Sociology

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Sociology

• The study of social action and social order, and
  the human relationships, enduring institutions,
  and dynamic processes that keep those fundamental
  forces in continuing tension.
• Sociology is, therefore, an encompassing social
  science, with formal study ranging from world
  systems, national-states, and large human
  population groups on the one hand (termed
  macrosociology), to the study of parenting, peer
  groups and deviant behavior at the other end of
  the continuum (microsociology).

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Sociological Imagination

• The term sociological imagination was coined by
  the late Columbia University sociologist C.
  Wright Mills. It refers to an ability to perceive
  the intersections of history (indispensable to
  mature sociological understanding) and biography.
  
• Or, to phrase it another way, it allows the
  researcher to view human lives as they are shaped
  by historically conditioned social forces.
• Using the sociological imagination allows the
  researcher to grasp what is going on in the world
  and to understand what is happening in themselves
  as minute points of intersections of biography
  and history within society.

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Perspectives

• Microsociology is the study of everyday behavior
  in situations of face-to-face interaction.
• Macrosociology is the analysis of large-scale
  social systems.

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Theory

• Conflict
• Symbolic Interaction
• Structural Functionalism
• Feminist

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Conflict

• Oriented toward the study of social structures
  and institutions. Conflict theorists see whatever
  order there is in society as stemming from the
  coercion of some members by those at the top.
• Maintains that society is held together in the
  face of conflicting interests because either (a)
  one group in the society has the power to enforce
  the rules (and thus make subordinate groups
  follow rules that may primarily serve the
  interests of the superordinate group) or (b)
  there are so many overlapping and divided
  interest groups that individuals must learn to
  cooperate.
• The overall argument made by conflict theorists,
  however, is that through the structure of
  conflict in society, order can be maintained in
  one of these two ways.

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More Conflict Theory

• Social conflict assumes various forms.
  Competition describes a conflict over the control
  of resources or advantages desired by others
  where actual physical violence is not employed.
• Regulated competition is the sort of peaceful
  conflict which is resolved within a framework of
  agreed rules.
• Markets involve competition, both regulated and
  unregulated. Other conflicts may be more violent
  and not bound by rules, in which case they are
  settled by the parties mobilizing their power
  resources.

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Symbolic Interaction

• Is the study of the self-society relationship as
  a process of symbolic communications between
  social actors. This is an exchange of gestures
  that involves the use of symbols.
• Symbolic interactionism stresses the exchange of
  symbols between individuals in social
  interaction. Unlike other theories, symbolic
  interactionism emphasizes the small-scale
  interactions of an individual, not society as a
  whole.
• Based on three assumptions
• Communication occurs through the creation of
  shared significant symbols,
• The self is constructed through communication,
  and
• Social activity becomes possible through the
  role-taking process.

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More Symbolic Interaction

• Symbolic interactionism directs our attention to
  the detail of interpersonal interaction and how
  that detail is used to make sense of what others
  say and do.
• Social interaction requires numerous forms of
  nonverbal communication-the exchange of
  information and meaning through facial
  expressions, gestures, and movements of the body.
  
• Nonverbal communication is sometimes referred to
  as "body language," but this is misleading,
  because we characteristically use such nonverbal
  cues to eliminate or expand on what is said with
  words.

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More Symbolic Interaction

• You can get a basic grasp of this theory by
  learning its keywords and how they fit together.
• I -- the active portion of the self capable of
  performing behaviors.
• Me -- the socially reflective portion of the
  self, providing social control for the actions of
  the I.
• Self -- the combination of the I and the Me. Self
  is a process, not a structure. The I acts and the
  me defines the self as reflective of others.
• Self-indication -- experience and feedback as the
  I acts and the Me observes the I from the role of
  the Other. The Me then gives direction regarding
  future action to the I.
• Generalized Other -- the typical members of a
  society or culture.
• Specific Other -- the idea of a specific person
  outside the Self.

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More Symbolic Interaction

• Role Taking -- putting oneself in the place of
  another, or waling in someone else's shoes. We
  learn to Role Take by Play and Games.
• Play -- activity where a child is both the self
  and an other, without recognizing the self. The
  child plays both roles without recognizing the
  self in either role.
• Game -- interaction where the child has the
  attitude of all the others involved in the game.
  The child is the self but can recognize the
  other's perspectives. Thus, behavior is not a
  response but an interpretive process. The
  individual can comprehend the self only through
  interaction with other people.
• Gesture (nonsymbolic) Interaction -- an impulsive
  and spontaneous action in the sense of a reflex
  response (e.g., pulling your hand away quickly
  when after it touches something hot).
• Symbolic Interaction -- an interpretation of a
  symbol.
• Symbol -- the representation of one thing for
  another thing.
• Significant Symbol -- a symbol that has shared
  meaning (e.g., the words in a language).
• Mind -- a social, behavioral process in which the
  human being is capable of acting toward and even
  creating his or her environment, or objects in
  the environment.

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Structural Functionalism

• Observes the ways in which the various elements
  of society are interdependent and explains this
  interdependence in terms of evolutionary theory.
  It accounts for a social activity by referring to
  its consequences for the operation of some other
  social activity, institution or society as a
  whole.
• A social activity or institution by have latent
  functions for some other activity. A social
  activity may contribute to the maintenance of the
  stability of a social system. A social activity
  may contribute to the satisfying of basic social
  needs or functional prerequisites.
• Emphasizes the consensus of society seeing shared
  norms and values as fundamental to society with a
  focus on social order based on tacit agreements.
• Views social change as occurring in a slow and
  orderly fashion.

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More Structural Functionalism

• Functionalism maintains that society is held
  together primarily by a general consensus over
  the major values and norms in the society. People
  tend to obey the rules because through a long
  socialization process they have come to accept
  these rules, so for the most part they live by
  them.
• Focuses on the interaction between the actor and
  the world views both the actor and the world as
  dynamic processes and not static structures and,
  attributes great importance to the actor's
  ability to interpret the social world.
• This view conceives of the individuals themselves
  as existentially free agents who accept, reject,
  modify or otherwise define the community's norms,
  roles beliefs and so forth, according to their
  own personal interests and plans of the moment.

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More Structural Functionalism

• Manifest functions, those intended by the
  participants in a social activity, are sometimes
  less important than latent functions, the
  unintentional consequences of a social act.
• To look for the dysfunctional aspects of social
  behavior means focusing on features of social
  life that challenge the existing order of things.
  
• To study the function of a social activity is to
  analyze the contribution that that activity makes
  to the continuation of the society as a whole

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Feminist

• Looks at the world from the vantage points of a
  hitherto unrecognized and invisible minority,
  women, with an eye to discovering the significant
  but unacknowledged ways in which the activities
  of womensubordinated by gender and variously
  affected by other stratificational practices,
  such as class, race, age, enforced
  heterosexuality and geosocial inequalityhelp
  create our world.
• Attempts to understand and explain the
  subordinate position of women in society by
  reference to gender differences and specifically
  in terms of a theory of patriarchy.

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More Feminist

• Feminist Theory is a critique of patriarchal
  forms of hegemony.
• Feminist theories argue that women's lives and
  their experiences are central to the study of
  society. Driven by a concern with women's
  subordination in American society, feminist
  theory highlights gender relations and gender
  inequality as an important determinant of social
  life in terms of both social interaction and
  social institutions.
• Feminist theory emphasizes gendered patterns and
  gendered inequalities are not natural but are
  socially constructed.