Sociology 1000
Intro to Sociology
sociology is the systematic study of human society, its point of view is;
seeing the general in the particular
• sociologists identify general social patterns in the behavior of particular
individuals
• sociologists notice social patterns
• they recognize that our personal experiences are affected by our class,
ethnicity, gender, age and sexual orientation.
seeing the strange in the familiar
• giving up the idea that human behavior is simply a matter if what people
decide to do
• understanding that society shapes our lives.
seeing individuality within a social context
• Emile Durkheim’s research on suicide showed that society affects our most
personal decisions.
Benefits of the sociological perspective
(sociological perspective= the way we look at things)
1. helps us asses the truth of “common sense”
2. helps us asses both opportunities and constraints in our lives
3. empowers us to be active participants in our society
4. helps us live in a diverse world.
Importance of global perspective
1. Where we live shapes our lives
2. societies throughout the world are increasingly interconnected through
technology and economics
3. many problems that we face in canada are more serious elsewhere
The Origins of Sociology
• industrialization, urbanization, political revolution promote a new awareness
of society
• science
• marginal voices
-important contributions were made by those who were pushed to the margins
of society.
Foundations of Sociological Theory
• theory: a statements of how and why facts are related
• theoretical paradigm: a set of fundamental assumptions that guides thinking
-structural- functional
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-social-conflict
-symbolic-interaction
Structural-functions paradigm
the basics:
-a macro-level orientation, concerned with broad patterns that shape society as
a whole
-views society as a complex systems whose parts work together to promote
solidarity and stability
Key Elements:
-social structure refers to any relatively stable patterns of social behavior found
in social institutions
-social function refers to the consequences for the operation of society as a
whole
-latent and manifest functions.
• manifest functions are recognized and intended consequences or results of
any social pattern.
ex. in post secondary you’re going to learn things to help you in your future.
• latent function is the unrecognized and unintended consequences or results
of any social pattern.
ex. post secondary is an awesome place to come and meet a future potential
spouse.
( latent disfunction: negative unintended result)
Social-Conflict Theory (Karl Marx Theory)
the basics:
-a macro oriented paradigm
-views society as an area of inequality that generates conflict and social
change,
Key Elements:
-society is structured in ways to benefit a few at the expense of the majority
-factors such as ethnicity, race, sex, class, age are linked to social inequality
-dominant group vs. minority group relations.
*bourgeoisie vs. proletariat (owners vs. workers)(karl Marx)*
Symbolic-Interaction paradigm
the basics:
-a micro-level orientation, a close up focus on social interactions in specific
situations.
views society as the product of everyday interactions of individuals
key elements:
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-society is nothing more than the shared reality that people share as they
interact with one another
-society is a complex ever changing mosaic of subjective meanings.
Sept 15, 2011
Chapter 1
Sociological Research Methods
Positivism
• Research methodology: the system of methods a researcher uses to gather
data on a particular question
-the way you go about researching, questionnaire, vocal, online survey,
canvassing etc.
• In essence, Comte implied that researchers didn't have biases on the basis of
gender, age or ethnicity
• who can best critically examine a group?
-for much of sociology’s history it was believed that the objective outsider
would provide the best research
Insider vs Outside Perspective
• In recent years, sociologists like Smith and Foucault have argued that the
outside expert is in a privileged position and can’t possibly be objective
• In the insider model, the subject being studied provides information that
come from his or her subjective experience
Qualitative Research vs. Quantitative Research
• Qualitative Research: the close examination of characteristics that cannot be
counted or measured
-Ethnography: a research method in which groups are studied through
fieldwork.
- Methods used to gather information include
I. participant observation: becoming a member of a group to experience the
group first hand
II. semi-structured interviews: informal face to face interviews
III. Informants: insiders who help the researcher interpret information and
behavior and assist the researcher in becoming accepted by the group.
-case studies: a research design that takes as its subject a single case or a few
selected examples of a social entity
I. the case study approach is often used to identify and describe best
practices - strategies with a proven history of achieving desired results.
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-Narratives: the stories people tell about themselves, their situation and others
around them.
I. narratives can give voice to people who do not usually get to speak directly
in research - ( not a generalization about a social group, but instead
recognizes individuals)
-Psychoanalysis
I. developed by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
II. sociologists use psychoanalysis to examine society on a cultural level.
-Content Analysis
I. involves studying a set of cultural; artifacts, (e.g. newspaper articles, ads or
events) by systematically counting them and then interpreting the themes
they reflect
• Quantitative research: the close examination of social elements that can be
counted or measures, and are therefore used to generate statistics
-statistics: a science that, in sociology, involves the use of numbers to map
social behaviors and beliefs.
-Many of the topics that sociologists research (e.g poverty, abuse social class)
are theoretical in nature and thus difficult to define.
-in order for sociologists to analyze these topics(like poverty), they need to
form operational definitions which transform theses abstract concepts into
ones which are concrete, observable, measurable and countable.
-Variables: a concept with measurable traits of characteristics that can vary or
change from one person, group, culture or time to another.
-there are two types of variables:
I.
independent: variable that are presumed to have an effect on another
variable
II.
dependent: those that are effected by the independent variable
-correlation: the relationship between two variable
these relationships can be described in two ways:
I. direct(positive): occurs when the independent and the dependent variables
increase or decrease together
II. Inverse (negative): occurs when the two variables change in opposing
directions
Spurious Reasoning
occurs when someone sees correlation and falsely assumes causation
• spurious variable: a third outside factor that influences both correlating
variables.
• correlation is not causation
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• ex. living together before marriage causes divorce, infact it could be other
factors, like liberal people vs. conservative.
Causation
• the attributing effects to causes
• to view statistics critically, we must recognize that all statistics are flawed to
some extent
• when examining a statistic we must ask ourselves a number of questions, for
example
I. who produced the number?
II. how was the number produced?
III. what interests does the number serve?
Sept 16,2011
Chapter 3
Culture
Culture is a system involving behavior, beliefs, knowledge, practices, values,
and materials such as buildings, tools and sacred items
-however, culture is contested,
there is not a total agreement as to what constitutes culture even by those who
belong to the group
-one of the points of contestation is authenticity
in principle authenticity carries ideas of being true to a particular culture
however culture is dynamic. traditional practices change as culture changes.
Dominant Culture vs. Subculture and counterculture
• dominant culture
-the culture that though its political and economic power is able to impose its
values, language, and ways of behaving and interpreting behavior on a any
given society.
-canada’s dominant culture is english speaking, white, hetero-sexual male
university graduate of european decent between ages of 22-25, in good
health, who owns a home in a middle-class neighborhood in ontario or
quebec.
• Subculture
-a group of people who share a distinctive set of cultural beliefs and behaviors
that differ in some significant ways, but are not opposed to that of the
dominant culture.
• Countercultures
-countercultures are groups that reject selected elements of the dominant
culture (e.g clothing styles or sexual norms)
-ex. hippies biker gangs, goths etc.
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Sept 19,2011
High Culture vs. Popular Culture and Mass Culture
• High Culture
-the culture of the elite (e.g. arts such as opera ballet and classical music)
-high culture requires a set of skills and knowledge, cultural capital, which sets
the elite apart from the masses
• Popular Culture
-The culture of the Majority
-generally we would consider television programs, youtube, music videos and
fast food restaurants as part of popular culture
-popular culture reflects of the people who take an active role in the culture
they consume
• Mass Culture
-created by those in power for the masses
-refers to people who have little or no agency in the culture they consume
Distinction between Popular Culture and Mass Culture
• There is a distinction between popular culture and mass culture which is:
-agency - the ability of the people to be creative with what the dominant
culture, colonial power or mass media has given them
-allows people, not just the elite to change things/ improve them.
(mass culture, culture is just happening to these people)
*cultural change*
invention, discovery, diffusion
*cultural lag*
some peoples morals don’t move as quickly as advancements in the world do.
Simulcra
• simulcra, a feature of mass culture, are cultural images or stereotypes that are
(re)produced like commodities and associated with groups of people (e.g.
inuit kayaks, inukshuk, canadians live in igloo’s etc)
- simulcra is likely to be considered to be more real than what actually exists
Norms
• norms are the rules or standards of behavior that are expected of a group,
society or culture.
Sanctions
• Sanctions are rewards and punishments in response to a particular behavior
-positive sanctions are rewards (e.g. smiles, bonuses, trophies) - makes you
want to continue this behavior in order to get these sanctions.
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-negative sanctions are reactions designed to tell someone they have violated a
norm (e.g. a dirty look, a parking ticket, a library fine)
• Types of Norms
-William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) distinguished between 3 kinds of norms
I. Folkways - informal norms that govern everyday social behavior. they are
the least serious norms and carry the lightest sanctions (e.g. table manners)
II. Mores(more-ayz) are more serious in nature than folkways. These norms
tend to be formalized and tend to appear as laws (e.g. stealing, murder)
- violations of mores are more likely to carry serious sanctions
III. Taboos are norms that are so deeply ingrained that the mere thought or
mention of it is enough to arouse disgust or revulsion (e.g. incest, child
pornography)
Symbols
• Symbols are cultural items, either tangible or intangible, that come to take on
tremendous meaning within a culture or subculture of a society,
-symbols can be material objects (e.g. the canadian flag, hijab)
-symbols can also be nonmaterial objects such as songs or events (e.g. the
theme to hockey night in canada, the holocaust)(could be as simple as traffic
lights, a symbol, that in a certain culture means something)
Values
• Values are the standards used by a culture to describe abstract qualities such
as goodness, beauty and justice
-Ideal Culture: the values that we espouse about how think we should act (e.g.
conservation of energy)
-Real Culture: how we actually act (e.g. driving large SUV’s)
Sept 21, 2011
Ethnocentrism
• Ethnocentrism occurs when someone holds up on culture- usually their ownas being the standard by which all cultures are to be judged
-eurocentrism is the dominant viewpoint in north america. It involves
addressing others from a broadly defined european position and assuming the
audience is or would like to be a part of that ‘we’.
Cultural Globalization
• Cultural globalization is the intensification and expansion of cultural flows
across the globe
-the “Americanization” of the world or the danger of a one directional flow of
culture could be problematic.
Reverse Ethnocentrism
• Reverse ethnocentrism involves assuming that another cultures that is not
one’s own is better in some way
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-Xenocentrism is the belief that anything foreign must be better than the same
thing produced domestically (e.g. cars, wine)
Cultural Relativism
• Cultural relativism is the view that any aspect of a culture, including it’s
practices and beliefs, is best explained within the context of the culture itself,
not by the standard or ways of another culture.
• There are two aspects to using cultural relativism to study another culture:
-Understanding: the need to look at a culture in it’s entirety
-Judging: individuals should not be judged by the practices of their culture.
Sociolinguistics
• sociolinguistics is the study if language as a part of culture
-sociolinguistics looks at language in relation to such sociological factors as
race, ethnicity, age, gender and region.
• Language, the words and the meanings they generate are culture-specific,
therefore language outside of its cultural context does not make sense.
Sept 26th, 2011
Chapter 4
Socialization
• socialization is a learning process that involves development or changes in the
individual’s sense of self
-primary socialization is the socialization that occurs during childhood
-secondary socialization is the socialization that occurs later in life
Determinism
• determinism refers to the degree to which a person;s behavior, attitudes and
other personal characteristics are determined or caused by a specific factor.
-are we free to be who we want to be or are there forces that determine who we
are?
Biological Determinism
• Biological determinism: the greater part of who we are is determined by our
roughly 26,000 genes.
- for example, if we are good a t sports or math it is because we are somehow
genetically predisposed to be so.
Sept 28, 2011
Social or Cultural Determinism
• behaviorism is a school of thought in psychology that takes a strong cultural
determinist position
-behaviorists Believe that any behavior can be taught and learned
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-much of who we are, behaviorists would argue, is a consequence of how
previous behavior was reinforced
-Thorndike calls this the Law of Effect
Sigmund Feud: Balancing the biological and the socio-cultural
• Freud believed that the mind had 3 parts
I. Id : represents our unconscious instinctive drives
Eros - life, Thanatos - death
II. Superego: represents our conscience
it develops from the moral messages that our socializing agents present to us.
III. Ego: mediates between the conscious and the unconscious while trying to
make sense of what the individual self does and thinks
Agency
• Agency is the capacity to influence what happens to one’s life
-canadian sociologist Dennis Wrong argued that individuals have the capacity
to resist the messages that our socializing agents give us.
• Agent of socialization: groups that have a significant impact on one’s
socialization
-for example: family, peers, neighborhood/community, school, mass media,
the legal system, one’s own culture.
* Socialization
Significant other and generalized other
• George Herbert Mead developed a two-fold categorization of agents of
socialization:
I. significant others: individuals, primarily family and friends, whom young
children imitate and model themselves after
II. generalized other: the attitudes, viewpoints, and the general expectations
of the society that the child is socialized into.
Sept 30, 2011
Mead’s development of self
• Mead argued hat there is a three-stage process in the socialization of a child:
-preparatory stage: involves the imitation of others
-play stage: pretend play occurs; the child engages in role-taking
-game stage: the child is able to simultaneously perceive several roles
The Looking Glass Self
• Charles Cooley introduced the concept of the looking glass self as an
explanation of how the self develops.there are three components in the
process:
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-how you imagine you appear to others
-how you imagine others judge your appearance
-how you feel as a result
The Family
• The family is the first agent of socialization
-often the most powerful agent
-while the approach to socialization varies from family to family and culture to
culture, socialization of the child is consistently seen as a function of the
family
-one technique used to teach children right from wrong is the enactment of
morality plays
Peer Group
• peer group can be defined as a social group that shares key social
characteristics such as age, social position and common interests
-peer pressure refers to the social force exerted on an individual by his or her
peers to conform to behaviors, appearance or externally demonstrated values
Community and Neighborhood
• community and neighborhood can be important agents of socialization on a
child
• how do the following issues affect a child?
-city vs. small town vs country
-rich vs poor vs mixed neighborhoods
Education
• Schools are often the first source of information that children receive about a
social group other than their own
• teachers play a critical role
-a teacher’s social location - his or her gender, age, ethnicity etc - can have an
effect on the educational socialization of the child
-hidden curriculum - passes on important cultural values
Resocialization
• resocialization; the process of unlearning old ways and learning new ways
upon moving into a significantly different social environment
-resocialization can be either voluntary or involuntary
Voluntary resocialization
• voluntary resocialization occurs when someone starts school, changes
schools, starts a new job, retires, undergoes a religious conversion etc.
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-this type if resocialization is often marked by rite of passage, a ritual or
ceremony signaling a change of status.
Involuntary resocialization
• involuntary resocialization occurs when someone is forced to change
• total institutions resocialize by regulating all aspects of a person’s life (e.g.
prisons, military, residential schools)
-one process used in total institutions to resocialize in the degradation
ceremony (frosh)
-a rite of passage where a person’s identity is stripped away (e.g. in prison a
person’s name is replaced with a number)
-the social conflict approach draws attention to
patterns of social inequality
-what is the term for a concept which has a value that varies from case to case?
variableoperational definitions bring concepts to life for research purposes
true
-a job demotion would be a good example of
a negative sanction
-the agent of socialization responsible for ‘primary socialization’ is most likely
to be
parents
Chapter 5
Social Interaction and Organization
(pages 124-132 only)
Introduction to Social Interaction
• the statuses we hold and the roles we preform are an integral part of our
interactions with others and their interactions with us
Erving Goffman
• Presentations of self in Everyday Life(1959) is Goffman’s landmark study
which put forward:
-the dramaturgical approach: sociological research that utilizes the
methodology of life taking place on a stage with a front stage for personal
encounters.
• Impressions Management is the term Goffman used to describe the tactics
people employ when presenting themselves publicly.
Social Status
• A status is a recognized social position that a person occupies
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-it imposes responsibilities and expectations that establish the individual’s
relationship to others.
Status Set
• Status set is the number of statuses people have
father, son, brother, coach, boss etc, all at the same time
Achieved Status
• a status you were not born into but entered at some stage in your life
musician, hockey player, student etc.
Ascribed Status
• A status you were born into
female, male, daughter, son etc
(can have a huge influence on the statuses they achieve - for example, doctor’s,
lawyers were more likely to have been born into a wealthy family)
Master Status
• Everett C. Hughes introduced this concept
-signifies the status that dominates all other statuses and plays the greatest ole
in the formation of social identity
-central status in their life at that time (often a profession)
for example: celebrity, mother
Status Hierarchy
Statuses ranked from high to low based on prestige and power. For categories such as
gender, race, ethnicity, age, class, sexual orientation, and physical ability, one category
tends to be more highly ranked than others.
Status Consistency
Status consistency is when all the status hierarchies line up. Status inconsistency is
when one status is highly ranked in one status category but not in others.
Social roles
• a set of behaviours and attitudes that are associated with a particular status. A status
may be associated with more than one role. Roles attached to a status may differ
across cultures.
Role set
• developed by Robert Merton, refers to all the roles that are attached to a particular
status.
Role strain
• occurs when there is a conflict between roles within the set of particular roles within
the role set of a particular status.
Role conflict
• occurs when people are forced to reconcile incompatible expectations generated
from two pr more statuses they hold.
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Role exit
• the process of disengaging from a role that has been central to one’s identity and
attempting to establish a new one.
• Thomas Theorem- a symbolic interaction, theorized that the situations we define as
real become real in consequences.
What is deviance?
• deviance is a behaviour that strays from the norm
- deviant just means different from the norm
-deviant does not mean bad, wrong or inferior in any way
-deviant is a category that changes with time, place and culture
• Definitions of deviance often reflect power
Oct 14, 2011
Overt and Covert characteristics of Deviance
• overt characteristics: the actions or the qualities taken as explicitly violating the
cultural norm
•Covert characteristics: the unstated qualities that might make a group a target for
sanctions
-ex. age, ethnic background, sex
The contested nature of deviance
• There is seldom total agreement within a culture about what is deviant
• contested deviance is known as conflict deviance
- conflict deviance is a disagreement among groups over whether or not something is
deviant (e.g. marijuana laws)
Social Constructionism vs Essentialism
• Social constructionism proposes that elements of social life - including deviance, as
well as gender, race and other elements - are not natural but are established or
created by society or culture.
Essentialism
• essentialism argues that there is something “natural”, “true”, “universal” and
therefore “objectively determined” about these elements of social life.
Stigma and Deviance
• Stigma is a human attribute that is seen to discredit an individual’s social identity
(a negative label)
The Other
• The “other” is an image conjured up by the dominant culture within a society or by
colonizing nation of the colonized
• the way the dominant group describes another group as being different and in some
way inferior
Moral Entrepreneur
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• a group or an individual that tries to convince others of the existence of a particular
social problem that they identify and define.
ex. pro life protestors
Racial Profiling
• racial profiling are actions undertaken supposedly for reasons of safety, security, or
public protection, based on racial stereotypes rather than on reasonable suspicion.
Gender and Deviance
• in a patriarchal society male is considered normal and female as deviant
Class and Deviance
Poverty can be considered a covert characteristic of deviance.
Schools-to-Prison Hypothesis
• Bias in application of zero-tolerance in schools exist.
• Link between the construction of racialized neighborhoods and crime rates
• Can result in higher incarceration rates.
Class and Crime
• The lower class is over-represented in the statistics on criminal
convictions and admissions to prison.
• Reasons for higher crime rates include:
1. A lack of social resources (knowledge of the law and the ability to pay
for a lawyer)
2. A lack of skill at impression management (how one presents themselves)
White Collar Crime
• The concept of white collar crime was introduced by Edwin Sutherland in
1949.
• Previous research had focused on the poor and the crimes they committed
• White collar crime is a crime committed by a person of respectability and
high social status in the course of his/her occupation.
Sexual Orientation and Deviance
• Homosexuality is defined as deviant across the world.
• The way that it is sanctioned, however, varies.
• In some countries it is formally sanctioned through laws.
• In Canada, it is informally sanctioned by comments such as “that’s so
gay”, or by being considered “the other” in many social situations.
Structural Functional Analysis
• Durkheim identified 4 distinct functions of deviance:
1. Deviance affirms cultural values & norms.
2. Responding to deviance clarifies moral boundaries.
3. Responding to deviance promotes social unity.
4. Deviance encourages social change.
• Merton’s strain theory: society establishes many of our goals and
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legitimate ways to achieve them.
• What do you do if you want to achieve that goals, but can’t?
Social Conflict Analysis
• Deviance & power:
• Norms and laws reflect interests of rich/powerful.
• Powerful people have the resources to resist deviant labels.
Deviance & capitalism
• People labeled deviant are:
1. Those who threaten private property.
2. Those who cannot or will not work.
3. People who resist authority.
4. People Who challenge the status quo
Oct 19, 2011
Symbolic Interaction Analysis
• Labeling Theory: Deviance and conformity result, not so much from what people do,
but from how others respond to it
• Labeling someone a certain way can actually perpetuate the behavior (ex. bad kid)
Family
• the family is a social institution, found in all societies, that unites individuals into
groups that oversee the bearing and raising of children
• Kinship
- a bond, based on blood, marriage, adoption, that joins individuals into families
• Family Unit
- a social group of 2 or more people, related by blood, marriage, adoption, who
usually live together.
• Nuclear Family
- family unit (conjugal family) composed of one or 2 parents and their children
• Extended Family
- typically the nuclear family plus other kin
• Families are typically formed by marriage:
- a legally sanctioned relationship
- involves economic cooperation
- influences normative sexual activity and child bearing
- people expect it to be lasting
• Endogamy
- marriage between people of the same social category
• Exogamy
- marriage between people of different social categories
Oct 21,2011
Marriage patterns contd..
Sociology 1000
• Monogamy
• Polygamy
- marriage between 3 or more people
- Polyandry: 1 female, many males
- Polygyny: 1 male, many females
Residential Patterns
• Patrilocality: couple’s live with the husband’s family
• Matrilocality: couple lives with wife’s family
• Neolocality: couple lives apart from the parents. This is more common in industrial
societies
Changes in the Canadian Family
• The number of common law unions has risen (0.7% in 1976; 18.4% in 2006)
• Age of first marriage is rising (28.2 for first time brides; 30.2 for first time grooms)
• women having children later in life
• the number of children per family has dropped (3.8 in 1961; 1.61 in 2003)
• there has been an increase in the number of lone-parent families
• children are leaving home at a later age (cluttered nest)
• there are more people living alone than before (12% of people lived alone in 1996;
27% in 2007)
• delayed life transitions: people are making major life transitions later in life
compared to the 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s
Conjugal Roles
• conjugal or marital roles are the distinctive roles of the husband and wife that result
from the division of labour within the family
- Elizabeth Bott (1957) differentiated these roles as being either:
I.
segregated: tasks, interests and activities are clearly different
II. Joint: many tasks, interests and activities are shared
Changes in Conjugal Roles
• Beaujot (2000) studied the degree to which we have moved from complementary
roles to companionate roles
- the move to companionate relationships is far from complete
- married women, especially those with young children, still do more unpaid work at
home in spite of their work outside the home
- this additional work has been called “the second shift”
Oct 24, 2011
*occupational segregation:
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women will often follow certain career paths that give them more flexibility in order to
correspond with raising children
Structural Functional Analysis
• functions of the family
- socialization of children and adults
- regulations of sexual activity: the incest taboo
- social placement
families pas on a social role from generation to generation
- material and emotional security
people who live within a family are healthier and happier than those who don’t
Social conflict Analysis
• points out how family structure can promote inequality:
- because property is inherited through family, it perpetuates class inequality
- patriarchy can perpetuate gender inequality
- race and ethnic endogamy can often perpetuate ethnic inequality
Symbolic Interaction Analysis
• emphasizes that the concept of “family” is socially constructed, and is therefore
always changing
• social exchange theory: courtship and marriage as a negotiation to make the best
deal on their partner
* test on chapters 5,6,7,8
Chapter 8
Protestant Work Ethic
• the protestant work ethic according to Max Weber, was a key factor in the rise of
capitalism
- the protestant work ethic is the belief that a predestined group would be saved
during the second coming of christ. People belonged to this group if they worked hard
and achieved material success.
Karl Marx
• Karl MArx theorized that religion serve ruling class interests by discouraging the
working class from organizing in their own interests
- false consciousness describes the belief that class-based hierarchy was justified on
religious grounds and oppressed workers would be rewarded in the next life.
Durkheim’s 3 Key Elements of Religion
1. God = society
- totem or clan as advanced by Durkheim symbolizes the outward ad visible form of...
god... it is also the symbol of a particular society and as such “is the symbol of both
god and the society”
2. Collective consciousness
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- the sacred and collective experiences and rituals of a particular religion was termed
the collective consciousness
3. The Sacred and Profane
- sacred objects and acts are positively regarded, deserving of reverence or respect,
and holy.
- the profane are more ordinary objects and acts
Old and Established Churches
• The religious groups with the highest median ages - such as protestant churches are the ones with the dropping population numbers, while the groups with the lowest
median numbers -such as evangelical and fundamentalist christian groups- are
growing the fastest
Oct 26, 2011
Religion and the Marginalized family
• it could be argued that throughout history, family and religion have been set in
opposition to each other
*test question, true or false
Religion and gender
• organized world religions are characterized by patriarchal power structures
• as a result, women ten to have subordinate roles that marginalize their participation
• feminists in the 1960’s and 70’s became critical of christianity and its practices
Gender Construction Among the Hutterites
• gender roles are clearly delimited as Hutterite women and men assume traditional
gender roles
• the colony is led by male head minister which can foster dictatorial patriarchal power
Women Priests in the Anglican Church
• In the last 50 years, the battle for women to become deacons, priests and bishops
has been long and difficult, and at times has divided the church
• of the 38 provinces that make up the anglican church, the first two permitted to
ordain female priests were Canada and the United States in 1976
Ecofeminism and Spirituality
• Econofeminism is a social/political/spiritual movement which argues there is a
strong correlation between the subordination of women and the degradation of
nature through male domination and control
• Ecofeminism also explore the intersections between sexism, racism, the domination
of nature, animal rights and other social inequalities
Missionaries
• is there a role strain between conversion and charity?
• aid evangelism is the practice of sending missionaries into developing countries that
need financial help
• The financial assistance is called tied aid or phantom aid as the people receiving the
assistance must spend some of it on products from the country that supplied the
financial help
Sociology 1000
Oct 31, 2011
Education
• Education is on of the most important institutions in society due to its influence on
such factors as socialization, status, social order and economic productivity
The Emergence of Public Education
- before the industrial revolution, there was no education for the masses
- it was in the interests of the ruling elite to keep the population illiterate so its
authority could not be challenged
- the industrial revolution demanded a more disciplined and literate workforce;
consequently, industrialization and public education became interdependent
- as early as 1846, education was seen as a way of achieving economic modernization
- Egerton Ryerson promoted the idea of a school system that would be universal,
compulsory and free
- Schecter (1977) surmised that public education is based on centralization and
uniformity which were instruments of social control to be used on the emerging work
class
Human Capital Thesis
- human capital theory is perceived as an important component of economic growth
and educational expansion
- industrial societies invest in education to ensure their workers will be knowledgable,
trained and skilled
Nov 2, 2011
Discipline, Punishment and Evaluation
• discipline forms a large part of the hidden curriculum which is the unstated unofficial
agenda of school system authorities
- in primary school, discipline is centered on the body. This continues into secondary
school where an increased focus on cognitive discipline (disciplining the mind) also
exists
Docile Body
• Education produces what has been termed by Foucault (1977) as a docile body, a
group which has been conditioned through a specific set of procedures and practices
to behave precisely the way authorities want it to.
• Docile bodies are produced through three forms of disciplinary control
1. hierarchal observation: people are controlled through observation and surveillance
2. normalizing judgement: individuals are not judged on the rightness or wrongness of
their actions but on how their actions rank when compared with the performance of
others
3. the examination: combines hierarchal observation with normalizing judgement
Assimilation Model in Education
Sociology 1000
• Canada has been viewed as a white protestant nation into which minority groups
must assimilate or be integrated
Multicultural Education
• Multiculturalism was implemented in 1971 by the government of Canada to
- preserve and promote cultural diversity
- remove the barriers that denied certain groups full participation within canadian
society
• Three fundamental assumptions of multicultural education
- learning about one’s culture will improve educational achievement
- learning about one’s culture will promote equality of opportunity
- learning about other culture will reduce prejudice ad discrimination
Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppression Education
• Anti-racism and anti-oppression education first appeared in the 1980’ to eliminate
institutional and individual barriers to equity (opportunities)
• anti-racism and anti-oppression education is intended to create a classroom
environment
1. to expose stereotypes and racist ideas
2. to examine sources of information
3. to equip students to look critically at the accuracy of the information they receive
4. to provide alternative and missing information so the reasons for the continued
unequal social status of different groups can be explored
The Hidden Curriculum
• the hidden curriculum is defined as the latent curriculum of the education system
• it reflects all kinds of biases on the basis of race, class and gender
Jean Anyon: Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work
• Jean Anyon’s wrk social class and the hidden curriculum of work was based on an
ethnographic study of five elementary schools in New Jersey in 1978-79
Working Class Schools
• According to Anyon, schoolwork at the working class schools entailed
“following steps of a procedure ...usually mechanical, involving rote behavior and very
little decision making or choice
*working class students refers to students who’s parents have little skill or unskilled
jobs i.e maintenance, mechanics etc.
Middle-class schools
• At the middle-class schools, students were expected to “follow the directions in
order to get the right answer, but the directions often call for some figuring, some
choice, some decision making”
Affluent Professional Schools
Sociology 1000
• The schoolwork at the affluent professional schools entailed “creative activity carried
out independently. The students are continually asked to express and apply ideas
and concepts.”
Executive elite schools
• At executive elite schools, work required “developing one’s analytical intellectual
powers. Children are continually asked to reason through a problem, to produce
intellectual products that are both logically sound and of top academic quality”
Cultural reproduction theory
• There are two opposing positions on education and social mobility:
1. meritocratic: according to the functionalist perspective, school performance reflects
neutral ability and the system provides mobility for lower class and minoritized
students who work hard to succeed.
2. cultural reproduction: according to conflict theory, the education system reinforces
and reproduces the inequality of the surrounding society.
Disqualified knowledges
• Disqualified knowledges, a term coined by Michel Foucault (1980) means
“knowledges that have been disqualified as inadequate to their task or insufficient
elaborated; naive knowledges located down on the hierarchy, beneath the required
cognition of scientificity”.
Indigenous knowledges
• Represent the experiences and histories of aboriginal people which can offer an
alternative viewpoint to not only standard sociological knowledge but also
mainstream Canadian society.
Credentialism
• Is the practice of valuing credentials (degrees, diplomas) over actual knowledge and
ability in the hiring and promoting of staff.
- This practice often blocks aboriginal attempts to improve education.
Issues in post secondary education
- Funding cut backs
– increase in tuition fees
– increase in part time faculty
- shifts from in-class instruction to online programs
- grade inflation and plagiarism are both on the rise.
Underemployment
Sociology 1000
• Underemployment refers to involuntary part time work for people seeking full time
employment. Low wage low skill employment for people with valuable skills,
experiences or academic credentials.
• Post-secondary graduates become underemployed
- when there is low marketplace demand i.e. the strength or weakness of Canada’s
economy and the global economy
- when the demographic bulge caused by baby boomers closes off employment for
younger workers
- when there is a lack of practical experience
- from neo-liberal economics which does not value degrees from the social sciences,
humanities, fine arts and classics
- from sustained underemployment which means the skills acquired from one’s
university education fade over time
Chapter 10
Nov 7, 2011
Health and Illness
Medical Sociology
• Medical sociology is based on the view that medical practices and beliefs are
intensely social
- healing is achieved through social means, therefore, sociological factors (e.g. race,
gender, ethnicity) will affect your treatment by the medical professions.
Sick Role
• Talcott Parsons introduced the concept of the sick role in his book, the social system
(1951)
- the ‘sick role’ is the set of expectations that go along with what a sick person can
expect from society.
• Parsons argued that being sick came with certain expectations both for the sick and
for society.
- the sick:
1. should be exempt from normal social responsibilities
2. should be taken care of instead of having to take care of themselves
3. are socially obligated to try to get well
4. are socially obligated to seek technically competent help
• E.L. Koos (1954) critiqued Parson’s view of the sick role
- he noted that the higher one’s class the easier it was for them to play the sick role
- in addition to variations of class, there are variations in relation to gender and race
and ethnic backgrounds
• Ivan Emke (2002) noted that things have changed since Parsons first described the
sick role
- he noted that today people are more responsible for their illness
- people are also expected to only put limited demands on the health care system
The Social Course of Disease
Sociology 1000
• Disease goes through a natural course of development... catch it, suffer through it
gradually get better (or worse)
• Likewise, a disease also goes through a social course, the social interactions that a
person goes through in the process of being treated.
Nov 9, 2011
Biomedicine
• biomedicine involves the application of standard principles of western scientific
disciplines, particularly biology, in the diagnosis and treatment of symptoms of
illness and disease
• alternative medicine may take into account biological factors but works outside
mainstream medical practice (e.g. yoga, massage therapy etc.)
• Biomedicine has been criticized for looking at health from a reductionist perspective
that attributes medical conditions to single factors treatable with single remedies
Cultural Syndromes
• cultural syndromes are disorders supposed to afflict people of certain ethnicities:
often created to ‘psychologize’ problems brought on by western colonial control
Medicalization
• medicalization as defined by Chang and Christakis (2002) is:
- the process by which certain behaviors or conditions are defined as medical
problems.. and medical intervention become the focus of remedy and social control
- commodification
tendency to turn medical conditions into marketable merchandise. e.g. baldness,
wrinkles etc.
Iatrogenesis
• Illich introduced the concept of iatrogenesis in which he argued:
that the medical establishment has become a major threat to health because it has
taken away people’s control over their own health as well as their freedom to criticize
industry for the ills of stress, pollution and for sickening the people.
- there are 3 kinds of iatrogenesis:
1. Clinical iatrogenesis: refers to various ways in which diagnosis and cure can cause
problems that are equal to or greater than health problems they are meant to
resolve
2. Social Iatrogenesis: the deliberate abscuring of political conditions that render
society unhealthy
3. cultural iatrogenesis: takes place when the knowledge and abilities of the medical
community are used to mystify and to remove the power of the individual to heal
himself
Ethnicity and Medical Sociology
• The Canadian healthcare system is currently facing a shortage of doctors in some
communities
• rural canadian communities , with the highest doctor shortages are most likely to get
immigrant doctors
• their countries of origin experience brain drain
Sociology 1000
• medical associations give higher status to Canadian trained doctors
Quebec Health Care
• quebec is different from other provinces in terms of health and medicine:
- more male nurses per capita
- higher rates of female medical students
- quebec has the highest rate of residents without regular doctors
- cost of medical school is much lower in quebec
women are less likely to become surgeons
Disability and Eugenics
Nov 14, 2011
Disability as a Social Construct
- can’t be thought of as a ‘given’
- social contributions to disability
- not as pathology
The History of Disability
- Rise of empiricism
- the bell-curve and the IQ test
- Medicalization
- Institutionalization
- Eugenics
- WWII
Empiricism and disability
- scientist were trying to explain the world during the enlightenment
- trying to explain race, gender, intelligence and ability
- dividing and categorizing
- measuring
Binet Test and the Bell Curve
- 1900-1910
- invented a test for ‘intelligence quotient’
- initially intended for use with school children to stream them into appropriate classes
- was adapted and used for much wider segments of the population
- by testing as many people as possible scientists established a bell curve
- this told scientists the range of normal intelligence
- tests were highly problematic .. lead to wide spread panic about people in power
being on the lower range of the bell curve.. people were institutionalized
- tests required english literacy
- racialized and impoverished people were seen as less intelligent
Medicalization
where a naturally occurring phenomena comes to be seen as a medical pathology, that
doctors and scientists are compelled to cure, reduce or eradicate.
Sociology 1000
Institutionalization
- increasing focus on objectivity and efficiency
- deal with the ‘crisis’ of disability by putting them in institutions
- inhabitants of institutions in western canada in the early 1900’s
- the conditions of these institutions were atrocious: overcrowded, under stimulating
Eugenics
- passive eugenics: separating and preventing reproduction
- active eugenics: purposely sterilizing or killing to prevent reproduction
- through empiricism: (such as IQ testing), medicalization and institutionalization;
people with disabilities came to be seen as ‘inferior stock’ and became targets of
eugenics
The Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta (1928-1972)
- allowed for sterilization of mentally disabled persons in order to prevent the
transmission of undesirable traits to offspring
- 4,725 cases were proposed for sterilization in the province of alberta, of which over
2, 800 received approval
- consent (for institutionalization and sterilization) required from parents or spouses ,
not patients themselves
- Leilani Muir, sterilized in 1959: sued in 1995 for ‘wrongful sterilization’
- isn't and nonconsensual sterilization wrongful?
WWII
-the ideas about heredity and eugenics were taken to the extreme in germany during
Hitler’s domination
the tests and attempts to eradicate difference in the society in order to create a
‘superior race’
Contemporary Eugenics
- still exists today in how certain people are encouraged to reproduce, while others are
strongly encouraged not to.
- also issues of eugenics are also raised in genetic testing and prenatal screening
Disability Rights Movement
-addresses the historical and contemporary discriminations that people with physical
and intellectual disabilities face
trouble the notion of normal
deconstruct pre-conceived assumptions about people with disabilities
Inclusion
- demand to reformulate private an public spheres to include people with varying
disabilities
- addressing ableism
- rethinking structure
Conclusion
Sociology 1000
- experiences of disability are wildly divers, but they all are historically situated in a
context that gave way to serious discrimination and violence towards them, much in
the same way that racism and sexism existed and continue to exist in society
- inclusive societies require advanced understanding of inequality, its material and
social consequences and the role of mainstream society perpetuating ablism
Social Inequality
Nov 16, 2011
• social inequality is the long-term existence of significant differences in access to
goods and services among social groups (e.g. class, ethnicity, gender)
• the maine term used to talk about social inequality is class
• Karl Marx described class as being relational in that it reflects one’s relation to the
means of production
- owners of productions Marx referred to as the Bourgeoisie
- the workers were referred to as the proletariat
Sub-Classes
• Marx identified other sub-classes in his work:
- petty bourgeoisie: made up of small business owners
- lumpenproleteriat: small-time criminals, beggars, unemployed
Class as a social identity
• class in Marx’s view class would have an organic identity, a shared sense of common
membership and purpose
• part of this identity would include a class consciousness
- an awareness of what is in the best interests of one’s class
• Marx beleived that the bourgeoisie possessed class consciousness
False Consciousness
• false consciousness: the idea that something is in one’s best interest when in fact it
is not
- Marx beleived that the workers had false identity
- he cited organized religion as an example when he wrote “religion is the opiate of
the masses”
Problem’s with Marx perspective
• it is difficult to apply Marx’s class paradigm to Canada today
• people do not fit well into the old scheme
- for example, we have workers with extremely high incomes (e.g. professional hockey
players, bank presidents)
- we also have owners with low income (e.g. farmers, owners of small businesses)
• the middle class which has a strong sense of itself as a class, should also be included
Class in Canada
• Marx’s class paradigm could be fit into the canadian context using three classes
- dominant capitalist class: composed of those who own or control large scale
production
Sociology 1000
- middle class: small business people, educated professional, technical or
administrative personnel, and various wage earners with some form of credentials
- working class: made up of people who lack resources or capacities apart from their
own labour
Ideology
• Ideology is a relatively coherent set of interrelated beliefs about society and people in
it
• there are various types of ideologies
- dominant
- counter
- liberal
Dominant Ideology
• dominant ideology is that set of beliefs put forward by, and supportive of, the
dominant culture and/or classes in a society
• an example would be the trickle down theory
- if you allow the rich to create more wealth, some of that wealth is going to trickle
down to the workers making everyone better off.
Counter Ideology
• counter ideology offers a critique of a dominant ideology and challenges the justice
and applicability of the dominant ideology
Liberal Ideology
• Liberal ideology focuses on the individual as a more or less independent player on
the sociological scene
- it reflects a belief in social mobility and the a ability of one to realize the american
dream
- success or failure rests solely with the individual and may result, in the case of
failure, in blaming the victim
Class Reductionism
• class reductionism occurs when a sociologist studying a situation attributes all forms
of oppression to class, ignoring other factors such as ethnicity or age
Castes
• castes or varnas, are the ranked classes people are born into
• each caste is associated with the unequal possession of specific occupations,
dharmas (duties in life), rights to foods, colors of clothing (varna means ‘color’),
religious practices and imputed personal qualities
-
Brahmins: priests, political leaders, teachers
Kshatriyas: military leaders, landowners
Vaishyas: merchants, crafts people
Shudras: manual laborers
Dalits(‘untouchables’): butchers, leatherworkers, street cleaners
Contemporary Caste
Sociology 1000
• Ghandi opposed the caste system and it was reformed after India gained
independence from Britain
• None the less, the system has lingered on informally
• one-sixth of India’s population (160 million) are considered Dalits
Strata
• Strata: a class to which people are assign according to their social class, education,
or income so that these classes can be used for comparison
• two types of stratum are used in sociological research include:
1. Quintiles: each of five ranked groups making up 20% of a total population, used for
statistical analysis
2. Deciles: ranked groups each making up 10% of total population
- used for statistical analysis of such things as household income
- shows greater distinction between the very rich and the very poor
* relative poverty:
depravation of some people in relation to those who have more
*absolute poverty:
more serious depravation of resources that is life threatening
Social Inequality and Education
• Post secondary education is a major avenue for social mobility
• if post secondary education becomes too expensive for low income families, then
avenues for upward mobility are blocked
* feminisation of poverty
describes the trend of women are making up an increasing proportion of the poor
Nov 23, 2011
Chapter 12
Race & Ethnicity
Introduction to Race
• as biological entities, races do not exist
• racialization does exist:
it is the process in which people are viewed and judged as essentially different in terms
of their intellect, their morality, their values, and their worth because of differences of
physical type or cultural heritage
A social Profile of Canada’s Native People
• Canada's aboriginal people have been racialized
• non-native people have lived in Canada for only 3.3 percent of it’s history, yet
aboriginal history is largely ignored
• aboriginal people tend to be studied from the perspective of social problems
Nov 25,2011
________________
Sociology 1000
Nov 28,2011
Sex and Gender
• sex refers to the anatomical or biological factors of women and men
• Gender is a sociological term that refers to the roles and characteristics society
assigns to women and men, and carries within it notions of inequality between the two
• intersexed people: some combination of male and female organs (formerly referred
to as hermaphrodites)
• transsexuals: people who feel being a different sex from their biological sex
Sexual orientation
• sexual orientation: refers to a persons preference in terms of sexual partners
- a couple of views:
1. Sexual orientation: a product of society
this approach argues that people in any society construct a set of meanings that lets
them make sense of sexuality
2. sexual orientation: a product of Biology
some studies suggest difference in the size of hypothalamus and genetics are related to
sexual orientation
Dec 1, 2011
• the norm in all societies is heterosexuality, and homophobia is a response to
differences from the norm
• homosexuality, bisexuality and asexuality(no sexual attraction to either sex) are all
variations from the norm
• a gender role is a set of expectations concerning behavior and attitudes that relates to
being female or male
Gender socialization: traditions notions of feminine and masculine
• Feminine:
emotional, dependent, intuitive, timid, passive, cooperative, submissive
sex object
• Masculine:
rational, independent, analytical, brave, active, competitive, dominant, sexually
aggressive
Gendered occupation and education
• certain jobs and post secondary programs are gendered
• to be ‘gendered’ means that one gender will be prevalent whether in the context of
work or education
• further, the work itself typically has gendered meanings and is defined in gendered
terms (e.g. nursing is associated with words like nurturing and caring).
Sociology 1000
• Men outnumber Women by a ratio of 3:1 in the following occupations:
- forestry, fishing,mining, oil & gas (all primary industries)
- utilities
- construction
- transport and warehousing
Females:
- educational services
- accommodation & food services
- health care & social assistance
• the feminization of occupations occurs when a particular job, profession or industry
comes to be dominated by, or predominantly associated with women (e.g. bank teller,
secretary)
Feminization of Occupations
Dec 5, 2011
• Typically the feminization of an industry works to the disadvantage of women
- it results in lower wages, less protection, and fewer benefits
Gender and employment
• more men than women work in full time positions
• more women than men work in part time positions
• the gap between males and females is greatest - and still growing- for the age groups
15-24 & 45+
* the glass ceiling = you can only go so far as a woman and then they hit barrier
preventing them front reaching the top of the corporate ladder
- experienced by women as well as people of minority status
Gender and Immigration
• There have been many instances in canadian history when only the men or the
women of a particular group were permitted or encouraged to immigrate
- a good example is the recruitment of nannies to provide in-home childcare
Sexism
• sexism: the belief that one gender is innately superior to the other
- what are the root causes of sexism?
- how is it maintained in society?
- how are both men and women affected by it?
Sexual controversies
• pornography causes extensive debate in society
- possession of child porn is a criminal offense
Sociology 1000
- is it a power issue: a matter of free speech?
- does it control women or empower them?
• prostitution: is it a victimless crime?
- many levels in the sex trade; call girls, massage parlor workers, street walkers
- most have little protection; often victims of abuse