Chapter 1

Class 2 Agenda

• The class outline (syllabus) will be revisited which will include a Q&A session.
• Working groups and oral presentations will be solidified.
• There will be a focus on Chapter 1 of Clarke's Book.
• The class will include a break.
• Next steps

Session Objectives

• Course logistics involving teambuilding and ensuring everyone is onboard will be discussed.
• An overview of sociological approaches to research, analyzing health, illness, and medicine will be provided.

• Will describe key features of each approach will be described

Oral Presentations

• Rubric to be determined
• Slides should have slide numbers
• Adequate font size is important
• One slide per minute guideline
• Engagement with the audience is key
• Less is more with information for engagement
• Take home messages are important

Chapter 1: Ways of Thinking Sociologically about Health, Illness, and Medicine

• Sociology of health and illness focuses on describing and explaining social causes, consequences of illness, disease, disability, and death.
• Explores how lay people and professionals categorize disease and illness.
• Aims to describe identities and experiences linked with illness and wellness.
• Sociology of medicine studies how institutionalized medical systems define illness based on signs and symptoms and the treatments they prescribe.
• Sociologists study the social world from various angles and focus on different aspects of social life. Sociologists use different questions and methods based on their perspective.
• Different sociological viewpoints are utilized to delve into the sociology of health.
• The main perspectives include:
  • Structural-functional theory
  • Conflict theory
  • Symbolic interactionist/interpretive/social constructionist theory
  • Feminist theory
  • Critical race theory
  • Post structuralism

Structural Functionalism

• Developed by Émile Durkheim, asserts that society or the system is the proper study level for sociologists.
• The social system is composed of institutions that work together to maintain order.
• Structural functionalism seeks to understand how social facts impact human behavior.
• Social facts are real and separate from individual actions.
• Norms, social institutions like family or economy, and social behaviors are all part of social structure.
• Sociology aims to describe the world through universal causal laws.
• Human behavior is objectively and quantitatively measurable through methods such as experiments and survey research.
• Talcott Parsons's sick role suggests sickness must be managed through a temporary role contingent on fulfilling obligations.
• The sick role has four components:
  • Exemption from "normal" social roles.
  • No responsibility for their condition.
  • Should try to get well.
  • Cooperate with the physician.
• Parsons's sick role concept is important in medical sociology.
• Parsons argued medical practice, medical ideology, and medical institutions fulfill social control functions.
• Parsons provided a sociological analysis of sickness.

Conflict Theory

• Based on Karl Marx's writings, focuses on class-based power relations and dynamics.
• States that health and illness are related to unequal social arrangements in capitalist, patriarchal societies.
• The purpose of sociology is to document and analyze injustice resulting from class, race, gender, and power.
• Knowledge is never objective, it is dependent on social, material, and historical context.
• Understanding conflicting social and economic forces is essential for understanding social life conditions.

Interpretive/Social Constructionist Theory

• Symbolic interactionism, based on Max Weber's writings, studies how social reality is constructed and experienced by individuals (social actors).
• It suggests social reality is subjectively defined and experienced, which means it can be studied through subjective processes or empathetic understanding (verstehen).
• Symbolic interactionist view on disease and illness:
  • Describes the impact of disease and diagnosis on the individual's self and relationships with others.
  • The meaning given to diseases by social actors affects their self-concepts and relationships with others.

Feminist & Critical Anti-Racist Theory

• Researchers theorize about the social world.
• Focuses on gender, race, class, and sexual orientation
• Different racial groups occupy different places in the social structure.
• Men and white people tend to dominate in institutions.
• Sociology has historically reflected male and white dominance.
• Feminists critique the medicalization of women's lives relating to reproductive issues.
• Women's poor health is due to social inequities, such as class, participation in labour force, or familial roles.

Post-Structuralism

• Based on Michel Foucault's writings, highlights that power is found in mutual relations and influenced by socially constructed knowledges and everyday practices supported by state policies and circulating discourses.
• Population is controlled by self-governance while the government categorizes, counts, and develops policies about managing "bodies" through "public health," science, and medicine.
• Definitions continuously recreated as people are subjected to, create, and resist prevailing discourses via everyday conversation, mass media, and medical care system interactions.

Review the syllabus and working groups. Focus on sociological approaches to health, illness, and medicine, with an overview of Chapter 1 of Clarke's book. Guidelines for effective oral presentations will be discussed.