EXAM 1 LECTURE NOTES PDF

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VAN HEUVELEN...

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What is sociology? ● Study of human society ● Systematic or scientific study of human society and social behavior, from largescale institutions and mass culture to small groups and individual interaction ● Goal: understand how individual lives are related to, and turn in affect, the social structure we live in The Sociological Imagination Developed by C Wright Mills in 1959 ● The ability to connect intimate aspects of an individual’s life to seemingly impersonal historical forces ● The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society ● Mill’s Three Questions for Sociological Research ○ What is the structure of society as a whole? (major components and parts) ○ What is unique about the time period in which we are currently living? ○ Who is successful? & why Personal Troubles, Public Issues ● Personal Troubles: based in individual’s biography directly open to individual social experiences and willful actions ● Public Issue: the way individual troubles are connected to the larger social structure ○ The point is to not choose between a trouble and an issue for a particular situation ○ The point of perspective is to allow for an understanding of the dual nature 1/23/18 Social Institutions ● Complex group of interdependent positions that together perform a social role that reproduce themselves overtime ● Networks of structures in society that work to socialize the groups of people within them ○ Legal system ○ Education system ○ Military ○ Family College as a social institution ○ Gatekeeper to legitimate forms of education by deciding who can attend ○ Age segregation ○ Proprietary brand that is marketed on items like sweatshirts and mugs through televised sporting events ○ Myths and stories shared within a social network

What is structure? ● Relationship between two components ○ Schemas ■ Cognitive maps ■ Sets of rules ■ Metaphors ○ Resources ■ Physical materials ■ Human work ■ Power ● Schemas and Resources operate together ● They are generalizable and transportable across immediate situations ● There can be many structures Social Identity ● The part of our identity that is based on membership (or non-membership) in a particular group ○ College student ○ Daughter ○ Volunteer firefighter ○ I was on the high school swim team Structure, agency, structuration ● Alternative to Mill’s language of history and biography ● Concepts to connect Structure ● Things beyond control, that exert a force on our lives, that enabled and/or constrain our actions in the world ● Structure: schema (ideas, rules) and resources (power physical materials, human labor) ● Social Institution: Networks of structures in society that work to socialize the groups of people within them ● Examples ○ Social Class ○ Social institution Agency ● The actions of individuals and groups in society and the choices we make ● Examples ○ Going to UIUC ○ Choosing to study or go to a party ○ Choosing your major

Structuration ● The two way process by which we shape our world through individual actions (agency), and by which we are shaped by the social structure ● Dual cognitive movement ● Structure + agency ● Understanding of the complex system of institutions, structures, and identities a single person inhabits ● Understanding the necessary wiggle room of agency, creativity, and history that divides 1/29/18 What is theory? ● Guiding principles or abstract models attempting to predict or explain the abstract world Why theory? ● Facts do not speak for themselves. They must be understood ● Facts must be collected from a complex social reality ○ Paradigm: a general image of reality ■ What should be studied? ■ What questions should be asked and how? ■ How shall we interpret what we find? Keeping it simple with theory ● We have theories because we understand how complex reality is, and so we reduce information ● Theory: ○ Political opinion? NO! ○ Right/wrong answers? NO! ○ More/less useful interpretation of social reality? Yes. Theory 1: Structural functionalism Functionalism ● Theory that various social institutions and processes exist to serve important, and necessary functions that keep society running ● The best way to analyze society is to identify the roles that different aspects play Everything has a function ● Functions can be manifest (explicit) or latest (hidden) ● Manifest functions: obvious, explicit, intended, commonly recognized purposes of a social structure ● Latent functions: less obvious, unintended, hidden purposes Example: low income daycare pickup rules ● Some daycares catering to low income families had rules for a narrow pickup time ● Manifest: structure for care providers ● Latent: friendships between parents, unintended economic consequences

Theory 2: Conflict theory

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Society is composed of groups and interests competing for power and resources How to explain various aspects of the social world? Look at which groups have power and benefit from particular social arrangements

Marxist conflict theory ● Social reality is fundamentally reducible to class relations that are created from a capitalistic system ● Marxist conflict theories also focus on the problem of alienation, or powerlessness and meaninglessness in people's lives Non-marxist conflict theories ● Retains focus on power, conflict, and domination ● Argues that all meaningful conflict need not flow from economic class ● Conflict everywhere→ between class, economic relationships with each other, cultural status, people from different class background 1/30/18 Theory 3: Symbolic interactionism ● Society is based on social interactions and the creation of meaning through these interactions ● Society is the result of people doing things together, social structures emerge from interactions and shared meanings Three basic tenants of symbolic interactionism 1. Human beings act towards ideas, concepts, and values, on the basis of meaning that those things have for them 2. These meanings are the products of social interactions in human society 3. These meanings are modified and filtered through an interpretive process that each individual uses in dealing with outward signs Ethnomethodology ● From work of Howard Garfinkel ● Breaching experiments: examines social reactions when norms are violated ● Taken for granted aspects of social world are maintained through everyday interactions Dramaturgy ● Social life as a theatrical performance ● Performance/action depends upon location, time, and audience ● Front stage: behavior visible to ‘audience.’ Involves conscious impression management ● Back stage: behavior in absence of an audience--when one lets their guard down Socialization ● The process through which individuals internalize the values, beliefs, and norms of a society and learn to function as its members

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Doing society

2/1/18 Socialization has limits ● Humans are not blank slates. Biology influences your behavior..So does free will Fundamental importance of interaction ● Understanding ‘who we are’ develops through interactions with others Gene-socialization interaction ● Who is likely to become dependent on drugs? ● It matters on: ○ Genes, interacting with ○ Social support, interacting with ○ Gender ● Genetic risk matters, but is much more consequential in the right social environment Theories of Socialization George Herbert Mead I, Me, Self ● Self: The individual identity one has for themselves ● I: one’s sense of agency, action, power (subjective) ● Me: self as distinct object to be perceived by others and the I (objective) Generalized Other ● An internal sense of the total expectations of others in a variety of settings, both familiar and unfamiliar ● Allows for application of norms and behaviors learned in specific situations to new situations Agents of Socialization Family ● Transit cultural capital ● Concerted cultivation vs. natural growth Schools ● Hidden Curriculum ○ Punctuality ○ Discipline ○ Hard work ○ Obedience vs. Innovation ○ Follow, or use, the rules ● Peers ○ Peer pressure ○ Conformity

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Extension of social world beyond parents

Resocialization ● Process by which one’s sense of social values, beliefs, and norms are reengineered, often deliberately, through an intense social process Total institution ● An institution in which people are totally immersed and that controls all the basics of dayto-day life. Dyer reading ● For exam, consider how this article is an example for resocialization and a total institution. Find specific examples that illustrate these concepts Status and Social Interaction ● Status: a recognizable social position that an individual occupies ● Role: duties and behaviors associated with a particular status ○ Student ■ Read ■ Write ■ Play ■ Experiment ■ Discover Role theory ● Role strain: the incompatibility among roles connected with a single status ● Role conflict: tension caused by competing demands between two or more roles pertaining the different statuses Types of Status: ● Ascribed status: involuntary example: socioeconomic status, gender ● Achieved status: voluntary example: college grad, type of job you have ● Master status: one status within a set that stands out/ overrides others example: female engineer ● Status set: all statuses one holds simultaneously 2/6/18 Values and norms ● Values: moral beliefs ● Norms: how values tell us to behave ○ How values are put into action ● Example: Value: Cleanliness ○ Norm: wash hands after riding public transportation What is social deviance? ● Deviance: Any transgression of socially established norms ● Norms: How values/society tell us to behave ● Crime: violation of laws enacted by society

Dependent on social context A sticky, powerful label Crime V. Deviance ● Talking to yourself → violating the social norms ● Underage drinking ● What it means to be deviant is contingent on your social identity ○ ie Beer Pong: 50 year old v. 21 year old ○ Male v Female: Burping, passing gas at the middle of the relationship Why do we abide by the law? Why do we abide by the norms? Normative Compliance ● Social Control: the set of mechanisms that create normative compliance in individuals ● Normative compliance: the act of abiding by society’s norms, or simply following the rules for group life Formal Sanctions ● Rules or laws that prohibit deviant criminal behavior Informal Sanctions ● Unspoken, but widely known, rules in social life regarding the behavior of individuals ● Helps maintain a base level of order and cohesion in society and form a foundation for formal social control ● We enforce the rules, and at the same time, have rules enforced upon us What is social deviance? ● Social cohesion: social bonds, how well people relate to each other and get along on a day to day basis Functionalist approach ● Mechanical solidarity: sameness of the individual parts ● Organic solidarity: social cohesion based on difference and interdependence ○ When people act in a deviant way, they offend the collective conscience ○ Collective conscience: a set of assumptions about how the world by which people abide (social norms) Types of punishments ● Mechanical solidarity: collective punishment ○ Reinforce the boundaries of acceptable social ○ Unite collectively ● Organic solidarity: social sanctions and rehabilitation ○ Criminality of the individual can be fixed Paradox of deviance ● Deviance and the act of collective punishment holds us together Deviance ● Values, norms and this deviance do not remain fixed over time

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Structuration: interplay between structure and agency Many individuals use their agency to change the structure of norms, values and laws

Vuolo reading ● Moral entrepreneur: individuals who use their strength of their positions to encourage others to follow their moral stances ○ Rule creators ○ Argue that rules reflect proper morality ○ Help label rule breakers as ‘outsiders’ What's the point? ● Deviance, as a concept, is a fundamental component of social order ● Deviance, as applied to specific cultural object, is contested ● Deviance, as applied to a specific cultural object, is a process created through structurization Strain theory ● Deviance occurs when a society does not give all its members equal ability to achieve socially acceptable goals Conformist ● Accepts goals of society and the means of achieving those goals Innovator ● Accepts the goals of society, but looks for new, or innovative, ways of achieving those goals Ritualist ● Not interested in goals of society, but accept the means of achieving such goals Retreatist ● Don’t accept the goals of society or the means of achieving those goals Rebel ● Don’t accept the goals of society or the means, so they create their own goals using new means, desires to change or destroy social institutions Labeling theory ● The belief that individuals subconsciously notice how other see or label them ● One’s reaction to those labels over time forms their self-identity Importance After being labeled deviant, do you feel like the same person, or does labeling become part of your identity? ● Primary deviance: the first act of rule breaking that may incur a label of ‘deviant’ and thus influence how people think about and act toward you ● Secondary deviance: subsequent acts of rule breaking that occur after primary deviance and as a result of your new deviant label/people’s expectations of you Stigma

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Negative social label Not only changes others’ behavior toward a person but also alters that person’s own self-concept and identity Has serious consequences for opportunities made available/not available to people in stigmatized group Notice the slippage from a person to a group

Crime reduction ● Deterrence: theory that crimes results from rational calculation of costs and benefits ○ Thus, stiffer penalties=lower crime ● Recidivism: person who has been involved with the criminal justice system reverts to criminal behavior 2/13/18 Network effect ● A person behaves a certain way because of the characteristics and behaviors of the people in their social networks, not just because of their own characteristics and chance Important characteristics of networks ● Size: how many connections do you have to other people? ● Strength: how close are you to people? ● Diversity: how important are the social roles of your connections? Social Group ● Size of group is key ● Substantial difference between social relations in a: ○ dyad(group of two) ○ triad(group of three) ■ Dyad is intimate. Two members are mutually dependent. If one member leaves, the group ends ■ Many new roles arise in a group of three ● Mediator: resolves conflict ● Tertius gaudens: profits from disagreement of others ● Divide et impera: purposefully breaks up other two ● ● ●

Small group: face to face interaction, unifocal perspective, lack of formal arrangements and roles, and a certain level of equality Party: a multifocal small group Large group: presence of a formal structure that mediates interaction and status differentiation

Social network ● Set of relations (dyads) that are held together by ties between individuals ● Tie: set of stories that explain relationship to other members of our network ● Narrative: sum of stories contained in a series of ties ● Embeddedness: degree to which ties are reinforced through indirect paths within a social

network Asch test ● If a majority of individuals agree on something, the minority will often go along, even if they do not agree...