SOC 1000 Unit 3.docx

SOC 1000 Unit 1 Differences Between Major Social Sciences -Psychology: think mental processes that shape how people in general think -Anthropology: mainly interested in groups and cultures -Sociology: examines individual and cultural characteristics as shaped by social factors primarily -The sociolo...

SOC 1000 Unit 1 Differences Between Major Social Sciences -Psychology: think mental processes that shape how people in general think -Anthropology: mainly interested in groups and cultures -Sociology: examines individual and cultural characteristics as shaped by social factors primarily -The sociological perspective is sometimes called the "sociological imagination." It is like putting on a pair of glasses and looking at the world in a new way. -One way to think of sociology is that although we each have our individual face, that face is made up of many other faces (e.g., parents, peers, media, ethnicity, religion) -Cultural values also define our face (e.g., an obsession with youth and beauty, consumption) -even includes larger factors such as our global economy like our relationship with the US, we′re living a democracy vs a dictatorship -All these things shape an individual person and make up parts of their entire face; we are our society, we are our culture -This means that when we evaluate ourselves, we do so in terms of our culture Unit 3 What is Sociology? -Thought experiment: when attending a university class, why is it that students do not start gathering and having parties, conversations in small groups, or watch lord of the rings -It cannot be attributed to personality; not everyone in a 120-person class can possibly have the same personality -Instead, all students came into the classroom with a "social script" in mind, obeying social norms expected from them academically, such as how to behave in a post-secondary classroom -It is astonishing that the entire classroom behaves like this, and it makes you wonder where they received these assumptions -It follows then that how one behaves is based on patterns of behavior (social scripts) that you have been taught and internalized and often not taught intentionally and are more informed by circumstances -These patterns are external, you did not invent these classroom norms, they came from outside of yourself -These social scripts also predate you; they have existed for years and years and for years to come students will likely behave according to these scripts -This means that we are shaped by interactions with other people, this where we receive our social scripts -There are scripts for everything, such as the student script, being an athlete, musician, construction worker, sister, mother, brother, male, female, trans, Canadian, African, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, etc. -There are many social scripts we have internalized that have been shaped by ppl we interacted with -This means that your personal activity is not as much defined by personality as much as you believe -What did you not do today that already did not have a predetermined social script (e.g., hygiene, which is informed by cultural norms-In Canada, we focus a lot on body smells) -In an actual classroom, I would ask a volunteer to come to me to the front and I would stand very close to them for a second. Of course, they would be uncomfortable. However, this illustrates the social script that is in place while interacting with others in Canadian society, and how a couple of inches makes a difference in adhering to or breaking social scripts. If I did that all the time, I would eventually be ostracized by others for not following the best social script. -Therefore, the best explanation for your behavior in the classroom is that you have internalized "correct" social script for postsecondary classroom-that you know how to apply it and conform to it properly -Therefore, the behavior is not best explained by psychology which primarily explains the individual but does not explain how ppl shape other ppl because there is little evidence of your personality, individuality, and biology in this situation -This classroom scenario also reveals that we are all conformists, we are all expected to adhere to social scripts in one way or another It follows then that we come up with this definition for sociology: -In sociology, We have scientific methods in which we are examining all these fascinating social forces that govern human behavior. This is what is so fascinating about sociology, how do we get so many ppl to do the same thing without really thinking about it? -It follows then that a central concept of sociology is social structure For example, why is it that Indigenous peoples find themselves far more by percentage economically marginalized? This is because over time Canadian society has internalized a racialized hierarchy/order where white people sit on top and Indigenous peoples are at the bottom and it keeps persisting generation after generation in our social system This raises questions (e.g., what’s going on? What can we do to change that? Can it be changed?) All these questions bring attention to social structure Another example is why is that disproportionately Canadian politicians come from wealthier backgrounds-this is ordered and it persists -Overall, the scientific methods in sociology focus on how social structure informs scenarios such as the ones described-how did it become the way it is, what impact does it have on society and how does it function The Central Insight of Sociology -The task of sociology is to reduce the difference between linkages of private and personal troubles vs social and public issues-these seem to be opposite sides of the spectrum. However, sociology teaches us that there is overlap between these -E.g., personal private trouble such as trouble finding a job, so you ask yourself if your skills are not correct, wrong education, something about personal character in interviews -All these factors factor around "me," that I might be the problem -But lets say theres a very high unemployment rate (40-50%), well, then the explanation may not be you at all, the explanation rests in the social/public contexts. Theres something going on socially and economically that is making it difficult at a structural level to find employment. Then, it follows that this is not an individual problem, it’s a structural problem (e.g., bias against certain ethnicities, gender). -Generally, this means that looking at things from a personal/individual level may not be the most insightful description and therefore solutions stemming from this level may not be very effective -This applies in many contexts, such as marriage and high divorce rates, our views on it have changed drastically since the 1950s. Marriage was strongly influenced by gender stereotypes and had a pragmatic and economic function. Now, we expect our marriage partner to be our best friend who is supposed to meet all our emotional needs and romance is part of our married life. That is, marriage is supposed to make us happy, we have increased our expectations of marriage dramatically as influenced by the media. This is a very different attitude than what was held decades or even a century ago. And so, if you’re going to use this standard, many marriages will fall apart, because we have internalized the idea that it should meet several of our needs which are not possible. It is not reasonable to expect that our partner meets ALL our needs. That said, ppl have more options and do not need to tolerate abuse and excessive control in a marriage whereas this was tolerated and ignored decades ago. Now, we do not tolerate that in our social scripts and laws. Thus, divorce rates have gone up possibly because now women have more autonomy when it comes to marriage. In summary then, social and public issues weigh in quite significantly in personal and private spheres. -That said, most people do interpret their problems as individual, and this is influenced by our culture which is highly individualistic. We are encouraged in many ways to only look at the individual explanation. Thus, we tend to see the troubled and the disadvantaged as weak or inferior; that they have qualities that led them to the state they are in now instead of focusing on larger structural, social, and cultural factors that influence their circumstances. -E.g., when we see a homeless person, we are not quick to analyze the social and public factors that led to their circumstances (e.g., bullied at school, racism, came from a home where violence was acceptable) -Instead, most ppl do try to solve their problems from a personal/private level -E.g., you get mugged in downtown Winnipeg, so you decide never to go to that area again or never go alone again, teach yourself self-defense, or even carry a gun. That said, having weapons may exacerbate the problem. Instead, we should ask why certain neighborhoods a higher prevalence of crime rates have, who is disadvantaged, and advantaged. What are the factors-sociologists take a "big picture" approach and try to ask better questions until they have a clear view of what’s going on. -In this view, maybe you join a crime prevention program and try to make it safer for everyone versus reaching for an individual solution -This is not to say that we should overlook the personal/private, but that it is not enough to just consider these factors, and that public/social is complementary -Of course, there are ppl who blame their problems on the system and there are individuals who refuse to take responsibility. But for the most part, sociology encourages us to think through social/public lens and ask questions in that particular direction. -What this quote is getting at is that our individual lives can’t be understood in isolation. That is, to understand an individual we must also consider the society and culture that they grew up in and how all those social and economic factors play out in their lives. In another culture, an individual’s experience could look very different. -Keywords: GIVEN and INHERITED The following quote is a more direct version of the Marx quote -What cards were you given in society? Were you born in the suburbs, a country across the sea, an economically stable and advantaged family context, or an economically difficult context, with Caucasian skin, BIPOC skin, area with low or high crime, or family background where cancer has been historically present or marked by intergenerational trauma. All these are cards and we do not get to pick them, and this is an important thing to remember when we encounter ppl. Generally, ppl try to do the best they can with the cards they have, and some people have cards that do not get them points in life. -In sociology, we really care about the cards being dealt, they contain ordered and persistent relationships that influence individuals The Questions Sociology Asks -Now we are going to focus on something I've already been discussing, and which is embedded in my images here, which is the idea that in sociology we ask a lot of questions. So, we can spend a little bit of time talking about the ways in which we ask questions. -Now, sociology is the empirical study of what is. It's not the advocacy of what ought to be, not because that's not a good thing and not because sociologists don't often do that, but sociology proper is the empirical study of what is getting a really, really good description of what's happening. And when you do that, once you have a really good description, you often can prescribe what might be a very good solution to something because you've gotten a really good description. But our focus is on getting a really good description of whatever might be going on. -Here are some of the general kinds of questions that we ask in the world of sociology or social science more generally, what is the nature of various social phenomena? -E.g., what exactly is happening now that we've legalized marijuana/cannabis or what is the nature of the sex trade work in downtown Winnipeg? Or what is happening because of the rising social addictions, we're seeing social media addictions and what are their consequences and how is that affecting mental health? Those are various social phenomenons that we ask questions about. So, what are the constituent elements of that? -So let's take the sex trade in Winnipeg. What are the basic elements of that? -Well, obviously, there's people who are selling it. There are those buying it, and there's people who are making money and, in our context, there's some laws involved about who can and can't do what in the world of sex trade in downtown Winnipeg. So those are some of the constituent elements. -What are some of the categories or types? There's child prostitution, there's brothels with those offering sexual services all live in one spot or there's the red-light district where you can walk down the street and sexual opportunities are advertised to you, or you might be working on the street. That's where things are being sold, you know, not in a red-light district. -What are some of the categories and types in terms of who and what age are the people, what gender are the people, what sexual orientation or identity are those who are selling and who's buying, what are general patterns? We can see among those who are buying. Those are all various categories or types. -And what's happening, like how does this happen? And when we start to ask questions about that, we find out that, there are pimps who often control the money that's being paid and that the sex trade worker themselves often doesn't get a lot of that money. We find out when we ask questions about what actually happens that young girls and sometimes young boys are trafficked off of northern reserves and tricked into participating in the sex trade. They get here to Winnipeg, are raped, find themselves inside a gang, maybe addicted, are not by their own choice, and now they need to make the money to feed the addiction. They may be held by force or threat of violence to participate. These are the things that are actually happening in the sex trade. -and by what process. -So, then we go back to our types a little bit and we say, okay, while brothel or red light District Street or, you know, an escort service, which is sort of the expensive version of the sex trade and what's the process? Who, how do people who are purchasing find the people who are selling and where does the money change hands? -Under what conditions does this happen? Do people who work in the sex trade typically live in like big, beautiful apartments or own homes? Or are they often living in poor conditions? Under what conditions? Where are the pimps? Where are the purchasers coming from? What are the conditions that drive them into the choices that they're making and what are the causes and the consequences of this sort of thing? Who's winning, who's losing? What does winning look like? What does losing look like? Who gains? Who pays? So many things to be asked! -These are just sort of general kinds of questions that can be asked about almost any social phenomenon of any sort. -We also ask different types of questions -Clearly, we ask lots of factual questions. I just asked a bunch of factual questions as I took you through general questions. -Factual questions require good research methodologies, so that might not be your favorite lecture, which is coming up in the course in this course. But it's really important to have a basic grasp of research methods because we rely entirely on the data we collect. -And so, we must make sure we're doing that in ways that are robust. So, let's say we want to know something about crime in Winnipeg. We've got this crime problem. Somebody got mugged. They're looking for a social public set of data about what they might learn about that. So that's a factual question. -What are the crime rates in Winnipeg? Where is crime happening in Winnipeg? Who's committing those crimes, etc., etc.? Those are all factual questions. -And then once we have the responses to those factual questions, we might leave some theories about that. We find out these are the folks that are committing those crimes. Why is that? And these seem to tend to be the victims. And why is that? -And so factual questions and factual aren’t always that straightforward. If I take the example of crime in Winnipeg and I want to know crime rates, am I using reporting rates, Am I using prosecution rates, Am I using conviction rates? Because there might have been a hundred reports in one evening. -Only ten of those had the kind of evidence needed to bring it forward to prosecute someone. And of those ten prosecutions, only maybe one person was convicted. So, which of those measures-reporting, prosecution, conviction, which of those is an accurate measure of crime rates in Winnipeg? -So even factual questions can get very layered and you must think clearly to search your way through those things and make sure you don't overgeneralize your results beyond the kind of question that you were truly asking -Comparative questions: another important category, -Max Mueller once said, "she or he who knows one knows none." So if I want to say Canada's smoking rates in Canada are this, I don't actually know if that's high or low until I compare that to another country or cannabis smoking rates in Manitoba are this. Is Manitoba high in their rates? Low in their rates? I need to compare it to other provinces. -So, comparative questions are extremely instructive and the more units you compare it to. So, now I'm saying, you know, of all the provinces, Canada has the lowest or Manitoba has the lowest or the highest. That's really telling me quite a bit because I'm comparing. So comparative questions are very important. -We also sometimes use development questions, so we compare the past with the present. So, these are our current crime rates. Okay, what were they previously and why is it that we're seeing that certain kinds of crimes are much higher than they used to be, but other crimes are much lower than they used to be? What's developed? What kinds of crimes have developed and risen? What kinds of crimes have developed in terms of decreasing developmental questions or looking at the development of online bullying. So, what used to be person in person or behind the back bullying and how that has developed into this huge online bullying problem that we now have. So, you would be asking developmental questions and then, of course, theoretical questions. -So, you've gathered facts, you've compared data, you've asked some developmental questions, and you have all this information in front of you. And now you're thinking, I wonder what explains that? And so, you reach for an explanation, and you develop a theory, and now you have a theoretical question that you're asking of the information that's in front of you. -So, what you see is that crime rates are high in areas where people are economically marginalized. Okay. What kind of a theory can you draw from that? That's a theoretical question. The Challenges of Social Sciences -And then finally, one of the real challenges is being able to achieve what we call inter subjectivity. So, this orange bubble here is a body of knowledge and in this blue bubble over here is me, and I have some questions I'm asking and I'm engaging other people's research. But in both cases, whether it's the orange bubble or the blue bubble, these are humans who've done this. -And so as much as we want complete objectivity in the research that we do, we are humans doing the research and we're studying other humans. So, everything is subjective. And yet we're hoping for as much objectivity as possible. -So self-awareness, robust methods, cross-referencing our work with other peers and colleagues, all kinds of different ways are built in to make sure that our studies are not biased. -And that requires all kinds of self-awareness on the part of the researchers, and that's what we call inter subjectivity. -So, this little arrow that's pointing to the overlap. Essentially, this means we are keeping each other accountable and we're keeping ourselves accountable as best as we can and that's where the really good stuff happens, is when we acknowledge that we're subjective, that we are striving for objectivity, and we try to catch ourselves. -So I don't ask the question, Do you think it's okay to reduce child benefits in Canada and have children go without lunches? That's a that's a question that reveals my bias quite clearly. So obviously, that's not a very objective question. So, you must frame that question differently. What do you think is an appropriate level of support for child benefits for families in Canada? And then you give that person five different categories to pick from. That is a much better objective. -Now, the categories you picked could still be subjective in some way. So, on every level you're constantly watching yourself, checking yourself and making sure that you're doing your best to get at least a healthy sense of inter subjectivity when we are developing our questions and launching our various types of research. Why Sociology Matters -In this video, what we are going to do is take just a little bit of time to dwell on the significance of sociology. One of the things that typically happens when one takes the time to study sociology is your understanding of social situations changes somewhat. -You add new ways of seeing into your toolkit. You see things from a different angle, a different vantage point than you've ever done before, and that results in you seeing new things and new things occurring to you that have not been the case previously. That most certainly is our hope for you. -And one of the reasons why this intro social class is required in so many degrees across the University of Manitoba and in many universities is because understanding human situations, social interaction is extremely useful in many vocations. So that could be nursing, law, government agencies, social work, teaching, urban planning, etc. -There is an advantage for you in a work environment too, using some of the tools we hope you will learn and learn how to use throughout the journey of this course with us. A second significance of sociology. -Another reason is that it is important for many students to understand and have an awareness of cultural differences. And rather than being sort of, that that's weird the way they do that, learning to develop a generous curiosity about something that's different than who you are and what you've experienced rather saying, Well, that's really interesting. I'm going to ask some questions about that. -Remember, sociologists are all about asking good questions, and the result of that is often the dispelling of prejudices when we are genuinely curious. -Instead of sort of just wanting to keep some distance, we'll end up learning a lot and enjoying what we are learning. -Ultimately, we are all culturally bound people, so you see them and like that culture and all the strange things they do. But we look just as strange to them because ultimately we're all culturally bound people and as we'll learn as we move through the course, that's actually part of how we actualize and experience our humanity. Our humanness is inside of our cultures. So culture is a beautiful thing and cultural diversity is also a beautiful thing. -Hopefully you'll also learn something about how to assess various social policies. So when there's policy changes or new policies coming forward, and I'll take as an example, housing policy. Let's say that the city of Winnipeg has decided that they're going to require all those who own apartments that they rent out to people, that they upgrade the standards of living, you know, whether that's, you know, the plumbing conditions or the heating conditions, the ventilation or whatever that might be. And so those who own the buildings are now legally required to improve things. That sounds really great because it means those living in those apartments will have a better quality of living because their conditions are improved in some way. -For those who own those buildings and who are required to spend the money, how do you think that they're going to recover that money that they're required to spend? Exactly. They are going to increase their rent. And so, the family or whatever unit of friends or whatever it is that's living in that apartment where they're already at the top end of what they can afford for rent, now finds themselves in a nicer apartment, but that they can no longer afford. And so, they must find some other place to live because they can't afford this. -And it may, in some cases, contribute to the homeless or houseless population because now they can't afford what is available because of this. So even though the initiative is seeking to do something good, if you haven't thought through all the potential impacts, it may in the end have a negative effect. -So hopefully by the end of the class, you will have gained some analytical tools to think about this at least at an entry level. -One of the other significances of sociology for almost every student of sociology is increasing their own self-understanding, recognizing because we're going to take a lot of time after we do methods and theory, which come next, we will take some time to examine how do each of us become humans within the context of the humans that surround us? And how much do those other humans shape who we are? -And we might be surprised to find out how much that might be the case. So, learning what has shaped you and created you and made you into the person you are also means you have greater self-awareness about how you might want to change parts of your life, that you would prefer to move in a different direction or improve in some way. So, self-knowledge, which has the potential and in many cases is quite liberating and empowering for a student entering the world of studying sociology. So, we hope that for at least some of you, that will be the case. -And of course, there's a range of thoughts about what should be the sociologists′ role in society more generally, because we are studying society. So, does that obligate us, does that not obligate us? Some would say that sociologists should be sort of this dispassionate observer who produces the results and hands them over and makes their observations. Now there's on the far end of that spectrum would say, no, no, a sociologist needs to take what they know, take their research, and then then move forward with some kind of justice advocacy work to make things better. -Most of the sociologists I know lean in that direction, but not all of them. And so we will leave it with you to decide which you think would be the better way to go on. -Finally, we're all the way back to the same point that I made in one of the earlier videos in the Game of Life. We may decide how to play our cards, but it is in the end society that deals us the hand. There's so much about our own lives that we do not control. And those forces, those social institutions, those people, those human interactions shape who we are. And those are not cards we chose. Those are the cards that were dealt to us.