Sociology: Social Imagination, Structure, and Inequality - PDF

Social Imagination: 1st and most important takeaway; our goal; develop our SI; how what we see is connected to a bigger picture and themes Our Perspective = biography and history Who you are + where you are *Gender *In time *Race *In space * Wealth *Lo...

Social Imagination: 1st and most important takeaway; our goal; develop our SI; how what we see is connected to a bigger picture and themes Our Perspective = biography and history Who you are + where you are *Gender *In time *Race *In space * Wealth *Location *Education *age Wealthier neighborhoods have: - Less Crime/less policing - More economic stability - Better/resourced schooling All our choices are greatly influenced by what we are surrounded by Sociology emerged during late 1800s: what was during industrial revolution Modern life seems to be changing: - Division of labor has become more spread out (Meaning that we are further away from the people that make our food or clothes. We most likely will never know or meet them. When before they would probably know our neighbors or even our own family members. - Urban dwellers can’t grow own food or build own houses - Most trade wages for food, clothing, shelter, and other items *The study of how societies are organized and how that organizations* Group/crowd behavior: when people are gathered in a group, they will always act in ways that they can't describe later, or they wouldn't have planned to do. If we behave in unpredictable ways, we might not have complete control of how we act or behave Levels of sociological analysis: Key Idea: What is a social institution? Enduring practices and rules (both formal and informal) that organize a central domain of social life- *Law *labor market *education *military *family Example: How do Practices and rules of college organize social life? - Safe place to experiment – how to interact with others – education – segregates population by age – brand that is marketed What is social structure? - Is the organized pattern of social relationship that constitute society Our behavior is guided by roles, resources, and social forces Oppurtunites and boundaries we Confort Behavior shaped by our positions within social structures: statuses, roles, groups, networks, and institutions Rules: formal and informal expectation for behaving in any given situation Resources: things we have or acquire such as money, education, and status (Our ability to follow a rule is dependent on it we have the resource to do so.) Social status: a socially determined position within a larger group or society - Ascribed: status assigned to you - Achieved: status in part from your own effort A person’s status is evaluated by: how they look, what we know about them, what we know about the content of the setting, culture, and more. Social Role: the set of expectations - Expectations of you - How you actually perform - Conflict between roles - Strain with roles Roles overlap: how do we navigate these conflicts? - Life Chances: Oppurtunites to provide yourself with material goods and favorable life experiences. Occupying a high status in society improves your life changes, provides more structural resources, and brings greater access to social rewards. Relationship: (i.e. education correlated to greater salary)  - Groups: two or more people with similar values and expectations who interact with one another on a regular basis - Networks: a series of social relationships that link you directly to other individuals and indirectly to even more people - Institutions: enduring practices and rules that organize a central domain of social life Socialization: an ongoing process of learning how to follow norms and expectations of society, that we learn through social interaction Looking glass self (Cooley,1902): - Interactive nature of self-identity: we respond to how we imagine others view us - Our sense of self emerges from taking others’ point of view George Herbert Mead’s theory of childhood development: we are not born with a sense of self but learn self-consciousness through interactions. Children learn by imitating key individuals near them Meads generalized other: generalized view of how others will view us; seeing ourselves through how society sees us Self: Presentation of self and our behaviors Socialization is racialized: double consciousness being both American and black; allows to see how society is impacted by race Agents of socialization: Social stratification: - Unequal distribution of positions and resources - Social stratification is universal but highly variable - Inequality is a social problem not an individual problem Stratification is the study of who gets what in society and why Class, race , and gender are highly linked Why does inequality exist? Many reasons: - Capitalism requires class exploitation - Racial hierarchy - Male dominated, patriarchal society - Cultural or religious belief systems that rationalize inequality as fair - Historical stratification Inequality according to Karl Marx; - Capitalism, system of private property and profit requires class inequality working class must sell their labor-power in exchange for wage, while capitalists keep the profit - Exploits and takes advantage of people reading to use their time for a set wage - Are there expectations for this? Can you be successful without being a part of the capitalist society? - impossible to do so – globally Inequality according to Max Weber: - Class stratification is a complex, multidimensional hierarchy based on ecomnics, status/culture, and power - Components of social class: Elite Power: C. Wright mills Socioeconmic status (SES): In keeping with Weber’s definition, sometimes we use this term to reflect the fact that our society’s ranking system is based on many different factors. *Income *Occupation *Wealth *Lifestyle choices/consumption Patterns *Education How do Class and status work? - Is social class able to be determined by first meeting someone? - What indicators would you use to identify Somone's social class? Are there indicators reliable? Is status ascribed or achieved? Class: The significance of wealth - Income: the amount of money you earn from employment or investments - Wealth: the total value of assets you possess (minus debts). Wealth can coem from sources such as savings, investments, businesses, real estate, and inheritance. Social Mobility: the predominant belief is that upward social mobility is the norm. However, current research indicates that the American dream is a fading reality for many individuals. Racial wealth gap:  - The gap between the rich and the poor is even more pronounced when we look at race - The avergace white family has accumlated much more wealth than black and Latino families Steps to close the racial wealth gap - Homeownership assistance targeted at black and Latino families - Aggressive regulation of the real estate indicates to fight entrenched racism a discrimination by real estate agents, assessors, and lender. THESE THINGS CAN WORK! Working Poor: - Approximately 10.5 million people can be categorized as working poor. They work stable jobs but are still poor. - More women than men are classified as working poor. Families headed by women are more likely than those headed by men. - Black and Latino people are more than twice as likely as whites and Asians to be working poor What is culture? It is socially constructed. - Our view of life occurs through our culturally tinted lenses. Makes our own culture appear to be reality rather than a version of reality. - Culture functions in ways that keep us grounded in society and community. - Culture can build social cohesion by making others’ actions predictable Elements of Culture: Material and Symbolic culture: - Things can have a material and a symbolic component together - Bundles are collective representations that give social meaning - Durkheim’s theory that sets of symbolic culture create group cohesion Values and Ways of Being - As values, culture provides nroms (rules and expectiations) which are a way of explain how culture bends belfies into actions Do you steal food to feed your hungry family? Are norms flexible? - As a way of being, we can understand how cultural tools can be invoked in different settings. Culture becomes strategic. When do we code switch? Code Switching: - Anne Swidler’s concept of the cultural toolkit: we learn to use different values, beliefs in different settings - Who code switches and why? - We “hopscotch” through different cultures, languages, and parts of our identities - What are some examples from your own experience? How culture creates inequalities Cultural Captial  - Non-economic resources (knowledge, skills, behaviors) that are useful in a particular sphere of social life - Examples: college degree, your manner, style, clothes Field: the contexts of social relatiosn wherein a particular kind of cultural capital is exchanged, like a profession, a community or a class of people Habitus: learned dispositions, a set of tendencies organizing how we see the world and act within it Cultural takeaways: Cultures are social constructs. Still important!! Culture is produced, by communities and people, but also shaped by capitalism, consumption, and taste. Consuming/observing/participating in a culture also shapes our experiences and how we view culture. Culture is not inherently neutral, but can be used to exacerbate inequalities where certain traits are valued more highly Sex: a man, female, or intersex category denoted by human-defined biological markers like chromosomes, hormones, reproductive organs and bodies Gender: one of numerous masculine's, feminine, genderqueer, or trans categories denoted by adherence to Behavorial and attitudinal norms that are associated with particular sexes Gender and Sex are both socially constructed and distinct yet do not operate independently Social construction of gender: Meaning is created in social interactions - Gender isn't something that we “are” - It's something that we “do”, it is “performative” How does gender matter? Our society makes gender a big part of our identities The problems are...  - This society uses gender to enforce social boundaries and maintain a gender binary and hierarchy of men over women - Limiting to people who don't neatly fit in a gender - Gender inequality The social constuction of biological sex “Sex” as a category is complex and the definitions have changed dramatically over time. - In humans and non-human animals, there is more biological difference than male and female - Intersex baby: when a baby’s genitals are mixed or appear ambiguous. 1 in 5000 births - Biological sex is socially constructed Gender and Sex together? Gender Binary: a type of gender system that separates people into two genders: men and women - But gender catroes cna change - Gender Hierarchy: adherence to nroms fo heterosexulatiy and gender conformity, with men and dominating and benfitting Gender identities - The normatibity of gender socially encoruges us to identity with a particluar gender in the gender binary and act accordinly - For thousands of years people have created a range of gender idetites that cna open spce for new ways of expericne gender Gender Socialization Is teh lifelong process of learning socially acceptable behaviors, broms, and attitudes associated wtih a practuliar gener - This process is how we learn our own and otehrs’ genders - Begins at birth or beofre Gender Norms Practualr defintions of behavior (interst,dress, performance) assoicated with particular gender categories.  - Gendered products an dgendered marketing encourage and reinforice gender norms with enromous consewuenes for how people act Gender Review Gender is socially constructed ≠ Gender is not “real” Biological sex is socially constructed means the categories are human-created, based on human-defined characteristics and have changed. But we need to understand how “real” is produced. Recognizing gender as a social construct DOES NOT erase our differnces but it complicates them The creation of Sexualtiy Secualtihy is a coail construciton jointly determined by niology and environment. - Sexualtiy isn’t “natrual” we’re taught to express it in socially acceptable ways. Sexualtiy meaning shave chanegd over tiem - Not jus tbaout sex but about expressions, idetnites and practices of sexualtiy that are tied to gender Understanding Sexualty Sexualtiy and gender Sexualtiy is an essential componet of the social construction of gender. So normatiev that it appers natural  - Socialta concern with defining and regulating sexualtiy is about control and mainting gendred divsion of labo r - Controlling sexualtiy to maitniang womens oppression an dgender inequatiltiy more braodly The social control of sexualtiy - The nroamtive expectation sof the “right” ways to express sexuatliy - Differ for men and woemn - Queer sexautliy is acceptable but only in certain non-offsenive forms Intersectional Sexualties - Notions of sexualtiy rooted in culture jave consequenes Sexism and the Media Soical Construciton of Masculitny/Consqeunes Unequal Divison of Household labor - Hochschild agrued that women perform a secodn shift of housework after coming home from their wage-earning job - Thebaud found that husbands of breadwinner wives do less housework  - Same gender couples are more egalarian overall Overtiem mothers and fathers are doing more childcare but women are still doing more Family: a group of people who take responsibilty for meeting one another’s needs - Kinship, care, dependence - Family is contextually depednet on economis forces, modernity, and culture Institutionalizetion of families: encoded in laws, policies, widley shared practices that shape family life Brief hsitory of fmaily chaneg In the modren industrilized world, lineage systems beconme more strategic,exclusive, and poltical. Families shrank and orivate life becoem more concentrated - “native american societies used family ties to oragnzie nearly all poltical, military, and exonmic transations” (coontz 2010) - Ensalved black people priortized family and kinship as a method of survival - Post-WWII econmkic boom was mostly for white families Brief history of family adn gender For thousands of years: - Patriach/property marriage: women and chidlren owend by men - Breadwinner/housemaker marriage: one wage-earner spouse supports the family. Led to a new way of thinking. - With work/home separtation, men oragnized to limit women in labor force Gender and the Home Seperate Spheres: an ideology that once divided the hoem transformd into a “feminine” space best tended by women - The problem is that men and women’s spheres were cast as unequal - Men devalued the work needed to maitnain a home (rasing fmaily, cleaning , caring for elders.) Thus the rise of the “traditonal” family myth The “tradtional family” is a muth - Nostalgia trap: the grip on nostalgia as a means to solve our problems further, becase the goals arent based on realtiy The “traditoanl family” has nevr been functional - Housewives were bored and depressed, oftehn self-mediacting - Husbands were pressured to work young Heternormative: promoted hetersexualty as teh only acceptable relationsio form The breadwinner/homemaker marriage wasnt jsu tabout marriage, but it is also insitulized gender bindary, heterosecuatly, monogame, and childrearing Family today is changing, not decling - Tehre is no “natural” family form - Same-sex families, blended families, and multigenerational - Single vs multi-parent householnds (weathly and poor families ofthen both have a paretn stay home) - Myth of “Absentee father” is a racialized concept: fahters tofday may be more emotionally available Marriage Marriage is a social, legal and cultural instituion that has changed a lot over time - Partnership unions: Marriage today is typically about love and companionship between equals - Yet marriage rates are at all-time lows in the US Divorce rate is down - The divorce rate hit a 40-year low in 2015 - Divorce rate is highest for older people Wedding industrail Complex - Consumerism and commoditization of weddings - US average wedding cost: 30,000 - MA wedding: $46000 - Western European wedding: 5500 Technology & Dating Durkheim theorized that complex soceities reduce social integration because our connections become frayed - Perhaps dating apps can help increase integration today - “Thin” dating market for LGBTQ people makes dating apps especially helpful Takeaways about family sociology “Traditional family” myths persist and shape how we measure our own family lives. The “nostalgia trap” prevents us from making real changes. Family structure changed with industrialization and capitalism, separating “home” from “workplace.” Modern gender inequality is partly tied to the “Feminized space” of the home. Norms of family life, through dating, marriage, divorce, and raising children matter