Classical Social Theory: Marx, Weber & Durkheim

• Study notes for classical social theory, development of theory, and the theorists Karl Marx, Emily Durkheim, and Max Weber

Classical Social Theory

• Auguste Comte was a French philosopher (1798-1857).
• Harriet Martineau was a British Social Theorist (1802-1876) who translated Comte's work.
• Positivism asserts that every valid idea can be tested with evidence, especially ideas about the social world.
• The hierarchy of knowledge posits that sociology has a distinct role above other social sciences and history.

Development of Theory

• Identify testable empirical implications of a proposed theory to determine what the theory implies among directly observable variables/phenomena.
• Most times unobservable concepts cannot be tested.
• Appropriate data needs to show behavioral decisions aligning with better long-term health among more-educated individuals.
• Differences in behavioral health decisions can explain observed longevity differences.
• Empirical data can and should be used to test whether empirical implications hold.
• The ability to empirically test depends on the availability of data, methods, research resources, contextual factors, and other constraints.
• Example: To test for significant differences in health behaviors between people with higher and lower education levels.
• Determine if differences in health behaviors are correlated with differences in longevity, if there exist differences.

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

• Historical materialism asserts that a society's economic base significantly influences its superstructure, including laws, cultural ideas, and political life.
• Theory states that history is driven by society's economic foundation, shaping our thoughts and social/political actions

Emily Durkheim (1858-1917)

• Social facts are regularities and rules of everyday life in human communities.
• Social forces is a broader term.
• Human behavior is learned through socialization.
• Examples of social facts/forces are the ideas around marriage age and what is involved in its ceremony, religion, and customs like birthdays.
• It was felt that these facts were facts in the same way biologists and physicists study their topics.

Max Weber

• Authority: The ability to get people to act due to their belief in the legitimacy of those in power

• Argued that obeying orders relates to legitimacy rather than force.

• Authority stems from legitimacy, and legitimacy comes in different forms.

• Kinds of legitimacy:

• Traditional Authority: Legitimacy from tradition, common in rigid social structures.

• Charismatic Authority: Legitimacy from the perception that a leader has special gifts.

• Legal-Rational Authority: Legitimacy based on explicit rules guided by knowledge; prominent in bureaucracy.

• Objective: to detail the efforts to end slavery in the US.

• Used as an empirical approach.

• Data collection sounds like an ethnography.

Qualitative Research

• Three critical ideas:
• Enduring features of society can be described in terms of their functional purpose.
• Individuals are heavily shaped and constrained by the social system.
• Conflicts are minimized by the social system

Conflict Theory

• Conflict theory explains social inequalities and tensions between groups, offering an alternative to functionalist social theory.
• Ralf Dahrendorf (1929-2009) is its founder
• C. Wright Mills (1918-1962) argued that America in the 1950s was governed by a "power elite" that protected its privileges and dominated policy.

Symbolic Interactionism

• Suggests that social order starts from individuals and the meanings they give to objects, and relationships with others.
• Founded by George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) and Herbert Blumer (1900-1987)

The Social Self

• Based on work of George Herbert Mead.
• Key premise: Social self is the only kind of self.
• Tenets include that the self isn't a thing, but a process of interaction, and individuals are shaped by communication with self and others.

The Looking Glass Self

• One's identity and social position made and reformulated through interaction.
• Charles Horton Cooley coined the term “looking glass self" in 1902 which entails how we know ourselves through the “looking glass” of others mirroring the impressions we create. There is constant need for approval

Key components of social structure

• Critical components of a society's social structure define who we are and provide the foundation for the power of some over others.

Social Norms

• Provide a set of rules.

Institutions

• Emerge when societies turn norms into customs that endure.

Social Structure

• Powerful in determining our lives and our behavior.

Institutions

• Emerge when societies turn norms into enduring customs and they regulate and enforce the rules, norms, and customs.

Path Dependency

• Ways in which outcomes of the past impact actions and organizations in the present.
• Makes some choices or outcomes logical and others illogical.
• tied up with how and why particular norms and institutions come established.
• Once a path is established, its difficult to change.

Quantitative vs. qualitative research methods

• Qualitative research requires variation in the independent/explanatory variable
• Inductive method involves collecting and analyzing the data , then proposing a theory. Deductive involves proposing a theory and finding data to test it.

Qualitative Data

• Field notes transcripts or interviews, ethnography, participant observation and conversation analysis.

Quantitative Data

• Matrix of numeric data and summary of statistics , regression analysis, text analysis. It also relies on statistical data from surveys or administrative data.

A sample is a

• Subset of the population, while population is a collection of persons, things , or objects under study. Random sampling relies upon randomization to achieve a sample that reflects the population.

Variable structure

• Includes independent / explanatory variable, dependent/response variable, and then control / confounding measures.

Significant differences

• Is one mean / estimate is so far from another mean or estimate that it seems unreasonable to believe that why came from the same process or distribution
• We determine the significance computationally.

Regression

• In statistics, slope coefficients are traditionally referenced as the Greek letter beta and statistical significance is often signified by significance stars and A legend always tell us the meaning of the star in terms of p-values There are many types of regression beyond this basic linear approach, and also many types of coefficients with different interpretations

Race And Ethnicity

• How variables are linked; if one thing causes another.

Race

• A system for classifying people who are believed to share common descent based on perceived innate physical similarities.

Ethnicity

• for classifying people who are believed to share common descent based on perceived cultural similarities.

Historical Factors Shaping America's Contemporary Race Dilemmas

• American Chattel Slavery Segregation. Mass Incarceration.
• 89-year period of Southern Segregation involved forced use of different institutions along racial lines.

What is Discrimination

• Discrimination involves actions rather than beliefs.

Individual discrimination

• Taxi / ride driver refuses certain clients.

Insitutional discrimination

• Policy excluding or harming members of certain parties.

How do we measure discrimination

• Evidence from perceptions/asking about discrimination instances.

Lecture 10: Gender

• Sex versus gender - sex is biological grouping.

Anatomy

• structure of one's reproductive organs.
• XX for women / XY for men.

Gender

• social forces structure how being seen as male or female affects.

Gender revolution

• women have changed over the last 50 years.

Sexuality

• Sexuality is the sexual orientation whether individuals are attracted to different-sex partners, partners of their same sex, or both. Heterosexuals (different sec), Gay or lesbians ( same sex), Bisexual ( both )