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© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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SOCIOLOGYDiversity, Conflict, and Change

The SociologicalImagination

Kenneth J. NeubeckUniversity of Connecticut

Davita Silfen GlasbergUniversity of Connecticut


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The Sociological Imagination

• Sociology — study of people as participants in and creators of society– The way in which society is organized, things that

lead to stability, conflict and eventual change

• Life chances — one’s ability to experience life and all its beneficial offerings


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Personal Troubles and Public Issues: Dana’s Story

• Personal troubles — matters involving a person’s character and his or her relations with others over which the individual has control

• Public issues — societal conditions that transcend the individual and lie beyond his or her personal environment and control- like the structure of the society, how the institutions in a society are arranged etc.


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The Sociological Imagination in Action

• Sociological imagination —enables individuals to understand how broad features of society and the times in which they live affect and describe them.– How society is structured– How and why it seems to be changing– How these affect people– SI= H+B+SS and how these are related


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The Sociological Imagination in Action

• Core concepts — fundamental ideas helpful in analyzing features of society– Derived from major intellectual

traditions that historically shaped the discipline of sociology. European roots in early industrial society 18th and 19th centuries.


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Ibn Khaldun founder of “Sociology”

• Origins lie in antiquity- Tunisian, Ibn Khaldun.(1332-1395)- Khaldun talked about

• societies are living organisms that experience cyclically:– birth, growth, maturity, decline, and

ultimately death due to universal causes.

– The Causes involve weakening social solidarity.


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Sociology: Intellectual Traditions and Core Concepts• A century and a half after Ibn

Khaldun, Machivelli wrote “THE PRINCE”

• 4 centuries after Ibn Khaldun, Auguste Comte coined the word “Sociology”– Contemporary thinking in U.S. directly

influenced by intellectual developments in late 18th and 19th centuries in Europe


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Sociology: Intellectual Traditions and Core Concepts– Auguste Comte- coined the word “sociology” and sought to model it after the physical sciences- “social physics”

– Stages: 1. Theological 2. Metaphysical 3. Positive (or scientific)

– Émile Durkheim: Influential Functionalist Thinker• Importance of culture and functions played

by commonly shared moral values, beliefs, ceremonies and rituals- social solidarity


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Sociology: Intellectual Traditions and Core Concepts• The Functionalist Perspective– Societies are adaptive social structures

that help human beings adjust to their physical, political, economic, and cultural environment.

– Also called Structural- Functionalism: because it takes note of social structure

• Human society is naturally stable• Maintained by values, rules, and practices- a

common culture• Division of labor facilitates harmony and must

be accepted by individuals.


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Sociology: Intellectual Traditions and Core Concepts– Appropriate relationship of individual to society is one of accommodation and adaptation.- Deviants are inadequately socialized

and so we need agencies of social control

- Social control agencies will ensure that individuals adapt to society are re-socialized adequately.


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Sociology: Intellectual Traditions and Core Concepts•Social facts — social and cultural

features of a society, existing independently of individuals who make it up, which influence people’s behavior- the “extrinsic coercion” that guides behavior.

– Sum total of social facts= collective conscience

• Durkheim talked about division of labor and society based on either 1. Mechanical or 2. Organic Solidarity.


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1. Mechanical Solidarity: like a machine, each part useless without the others– Small rural communities with little division of labor– Strong group relations, individual non existent outside

the group.– Individual conscience is the same as the collective

conscience– People interested in each other because of the group

and common values

• Repressive law, punishment for the sake of punishment, eliminating the individual for the sake of the group

.


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Organic Solidarity: like organs of a body, each organ autonomous but depends for its survival on other organs-City communities, high level of division of labor-Weak group relations. People interested in each other only because of functions each can perform for them “ what can he or she do for me”-Individual conscience not the same as collective conscience- Restitutive law: for the purpose of restoring the

individual so he continues functioning for society.


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• In stressing the importance of meeting society’s needs for order, Durkheim failed to see inequality as a matter for concern

• Why is that? What part of the sociological imagination was he ignoring?


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Sociology: Intellectual Traditions and Core Concepts• The Conflict Perspective– Social divisions and struggles

characterize society; also belief that social change is result of conflict• Rousseau found class inequality to be

unnatural and in violation of human nature in pre-revolutionary France.


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Sociology: Intellectual Traditions and Core Concepts– Karl Marx: Proponent of Radical Change• Marx concluded industrial capitalism—

an economic system in which the means of production were owned by relatively few (thesis)—produced class inequalities (antithesis) that led to the system’s downfall and a new system based upon socialism- (synthesis)

• Believed that social progress required conflict


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Sociology: Intellectual Traditions and Core Concepts•Bourgeoisie — ownership class or

group of capitalists who are the principal private owners of society’s means of production under capitalism

•Proletariat — working class; those who do not own the means of production and must, therefore, sell their labor power in order to live


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Sociology: Intellectual Traditions and Core Concepts•False consciousness —failure of

workers to understand that capitalism and not themselves are to blame for their alienation and misery

•Class consciousness —workers’ understanding of what capitalism was doing to them and their realization that it would be desirable to join others in struggle against capitalist class

– Sub-structure (unter-bau), Super-structure (uber-bau)


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Sociology: Intellectual Traditions and Core Concepts•Socialism — political economy in which

production of goods and services involves social cooperation between workers to create wealth

– Means of production are likely to be owned or controlled by the state.

Communism- wealth produced and controlled by the workers, there is no “state” in an ideal communistic society.

Marx & Alienation: Functionalists talk about inadequate socialization to explain deviant behavior, Marx talked about alienation:


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Sociology: Intellectual Traditions and Core Concepts– Max Weber: Student of Social Stratification and Bureaucracy• Weber placed more emphasis on

importance of analyzing features of a society other than its economic system

• Viewed unequal distribution of power and prestige as central figures of society


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Sociology: Intellectual Traditions and Core Concepts•Social stratification — ways in which

people occupying different social positions can be ranked from high to low

• The position you occupy within a social structure determines your “life chances”

• Life chances aren’t equal for everyone.•Bureaucracy — organization

characterized by clear-cut division of labor, hierarchy of authority, adherence to formal rules.


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Sociology: Intellectual Traditions and Core Concepts• Weber was very concerned over implications of

increasingly bureaucratized society. Bureaucracy stifles freedom and reason because everything is predetermined and clear-cut based upon rules. Weber called it the “Iron cage of Bureaucracy”.

Ours is a highly bureaucratized society. There are rules governing every aspect of your behavior, rules based upon laws, from the moment you are born to the moment you die and even beyond (wills, debts etc). Two types of societies described by Tonnies

• Gemeinschaft (community- based natural will- Wesenwille ) and Gesellschaft (society- based on rational will or Kurwille)


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Functionalist and Conflict Perspectives

Measure Functionalist Perspective Conflict Perspective

Notable features of society

View of human nature

Individual’s relation to society

Sources of deviant behavior

Views of deviance

Basis for social progress

Means to social progress

Influential European thinkers

Common culture, stability, harmony

Irrational, in need of control

Failure of people to be adequately socialized

Disruptive, dangerous

Order in society

Conformity to social roles and the demands of social institutionsComte, Durkheim

Individuals should adapt to society’s needs

Societal diversity, power differences, systematic inequalities

Rational or “good”

Society should be organized to meet its members’ needs

Alienation of people from harmful features of society

Inevitable

Conflict leading to transformation of society

Social movements for fundamental societal change

Rousseau, Marx, Weber


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Sociology: Intellectual Traditions and Core Concepts• Symbolic Interactionism: People

Constructing Social Reality– Contemporary sociologists disagree

over the degree people are pushed to behave in certain ways by prevailing features of society and the degree to which they create their own reality.


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Sociology: Intellectual Traditions and Core Concepts– Human agency — ability of humans to react to and change the social conditions surrounding them

– Social determinism — important features of society are determinantsof what happens to individuals and how they behave and act.


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Sociology: Intellectual Traditions and Core Concepts– Symbolic Interactionism — sociological perspective

that focuses on such topics as the ways in which shared meanings among individuals develop or changes through social interaction by use of language

– George Herbert Mead, the “I” (subjective part of the personality) and the “me” (objective part of the personality) By judging yourself through the eyes of others you become aware of your self. In other words, you see yourself as others have seen and reacted to you. Your image of the “self” develops in this manner

– Me-memory images of social conduct of others towards you

– “I” spontaneous reaction based upon those memory images, whenever you encounter anything.


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Ethnomethodology

• The methodology of the people- Harold Garfinkle

• Garfinkle claims that people are continually creating social structure through their actions and interactions– In order to uncover this “structure”

ethnomethodologists deliberately break rules and violate people’s assumptions.


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Different Perspectives, Different Voices

• Sociologists commonly borrow core concepts from different intellectual traditions

• Sociology studied, and used for betterment of humanity- the classical tradition is a humanistic endeavor. – Unfortunately most sociologists today

work for corporation or the government and hence lose the “humanistic” part of their field.

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