Transcript Sociology The Essentials Chapter I

Unit 1
Chapters 1, 2 & 3
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Chapter #1
•What is Sociology?
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Definition of Sociology
• Sociology is the study of human behavior in
society.
o All human behavior occurs in a societal context in
the community we live in, in the church, the
school, the family, the nation or somewhere in
this world.
• That context shapes what people do and how
they think.
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Sociology is a Social Science
• Sociology is a scientific way of thinking about
society and its influence on human groups.
o It is an empirical discipline.
• Its conclusions are based on careful and
systematic observations.
• This way of thinking is very different from
ordinary common sense.
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The Sociological
Imagination
C.W. Mills
• The ability to look at what people are doing and
develop an understanding of the town, culture,
and/or society in which they live, thrive, and die.
• For example: Sociologists watch a parade, go on a
picnic, watch activities in a classroom, at a religious
service, or while driving on a freeway or a small
town road. While doing so, they can see the
structure of the town, community, and/or culture.
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Your sociological
Imagination
By the end of this course, you will have begun to
develop your own sociological imagination.
You will see things from a sociological perspective;
whether you are at a football game, picnic, home
watching TV, out to dinner, or celebrating a holiday
with family, you will begin to see things differently
than you do now.
You will see things from
a sociological perspective!
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Personal Troubles
• Troubles are privately felt problems that spring from
events or feelings in a person’s life.
Example of a personal trouble:
You lost your job and can’t find a new one. So you
become a couch potato, lose enthusiasm, and move
back home.
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Issues
• Issues affect large numbers of people and have their
origins in the institutional arrangements and history of a
society.
o Issues shape the context within which troubles arise.
Example of a public issue:
o General Motors may shut down its Detroit plant or lay
off 1/3 of its auto workers.
o If this happens, many workers in the town will be
unemployed and will not easily find another job locally
since there are no manufacturing jobs available in the
city.
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Discussion Question
• Describe a trouble and an issue that you currently
face.
o How are the two related?
o How are they different?
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Discussion Questions
• Give examples of disquieting individual or social
facts.
– You can take them from your reading of this
chapter, from the media, or from personal
experiences.
• Give examples of disquieting social conditions of
a culture that is not your own.
–
For Example: The Iranian government requires that an Iranian women have sex
with her spouse at least every three days even when it is against her will.
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The Significance of
Diversity
• Diversity is a central theme studied by sociologists.
o Diversity is an important issue in any society,
even in the United States.
o Racial and ethnic groups currently comprise 35%
of those living in this country.
o This percentage continues to steadily increase.
• Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, Latinos,
Jews, Christians, Hindus, newborns and the
elderly, the disabled, as well as heterosexuals,
bisexuals, and homosexuals make up our
diverse population.
This is not an exhaustive list.
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What is Diversity?
• Diversity is a concept that includes studying group
differences in society.
• Diversity shapes the opportunities one has to:
o marry
o go to school
o get a job
o buy a home
o join a religious institution
o receive healthcare
o live a safe and comfortable life
o save a life
• Diversity includes the study of different cultural
orientations.
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Understanding Diversity
• Understanding diversity is crucial to understanding
society.
• Patterns of social change and social structures are
patterned by diverse group experiences.
• There are numerous sources of diversity, including:
o race
o class
o gender
o age
o nationality
o sexual orientation
o region of residence
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Diversity
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The Development of
Sociological Theory
• In the 18th and 19th century, faith in the ability for
mankind to solve its problems and survive is known
as the Age of Enlightenment or Age of Reason.
o This period in history significantly influenced the
development of modern sociology.
o Understanding and observation replaced the idea
that things can only be understood by applying
religious teaching or by a belief that a
supernatural spirit (god or demon) caused them
to happen as either a punishment or as a reward
for correct or incorrect behavior.
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Three Early Sociological
Thinkers
• These early contributors set the stage for the birth of
sociology:
o Auguste Comte
o Alexis de Tocqueville
o Harriet Martineau
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Auguste Comte
• The founding father of
sociology.
• He believed that society
could be studied
scientifically.
o This approach is
known as
positivism.
1798–1857
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Classical Sociological
Theory
• These three classical sociologists set the foundation
for our current thinking and understanding of
sociology.
o Emile Durkheim
o Karl Marx
o Max Weber
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Emile Durkheim
• Some of Durkheim’s
major work focuses on
the forces that hold
society together.
o He called this force
social solidarity.
• People are glued
together
by religious
1858-1917
rituals which sustain
moral cohesion.
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•
Suicide
Durkheim is well known for his early work on
suicide.
o He demonstrated that suicide was not purely a
personal trouble, but that rates of suicide within a
society varied by how clear and consistently
upheld the norms and customs of the society
were.
o He showed that suicide rates were higher in
societies where norms were unclear or
contradictory.
• This was referred to as a state of
normlessness or anomie.
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Karl Marx
• Marx is one of the most
influential thinkers in
history.
• He saw society as
systematic and
structural and class as
a fundamental
dimension of society
that shapes social
behavior.
1818-1883
Marx’s ideas
Marx:
• took social structure as his subject rather than the
actions of individuals
• was devoted to explaining how capitalism, an
economic system based on pursuing profit,
shaped society
• addressed the capitalist class, the bourgeoisie,
controllers of the production of goods and of
ideas
• spoke of economic determinism with a class
system of owners (bourgeoisie) and workers
(proletariat).
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Charles •Darwin
Darwin was a British
biologist whose ideas lead
to what is referred to as
Social Darwinism.
– “Survival of the
fittest” is also the
driving force of social
and biological
evolution.
• Society, an organism,
evolves from the simple to
the complex. It is best left
alone.
– This is referred to as
Laissez-faire, the
non-interference
doctrine.
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Robert •Parks
Also from the University
of Chicago, he was
interested in urban
problems and how
different racial groups
interacted.
• He introduced the idea
of boundaries within
cities and how they are
enforced and
maintained.
o Example: the
Vietnamese from
white affluent
neighbors
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Chapter 2
Culture & the Media
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Defining of Culture
• Culture is the complex system of meaning and
behavior that defines the way of life for a given
group or society.
– It includes beliefs, values, knowledge, art, morals,
laws, customs, habits, language, and dress,
among other things.
– Culture includes ways of thinking as well as
patterns of behavior.
– Observing culture involves studying what people
think, how they interact, and the objects they use.
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Material and
Nonmaterial Culture
• Culture is a glue that holds the society together.
o It provides guidelines for right and wrong
behavior.
• Culture is both material and nonmaterial.
o Material culture consists of objects created in
the society, e.g. the desk or bed you sit at when
studying.
o Nonmaterial culture consists of non-tangible
things such as norms, laws, customs, values,
beliefs, and ideas of a group of people.
• Believing in God, the language you speak, and
how you sit when you eat are non-tangible
aspects of culture.
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Material Culture
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Characteristics of
Culture
• Andersen & Taylor discuss five universal aspects of
culture that apply to all cultures everywhere.
o Culture:
1. is shared
2. is learned
3. is taken for granted
4. is symbolic
5. varies across time and space
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Culture is learned
• People in any culture learn the ways of their culture.
o We learn a culture’s ways so thoroughly that we
are not aware these ways of thinking, believing,
acting and living are learned.
o Culture is learned indirectly through observation
and imitation.
o Sociologists say that culture is learned both
informally and formally.
o A person feels like an outsider until they’ve
learned the ways of the culture.
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Discussion Question
1. Think of a time when you went to a new
environment (such as off to college) and you didn’t
know how you were expected to act or what you
should do. How did you figure out what you should
do to fit into the group?
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•
Culture is taken for
granted
People engage unknowingly in hundreds of cultural
practices every day; culture makes these practices
seem “normal.”
o We do what we do without stopping to ask, “Why
am I doing this?” It is just the way it is done.
• For example: In the U.S. people sleep on a mattress
instead of a straw mat, and they use silverware
when they eat and not their hands or chopsticks.
Why?
o Because that is what we do in the U.S.
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Culture is symbolic
• The significance of culture lies in the meaning it
holds for people. Different cultures assign different
meanings to symbols.
o For example: waving a Korean flag from an office
building in Delaware is unpatriotic, but doing the
same in Korea is patriotic.
• Symbols are things or behaviors to which people
give meaning; the meaning is not inherent in a
symbol but is bestowed by the meaning people give
it.
o For example, in America:
• the American Flag is a symbol of freedom.
• the white wedding dress is a symbol of purity.
• the iPod is a symbol of status, being hip.
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Culture varies
across time & place
• Culture develops as humans adapt to the physical
and social environment around them.
o Solutions to everyday problems vary in different
time periods.
• Culture is a mix of the past and the present.
• In the 21st century we speak of meeting the
ever-increasing demand for food by genetic
engineering.
• In the 19th century these ideas were not even
dreamed about, let alone practiced.
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Elements of Culture
• Andersen & Taylor discuss the following elements of
culture:
1. language
2. norms
3. beliefs
4. values
– Every culture relies on these elements to
provide its people with a way to live.
o These vary from culture to culture, but they
are cultural universals.
• No culture can exist without them.
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The Element of
Language
• Language is a set of symbols and rules that, put
together in a meaningful way, provide a complex
communication system.
• The formation of culture among humans is made
possible by language.
• Language is fluid and dynamic and evolves in
response to social change.
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The Element of Norms
• Norms are the specific cultural expectations for how
to behave in a given situation.
• Society without norms would be chaos; with norms
in place, people know how to act, and social
interactions are consistent, predictable, and
learnable.
• There are norms governing every situation.
o Sometimes they are formal, sometimes informal.
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Sanctions
• Negative sanctions may be mild or severe, ranging
from subtle mechanisms of control, such as ridicule,
to overt forms of punishment, such as imprisonment,
physical coercion, or death
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The Element of Beliefs
• Beliefs are shared ideas held collectively by people
within a given culture about what is true.
o Shared beliefs are part of what binds people
together in society.
o Beliefs are also the basis for many norms and
values of a given culture.
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Cultural Diversity
• As societies develop and become more complex,
different cultural traditions appear.
• The greater the society’s complexity the greater the
internal variations and diversity.
• Sociologists differentiate between dominant cultures
and subcultures.
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Amish in the
Century
st
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A subculture in America
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Cultural Diversity in the
U.S.
• The United States is classified as a complex society
comprised of many different cultural groups; i.e., it is
a highly diverse society.
o Our society is comprised of many religious,
ethnic, and racial groups.
• In addition, we have a wide range of people in
all age brackets, gender groupings, and social
classes.
o More than 12.5% of our population are foreign
born.
o We house immigrants from more than 100
different countries.
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Ethnocentrism &
Cultural Relativism
• These are two very important topics of concern to
both sociologists and anthropologists.
o In this class you will discover how ethnocentric
you are, and how your beliefs and values
influence the way you view other people and
other cultural groups.
o One goal of this class is to help you develop a
more culturally relative perspective of other
groups and cultures.
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Ethnocentrism
• Ethnocentrism is the habit of only seeing things
from the point of view of one’s own group.
o Judging one culture by the standards of another
culture is ethnocentric.
o Ethnocentrism is like a two-sided coin with a
positive and a negative side.
• It helps the society’s members have a common
viewpoint of how to behave and think.
• It also can lead to narrow-minded conclusions
about the worth of diverse cultures.
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Global Culture
• Elements of U.S. culture can be found in countries
throughout the planet.
–
For example:
•
•
McDonald’s in Hong Kong
The Gap in South Africa
• From films to fast food, the United States dominates
international mass culture, largely through the influence
of capitalist markets.
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Mass Media
& Popular Culture
• The term mass media refers to the channels of
communication that are available to wide segments
of the population.
o This includes print, film, and electronic media
(radio and television), as well as the Internet.
o The mass media has extraordinary power to
shape culture, including what people believe and
the information available to them.
o The media is everywhere, both inside and outside
buildings.
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Mass Media
• Mass media is organized via powerful economic
interests.
o It is owned by a small number of companies that
form huge media monopolies.
• This means that a few very powerful groups,
media conglomerates, are the major producers
and distributors of culture.
• Television is a powerful transmitter of culture,
but it also portrays a very homogeneous view
of culture.
• It tells people what to do, think, and believe.
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•
Television &
Discrimination
Television and even popular magazines define our
standards of:
o beauty
o age and ageism
o race
o gender
o morality
o religion
o political and economics
• Media constructs are cultural standards that create
and perpetuate stereotypes.
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•
Culture
Lag
Sometimes cultures adjust slowly to changing
cultural conditions, resulting in culture lag.
o Rapid technological change is often accompanied
by some aspects of culture “lagging” behind
and/or resisting potential changes.
o For example:
• Our society has the technological ability to
develop efficient, less-polluting rapid transit
and better national health but society resists
these changes.
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Culture Change
• There are several causes of cultural change
examined by sociologists.
• These include:
o changes in the societal conditions
o cultural diffusion
o innovation
o imposition by an outside agency or source
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Culture Change &
Innovation
• Cultural innovations can create dramatic changes in
society.
o Trolleys, subways, and automobiles changed the
character of cities.
o People no longer walk to work; instead, cities
expanded outward to include suburbs.
o Technology is currently changing the U.S. culture
at a faster rate than previously experienced in
recorded history.
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Chapter 3
Doing Sociological
Research
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The Research Process
• There are various methods that sociologists use to
do research.
o All involve rigorous observation and careful
analysis
• These methods include:
o participant observation
o survey research
o use of official records or interviews
o statistical analysis of qualitative data
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Sociology &
the Scientific Method
• Sociologists attempt to follow the scientific method,
which uses the following four steps in the research
process:
1. observation
2. hypothesis testing
3. analysis of data
4. generalization
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Sociology: An Empirical
Science
• Sociologists conduct both qualitative and
quantitative analyses.
o Qualitative studies are more interpretative
observations.
o Quantitative studies are usually statistically
sophisticated.
• Both of these are methods of empirical analysis.
o The ideas and subjects studied must be testable.
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Variables
• Researchers design studies to test the influence of
one variable on another.
• A variable is a characteristic that can have more
than one value or score.
• For example: How does age effect income?
o Independent Variable is the presumed cause of
the outcome (age).
o Dependent Variable is the variable that is the
presumed effect (income).
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The Research Process
Step I: Develop a Research Question
• Sociological research is an organized process that
follows an established protocol.
• In the first stage, the researcher decides what to
study.
o This is a major step and it is not always as simple
as it may originally appear to be.
o The researcher needs to select a topic that can
be studied systematically, and must be able to
find an appropriate population to study.
o Even when the population is available, the
researcher may not be able to get access to it.
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Step II: Research Design
• The design stage involves deciding on the
appropriate data collection technique to use to
investigate the chosen research topic.
• Possible research design techniques include:
• interviews
• surveys
• observations of activities and events
• web searches
• previous research on the subject
• examining artifacts
• mixed method analysis (combines interviews
and observations)
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Research Design
• During this stage of the study the researcher
decides whether the study should use qualitative or
quantitative data or a combination of both.
• Some research designs may involve the testing of a
hypothesis.
• A hypothesis is an idea, a hunch, a tentative
assumption about a given issue or body of
knowledge, but not a demonstrable fact.
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The Research Process
Step III: Gathering Data
• Also referred to as “Data Collection.”
• The stage when the data is collected or gathered.
• Primary or secondary data can be used for
gathering quantitative data.
• Primary data is original data gathered
specifically for this project.
• Secondary data is data gathered from an earlier
study or purpose such as: National opinion polls,
census data, or national crime statistics, or official
sources, such as university records, city or county
records, national health statistics, or historical
records.
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The Research Process
Step IV: Data Analysis
• At this stage, sociologists organize collected data to
discover the patterns and uniformities that the data
reveal.
o The analysis may be statistical or qualitative.
o This is a labor intensive phase of the research
process.
o This is when discoveries are made and important
information about human social behavior and our
institutions and society is uncovered.
• When the data analysis is complete, conclusions
and generalizations can be made.
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Data Analysis:
Serendipity
• Sometimes unexpected or unanticipated findings
are made.
o These are referred to as serendipitous findings.
o They may direct a researcher into a new area of
study or provide the researcher with a new topic
to study as a follow up to the current project.
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The Research Process
Step V: Conclusions
• The final stage in research is developing
conclusions, relating findings to sociological theory
and past research, and reporting the findings.
o An important question researchers will ask at this
stage is whether their findings can be
generalized.
o Generalization is the ability to draw conclusions
from specific data and to apply them to a broader
population; i.e. applying them to a bigger
population than the one being studied.
• Be very careful when generalizing.
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The Tools of
Sociological Research
• There are several tools or techniques sociologists
use to gather data.
o Among the most widely used are:
• survey research
• participant observation
• controlled experiments
• content analysis
• historical research
• evaluation research
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Research Ethics
• When performing sociological research,
researchers:
o are prohibited from imposing perceived or actual
physical, mental, or legal harm
o must inform subjects of the rights and
responsibilities of both the researcher and the
subject
o are required to secure informed consent from
their subjects
o must ensure subject confidentiality and anonymity
o must follow strict reporting guidelines and
requirements
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•
•
•
•
•
Research
Terms
Bias: personal, social attitudes and beliefs that
influence what we know and our study results
Reliability: the degree to which a measure
produces consistent results
Validity: the degree to which measures actually
measures what they want to measure
Variables: concepts that have more than one value
Representation: assurance that the sample studies
the people that you need information about
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Research
Terms
• Sample: the group of people being studied
• Causality: the analysis of cause and effect
• Survey: gathering information from many people on
the same topic
• Interview: talking to people in order to gather
information about them
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