Download Soc 201 Contemporary Social Problems

M/W 6:10 to 8:00 PM
236 Bentley Hall
 Culture
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 Values
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 Culture
as a product of action,
or as an element of further
action
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Institution
◦ An accepted and persistent constellation
of statuses, roles, values, and norms that
respond to important social needs
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Institution
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Social Structure
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Statuses – your position in the social
structure
 Roles – the sum total of expectations
about the behavior attached to a
particular social status
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 Socialization
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 Nature
vs. Nurture
 How
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socialization works
 Deviance
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and Social Control
 Deviance
and Social Control
◦ Why deviance is good for society
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 Functionalist
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Perspective
 Conflict
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Perspective
 Feminist
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perspective
 Interactionist
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perspective
 Interactionist
perspective
◦ Highlights “what we take for
granted: the expectations, rules,
and norms that we learn and
practice without even noticing”
(Leon-Guerrero 2011)
◦ Social problems are created and
defined by social interaction
“personal” problems vs. “social
problems”
 The Sociological Imagination
 Biological and Psychological influences
 “Objective reality”
 “Subjective reality”
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◦ The Social Construction of Society
 The
role of “meaning”
 The role of “language”
 The role of “social learning”
 How
social “things” are socially
constructed
 Who
defines something as a
social problem?
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 What
do they (try to) do about it?
 How does it “spread?”
 How does it impact those
affected?
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Transformation process
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Legitimization process
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Conflict stage
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Outside the system, or change
the system?
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 “…all
human knowledge is
socially constructed through
our language, which means
that all social problems are
socially constructed.” (Best 2008:16)
 Making
arguments
 Issues and Conclusions
 Reasons and Evidence
 Stated and Unstated Assumptions
 Fallacies of logic
 What
is a “value?”
 Values as goals to achieve
 Value hierarchy
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 Overt,
or hidden
 Value congruence and conflict
 Importance of in critical thinking
and reading