Unit 1 Chapters 1, 2 & 3

1. Unit 1Chapters 1, 2 & 3

2. Chapter #1 • What is Sociology?

3. Definition of Sociology • Sociology is the study of human behavior in society. • All human behavior occurs in a societal context in the community we live in, in the church, the school, the family, the nation or somewhere in this world. • That context shapes what people do and how they think.

4. Sociology is a Social Science • Sociology is a scientific way of thinking about society and its influence on human groups. • It is an empirical discipline. • Its conclusions are based on careful and systematic observations. • This way of thinking is very different from ordinary common sense.

5. The Sociological ImaginationC.W. Mills • The ability to look at what people are doing and develop an understanding of the town, culture, and/or society in which they live, thrive, and die. • For example: Sociologists watch a parade, go on a picnic, watch activities in a classroom, at a religious service, or while driving on a freeway or a small town road. While doing so, they can see the structure of the town, community, and/or culture.

6. Your sociological Imagination By the end of this course, you will have begun to develop your own sociological imagination. You will see things from a sociological perspective; whether you are at a football game, picnic, home watching TV, out to dinner, or celebrating a holiday with family, you will begin to see things differently than you do now. You will see things from a sociological perspective!

7. Personal Troubles • Troubles are privately felt problems that spring from events or feelings in a person’s life. Example of a personal trouble: You lost your job and can’t find a new one. So you become a couch potato, lose enthusiasm, and move back home.

8. Issues • Issues affect large numbers of people and have their origins in the institutional arrangements and history of a society. • Issues shape the context within which troubles arise. Example of a public issue: • General Motors may shut down its Detroit plant or lay off 1/3 of its auto workers. • If this happens, many workers in the town will be unemployed and will not easily find another job locally since there are no manufacturing jobs available in the city.

9. Discussion Question • Describe a trouble and an issue that you currently face. • How are the two related? • How are they different?

11. Discussion Questions • Give examples of disquieting individual or social facts. • You can take them from your reading of this chapter, from the media, or from personal experiences. • Give examples of disquieting social conditions of a culture that is not your own. • For Example: The Iranian government requires that an Iranian women have sex with her spouse at least every three days even when it is against her will.

12. The Significance of Diversity • Diversity is a central theme studied by sociologists. • Diversity is an important issue in any society, even in the United States. • Racial and ethnic groups currently comprise 35% of those living in this country. • This percentage continues to steadily increase. • Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, Latinos, Jews, Christians, Hindus, newborns and the elderly, the disabled, as well as heterosexuals, bisexuals, and homosexuals make up our diverse population. This is not an exhaustive list.

13. What is Diversity? • Diversity is a concept that includes studying group differences in society. • Diversity shapes the opportunities one has to: • marry • go to school • get a job • buy a home • join a religious institution • receive healthcare • live a safe and comfortable life • save a life • Diversity includes the study of different cultural orientations.

14. Understanding Diversity • Understanding diversity is crucial to understanding society. • Patterns of social change and social structures are patterned by diverse group experiences. • There are numerous sources of diversity, including: • race • class • gender • age • nationality • sexual orientation • region of residence

15. Diversity

16. The Development ofSociological Theory • In the 18th and 19th century, faith in the ability for mankind to solve its problems and survive is known as the Age of Enlightenment or Age of Reason. • This period in history significantly influenced the development of modern sociology. • Understanding and observation replaced the idea that things can only be understood by applying religious teaching or by a belief that a supernatural spirit (god or demon) caused them to happen as either a punishment or as a reward for correct or incorrect behavior.

17. Three Early Sociological Thinkers • These early contributors set the stage for the birth of sociology: • Auguste Comte • Alexis de Tocqueville • Harriet Martineau

18. Auguste Comte • The founding father of sociology. • He believed that society could be studied scientifically. • This approach is known as positivism. 1798–1857

19. Classical Sociological Theory • These three classical sociologists set the foundation for our current thinking and understanding of sociology. • Emile Durkheim • Karl Marx • Max Weber

20. Emile Durkheim • Some of Durkheim’s major work focuses on the forces that hold society together. • He called this force social solidarity. • People are glued together by religious rituals which sustain moral cohesion. 1858-1917

21. Suicide • Durkheim is well known for his early work on suicide. • He demonstrated that suicide was not purely a personal trouble, but that rates of suicide within a society varied by how clear and consistently upheld the norms and customs of the society were. • He showed that suicide rates were higher in societies where norms were unclear or contradictory. • This was referred to as a state of normlessness or anomie.

22. Karl Marx • Marx is one of the most influential thinkers in history. • He saw society as systematic and structural and class as a fundamental dimension of society that shapes social behavior. 1818-1883

23. Marx’s ideas Marx: • took social structure as his subject rather than the actions of individuals • was devoted to explaining how capitalism, an economic system based on pursuing profit, shaped society • addressed the capitalist class, the bourgeoisie, controllers of the production of goods and of ideas • spoke of economic determinism with a class system of owners (bourgeoisie) and workers (proletariat).

24. Charles Darwin • Darwin was a British biologist whose ideas lead to what is referred to as Social Darwinism. • “Survival of the fittest” is also the driving force of social and biological evolution. • Society, an organism, evolves from the simple to the complex. It is best left alone. • This is referred to as Laissez-faire, the non-interference doctrine.

25. Robert Parks • Also from the University of Chicago, he was interested in urban problems and how different racial groups interacted. • He introduced the idea of boundaries within cities and how they are enforced and maintained. • Example: the Vietnamese from white affluent neighbors

26. Chapter 2 Culture & the Media

27. Defining of Culture • Culture is the complex system of meaning and behavior that defines the way of life for a given group or society. • It includes beliefs, values, knowledge, art, morals, laws, customs, habits, language, and dress, among other things. • Culture includes ways of thinking as well as patterns of behavior. • Observing culture involves studying what people think, how they interact, and the objects they use.

28. Material and Nonmaterial Culture • Culture is a glue that holds the society together. • It provides guidelines for right and wrong behavior. • Culture is both material and nonmaterial. • Material culture consists of objects created in the society, e.g. the desk or bed you sit at when studying. • Nonmaterial culture consists of non-tangible things such as norms, laws, customs, values, beliefs, and ideas of a group of people. • Believing in God, the language you speak, and how you sit when you eat are non-tangible aspects of culture.

29. Material Culture

30. Characteristics of Culture • Andersen & Taylor discuss five universal aspects of culture that apply to all cultures everywhere. • Culture: • is shared • is learned • is taken for granted • is symbolic • varies across time and space

31. Culture is learned • People in any culture learn the ways of their culture. • We learn a culture’s ways so thoroughly that we are not aware these ways of thinking, believing, acting and living are learned. • Culture is learned indirectly through observation and imitation. • Sociologists say that culture is learned both informally and formally. • A person feels like an outsider until they’ve learned the ways of the culture.

32. Discussion Question • Think of a time when you went to a new environment (such as off to college) and you didn’t know how you were expected to act or what you should do. How did you figure out what you should do to fit into the group?

33. Culture is taken for granted • People engage unknowingly in hundreds of cultural practices every day; culture makes these practices seem “normal.” • We do what we do without stopping to ask, “Why am I doing this?” It is just the way it is done. • For example: In the U.S. people sleep on a mattress instead of a straw mat, and they use silverware when they eat and not their hands or chopsticks. Why? • Because that is what we do in the U.S.

34. Culture is symbolic • The significance of culture lies in the meaning it holds for people. Different cultures assign different meanings to symbols. • For example: waving a Korean flag from an office building in Delaware is unpatriotic, but doing the same in Korea is patriotic. • Symbols are things or behaviors to which people give meaning; the meaning is not inherent in a symbol but is bestowed by the meaning people give it. • For example, in America: • the American Flag is a symbol of freedom. • the white wedding dress is a symbol of purity. • the iPod is a symbol of status, being hip.

35. Culture varies across time & place • Culture develops as humans adapt to the physical and social environment around them. • Solutions to everyday problems vary in different time periods. • Culture is a mix of the past and the present. • In the 21st century we speak of meeting the ever-increasing demand for food by genetic engineering. • In the 19th century these ideas were not even dreamed about, let alone practiced.

36. Elements of Culture • Andersen & Taylor discuss the following elements of culture: • language • norms • beliefs • values • Every culture relies on these elements to provide its people with a way to live. • These vary from culture to culture, but they are cultural universals. • No culture can exist without them.

37. The Element of Language • Language is a set of symbols and rules that, put together in a meaningful way, provide a complex communication system. • The formation of culture among humans is made possible by language. • Language is fluid and dynamic and evolves in response to social change.

38. The Element of Norms • Norms are the specific cultural expectations for how to behave in a given situation. • Society without norms would be chaos; with norms in place, people know how to act, and social interactions are consistent, predictable, and learnable. • There are norms governing every situation. • Sometimes they are formal, sometimes informal.

39. Sanctions • Negative sanctions may be mild or severe, ranging from subtle mechanisms of control, such as ridicule, to overt forms of punishment, such as imprisonment, physical coercion, or death

40. The Element of Beliefs • Beliefs are shared ideas held collectively by people within a given culture about what is true. • Shared beliefs are part of what binds people together in society. • Beliefs are also the basis for many norms and values of a given culture.

41. Cultural Diversity • As societies develop and become more complex, different cultural traditions appear. • The greater the society’s complexity the greater the internal variations and diversity. • Sociologists differentiate between dominant cultures and subcultures.

42. Amish in the 21st Century A subculture in America

43. Cultural Diversity in the U.S. • The United States is classified as a complex society comprised of many different cultural groups; i.e., it is a highly diverse society. • Our society is comprised of many religious, ethnic, and racial groups. • In addition, we have a wide range of people in all age brackets, gender groupings, and social classes. • More than 12.5% of our population are foreign born. • We house immigrants from more than 100 different countries.

44. Ethnocentrism & Cultural Relativism • These are two very important topics of concern to both sociologists and anthropologists. • In this class you will discover how ethnocentric you are, and how your beliefs and values influence the way you view other people and other cultural groups. • One goal of this class is to help you develop a more culturally relative perspective of other groups and cultures.

45. Ethnocentrism • Ethnocentrism is the habit of only seeing things from the point of view of one’s own group. • Judging one culture by the standards of another culture is ethnocentric. • Ethnocentrism is like a two-sided coin with a positive and a negative side. • It helps the society’s members have a common viewpoint of how to behave and think. • It also can lead to narrow-minded conclusions about the worth of diverse cultures.

46. Global Culture • Elements of U.S. culture can be found in countries throughout the planet. • For example: • McDonald’s in Hong Kong • The Gap in South Africa • From films to fast food, the United States dominates international mass culture, largely through the influence of capitalist markets.

47. Mass Media & Popular Culture • The term mass media refers to the channels of communication that are available to wide segments of the population. • This includes print, film, and electronic media (radio and television), as well as the Internet. • The mass media has extraordinary power to shape culture, including what people believe and the information available to them. • The media is everywhere, both inside and outside buildings.

48. Mass Media • Mass media is organized via powerful economic interests. • It is owned by a small number of companies that form huge media monopolies. • This means that a few very powerful groups, media conglomerates, are the major producers and distributors of culture. • Television is a powerful transmitter of culture, but it also portrays a very homogeneous view of culture. • It tells people what to do, think, and believe.

49. Television & Discrimination • Television and even popular magazines define our standards of: • beauty • age and ageism • race • gender • morality • religion • political and economics • Media constructs are cultural standards that create and perpetuate stereotypes.

50. Culture Lag • Sometimes cultures adjust slowly to changing cultural conditions, resulting in culture lag. • Rapid technological change is often accompanied by some aspects of culture “lagging” behind and/or resisting potential changes. • For example: • Our society has the technological ability to develop efficient, less-polluting rapid transit and better national health but society resists these changes.