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103 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back
What is sociology?
Sociology is the empirical study of why people are the way they are. The study of patterns of human behavior within a construction called society.
Dialectic of humans and society
Humans create that which create them.
- Interconnectedness
- Interactions
- Co-dependency
- Caged bird theory
- The Iron cage (max weber)
Purpose of sociology
To understand society realistically.
Understand why people are the way they are.
Understand patterns of behavior.
Bracketing
Allowing new and different ideas to enter through inquiry.
Releasing "brackets" allows synthesis to happen.
Obvious
A common sense definition: something that needs no explanation.

Usually that which hides/distorts something else.

A surface reality that needs to be looked beyond.

The first wisdom of sociology is that things are not what they seem.
Debunking
Looking at the obvious / surface level and contrasting with the deeper, less obvious to uncover social behaviour.

Challenge conventional truths.
Social Marginality
Marginalized individuals, bring marginalized, naturally have a debunking mindset, always asking "why?" things are the way they are.

Marginalized individuals question the 'taking for granted'

a state of being excluded from the social fabric and being treated as an outsider.
Ignorance
Equated with stupidity and dumbness.

Root of word Ignore:
not pay attention to
not aware of
not knowing
not being made aware by others
refusal to know

We are all relatively ignorant
Need the humility (low self view) to know more and better.
Critique
Attempt at objective understanding so as to determine both merits and faults.

Careful analysis

Studying the nature of something

Root: to separate and decide.
Sociological Imagination
a capacity, ability quality of mind that allows and individual to understand and connect her or his life with the forces and dynamics that impact it.

Central Premise: The individual is embedded in society, interdependent with other people.

Contrasts with a view of the individual as with a view of the individual as autonomous, largely independent of other people.
Global sociological imagination.
Growing global context of social life.

We are a global village.

Helps us to grasp history an biography, to connect personal troubles + public issues. Personal + political.
Theory of duality of structure and agency
Agency refers to the power an individual has within a social system.

Structure is a more macro approach, in which, what we define as our reality is a result of the social structure we are within.

The duality is that these forces are in opposition, macro structure forming our behaviour and micro agency apparently suggesting that the individual is capable of changing social structures.

New approaches are trying to synthesis a balance between structure and agency: structures influence human behaviour, yet humans are capable of changing the structures they reside in.
Ethnocentrism versus cultural relativism
Ethnocentrism: The interpretation of the practices of another culture in terms of the meanings of one’s own culture.

Cultural relativism: We create our reality. Charles Taylor “ The sober and rational discourse which tries to understand other cultures has to become aware of itself as one among many possibilities in order properly understand these others.”
Western Marxism
"humans are born and are selfish in nature, in order to survive"

Western marxism is a form of marxist theory that is more humanistic centred than political or economically centred.
Hegemony and counter-hegemony
Hegemony: ideological control and manipulation.

Society's dominant ideas reflect the interests of the ruling class.

Counter-hegemony: resistance of the rule by the masses.
Feminist theories
Core concern is gender oppression.
Women and men should be equals.

Dorothy smith: subject as active and experiencing person - each of us comes into situation(s) with our own perspectives.
Standpoint Theory
the presence of the subject as an active and experiencing person
Positionality
people try to understand themselves/reality based upon their gender/race/ethnicity/religion etc
Intersectionality / Interlocking system.
Same set of social relations that produces men’s privilege also produces women’s oppression.

This is also called the interlocking system: if one benefits, someone else suffers because of it.
Post-Structuralism
Concerned with how knowledge is socially produced.

Discipline is how we come to be motivated to produce particular realities.

Foucault:

Power operates by producing some behaviours while discouraging others.

Knowledge can never be separated from relations of power.
Queer Theory
Problematizes the standard of equality based on sameness.

Three main areas of queer theory: desire, language and identity...

Desire to interrupt normal sexuality

Language, unable to capture whole truth of reality

Identity, a social production, constructed through social relations and discourse.
Post-Colonial Theory
Focus on the political and cultural effects of colonialism

Imperialism: “what happens at home”

Colonialism: “what happens away from home”

Post suggests a focus on events that happened after formal colonialism ended in the early 1960’s.
Anti-racist theories
Theorizing whiteness
Seen as a racial identity
Richard Dyer (1997) whiteness

Whites are thought of as simply people while non-white are understood as distinct races

Races seen as distinct entities
When in reality such is not true
Superstructure vs. Substructure
Super: all of the things that society values and aspires to once its material needs are met, such as relgion, politics and ideology.

Sub: material and economic foundation for society. Includes the forces and relations of production.
Macro vs Microsociology
Macrosociological theories ask “large” questions.


Microsociological theories ask questions about experiences and meanings.
Multiperspectival approach
Multi-perspectival approach to the analysis of issues. Allows an individual to see an "issue" through the many alternate perspectives.
Structural-functional Paradigm
Assumption that society is a complex system made of interrelated parts.

Human society is similar to an organism, when it fails to work together the “system” will fail.

Society must meet the needs of the majority.
Anomie
lack of normality
Conflict Theory
Society is grounded upon inequality and competition.
Assumes that without conflict, change is impossible.
Bourgeois
in a feudal system, the rich owners of resources.
The Proletariat
in a feudal system, the workers.
Symbolic interaction paradigm.
• People act toward things based on the meaning those things have for them; and these meanings are derived from social interaction and modified through interpretation (Blumer)
• Ritzer’s principles of symbolic interactionism

Humans have the capacity for thought

Human thinking is shaped by social interaction

People learn meanings and symbols in social settings

Meanings and symbols enable people to carry on uniquely human actions

Meaning and symbols change depended upon interpretation

Unique ability to interact with self

Culmination of interaction and patterns of action make up society

* significant symbol: a symbol that has a shared meaning, all understand the same meaning

* non-significant symbol: a symbol in which not all agree upon its meaning.

* reflexivity: the ability of individuals to think about themselves, self thinks about itself.
Significant / Non-significant symbols
significant symbol: a symbol that has a shared meaning, all understand the same meaning

non-significant symbol: a symbol in which not all agree upon its meaning.
Polysemic
multiple meanings
The Enlightenment
Premise: rationality, reason is the basis of knowledge

Positivism: the use of the methods employed by natural scientists to study human society. Natural world is governed by natural laws, thus human society is governed by societal laws. Only sense experiences can be considered knowledge.
Auguste Comte
Coined the term 'Sociology'

Also started positivism.
Herbert Spencer
Social Darwinism: Societies are equipped with survival mechanisms, some better than others. Those societies that are more fit, became the dominant societies and thus dominate the less fortunate societies.

Societies evolve in order to survive.

Societies evolve from the simple to the complex.

Laissez-faire approach (opposes regulation of or interference with natural processes)
Karl Marx on class struggle
Constant struggle between the haves and have-nots.

Power is the core of all social relationships; scarce and divided unequally among all.

Social values and the dominant ideology are the vehicles by which the powerful promote their own interests at the expense of the weak

Dialectics: a way of seeing history and society as the result of oppositions, contradictions and tensions from which social change can emerge (Hegel)
Durkheim's suicide study
Result: Not only psychological problems, individual, but also social integration and social solidarity.

Suicide rates increased or decreased proportionately with how well or poorly a person is integrated into their community.
Max Weber on Vertehen; value free social science.
verstehen=empathy

It is impossible to have value free sociology because society in itself is guided by values. The study of sociology is guided by values, whether the values are at the ethical or rational level.
Racism and Sexism and the development of Sociology
Earlier accounts only mention Euro-American men as founders of social thought. What about non-European thinkers?

Harriet Martineau: first methodological systematic treatise in sociology, extended comparative study of s/ institutions.

Jane Addams: founded Hull House

W.E.B. Dubois: established African-American sociological studies.
Talcott Parson's abstract theoretical models
Social action theory: a framework which attempts to separate behaviors from actions to explain why people do what they do.

Grand theorizing

Four Functional Imperatives (AGIL)
Adaptation
Goal attainment
Integration
Latency
Robert Merton's middle range theories
•Middle range theorizing: disagreed with grand theorizing
•Social structures have many functions

Manifest functions: the
intended consequences of an action or social pattern

Latent functions: the unintended consequences of an action or social pattern
Charles Wright Mills' Counterpoint / Praxis
• Urged sociologists to return to social reform
• Advocated praxis
• Coined terms: sociological imagination.

ideas without practice are blind and practice without ideas are empty.

The two should inform each other.
Science and common sense
• Common sense: minimum body of knowledge that one is expected to know in order to deal with everyday situations.
• 1) Common sense and truth.
o Common sense useful guide to familiar situations
o Past experience safe guide to present
o But common sense is NOT truth
o Knowledge that relies on “common sense” is not always reliable.


o Scientific method: the systematic and controlled extension of commonsense.
o 2) common sense & science
• men and dogs?
• Sociologists must test and analyze each piece of information they use
• The importance of empirical information
Qualitative vs Quantitative methods
• Quantitative approaches (numerical data)
o Determining significant relationships between variables
o Generalizable
o Comparative



• Qualitative approaches (non numerical)
o Smaller sample sizes
o Interviewing and observation
o Researchers are research “instruments”
Inductive vs Deductive logic
Inductive: Move from data to theory

Dedudctive: Move from theory to data
Variables
Used to measure relationships

Independent variable: can be varied or manipulated

Dependent variable: is the reaction (or lack thereof) of the manipulation
Correlation vs Causation
Correlation: Measures how strongly two variables are related

Causality: one variable causes a change in another variable.
The control group versus experimental group
Control and manipulations = operations designed to eliminate extraneous influences and to include necessary ones in a hypothesis test.
Hawthorne effect
the tendency of subjects acting to meet the expectation of researchers if they are informed beforehand that they are being studied.
Participatory action research
Action research: designed to promote unconcealed change and participatory research combined together.

PAR projects have both an action component and collaborative component.
Participant vs. Non-participant observation
Participant: Involves active participation in the daily life activities of those he or she is observing.

Non: the opposite, idiot.
Reciprocal Socialization
Bi-directional socialization. Simply meaning that as a child becomes socialized, they can socialize their mother.
Mead's stages of the self
Preparation stage: children merely imitate the actions and symbols of those around them

Play stage: Children assume the character of other individuals

Game stage: children are aware of social context and is aware of task and relationship situations.
Significant other
the person that guides and takes care of a child during primary socialization.
Generalized Other
general notion that a person has of the common expectations that others have about actions and thoughts within a particular society.
Types of Socialization
Primary: ccurs when a child learns the attitudes, values, and actions appropriate to individuals as members of a particular culture.

Secondary: refers to the process of learning what is appropriate behavior as a member of a smaller group within the larger society.

Developmental: process of learning behavior in a social institution or developing your social skills.

Anticipatory Socialization: refers to the processes of socialization in which a person "rehearses" for future positions, occupations, and social relationships.

Resocialization: process of discarding former behavior patterns and accepting new ones as part of a transition in one's life.
Define Socialization
to refer to the process of inheriting norms, customs and ideologies.
Looking Glass Self
How we see ourselves is a product of the viewpoints of how others see ourselves.
The Thomas Theorum
"If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences."
Gender versus sex
Gender is a social term
Sex is biological.

Men and Women really aren't much different, besides small biological reproductive purposes.
Glass Ceiling
Invisible roof women hit in society.. ruled be a class of men.
Glass escalator
Promoting men over women in the business world for no real reason but societal norms.
Double Jeopardy
Having more than one societal "disadvantage" such as being a women of colour.
Intersectionality
holds that the classical models of oppression within society, such as those based on race/ethnicity, gender, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, class, or disability do not act independently of one another; instead, these forms of oppression interrelate creating a system of oppression that reflects the "intersection" of multiple forms of discrimination.
The double shift.
A women's work at home is her second job that usually goes largely unsung compared to her "dayjob"
Talcott Parsons and Robert Bales on division of labor and gender roles.
Gender roles: expectations that are placed on an individual.
Masculinity: dominance
Femininity: submissiveness, emotionality, weakness.
Intersex.
refers to intermediate or atypical combinations of physical features that usually distinguish female from male
Gender asymmetries
Despite the "enlightenment" there remains gender inequality.
Social construction of gender
Gender is a socially constructed phenominon. Based on the men who are in power, fortifying the power to others in their "group".. Thus women who lack power, resort to emotion and compassion and submissiveness as alternatives to those men clutching power.
The mommy track
a career path determined by work arrangements offering mothers certain benefits, such as flexible hours, but usually providing them with fewer opportunities for advancement.
Sexism
is the belief or attitude that one gender or sex is inferior to, less competent, or less valuable than the other.
Racial groups
refers to the categorization of humans into populations or ancestral groups on the basis of various sets of heritable characteristics.
Genetic interchangeability
Humans belong to the same gene pool, we operate in a genetically open system.
Prejudice
preconceived belief, opinion, or judgment made without ascertaining the facts of a case.

We all have prejudice.

Racism is acting upon prejudice.
Stereotypes
commonly held public belief about specific social groups, or types of individuals and radios.
Mental Templates
Tied to stereotypes
Mental templates are shortcuts used to arrive at faster, quicker decisions, aka heuristics: broad generalizations used to speed a process.
Discrimination
treatment taken toward or against a person of a certain group in consideration based solely on class or category.
Racism as power
Exactly as it sounds.
Cultural racism
The newer, more discreet form of racism that replaced classical colonial or institutionalized racism.
Systemic racism
any form of racism occurring specifically within institutions such as public government bodies, private business corporations, and universities
institutional racism
See Systemic racism
Everyday racism
the lived experience of racial oppression.
Old racism vs new racism
Old: more obvious and institutionalized

New: more discrete, under the surface, more lethal and crippling. Harder to erradicate
One Drop rule
One drop of "minority" blood, however small makes you that minority.

Obama is black... not white.
Hypo-Descent
Classifying mixed race groups into the lower of the two races... opposite of
miscegenation
mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation.
Passing
Passing is the ability of a person to be regarded as a member of social groups other than his or her own
Terrorism, types of.
State: Nazi Germani / Former Soviet Union. Holocaust.

State-sponsored: One country trains and arms a rebel group to terrorize a target.

Individual: Mandela, Bin Laden, Al Kaida.
Paths of least resistance
the social "norms" and modes of behaviour that society encourages. Most people following paths of least resistance have done so unknowlingly. Forms of inequality need paths of least resistance to endure for their survival. These paths of least resistance are the choices that people make every day and the actions and INACTIONS that they take that support inequality.
Conferred dominance
giving a group of people power to be superior even though they did not earn it
Milgram on Obedience
people will willing confer to those in power, relinquishing their "responsibility" of the task at hand to the responsibility of the person in power.
Oligarchy
Ruling by a select few... Not democracy
Plutocracy
Rule by the wealthy
Elite theorists on democracy
Democracy is a fraud?
Rule by interlock
politicians and power people don't retire.. they move on to other power positions... fucking cavefags.
Glocalization
“think globally and act locally.”
Power of the situation
Our behaviour is always facilitated by the presence of another.
self-serving bias
when people attribute their successes to internal or personal factors but attribute their failures to situational factors beyond their control.
attribution
concept in social psychology referring to how individuals explain causes of events, other's behaviour, and their own behaviour.
Dispositional attribution
assigning attribution to whole groups. attribution (internal) is the way a character is shaped by the effect that a witnessed event has on said character... applying these attributions to whole groups is dangerous.
Situational attribution
cause of the given behaviour is assigned to the situation in which the behaviour was seen (that the individual producing the behaviour did so because of the surrounding environment or the social situation).

Also called external attribution.