Introduction To Sociology
MW (SOC300) 8-9:15; Room 115 Purinton
  Office Hours and Phone

WEEK XVI  ASSIGNMENTS
Final Week 2019

PAPER DUE Monday 25 November 2019


 Reach me by E-mail from campus by using,  jveav @aol.com  Thanx...

Click on Real Time Class Notes and download Chapter outline for the indicated week
If a password,was submitted,within 2 weeks of semester beginning , you may request your grade as soon as grade distributions are posted above.   

ASSIGNMENTS 

 Week of 2 Decembre 2019    Review of Chapters 8, 9, 11.  FINAL EXAM MONDAY 9 DECEMBRE 2019 - SAME ROOM 8 to 10 AM  

  term paper results: a's-7, b's-2, c's-3, d's-2, f's-0. all in all, not too bad.   

  WEEK OF 25 nOVEMBER 2019    iT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THat schools are bureaucracies and this concept, as disussed in class, is very argumentative and that many of its aspects do not align themselves with the contemporary social needs of the students. 

Social change is an important study in sociology today because of tomorrow was the same as today, there would be no need for the social. Nevertheless, that is not the case and sociology offers a rich academic study. As mentioned, things do change all the time and this is the crux of any social study - what changed and why? There are three concepts one must know to understand social change. Change is the alteration of the social configuration while a social movement is that actual process of effecting change and a social problem is simply an undesirable state of social affairs.  

  Week of 18 November 2019    As discussed, the concept of marriage has changed significantly in the past three decades in the U.S.. Today there are many forms and, perhaps the best tahat can be said is marriage involves the intimate relationship between a group of people. This group can take many forms and has many subjective goals. Most still believe that the goal of marriage is to have a family, but the concept of "family" is now argumentative. It is suggested that the best structure of a family is a people oriented attitude with the understanding that any intimate relationship is tedious, hard work and is not always successful.

Religion in sociology is approached from the aspect of a social dynamic,i.e., not from a metephysical perspective. Religion socially has impect on society and often is involved in social change. In fact, it can beso influential as to cause change  that may last for millennia as in the u.s. whereby the protestant ethic (max weber) advocates thou shalt achieve and can be clearly seen and felt by all americans originating in the european protestant revolution many years ago.

Education mirrors the social mileau as evidinced in the factory system still in effect  in america. It is argued that the factory system  is out of date and that high schools would do better with a campus kind of orientation to mirror the goal of college after the 12 year system.

  Week of 11 November 2019  

  Results of 3rd Exam: 
  A's-4, B's-8, C's-2, D's-2. F's-0.  not bad, but less Ds , etc.. 
  Read chapters 8 and 9: The Family, Religion and Education. We will spend some time on education and its history and contemporary implications.

  Week of 4 November 2019    Review for 3d Exam (13 November) Wednesday 6 November. No school Monday 11 November - Veteran's Day.   INEQUALITY BY SEX Chapter: This inequality starts from birth. Boys and girls are immediately stereotyped as to their sex, not gender. This will happen later. The inequality is constructed and this is what the text refers to as "doing gender"! Each sex is bombarded by a social attitude that tells them to think in certain ways as to their sex, not their abilities. In fact, these abilities are themselves constructed later on in aspects as boys are mechanical and girls are caretakers. If one looks at the nature vs nurture spectrum, this sex construction falls heavily on the nurture side. This not to say that the girls and boys are not different.   They most certainly are in many ways, but it does say that the social/ cultural milieu may over ride atavistic sexual abilities assigned through birth and nature. In terms of these cultural influences, there are those that argue capitalism has female sex discrimination built-in because of the preponderance of men holding economic power and expressed through the business structure. One does not doubt this, but to change the attitude would mean many would lose their economic structural advantage and thus oppose such liberal thinking. In point of fact, there is a change in the contemporary business structure (and science) where women ar being more and more recognized as equal or better than the other sex. Even still, there is still sexual discrimination in the United States culture and change is slow coming, although there is not as much sexual harassment as in the 20th century. The majority of women today are no longer homemakers, but (a codicil) they are mostly employed in service areas. (Of course it has to be said that the U.S. is no longer a manufacturing culture!) 

  Week of 28 October 2019    Stratification  has its serious effects on all societies. For the successful operation of societies and cultures, stratification is a necessity because it leads to competition, quality of interaction and solid identity to those who are successful and productive. All cultures have stratification and it is considered a universal implement to human interaction. However, in contemporary life, the gap between the Haves and Have Nots is hard to explain. There are many that say this "gap" can not be justified as the difference between minimum wage people and athletes or entertainment individuals. Poverty has two aspects: absolute poverty means those involved have problems just getting the necessities of living as opposed to relative poverty which is a disadvantage to culture as a whole. Max Weber looked at class from the aspect of life's chances. The higher the class the greater the social rewards as opposed to lower classes which are concerned with social necessities. 

  Race and ethnicity , as a study, is more for social problems chapter or a single class because of its extreme sensitive nature and the value judgments therein. There is no doubt that "racism" is a problem in the United States as an inequality and many things including government sanctions have been tried to eliminate it, but racism continues. Race, as a biological entity, does not exist, but if it can not be wished away, as in the United States, then it is "real" according to "social realities". Race tends to be a socially diminishing factor for those involved along with similar negative interactions contributed to minority groups in general. Here is the main complication to this problem - race involves treating groups of people as inferior through ethnic, stereotypical and hierarchical aspects. These three and others make any interactional aspect difficult to treat because of the complex elements involved. If there is a solution to race problems in the United States it probably will not come from a functional or conflict theory position. Many agree that the Contact Hypotheses is the best answer in that people live and work together. In this instance, the reality of interaction will be everyone will see that all share the same desires and life goals as opposed to the stereotypical notions continuing the problems associated with race and ethnicity. This does not mean to infer that the problem will be immediately solved. People will always dislike oher people just on personal bases, but, as a rule, interacting closely generally does away with fabricated generic concepts of a dislike of all people in general.

  Week of 21 Octobre 2019   The industrial Revolution brought about many social inequalities through the exploitation of the worker and children. Conflict Theory addresses itself to these inequalities in terms of the social hierarchy and capitalism. One of the purveyors of this thinking was Karl Marx who theorized about capitalism and the workplace. Marx saw capitalism as a system of social relations which had three stages. 1. people just came together to produce something. 2. they moved on and produced something special. 3. the machine became more important than the person. At this third stage Marx said something had to be done because people were living an inauthentic existence. He then borrowed the Hegelian Dialectic and said that society was divided into two classes - the "haves" and "have nots". These major classes became the thesis and anti-thesis of the Dialectic. Eventually they came together and formed the synthesis or a state of socialism where everybody shared equally in society. The critique of Marx centers around several comments. Of course, what is meant by "equally"? Does it infer everyone has equal materialism or something like everyone has social opportunity equally. No one is quite sure what Marx meant by "equality" other than he disliked vehemently social inequality. Then too Marx divided society into two broad categories - the Haves and Have Nots. Critics say this is much too broad and that society has many divisions in-between. There is the comment that the "Haves" are not necessarily exploiters in society and indeed there have been many entrepreneurs who were very concerned with their workers and treated them more than favorably. The real positive aspect of Marx's theory is the idea of class consciousness. The Haves and Have Nots never get together until the Have Nots develop a viable sense of inequality and exploitation as to their station in life. When this occurs, then and only then. the two social orders come together and form a synthesis. What this synthesis is, in terms of socialism, is to be determined by the specific circumstances by which it was formed. Max Weber suggested that class was indeed important in creating a person's status in the social hierarchy, but he believed that status or rank also was important along with the ability to influence others or power. Weber felt that a combination of the three determined one's social place or  social inequality again with the understanding that negative inequality does not necessarily follow.

  Week of 14 Octobre 2019  

The previous illustration suggests the boundary layers between accepted  social behaviour and deviance. These layers are more for ASP in that they define what "normality" is and, at the same time, constructs a barrier to keep deviance "out" thus creating solidarity, clarity and security for those within ASB. Often deviance and its definition is more for ASB than ~ASB.

 This is Dr Jack's Model of Deviance. Note the sides and that which is involved between ASB and ~ASB along with the flow of interaction defining and constructing behaviour in such a way as to lead to a choice.

The "choice" of to go or not to go to deviance is determined by several factors on beth sides of The Model. These determinants are known as "Pushers" and "Pullers" depending on which side of The Model they fall. Probably the fator of greatest strength is the Puller whose influence is determined by the strength of the Goal.

  Week of 7 Octobre 2019    Monday Review Chapters 3 and partial 4: Wednesday Exam 2. Finish reading Chapter 4 and start 5.

  Week of 30 September 2010    The idea that social environment influences our social reality is particularly evidenced in Tonnies' Gemeinschaft and Gesselschaft. We all go through these two concepts and variations in between during the course of a day. Probably more times than we care to admit. For example, when a student leaves the class (Gesselschaft) they may talk to someone in the hall in a Gemeinschaft manner. Transportation home is a different setting than home itself with variations in between. Our realities are not what most people expect in that they are not fixed but change according to where we are, who we are with and what we expect and what they expect of us. These dispositions are based on the past experiences and the present situation. Tonnies points this out in his dichotomy and one sees from today's class how that dichotomy makes one think in terms of the situations important to us personally. This is what I meant by a "horizontal" definition of social reality, however, this itself becomes problematic when one behaves within the immediate social hierarchy. One takes that "horizontality" as they navigate through the hierarchy. Perhaps this is rather clearly seen in the movie Into the Wild where the protagonist no longer ones to go through the "vertical" rigors and navigates their way to Alaska in a final, existential journey. Perhaps the most illustrative example of Tonnies is in the American culture experiencing the family and bureaucracy situations. We all have difficulty changing frequently from home to business and back again. This is made all the more difficult when each or both ends of the dichotomy are not to our satisfaction which is probably the case for most people in one degree or another. One then has to make decisions concerning how to ameliorate one's self to the conflicts involved or just "let it go" and get on with some sort of compromise which generally is never satisfying. In contemporary America this is all the more complicated by the change in generic realities from a mechanical world to the cyber age.

 

Deviance depends on who is doing the defining because deviance changes with the times and the culture. Know Milgram's Experiment because it clearly shows that social pressure can make people do just about anything as often witnessed in history. Deviance follows the same structure as Tonnies' dichotomy in that it goes from mild to extreme. Generally deviance is discussed from the extreme point of view, but, if deviance defined is simply being apart from the norm, them there is much more to it than just mass murderers and social perverts! A social problem is not the same as deviance. A social problem has two or more groups competing for social approval while deviance has specific social targets. Generally, a social problem does not necessarily lead to deviance, but deviance ALWAYS causes a social problem! Deviance is about social control activated mostly in the United States by social conformity. Once deviance was thought of as a "social cancer", yet contemporarily the idea is still there, but not to be immediately "cut out" and more to be understood as to why one has been socially led to this position as collective non-conformity. There are two types of social control - informal and formal. Culture has a vested interest in social control from a personal point of view. We all want to belong to a collectivity in some form because it gives us security and less of a chance of being ostracized. No one likes uncertainty and control minimizes this aberration.

  Week of 23 September 2019   Continue reading Chapter 3; see me before or after class for individual exam discussion: It is important to understand what Chapter 3 is stating because there is a serious relationship between social structure and interaction. Both depend on each other in determining the self in terms of the social order and what a person will be in society. We all know from experience that status and role are often very carefully bound together and determine to a large extent one's self esteem or lack of depending where one believes they are in the social hierarchy. "Believes where one is" is important because it defines the degree of intensity of social reality. Keep in mind too, social reality is perceptual and, as the existentialists point out, the distinction between reality and illusion often is not clear. You may really believe a metaphorical "tiger" is following you through life and it may not be the case, but life experiences have argued you into it. Again, I will always advise construct yourself from the self that you like, not one that demeans your existence. Sometimes the problem is rooted in what group one belongs to because, in groups, people share common values and these values may not be in one's best interests. In that respect, social reality is constructed functionally through the agency of groups often unbeknownst to the participating member and to their detriment. On the other hand, never diminish the power of the group for each one of us is seriously determined in our actions and thoughts in some way by group influence. All of our existence has some sort of social direction and too many people are not cognizant of where that is leading them.

  The construction of social reality becomes viable through social groups of which there are two principal ones we discuss - primary and secondary. Each group controls the person involved in behaviour, attitude, security and self-worth.  These groups are also conveyors of the greater cultural order through networking. In the past, networking was done primarily by face-to-face involvement, but in contemporary times it is primarily cyber implemented. This, in a way, is a paradigm change. Social reality is skewed in that it is fast, impersonal, vague and ambiguous which can lead to some obvious and published difficulties. Even still, humans adapt to change and tend to accept it over time as a normal state of affairs. What is important to remember is that human existence, no matter what the paradigm, emerges according to its constructed goals, yet has a generic movement that all participate in that molds one's persona in a specific direction. Enter Ferdinand Tonnies....

  week of 16 September 2019   Monday 16th - review Chapters 1 & 2. Wednesday 18th - First Exam
 Read Chapters 3 & 4 for fifth week of instruction.  

  week of  9 September 2019    First Exam Wednesday 18 December 2019   Chapter Two concerns itself with the effects of culture on the person. In particular, the first part dicussees some definitions of those aspects mentioned. However, more specifically, ethnocentrism refers to the phenomena that all groups, especially small ones, develop feelings that they are over, above and better than other groups. This is especially important for security and identity, BUt it can also lead to intergroup conflict. Socialization is the final large topic in the chapter. To be socialized is how one comes to know the self. Of course there is the old argument if it is nature or nurture. Three theorists attack this question. Freud feels that a large part of who you are is atavistic while Cooley believes that who you are is a blend between nature and nurture. Mead is one who sees the self as completely socially learned. They all have strong points, however, Erving Goffman puts them together in his theory of Dramaturgy. Life is like the theatre in that we all have roles and play a part in presenting our self to others. We all have a story to tell and we manage other's impressions so that it places us in the most favorable light - at least that is what we believe. His process is seen below.:
                           
                                                                                                    
                                                                                                     Erving Goffman             

  4 September 2019   Discussion of Chapter 1: The professional sociologist should always think "three-dimensionally", i.e., generally there are multiple explanations for behaviour that are learned through complicated interaction and become a part of the person's attitude manifested in their overt behaviour. Keep in mind  there is a reciprocity to interaction that one instance will effect another social fact and this is continuous.  To more readily understand these confrontations, all science has theoretical approaches that attempt to be universal. I said "attempt" because no one theoretical procedure covers everything - the human social experience is too complicated. The three most common theories are 1. Functionalism whereby one looks at how each part contributes to the achievement of a particular goal. 2. Conflict Theory where dominance and submission is common to all interaction and how does it play out. Is it of benefit or exploitive and what are the repercussions? 3. Symbolic Interactionisms looks at the overt physical signs of behaviour to interpret internal social meaning in terms of what is socially going on. All three are used to construct a meaningful pattern of interaction so one can more readily understand the dynamics of social facts. their origins and applications. 

  28 September 2019    All science starts with a scientific guess called a hypothesis. This hypothesis states a relationship between the dependent and independent variable as stated in class with the two experiments conducted by Emile Durkheim on Suicide and Rothlishberger and Dickson for the Western Electric Company. Each experiment disclosed that social facts and social knowledge comes from a process that involves empirical, functional and existential factors combining to form a process. This process will be seen over and over in Sociological investigations and often even mirrors one's own everyday life processes. READ CHAPTER ONE 

 Week of 14 August 2019  Classes Begin    Read Chapter 1 - text. 

"When an individual enters the presence of others, they commonly seek to acquire information about him already possessed. They will be interested in his general socio-economic status, his conception of self, his attitude toward them, his competence, his trustworthiness etc.. Although some of this information seems to be sought almost as an end in itself, there are usually quite practical reasons for acquiring it. Information about the individual helps to define the situation, enabling others to know in advance what to expect of them and what to expect of him.  Informed in these ways, the others will know how best to act in order to call forth a desired response from him.
Erving Goffman The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.

"The problem with individualism is not that it is immoral but that it is incorrect. The universe does not consist of a lot of unrelated particles but is an interconnected whole. Pretending that our fortunes are independent of each other may be perfectly ethical, but it's also perfectly stupid." Philip Slater in Bulman's Hollywood Goes to High School. 

Here are some suggestions for constructively participating in the university classroom experience:

A. Be Calm: Do not just react. Listen carefully to what others have to say. Never ever react to another by saying "Yes, but..." "Yesbuters" only foster defensiveness in others. Repeat what they say and ask if this is what they meant. This is consideration and others react positively to it.

B. If you have a difference of opinion, try to find things that you have in common. People appreciate this method of dialogue. In sociology, there are positions, not "right" and "wrong" dictates.

C. Nothing is ever resolved immediately in society. Look for first steps and initial openings. Never ever try to destroy another's opinion. College is to learn - not conquer.

D. Never ever say "Well everyone is entitled to their opinion." This just means you are no longer listening and another person has the right, at that point, to also turn you off; ergo, no communication and nothing is learned.

E. Each person has a moral obligation to other persons to be fair and understanding of who they are and what they believe. Observe this carefully - you will be held to it.  

     The proposed trip to the Children's Museum or Carnegie Science Center will be the week of 11 November 2019. Any day that week or week-end will be appropriate. Just show Kent identification at reception desk. Click on "Hi" below for detailed instructions. (They can be downloaded.) 
     A word about the writing of the paper. You are to go to the museum and OBSERVE, then explain what you observe by sociological concepts. Sociological objectivity is to discover trends, NOT to verify one's personal beliefs and/or agendas. Judging social behaviour by personal experience is a mistake. Remember, objectivity is not how something relates to personal opinion - it is discovering the underlying reasons for social interaction. Value judgments have no place in the analytical aspects of sociology nor in the term paper. Social scientists STUDY value judgments - not impose them. Read the Survival Manual - it has everything you need to know for a successful term paper.

Why the Children's Museum or any museum or that matter?

Adam Gopnik suggests, "We walk through our lives, at least I walk through mine, with my iPod on and my ear buds in my ear. I'm online, like everybody else, a good part of the day. What a museum, any kind of museum, offers you is an alternative to that experience. it offers you a different kind of experience - an experience of the immediate confrontation between something very old, and usually hand made, and your own moment in time, your own sensibility, your own emotions now. And if we lose that as the essential experience of the museum, then it just becomes one more stop on the endless ribbon of entertainment that we're addicted to, especially in this country. If we try and make museums more and more like all the rest of our experience, then we don't need museums.

Museums occupy a different space, it seems to me, occupy a different moment in the making of our minds. And it's an important one. It is not necessarily better than all the other plugged-in moments we have. But unplugging, in a culture as plugged-in as ours, is a very important piece of our lives. And a museum is a place, I think, where you need primarily to unplug."

The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik visiting Cleveland's Rock 'n Roll Hall of fame. October 2008.

 
INFORMATION FOR TERM PAPER AT The Children's Museum.
Go to Hi!

All organized groups have an identity, share the same characteristics and behavioural expectations. Is this a primary or seconday group? Gemeinschaft or Gesselschaft?

NOTA BENE:

Regularly read ASSIGNMENTS for clarifications and/or corrections to class discussions as well as implementations to the text. CELL PHONES MUTED IN CLASS (University Policy) - THEY ARE RUDE AND DISRUPTIVE. Emergency calls are handled professionally through the receptionist. Also, no eating - it is disrespectful to the instructor and, more importantly, to students in the immediate area.  Recording is permitted by law, but it is not a valid method of retaining meaning from the lectures. There is no substitute for hard work.

*CLASS CALENDAR - Generally, because discussions are encouraged, often it is difficult to predict exactly where we will be in the text from week to week. Because of this, a class calendar is not offered. The student is advised to pay careful attention to the synopsis of class work on this page in terms of that which will be covered in future classes.
 

The materialistic culture of the United States socializes people to believe that happiness is the accumulation of things. Of course, this is not necessarily true, but if it is believed - it is real!

 TOPICS ON EXAMS 

Chapter One empiricism, functionalism, existential, phenomenological, positivism, interpretivism, social reality, Emile Durkheim, Suicide, hypothesis, independent, dependent, anomie, Hawthorne studies, illumination, interviewing, efficiency studies, sociology, C. Wright Mills, sociological imagination, science, common sense, theory, Comte, Spencer, Martineau, Weber, verstehen, ideal type, Marx, Cooley, Addams, Merton, Parsons, Functionalism, manifest, latent, Conflict School, exploitation, dominance, oppression, W.E.B.  DuBois, Mead, interactionism, feminism, scientific approach, operational definition, correlation, ransom sample, surveys, qualitative, quantitative, ethnography, Whyte, participant observation, research ethics. Chapter Two  nature vs nurture, culture, society, trans-historical, characteristics of culture vs society, language, argots, survivals, change, innovation, discovery, invention, globalization, norms, mores, sanctions, folkways, cultural variation, subcultures, counter-cultures, cultural shock, ethnocentrism, the paradox, the self, socialization, Cooley, The Looking-Glass Self, Mead, The Self as Object, Goffman, impression management, dramaturgy, The Story, "works", rites of passage, anticipatory socialization, agents of socialization. Second Exam : CHAPTER THREE  Zimbardo, social reality, social elements, social hierarchies, dominance, submission, ascribed, achieved, marginal, master, roles, functionalism, conflict theory, role strain, group characteristics, primary group, secondary, networks, e-networking, evolution, Tonnies, gemeinschaft, gesselschaft, collective will, rational will, essential will, characteristics of formal organizations, the Bureaucracy, technology and the workplace. Chapter Four  deviance, conformity, obedience, Milgram, informal stages, formal, laws, socialization, Dr Jack's Model, relative, absolute, labeling, functionalists, Durkheim, Merton, cultural transmission, conflict theory, the powerful, masquerade, performance, crime, professional crime, organized crime, white-collar crime, prostitution, drug use, decrease in crime. Third Exam /// Chapter Five inequality, stratification, Karl Marx, capitalism,  stages of capitalism,  thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis, class consciousness, critique of Marx, Weber's definition of class, Marx and Capitalism, Functional theory on stratification, universality of stratification, poverty, relative, absolute, Gans, mobility, The Digital Divide.     Chapter Six:  domination, privileges, evidence for "race", stereotypes, minority characteristics, ethnicity, Nash, Rose, Marx, Contact Hypothesis, ethnocentrism, language, single-parents, the well-to-do, solutions. Chapter Seven:  social construction of sex roles, doing gender, nature vs nurture, functionalism, conflict theory, Interactionism, women's under representation, sexual harassment, coming to an agreement, women's progress, the war on boys, full time homemakers, being poor, men's responsibilities, Second Shift, double jeopardy of minority women, women and less pay.FINAL EXAM/// Chapter Eight/Nine: aspects of institutions, conflict position, Functional position, Interactionalist position, family definitions, marriage and gays, nuclear, extended, monogamy, polygamy, patriarchy, matriarchy, egalitarian, definition of religion, manifest and latent functions, Weber, The Protestant Ethic, Durkheim,  Conflict Theory and education, The Factory Model,  Weber, hierarchy and characteristic in education, functional position, Conflict position, curriculum orientation, electronic education, the teacher dilemma, student's education experience, college education experience     Chapter Ten: change, social movement, social problem, Eric Hoffer, advocate, resister, true believer, innovator, pragmatic, charismatic, new social movements, evolutionary theory, Parson and functionalism, conflict theory, chaos theory, resistance.