Major Social Processes
Culture
Deviance
Dimensions of Social Inequality
Social Stratification & Inequalities
Socialization
Approaches to Human Development
Deterministic
Biological (Nature)
Social (Nurture)
Behaviour due to genes
Behaviour can be taught and learned
Non-deterministic
Agency to influence what happens, make choices
Degree to which characteristics are determine
Learning written and unwritten rules
Society's culture
Types of socialization
Primary
Secondary
Anticipatory
Resocialization
Typically through family
Later in life through experiences
Learning in advance, practicing
e.g. university, job interview
Relearning; unlearning old ways, learning new
Voluntary
e.g. new school, job, retire
Involuntary
e.g. crime trial, labelled inmate
Degradation ceremony
Rite of passage
Ritual or ceremony signalling change of status
e.g. wedding, graduation
Shift in person's status
e.g. court
Total institution
Regulates all aspects of person's life though:
physical isolation
breaking down identity
e.g. name replaced by number
rebuild self through rewards and punishment
e.g. residential school, military
Theoretical Approaches
Structural Functionalism
Individuals take in expectation from society
Central role of institutions in process
Socialization ensures societal stability
Agents of socialization
Purpose for socialization
Institutions
Central role in socialization process
Role Theory
Robert Merton
Status
Recognized social position one occupies
e.g. student, professor, child, parent
Comes with rights, responsibilities, expectations
Status set
All statuses that one holds
Master status
Ascribed
Given at birth or assumed involuntarily later
e.g. race, sex, prison inmate
Achieved
Voluntarily through effort
e.g. university graduate
Often shapes entire life
e.g. criminal, race, disabilities
Role
Set of behaviours and attitudes comes with status
e.g. student in class
Role set
e.g. professor + teacher + collegue + researcher
Through socialization, know roles for statuses
Role strain
Tension between roles connected to one status
e.g. student wanting to participate, don't want other students to look bad
Role conflict
Tension between expectations related different statuses
e.g. mom in hospital, friend's birthday, upcoming exam, emergency at work
Role exit
Processes of voluntarily or involuntarily disengaging from role
e.g. quit job, fired from job, academic probation
Stress from many roles, preform role exit
Critical/conflict sociology
Differential socialization reflects and produces inequalities
Example: Toys for boys vs. girls
Symbolic interactionism
Self develops through and guides social interactions
Society imposes itself on individual
The Looking-Glass Self
Charles Horton Cooley
Think of ourselves depending on what others think of us
How we imagine we appear
How we imagine others judge us
how we feel
4 Stages of Development
George Herbert Mead
Preparatory
Imitating close people without understanding
e.g. parents, siblings
Play
Taking role, understanding
e.g. playing parent through their eyes
Game
More than one role, interactions, anticipate other roles
e.g. ballgame, considering other players
Generalized other
General society, cultural norms, values, beliefs
Reference to evaluate others
Abstract idea of society, expectations
Agents of socialization
Family
First, most powerful
Primary socialization during childhood
Transmit social class, values, beliefs
Direct learning
Indirect learning
Resources available to them
e.g. Wealth, good school, tutor, poor, no opportunity, suffer in education
Example: Restaurant, parents treat waitstaff poorly, learn their social position (higher than social position)
Reciprocal socialization
Parents learn from children
Peer group
No adult supervision
Share age, common interest, social position
Peer pressure
External pressure from peers
Education
Hidden curriculum
e.g. competition, ranking students
Listening to authority, following orders, align thinking
Mass media
Societal culture, expectations, stereotypes
e.g. magazines, news, social media
Social structure involving...
values
beliefs
knowledge
practices
behaviours
material objects
Nonmaterial culture
Intangible, represents something
e.g. social norms, holidays
Material culture
Tangible, artifacts, human creation
e.g. technology, phones, cars, buildings, food
Transmitted through generations, info added/removed, preservation contested
e.g. social media, old buildings
Structural functionalism
Cultural universals
Can observe past and present culture
e.g. live in families, division of labour, different gender roles
Provides order, function to society
Conflict theory
Antonio Gramsci
Tied to capitalism
Different groups have more influence to culture
Ideology
Powerful set of beliefs about society and people
e.g. inequality
Cultural hegemony
Those who don't profit from societal arrangements, believe and support them
e.g. tuition for university; want to reduce but not rid of it
Culture justifies inequality
Symbolic interactionism
Dennis Wrong
System of symbols and ideas
Always being (re)created through individual actions
Elements of culture
Artifacts
Beliefs (Ideology)
Values
Harriet Martineau
Symbols
Norms
Socially defined standards used by culture
Broad guideline
Ideal vs. actual
e.g. academic integrity, students think certain way, when opportunity given, go against
Rules or expected standards of behaviour
Folkways
Mores
Taboos
Informal norms, everyday behavior
e.g. holding door, salutation in email
Formalized, institutionalized, laws
e.g. laws stealing murder, returning late books (fines)
Deeply ingrained in social consciousness
e.g. incest, child porn
Sanctions
Norm enforcement
Positive (Rewards)
e.g. smile, bonus point, trophy
Negative (Punishment)
e.g. dirty look, parking ticket, fine
Informal
e.g. dirty look, smile
Formal
e.g. fine, A on test
Items, (in)tangible with meaning, require interpretation
e.g. house and status
Language
System of symbols for communication
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
Language culture specific
e.g. Quebec and French language
Sociolinguistics
Factors
Race, ethnicity, age, gender, region
e.g. adults swear, children cannot
Dialect
Specific language, varies from region to region
e.g. Newfoundland dialect; less educated
Accents
Not all accents equal
e.g. sinking, thinking
Code switching
move from one cultural context to another
e.g. different dialect to different people
Double consciousness
Seeing else through others, anticipating
Implicit
Not visible
Explicit
Types of culture
Subculture
Countercultures
Rejects mainstream and adopts opposing
e.g. sexual revolution, black liberation, kkk
High culture
Pierre Bourdieu
Specific skills and knowledge
e.g. ballet, opera, classical music, art gallery, cuisine
Cultural capital
Born into or can learn
Learning not the same as growing with it
e.g. new language, always accents, mistakes
Popular culture
Culture of many people
e.g. GoT, Harry Potter, 50 shades, Twilight
Mass culture
Created by people in power, must consume
e.g. TV shows, magazines, popular music
Globalization
Cultural expansion, west to east
Share cultural elements of mainstream, distinct in other elements
e.g. deaf community, hobbies, music, veganism
Reactions to diversity
Ethnocentrism
Looking at other culture with own
Own culture is superior
Intentional or unintentional
Eurocentrism
EUW and NA culture used to evaluate others
Xenophobia
Rational fear of "the other"
Reverse ethnocentrism
Culture other than one's own by standard
e.g. 2nd gen immigrants, conflict with parents culture
Cultural relativism
Should be viewed and evaluated from culture itself
e.g. Hijab
Willingness to understand and accept practices different from own
Make sense in different context
Not judge
Conformity
Social control
Regulate thoughts and behaviours
Milgram experiment
Electric shock to student, researcher tells to go on
Stanford prison experiment
Philip Zimbardo
Guards were too tough, unethical
Asch experiment
Different line lengths
Behaviour that strays from norm (different)
Crime
Violation of laws enacted by government
Informal norms/sanctions
Formal norms/sanctions
White collar crime
Edwin Sutherland
Crime by person of high social status, respect in occupation
e.g. environmental pollution
Occupational
e.g. sexual harassment, embezzlement, pilfering
Corporate
e.g. industrial accidents, pollution, price-fixing
e.g. bread
Structural functionalism
Emile Durkheim
Social cohesion
Mechanical solidarity
Common values, beliefs, cooperation of people
Collective conscious
People know each other, share things
Organic solidarity
Interrelated parts coming together, form society
e.g. specialization; family, education
Anomie
No clear values, norms to guide, deviant more likely
Some deviance functional for society
(Re)affirms cultural values and norms
Response clarifies moral boundaries
Response brings people together
Encourages social change
e.g. cannabis, same-sex marriage, Viola Desmond
Strain theory
Robert Merton
People choose deviant lifestyle
Disconnect between goals and ways to achieve
e.g. jobs, education
Conformity
Accept institutionalized
Accept cultural goals
e.g. working for good grades
Innovation
Reject institutionalized
Accept cultural goals
e.g. cheating
Ritualism
Accept institutionalized
Reject cultural goals
e.g. doing work, not getting good grades
Retreatism
Reject institutionalized
Rejected cultural goals
e.g. don't care, floating
Rebellion
e.g. other forms of education, no grades, enlightenment
Critical sociology
Social inequality causes crime and deviance
Laws reflect and reproduce inequalities
e.g. drugs, rich and powerful get away
Powerful have resources to resist labelling
Uneven law enforcement
e.g. good lawyer can get out of crime
Symbolic interactionism
Explain how people view behaviour as "normal" or "deviant"
Differential association theory
Edwin Sutherland
Deviance result of differential socialization
Learn conformity and deviance through interactions
e.g. role models, peer pressure, groups
Outcome of socialization and interaction, not by individual
Labelling theory
Howard S. Becker
Apply rules to people when violation occurs
e.g. theft, need define property, rule of theft
Act and process not changed, regulation has
e.g. cannabis, smoking in restaurants
Claims
Impose meaning, define situation from specific statements
Claims-making
Making claim about social phenomenon or situation
Claims-maker
Individuals or groups making claims
Moral entrepreneurs
Power to make rules to penalize wrongdoings
e.g. panhandling
Moral panic
Minor deviance arises, amplified by media
e.g. drug usage place
Stigma
Erving Goffman
Powerful negative social label, changes self-concept and identity
Physical traits
Disabilities, weight
e.g. overweight; lack self-control, lazy, lack ambition
Individual character
Seen as weak, unnatural, treacherous
e.g. judge people who take own lives, gay, criminals
Cannot resocialize into society
Group membership
Association with groups, same as members
e.g. race, nation, religion
Degradation ceremonies
e.g. trials, involuntary resocialization
Donna Haraway
Situated knowledges
e.g. perspective, must critically investigate
Spiral model of learning
- placing ourselves
- reflection
- analysis
- strategy
- action
Responses to oppression
Backlash
Rely on stereotypes, justify existing inequalities
us vs. them
e.g. First Nations topic, change to how corrupt leaders are
Denial
No oppression left, always laws to protect
Feel personally attacked, past happened awhile ago
Guilt
Personally responsible, helplessness, resign from discussion
e.g. residential schools, overwhelmed, seek forgiveness
Allyship
Learn and reflect, take responsibility of own privileges
Connect with others, collective responsibility
Markers of identity/Structured inequality
Status hierarchy
race
ethnicity
nationality/citizenship
gender
sexual orientation
education
social class
social status
age
religion
(dis)ability
geographic location
Hierarchies exist within markers, socially created
Intersectionality
Kimerle Williams Crenshaw
Partricia Hill Collins
Social categories interconnected
"matrix of domination"
Dimensions of inequality do not operate in isolation
e.g. women's experiences differ with race
Social stratification
Hierarchical organization into differing levels:
economic resources
social prestige
power
Groups of people have access
Privilege
Advantages some groups have, others do not
Organized around class, race, ethnicity, gender, etc.
Operates at group level
Social inequality
Long term, differences in access to opportunities
Social arrangements
Individal
Agency
Blaming the victim
Out of their control, what are their options?
Dominant culture
"The" culture of a country
Impose values, language, behaviour, interpretation through economic and political power
e.g. official languages, national holidays
Diversity in government body
Subordinate cultures
Less powerful groups, devalued by dominant
Feel power of dominant, exist in opposition
Oppression
Domination of subordinate group by dominant
e.g. indigenious vs. racialized immigrants
Intentional or unintentional
e.g. MC exams
Complex and fluid
Occurs at individual, cultural, structural
Leads to privilege and social exclusion
e.g. born in Canada, same-sex marriage
Classism, racism, sexism, heterosexism
Discrimination
Prejudice
Pre-judgements of others based on group
Attitude, postive/negative, subtle/blatant, non-directional
Stereotypes
example: neighbourhood segregation
Positive/negative, non-directional
Individuals treated differently based on group
e.g. public spaces and able bodied people
Action, positive/negative, (un)intentional, (in)direct, (non-)directional
e.g. forgetting their perspective
Exaggerated, overgeneralized descriptions
Systematic oppression organized around traits
Notions of superiority/inferiority, dominant is norm, directional
e.g. immigrants encouraged to integrate
Interpersonal
Blatant/overt, subtle/covert
Systematic (directional)
e.g. family, education, work, health care, law, government, social media
Microaggressions
Same comment multiple times
Small but adds up