Download Day 7 8/31/09 Review Weber, emphasize emotion Durkheim

Day 7 8/31/09
Review Weber, emphasize emotion
Durkheim
Integration vs differentiation
Social differentiation
Emile Durkheim
(1858-1917)
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Sociology is the study of “social facts”
Social facts – things outside of the individual that have the power to shape the
individual’s behavior regardless of his or her will
Being external to the individual, social facts can have an existence regardless of
whether any particular person lives or dies
Social facts are not properties of the human mind, therefore not part of the subject
matter of psychology
- Therefore we needed a new science
Durkheim II
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Examples of social facts:
- Traffic laws
- Dating rules (e.g., one date at a time, boys initiate, boys pay, etc.)
- Obligations that come with being a parent, child, citizen, etc.
Durkheim’s book Suicide provided an example of sociological research on a presumably
psychological topic
- If suicide were purely personal, different parts of France wouldn’t have the same rates
year after year, but they do
- D. argued that the social cause of the differences in rates was differences in levels of
social integration
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Durkheim III:
Digression- Integration vs Differentiation
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Integration : Bringing things together
Differentiation : Making things different or separate
Society : a collection of separate people who hang together
E Pluribus Unum
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Hobbesian problem of order: HOW IS SOCIETY POSSIBLE? Why is human life
NOT a war of all against all? Why is not
"… the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short"? (Thomas Hobbes,
1588 - 1679)
Durkheim IV:
Social Integration
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Social integration – bringing individuals and groups together; also, keeping them
together
- Durkheim actually called it social solidarity; social integration is the modern
term
For some sociologists, understanding the creation and maintenance of social integration
is the most important issue in sociology
- Hobbesian problem of order
Durkheim V:
Sources of Social Integration
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Two Sources / Types of Social Integration
► Sentiment – feelings of belonging together
► Interdependence – needing each other
Durkheim VI:
Integration and Suicide
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Durkheim: suicide rates reflect problems with social integration
- Not appropriate levels of social interaction
- Not appropriate levels of social regulation of individual behavior
Anomie – situation when there are no rules, the rules are unclear, or the rules
aren’t enforced
Social Differentiation
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TWO UBIQUITOUS FORMS OF SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION
► Division of labor – the distribution of tasks among members of a society
► Gender – differences in the treatment, behavior, and lives of men and women
Sex and Gender
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Q: Compare sex and gender.
Answer:
1. Sex refers to biological differences between males and females
2. Gender refers to social or cultural differences between males and females
3. They are alike because both are concerned with male/female differences
4. They differ in the source of the differences: sex comes from biology, gender from
society
Why Are There Two Sexes?
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A: because our society insists on it. That is, it is a social creation.
Biology: the most common arrangement of human chromosomes is to have either an
XX pair of “sex chromosomes” (usually with female secondary sexual characteristics) or
an XY pair (usually male). It is possible to have three sex chromosomes. It is also
possible for those with XX chromosomes to display male secondary sexual
characteristics
Sociology: many societies recognize a third “sex”
Day 8 9/2/09
Exam 1: movie through scene 11
Review Durkheim, integration, differentiation, gender
Origin Myth II
Quantitative vs qualitative
Symbolic interactionism
Thomas theorem
Verstehen (not 12)
Culture def
Origin Myth II:
Moral Statistics Movement
As "Founder" of Modern Sociology
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Our textbook (Stark) credits the Moral Statistics Movement of the 19th century with
starting modern scientific sociology (beginning 1833)
Statistics were originally called "statistics" because it was information about the "state"
(government)
Movement is called the "Moral" Statistics Movement because crime statistics started
things off
- Later, health, population, and economic statistics also prominent
More Origin Myth II
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Stark identifies in particular André-Michel Guerry and Adolphe Quetelet as the first
scientific sociologists for their efforts to interpret the data government offices were
beginning to publish
- Guerry was French, Quetelet Belgian, but the movement spread to much of
Europe and the United States
Durkheim also part of the story
- Used moral statistics data and earlier work in Suicide
- About 50 years after Guerry
Quantitative Analysis vs Qualitative Analysis
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Stark identifies Moral Statistics as the start of modern scientific sociology in part
because modern sociology is much more quantitative than were Marx and Weber
Quantitative analysis – uses numbers in the analysis. Allows use of mathematical
statistical methods
Qualitative analysis – uses empirical observations that are not numeric or have not
been turned into numbers
- What the text calls “field research” is often qualitative
Symbolic Interactionism
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Symbolic interactionism – approach to sociology that asserts that the most important
aspect of social life is the active individual trying to make sense out of a situation and
give it meaning
- Also called interactionism
Symbolic interactionism – because the sense the individual makes sense largely
through interactions with other people
- Interactions at the time and in the past
Symbolic interactionism – because interactions depend on symbols
The focus on interaction makes SI microsociological. That many symbols are widely
shared brings in the macro
Thomas Theorem
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If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences
-- W.I. Thomas & D.S. Thomas (1928)
More narrowly,
People decide what to do next on the basis of what they think is going on now
The Two Questions Constantly Facing Each Actor
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1.
2.
What’s going on?
What do I do now?
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The answer to “What’s going on?” is called the definition of the situation. It is an example of
subjective reality
The answer to “What do I do now?” is the actor’s actual behavior. It is an example of objective
reality
The Thomas Theorem states that the answer to “What do I do now?” depends on the
answer to “What is going on?"
Verstehen
and the Thomas Theorem
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Verstehen: to understand a situation from the actor’s point of view
Practical Uses of the Thomas Theorem: to understand or predict the behavior of
others
To use the Thomas Theorem, we need to know how the actor sees the situation. One
way to find that out is to use Verstehen.
This is probably the most practically useful thing you will learn in this course
Day 9 9/4/09
Exam 1: movie through scene 11; computer assignments dropped for this exam
Review origin myth II
Review quant/qual
Computer exercises were meant to be quantitative; Fiddler to simulate qualitative research
Review symbolic interactionism
Review Thomas theorem
Interaction ritual – reciprocal behaviors / rituals
Culture
Normative dimension
Cultural values
Value conflicts
Culture
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• How do people know what is
going on?
– To a large extent, culture tells
people what’s going on
– When it does not directly define
the situation, it tells how to figure
out what’s going on
• How do people know what to
do?
– To a large extent, culture tells
people what to do
– When it does not specify what to
do, it tells how to figure out what
to do
What is culture?
– The established ways of
thinking, believing, feeling, and
acting that are widely
understood and followed by
members of a society
Key characteristics of culture
1)
2)
3)
4)
It is shared
It is learned and taught
It changes over time
Usually it is not monolithic
Normative Dimension of Culture
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Concerned with the rules society
uses to evaluate behavior and
other things
Two components:
– Cultural values
Beliefs or feelings that are widely
shared by members of a society
about what is important to the
society’s identity or well-being
– Norms
Expectations shared by
members of a group that specify
behavior that is considered
appropriate for a given situation
Selected U.S. Cultural Values
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Activism – it is desirable to shape
your world through intense effort
Egalitarianism – everyone should
have an equal chance to succeed
Achievement – it is desirable to
have and accomplish personal goals
Materialism – it is good to have
“stuff”
Humanitarianism – it is desirable to
help people who are having troubles
Others: progress, morality,
freedom, individualism
Source: Turner and Starnes in Stokes, p. 72
Quiz/Homework due Wed, 9/9
Choose two American values.
Imagine a situation in which one
value would have you do one thing
and the other would have you do
something else. Specify the content
of the values, describe the situation,
and specify the conflict between what
each value would have you do. Your
answer may be handwritten. This will
be “worth” two quizzes
Morality As a Cultural Value
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morality: it is desirable to evaluate
each behavior for whether it is moral
or not and to choose only moral
behaviors
Often leads to ends vs means
conflicts
Ends – desired outcomes, often
culturally valued
Means – behavior directed
toward achieving ends
Often apparently effective means to
valued ends violate the cultural
value of morality