Sociological Theory

 Reza Rahbari
 Office: 827 Russ Building North
 Office Hour: Monday 11:30 – 12:30
 Email: rahbarir@yorku.ca
 http://www.yorku.ca/soci2040

 Karine Cote-Boucher
 Office hour: Monday 9:30 to 10:30
 Office: 368 York Lanes
 Email: Karinecb@Yorku.ca

 The list of the readings for the course will be posted on the course website. It includes full texts posted on the website as well as journal articles available electronically through the York Library system.

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Go to York Library Website
( http://www.yorku.ca/yorkweb / and then click on the “ Libraries ” link)
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On the left side you will see:
" eResources at Home Quick Sign-On“
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Click on that (you will need a valid Library Number and a password, or you could use your York Passport #)
Click on: I Agree
After that you will be asked to make a selection on each page. Please proceed as follows:

“Find by Subject”
“Indexes and Databases”
“Sociological Abstracts”
Type (or copy and Paste) the title of the article.

 On the right side you will find the following link:
“Title Quick Search
Find by title: books, journals, databases, more”
Type the Journal’s name (e.g. Critical Sociology) in the box and then click “ Go ” bottom
Then look for the year and/or volume and the pages of the journal where the assigned article is published in.

Paul Paolucci, Classical Sociological Theory and Modern
Social Problems: Marx’s Concept of the Camera obscura and the Fallacy of Individualistic
Reductionism,
 In:
 Critical Sociology, Vol: 27, Issue: 1, January 2001

 Participation:
 Mid Term Exam:
 October 27 – In Class
 Take-Home Exam
 Due December 7
10%
20 %
20%

 It will be discussed in the Tutorials.

 October 27 – In Class
The mid-term test will be held in lecture and consist of short answer questions which will evaluate your understanding of all the course material covered to date including all lectures, readings and class discussions.

 Due December 7 - Essay Questions
 The final, take home exam will be distributed in the
last lecture (December 1), and will be due one week later (December 8, at noon).
 The take home exam is to be handed in to me in my office on Dec 7 th between 10:00 and 12:00 PM.
 No late papers will be accepted for this assignment.

 Three Founding “Fathers” of Sociology:
 Karl Marx (1818-1883)
 Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
 Max Weber (1864-1920)

 Until the 1990s, nearly four out of every ten people in the world lived under governments that at least claimed to follow Marx’s ideas.
 The Russian Revolution [1917]
 The revolution in China [1949]

 was born in France on
April 15, 1858.
 In 1895 he published
Rules of the
Sociological Method, a manifesto stating what sociology was and how it ought to be done, and founded the first
European Department of Sociology at the
University of Bordeaux

 Weber was born in
Germany
 Weber's Christmas presents to his parents, when he was thirteen years old, were two historical essays!

 Their ideals of happiness and good life:
 How can we achieve happiness?

 The guiding assumption:
 Through self-realization, i.e., being true to our human nature.

 Self-realization through work.
 When we can choose our work and coworkers freely, and are free and creative in doing our work.
 When we are not forced to work just to make a living
(i.e. wage labor).

 Economic equality (elimination of class differences between haves and hove-nots, and employersemployee relationships).
We need a society in which we can all collectively plan our social needs, distribute our social resources and assign jobs based on peoples’ capabilities (i.e. a planned and socialist economy).

 Self-realization of our social nature.
 When we are less dependent on our individual needs
(“physical needs”) and more on our social needs (e.g. religion, sociability, sense of belonging, family, etc..).

 A society in which our social roles are justly assigned and fairly rewarded.
 Makes us feel content with our status and roles in society.
 A society (or at least a group of people) in which we have a sense of belonging due to our shared beliefs and values and in which there is strong and intense social interaction and social practices.

 Self-realization through a principled and purposeful life.
 When we set freely our principles or values in life (i.e. being autonomous) and able to commit ourselves strongly to them.

 A society in rational thinking about our values ( valuerationality ) is more important than just trying to find ways of doing things more effectively and faster
( instrumental, formal and technical rationality ).
 A society in which thinking rationally is more important than thinking based on tradition or emotions.

 Their idea of social order

 Societies have been so far held together because some groups of people (dominant classes) have subordinated other groups in society to their own power and interests.

 Views society as comprised of different groups and interests competing for power and resources:
 Looks at which groups have power, and who benefits from a particular social arrangement.

 Mostly through consensus over values and beliefs, that is through shared ideas about what is true and what is good (= Collective conscience ).

 Peoples’ beliefs in the legitimacy of authorities.
 When people obey the commands of people in power on the basis of their believes that their power is valid and legitimate.

 In capitalist societies people are divided into two main classes:
 1. Capitalist Class or Bourgeoisie: Those who own the means of production (the Capital)
 2. Working Class or Proletariat: Those who, because don’t have any capital, have to work for the first ones.

 interested in keeping capitalism in place,
 Are opposed to capitalism
 This class conflict shapes laws and policy.

 Alienation
 Social inequality (relative poverty, homelessness, unemployment, etc.)

 Social Disintegration
 Social Disorganization (Anomie)

 Rationalization
 Bureaucratization

 University Experience

 What is your main objective in attending
University? In other words how would you measure your positive university experience?

 Most students are interested in getting good grades; those instructors who give students high grades and communicate to them that they are learning well usually are rewarded with high ratings.

 Students preoccupied with their grade point average
(GPA), practice a system of learning that emphasizes making a good grade at the expense of deeper, critical analytic learning

 "Students today want technical knowledge, useful knowledge, labor-related knowledge in convenient, digestible packages"

 While higher education used to be reserved for the white, middle-class, today a greater percentage of students are more likely to be women and minorities—ethnic, racial, and economic.
 Additionally, a greater number of students are the first in their families to attend college.

 Changing student populations result in educators who do not necessarily understand the goals, hopes, and expectations of this new generation.

 Additionally, students entering college today do not have the same backgrounds, experiences, and expectations as previous generations or as their instructors.

 The majority of educators in higher education are white and middle-class, resulting in a gap in our understanding of the students in our classrooms.

 The basis of a solution consists of educators more actively learning about their students, integrating such knowledge into their teaching strategies, and creating realistic expectations both for students and themselves.

 Student consumerism (i.e. obsession with grades) is a product of a new historical era— postmodernism—

 Knowledge leads us to have more control over our lives.
 True knowledge is only scientific knowledge

 Knowledge is determined through power
 Power is exercised through knowledge

 Science is not viewed as a value-free form of knowledge.
 Knowledge is a “discourse” created within a context where power struggles occur for the control of its meaning.

 On the other hand the control of meaning is the major way through which power is exercised today (rather than through economic, legal and political power) .

 These media "have developed a power commensurate with university education."
 Undermines the belief in professors as experts, particularly as ultimate authorities on the subjects they teach.

 Colleges and universities are losing their legitimacy to television entertainment, news and documentary spectacles, as well as radio talk shows.

 Much of what students want to consume that higher education has supplied in the past is either in the process of erosion, or can be supplied by other sources
(vocational education, or the World Wide Web).



 Any intro sociology book begins with the following remarks made by C.W. Mills (an American Sociologist 1916-1962)

 It is the capacity to range from the most impersonal and remote transformations to the most intimate features of the human self—and see the relationship between the two.

Class Exercise #1:
Rank the following as a reason for a person's success. Begin from the most important (1) to the least important or not important at all (12)

Item
1. Hard work and initiative
2. Parents and Family
3. Member of a particular race/ethnic group
4. Getting right education and training
5. Dishonesty and willingness to take whatever one can get
6. Willingness to take risks
7. Gender (whether one is male or female)
8. Connections/knowing the right people
9. Money inherited from family
10. Ability or talent one is born with
11. Good luck/in right place at right time
12. Physical appearance/good looks

9
10
11
12
6
7
8
1
2
3
4
5
Most Important Rank

Remote Social Factors
Rank
Member of a particular race/ethnic group (11)
Immediate Social
Factors Rank
Individual Factors
Rank
Parents and family (3) Hard work and initiative
(1)
Gender (whether one is male or female) (10)
Connections/knowing the right people (5)
Getting right education and training (1)
Money inherited from family (9)
Willingness to take risks
(4)
Ability or talent one is born with (6)
Good luck/in right place at right time (8)
Physical appearance/good looks (7)

 Americans rank race (11) and gender (10)at the bottom of their list of reasons for success in America even below the Good luck/in right place at right time (8), and Physical appearance/good looks (7)!
 They give prominence to the individual factors such as
 Hard work and initiative (1), Getting right education and training (2), Willingness to take risks (4), Ability or talent one is born with (6)
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 Class Exercise #2
 2.
For the following two questions, indicate your answer from the choices provided:

 __lack of effort __ circumstances beyond their control
 __both __don't know

 __strong effort control
 __both
__ circumstances beyond their
__don't know

 How the Americans answered the questions:

 Again individual factors such as lack of effort (43%), and strong effort (53%) are assessed as the most important reasons for why people are either poor or reach.

 The following is the result of a sociological research on the educational attainment which confirms the validity of “Sociological Imagination”, i.e. the influence of the most impersonal and remote transformations to the most intimate features of the human self.

 Socioeconomic status is one of the best predictors of educational success and attainment
 a) middle-and upper-socioeconomic students are more likely to perform better in schools and complete more years of education than lower-income students
 b) young people from high-income families were 1.5 times more likely than those from low-income families to have been enrolled in a postsecondary institution

Reasons for lower educational achievement among lower income students
 Fewer economic resources to commit to educational purposes (to buy books, computers, tutors or educational extracurricular activities such as dance classes or trips to the zoo or museum)
 less likely to expect their children to go to college or university, thus leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy
 Less Social Capital: limited language and academic skills, less likely to be able to offer the parental involvement so crucial to the educational success of the child

 Three Founding “Fathers” of Sociology:
 Karl Marx (1818-1883)
 Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
 Max Weber (1864-1920)

 Until the 1990s, nearly four out of every ten people in the world lived under governments that at least claimed to follow Marx’s ideas.
 The Russian Revolution [1917]
 The revolution in China [1949]

 Social Facts
 Social Integration
 Anomie

 Emile Durkheim, distinguished sociology from psychology by saying that sociology is the study of
"social facts," not of individual people acting freely.

 Composed of two active elements: Hydrogen (H) and
Oxygen (O).
 When they are associated in a certain combination
(H
2
O) they produce something which is totally different from the original elements.
 H
2
+O=water

In the same way: “society is not the mere sum of individuals”
 “by aggregating together individuals give birth to a being which constitute a psychical individuality of a new kind.”
 He called this as a “social Fact”

 So, for example, when Durkheim studied suicide he ignored the reasons people gave (in notes) to explain their own behaviour, or the reasons other people gave for the suicides of friends or family members.
 On the other hand, suicide rates offered him a believable explanation of suicidal behaviour.

 According to Durkheim’s research Protestants kill themselves much more than Catholics do.
 This is because Protestant church is: “a less strongly integrated church than the Catholic church.”

 Currently suicide rate in Canada is lower among farm operators and in the RCMP.
 The suicide rate among Indian youth is five times that of the total Canadian population.
 In 1991 the rate of suicide for young men was six times greater than for young women.
 However young girls seem to attempt suicide more than boys

 Durkheim maintained that when society is disturbed by some crisis (for instance a sudden social change from socialist system in East European countries to free market) people lose their orientation and commitment to social norm.
 He termed this as “anomie”

Suicide Rates (per 100,000) —
 Country
 Lithuania
Males Females
73.7 13.7
 Russian Federation 72.9 13.7
 Estonia
 Latvia
64.3 14.1
59.5 11.8
 Kazakhstan
 Hungary
51.9
9.5
49.2 15.6
 Belarus
 Slovenia
48.7 9.6
48.0 13.9

 Country
 Poland
Males Females
24.1
4.6
 Czech Republic 24.0 6.8
 New Zealand
 Germany 22.1
23.6 5.8
8.1
 Yugoslavia 21.6 9.2
 Canada
 Sweden
 USA 19.3
21.5
20.0
4.4.
5.4
8.5

 Authority and
Bureaucracy
 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

 “Remember, that time is money.”
 “Money can beget money and its offspring can beget more, and so on.”
 Etc…..
Benjamin Franklin

 Benjamin Franklin (1706 –1790) was one of the best known Founding Fathers of the United States.

 Weber argued that it does not come naturally to human beings to “earn more and more money.”

 The idea of making money as goal in life (= the spirit of capitalism) found a powerful moral support in the
Protestant movement and especially in its most radical sect Calvinism.

 The destiny of the individual in the after life is decided by God on the basis that only He knows how.
 All believers can do is to look for the signs of their predestined fate after life.


1.
2.
God's blessing was revealed for them in the multiplication of profit and possessions the success in occupation.