Sociological Imagination and SPIDERS

• The class width is the difference between the upper and lower-class boundaries.
• Measures of central tendency are single values that best describe the distribution of scores, including the mean (average), median (middle), and mode (most frequent).
• Measures of dispersion are single values that describe the "spread" of data, indicating how similar or different data values are per variable, such as range and standard deviation.
• Nomothetic questions draw attention to commonalities and broad patterns that can be abstracted across cases.
• Patterns are linked to accounts or theories with predictive potential. An example is wondering if you could find out what contributes to divorce rates versus knowing why neighbors divorced.
• Sociology is defined as the scientific study of society

Foundational Sociology

• Communicating findings to academic audiences

Applied Sociology

• Using findings to carry out the same method

Clinical Sociology

• Carrying out findings in society with the purpose of designing something

• Sociological imagination is the ability to measure and understand the connection between individuals and their social context, including the meanings people create to interpret their circumstances or contexts; it focuses on social issues, not personal issues.

• Contexts and meanings are very important to sociologists.

SPIDERS

• Structures

• Processes

• Institutions

• Discourses

• Expectations

• Relations

• C. Wright Mills coined the idea of sociological imagination.

Foundations of Sociology:

• Sociological imagination is the ability to measure and understand the connection between individuals and their social context, including the meanings people create to interpret their circumstances or contexts.

• Information literacy is knowing how to locate, assess, and apply information for theoretical scholarship, research, and evaluation, using the CRAAP test for sources.

• It is important use appropriate, scholarly, and current sources; accurately represent information, paraphrase, limit quotes, incorporate in-text citations to identify original sources, and provide full bibliographic information guided by a style (APA, MLA, etc.).

• When interpreting data and graphs, except for quoting study participants (qualitative research), information should not be presented in the format that it was gathered in.

• Data should be summarized by selecting one or more numbers that represent some feature of a particular variable.

• Statistical methods should be used to reflect bi-variate (connections between 2 variables) or multi-variate relationships (connections among 2+ variables).

• Narrative content should be coded for themes/patterns for theory and organized into tables/graphs (pie, bar, line, histograms) for visual representation of data.

• Describing and analyzing data includes measures of central tendency, dispersion, and relative position.

• Evaluating data consists making sure the sources used are relevant to the topic, current, and credible, as well as checking the author uses credible sources.

Chapter 1

• Jane Addams was an applied sociologist who used theory and research to reform society and it's problems.

• Addams advocated for social ethics, integration of firsthand observations, and visits in settings to provide social help.

• Pierre Bourdieu was a European sociologist who believed subjective forms of capital have objective consequences, including cultural and social capital, and habitus, which are dispositions, deep-rooted habits and skills.

• Habitus shapes how individuals perceive and respond to the social world and is often shared by people with similar backgrounds (social class, religion, nationality, ethnicity, education, and profession).

• August Comte coined the term "sociology" in 1838 in Europe and named the study of social patterns "positivism".

• Comte anticipated the need for a scientific approach to the study of social problems.

• Observance of social and political instability in the general population.

• Belief suggests people react to their subjective interpretation of situations, rather than a fixed objective situation.

• Conflict perspective was founded by Karl Marx.

• Competition suggests limited sources exist; under capitalism, social classes compete for limited resources (food, employment opportunities).

• Social institutions (labor market, educational systems) reflect the amount and nature of class-based competition through inequities observed within each system.

• W.E.B. Du Bois founded American sociology as a science, starting a sociology department at Atlanta University and supporting sociologists’ "value free" scientific research.

• Du Bois coined the terms “Veil” and “double consciousness”.

• Critical race theory consists of intellectual insights borrowed from critical legal studies, feminism, conventional civil rights, and ethic studies.

Five premises:

• Ordinariness: Racism is ordinary and embedded in the structure of society.

• Interest convergence: Racism serves important purposes, but the purposes may change and develop over time.

• Social construction thesis: Race and racial categories are products of social thought / constructions.

• Intersectionality: All people have overlapping identities (age, sex, etc.).

• Voice-of-color thesis: Minority status is a prerequisite for valid dialogue about race and racism.

• Cultural capital consists of non-economic goods reflected in knowledge of language, the arts, and other aspects of culture.

• Double consciousness is a division of an individual's identity into 2 or more social realities, such as one's experience being Black in white America.

• Emile Durkheim discovered that "social facts" and functionalism, found where he studied how societies change from one economic system to another.

• Studying social behavior requires understanding it within its larger social context.

• Society is an entity distinct from individuals (sui generis).

• There are distinguishable levels and properties of society from individuals.

• Social facts emerge from the associations of people and have the properties of externality and power over social behavior, such as crosswalks.

• Advocates for answering sociological questions using systematic research methods and statistical information.

• Feminist paradigm: All behaviors are systematically shaped by understandings and meanings concerning gender and sex.

• The experiences of women in society are not the same as for men, as males typically maintain the gatekeepers of gender/sex-based inequality; not all gender analysts adopt the same theoretical approaches.

• Three features that make a paradigm feminist include: focusing on inequities in gendered arrangements, assuming that gender relations are social creations, and a normative commitment to equitable gender arrangements and understandings.

• Functionalism views society as a structure with interrelated parts designed to meet the needs of individuals and the well-being of society.

• Social order and moral consensus are the foundations of society, including that society has distinct parts, societal parts have functions (i.e., jobs, purposes), societal parts work together to benefit society (even when it doesn't benefit the individual), and the given arrangements of societal structures are necessary for the wellfare of society.

• Manifest functions have known, open, expected circumstances or consequences.

• Latent functions have unknown, unintended, unexpected, or hidden circumstances or consequences.

Levels of analysis:

• Micro: Small-scale interactions between individuals occur.

• Macro: Large-scale social patterns & structures occur.

• Mid/meso: interactions between groups and communities.

• Harriet Martineau was the first woman sociologist.

• Karl Marx was the founder of the conflict perspective.

• The history of all human history past + present has been the history of class struggles.

• Capitalist society is divided between 2 social classes: the bourgeoisie (owners) and proletariat (workers).

• The nature of work under capitalism is inherently alienating for the proletariat.

• Under capitalism, all the major societal systems (economic, social, political) serve to maintain the advantages of owners over workers.

• The inequalities experienced will drive changes in the system of gratification: from capitalism to communism.

• George Herbert Mead discovered pragmatism and symbolic interactionism.

• Robert Merton focused on strain theory, which views forms of deviance and conformity being linked to a society's opportunity structure which consists of manifest & latent functions.

• Auguste Comte helped determine the origins of sociology.

• Emile Durkheim helped distinguish sociology from other perspectives.

• Paradigm is the philosophical and theoretical framework used within a discipline to form theories, generalizations, and the studies that flow from these frameworks.

• A paradigm is never "right or wrong" but different ways of looking at society.

• Theory is a set of ideas that explains social interactions, institutions, and change.

• Major paradigms include Symbolic Interactionist, Structural Functionalist, Conflict, Interactionist, Critical Race, and Feminist.

• Social capital is the collective benefit of social networks & direct relationships.

• Social facts refers to laws, morals, values, religious beliefs, customs, fashions, etc.

• Social facts are manners of acting, thinking, and feeling external to the individual invested with a coercive power over the individual.

• Symbolic interactionism is relationships between and among individuals.

• Language systems are the portal for the creation and change of meaning.

• Symbolic life (the meanings of words, gestures, artifacts, etc).

• A series of 3 basic premises include: humans interact with things based on meanings ascribed to those things, the ascribed meaning of things comes from our interactions with others and society, and the meaning of things are interpreted by a person when dealing with things in specific circumstances.

• Standpoint theory suggests individuals' social positions influence their understanding of the world and grant them a unique "standpoint."

• Verstehen refers to empathetic understanding.

• It determines the "states of mind" to fully understand social behavior.

• The term is a metaphor that refers to racism.

• It suggests a separation that includes both physical and spiritual divides - between black people and the rest of the world.

• Max Weber discovered Verstehen. And developed selected theoretical contributions.

• Weber Believed that ideas (beliefs) shape social behavior, not merely structural position (social class)

• And Weber developed ideas embedded Protestantism that gave rise to capitalism (The Protestant Ethic & Spirit of Capitalism)

Chapter 2

• Applied research uses sociological theories and methods to address real-world social issues.
• Basic research is conducted to gain a deeper understanding of social concepts.
• The independent variable causes some outcome/change.
• The dependent variable shows outcomes or result that are observed or hypothesized to be the result of the influence of 2+ independent variables.
• Ethnography involves observing and participating in a group to understand their culture.
• Ethics consists of codes of conduct guide social scientists in all phases of a study.
• Experiments are defined as an "artificially created assessment situation".
• Field research gathers primary data on behavior as something that occurs in its natural setting.
• A focus group is a formal group meeting guided by a trained leader or facilitator which consists of a specified group of individuals that is designed to solicit opinions, anecdotes, perceptions, experiences, and impressions on designated issues.
• A hypothesis is an assumption about how 2+ variables may be related.
• Random sampling dictates that all subjects have a known (sometimes equal) chance of being included.
• Nonrandom sampling dictates snowball/network sampling & convenience sampling.
• Operational definition specifies exact criteria used to measure a concept within a study.
• Participant observation consists of the researcher is immersed in day-to-day activities of the participants.

Scientific Method

• Selecting a topic
• Research existing sources
• Formulate hypothesis
• Design the project research method
• Draw & describe conclusions
• Surveys collect data from many answers to written and/or oral questions.
• Data may be collected by face-to-face, telephone, and mail/online.

The Five Main Ethical Requirements include.

• Voluntary participation/seek informed consent.
• Reasons for consent is very important, and bias (refusals ARE different) shouldn't occur.
• Do not harm/protect subjects from harm.
• Preserve anonymity/confidentiality.
• Do not deceive (unless necessary), ex: Asche line experiment
• Maintain integrity.
• Sociology as a science produces empirical knowledge about society (SPIDERS) because of systems of facts gathered by intentional methods.
• Sociology is examined and reported from the perspective of a theoretical framework/paradigm and assessed in a replicable & conventional manner according to established criteria.

Chapter 3

• Beliefs are embedded in societal value systems.

• Categories of beliefs include moral, spiritual, social, intellectual, economic, scientific, and political, to name a few.

• Culture has the beliefs, norms, & practices from a group.

• Cultural narratives give and take by helping a community structure & assign meaning to its history & existence, helping a community reinforce societal norms, preserve its beliefs & strengthen its identity through shared knowledge & experience, and consists examples such as fables, artifacts, and special event stories.

• Counterculture is a social group whose values, norms, & patterns run in opposition to those of the social mainstream

• Cultural relativism involves assessing a culture by its own standards rather than viewing it through the lens of another culture

• Cultural universal are patterns and traits that are globally common to all societies

• Cultural universal are globally common, but their expression varies across time and place

• Ethnocentrism occurs living around strangers

• Exercising sociological imagination can help deal with ethnocentrism. Critically reflecting on the difficulty or ease we experience when encountering another culture also assists.

• Folkways are (informal norms) that are considered customers, relatively unimportant social rules that specify expectations rather than demands and show casual behaviors that are generally & widely conformed to. These are are also know as norms governing everyday life

• Formal norms exist a Mores and Taboos.

• Hegemony occurs as soft an influential power through the elements of culture

• Ideal culture consists of the set of values, norms, & beliefs that a society aspires to achieve.

• Informal norms are folkways.

• Language suggests that there is "the foundation of every culture"

• It provides as a "cultural universal" that reflects aspects of social life, social structure, meaning, & more

• Material culture includes the physical/technological aspects of our daily lives that distinguish our cultural context or groups

• Material culture entails clothing styles, types of vehicles used for transportation, electronic tech, and types of candy, etc.

• Mores are rules that are often written down & specify strict punishment of violators

• non-material culture is also known as symbolic culture

• symbolic culture consists of A the meanings assigned to things, activities, processes, events as well as the intangible features of culture (gestures, etiquette, ideas, beliefs, values, & norms that shape a society)

• norms show the social rules of life

• prescriptive (ex: cover your mouth when yawning)

• proscriptive (ex: don't eat your lunch during class)

• norms are established standards of behavior maintained by a society.

• norms change over time and vary across social setting

• real culture shows the actual values, norms, & beliefs of a given society, observed + measured in reality

• reflection theory

• culture is a projection of social structures + relationships into the public sphere (it 'takes' what we are + reproduces it)

• culture has little/no important impact on society, structural arrangements and processes

• critique:

• Doesn't explain why some cultural components (ex: the meaning of 'freedom of speech') change their connotation + significance Hypothesizes a unidirectional relationship: claims individuals shape culture, not vice versa

• most agree that elements of culture impact society, individuals.

• media exposure impacts the way we think & live

• ideologies/beliefs shape the choices we make, etc

• rituals are a set of actions performed mainly for their symbolic valve, often creating a firm sense of group identity

• sanctions are a form of social control

• Mechanisms used to enforce prevailing norms can consist of rewards and/or penalties for compliance with, or violation of norms.

• Social control can be formal (criminal justice system, American Sociological Association) or informal (friends, family, neighbors)

• Social control can be positive (smile, pat on the back, laughing, Nobel Peace Prize, diploma) or negative (prison sentence, demotion, ostracism, frown, bullying)

• The Sapir -Whorf hypothesis says that the structure and content of a language influences or determines a speaker's world views as well as sensory experiences.

• Society makes a group of people who share a community & culture.

• Subculture has different cultural values & behavioral patterns of a smaller group in society, that are distinctive enough to distinguish it from others within the same society / larger culture

• subculture consists of A music genres often reflect subculture interest groups and school cliques.

• Symbols gestures, signs, objects, signals, and words.

• Taboos suggest rules that are of the greatest importance, their violations are considered an unimaginable abomination, none are independent of culture & circumstances (ex: , word taboos, incest/a cultural universal as well as different relationships qualify as incestuous, and cannibalism).

• Values refers to social facts that exert influences over our behavior in several ways

• theoretical perspectives on culture includes functionalism, conflict theory, & symbolic interactionism

• Society & culture aren't the same thing

• society benefits from culture bic culture enhances conformity

• we benefit from culture blc its existence makes life efficient for us

• Culture is the social glue of society

• Durkheim & Van Camps' views say function reinforce social cohesion + collective identity

• collective effervescence suggests generating shaved emotional energy that strengthens group bonds

• moral order helps maintain societal values & norms

• religious and secular consist not just being religious, but also a present in everyday social life

Chapter 4

• agricultural societies include the development of towns and where people engage in food production

• alienation suggests being disconnected from cultural productions.

• achieved status refers to something being earned.

• ascribed statuses consists of something you're born with or choose to associate with.

• back region shows the zones and times where someone might be more relaxed in the company of confidants where "performances" are less significant. Back regions would involve assembling resources + a plan for their application, such as our attires, word choice, hair/makeup, posture, nonverbal gestures, and discussion topics.

• bourgeoisie: owners and possess the places + tools used by "workers" who generate profit

• conspicuous consumption shows a way to display resources as reflections of our identity

• motivations:

• belonging, we create an image of 'self' so that others want to be around us

• self-esteem, we like it when others like us

• derive self-knowledge (a symbolic interactionism) involves learning about self through public presentations of 'self' and shows is important material rewards

• Erving Goffman coined the term 'active social construction of reality' and indicative of a universal

• A shows an active self-presentation of self aiminig to control (and managing interactions with) process of others and is activated by an audience (either in person, remote, imagined), and yet products may trigger this behavior

• front region

• relatively scripted, when we are actively engaging impression management

• roles a set of expected behaviors, rights obligations, responsibilities, attitudes, beliefs, privileges associated w particular social statuses

• role exit

• problems and challenges associated w transitions out significant social role

• there can be re-entry for the person graduating from prison

• there can be retivement from a life course working and learning

• adulthood can take place role strain occurs with tension among roles within a status and social position imposes conflicting demands and expectations

• incompatable expectations can also arise from 2 or more social held positions

• social construct of reality

• Much society is based social construction is reality

• status set indicates all statuses a person has at a set time horticultural societies include the fundamentals of developed settled agriculture

• main technology included digging sticks and household objects

• hunter gatherers include the 1st known structure of society being nomads follow resources

• Pre-industerial societies included the huting, gathering and pastoral horticultural

• variables in common occurred dependent on local resources and labor dependent

• technology states about the ways in which resources of the enviroment is used to satisfy basic needs

• pastoral societies indicated domesticated animals are very common used

• industrial societies consist exponential increases of mechaniziation

• types of societies consist pre and post industrialization

• mechanical solidarity showed the cohesion of societal parts

• Social interactions consisted negotiation and close interactions

• little specialization showed different skills

• organic solidarity

• social order showed different labor functions

Explore C. Wright Mills' sociological imagination, focusing on how personal experiences intersect with broader social structures. Understand the SPIDERS framework (Space, Population, Inequality, Differentiation, Environment, Resources, and Social change) for comprehensive sociological analysis and its application in various social contexts.