do

rational choice theory

A theory that states that individuals act in their own best interest. and aligned with their own personal bjectives

Monogamy

A wife and husband

strange; familiar

sociology makes the familiar ___, and the strange ___

AIM

test the dispositional hypothesis that "condition of our penal system owing the the nature of the people who administrate it or the nature of the people who populate it"

when does an invisible servant become visible

the day they depart employment

new technology

the emerging technologies of an era that have a significant impact on social life (56)

ideal culture

the ideal values and norms of a people, the goals held out for them (54)

real culture

the norms and values that people actually follow (54)

cultural commodification

the transformation of goods, services, ideas and not least people into commodities or objects of trade.

ethnocentrism

the use of one's own culture as a yardstick for judging the ways of other individuals or societies, generally leading to a negative evaluation of their values, norms, and behaviors (37)

subculture

the values and related behaviors of a group that distinguish its members from the larger culture; a world within a world (48)

core values

the values that are central to a group, those around which it builds a common identity (49)

midrange theories

those that address one particular social finding

Do Women actively shape their own experience as agency at Bazooms?

yes

Eviatar Zerubavel

This sociologist offers an example of how language shapes our perceptions of the world (the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis). He notes that in his native Hebrew, there is no distinction made between the two forms of fruit spread—jams and jellies. It was only when he learned English that he was able to "see" the differences that were so obvious to English speakers. (45)

changes

We do not have to join a group or organize a protest to make _____. We can make them on our own, by deciding to live differently

Empirical

_____ questions are answerable by measuring, counting, or looking to see what happens

Invisibility of workers

a common characteristic of domestic servants

social control mechanisms

exist to restore conformity or to segregate the nonconforming individuals from the rest of society.

sanctions

expressions of approval or disapproval given to people for upholding or violating norms (45)

fsocial uteractivita research

face to face interactions, and on the meaning of the events to the participants in those events

cultural relativism

not judging a culture, but trying to understand it on its own terms (38)

Why is it useful to have interpretive questions?

Because we can dig up evidence that supports the question

pragmatic actors

Humans continually must adjust their behavior to the actions of other actors.

What is the major criticism of what Anthony Giddens argued about changes in social norms and emergence of "pure relationship"?

Importance of taking children into account

critically interrogated

Knowledge from any source should be _______

why law does not evolve to protect teenage part-time workers?

Most cases are settled quickly and quietly out of court

cultural leveling

Occurs when different cultures come to seem alike as a result of a great deal of cultural diffusion.

William Ogburn

Ogburn coined the term "cultural lag." (57)

Emotional Labor

Requires one to induce or suppress feeling (ex: At Bazooms workers need to demonstrate a happy, shining personality

IV

guards and prisoners

Sample

22 physically and mentally stable males- 23 Caucasian and 1 Asian, 10 prisoners and 11 guards

Participants

24 males all college students from US and Canada 23 white 1 oriental $15 a day

new knowledge

Being sociologically mindful, we can get a lot better view of what is coming at us by way of ______ and where it is coming from

social construct

Being sociologically mindful, we now that the social world is a ______. All the ideas, habits, arrangements, and so on that make up the social world are human creations.

Charles Darwin

Darwin studied the principles on which natural selection occurred. (55)

What does Anthony Giddens argue about changes in marriage?

Declining power and social norms and emergence of "pure relationships" (an intimate relationship entered for one's own sake)

prostitution metaphor

Degradation of our culture and our people under corporate tourism by employing "prostitution" as an analytic category

Robert Edgerton

Edgerton attacks the concept of cultural relativism, suggesting that because some cultures endanger their people's health, happiness, or survival, there should be a scale to evaluate cultures on their "quality of life." (39, 57)

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf's hypothesis that language creates ways of thinking and perceiving (45)

What kind of research did Meika Loe use to study workers a bazoom?

Ethnography and interviews (qualitative study)

Nuclear Family

Married couple and their unmarried children

outrage

Mere awareness of problems-- inequalities, exploitation, the suffering of others-- is not supposed to inspire hope. It is supposed to inspire ____ and a desire to change things.

Individualized Marriage

People evaluate how satisfied with their marriage by thinking of personal development and expression of feelings

wang chen and wen tao

who were most likely his subjects?

why women struggle rather than following the rules at sexualized workplaces?

Their self esteem

Fetter-Vorm

who wrote attitudes vs actions?

interdependencies

The more we pay attention to and understand connections, ____, and contingencies, the better we can see how our ways of thinking and acting affect others' chances for good lives

contingencies

The more we pay attention to and understand connections, interdependencies, and ____, the better we can see how our ways of thinking and acting affect others' chances for good lives

cultural lag

William Ogburn's term for human behavior lagging behind technological innovations (57)

careful research

___ is the best way to create valid and reliable knowledge about the social world

Humiliation

arrested in front of neighbors loose smock being known by ID number reduced individualization

Macro Perspective

focuses on how social structure interacts with our life

levels of society

functional or dysfunctional: the specific social units for which regularized patterns of behavior are

discourse analysis or cultural studies

is an approach to the study of communication which explores culturally distinctive communication practices in our world. The theory is based upon the premise that communication consists of culturally situated means and meanings active in various local contexts.

social relatios of production

refers to the division of labor and implied class relationships

Purpose of a Prison

rehabilitate punishment

material culture

"Land is now called real estate, rather than our own mother, papa"

2 focuses of Functionalism

1. application of the scientific method to the objective social world 2. use of an analogy between the individual organism and society

culture

: the language, beliefs, values, norms, behaviors, and even material objects that are passed from one generation to the next (36)

Research

Advantages of Systematic Research 2. ____ can get us beyond personal experience and casual observation, because to ____ is to look beyond what is obvious to us from where we stand

working together

Advantages of Systematic Research 3. By ______, we can do better at dispelling illusions and creating knowledge that is valid and reliable

questions that are answerable by measuring, counting, or looking to see what happens

Empirical questions are what?

dramaturgically

Erving Goffman (1958), using an analogy to the theater, with human social behavior seen as more or less well scripted and with humans as role-taking actors.

Feminism

Focusing their analyses on gender inequalities and on the institution of patriarchy, sought to understand society from the standpoint of women.

secondary analysis

Giordano's research is called what?

Authors

Haney, Banks, and Zimbardo

breaching experiments,

Harold Garfinkel, investigations, "experiments in trust," brought ordinary conversations to an abrupt halt demanded explanations and then explanations of the explanations

What is an example of an empirical question

How much does this book weigh? You don't know unless you weigh the book

social construction theory

Human actions are subject to historical forces and thus to change

sociological mindfulness

If it is to be worth practicing, _______ must help us change ourselves and our ways of doing things together so we can live more peacefully and productively with others, without exploitation, disrespect, and inequality. It is a path to heartful membership in a conversation that ought to have no end.

reality

In Schwalbe, ___ can surprise us

Background

Interpersonal dynamics were studied in a prison environment by designing a prison simulation where subjects role-played prisoners and guards for an extended period of time

What is an example of an aesthetic question?

Is the cover of this book beautiful? Suppose you ask 10 people, not all of them are going to say its beautiful. "No measuring stick will settle the matter."

dialectical method

Marxist method, based on Hegel focuses attention on how an existing social arrangements, generates its social opposite, or antithesis

How is masculine culture related to success in marketing a sexualized workplace?

Masculine cultures fantasizing female sex appeal contributes to greta success in marketing.

Polyandry

More than one husband

Polygamy

More than one wife

George Murdock

Murdock was an anthropologist who sought to determine which cultural values, norms, or traits, if any, were found universally across the globe. (55)

fanaticism

Nihilism ("There is no truth. Anyone can make up numbers. You might as well believe what you want.") and ____ ("There is only one truth and my people know it. All other beliefs are false or insane.") are dead ends because they make conversation pointless and offer no hope of resolving conflict.

Did anyone predict the rise of cohabitation in the 1950s and 1960s?

No

others

One of the difficulties in learning about the social world is that we must rely on information created and filtered by ____. We must pay attention to how information (in the form of words or numbers) is created, by whom, for what purpose, who stands to benefit if this information is accepted as true? Being mindful in these ways puts us on alert against fraud, yet it does not cut us off from learning.

George Herbert Mean on Play

Play is an important since we learn to take roles of others through playing. Taking the role of others is an important part of learning to be a member of the society

Extended Family

Relatives that live in the same household as parents and their children

systematic research; sociologically mindful

Schwalbe explains the advantages of ___ and the importance of being ___ whenever addressing social research

Polyandry in India

Some regions in tibet practice this. It can be linked to poverty in area

William Sumner

Sumner developed the concept of ethnocentrism. (37)

What kind of theoretical perspective did author take?

Symbolic interactionism

ethnocentrism

The process of judging oneself and one's own society as superior. Ethnocentrism helps groups develop solidarity, but it can also lead to discrimination and prejudice. It is virtually impossible to escape ethnocentrism, but as sociologists we attempt to recognize and minimize it in our work.

phenomenology

The study of individuals' own unique, first-person, conscious experience.

Why do people still marry?

The symbolic significance of marriage

Aims

To investigate the psychological effects prison has on a normal, healthy mind and to test whether behaviors are situational or dispositional

being sociologically mindful helps...

We can see that our perspectives can create the possibility of understanding the world more fully because there are more angles to view the matter

Edward Wilson

Wilson is an insect specialist who claims that human behavior is also the result of natural selection. (56)

Matriarchal Family

Women have greater authority than men (Ex: Native American tribes where men were absent for long time for hunting)

Sexual Harassment in female dominated workplace

Women were less likely to report and view sexual harassment problems

logical deduction

___ is a fine way to elaborate our knowledge; except that if our premises are wrong, then our conclusions will be wrong

sociobiology

a framework of thought that views human behavior as the result of natural selection and considers biological characteristics to be the fundamental cause of human behavior (55)

What is an aesthetic question?

a question about what is subjectively pleasing to the senses

What is a moral question?

a question that calls for judgement about what is right to do. All you can do is to offer reasonable arguments

pluralistic society

a society made up of many different groups (49)

language

a system of symbols that can be combined in an infinite number of ways and can represent not only objects but also abstract thought (43)

conflict theory

a theoretical framework in which society is viewed as composed of groups that are competing (conflicting)for scarce resources

cultural universal

a value, norm, or other cultural trait that is found in every group (55)

Imaginatively rehearse

ability to Imaginatively rehearse alternative lines of action before we act.

selves

ability to think about and to react to our own actions and even our selves as symbolic objects.

negative sanction

an expression of disapproval for breaking a norm, ranging from a mild, informal reaction such as a frown to a formal prison sentence or an execution (45)

interactionist see humans

as active creative participants who construct their social world

What is a interpretation question?

asking yourself, "What does this mean?" An object, fact, phrase, or behavior can raise a question of interpretation

nihilism and fanaticism

being mindful skeptical allows us to avoid being ___ and ___

because they give us more angles from which to view it

being sociologically mindful allows us to see alternative perspectives which create the possibility of understanding the world fully how?

we never posses the absolute complete truth and that we never get to the whole truth about the social world

being sociologically mindful, we know what?

Talcott Parsons

believed society is a collection of systems within systems: the personality system within the small group system within the community system within society

Disadvantages of Simulation

can make it too reductionist not real and may lack ecological validity

class struggle.

capitalists need workers, and vice versa, but the economic interests of the two groups are fundamentally at odds.

personal biases

careful research can control what?

mindful skepticism

careful research leads to ____

Dispositional Hypothesis

cause of behavior is due to some feature located within an individual rather than being due to the situation

dysfunctions

consequences that injure the society

Qual Data

conversations participants recorded behavior using video open ended questions

negotiation

creates stability in the social system, for interactionists, creates temporary, socially constructed relations, which remain in constant flux,

s

d

socialogical theory both ____ research and can be _____from research

drives, generated

social system

emphasis on the organic unity of society, leads functionalists to speculate about needs which must be met for a social system to exist, as well as the ways in which social institutions satisfy those needs

incomplete

even with careful research, all knowledge is ___

Arrest

fake arrested participants from their home for burglary went through real arrest procedure, in front of the neighbors blindfolded in his cell at the station taken to prison, searched, stripped, and given uniform

marx divided history into 3 stages

feudalism, capitalism, and socialism

Ethnomethodology

how people who are interacting with each other can create the illusion of a shared social order even when they don't understand each other

technology

in its narrow sense, tools; its broader sense includes the skills or procedures necessary to make and use those tools (56)

Ethnocentric Bias

only two ethnic groups varies in prisons in real life didnt include people from other locations

Role-taking

permits us to take the other's perspective, to see what our actions might mean to the other actors with whom we interact.

Apparatus

police, police car, police station bars, corridor used as the park, and a broom closet used as solitary confinement

Social Institutions

provided patterns of relationships (ex: religion, family, government, etc)

Data

questionnaires, mood inventories, personality tests, daily guard shift reports, post experimental interviews, transactions within subjects recorded on video and audio tapes and directly observed

empirical questions

questions that are unanswerable by measuring, counting, or looking to see what happens

Usefulness (+)

raises awareness of the the importance of treating prisoners like people, or else their behavior could worsen

Roles

random 8 guards and 1 on standby 3 prisoners per cell, 3 cells 2 on standby

IV

random assignment of guard or prisoner

social control mechanisms

range from santions inposed infomally (sneering and gossip) to formal sanctions like schools, prisons, and mental institutions.

Concl - Dispositional Hypothesis

rejected participants were not bad situation caused guards to behave badly

moral and aesthetic

research cannot answer ___ and ___ questions

theological

reversing the usual order of casue and effect by explaining things in terms of what happens afterward- referring to functionalosm

Rebellion

second morning, prisoners removed caps, ID numbers, and wouldnt leave cells guards called off duty guards to help guards used unnecessary force

to generate new data

secondary analysis is one of the four major types of research, the other three require the researcher to ____

Sampling

self selected

Usefulness (-)

situation was only a simulation threats by guards were not real, because of the rules that were made against violence

cultural relativism

the belief that people can only be understood in the context of their own culture. Cultural relativism is a strategy for overcoming ethnocentrism; it does not state which way of doing things is better.

culture shock

the disorientation that people experience when they come in contact with a fundamentally different culture and can no longer depend on their taken-for-granted assumptions about life (37)

norms

the expectations, or rules of behavior, that reflect and enforce behavior (45)

Value-free means

the investigator's values will not necessarily interfere with the disinterested search for social laws governing the behavior of social systems.

materialist view

the premise that the most important determinant of social life is the work people are doing, in provision of the basic necessities of life, food, clothing, and shelter.

cultural leveling

the process by which cultures become similar to one another, and especially by which Western industrial culture is imported and diffused into industrializing nations (58)

cultural diffusion

the spread of cultural characteristics from one group to another (57)

capitalism

the stage of economic and social devlopement where private property is controlled by a small minority of the poulation - the bourgeoisie and the worker- the prolatariat- who are exploited which leads to opression

gestures

the ways in which people use their bodies to communicate with one another (39

nihilism

there is no truth

beyond what is obvious to us from where we stand; personal experience

to research means to look ______ and get us beyond ___

exploitation

use for profit

value contradictions

values that contradict with one another; to follow the one means to come into conflict with the other (53)

completely obscured by it

wang chen and wen tao were essential to the study yet almost what?

AIM 2

wanted to test how good people would react in a prison setting

curiosity, care, and hope

we need ___, ___, and ___ to spark a desire to pay attention to the social world to try to understand it as it is and to use this awareness to pursue change

done in the real world; not in a lab

what are field experiments?

ethnography and survey

what two research methods did LaPiere use?

do attitudes about racial discrimination differ from actions?

what was lapiere's hypothesis?

Method

simulation

Symbolic Interactionism sociologists (3)

1) Max Weber (1864-1920) 2)George H. Mead (1863-1931), 3) Herbert Blumer

*Robert Merton-

1) manifest and latent functions 2)consequences that are positively functional for a society 3)important distinctions to avoid potential weaknesses and clarify ambiguities 3)levels of society, functional or dysfunctional. 4)particular social structures

Criticism of functionalism

1) often focus on the individual, 2) treating individuals either as puppets, 3) Less control on personal destiny, 4) criticized as teleological

conflict theory (materialistic view)

1)men enter into relations which are independent of their will 2) the totalisty of these relations constutute the strucure of society 3)it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence but their social existance that determins their consciousness.

Symbolic Interactionism focus

1)on the subjective aspects of social life 2)macro-structural aspects of social systems 3)theoretical perspective on their image of humans,

***Criticism of Symbolic Interactionism

1)overly impressionistic 2)unsystematic theories. 3)narrow focus on small group interactions

what contributes to the problem of determining the number of chicanos and mexicans employed as private household workers

1)paid household works are not one of the occupations recorded in social science surveys 2) US census lumps all all private houshold qorkers under one code 3) when domestic workers are paid under the table 4) domestic worker wages not reported to IRS

Three examples of Agency (freewill to deal with sexualized workplace)

1. Challenging the power structure 2. Resist and manipulate gender roles to fit their needs 3. Counteracting and co-opting sexual identities

Findings

1/2 the prisoners got sick and left Prisoners experienced flattened affect prisoners experienced low self esteem prisoners and guards were negative and completely immersed in their roles by the second day 58/61 relations involved individualizing 27/32 incidents of guards threatening prisoners 90% of prisoner's conversations were about prison Resistance was observed 34 times Guards talked about prisoners prisoners used instruments 23 times The experiment ended after 6 days due to pathological issues- guards were distressed and prisoners were happy

homeostatic social system

social systems work to maintain equilibrium and to return to it after external shocks disturb the balance among social institutions.

Symbolic Interactionism

society is produced and reproduced through our interactions by means of symbols and our interpretation of those symbols.

written questionnaires

sociologists of the time relied too heavy on ___ and weren't getting an accurate sense of what constitutes and attitude

symbol

something to which people attach meaning and then use to communicate with others (39)

End

study ended after 5 days instead of 2 weeks mental states were deteriorating guards were treating them worse Zimbardos wife told him to stop the study

uses a combo of these methods; Fetter Vorm

the best research uses what? example?

Situational

the guards showed bad behavior towards the prisoners because of the situation that they were placed in. they were given power, but the abused it

material culture

the material objects that distinguish a group of people, such as their art, buildings, weapons, utensils, machines, hairstyles, clothing, and jewelry (36)

values

the standards by which people define what is desirable or undesirable, good or bad, beautiful or ugly (45)

manifest functions

those which are recognized and intended by actors in the social system and hence may represent motives for their actions.

latent functions

those which are unrecognized and, thus, unintended by the actors

questions that often arise when we confront works of art; any fact, object, gesture, phrase, or behavior- anything that has meaning- can raise this question

what are interpretation questions?

advantages: tests a large group with a random sample; disadvantages: attitudes vs actions, people may under report undesirable behavior and over report desirable behavior, surveys cannot dig very deep to reveal social context and hidden patterns

what are the advantages and disadvantages of a survey?

advantages: produces highly valid data and observer bias is not a major problem; disadvantages: very time consuming and can we generalize to similar people and setting

what are the advantages and disadvantages of ethnography?

advantages: more control-- you can tell whether X causes Y; disadvantages: it is harder to examine on a large scale (macro) the cause and effect but the internet might change this

what are the advantages and disadvantages of experiments?

ethnography; experiments; survey

what are the other 3 types of research

question that calls for a judgement about what is right to do

what is a moral question?

analyzing an existing source of info or data; census

what is a secondary analysis? example?

a behavior pattern, anticipatory set or tendency, predisposition to specific adjustment to designated social situation or a way that we've learned to behave in response to certain social interactions

what is a social attitude?

asks questions; census, opinion polls

what is a survey?

a question about what is subjectively pleasing to the senses; it is not answerable by data

what is an aesthetic question?

set up a controlled situation in which only the variable of interest changes; are blacks with criminal records more likely to be refused jobs than whites?

what is an experiment? example?

observation; researcher immerses herself in the group she is studying; life among the working poor

what is ethnography? example?

Collective effort essence:

when we come together, People who are embedded in culture and connected with others are less likely to commit suicide.

anthropologists

who use ethnography the most?

Ethical Issues

harm and distress confidentiality breech difficult for some participants to withdraw

nonmaterial culture

made up of five basic categories- symbols, language, norms, values, and beliefs

Sampling

Volunteer/self-selecting ad in newspaper

others; parents; teachers; friends

much of what we know comes straight from ____

alternate views

We should also seek ______s, since this can help us see the limits of our own knowledge. A bit of conventional knowledge -- that "Columbus discovered America," for instance -- seems simple and true until an alternative is suggested: "Columbus launched a brutal invasion of an already populated continent." This is not just a different way to describe the same events, but a different way of seeing what those events were. If we try out this _______, we can look at what passes for conventional knowledge and see that it is, at the very least, contestable.

relativity of perspectives

What is conventional and what is alternative depends on where you stand. A view that you consider alternative might seem conventional to someone else. Recognizing this _______s is part of being sociologically mindful.

Technique

observations, interviewing, quantitative and qualitative data, self reports, self rate scales

interactionist society

organized, paterned interactions amoung individuals

Advantages of Simulation

participants can be protected from harm experimenters can have all control

structural alternatives

particular social structures, which satisfy functional needs of society, are not indispensable

Guard Jobs

role call meals toilet visits daily reading time work periods exercise periods

Nihilism

____ ("There is no truth. Anyone can make up numbers. You might as well believe what you want.") and fanaticism ("There is only one truth and my people know it. All other beliefs are false or insane.") are dead ends because they make conversation pointless and offer no hope of resolving conflict.

Logical deduction

____ is one way to know things, or to find out the implications of what we know. _____ is a fine way to elaborate our knowledge-- except that if our premises are wrong, then our conclusions will also be wrong.

Aesthetic

____ questions are about what is subjectively pleasing to the senses, and are not answerable with data

Moral

____ questions call for a judgment about what is right to do

counterculture

a group whose values, beliefs, and related behaviors place its members in opposition to the values of the broader culture (48)

nonmaterial culture

a group's ways of thinking (including its beliefs, values, and other assumptions about the world) and doing (its common patterns of behavior, including language and other forms of interaction) (36)

Ethnomethodology

a method of sociological analysis that examines how individuals use everyday conversation and gestures to construct a common-sense view of the world.

taboo

a norm so strong that it brings revulsion if it is violated (47)

PART 1 The Sociological Perspective 1 THE PROMISE C. WRIGHT MILLS The initial three selecåons examine the sociological perspective. The first of these is written by C. Wright Mills (1916—1962), a former professor of sociology at Columbia University. During his brief academic career, Mills became one of the best known and most controversial sociologists. He was critical of the U.S. government and other social institutions where power was unfairly concentrated. He also believed that academics should be socially responsible and speak out against social injustice. The excerpt that follows is from Mills' acclaimed book The Sociological Imagination. Since its original publication in 1959, this text has been required reading for most introductory sociology students around the world. Mills' sociological imagination perspective not only compels the best sociological analyses but also enables the sociologist and the individual to distinguish between "personal troubles" and "public issues." By separating these phenomena, we can better comprehend the sources of and solutions to social problems. owadays men often feel that their private lives are a series of fraps. They sense that within their everyday worlds, they cannot overcome their troubles, and in this feeling, they are often quite correct: What ordinary men are directly aware of and what they try to do are bounded by the private orbits in which they live; their visions and their powers are limited to the close-up scenes of job, family, neighborhood; in other milieux, they move vicariously and remain spectators. And the more aware they become, however vaguely, of ambitions and of threats which transcend their immediate locales, the more trapped they seem to feel. Underlying this sense of being trapped are seemingly impersonal changes in the very structure of continent-wide societies. The facts of contemporary history are also facts about the success and the failure of This article was written in 1959 before scholars were sensitive to gender inclusivity in language. The references to masculine pronouns and men are, therefore, generic to both males and females and should be read as such. Please note that I have left the author's original language in this selection and other readings.—Editor C. Wright Mills, "The Promise" from The Sociological Imagination. Copyright 0 1959, 2000 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Oxford University Press, Ltd. 1 2 individual men and women. When a society is indusfrialized, a peasant becomes a worker; a feudal lord is liquidated or becomes a businessman. When classes rise or fall, a man is employed or unemployed; when the rate of investment goes up or down, a man takes new heart or goes broke. When wars happen, an insurance salesman becomes a rocket launcher; a store clerk, a radar man; a wife lives alone; a child grows up without a father. Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both. Yet men do not usually define the troubles they endure in terms of historical change and institutional contradiction. The well-being they enjoy, they do not usually impute to the big ups and downs of the societies in which they live. Seldom aware of the infricate connection between the patterns of their own lives and the course of world history, ordinary men do not usually know what this connection means for the kinds of men they are becoming and for the kinds of history making in which they might take part. They do not possess the quality of mind essential to grasp the interplay of man and society, of biography and history, of self and world. They cannot cope with their personal troubles in such ways as to control the structural transformations that usually lie behind them. Surely it is no wonder. In what period have so many men been so totally exposed at so fast a pace to such earthquakes of change? That Americans have not known such catastrophic changes as have the men and women of other societies is due to historical facts that are now quickly becoming "merely history." The history that now affects every man is world history. Within this scene and this period, in the course of a single generation, onesixth of mankind is transformed from all that is feudal and backward into all that is modern, advanced, and fearful. Political colonies are freed; new and less visible forms of imperialism installed. Revolutions occur; men feel the intimate grip of new kinds of authority. Totalitarian societies rise and are smashed to bits—or succeed fabulously. After two centuries of ascendancy, capitalism is shown up as only one way to make society into an industrial apparatus. After two centuries of hope, even formal democracy is restricted to a quite small portion of mankind. Everywhere in the underdeveloped world, ancient ways of life are broken up and vague expectations become urgent demands. Everywhere in the overdeveloped world, the means of authority and of violence become total in scope and bureaucratic in form. Humanity itself now lies before us, the super-nation at either pole concentrating its most coordinated and massive efforts upon the preparation of World War Three. The very shaping of history now outpaces the ability of men to orient themselves in accordance with cherished values. And which values? Even when they do not panic, men often sense that older ways of feeling and thinking have collapsed and that newer beginnings are ambiguous to the point of moral stasis. Is it any wonder that ordinary men feel they cannot cope with the larger worlds with which they are so suddenly confronted? That they cannot understand the meaning of their epoch for their own lives? That—in defense of selfhood—they become morally insensible, trying to The Promise 3 remain altogether private men? Is it any wonder that they come to be possessed by a sense of the trap? It is not only information that they need—in this Age of Fact, information often dominates their attention and overwhelms their capacities to assimilate it. It is not only the skills of reason that they need—although their struggles to acquire these often exhaust their limited moral energy. What they need, and what they feel they need, is a quality of mind that will help them to use informaåon and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within themselves. It is this quality, I am going to contend, that journalists and scholars, artists and publics, scientists and editors are coming to expect of what may be called the sociological imagination. The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals. It enables him to take into account how individuals, in the welter of their daily experience, often become falsely conscious of their social posiåons. Within that welter, the framework of modern society is sought, and within that framework the psychologies of a variety of men and women are formulated. By such means the personal uneasiness of individuals is focused upon explicit troubles and the indifference of publics is transformed into involvement with public issues. The first fruit of this imagination—and the first lesson of the social science that embodies it—is the idea that the individual can understand his own experience and gauge his own fate only by locating himself within his period, that he can know his own chances in life only by becoming aware of those of all individuals in his circumstances. In many ways it is a terrible lesson; in many ways a magnificent one. We do not know the limits of man's capacities for supreme effort or willing degradation, for agony or glee, for pleasurable brutality or the sweemess of reason. But in our time we have come to know that the limits of "human nature" are frighteningly broad. We have come to that every individual lives, from one generation to the next, in some society; that he lives out a biography, and that he lives it out within some historical sequence. By the fact of his living he contributes, however minutely, to the shaping of this society and to the course of its history, even as he is made by society and by its historical push and shove. The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society. That is its task and its promise. To recognize this task and this promise is the mark of the classic social analyst. It is characterisåc of Herbert Spencer—turgid, polysyllabic, comprehensive; of E. A. Ross—graceful, muckraking, upright; of Auguste Comte and Emile Durkheim; of the intricate and subtle Karl Mannheim. It is the quality of all that is intellectually excellent in Karl Marx; it is the clue to Thorstein Veblen's brilliant and ironic insight, to Joseph Schumpeter's many-sided constructions of reality; it is the basis of the psychological sweep of W. E. H. Lecky no less than of the profundity and clarity of Max 4 Weber. And it is the signal of what is best in contemporary studies of man and society. No social study that does not come back to the problems of biography, of history and of their intersections within a society, has completed its intellectual journey. Whatever the specific problems of the classic social analysts, however limited or however broad the features of social reality they have examined, those who have been imaginatively aware of the promise of their work have consistently asked three sorts of questions: 1. What is the structure of this particular society as a whole? What are its essential components, and how are they related to one another? How does it differ from other varieties of social order? Within it, what is the meaning of any particular feature for its continuance and for its change? 2. Where does this society stand in human history? What are the mechanics by which it is changing? What is its place within and its meaning for the development of humanity as a whole? How does any particular feature we are examining affect, and how is it affected by, the historical period in which it moves? And this period—what are its essential features? How does it differ from other periods? What are its characteristic ways of history making? 3. What varieties of men and women now prevail in this society and in this period? And what varieties are coming to prevail? In what ways are they selected and formed, liberated and repressed, made sensitive and blunted? What kinds of "human nature" are revealed in the conduct and character we observe in this society in this period? And what is the meaning for "human nature" of each and every feature of the society we are examining? Whether the point of interest is a great power state or a minor literary mood, a family, a prison, a creed—these are the kinds of questions the best social analysts have asked. They are the intellectual pivots of classic studies of man in society—and they are the questions inevitably raised by any mind possessing the sociological imagination. For that imagination is the capacity to shift from one perspective to another—from the political to the psychologiCal; from examination of a single family to comparative assessment of the national budgets of the world; from the theological school to the military establishment; from considerations of an oil industry to studies of contemporary poetry. It is the capacity to range from the most impersonal and remote transformations to the most intimate features of the human self—and to see the relations between the two. Back of its use there is always the urge to know the social and historical meaning of the individual in the society and in the period in which he has his quality and his being. That, in brief, is why it is by means of the sociological imagination that men now hope to grasp what is going on in the world, and to understand what is happening in themselves as minute points of the intersections of biography and history within society. In large part, contemporary man's self-conscious view of himself as at least an outsider, if not a permanent The Promise 5 stranger, rests upon an absorbed realization of social relativity and of the transformaåve power of history. The sociological imagination is the most fruitful form of this self-consciousness. By its use men whose mentalities have swept only a series of limited orbits often come to feel as if suddenly awakened in a house with which they had only supposed themselves to be familiar. Correctly or incorrectly, they often come to feel that they can now provide themselves with adequate summations, cohesive assessments, comprehensive orientations. Older decisions that once appeared sound now seem to them products of a mind unaccountably dense. Their capacity for astonishment is made lively again. They acquire a new way of thinking, they experience a transvaluation of values: in a word, by their reflection and by their sensibility, they realize the cultural meaning of the social sciences. Perhaps the most fruitful distinction with which the sociological imagination works is between "the personal troubles of milieu" and "the public issues of social structure." This distinction is an essential tool of the sociological imagination and a feature of all classic work in social science. Troubles occur within the character of the individual and within the range of his immediate relations with others; they have to do with his self and with those limited areas of social life of which he is directly and personally aware. Accordingly, the statement and the resolution of toubles properly lie within the individual as a biographical entity and within the scope of his immediate milieu—the social setting that is directly open to his personal experience and to some extent his willful activity. A trouble is a private matter: Values cherished by an individual are felt by him to be threatened. Issues have to do with matters that transcend these local environments of the individual and the range of his inner life. They have to do with the organization of many such milieux into the institutions of a historical society as a whole, with the ways in which various milieux overlap and interpenetrate to form the larger structure of social and historical life. An issue is a public matter: Some value cherished by publics is felt to be threatened. Often there is a debate about what that value really is and about what it is that really threatens it. This debate is often without focus if only because it is the very nature of an issue, unlike even widespread trouble, that it cannot very well be defined in terms of the immediate and everyday environments of ordinary men. An issue, in fact, often involves a crisis in insåtutional arrangements, and often too it involves what Marxists call "contradictions" or "antagonisms." In these terms, consider unemployment. When, in a city of 100,000, only one man is unemployed, that is his personal trouble, and for its relief we properly look to the character of the man, his skills, and his immediate opportunities. But when in a nation of 50 million employees, 15 millionmen are unemployed, that is an issue, and we may not hope to find its solution within the range of opportunities open to any one individual. The very structure of opportunities has collapsed. Both the correct statement of the problem and the range of posSible soluåons require us to consider the economic and political insåtutions of 6 the society, and not merely the personal situation and character of a scatter of individuals. Consider war. The personal problem of war, when it occurs, may be how to survive it or how to die in it with honor; how to make money out of it; how to climb into the higher safety of the military apparatus; or how to contribute to the war's termination. In short, according to one's values, to find a set of milieux and within it to survive the war or make one's death in it meaningful. But the structural issues of war have to do with its causes; with what types of men it throws up into command; with its effects upon economic and political, family and religious institutions, with the unorganized irresponsibility of a world of nation-states. Consider marriage. Inside a marriage a man and a woman may experience personal troubles, but when the divorce rate during the first four years of marriage is 250 out of every 1,000 attempts, this is an indication of a structural issue having to do with the institutions of marriage and the family and other institutions that bear upon them. Or consider the metropolis—the horrible, beautiful, ugly, magnificent sprawl of the great city. For many upper-class people, the personal solution to "the problem of the city" is to have an apartment with a private garage under it in the heart of the city, and forty miles out, a house by Henry Hill, garden by Garrett Eckbo, on a hundred acres of private land. In these two controlled environments—with a small staff at each end and a private helicopter connection—most people could solve many of the problems of personal milieux caused by the facts of the city. But all this, however splendid, does not solve the public issues that the structural fact of the city poses. What should be done with this wonderful monstrosity? Break it all up into scattered units, combining residence and work? Refurbish it as it stands? Or, after evacuation, dynamite it and build new cities according to new plans in new places? What should those plans be? And who is to decide and to accomplish whatever choice is made? These are structural issues; to confront them and to solve them requires us to consider political and economic issues that affect innumerable milieux. Insofar as an economy is so arranged that slumps occur, the problem of unemployment becomes incapable of personal solution. Insofar as war is inherent in the nation-state system and in the uneven industrialization of the world, the ordinary individual in his restricted milieu will be powerless— with or without psychiatric aid—to solve the troubles this system or lack of system imposes upon him. Insofar as the family as an institution turns women into darling little slaves and men into their chief providers and unweaned dependents, the problem of a satisfactory marriage remains incapable of purely private soluåon. Insofar as the overdeveloped megalopolis and the overdeveloped automobile are built-in features of the overdeveloped society, the issues of urban living will not be solved by personal ingenuity and private wealth. What we experience in various and specific milieux, I have noted, is often caused by structural changes. Accordingly, to understand the changes of Teenage Wasteland 7 many personal milieux we are required to look beyond them. And the number and variety of such structural changes increase as the institutions within which we live become more embracing and more intricately connected with one another. To be aware of the idea of social structure and to use it with sensibility is to be capable of tracing such linkages among a great variety of milieux. To be able to do that is to possess the sociological imagination.

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