Sociology Notes: Understanding Culture, Socialization, and Social Construction - Prof. Sky, Study notes of Introduction to Sociology

Download Sociology Notes: Understanding Culture, Socialization, and Social Construction - Prof. Sky and more Study notes Introduction to Sociology in PDF only on Docsity! Sociology 2001 Notes – Feb. 14, 2011 J'Lexius Rodriguez
What is Culture?  Behavior  Traditions o Ritual  Culture – the values, norms and material goods of a given group o Values – ideals held by individuals about what is desirable and good or bad

Social Construction  Something people take to be inherent or natural that is constructed by society OR dependent on society.  Individuals establish meaning over time.  Calling someone a “bitch” or “slut” is socially constructive  Part of values are these things called norms. o Norms – unwritten rules of conduct that dictates a particular type of behavior in particular circumstances.

Material Culture  Material culture is everything physical that is part of culture. This includes technology o Food (Crawfish in Louisiana, Haggis, sheep gut, in Scotland) o Musical instruments o Japanese Train Station Norms  They crammed all the people onto the train.

High and Low Culture  What pop culture? o It just happens. o High Culture  The opera  Going out to a dinner that cost more than $20 an entre  Fur coats  Drinking nice liquor  Perception is reality for most people. o Whether something is real or not, you have to believe in it because others do.  Individuals become shaped by these norms. o Hipsters:  Goth, Emo, Scene

Subcultures  A subculture is social group that exists within one culture, but has traits that separate it from it’s parent culture.  There is a group that sets themselves apart from a broad social group.  Subcultures can also exist within subcultures.  You can do what you want to do. No one is going to stop you.
 Localization  They localized what they were doing. o Industrialized Society  Talking about the development of large societies, the shift to machines, more modern ways of mills  Industrialized society – societies where majority of individuals work outside of agriculture.  3% work in agriculture  These people have a lot of things to do that is not outside of their house.  Industrialized society changed this by taking work and moving it outside of your house.  Public and Private  Public – outside of home  Private – inside of home  Factory Work and Culture  5 day work week  Invention in the 20th century  Urbanization (central cities)  Say for instance, you move place to place to find food. You can localize this by planting food in one location (field). This is the Agrarian society.  Urbanization—you centralize work, but you move close to work and go to local places (grocery store, gas station, mall, etc.)  We develop these large central cities.  These shifts/developments of different societies are large shifts.  Culture will change based on different characteristics. Measuring Culture  Empirically testing culture issues is difficult. o Why?  The main reason is that culture is more informative.  It’s not something you can find or touch.  Culture Relativism – the practice of judging a society by it’s own standards. o When you examine a society from the outside, you try to judge it by it’s own character. o Examples of Cultural Relativism:  Giant crawfish  Fried tarantulas  Ethnocentrism – looking at other cultures through your own eyes. o The exact opposite from culture relativism. Sociology 2001 Notes – Feb. 21, 2011 J'Lexius Rodriguez
Socialization  Culture provides part of the setting o It’s what makes a setting different. o Culture influences you.  Individual element o Agency: the idea that the individual has things that they can do.  Agency is the ability to do something.  The individuals ability to act.  When we talk about the agency, we are not saying the individual does not have the ability to do things.  Needs a mechanism o A way that happens  How does one acquire an accent?  What is socialization? o Example: You bring a dog to a dog park, the dog eventually figures out the social norms.  For the most part, dogs learn how to deal with other dogs.  Socialization is the process through which individuals internalize the values and norms of a society. o Think of a 5th grade dance…  The boy must always ask a girl to dance  This is a norm.  Socialization does not happen overnight, it’s a long process.  Socialization starts when we are young. Sociology Notes – Feb. 23, 2011 Participation Point: Social Construction of Authority J'Lexius Rodriguez
Socialization so far  Socialization as a social mechanism  Culture was something that existed o It instilled their beliefs. o We had to explain how these beliefs/ideas got into people. o Somehow all of these things have to be put into a person.  Socialized by individuals and social institutions. o School is a formalized place where people learn.  You’re punished if your wrong.  Socialization is an on-going process. o It doesn’t stop past high school. o You have to learn if you get a new job. o There are norms around specific jobs. o We have to know new ways to exists.

A Theory of Interaction  To fully examine socialization, we need a framework or lens to view it through. o Social construction of reality o Louisiana has 3 distinct social identities. o Social construction of reality is an extension of symbolic interactionism.

Social Construction Reality  Social Construction is an explanation of the way we give meaning to things or ideas through socialization and interaction. o Link on Moodle  If enough people believe something is legitimate and real, then on some level, it is real. o Jim Jones Killer  He poisoned people with Koolaid.  People believed in him.

Exercise in Social Construction  Meaning Making o The cycle of meaning as a way to build understanding of things.  Shared Meaning o Someone has to tell us what a meaning is. o Common Social Themes  It allows us sometimes that culture beliefs greatly influence culture behaviors.

Social Construction of Food  Food is socially constructed because the idea of what is or isn’t food often derives from social opinion and not nutrition or safety. o There are larger cultural preferences that go on.

Social Construction of Gender Sociology Notes – Feb. 25, 2011 J'Lexius Rodriguez
Aging and the Life Course
· We age in years, and we age as individuals, but other people are aging too.
· Hard to get information on younger people and it’s difficult to analyze stuff over time.
Aging Process
· The life course—We’re all going to die eventually
· Cohort analysis—different generations age in different patterns and different ways
o Cohort—group of people who are around the same age (ex. your class)
o 2.1 replacement fertility—keeps population steady
· Perception of Aging—the way society itself values individuals or how society sees the aging process
o Theoretical Concepts
Functionalist Approach
· The Graying of America—There’s more and more older people every year. Predicts to have a ton of elderly in 2050
o What to do?
· Disengagement of the Old—natural that we lose function as we age; eventually older people were seen as disengaging from society; Old people will withdraw from the community
o Grumpy Old Folk—wouldn’t want to deal with anything
· Disengagement—it is a function of societies to remove people from their traditional roles when they become elderly
o Larger families use their grandparents/aunts/uncles to help take care of their large families
· Sociologists focus on what the elderly like to do? What happens to society as people become elderly?
Conflict Theory
· Problems of Aging
o Poverty—won’t be able to work
o Poor Health
· Product of Society
o Capitalism favors productivity—older people would have a harder time finding work
· Competition over resources
o We have the same population competing with the same resources
Alternative Perspectives
· Active Aging and Life
o A little different than previous generations; they have more money
o They’re not fading away, the elderly are actually doing things with their lives
o As technology increases, older people still engage
· Social Connections
o In-person—community gatherings
o Online
Sociology Notes – Feb. 28, 2011 A J'Lexius Rodriguez
Chapter 1  Behavior o Why do we do what we do?  Measurement  Descriptive o Characteristics of culture  Difference between an individual and the group o How do these different groups affect things. o How the group influences the individual. o All these people make up something larger.  Within this larger group there exists culture  Culture imparts on the individuals:  Values and  Norms  We interact with our friends, social institutions (school, jail, subway, etc.)  All these things interact. 

Impression Management  Controlling impressions o Some people have a take it or leave it attitude. o Different people value how other people think of them in different ways.  Augmented behavior o Consequences  Ex. Awkward Conversation

Social Roles, Social Positions, Status  Social roles  Social position is a title or place that people have within social circles.

Goffman on a conversation  This conversation can function in a mechanic shop or a restaurant. o Did you change the oil? o No, we didn’t have time. o Well, it’s smoking. Do it now o Sure thing!  Mechanic shop: between boss and mechanic/customer and mechanic  Restaurant: between top chef and chef

Expectations and Interaction  An expectation is a pre-determined belief about how a individual will act. o Example: I expect this out of you and not her.  Stereotypes and interaction  Perceived characteristics o Individuals often take characteristics that may not matter in a situation. o Things that we do go way beyond the places that we work. o Diffuse characteristics  Characteristics have a similar affect have a similar affect across areas.  Flipping hamburgers doesn’t matter in class or at the gas station for example. o Specific characteristics  Matter at a very specific settings  Flipping hamburgers only matters in a very specific area.  Ridgeway was concerned about when stereotypes may affect things where gender does not matter.  Expectations o Beliefs can influence expectations of others.

Focused and Unfocused Interaction  Not all interaction takes place between people standing next to each other.  Focused interaction o Direct and face-to-face o Together (like a crowd)  A group playing a game or watching a movie  This happens even if you don’t know people.  Unfocused interaction o Not focused, not one-on-one o Think of people walking in a crowd o Example: people on the buss  Unfocused because their not purposefully interacting even though they’re going to the same place.  Watching TV o Depends  Ritual o Something that happens when people come together to do a task o You and your friend get together to watch a show…you go to church with your family.  Social Networking Then and Now Video o Internet archeologist Social Groups  A collection of people who regularly interact with one another on the basis of shared behavioral expectations and a common sense of identity. o Example:  Bowling group   Labor unions o The point of a labor union is to protect their own rights.  Clubs o There is a lot of people who do get really involved in clubs (primary), but if they go once or twice a month (secondary)  Neighborhood Associations  People that talk on primary groups, they have to deal with it more frequently.

The In-Crowd  Despite beliefs about the importance of individualism, we display high levels of conformity o Is that bad?  On an individual level, it may be bad. Different stresses are placed on students. o Homophily – individuals tend to stay in similar social groups  You hang around people who are like me. o Housing patterns  This could be by race.  People live by who they want to live by o Friendship patterns  We hang out with people who like to do the same things we do. o Racial segregation  Outside of housing patterns  This is in terms of outside things o Religious groups  The larger group is agreed with, the smaller group splits off and starts anew.

From Groups to Networks  A social network is a set of relations held together by ties between individuals.  A tie is the story (why you know them) that connects two members of a network.  We’re actually connected to more people than we realize. Embeddedness  We are embedded within social networks.  Embeddedness is the degree to which ties are reinforced through indirect paths within a social network.  Lesser embedded (or weak) ties often give valuable new information or insight. This is called the Strength of Weak Ties. o Your weak ties are the ones that are the most important.




Triad Connection Triad  Granovetter’s Theory on Weak Ties  The people you are connected to winds up to be more than just your friends.

Who you know  Your social network is like a wire that connects members of a network.  Who you know does matter.  That wire transfers a variety of resources between individuals. o Money o Opportunities o Community benefits  Social capital o The way individuals extract resources from their social network o The benefits that people get from their group o Being close with other people actually matter o Do better than people financially, but it depends on the group.  Think of a community like a spiders web o As bonds increase and become stronger, the entire web starts to see the effects.











 Opportunities – a way in which your social network can help you out  Community benefits – safer  This is what we call social capital. o When you’re trying to measure how healthy a community is, it is difficult.  So doctor’s take self-reported health.  Places where you can measure where people know each other: o Community events  Parties  Not weddings because this is personal, and you invite specific people  Fair o Visiting o Civic  City meet (town hall meeting)  It’s really difficult to get measurements from civic engagement o Selection effect: for certain events, certain people go.  These people are already engaged in this. o The best way to get results is from self-reported surveys.

A perspective on Social Capital  This will have a name; it’s different than what we’ve been talking about  Robert Putnam (1995) wrote a book about Bowling Alone o He argues that we’re in an era of declining civic engagement and social capital  He believes that people are getting less and less involvement in the community  Because of this it can have consequences o He argues that while the number of bowlers has gone up overtime, the number of bowling teams have dropped.  People have been doing things individually than as teams. o Is this something you can observe?  He never really finds a way to measure social capital. o Everyone connects to this universal whole.  Think of a community like as spider’s web.  Effects of Social Capital: o We’re using this one word concept to explain how people have better health outcomes and live in a safer community.  Better health outcomes (mental and physical)  Community satisfaction  Lower crime rates o Social capital is a cover/concept that explains all of these things  Putnam (Bowling Alone) theorizes and Social Capital has decreased in recent years. o Being connected is better for the long-term. o He uses a metaphor:  Number of bowlers increased, while the number of bowling leagues decreased.
Sociology Notes – Review J'Lexius Rodriguez
Culture  Something that we influence  We perform aspects of cultures o Example: we tell our kids what to eat and what not to  Norms, beliefs, material goods o Norms  Unspoken rules of behaviors o Beliefs  This whole system of right and wrong  Individuals are the ones that carry out culture.  Nature v. Nurture o Nature  What things are inherent o Nurture  Experience o How much of your behavior winds up being learned or inherited?  Can’t answer this o Is a larger debate  Culture does things, but doesn’t get things going.

Socialization