Sociology Quiz #1

Broad Sociological Perspective: Conflict Theory

*Conflict Theory* - Believe functionalism reinforces status quo/ social inequality - Inequality exists as a result of political struggle among groups - Unfair at the expense of less powerful - Conflict among competing interests - force of change in society - Social change - revolution and war (not evolution) - Key to conflict theory = POWER - Ability to make own interests count, even when others resist - Sometimes achieved through force ; almost always accompanied by ideology used to justify status quo

Broad Sociological Perspective: Functionalism

*Functionalism* - Durkheim & Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) - Compares society to a living organism - Everything in society serves a function - Best way to analyze society - identify roles different parts play - Even crime & inequality play a role - Crime is inevitable and necessary for a healthy society - Only dysfunctional when rates are unusually high or low - Just enough questions = good

Approaches to Research

-Approaches to Research -Inductive Approach - starts with empirical observation (data about the world) -Works to form a theory, data > theory a deductive approach to researcher -Start with a theory, develop a hypothesis, make empirical observations, analyze data collected, confirm reject or modify the original theory -Theory > Data the hypothesis, why do some states have higher rates of homicide than others? -Hypothesis - proposed relationship between two variables -Variables - a dependent variable is the outcome that a researcher is trying to explain -Independent Variable - a factor that the researcher believes has a casual impact on the dependent variable

The Military

-Certain parts of identity are erased- heads shaved, wear uniforms -Every move is watched and critiqued, socialization process -Must be taught that it is ok to kill, most of us have learned the opposite -Not only about teaching new skills it is about changing the, as people so that they can perform tasks they wouldn't have dreamed of doing otherwise

Comte (1798-1857)

-Creation of sociology -Need to make more out of the social order in a time of declining religious authority -Sociologists job - create a secular non religious mortality

Max Weber (1864-1920)

-Criticized Marx - saying he focused too much on the economy and class as a force of social change -Culture, ideas, religion - also important (Marx saw them as a result of societal evolution) -Weber saw them as a cause -Introduced "Verstehen" to truly understand why people act the way they do, a sociologist must understand the meanings people attach to their actions

Feminist Theory

-Emerged from the women's movement -Feminism - encompasses many theories -A focus on women's experiences - women should be represented in history and sociological studies -Belief the society subordinates women -Interest in how power relationships are defined, shaped, and reproduced -Emphasis on equality and social justice

Agents of Socialization

-Families, schools, peers, media, and institutions as important socialization agents

Georg Simmel (1858-1918)

-Formal sociology - the study of pure numbers -Differences between groups of 2, 3 or more, independent of the reasons for the group or who belongs to it) -Important for small group interactions and micro-interactions as a study

Total Institutions

-Full immersion, all basics of day to day life are controlled -Eat, sleep, study and play together -Boarding school, colleges, monasteries, the army, prison -May experience re-socialization if there are different rules then general society

Goffman

-How people speak -What they wear -How the present themselves

Symbolic Interaction

-Micro level theory -Shared meanings and assumptions form basic motivations behind how people act face to face interactions create the social world -Symbolic Interaction - cycle of meaning - First - we see an object or sign with symbolic meaning of the object - Second - we respond to the symbolic meaning of the object - Third - we collectively respond to the symbolic meaning of the object and by doing so we make its influence and symbolic importance objectively true -This collective belief becomes so engrained we see the value of the object as self established -It is important that we see the value as self established rather than flimsily constructed by ourselves or others

WEB Dubios (1868-1963)

-Most important black sociologist of his time -Undertook ethnography in the art community -Dobios - double consciousness - AA constantly maintain 2 ways of thinking -1st way - the kind any american would have -2nd way - considers opinions of onlookers who are often racially prejudice, constrains behavior

Midrange Theory

-Neither micro or macro -Attempts to predict how certain social institutions or organizations function -Dynamics in the house, sports, gangs -Generates falsifiable hypothesis = predictions that can be tested by analyzing the world

Types of Data Collection

-Participant Observer - going into the field and observing the objects you want to study (researcher joining a football team) -Detailed Approach - more independent for people's cooperation, alleviates problems of asking people questions about themselves -Survey Research - collecting information about people through asking questions (interviews in person or over the phone) -Experiments - very specific type of study, two groups in an experiment (treatment and control groups) -Double Blind Experiment - researchers and participants don't know -Content Analysis - analyzing books, movies, facebook, twitter, analysis of media and communication, looking for patterns what makes good research -Reliability - if you conduct the study again will you get the same results? If a measurement procedure yields consistent scores when what is being measured is not changing -Generalizability - will the findings of this study apply to some other population or group of people? -Population - the entire set of individuals the researcher wants to know more about -Sample - the subset of the population used in the study, the degree that the sample is generalizable to the population depends on how well the sample is drawn

Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

-Positivism - the social world can be described and predicted by certain describable relationships -Individuals behavior is determined by social forces -Degree we are integrated into group life -Division of labor -Societies - used to be simple, everyone performed the same tasks to survive, thought alike, had some group oriented goals, discouraged individual autonomy, similarities made it easy for people to bond -Societies became highly complex - people no longer tied to one another through similarities, individual encouraged, social bonds are impersonal, specialized jobs, each part is dependent on other parts, forms social solidarity

Socialization

-Process by which individuals internalize values, beliefs and norms of a given society -Learn rules of social behavior -Learn to function as a member of that society -Starts to form when you are born - interactions between you and the rest of the world have shaped who you are -Can recognize limits of socialization when you find yourself in a new situation and dont know how to behave

Quantitative/ Qualitative Research

-Quantitative Methods - record social life in terms of quantities percentages and statistics -Qualitative Methods - capture social life in great detail and depth > participant observation

Postmodernism

-Seemingly objective phenomena are social construction Everything is interpretable within the framework ; even facts are up for debate -Shared meanings have ended There is no objective reality -Many sociologists borrow this by deconstructing social phenomenon -Show how they are created by social actors with varying degree of power

Cooley - The Looking Glass Self

-Self emerges from interactions with others -Well imagine ; how others perceive us, judgements others make about us, also people respond to how we present ourselves -Shapes how we perceive ourselves, we develop a concept of self in constant interaction of the social world

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

-Social change is caused by conflicts between classes -History - man's struggle to gain control over the natural environment, this backfired: when the industrial rev came around the tools that humans used to survive started to dominate us. -We became slaves to technology to make a living Industrial/capitalist societies - distinct social classes -Most important factor in social life - a persons relationship to means of production -The rich "ruling class" "bourgeoisie" - owned means of production, factories, machines, money. Social privilege/ power - can protect their interests ; pass along advantages to heirs -Workers "proletariat" - labor produces everything of value in society -Workers do not directly benefit from labor (exploitation) -No time or energy to protest -Oppression reaches boiling point, proletariat revolt, capitalisms abolished, replaced with socialism -Each person contributes to and benefits from the public good

Social Construction of Reality

-Something is meaningful or valuable when society tells us it is -Clothes, credit cards, cell phones, cars, colors, flowers etc. -Just because symbolic meaning or value is socially constructed does not mean it is inconsequential -Socialization occurs for different contexts, often building off other contexts -In locker rooms, working as a waiter/waitress, law school -Re-socialization, more drastic, a change in values, beliefs, or norms through an intense social process

Statuses & Roles

-Status is a position in society that comes with a set of expectations -Ascribed status - statues we are born with and that are unlikely to change >Gender, race, ethnicity, brother/sister -Achieved status - earned through individual effort or imposed by others >College grad, CEO, criminal, jock, roommate -Roles are the behaviors expected from a particular status -Status set - all the statuses you have at any given time -Master status - a status that seems to override all others *Erving Goffman's dramaturgical theory* - socail life is a theatrical performance -We are all actors with roles, scripts, costumes and sets

C Wright Mills 1959 -> Social Institutions

-Structures within society that shape the actualities of groups and individuals -Organize beliefs/ rules that establish how society will meet basic needs -Family, religion, education, economy and government -Mass media, sports, science and medicine, and the military -Replace members, teach new members, produce and distribute goods and services, preserve order, provide a sense of purpose

Ethnomethodology

-Studying human interactions -Violate unspoken social norms to show their existence - breeching experiment

Research Method

-Systematically gathering information about the social world

American Sociology

-The Chicago School - UC - human behaviors and personalities are shaped by social and physical environments (social ecology) -Theory of "social self" - Charles Horton Couley 1864-1929 and -George Herbert Mead 1863-1931 -It is through social interaction that meaning emerges

C Wright Mills 1959 -> Sociological Imagination

-The ability to connect our own personal thoughts, feelings and behaviors with the larger world and historical forces -Good - gives us perspective, comforting -Bad - ordinary, typical of the place and period we live in

Limits of Socialization

-We have agency - we operate within the limit that are largely not of our own meaning, but we also make choices about how to act within our own environment -Biology is also important to the development and personality -Our brains, hormones, genetics etc -Biology and social influence interact to make us who we are

Human Nature

-Without society the human part of human nature would not develop -See this with humans raised by animals or denied human contact -"Human Nature" is a blend of the materials we are physically made out of in the environment in which we are raised

Comte (1798-1857) -> THREE STAGES

1) Theological - society is the result of divine will of gods plan 2) Metaphysical - human behavior governed by natural, biological instincts, strip away layers of society to understand how basic drives and instincts govern and established the foundation for society 3) Scientific - positivism a scientific approach to identify the laws that govern human behavior

Micro-Sociology

Concerned with individual interactions, focuses on face to face reactions

Macro-Sociology

Concerned with large scale social phenomenon

Sociologist

makes the familiar strange, question everything

Sociology

systematic study of human society and social behavior