Transcript Promise - David Wood

INTRODUCTION TO
SOCIOLOGY, LECTURE
ONE
C. Wright Mills: The Promise
• SOC 101: Introduction to Sociology
Fall 2015
• Instructor: David Wood
• Email: [email protected]
• Course Website: www.david-a-wood.com/sociology101/
Syllabus
• Synthesis Paper # 1:
15%
• Synthesis Paper # 2:
15%
• Term Paper:
15%
• Final Presentation:
10%
• Presentations:
25%
• Participation and Assignments:
20%
Synthesis Papers
• Remember the Reading Response discussion we had?
• These will be highly similar.
• They will require you to respond to several readings at a
time, and using the evidence from those readings, return
a response
Final Paper and Presentation
• This will be both a research paper and a memoir,
discussing the sociology of your own life as a high school
student in China preparing for college in the United
States.
Presentations
• Throughout the semester, I will ask you to lead class
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discussions on the readings.
These will begin in week 3.
Really simple –
Just say via PPT what the reading was about and give
several discussion questions.
In other words, do what I’m doing.
I will assign dates on these in the next class.
Participation
• A huge part of your grade will simply be showing up and
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talking about the readings.
Everyday, I will ask everyone to give a short response to
the readings prior to discussing the readings.
I’m not expecting something that will bring a tear to my
eye, but you should have some reply of some sort at this
point.
In every discussion I will expect questions, and I myself
will ask several discussion questions of you.
Each week I will grade everyone on participation.
Occasionally, we will have in-class assignments.
• SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES
• WEEKS 1
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• “The Promise,” C. Wright Mills (pp. 1-7, Ferguson)
• “The Forest, the Trees, and the One Thing,” Allan G.
Johnson (supplemental reading)
• “Teenage Wasteland: Suburbia’s Dead-End Kids,” Donna
Gaines (pp. 7-19, Ferguson)
• DOING SOCIAL RESEARCH
• WEEKS 2
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• “Finding Out How the Social World Works,” Michael
Schwalbe (pp. 59-69 in
Ferguson)
• “Generations X, Y, and Z: Are They Changing America?,”
Duane F. Alwin (pp. 644-652 in Ferguson)
• “Working at Bazooms: The Intersection of Power,
Gender, and Sexuality, Meika Loe (pp. 79-94 in Ferguson)
• CULTURE, GROUPS, AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE
• WEEKS 3-4
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• “Lovely Hula Hands: Corporate Tourism and the Prostitution of
Hawaiian Culture,” Haunani-Kay Trask (pp. 113-120 in
Ferguson)
• “Interpersonal Dynamics in a Simulated Prison,” Craig Haney,
W. Curtis Banks, and Philip G. Zimbardo (pp. 69-78 in
Ferguson)
• “Normalizing Heterosexuality: Mothers’ Assumptions, Talk, and
Strategies with Young Children,” Karin A. Martin (supplemental
reading)
• “Descent into Madness: The New Mexico State Prison Riot,”
Mark Colvin (pp. 229-242 in Ferguson)
• THE POWER AND INFLUENCE OF THE MEDIA
• WEEKS 5-6
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• “Media Images and the Social Construction of Reality,”
William Gamson et al. (supplemental reading)
• “Convergence: News Production in a Digital Age,” Eric
Klineberg (pp. 423-436 in Ferguson)
• “Gender in Televised Sports: News and Highlights Shows,
1989-2009,” Michael A. Messner and Cheryl Cooky (pp.
437-453 in Ferguson)
• “Animating Youth: The Disneyfication of Children’s
Culture,” Henry A. Giroux (supplemental reading)
• SELF AND IDENTITY
• WEEKS 7-8
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• “Gender as Structure,” Barbara Risman (pp. 291-300 in
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Ferguson
“No Way My Boys Are Going to Be Like That: Parents’
Responses to Children’s Gender Nonconformity,” Emily W.
Kane (pp. 121-133 in Ferguson)
“Making It by Faking It: Working-Class Students in an Elite
Environment,” Robert Granfield (pp. 145-157 in Ferguson)
“Dude, You’re a Fag? Adolescent Male Homophobia,” C. J.
Pascoe (pp. 315-323 in Ferguson)
“Yearning for Lightness: Transnational Circuits in the Marketing
and Consumption of Skin Lightness,” Evelyn Nakano Glenn
(pp. 377-390 in Ferguson)
• SOCIAL INEQUALITIES: RACE, CLASS, AND GENDER
• WEEKS 9-10
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• “What is Racial Domination,” Matthew Desmond and Mustafa
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Emirbayer (pp. 338-353 in Ferguson)
“A School in the Garden,” Mitchell L. Stevens (pp. 564-577 in
Ferguson)
“Who Rules America? The Corporate Community and the
Upper Class,” G. William Domhoff (pp. 253-266 in Ferguson)
“Nickel-and-Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America,” Barbara
Ehrenreich (pp. 278-291 in Ferguson)
“At the Slaughterhouse, Some Things Never Die,” Charlie
LeDuff (pp. 254-363 in Ferguson)
• THINKING ABOUT SOCIAL CHANGE
• WEEK 11
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• “The Atrophy of Social Life,” D. Stanley Eitzen (pp. 623-
630 in Ferguson)
• “The Rise of the New Global Elite,” Chrystia Freeland (pp.
413-422 in Ferguson)
• FINALS WEEK
• WEEK 12
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• ***FINAL PAPER***
• ***DEFENSE DUE***
Defining the Sociological
Perspective
• “Sociology is the scientific study of human society and
social interactions.”
• What makes sociology “scientific?”
Sociology and Common Sense
• Common sense assumptions are usually based on very
limited observation.
• Sociology seeks to:
• use a broad range of carefully selected observations; and
• theoretically understand and explain those observations.
• While sociological research might confirm common
sense observation, its broader base, data and
theoretical rational provide a stronger basis for
conclusions.
Sociology and the Social Sciences
Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
French Philosopher, Physician, Positivism, & Father of Sociology Worked
during French Revolution & Napoleon Bonaparte rule.
• Responsible for coining the term
“sociology” Father of Sociology
• Set out to develop the “science of
man” that would be based on
empirical (data or evidence)
observation called Positivism
• Focused on two aspects of society:
• Social Statics—forces which produce
order and stability
• Social Dynamics—forces which
contribute to social change
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Jewish German Philosopher,
political economist, sociologist, humanist, political theorist, revolutionary Father of
Communism
• Marx is the father of conflict theory
• Saw human history in a continual
state of conflict between two major
classes:
• Bourgeoisie—owners of the means of
production (capitalists)
• Proletariat—the workers
• Predicted that revolution would
occur producing first a socialist
state, followed by a communist
society (wrote: The Communist Manifesto )
Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) Jewish French Sociologist
(specialist on education, crime, religion & suicide)
• Durkheim moved sociology fully
into the realm of an empirical
(data & evidence) science using
research methods
• Most well known empirical study
is called Suicide, where he looks
at the social causes of suicide
Max Weber (1864-1920)
Calvinist German Political
economist & Modern Sociologist (University of Berlin)
• Much of Weber’s work was a critique or
clarification of Marx
• His most famous work, The Protestant
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
directly challenged Marx’s ideas on the
role of religion in society
• Weber was also interested in
bureaucracies and the process of
rationalization in society
The Sociological Imagination
C. Wright Mills (1916-1962)
American Sociologist
(USA) (Columbia University, Manhattan NY)
• C. Wright Mills coined the term
C. Wright Mills
“sociological imagination” to refer
to “...the vivid awareness of the
relationship between private
experience and the wider society.”
• Wrote the controversial books titled
White Collar: The American Middle
Classes (1951) & The Power Elite
(1956)
Men and women often feel their private
lives are a series of traps
...and in this feeling, they often are quite correct
Underlying this sense of being trapped
are seemingly impersonal changes in the very structure of
continent-wide societies
People do not usually define
the troubles they endure in terms of historical
change and institutional contradiction
The well-being they enjoy
they do not usually associate to the big ups and
downs of the societies in which they live
The history that now affects every person
is world history
The very shaping of history now outpaces
the ability of men
to orient themselves in accordance with cherished
values
People often sense
that older ways of feeling and thinking have collapsed
and that newer beginnings are ambiguous to the point of
moral stasis
Is it any wonder
that ordinary people feel they cannot cope with
the larger worlds with which they are so suddenly
confronted?
It is not only information that people need
in this Age of Fact; information often dominates
their attention and overwhelms their capacities to
assimilate it
It is not only the skills of reason that they
need
although their struggles to acquire these often
exhaust their limited moral energy
What they need,
is a quality of mind that will help them to use information
and to develop reason
to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the
world
and of what may be happening within themselves
This is what is called the sociological
imagination
The sociological imagination
enables its possessor to understand the larger historical
scene
in terms of its meaning for the inner life
and the external career of a variety of individuals
It enables people to take into account
how individuals
often become falsely conscious of their social positions
The first fruit of this imagination
-and the first lesson of the social science that embodies itis the idea that individuals can understand their own
experience and gauge their own fate
only by becoming aware of other individuals in their same
circumstances
In many ways it is a terrible lesson; in
many ways a magnificent one
The sociological imagination
enables us to grasp history and biography and the
relations between the two within society.
That is its task and its promise
According to Mills, what is the PROMISE of
sociology?
The task of sociology is to…
• To turn indifference (apathy) and uneasiness (anxiety) into
well-being
• But, how does sociology do that?
Perhaps the most fruitful distinction with
which the sociological imagination works
is between "the personal troubles of milieu" and "the public
issues of social structure."
This distinction is an essential tool of the
sociological imagination
and a feature of all classic work in social science
C Wright Mills: Sociological Imagination
• A quality of mind that allows us to connect:
“Personal troubles of the milieux”
(biography)
with
“Public issues of social structure”
(history)
• Examining these relationships gives us the
knowledge to understand society, our place in it, and
the ability to make changes
Troubles
occur within the character of the individual and within the
range of his immediate relations with others
they have to do with his self and with those limited areas of
social life of which he is directly and personally aware
Issues
have to do with matters that transcend these local
environments of the individual and the range of his inner
life.
They have to do with the organization of many such milieu
into the institutions of an historical society as a whole
Examples – Troubles vs. Issues
Unemployment
War
Marriage
Metropolis
That, in brief, is why it is
by means of the sociological imagination
that men now hope to grasp what is going on in
the world,
and to understand what is happening in
themselves as minute points of the intersections
of biography and history within society
HIV/AIDS Globally
Understanding
and
Explaining
HIV/AIDS
• Cultural Explanations
• Virility is strongly linked to masculinity in many cultures affected by
HIV/AIDS
• Low status of women
• Social Structure Explanations
• Global poverty and inequality create low immune systems
• Underdevelopment limits economic opportunities
• Political Explanations
• Lack of adequate health care and access to treatment
• Political policies that do not address the issue
• Individual Explanations
• Lack of education and poor choices
Discussion Questions
• What does it mean to think sociologically?
• People in America do not tend to think sociologically.
What about in China?
• What are some examples of troubles? Can these be
issues?
• What are some examples of issues? Can these be
troubles?
Social Problems…
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Abortion
Affirmative Action
Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)
Ageism / Age Discrimination
Airport Screening Procedures
Airport Security
Alcoholism
Animal Rights
Anorexia Nervosa
Anti-Muslim Discrimination
Binge Drinking
Birth Control
Bulimia Nervosa
Bullying
Campus Crime
Capital Punishment / Death Penalty
Chemical Weapons
Child Abuse
Child Labor
Classism
Climate Change
Cloning
Colorisim
Cloud Hacking
Computer Hacking
Corporal Punishment
Corporate Downsizing
Cyber Bullying (Cyberbullying)
Date Rape
Disaster Relief
Domestic Violence
Dream Act
Drinking and Driving
Driving While Black
Drug Abuse / Drug Addiction
Eating Disorders
Ebola Virus Disease
Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Environmental Pollution
Environmental Racism
Equal Pay
Euthanasia / Mercy Killing / Assisted Suicide
Excessive Force By Law Enforcement
Felony Disenfranchisement
Gang Violence
Gay Rights
Genetic Engineering
Genetically Modified Food
Gentrification
Global Warming
Gun Control
Gun Rights
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Hate Crimes
Hazing
Health Care Disparities
Health Care Reform
HIV / AIDS
Home Forclosures
Homelessness
Honor Killings
Human Trafficking
Hunger
Identify Theft
Illegal Immigration
Legalization of Marijuana
Legalization of Prostitution
Mall Shootings
Mass Murder
Meth Labs (Methamphetamine Laboratories)
Militarization of Police
Minimum Wage
NRA
National Rifle Association
Obamacare (Affordable Care Act)
Obesity
Organ and Body Donation
Outsourcing Jobs
Pedophilia
Photobombs
Police Brutality
Police Militarization
Pollution
Pornography
Poverty
Prayer in Schools
Racial Disparities in Health Care
Racial Disparities in Sentencing
Racial Profiling
Racism
Rape
Retail Profiling
Recycling and Conservation
Right to Work
Same-Sex Marriage
Sex Trade
Sexism
Sexual Harassment
Sexting
Shopping While Black
Single Parenting
Sleeper Cells
Smoking / Tobacco Use
Social Networking and Privacy
Spousal Abuse
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Stand Your Ground Laws
Steroid Use in Sports
Stereotyping
Suicide
Sweat Shops
Teen Pregnancy
Terrorism
Texting While Driving
Texting While Walking
Unemployment
Union Busting
Vigilantism
Violence in Schools
Violence in Music Videos
Violence in Video Games
Voter Disenfranchisement
Voting Rights Restrictions
Workplace Violence