Sociology-family - Lecture notes 1-8 PDF

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Notes on family sociology...

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INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY What is sociology? -Is the systematic study of social behavior and human groups. It focuses primarily on the influence of social relationships upon people’s attitudes and behavior and on how societies are established and change. -sociology is the study of human social life, groups and societies- Giddents. -sociology is the systematic study of groups and societies human build and the way these alliances affect our behaviors- Gells. -sociology is the scientific study of human societies and human behavior in the many groups that make up society- Kornblum. Subject matter of sociology Sociologists are concerned with the external sources of behavior as opposed to psychologists who look inside for the same. - sociology starts with the premise that human beings are social beings. We are who we are partly due to the society we are in. -It studies social institutions in their current and historical contexts and how these affect individuals eg family, government, education, religion etc -It also studies change in these institutions and the society at large. -It is concerned with social structure, stratification, class inequalities etc. - it has an extremely broad scope, eg families, gangs, business firms, political parties, schools, religions and labor unions. It is concerned with love, poverty, conformity, discrimination, illness, alienation, overpopulation, and community. Newspapers, tv, and radio are the usual sources of information about such groups and problems. However, while the basic function of journalists is to report the news, sociologists bring a different type of understanding to such issues. The vision of sociology involves seeing through the outside appearances of people’s actions and organizations (Berger, 1963:31-37). Sociology and common sense. Sociology studies common day-to-day phenomenon. In a way, we are all sociologists as we try to make sense of our day to day social experiences. The major way we do this is through what sociologists call the common sense. It is the body of knowledge that is common knowledge to us and we use it in our day to day encounters. For example, the stereotypes that people in Kenya hold regarding other tribes. Common sense rarely takes into account all variables involved in an issue but is based on assumptions and stereotypes. It sometimes confirms what common knowledge is and sometimes disapproves it. The role of sociology in the society. To understand the world in which you live in and your place in that world, you often use sociological theories and findings.

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a) To increase knowledge on social issues and to challenge common public perceptions through empirical research, eg media reports may indicate an increase in crime even after the police force has mounted a vigorous information campaign , the community policing strategy. The truth could be that people become more aware of the need to report crime even the rarely reported crime such as rape. b) Identify social problems-sociology seeks to identify he causes of social problems such as suicide, sexual violence etc. c) Designing solutions to social problems. Social research helps in policy formulation for purposes of bringing change. d) Planning- social research enables proper planning by identifying possible consequences of an activity. Social Impact Analysis (SIA) is part of project planning processes eg moving people from ancestral land to make way for projects could lead to long term social problems. There are things people cannot do in their ancestral lands for fear of spirits but will start to do them as soon as they are displaced. One major goal of sociology is to identify underlying, recurring patterns of and influences on social behavior. Eg sociologists study the passionate desire of movie or rock music fans to see in person, to talk with, even to grab the clothing of a star. Why do people feel this need so powerful? To what extent does participation in crowd of fans allow individuals to act more boldly that otherwise might? Will people gain greater respect from family members or friends if they have shaken hands with a star and exchanged three sentences of conversation? Sociology goes beyond identifying patterns of social behavior; it also attempts to provide explanation for such patterns. The sociological imagination. In attempting to understand social behavior, sociologists rely on an unusual type of creative thinking. C. Wright Mills (1959) described such thinking as the sociological imagination-an awareness of the relationship between an individual and the wider society. This awareness allows people ( not simply sociologists) to comprehend the links between their immediate, personal social settings and the remote, impersonal social world that surrounds them and helps to shape them. A key element in the sociological imagination is the ability to view one’s own society as an outsider would, rather than from the limited perspective of personal experiences and cultural biases. Thus, instead of simply accepting the fact that movie stars and rock stars are the “royalty” of our society, we could ask, in a more critical sense, why this is the case. Sociological imagination can bring new understanding to daily life around us. Sociology and the social sciences. -Sociology can be considered a science. The term science refers to the body of knowledge obtained by methods based upon systematic observation. Like other scientific disciplines, sociology engages in organized, systematic study of phenomena (in this case, human behavior) in order to enhance understanding. All scientists attempt to collect precise information through methods of study which are as objective as possible. They rely on careful recording of observations and accumulation of data.

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However, the sciences are commonly divided into natural and social sciences. Natural science is the study of the physical features of nature and the ways in which they interact and change. Eg astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, and physics are all natural sciences. Social science is the study of various aspects of human society. This includes sociology, anthropology, economics, history, psychology, and political science. These academic disciplines have a common focus on the social behavior of people, yet each has a particular orientation in studying such behavior. Anthropologists usually study cultures of the past and preindustrial societies that remain in existence today, as well as the origins of men and women; this knowledge is used to examine contemporary societies, including even industrial societies. Economists explore the ways in which people produce and exchange goods and services, along with money and other resources. Historians are concerned with the peoples and events of the past and their significance for us today. Political scientists study international relations, the workings of government, and the exercise of power and authority. Psychologists investigate personality and individual. In contrast to other social sciences, sociology emphasizes the influence that society has on people’s attitudes and behavior and the ways in which people shape society. Humans are social animals; therefore, sociologists scientifically examine our social relationships with people. NB like other social scientists, sociologists do not accept something as a fact because “everyone knows it”. Instead, each piece of information must be tested and recorded, then analyzed in relationship to other data. Sociology relies on scientific studies in order to describe and understand a social environment. At times the findings of sociologists may seem like common sense because they deal with facets of everyday life. Yet it is important to stress that such findings have been tested by researchers. What is sociological theory Sociologists examine the social forces that influence people in deciding why an event occurs, eg whether to attempt suicide. To undertake such research, sociologists develop theories that offer a general explanation of some type of behavior. Theories can be regarded as attempts to explain events, forces, materials, ideas, or behavior in comprehensive manner. Within sociology, a theory is a set of statements that seeks to explain problems, actions, or behavior. An effective theory may have both explanatory and predictive power. It can help us to develop a broad and integrated view of the relationships among seemingly isolated phenomena as well as to understand how one type of change in an environment leads to others. ORIGIN OF SOCIOLOGY

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Sociology was born in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a period of sweeping social change in western societies. The world that Europeans had known for centuries was disappearing and the “modern era” had began. Before the 18th century, most Europeans lived in agricultural villages. They lived as a community, with a king and every villager knew every other and minded else’s business. Nearly everybody attended the same church. Travel was rare; The family was the heart of the family life, providing and caring for its own. Home served as a combination storehouse, workshop, school, hospital and old age home. Nearly all families were farmers, though most did not own the land they worked. Rather, they rented from a landlord (often member of the aristocracy- upper class, landlords) under agreements dating back centuries. This social order was thought to be ordained by God and was seldom /rarely questioned. A few people were born to rule, while the great majority were born to toil. Fathers had authority over their families, landlords over their tenants, and monarchs/rulers over all their subjects. People knew their duty and their place. Little changed from generation to generation. Though some long –term changes were always taking place, they were generally slow and not very visible to ordinary people. In a few places, the 16th and 17th centuries brought the seeds of modern life. The protestant Reformation encouraged new ideas, and agricultural improvements brought a higher standard of living. But most everyday purposes, people could still predict the future from the past. Change gathered speed in early modern Europe. Scientific thinking and research, new inventions, the growth of cities, and the conquest of colonies were all important. But it took two dramatic political events in the 18th century to really shock people into realizing how the traditional social order had been challenged. The American and French revolutions showed that old notions of duty, tradition, and submission to authority were being replaced with new ideas of individual rights, equality, and freedom, threatening monarchs everywhere. At the same time, a new class of capitalist entrepreneurs was gaining wealth and power, pushing aside the old landed aristocracy. The political term revolution was soon applied to these rapid social and economic changes. The industrial revolution altered both the physical and the social landscape. In the 19th century, factories were built, coal mines opened, and railroads and telegraph lines laid, destroying the isolation that had sheltered traditional agricultural communities. pushed by inventions that reduced the need for farm labor, and pulled by the lure of wages, people left their ancestral villages in ever-increasing numbers. Factory towns appeared almost overnight, and urban populations mushroomed. Traditional social relationships were torn apart in the process. Social interaction in factory towns was far more impersonal than in small rural villages. Often people did not

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know many of their neighbors and co-workers, much less face-to face dealings with their employers. Machine production put many people out of work. In addition to sweeping changes at home, the growth of colonial empires and international trade brought Europeans into contact with peoples whose customs and values were quite different from their own. Most Europeans believed that their own culture was clearly superior. They believed that there were rational creatures while others were slaves to superstition or to primitive, animal passions. But scholars were perplexed by cultural diversity. Where had, European civilization come from, and where was it headed? It was from this social and intellectual turmoil that sociology was born. Common sense explanations of world, based on experience, no longer applied. Social philosophy, which dealt with what society should be like, could not explain what was currently happening in the real world. What governments, businesses, and ordinary citizens needed was a science of society – a large body of information put into perspective by systematically tested theories that would help them understands and adapt to the modern era. And so a new discipline –which the pioneering French thinker Auguste Comte (1798-1557) called sociology – came into being. The rise of scientific thinking was itself one of the major social changes in Europe. The early sociologists were both part of the scientific tide that was sweeping Europe and observers of it. Adapting ideas and methods from physical sciences, they gathered empirical data and constructed theories that are still influential today. They developed key concepts of social structure, social action, functional integration, power and culture. i) social structures- refers to patterns of social relationships eg marriage, employment) or social positions eg priest, president) and numbers of people ( age of the youth), rich vs poor. ii) Social action (or just action) exist to the extent that people’s behavior is based on meaningful understanding of what they do, and respond toward the actions of others. Iii functional integration – refers to the interdependence among the parts of a social system. How each part contributes to make the whole system work…..for skilled people, schools depends of government for provision of financial support and government

depend on armies for national defense.

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iv)

Power- ability to influence others to do your will -can be forceful -power can be exercised in a personal relationship eg husband dominates the wife…

- Attempts to exercise power may meet resistance results to conflict or the clash of powers. Despite the potential for conflict, the exercise of power can bind people together. v) culture- is the language, norms, values, beliefs, knowledge and symbols that make up a way of life. -Describes the distinctive way of life of a people or nation.

THE FAMILY A family can be defined as a set of people related by blood, marriage (or some other agreed-upon relationship), or adoption who share the primary responsibility for reproduction and caring for members of society. The family as a social institution is present in all cultures. Composition: what is the family? Nuclear family – this type of family serves as the nucleus or core upon which larger family groups are built. Consists of parents and children. Extended family- relatives in addition to parents and children. Monogamy- describes a form of marriage in which one woman and one man are married only to each other. Serial monogamy- a person is allowed to have several spouses in his or her life but can have only one spouse at a time. Polygamy- an individual is allowed to have several husbands or wives simultaneously. Most societies throughout the world past and present have preferred polygamy, not monogamy. Two types of polygamy(i) polygyny refer to the marriage of a man to more than one woman at the same time. The various wives are often sisters, who are expected to hold similar values and have already had experience sharing a household. In polygamous societies, relatively few men actually have multiple spouses.

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(ii) Polyandry, under which a woman can have several husbands at the same time. Eg culture of the Todas in southern India. It is rare, it has been accepted by some extremely poor societies which practice female infanticide (killing of baby girls) and thus have a relatively small number of women. Like many other societies, polyandrous cultures devalue the social worth of women. To whom are we related. We can trace our roots by listening to elderly family members tell us about their lives – and about the lives of ancestors who died long before we were even born. A person’s lineage is more than simply a personal history; it also reflects societal patterns that govern descent. In every culture, children are introduced to relatives to whom they are expected to show an emotional attachment. The state of being related to others is called kinship. Kinship is culturally learned and in not totally determined by biological or marital ties eg adoption creates a kinship tie which is legally acknowledged and socially accepted.

The family and kin group are not necessarily the same. While the family is a household unit, kin do not always live together or function as a collective body on a daily basis. Kin groups include aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, and so forth. They normally come together rarely as weddings, funerals. However, kinship ties frequently create obligations and responsibilities. We may feel compelled to assist our kin and feel free to call upon relative for many types of aid, including loans and baby-sitting. How are kinship group identified? The principle of descent assigns people to kinship groups according to their responsibility to an individual’s mother and father. There are three principal ways of determining descent. i) Bilateral descent- which is means that both sides of person’s family are regarded as equally important. ii) patrilineal (from the latin word pater, “father”) descent indicates that only the father’s relatives are important in terms of property, inheritance, and the establishment of emotional ties. People are considered members of their father’s kin group, not their mother’s. iii) Matrilineal (from the latin word mater, “mother”) descent, only the mother’s relatives are significant, the relatives of the father are considered unimportant. The kinship is traced through the female line only. Authority patterns: who rules? Societies vary in the way that power within the family is distributed. If a society expects males to dominate in all family decision making, it is termed as:

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i) Patriarchy. The eldest male wields the greatest power. Women hold low status in such societies and rarely are granted full and equal rights within the legal system. Eg it may be difficult for a woman to obtain a divorce that it is for a man. ii) Matriarchy, women have greater authority than men. Matriarchies may have emerged among Native American tribal societies and in nations in which men were absent for long periods of time for warfare or food gathering. iii) Egalitarian family- one in which spouses are regarded as equals. This does not mean that each decision is shared in such families. Mothers may hold authority in some

spheres, fathers in others. In view of many sociologists, the egalitarian family has begun to replace the patriarchal family as the social norm. Functions of family. 1. 2.

Reproduction- for a society to maintain itself, it must replace dying members. The family contributes to human survival through its function of reproduction. Protection. Human infants and disabled need constant care and economic security. Infants and children experience an extremely long period of dependency, which places special demands on older family members. In all cultures, it is the family that assumes ultimate responsibility for the protection and upbringing of children.

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Socialization. Parents and other kin monitor a child’s behavior and transmit the norms, values, and language of a culture to the child.

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Regulation of sexual behavior. Sexual norms are subject to change over time (for instance, changes in customs for dating). Standards of sexual behavior are most clearly defined within the family circle. The structure of society influences these standards so that, characteristically in male –dominated societies, formal and informal norms permit men to express and enjoy their sexual desires more freely than women may. Affection ...