What Is Sociology? What Is Comparative Sociology? PDF

What Is Sociology? What Is Comparative Sociology? Juan J. Fernández Department of Social Sciences Outline Individual perspective & sociological perspective Causes and perspectives of human behavior What do we mean by social context? Social structures and social problems Th...

What Is Sociology? What Is Comparative Sociology? Juan J. Fernández Department of Social Sciences Outline Individual perspective & sociological perspective Causes and perspectives of human behavior What do we mean by social context? Social structures and social problems The goal of sociology The distinctiveness of comparative sociology Causes of that distinctiveness Individual & sociological perspectives Example 1: Drinking coffee People drink coffee for multiple reasons: to get an energy kick, to take a break, get hydrated, out of routine. -> All are individualist explanations: focus on persons’ behaviors and wishes There is another way to think of coffee drinking: (a) Source of socialization: occasions for social interaction (b) Legal stimulant: can create dependency but socially- accepted (c) Connects world regions: Part of complex global trade networks (d) Generalized recently (e) Politicized through debates on globalization, trade, human resources Example 2: Obesity We all know of cases of people over & underweight Obesity: BMI>30; BMI=(kg)/(m2) Commonly attributed to individual causes: lack of self-control, no self-worth, hormonal dysfunction But obesity varies in prevalence across social groups, countries and periods: Low income, low education, non-physically active people (Wellman 2003) Worldwide the obesity rate has tripled since 1975 (WHO 2020) Larger in more open economies (Ruopeng et al. 2019) -> Obesity is related to the ‘social context’, broadly understood An individual perspective is reductive It provides a partial, incomplete outlook of reality Sociology seeks to complement that view with a focus on the role of social context and social structures “Sociology insists that we take a broader view in order to understand why we act in the ways we do. It teaches us that much of what we regard as natural, inevitable, good and true may not be so, and that things we take for granted are actually shaped by historical events and social process” (Giddens et al. 2009: 4). Sociology involves the scientific study of human life and social groups Causes and perspectives of human behavior Individual perspective: focus on personal actions and their consequences for them Sociological perspective: consider the social causes of human behavior Perspectives in analysis of human behavior Individual Genetic Social Phenomena of Individual behavior Individual/common Common situations interest behavior Explanation Individual Individual genetic Social contexts characteristics characteristics Source: van Tubergen 2020 “What sociologists aim to understand is how, human behavior typically results from shared contextual conditions, and how, subsequently, this gives rise to collective outcomes” (van Tubergen 2020: 7) The individual, genetic and sociological perspectives are not mutually exclusive but complementary Can individual, genetic and social causes occur simultaneously? Yes! How? Complementary as ultimate causes ≠ proximate causes Social contexts act as ultimate causes of many proximate – individual and genetic – causes e.g. Number of fast food restaurants related to obesity ( Maddock 2004) Poverty causes stress (Hausehofer and Fehr 2014) Fast food restaurants & Poverty -> unhealthy eating habits -> obesity What’s the social in ‘social context’? Social context ≈ an aggregation of people Me Town Family Country We live embedded in different social contexts Interactions form the basis of ‘social contexts’ Interactions: actions we conduct taking others into consideration (e.g. listening to a friend, writing an essay, breaking up a relationship) Interactions do not occur randomly! They are patterned. Lots of human behavior is repetitive Patterned interactions: interactions with recurring processes and outcomes (e.g. likelihood of running into a friend) Some interactions are recurring and patterned -> stable social relationships and social structures “The enduring patterns formed by relationships among people, groups and institutions form the basic social structure of a society” (Giddens et al. 2009: 7) Social structures: Enduring elements of social life sustained by social interactions They shape society (e.g. education system, democracy, market economic, gender roles) By social context, sociology thus means mainly social structures around us: regularities that either stabilize the social order and/or produce social change Social structures affect our lives by shaping the resources we have and the ideas we use (e.g. growing up, educ system) We can identify three main levels of social structure (Brym and Lie 2006): (a) Microstructures: patterns of close social relationships Made through face-to-face interactions E.g. networks of friends, immediate family (b) Mesostructures: Relationships between groups and organizations in a limited social space, mainly region e.g. Inter-department links at a university (c) Macrostructures: Country-level structures or relationships between countries or world regions E.g. international relations Social structures and personal problems Sociology studies how enduring elements of social life at different levels of aggregation influence human action and human thought This science ultimately seeks to provide tools to better human’s quality life -> examines personal problems Personal problems: Situations that clash with one’s perceptions of what is appropiate and non-distressing (e.g. homelessness in modern or nomad societies?)  Social structure e.g. Role- setting Unintended social change e.g. Resource allocation Social mobilization Personal troubles Social structure have a non-deterministic influence: Influence: Social structure provide and restrict our access to resources, ideas and institutions e.g. University education in low-income societies Social background: 63% of all UC3M students of have parents with a BA or more (YOEDER-UC3M survey) Non-deterministic: We are free agents and make choices on a daily basis e.g. Reggeaton/urban music “While wee are all influenced by social context, our behaviour is never determined by social context. Sociology investigates the connections between what society makes of us and what we make of society and ourselves.” (Giddens et al. 2017: 7) Examples of troubles and social issues at the microstructural, macrostructural and global level Personal Feelings of Being a victim of Perception of troubles inferiority discrimination powerlessness Level of Micro Meso Macro aggregation Status Being a citizen Juniority in a inequalities Social issues between groups of a micro- group & prejudices state Sociology is the scientific discipline that seeks to enlighten our lives by revealing the complex, causal connection between (a) enduring elements of social life (social structure) and (b) individual unhappiness and distress Why do we need sociology? Why do not we already know all the consequences of social contexts? “Seldom aware of the intricate connection between the patterns of their own lives and the course of world history, ordinary men [sic] do not usually know what this connection means for the kinds of men they are becoming…” (Wright Mills 2000: 3-4). e.g. Plumber or politician and European integration Understanding structure-problems link requires overcoming important intellectual hurdles: -> Requires abstract thinking and introspection -> Fight against false conscience & intelectual inertia -> Grasping growing social complexity Collective gains from sociological research It produces three main positive effects (van Tubergen 2020): (i) Describe – Produce accurate descriptions of a phenomena What is happening? How much? In what way? We thus gain a better understanding of the meaning of our lives and can better account for major personal events (e.g. economic and social capital) (ii) Explain – Produce scientific explanations of social phenomena Why is this happening? (e.g. Economic modernization and value change) “We study the structural limits of human decision in an attempt to find points of effective intervention, in order to know what can and what must be structurally changed if the role of explicit decision in history-making is to be enlarged” (Mills 1959: 174, emphasis added). (iii) Apply – Apply sociological knowledge to the topic Why is this happening? Formulate valuable predictions Develop and evaluate social interventions “We study the structural limits of human decision in an attempt to find points of effective intervention, in order to know what can and what must be structurally changed if the role of explicit decision in history-making is to be enlarged” (Mills 1959: 174, emphasis added).  Social structure & Public issuesApplied Explanatory functio effect n Personal troubles Descriptive effect The specificity of comparative sociology (CS) The ultimate goal of CS is to produce limited and explanatory generalizations. “Comparative sociology is an attempt to develop concepts and generalizations at a level between what is true to all societies and what is true of one society at one point in time and space” (Bendix 1963: 9) e.g. Why does social mobility rates vary cross- nationally? e.g. Why some countries display more gender equality than other ones? e.g. Is there a worldwide trend towards secularization? Comparative sociology (CS) involves a set of means or analytical strategies to better grasp the impact of social structures on personal problems It uses conceptual and methodological devices to synthesize and contrast differences in the current world. The core strategy is to contrast different types of groups “Groups” are defined in multiple ways in sociology: Large but restricted: social class, gender, ethnic group, regions… Nations Groups of nations How does it differ from other forms of sociology? It commonly (but not always) takes characteristics of nation-states as dominant, explanatory factors As an analytical strategy emerges through a complex history of mutual influences between socio-political events and scientific discourses Gradual primacy of nation-state (vs patrimonial empires/city- states/confederacies) determined the form of CS Four stages in comparison across societies (Teune 2010): (a) Before WWI Comparison of civilizations (traditional, industrial) Founding fathers approach – e.g. Weber (b) 1920s-1940s Nationalism -> Growing focus on independent states Attention to interventionist state Two new technologies: national indexes + representative survey (c) 1950s-1990s Enlarged capacities in CS research (Human Relations Area Files) & De- colonization Cross-national databases Internal divisions or persistent cross-national differences (d) Since 1990s Globalization, collective identity -> Over time, the types of comparisons in CS narrowed down to between societies and more specifically between nation- states Elements of distinctiveness: (1) CS is multilevel “Comparative research is inquiry in which more than one level of analysis is possible and the units of observation are identifiable by name at each of these levels” (Przeworski and Tenure 1970: 36-7). Country or nation- state Observational & Aggregate group e.g. You use data explanatory unit on the religiosity of individuals to measure average Individual religiosity and secularization trends (2) Commonly uses nation-state characteristics as the explanatory factor CS describes and explains similarities and differences in characteristics across countries. “Comparative analysis has come to mean the description and explanation of similarities and differences (mainly differences) of conditions or outcomes among large-scale social units, usually regions, nations, societies and cultures” (Smelser 2003: 645, emphasis added). “Comparisons of societies often became coterminous with “cross-national” research” (Tenue 2010:4). Prevalence of nation- state as classification category Nation-states display substantial within-country similarities and cross-country differences As an explanatory unit it achieves maximum internal Homogenizing uniformization capacity of the and external differentiation nation-state (state authority & national identity) Conclusions Sociology is tasked to link social structures with personal problems Social structures are enduring elements of social life at three levels of aggregation Comparative sociology commonly takes structural features of the nation-state as the explanatory factor Nation-states produce the highest degree of internal homogeneization and cross-case differentiation