Sociology concepts

What is Sociology?

• Sociology involves the methodical study of society and its behaviours.
• Systematic approach uses methods to produce verifiable and contestable knowledge.
• Sociology studies structures, interactions, and institutions in society..
• Sociologists analyze how class, gender, race, and institutions impact human experiences.
• Sociology depends on empirical research and theory and goes beyond common-sense.
• Sociologists observe patterns in society.
• Social patterns include recurring social actions, interactions, and exchanges.

Why Study Sociology?

• It allows a better understanding of patterns in human behaviour.
• Sheds light on the hidden structures of society, which makes the invisible noticeable.
• It promotes critical thinking on issues like power, inequality, and social change.
• Provides tools to analyze social issues like crime, migration, inequality, and culture.

Sociological Imagination (C. Wright Mills)

• C. Wright Mills introduced the sociological imagination in 1959.
• The sociological imagination is the ability to see the connection between individual experiences and larger social forces.
• Helps in understanding how personal issues relate to broader societal problems.
• Regarding student loan debt a sociologist would examine rising tuition costs, wage stagnation, and government policies instead of blaming individuals for poor financial management.

Sociological Consciousness (Peter L. Berger)

• Debunking unveils hidden social structures and questions common-sense beliefs.
• The "American Dream" can be an example of ignoring the systemic inequalities in wealth and education.
• Being unrespectful involves studying the experiences of marginalized groups overlooked by mainstream narratives.
• Examining prison populations can help understand structural racism.
• Relativization is seeing all beliefs and customs shaped by social and historical contexts rather than absolute truths.
• An example includes marriage customs varying widely across cultures and periods.
• Cosmopolitanism involves being open to different perspectives and critically engaging with multiple viewpoints.
• Understanding immigration through personal migrant experiences helps to understand policy.

Principal Founders

• Karl Marx (1818-1883) contributed with modern capitalism and production, class conflict, and labour experience.
• Max Weber (1864-1920) studied the emergence of capitalism, bureaucracy, iron cage, and rationalization.
• Émile Durkheim (1858-1917) focused on solidarity, social integrity, and individualism. Ibn Khaldum (1332–1406) wrote "Muqadimm: An Introduction to History" and examined various societies, cultures, histories and economies in addition to social cohesion.
• W.E.B. Du Bois focused on race and double consciousness
• Harriet Martineau concentrated on gender and social reform and was a Black American sociologist of race, economics, and culture.

What is Sociological Research?

• It utilizes systematic methods to study social patterns.
• Scales vary from macro to micro sociology.
• Research can be quantitative using numbers and statistics, or qualitative, using interviews and observations.
• Research aims to be objective while acknowledging researcher bias following Weber's 'value-free' sociology

Major Research Methods

• Surveys utilize questionnaires for large populations and are quantitative.
• Qualitative interviews are in-depth.
• Participant observation is immersive and ethnographic.
• Experiments involve controlled environments to study cause-and-effect.
• Content analysis involves studying media and texts.
• Historical/comparative research examines societies over time.

(Structural) Functionalism: Origins and Key Concepts

• Functionalism is traced to Émile Durkheim.
• Functionalism focuses on social cohesion, integration, normality, and solidarity.
• Macro-level theory examines the functions of large-scale social structures.

(Structural) Functionalism: Core Ideas

• Society works as a living organism, where each part contributes to stability.
• Institutions like education, healthcare, law, religion, and family maintain social order.
• When one structure is disrupted, the system seeks to restore balance called homeostasis.
• Functionalism encourages social norms and values that reinforce stability and continuity.

Conflict Theory: Origins and Key Concepts

• Conflict theory is associated with Karl Marx and Max Weber.
• Macro-level theory emphasizes power, inequality, and competition.

Conflict Theory: Core Ideas

• Society includes groups competing for scarce resources like wealth, power, and opportunities.
• Emphasizes class struggle where the ruling class maintains control over resources at the expense of the working class.
• Other power struggles include gender, race, sexuality, disability, etc.
• Institutions reinforce existing power structures.
• Social change occurs through conflict and resistance.

Symbolic Interactionism: Origins and Key Concepts

• Micro-level theory focuses on individual interactions and meanings.
• Concerned with small-group interactions and how people interpret daily life.

Symbolic Interactionism: Core Ideas

• Society is created through symbols, language, and gestures.
• Meaning is negotiated through social interactions.
• Everyday interactions matter.
• Reality is socially constructed through human interpretation.

Social Constructionism: Core Ideas

• Reality is created through social processes, not inherent.
• Institutions, norms, and values are socially defined and maintained.
• We categorize and label phenomena, which then shape perceptions.
• The concept of "race" is a social construct rather than a biological fact.
• Useful for writing papers: Start with a claim, then use examples to support it.

Feminist Theory: Origins and Key Concepts

• It challenges systematic discrimination against women and nonbinary individuals.
• Uses an intersectional approach in that it recognizes how gender, race, class, and sexuality intersect.

Feminist Theory: Core Ideas

• "The personal is political" means private life is shaped by larger societal structures.
• Gendered experiences differ based on power relations.
• Women and nonbinary individuals have distinct perspectives due to social positioning.
• Major branches include:
• Liberal feminism focuses on legal and policy reforms.
• Marxist feminism links gender oppression to capitalism.
• Radical feminism critiques patriarchy as a fundamental system of oppression.
• Ecofeminism connects gender and environmental justice.

Standpoint Theory

• Standpoint theory was developed by Dorothy Smith.
• Social position (e.g., gender, race, indigeneity) shapes what people perceive as knowledge.
• Marginalized perspectives provide unique insights into power structures.

Postmodernism: Core Ideas

• Postmodernism challenges single objective truth and universal values.
• Knowledge and truth are socially constructed.
• Emphasizes power, subjectivity, and relativism.

Themes of Postmodernism

• Deconstruction involves questioning dominant discourses and narratives.
• Multiplicity & Hybridity involves accepting diverse perspectives and rejecting singular categories.
• Reflexivity involves being critical of one's own assumptions and biases.

Indigenous Theory: Core Ideas

• Decolonization involves dismantling colonial power structures in society and academia.
• Colonialism still exists in institutions and knowledge production.
• Calls for Indigenous perspectives and methodologies in sociology.
• Critiques Eurocentric biases in research and social theory.
• Recognizes power dynamics in knowledge production.

Culture

• Culture is different from society where culture is the shared way of life, and society is a group of people living together.
• Culture includes values, norms, and practices.
• Culture creates the goals, standards, and meaning that a society adheres to.
• Culture is always evolving due to technological advancements, globalization, and social change.
• Culture is constantly debated with some defending traditions, and others pushing for cultural transformation.
• Culture is not universally agreed upon with even members of the same cultural group disagreeing on its definition.
• Culture exists at multiple levels, with some examples consisting of these:
• Global Cultures: Including Sports fandoms, fashion trends.
• National cultures like shared language, history, customs.
• Organizational cultures: Workplace environments, corporate values.
• Niche cultures: Biker communities, gaming subcultures exist.
• Behaviors, beliefs, knowledge, practices, values, and material objects shape a society's way of life.
• Culture influences thinking, acting, and perceiving reality.
• Culture dictates what is considered good/evil, pure/impure, right/wrong.
• Culture provides both tools and constraints for human interactions.
• Culture includes rituals, myths, superstitions, and traditions and is not just logical and structured.
• Material Culture refers to physical objects and artifacts like clothing, tools, architecture, technology, and others.
• Non-Material Culture includes beliefs, attitudes, values, and customs such as religion, democracy, and language.

Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism

• Judging another culture based on one's own cultural norms is ethnocentrism.
• It can be overt or subtle and often stems from a lack of knowledge and power dynamics.
• American exceptionalism is an example of ethnocentrism where viewing the U.S. as superior.
• Believing that one does not have an accent, while assuming others do is ethnocentrism.
• Historical examples include the Potlatch ban (1885) and residential schools.
• A contemporary example occurs when dismissing Indigenous knowledge in agriculture.
• Cultural relativism involves evaluating a culture based on its own standards, not another's.
• Requires open-mindedness and willingness to understand different perspectives.
• A limitation involves some cultural practices reinforcing oppression and inequality.
• Some cultural elements serve to maintain power structures.
• Examples include:
  • Societies normalization of sexual violence is Rape culture.
  • Framing non-Western cultures as inferior: Eurocentrism.
  • Preference for white features in media and fashion is white-centric beauty standards.

Theoretical Perspectives on Culture

• cultures maintains social stability and cohesion according to Functionalism.
• Culture reinforces social inequality and power struggles according to Conflict Theory.
• Feminism states culture assigns gender roles and expectations.
• Symbolic Interactionism believes culture is created and internalized through daily interactions.
• Postmodernism acknowledges culture is fluid and the distinction between reality and representation is blurred.
• Indigenous Theory states culture reflects the ongoing effects of settler colonialism.

Culture and Power

• Showing wealth through consumption which creates a relationship between class and status is Conspicuous Consumption (Thorstein Veblen).
• Competitive consumption reinforces social hierarchies.

Marxist View on Culture and Ideology

• The ruling class creates and controls dominant ideology.
• Ideology involves a system of beliefs that justifies political and economic structures.
• Dominant Ideology aims to protect the interests of those in power, maintaining the status quo.

Critical Race Theory and White Privilege

• Culture enables and continues racial hierarchies.
• White privilege includes unearned advantages based on race, often invisible to those who benefit from it.

The Frankfurt School and Capitalist Culture

• Advanced capitalism utilizes media and pop culture to keep and maintain control.
• False needs occurs when capitalism replaces human creativity and freedom with consumerism.
• Infinite choice illusion occurs because consumer as "freedom" is shaped by corporate interests.

Postmodernism and Culture

• Postmodernism challenges grand narratives and universal truths.
• Fragmentation, uncertainty, and media influence is emphasized.
• Jean Baudrillard's Hyperreality states the the line between reality and representation is blurred.
• Social media influencers constructing artificial lifestyles is an example of hyperreality.

The Cultural Effects of Colonialism

• Settler Colonialism erodes Indigenous cultures, sovereignty, and land rights.
• Settler institutions suppress Indigenous knowledge and practices.
• Colonial narratives shape historical memory.

Colonial Memory (Logan, 2023)

• Indigenous peoples are depicted as savage or uncivilized.
• Resistance labeled as rebellion.
• Canadian history marginalizes Indigenous presence and resistance.
• Cultural artifacts are taken from Indigenous communities and displayed in museums.
• Commodification of Indigenous identity for profit.

Forms of Culture

• Dominant Culture is the culture that holds political and economic power and influences societal norms.
• Subculture is a group within society that has distinct beliefs or practices but does not oppose dominant culture.
• Example: Ethnic communities, deaf culture, sports fandoms.
• Counterculture actively rejects and challenges dominant culture.
• Example: Anti-establishment movements, punk subculture.
• Popular Culture includes culture of the masses, including music, movies, social media.
• Mass Culture is media-driven, standardized commercial culture.
• High Culture includes intellectualism, prestige, and the elite.
• Example: Classical music, fine art, opera.
• Pierre Bourdieu: Cultural capital marks class status.
• High culture is learned and reinforced through socialization.

Cultural Capital (Bourdieu)

• A set of knowledge, skills, and tastes that enhance social mobility.
• Those born into privilege have early exposure to elite cultural practices.
• Reinforces class divisions.

Socialization

• Social Individuals are constantly surrounded and influenced by both real and imagined people
• Socialized individuals accept, conform, resist, and interact with societal norms and expectations.
• Social roles can be adopted or rejected, shaping identity and interactions.
• A lifelong learning process that enables individuals to become active and capable members of society is known as Socialization.
• Learning and internalizing norms, values, beliefs, and ideologies is involved in the social construction of reality.
• Socialization develops a sense of self in relation to others and broader social structures.
• Agents of Socialization are People, groups, or institutions that influence social development with examples consisting of family, school, media, peer groups, workplace, religion, sports teams, gaming spaces, and online communities (e.g., subreddits).
• Micro-level socialization are Small-scale interactions such as those of friend groups and families.
• Macro-level socialization involves Large-scale societal influences like national education policies and media trends.
• Socialization involves the Interaction between micro and macro which can reinforce each other or clash, can can often lead to contradictions like when vaping occurs as a rebellious youth trend while being being regulated at the societal level.
• Primary Socialization occurs in early childhood within the family with an emphasis on the first stage of socialization
• Caregivers instill basic values, norms, and identity in primary socialization.
• Primary socialization happens through imitation, role-taking, and encouragement with both implicit and explicit teaching.
• Secondary Socialization happens outside of family settings.
• Peer groups, educational institutions, media, and authority figures influence Secondary Socialization.
• Socialization is often used to understand why generational labels happen.
• Are Generational labels are often used to explain social issues and change, but they are socially constructed.
• Generational cohorts form due to times of rapid historical, economic, or political change.
• A generation is not just about birth years—it is defined by shared experiences and cultural shifts.
• Peer groups influence identity through hobbies, fashion, media consumption, and social belonging.

Social Media and Socialization

• Online self-presentation shapes identity and social status.
• Platforms like TikTok create high-visibility social spaces, fostering a celebrity-like culture.
• Cultural literacy is required to navigate digital interactions and trends.

Mechanisms of Socialization

• Anticipatory Socialization involves preparing for future roles and responsibilities by adopting relevant values and behaviors.
• An example is A student learning professional etiquette before entering the workforce.
• Resocialization involves a process of significant changes in identity and behavior.
• Resocialization can be voluntary or involuntary.
• An aexample is Transitioning to a new career or joining a religious group.
• Total Institutions (Erving Goffman) involves extreme resocialization occurring in total institutions where individuals are isolated and controlled.
• Prisons, military boot camps, and psychiatric hospitals are examples of total institutions.
• Total institutions erase previous identities and instill new roles and behaviors.

Theoretical Perspectives on Socialization

• Functionalism and Socialization states that socialization maintains stability and order through transmission of norms and values
• Institutions like schools, families, and workplaces reinforce social cohesion.
• Functionalism believes Socialization is a unidirectional process where individuals are passive receivers of social expectations.
• Conflict Theory and Socialization believes that Socialization perpetuates social inequalities.
• Class-based socialization makes social mobility difficult.
• Wealthier individuals have greater access to diverse learning opportunities and cultural exposure.

Pierre Bourdieu: Class and Socialization

• Class influences cultural preferences, tastes, and choices.
• Habitus are deeply ingrained social habits, gestures, and ways of thinking that shape class identity.
• Social reproduction occurs as the upper class maintains its status by transmitting cultural knowledge and privileges to future generations.

Paul Willis: Learning to Labour (Marxist Perspective)

• Paul Willis provides a Marxist perspective due to this ethnographic study of working-class students in England (1970s).
• Paul Willis observed that working-class kids were socialized to remain in the working class.
• Counter-School Culture: Rebellion against school norms (bad behavior, skipping class) reinforced their working-class trajectory.
• Institutions and Sschools reinforce social stratification rather than offering mobility.

Symbolic Interactionism and Socialization

• Socialization is an active process where individuals negotiate their roles.
• People internalize and interpret norms through interactions.
• An example shows a child learning polite behavior by observing how adults react to their actions.

Feminism and Socialization

• Gender socialization reinforces inequalities and expectations.
• Social institutions shape gender roles and scripts from early childhood.
• Toys marketed differently for boys and girls reinforce societal expectations.

Indigenous Theory and Socialization

• Settler colonialism influences socialization by imposing Western cultural norms and values.
• Indigenous resistance includes revitalizing traditional knowledge, language, and practices.

WEEK 6: DEVIANCE, LAW, AND CRIME

• What defines an act as deviant?
• What constitutes a crime, and what does that entail?
• What social institutions respond to deviance and crime, and what responses do they generate?

Dominant Discourses on Crime and Deviance

• Dominant discourses have been historically influenced by religion, psychology, biology, and functionalism.
• 19th-century criminology viewed crime as an inherent trait in individuals.
• Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) was an Italian criminologist who argued that criminals could be identified by physical traits such as low foreheads, prominent jaws, and protruding ears.
• Lombroso introduced the idea that crime was biologically determined.
• Criminology traditionally views crime as a characteristic within individuals, or as a "Crime as an Object".
• Modern sociology considers crime and deviance as socially constructed.
• Many criminology departments still use positivist approaches to study crime.

Deviance

• Deviance involves any behavior that strays from commonly accepted societal norms.
• Deviance does not always mean something negative, and deviants aren't always bad people.
• Deviance is relative and varies across time, place, and cultural context.
• Power and deviance dictate those who make the rules and impact those labeled as deviant.
• An example consists of those who decide what labeled as a crime, and whose interests does it serve.
• Deviance is socially constructed, therefore no act is inherently deviant but societal forces define deviance.
• Sociologists analyze how laws and norms are created and enforced.
• “Deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an ‘offender.” – Howard Becker

Social Responses to Deviance

• A Moral Panic includes social or collective controversy provoking strong fear and reactions.
• Moral Panic is often sensationalized by media.
• An example consists of Moral panics over video games and youth violence.
• Moral Entrepreneurs create and enforce norms about what is deviant.
• Moral entrepreneurs can exist on both sides of social issues:
• Pro-life vs. pro-choice movements.
• Gun control vs. pro-gun advocacy.
• Political figures such as Donald Trump shaping narratives about crime and immigration.

Crime and Law

• Crime is the violation of codified criminal laws.
• Many believe law is beyond human influence, but rather laws are simply social norms codified and enforced by authorities. - What norms become laws, and why? - Who benefits from these laws?
• What makes someone "illegal"? Laws and policies determine migration status.
• Migration control is often used as a form of legal exclusion.
• Effects of irregular migration policies can lead to (Echeverría, 2020):
  • Criminalization of migrants.
  • Increased exploitation and marginalization.
• Migrant Smuggling is often conflated with Human Trafficking to justify strict migration policies.
• Key difference between Migrant Smuggling and Human Trafficking:
  • Smuggling is voluntary.
  • Human trafficking is forced and exploitative.
  • Overlap exists, but they are distinct legal and social issues.

Social Control and Surveillance

• Regulation is required to maintain social order through Social control and surveillance.
• Social control exists in both traditional and modern societies.
• Modern surveillance employs sophisticated techniques as questions such as
  • How does control operate in contemporary society?
  • What mechanisms enforce conformity?
• Michel Foucault believes that in modern society power regulates bodies, populations, and knowledge.
• Foucault believes the state exercises control by encouraging self-regulation also known as Governmentality.
• Foucault believes Individuals are controlled through bodily discipline (e.g., military, schools) also know as Disciplinary Society.
  • Prisons, schools, and hospitals function as institutions of discipline.

The Panopticon (Jeremy Bentham & Foucault)

• The panopticon is A prison model where inmates never know when they are being watched.
  • The panopticon leads to self-surveillance and self-regulation.
• Foucault’s argument says modern society operates like a panopticon where people behave due to fear of being watched.
  • CCTV cameras, social media monitoring, and workplace surveillance.
• Carceral Spaces and Social Control understands prisons as part of a larger carceral system (Turner & Whyte, 2022). Beyond prisons there are Ghettos, immigration detention centers, asylum institutions, and repatriation camps.
• Angela Davis (1998) theorized the Prison-industrial complex because Prisons serve capitalist interests.

Carceral Circuits

• Bodies move from one controlled space to another:
  • For Example: Poor and racialized individuals moving from ghettos to prisons.
  • Punitive methods circulate between institutions.

Theories on Crime and Deviance: Functionalism (Émile Durkheim)

• Crime is inevitable and necessary for society.
• Regulation integration, and social change all involve deviance.
• Anomie: A state of normlessness leading to social instability.
• Law expresses the collective conscience of a society.

Theories on Crime and Deviance: Symbolic Interactionism (Howard Becker)

• Deviance is a learned behavior.
• Example: Smoking marijuana and learning how to use, enjoy, and connect effects to social experiences.
• Labeling Theory believes people become deviant when labeled as such.
• Self-fulfilling prophecy-once labeled, individuals internalize deviant identity.

Theories on Crime and Deviance: Conflict Theory

• Crime is linked to social inequality.
• Laws protect the ruling class and punish marginalized groups.
• Race, class, and wealth determine criminalization. Critical Race Theory challenges the neutrality of law.
• Critical Race Theory has a focus on how law reinforces racial inequalities and power structures.
• Settler colonialism as a structure, not an event underpins Indigenous Theory and Law.
• The legal system reinforces settler dominance and Indigenous dispossession. Settler law is structured to uphold capitalism, courts, and state power.

Urban Crime and Marginalization: Parisian Banlieues (Amy Siciliano, 2007)

• Racialized youth are often excluded from mainstream French society.
• There is a prominent amount of social fragmentation and urban inequality.
• Marginalized groups experience structural violence and economic precarity.

Exam Practice Questions

• A theory that views crime as a socially constructed concept that benefits those in power.
  • Conflict theory
• The concept of 'cultural capital' was introduced by
  • Pierre Bourdieu
• The concept of double consciousnesswas introduced by
  • W.E.B. Du Bois

The sociological imagination allows individuals to...

• to understand personal experiences in relation to larger social structures. What is the main focus of symbolic interactionism?
• The meanings and interpretations individuals give to social interactions Which theory challenges the idea of objective truth and universal values?
• Postmodernism
• According to Michel Foucault, the 'panopticon' is a model for...
  • Disciplinary power and self-surveillance

True/False Questions

• Deviance is always negative and harmful to society.
  • False. Deviance is socially constructed and varies across time and culture.
• Pierre Bourdieu argued that cultural capital is evenly distributed across all social classes.
  • False. Bourdieu showed that cultural capital is unequally distributed and reinforces class distinctions.
• The 'looking-glass self' suggests that individuals shape their identity based on how they believe others perceive them.
  • True. Cooley's theory emphasizes social interactions in identity formation.
• Moral panics often arise without any real societal concerns.
  • False. While moral panics are exaggerated, they usually stem from underlying social anxieties.
• Indigenous theory critiques the assumption that settler colonialism is a historical event rather than an ongoing structure.
  • True. Indigenous theorists argue that colonial structures persist in legal, political, and social systems.

Short Answer

• The concept of 'Looking-Glass Self' suggests that our self-identity is shaped by how we think others perceive us as theorized by Charles Cooley.
• The 'Looking-Glass Self' occurs in three stages. 1 - Imagining how we appear to others. 2 - Interpreting their reactions. 3 - Developing feelings about ourselves based on these perceptions.
• Charles Cooley’s theory is used to highlight the role of social interactions in shaping self-concept.
• Qualitative research focuses on in-depth understanding through interviews, observations, and case studies.
• Quantitative research relies on numerical data and statistics to identify patterns.

Long Answer

• Conspicuous consumption refers to spending on luxury goods to display wealth and status as theorized by Thorstein Veblen.
• Conspicuous consumption reinforcesclass distinctions and enables the upper class to differentiates itself from lower classes through material consumption.

How does 'critical race theory' challenge traditional views of law and power?

• Critical race theory (CRT) argues that law is not neutral but reinforces racial inequalities.
• CRT critiques the idea that the law is colorblind and instead shows how systemic racism is embedded in legal and social institutions.

How does Foucault's concept of 'disciplinary society' explain modern surveillance

• Michel Foucault argued that modern societies use disciplinary power to regulate individuals.
• Michel Foucault’s concept of the Panopticon (a prison where inmates self-regulate due to constant surveillance) illustrates how power operates invisibly. - Today, surveillance extends beyond prisons to schools, workplaces, social media, and policing, ensuring people regulate their behavior without direct coercion.

Compare and contrast functionalism and conflict theory's perspectives on crime.

• Functionalism views crime as a necessary function in society, helping regulate norms and social change.
• Conflict theory argues that laws protect the interests of the powerful while criminalizing marginalized groups where crime is often regarded asa symptom of systemic inequality rather than a natural part of society.

Discuss the role of socialization in maintaining and challenging societal norms

• institutions like family, education, media, and peer groups, transmit cultural values and norms.
• Primary socialization (early childhood) instills basic norms, while secondary socialization (later life) shapes social roles. Socialization can reinforce power structures but it also enables resistance and social change. feminist and civil rights movements challenging dominant ideologies serve as examples.

How does Michel Foucault's concept of 'governmentality' explain modern surveillance

• Michel Foucault’s governmentality refers to how the state exercises power by encouraging individuals to self-regulate.
• unlike earlier forms of direct coercion, modern societies govern through institutions, norms, and surveillance.
• the panopticon metaphor illustrates how people internalize surveillance, leading to self-discipline.
• governmentality occurs with social media monitoring, workplace surveillance, and digital data collection.

Test your knowledge of research methods, sociological theories such as functionalism and conflict theory. Also asses your knowledge of sociological theorists such as Émile Durkheim. Evaluate your understanding of social inequality and power struggles.