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A Contemporary Introduction to Sociology

Culture and Society in Transitionby Jeffrey C. Alexander and

Kenneth Thompson

Chapter One:Sociological Stories and Key Concepts

• Sociology is the science (-ology) of society (socio-).

“Sociology is an extended commentary on the experiences of daily life, an interpretation which feeds on other interpretations and is in turn fed into them.”

--Zygmunt Bauman

Society & Sociology• Society: A population distinguished by

shared norms, values, institutions, and culture. Societies are often defined by geographic, regional, or national boundaries

• Sociology: The science of Society. The sociologist studies how everyday, individual stories and relationships relate to the larger, collective stories of social groups, social systems, and societies

Sociology can help us make sense of our experiences by taking our accounts and sharing or comparing them with others.

• A sociological perspective helps to make sense of experiences by taking stories told by individuals and groups and comparing them with others, shaping our worldviews.

•We can examine social structures (patterns of organization that constrain human behavior) by observation of the sociological perspective.

Culture vs. Subculture

• Culture: The symbolic and learned aspects of human society. Culture is not biological but instead is transmitted and shared via social interaction.

• Subculture: The symbols and lifestyles of a subgroup in society, one that deviates from the “normal,” more general (dominant) culture of a society.

Social Structures & Values

• Social Structures: Patterns of organization that constrain human behavior. These can be formal (such as school or government) or informal (such as peer pressure or trends).

• Values: Shared ideas of what is good/bad, desirable/undesirable, or sacred/profane in a society.

Norms & Status• Norms: Rules that prescribe correct behavior.

Some are official (e.g., as laws) while others remain unofficial but are commonly understood (e.g., when the Pledge of Allegiance is recited in the U.S., people are expected to stand ).

• Status: A position in social relations (e.g., mother, father, teacher, president) that is normatively regulated; it is assumed that when a person occupies the position, he/she will behave in particular ways.

Roles & Institutions

• Roles: Bundles of socially defined attributes and expectations associated with social statuses or positions.

• Institutions: Patterned sets of linked social practices that are informed by broader culture, are regularly and continuously repeated, are sanctioned and maintained by social norms, and have a major significance for the social structure.

C. Wright Mills and The Sociological Imagination (1959)

• Sociological imagination: The ability to understand not only what is happening in one’s own immediate experience but also in the world and to imagine how one’s experience fits into the large picture.

• It is necessary for us to use a sociological imagination in order to define the troubles we experience through historical changes and the institutions of society.

Troubles vs. Issues

• Troubles: Personal problems, private matters having to do with the self (e.g., an individual’s unemployment).

• Issues: Problems extending beyond the individual and local environment. These are institutional in nature and often involve crises in institutional arrangement (e.g., the high unemployment rate across the U.S.).

Social Problems

• Social Problems: Situations that contradict or violate social norms and values. Widespread drug abuse and racism are examples of social problems.

• Divorce can be an example of a private trouble (something that is personal to the parties involved and accompanied by arguments) or a social problem (comparing divorce rates of various countries to identify larger factors)

Social Problems vs. Sociological Problems

“The sociological problem is not so much why things ‘go wrong’ from the viewpoint of the authorities and the management of the social scene, but how the whole system works in the first place, what are its presuppositions and by what means is it held together. The fundamental problem is not crime but the law, not divorce but marriage, not racial discrimination but racially defined stratification…”

—Peter Berger (1963)

Peter Berger’s Four Dimensions of Sociological Consciousness

• Debunking: The sociological perspective is frequently concerned with seeing through the facades of social structures and debunking official interpretations.

• Unrespectability: Involves a fascination with the unrespectable view of society.

Four Dimensions (cont.)

• Relativizing: Refers to the capacity, typical of the modern mind, but especially developed in sociology, to see how identities and perspectives vary depending on the situation or context.

• Cosmopolitanism: The turbulent urban center of modern times have tended to develop a cosmopolitan consciousness, a knowledge of a variety of lifestyles and perspectives, and a certain sense of detachment from them.

Society Today: So What’s New?

• Sociology came into being as an effort to understand the social issues created by the changes of modernity.

• Modernity: In sociology, refers to the set of historical processes that transformed the traditional order.

• Postmodernity: In sociology, refers to the contemporary developments in historical, social, and economic processes.

Sociology of Modernity:Economic Life and Social Organization

• Economic Life: Sociologists focused on the growing inequality between economic classes as well as he physically demanding and often degrading quality of work

• Social Organization: By tracing the population movement from rural areas to urban centers, sociologists observed a movement away from arbitrary and personal authority, such as kings, to impersonal control through bureaucratic rules

Sociology of Modernity:Integration and Culture

• Integration: Sociologists were concerned with reintegrating a social order they viewed as increasingly stratified and divided. Methods varied between progressive reforms and revolution, but shared a vision of unity.

• Culture: Sociologies compared their societies with earlier social orders. Working with this contrast in mind, they emphasized the increasing importance of science and declining significance of religion, believing culture was more rational.

Sociology of Modernity:Gender & Socialization, Public vs. Private• Gender & Socialization: Sociologists tended to

take gender arrangements for granted; if the position of women was noticed at all, it was seen as the result of nature.

• Public vs. Private: Sociologists paid little attention to emotion, love, friendship, recreation, and entertainment. Sociologists were men, and their concern was the public sphere— universal identities, not particularistic or individual ones.

Sociology of Modernity:Occidentalism vs. Orientalism

• Sociological accounts were presented as part of a larger story comparing Western (occidental) societies with non-Western (oriental) ones. Rationalization, centralization, industrialization, and the public-private split were described in evolutionary terms, “advances” as culture progressed from East to West.

Beyond the Sociology of Modernity:Postindustrial Economies

• As service economy has displaced manufacturing, the nature of work has changed. Many sociologists see this as progress, believing education and flexibility are more important today, and that workers have much more autonomy. Others, however, talk of the “deskilling of labor,” and that worker’s skills are now programmed into machines.

Beyond the Sociology of Modernity:Decentralized Organization

• Sociologists see different effects from changes in the postindustrial economy. The digitization of information and almost instantaneous communication has led to transformations in transportation of goods, services, and people, and shifting residential patterns blur the lines between urban, suburb, and country.

• Some see this as increased opportunities for cooperation, local control, and community; others find increasing fragmentation, stratification, and privatization.

Beyond the Sociology of Modernity:The Cultural Turn

• The Cultural Turn refers to two developments:– the increasing importance of cultural industries and of

knowledge more generally in the economy– the increasing attention being given to cultural factors

(such as language, symbols, and meaning) in sociological explainations.

• Some sociologists say we live in an age characterized by “postscarcity” and “postmaterial” values, allowing people to concentrate less on survival and more on intellectual, emotional, and spiritual concerns.

Beyond the Sociology of Modernity:Derationalization & New Social Movements

• Derationalization: Despite the extraordinary progress of modern science, there is nowless confidence that society will displace religious and nonscientific modes of thought.

• New Social Movements: In earlier periods, the prototypical protest was of impoverished workers against the industrial system. The Civil Rights Movement and modern women’s movements have engendered fundamental shifts in race and gender relations

Beyond the Sociology of Modernity:Multiculturalism, Socialization, Inequality

• Multiculturalism & Difference: The shift away from a “melting pot,” where outgroups are assimilated, to a multicultural model of incorporation preserving distinctive cultures.

• Socialization, Identity, & the Life Cycle: The expanding life cycle, increased education, new forms of consumption, instability of marriage, and new lifestyles focused on gender, race, ethnicity, and sexuality have created a new emphasis on “identity.”

• Inequalities: As once-marginalized groups have made use of new opportunities, they have left behind a new kind of isolated and highly vulnerable “underclass.”

Beyond the Sociology of Modernity:Globalization

• A social phenomenon characterized by the growing number of interconnections across the world.

• Rather than studying society in terms of various nation-states, sociologists today are concerned with multinational and global problems.

Determinism vs. Free Will

• Determinism states that social structures and cultural factors determine behavior of individuals.

• Karl Marx insisted that “it is not consciousness that determines society, but society that determines consciousness.”

• Emile Durkheim, the French founder of modern scientific sociology, stated that individuals have little power against social facts.

Determinism

• Counter-argument: George Herbert Mead (University of Chicago) insisted that the ever creative self is at the basis of institutions.

• Erving Goffman expanded on Mead’s ideas and told a theoretical story that centered on the self and its ingenuity: Just because people espouse accepted social values, they don’t necessarily believe in them.

Structure vs. Culture

• Many of the greatest sociologists have made structure central to the stories they tell about institutions, processes, and groups. The structural approach is objective.

• With a cultural approach, it is values and beliefs that are central to society. The cultural approach is subjective.

Study Questions

• How does the sociological perspective challenge individualism?

• What is the difference between personal troubles and public issues? Can you think of an example that falls into both categories?

• Briefly describe Berger’s four dimensions of sociological consciousness.

Study Questions

• What do sociologists mean by modernity and postmodernity?

• What is determinism? Describe sociological arguments against this position, and explain why both sides have been heatedly debated in the field.

• What is the difference between structural and cultural approaches? Is either deterministic?

Study Questions

• As you will see throughout this book, one of the most compelling aspects of postmodern society is the extraordinary reach and salience of the media in everyday lives. Discuss the relationship between the media and the sociological imagination.