• What is Sociology?

- the study of social structures and how these impact society

and the individual.
• Sociology studies the institutions within the individual.
• Psychology studies the individual with institutions.
• Traditionalism- society has one structure- the peasantry looks up to the nobility.
(pic of George Washington Statue)
• Modernism- institutions control various spheres of society. (where you go and for
what. Ex: school for job, church for moral advice, etc.)
• Postmodernism- people pick and choose their identities and selves. (institutions
still matter, but now we can pick where we want to go)
• Hyperreality- we are only imitating real life. (abstract art- institutions tell us how
to view things)

Structure vs. Agency- (the rules and norms vs. what we do on our own accord)
• The Dead White Guys
o Marx- history is marked by modes of production. (economics drives
cultures)
o Weber- society is about organization and authority. (be a part of society)
o Durkheim- society is about rituals and habits. (looked at suicide rates in
different kinds of cultures)
o Mead- society is about symbols and the self. (was very interested in
language)
• The Dead Black Guy
o W.I. Thomas- society is about how we define the situation. (what we
consider to be real is our reality. How you define it is how you are going
to act on it)
• The Dead Woman
o Jane Addams- society is about suffering
• Other Dead People
o Goffman- how we present ourselves to others
o Bourdieu- you are taught what you like.
o Nelkin-
• People who are Alive
o White & Latou- networks and how we get to know people.
o Garfunkel- norms and breaching experiments. (challenging the norms)
o Ganson- framing- the media slants stories

• Marx Ex: you can’t even think about making a new car if you don’t have
production systems to make them. He said history is about economics. Problem
with capitalism is that everyone wants to accumulate more stuff, more wealth.
Then people who don’t get it rebel
• Durkheim: looked at why suicide is more common in certain groups than others.
Not just an individual act.
3 Basic Themes:
• Theories are just explanations for why there are relationships (dependent and
independent variables) X Y is a relationship. A theory is an explanation for why
this relationship occurs.
1. Conflict Theory- society is structured by class conflict (the haves vs. the have-
nots)
2. Structuralism/functionalism- roles matter (ex: education has a function, religion
has a function, etc.)
3. Symbolic Interaction- symbols matter

Other Theories

• Relative Deprivation- we measure ourselves against others. As peoples lives get

better, they want more, faster. Keep comparing to others. When things are getting
better is when people revolt.
• Standpoint epistemology- where you stand in society will affect how you see
things. (how we come to know what we know has to do with our place in society)
• Resource Mobilization- if you want to get anything done, you have to have
resources. (how we get what we want)
o Economic capital-
o Social capital- what you get from other people. (it’s not what you know, its
who you know)
o Cultural capital- getting what you want from the system you live in.
(knowing the system)
o These are different ways to get things.

Is Sociology an Art or a Science? – most sociologists consider it a social science, which

means it’s based on evidence. (empirical evidence)

Our Methods
• Qualitative methods- interviews, stories, study patterns, etc.
• Quantitative methods- surveys, statistics, numbers.
• Ethics of research- many experiments have gone wrong. Now you need
permission when using people.
o Hawthorne effect- people work better when they think they’re being
watched.
o Milgram- shocking people during experiments
o Zimbardo- selected people to be prisoners and guards.

Why the Art book? – art is a reflection of where we’ve been, who we are, and where we
could be headed. Shows the different movements in history.

Positivism vs. Constructivism-

• Positivism- there is a truth. Atoms work a certain way. Water freezes at a certain
temp. etc. (this is harder when you start talking about people) Sociology tries to
 figure out how people act. Do people change over the course of the life?
• Constructivism- we construct our reality. (Ex: depending on where you live,
different temps. Feel different to different people)

The Sociological Imagination- who you are

• Biographies- where you are from makes a big difference.
• Historical trajectories- where we are in time also makes a difference.

Political vs. Apolitical Research

• Political Research- paid to find stats and make decisions about what they mean
and what to do about it.
• Apolitical Research- just find statistics, don’t make decisions about what they
mean.
• Who benefits? If the poverty line is $10,000 and a family makes $9,000 all you
have to do is drop the poverty line to less than $9,000. This makes people look
better when they’re still struggling. (political theory)

Institutional Roles- brother, sister, mother, etc. student, teacher, etc. Many people used
toe think about themselves in relation to the institutions in which they are involved.

Impulsive Self- tired, happy, unorganized, kind, etc. thinking about themselves in relation
to emotions and feelings.

2 Components of the Self- Mead came up with this

• The Spontaneous “I” – spontaneous part of who you are. The “I” wants to do
things, but the “me” says No.
• The Social “me”- doing what is socially accepted. How do I look, sound, etc. (it’s
the struggle between the I and the me. (unconscious)

Does the Self change over time?

• Chicago School- Fluid Self = yes we do constantly change.
• Iowa School- Core Self = no, only pieces of you change, the core never changes.
• Where does the self come from?

Mead’s idea of the Mind, Self & Society

• Mind- physiological nature of humans- a biological mechanism that allows us to
reflect on our situation. Animals just react- fight or flight, but humans think. (the
mind gives you the capacity to reflect)
• Self- being able to see the self as an object. You think about how other people
view you.
• Society- understanding that others can play different roles. People react to you
o Play stage- (beehive soccer)- younger kids don’t understand positions and
roles yet. They just run around and play wherever they want..
o Game Stage (playing a position)- later on we conform and we only play
 our position because we understand our role.
o Significant others- people very close and important to us. (parents, friends,
family, etc.)
o Generalized others- the rules of society. Who tells us what guys and girls
should wear. The Media- plays a huge role in who we are. (after
Columbine there were a lot of copycats)
 The media can be both generalized and significant
• How do we come to know who are
o Berger and Luckman- the Social Dialectic- something that turns on itself.
 Externalization- acting on something you think (ex: I look good in
pink so you start wearing it)
 Objectification- people react to your externalization (ex: someone
says you look bad in pink)
 Internalization- you think about how people reacted to your
externalization (ex: that wasn’t the reaction I wanted) can be
positive or negative because we feed off what other people tell us.

Goffman & the Presentation of Self- idea of dramaturgy- everyone plays a part, everyone
has a script.
• Idealization- when you present yourself as your ideal.
• Typifications- trying to be typical- cool to be normal.
• Dark Secrets- things we don’t want to other people to know, things we try to hide.
• Team Work- being involved in teams and groups. Letting people know when
they’re off script (for that group)
• Belief in one’s part- you have to believe in your role.
• Emotional control- Sometimes we misread people’s reaction. (ex: story of teacher
with dress unzipped, students laughed but she thought people were laughing
because she was doing a good job teaching)
• Front Stage/Back Stage- things you want people to know/see vs. things you don’t
(your house at college is a front stage to friends, but a back stage to your parents)
• Keying- noticing that people do things differently when something is wrong.
(often times people don’t even know they’re doing it)

Self & Identity through Groups

• Males- much harder on outgroup members. Much more forgiving of their own
group members.
• Females- opposite. More welcoming of outgroup members and less forgiving of
their own group members.

How easy is it to manipulate people to think about groups? – the flip of a coin and people
will begin to think like a group. (the groups that stuck together and didn’t trust outsiders
survived)
Why are groups important? – Reward Structures- reward those we see as ingroup
members.
Conflict Theory
• Family- gender and inequality- man being the “man of the house” = conflict
theory approach

3 Main Social Forces that Shape Marriage

1. Resources
2. Demographics and composition of facts
3. Third parties

2 Types of Families
1. Family of Origin- the family you grew up in
2. Family of Pro Creation- family you create (your husband, kids, etc)

3 Types of Religions
1. Theocratic
2. Civil
3. Sects- smaller groups within a larger religion

SECULARIZATION- reducing/ diminishing religion in everyday life. The fact that

religion is becoming less important.

Conflict Theory approaches to Religion- The functions of Religion:

• A moral compass
• Gives us a script of how to act (right and wrong)
• Helps to build a collective consciousness (a sense of belonging to a group)
• Gives us rituals

*Conflict theory says that religion is the opiate of the masses. Makes people not want to
fight the system. Dull, just accept what you have idea.

The value of a piece of art depends on the ways in which it travels.

Cultural consumption of lower class people:

• Univores- only consume one thing in culture.
• Omnivores- consume many things in culture.

Movie
• Artist Jackson Pollack. Justifications people use to determine whether or not a
piece of art is valuable or not: Inspirational, domestic, civil, market, industrial,
renown.

Fabozzi Book-
• Jackson Pollack- forefront of the first American avant- garde moment. Late
 1940’s. different than conventional art, more abstract. Famous for individualistic
approach of painting- used sand, glass, materials, painted on the floor, felt that he
was getting close to the painting. He wanted to be “in the painting.”
• Barr- Instrumental in bringing European abstract paintings to America. Argues
that for painters their painting is an effort to discover the self/ reality (I paint,
therefore, I am) The painters that he described saw their paintings as a struggle
between order and chaos.
• Jung- painter, psychotherapist, writer. Talks about the interplay between
spirituality, science, and religion. Essay on what’s wrong about the spiritual quest
among modern man. The main problem- materialism. Modern man should be too
conscious of the present.

Charon- if you see something in society, does not make it true. Empirical proof is what
sociologists use to find truths.
• Suicide rates are higher in very individualistic places/communities (durkheim)
• Beginning of rationality/logic- greek philosophers
• Scientific proof through careful observation
• Empirical proof = careful observation, measurement and conclusion
• Empirical proof is the basis of sociology
• Sociologists have to be objective in their research. See world as an object outside
of ourselves and separate it as much as possible from our subjective perspective.

2 Assumptions of Science-
1. Natural events follow other natural events. Like microbes cause diseases.
2. Nature is lawful and is governed by predictable regularities. Events follow
established patterns.

What does it mean to be Human?

• Humans are social and cultural beings. We need others for survival

How do we learn to survive?

• Through socialization. Other animals depend on biological instincts for survival.
• As humans we use symbols. (objects that are not meaningful themselves but are
designated to be)
• We are cultural because we give meaning to our world and we are influenced by
those with whom we interact.

How is Society Possible?

• Society is different than nation. Nation has political and geographic boundaries.
Society is a social organization of people. It is the largest organization with which
individuals identify.
• Nationalism- people living in an area claiming that they have a right to live in
their own nation, to have their own political order.
Society consists of 3 social patterns:
1. Culture
 2. Social structure
3. Social institutions

Culture is one social pattern that arises in society.

3 Smaller Sets of Patterns = Rules, values, and Beliefs. (societies are made possible
because of this)