Sociological Imagination, Durkheim & Marx

• Sociological imagination involves seeing the connection between personal experiences and broader social structures, understanding how individual issues relate to societal patterns and historical contexts.

Émile Durkheim

• Émile Durkheim (1858-1917) showed that social life could be rigorously analyzed, similar to natural events.
• Durkheim studied suicide and identified four types.
• Egoistic suicide arises from isolation and a lack of belonging.
• Altruistic suicide results from excessive social integration for the "good of the group."
• Anomic suicide occurs when societal regulation is disrupted (e.g., during economic booms or depressions).
• Fatalistic suicide happens when individuals feel oppressed by extreme regulation and lack freedom.

Karl Marx

• Karl Marx analyzed the relationship between the working class (proletariat) and the owning class (bourgeoisie) through class struggle.
• Capitalism relies on the exploitation of workers by owners of production like factories and land.
• The bourgeoisie controls the means of production and profits by underpaying workers, using ideology to justify their dominance.
• The proletariat sells their labor to survive, working long hours for low wages while the bourgeoisie gains wealth, and experiences alienation from their work.

Research Process

• Defining the Problem: Identify a topic with limited understanding

• Proceed when: Identified a problem that is feasible to study.

• Reviewing the literature: Search scientific databases for previously published articles/books on the topic

• Proceed when: You have a strong understanding of existing work and can justify why your study is needed.

• Making the Problem Precise and Formulate Hypotheses: Narrow down your focus on a specific issue (hypotheses=educated guesses)

• Proceed when: You have a clear theoretical model that guides your research.

• Working Out a Study Design: Decide how to conduct your research and where to collect data

• Proceed when: Align research design with study's questions to ensure reliable results.

• Carry Out the Research and Interpret Results: Collect/analyze data to track trends and test hypotheses

• Proceed when: Analysis is complete, and results can be confidently explained.

• Report the Findings: Publish study results in an academic journal/mainstream channel.

• Proceed when: Conclusion is well supported, and you are ready to share findings.

• Socialization is the process of learning norms, values, and a sense of self.

• Agents of socialization are the groups or contexts where socialization occurs.

• Subculture: A group within a larger society with distinct values, norms, behaviors, and interests.

• Subcultures maintain unique identities and practices within mainstream society.

• Subcultures are defined by distinct values/norms, language/symbols, style/appearance, interests/activities, identity/belonging, relationships with mainstream culture, internal variations, and change over time.

• Spencer Cahill applied emotional capital to mortuary science students, examining how they developed emotional skills for the funeral industry.

• Emotional capital is the effective management and expression of emotions in professional settings.

Max Weber

• Max Weber described bureaucracy as an efficient, logical system that became the best way to manage large groups/organizations.
• A clear hierarchy, rules and regulations, specialized roles, impersonality, merit-based promotion, and written communication define bureaucracy.

Carol Gilligan

• Carol Gilligan challenged moral development theories by focusing on gender's influence on relationships, morality, and care.

• Gilligan argued that men and women develop different moral perspectives due to socialization.

• Gilligan studied ethics of care, gender differences in moral development, caring as a female-oriented trait, and relational versus individualistic approaches.

• Erving Goffman used theater to explain social behavior, viewing interactions as performances to meet others' expectations.

• Microsociology studies face-to-face interactions and everyday behavior (e.g., sidewalk behavior, classroom interactions, body language, small group dynamics).

• Macrosociology examines large-scale social systems and societal changes (e.g., rise of global capitalism, social inequality, impact of immigration policies, industrial revolution).

Edwin T. Hall

• Edwin T. Hall studied proxemics, how people use personal space in different social contexts.

• Intimate distance: 0-18 inches.

• Personal distance: 18 inches to 4 feet.

• Social distance: 4 to 12 feet.

• Public distance: 12 feet and beyond.

• Norms are expected behaviors or rules in society, like punctuality.

• Values are deep beliefs about what is important, such as equality or hard work.

• Consequentialist Theory suggests people follow norms for rewards or to avoid punishment.

• Structural functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism explore norms related to societal stability, power, and social interactions.

• Nancy Chodorow studied how mothers influence children's gender identity development.

• Ethnomethodology: Study of how people create/understand social order through daily actions.

• Breaching experiments: Tests where norms are intentionally violated to see how people react and uncover hidden social rules.

• Background expectancies: Shared assumptions about how things should happen, guiding behavior in interactions.

Charles Horton Cooley

• Looking-Glass Self: Individuals form self-identity based on perceived judgment from others, shaping self-concept through social interactions.
• Childhood (Birth-12): Special rights for protection.
• Adolescence (13-17): Transition from childhood to adulthood preparation.
• Young Adulthood (18-29): Extended education and transition to independence.
• Early Mid-Life (30-49): Full-time labor force entry and long-term relationships.
• Later Mid-Life (50-64): Career/relationship satisfaction.
• Early Older Adulthood (65-74): Retirement; leaving social roles.
• Middle Older Adulthood (75-84): Adjustment to retirement and reflection on life.
• Later Older Adulthood (85+): Greater dependence on others.

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963)

• An American sociologist, wrote about Black experiences in the U.S. through various mediums, including sociological works, poetry, short stories, journalism, and fiction.

• Published in 1899, "The Philadelphia Negro" combined urban ethnography, social history, and descriptive statistics to study social conditions of Black Philadelphia residents.

• Du Bois personally gathered, organized, and analyzed data through walking neighborhoods, talking to people, ethnographic observations, and collecting descriptive statistics.

• The problems of Black Philadelphians stemmed largely from servitude, as they tried to negotiate an effective place in a competitive, industrial, urban setting where white supremacy was strong.

• In "The Souls of Black Folk," Du Bois argued that Black Americans have unrealized strength and talent, but America lets Black Americans see themselves only through the eyes of others.

• Double consciousness: One's sense of self and identity are influenced by historical experiences and social circumstances.

• Ethnography (Qualitative Research Method): Firsthand study of people using participant observation and interviewing.

• Ethnography generates in-depth information and is used to study social issues, such as poverty, crime, and inequality.

• Recent Examples:

  • "Sidewalk" by Mitchell Duneier (1999): studies of homelessness
  • "Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City" by Matthew Desmond (2016): eviction
  • "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" by Anne Fadiman (1997): cultural clashes in healthcare
  • "Gang Leader for a Day" by Sudhir Venkatesh (2008): urban gangs

Explore sociological imagination by connecting personal experiences to broader social structures. Understand Durkheim's suicide types: egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic. Examine Marx's analysis of class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in capitalism.