- THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION: it is an awareness of the relationship between the individual and the wider society, both in the present and in the past. its key element is to be able to view one’s own society as an outsider would. it allows us to go beyond our own personal experiences and see the world with a broader lens than we normally would.
- MAJOR THEORISTS IN SOCIOLOGY:
- AUGUSTE COMTE – came up with the term, ‘sociology’. He believed the systematic study of social behavior could ease the pain caused by the French revolution.
- EMILE DURKHEIM – Important study on suicide
Developed term ‘ANOMIE’: The loss of direction felt in a society when social control of individual behavior becomes ineffective. Anomie usually happens in times of profound change.
- KARL MARX– author of The Communist Manifesto. He emphasized that working / poor people (the Proletariat) should unite to overthrow the owners of the capitalist system ( the bourgeoisie ) and capitalism.
3. FUNCTIONALISM: view society as a complex system of many individual parts working together to maintain social stability.
a. It is a macro (large scale) orientation because it studies how social structures affect how society works.
4. Manifest Functions: The known and intended consequences of a system, institution, or society.
5. Latent Functions: The unintended and often unforeseen consequences of a system, institution, or society.
CULTURE:
1. Culture is the totality of learned, socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects, and behavior. Includes the ideas, values, and artifacts of groups of people, and is passed from generation to generation. Each generation and each year, most human cultures change and expand.
2. Ethnocentrism: The tendency to assume that one’s own culture and way of life represent the norm or are superior to all others.
3. Cultural Relativism: Viewing people’s behavior from the perspective of their own culture. Places a priority on understanding other cultures, rather than dismissing them as “strange” or “exotic”
4. Sociobiology and Culture: Sociobiology is the systematic study of how biology affects human social behavior.
- Sociobiologists say that many cultural traits that humans display, such as women being nurturers and men being providers, are not learned but are rooted in our genetic makeup.
5. Role of Language: Language is one of the major elements of culture.
- The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis describes the role of language in the shaping our interpretation of reality.
6. Norms are the established standards of behavior maintained by a society.
- Types of Norms:
- Formal norms: generally have been written down and specify strict punishments for violators. i.e. laws
- Informal norms: are generally understood but not precisely recorded. i.e. standards of proper dress
- Mores: are norms deemed highly necessary to the welfare of a society, often because they embody the most cherished principles of a people.
- Folkways: are norms governing everyday behavior. Play an important role in shaping the daily behavior of members of a culture.
- Taboos: A taboo is a nom that society holds so strongly that violating it results in extreme disgust. The violator is often considered unfit to live in that society.
7. Sanctions: Sanctions are penalties and rewards for conduct concerning a social norm.
8. Values: Cultural values are collective conceptions of what is considered good, desirable, and proper or bad, undesirable, and improper in a culture.
9. Dominant Ideology: Describes the set of cultural beliefs and practices that helps to maintain powerful social, economic, and political interests.
10. Subcultures: A segment of society that shares a distinctive pattern of customs, rules, and traditions that differs from the pattern of the larger society. Frequently a subculture will develop an argot, which is a specialized language that distinguishes it from the wider society.
11. Countercultures: When subculture conspicuously and deliberately opposes certain aspects of the larger culture.
12. Culture Shock: Anyone who feels disoriented, uncertain, out of place, or even fearful when immersed in an unfamiliar place may be experiencing culture shock.
13. Cultural Diffusion: The Process By Which Elements Of One Group Or Society, Like Customs, Practices, Food And Language Pass From That Society Unto Other Societies.
Socialization And the Life Course:
1. THE INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY: the case of identical twins Oskar and Jack is a great example of the combined effects of heredity and environment. What were their similarities? What were their differences?
2. THE LOOKING GLASS –SELF: We Develop An Identity Of Ourselves Based On How We “Imagine” Other People View Us.
STAGES OF THE SELF:
- THE PREPARATORY STAGE: children imitate the people around them.
- THE PLAY STAGE: children pretend to be other people.
- THE GAME STAGE: the child becomes aware of their social position and can consider two or more roles at the same time.
3. FACE-WORK: The Efforts People Make To Maintain The Proper Image Or To Avoid Embarrassment.
4. IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT: Changing or Altering The Self In Order To Create Distinct Appearances And Satisfy Particular Audiences.
5. AGENTS OF SOCIALIZATION:
- FAMILY
- SCHOOL
- PEER GROUP
- MASS MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY
- RELIGION AND THE STATE
- WORKPLACE
6. ANTICIPATORY SOCIALIZATION: the process of socialization for preparing for future positions.
7. RESOCIALIZATION: learning new norms, values, attitudes and behavior to match new social situations in life.
SOCIAL INTERACTION, GROUPS, STRUCTURE:
1. THE BYSTANDER EFFECT: a social phenomenon in which individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present. this is caused by what is known as the diffusion of responsibility: As the number of people around increases, the personal responsibility that individual bystanders feel decreases.
2. Ascribed Status: A social position assigned to a person by society without regard for the person’s unique talents or characteristics. i.e. Female, sister, 20 years old, Latina.
3. Achieved Status: A social position that a person attains largely through his or her own efforts. i.e. Classmate, student, friend, employee.
4. In-group: Any group or category to which people feel they belong. Everyone who is regarded as “we” or “us”.
5. Out-group: A group or category to which people feel they do not belong. Everyone who is regarded as “they” or them”.
6. Primary Group: A small group characterized by intimate, face-to-face association, and cooperation.
7. Secondary Group: A formal, impersonal group in which there is little social intimacy or mutual understanding.
8. Reference Group:
- Any group that individuals use as a standard for evaluating themselves and their own behavior.
- Two basic purposes:
- Serve a normative function by setting and enforcing standards of conduct and belief.
- Perform a comparison function by serving as a standard against which people can measure themselves and others.
9. Role Conflict: The situation that occurs when incompatible expectations arise from two or more social positions held by the same person. i.e. Individual moves into an occupation that is not common among people with their ascribed status.
10. Role Strain: The difficulty that arises when the same social position imposes conflicting demands and expectations. When people who belong to minority cultures work in the mainstream culture, they may experience role strain.
11. Role Exit: The process of disengagement from a role that is central to one’s self-identity in order to establish a new role and identity.
Four Stage Model of Role Exit:
- 1) Doubt: Person experiences frustration, burnout, or unhappiness with an accustomed status and the roles associated with the social position.
- 2) Search for alternatives: i.e. if unhappy with your marriage, may begin a temporary separation
- 3) Action stage or departure: “Turning point” Where action occurs
- 4) Creation of a new identity: i.e. transition from living at home to living in a dorm in college.
12. Horticultural Society: A preindustrial society in which people plant seeds and crops rather than merely subsist on available foods. Place great emphasis on the production of tools and household objects. Technology still remains limited.
13. Agrarian Society: The most technologically advanced form of preindustrial society. Members engage primarily in the production of food, by increasing their crop yields through technological innovations such as the plow. Relies on the physical power of humans and animals. Social structure has more defined roles than horticultural society.
14. Postindustrial Society: A society whose economic system is engaged primarily in the processing and control of information. Main output is services rather than manufactured goods.
15. Postmodern Society: A technologically sophisticated society that is preoccupied with consumer goods and media images. Consume goods and information on a mass scale.
16. McDonaldization: The process by which the principles of bureaucratization have increasingly shaped organizations worldwide. It is not confined to the food-service industry o to coffee shops like Starbucks.
THE MASS MEDIA:
1. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE MEDIA: functionalist perspective:
- AGENT OF SOCIALIZATION: PROVIDES COLLECTIVE EXPERIENCE FOR MEMBERS OF SOCIETY
- ENFORCER OF SOCIAL NORMS
- CONFERRAL OF STATUS
- PROMOTION OF CONSUMPTION
- DYSFUNCTION: THE NARCOTIZING EFFECT: When the media provides so much coverage that the audience or society becomes numb and fails to act on the information.
2. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE MEDIA: conflict perspective:
- GATEKEEPING: The Media’s Ability to Decide What News or Story Or Viewpoint To Transmit.
- MEDIA MONITORING: Gov’t Monitoring of Individuals’ Phones or Internet Habits Without Their Consent
- STEREOTYPES: Unreliable Generalizations of Minorities and Marginalized, Less Powerful People
- THE CLASS-DOMINANT THEORY: The media reflects and projects the view of a minority elite, which controls it. This is done through ADVERTIZING and CONGLOMERATES.
3. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON MEDIA: The feminist perspective:
- THE MASS MEDIA INFLUENCE HOW WE LOOK AT MEN AND WOMEN , COMMUNICATING UNREALISTIC, STEREOTYPICAL AND LIMITING IMAGES OF THE SEXES.
- VISUAL IMAGES OF WOMEN ARE USUALLY UNREALISTIC
- PORNOGRAPHY REDUCES TO SEX OBJECTS AND IMPLICITLY ENDORSES VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN.
4. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE media: Interactionist perspective:
- ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKS
- INCREASED CONTACT WITH FAMILY MEMBERS , FRIENDS, ACQUAINTANCES
- RELATIONSHIP MARKETING.
DEVIANCE, CRIME, AND SOCIAL CONTROL:
1. Conformity: Going along with peers-individuals of our own status who have no special right to direct our own behavior. i.e. A recruit entering military service will typically conform to the habits and language of other recruits. Students will conform to the drinking behavior of their peers.
2. Deviance: Behavior that violates the standards of conduct or expectations of a group or society. i.e Alcoholics, compulsive gamblers, people with mental illness.
3. Social control: The techniques and strategies for preventing deviant human behavior in any society. In our family, we are socialized to obey our parents simply because they are our parents. Peer groups introduce us to informal norms.
4. Anomie: Durkheim’s term for the loss of direction felt in a society when social control of individual behavior has become ineffective. A state of normlessness that typically occurs during a period of profound social change and disorder, such as a time of economic collapse.
5. Sanction: A penalty or reward for conduct concerning a social norm. If we fail to live up to the norm, we may face punishment through informal sanctions such as fear and ridicule or formal sanctions such as jail sentences or fines.
6. Labeling Theory: An approach to deviance that attempts to explain why certain people are viewed as deviants while others engaged in the same behavior are not.
- An important aspect of the labeling theory is the recognition that some people are viewed as deviant, while others who engage in the same behavior are not.
7. Anomie theory of deviance: Robert Merton’s theory of deviance as a response to socially prescribed goals and the means to attain them
8. Anomie theory of deviance: Robert Merton’s theory of deviance as a response to socially prescribed goals and the means to attain them
9. Five types of behavior or basic forms of adaptation:
- Conformity: Acceptance of both the overall social goal and the approved means.
- Retreatism: Withdrawing from both the goals and the means of society.
- Innovator: Accepts the goals of society but pursues them with means that are regarded as improper.
- Ritualism: Abandoning the goal of material success and become compulsively committed to the institutional means.
- Rebellion: Feels alienated from the dominated means and goals and may seek a dramatically different social order.
10. Formal social control: Social control that is carried out by authorized agents, such as police officers, judges, school administrators, and employers. Can serve as a last resort when socialization and informal sanctions do not bring about desired behavior.
11. Informal Social Control: Social control that is carried out casually by ordinary people through such means as laughter, smiles and ridicule.
12. Differential justice: Differences in the way social control is exercised over different groups. Puts African Americans and Latinos at a disadvantage in the justice system.
13. Index crimes: The eight types of crime tabulated each year by the FBI in the Uniform Crime Reports: murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, theft, motor cycle theft, and arson.
14. Organized crime: The work of a group that regulates relations among criminal enterprises involved in illegal activities, including prostitution, gambling, and the smuggling and sale of illegal drugs.
15. Professional criminal: A person who pursues crime as a day-to-day occupation, developing skilled techniques and enjoying a certain degree of status among other criminals. Specialize in burglary, safecracking, hijacking of cargo, pickpocketing, and shoplifting.
16. Stigma: A label used to devalue members of certain social groups.
17. White-collar crime: Illegal acts committed by affluent, “respectable” individuals in the course of business activities. New type of white-collar crime that has emerged in recent decades is computer crime.
18. FUNCTIONS OF DEVIANCE:
- IT HELPS DEFINE LIMITS OF PROPER BEHAVIOR
- IT CLARIFIES NORMS AND INCREASES CONFORMITY
- IT STRENGHTENS SOCIAL BONDS AMONG PEOPLE REACTING TO THE DEVIANT
- IT CAN HELP LEAD TO POSITIVE SOCIAL CHANGE
——————————————————————————————————————————-
