Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The l10 to 11 year old little boy who walked who walked out of the French woods naked, unable to speak, and

filthy was known as ―the wild boy of Aveyron‖

A role is the behavior expected of a person occupying a particular position in society.

The formation of a sense of self continues in adolescence, a particularly turbulent period of rapid self-

development.

The crystallization of self identity during adolescence is just one episode in a lifelong process of socialization.

Agents of socialization: Families, schools, peer groups, and mass media.

Biology sets the broad limits of human potential.

Socialization determines the extent to which human potential is realized.

Socialization begins soon after birth.

The self consists of your ideas and attitudes about who you are.

Look glass self: The I ,according to mead, is the subjective and impulsive aspect of the self that is present from

birth.

The ME , according the Mead, is the objective component of the self that emerges as people communicate

symbolically and learn to take the role of the other.

Through socialization, the self develops

Cooleys ―looking glass self‖ is composed of our reactions to how we imagine others view us.

For mead, the self develops through a broadening ability to emphasize with significant and generalized others.

Socialization often produces important gender and cultural difference.

Social environment is composed of the real or imagined others to whom individuals must adapt to satisfy their

own needs and interests

Adaption is the process of changing one‘s action to maximize the degree to which an environment satisfies

one‘s needs and interests

Socialization is an evolutionary process through which groups shape the character and conduct of individuals.

Primary socialization is the process of acquiring the basic skills needed to function in society during childhood.

Family is the most important agent of primary socialization, the process of mastering the basic skills required to

function in society during childhood.

The idea of hidden curriculum was first proposed by conflict theorists who see an ongoing struggle between

privileged and disadvantaged groups, whenever they probe beneath the surface of social life.

Early in the twentieth century, symbolic integrationists proposed the Thomas theorem, which hold that situation

we define as real become real in their consequence.

Peer groups are agents of socialization whose importance grew in the twentieth century. Peer groups consists of

individuals who are not necessarily friends but who are about the same age and of similar status.

Gender roles are widely shared expectations about how males and females are supposed to act.

Socialization take place when powerful socializing agents deliberately cause rapid change in peoples values,

roles, and shield conception, sometime against their will. You can see it in ceremonies that are stage, i.e frats,

sorority‘s etc…

Initiation rite, signifies the transition of the individual from one group to another and ensures his or her loyalty

to the new group.

The Stanford prison experiment suggests that your sense of self and the roles you play are not as fixed as you

may think.

Total institutions provide comprehensive conditions for socialization

The mass media often promote and reinforce stereotypical gender roles.

Globalization, various medical advances, and the pervasiveness of the internet encourage the development of

more fluid, flexible selves.

Prolonged childhood was necessary in societies that required better educated adults to do increasingly complex

work, because childhood gave young people a chance to prepare for adult life.

Childhood adolescence became universal categories of social though and experience in the 20th

century.

Les structured social environments provide more free to children and adolescents and, in doing so, make

socialization outcomes less predicable.

In highly developed societies, the transition period between childhood and adult hood has increased by about 15

years since 1600.

Ch. 16 pp. 410-417.

Religious impulse takes literally thousands of forms.

70% of teenagers agree with the statement ―god or a higher power care about you‖

The collective consciousness comprises the common sentiments and values that people share as a result of

living together.

Thw profane refers to the secular, everyday world.

The sacred refers to the religious, transcendent world.

Totems are objects that symbolize the sacred.

Rituals in Durhiem‘s usage are public practices designed to connect people to the sacred.

Durkhiem‘s theory of religion is a functionalist account. It offers useful insights into the role of religion in

society.

It was Marx who first stressed how religion often tranquilizers the underprivileged into accepting their lot in

life. He called religion ―the opium of the people‖

The routinization of charisma is Webers term for the transformation of divine enlightenment into a permanent

feature of everyday life.

After becoming routinized, religion has often supported gender inequality, it has also often supported class

inequality.

A famous example of such protest involves the role of black churches in spearheading the American civil rights

movement during the 60‘s & 50‘s

Religion promotes conflict and change, and can maintain social order under some circumstances.

A church is any bureaucratic religious organization that has accommodated itself to main society and culture.

Subsequent research showed that the correlation between the Protestant ethic and the strength of capitalist

development is weaker that Weber though.

Marx & other conflict theorists have argued that religion usually reinforces social inequality, although it

sometime incites social conflict.

Feminists emphasize the traditionally patriarchal nature of the major world religions in bot doctrinal matters and

leadership roles.

Black Board Readings

Undergraduate recognition of celebrities: Screen presence and the iconic-discontinuity hypothesis

celebrity recognition depends on the extent to which their representations circulate across the screen locations

that attract specific audiences.

Supernovas, the largest stars, burn brightly and quickly fade away (in astronomical time). Present-day celebrity

supernovas are composed of the leading stars from the world of entertainment, to a somewhat lesser extent

athletes, and some but fewer politicians.

The symbiotic maturing and overlapping of digital technologies renders core celebrities so prominent and

omnivorous that they have acquired the status of hyper-realities, or what we termed supernovas.

They tend to evolve what might be termed ―cultural commons,‖ shared screen locations that are not quite

obligatory but strongly recommended as a means of facilitating and displaying group identification and

membership.

Gauguin is probably what we have called a ―Bohr step‖ below Van Gogh in terms of achievement. He is a

gigantic step below in terms of recognition—a colourful star in the world of painting with little visibility outside

that world.

Ignorance as an under-identified social problem

this paradox in terms of entry and speech barriers suggests that pockets of observed public knowledge

rather than ignorance are exceptional and require specific explanation.

importance of future research on the cultural and institutional production of ignorance.

The advent of Sputnik – it was the first satellite launched by the Soviets in 1957 – affords a reasonable

starting point for the information revolution.

Conceptually, ignorance has a range of meanings. At one extreme there is ignorance that exists beyond

the boundaries of knowledge, such as scientific ignorance about new or unknown phenomena, ranging

from the aspects of the brain through black holes and even gravity.

accounts of the knowledge society focus on the ideal of the ‗well-informed citizen‘ and the attendant

claim that knowledge should reach into ‗the objects and habits of everyday life

accounts of the knowledge society focus on the ideal of the ‗well-informed citizen‘ and the attendant

claim that knowledge should reach into ‗the objects and habits of everyday life

The next section highlights particular examples of functional knowledge deficits, predominantly

among members of the public but also in some instances among experts.

The next section highlights particular examples of functional knowledge deficits, predominantly

among members of the public but also in some instances among experts.

The next section highlights particular examples of functional knowledge deficits, predominantly

among members of the public but also in some instances among experts.

Whether the knowledge demands of specific occupational roles are onerous or not, increases in the

volume and complexity of information have escalated the entry costs to virtually every other

knowledge domain.

Whether the knowledge demands of specific occupational roles are onerous or not, increases in the

volume and complexity of information have escalated the entry costs to virtually every other

knowledge domain.

The upshot is to erect speech barriers as more and more subjects become too specialized, complex,

intimidating and unappealing for ordinary discourse.

Having outlined the nature and scope of ignorance and traced its currentmanifestation in the

knowledge society back to the explosions of specialized knowledges and the KIP, we now examine its

standing as a social problem

heorists of the information age typically align the knowledge economy and society.

Experts‘ time is valuable and it requires a degree of expertise to probe their knowledge; students are

young and often captive audiences and it requires less insider information to query them.

For social constructionists, the standing of a social problem is directly related to the quantity and

quality of the claims making it attracts.

Such asymmetric knowledge not only preserves the power of professionals, but also provides a signal

advantage in concealing what they don‘t know, both as individuals who can fall behind and as groups

seeking to maintain the proclaimed validity of their specialized knowledges

Perhaps certain sociological concepts ought to come with warning labels. The idea of a knowledge

society is so firmly entrenched that it is practically futile to try to dislodge it.

from the KIP, there appears to have been a cultural leveling process that fosters an egalitarian, anti-elitist

conversational etho

Chapter 5

Social interaction involves communication amng people acting & reacting to one another, either face

to face, or via computer.

A role is a set of expected behaviors.

A norm is a generally accepted way of doing things

Arlie Russell Hochschild is a leading figure in the study of emotion management.

Emotion Labor: Is emotion management that many people do as apart of their job and for which they

are paid.

Emotions in Historical Perspective

Greif, among other factors, the crude death rate helps determine our experience with grief.

Anger, Industrialization and the growth of competiveness markets in nineteenth-century North

America and Europe turned the family into an emotional haven from a world increasingly perceived as

heartless.

Disgust. Manners in Europe in the middle Ages were disgusting by our standards. Even the most

refined aristocrats spat in public and belches shamelessly during banquets.

Conflict Theory of Interaction

The idea that social interaction involves trade in attention and other valued resources is the central

insight of exchange theory.

Rational choice theory focuses less on the resources exchanged then on the way inter-acting people

weigh benefits and costs of interaction.

Power is the capacity to carry out one‘s own will despite resistance.

Significantly, the mode of interaction is an organization strongly influences its efficiency or

productivity, that is, it ability to achieve it goals at the least possible cost.

Domination, Cooperation, Competition definition PG 118 In text book.

Symbolic Interaction

George Herbet mead called ―taking the role of the other,‖ that is seeing yourself from the POV of the

people with whom you interact.

During such symbolic interaction, we learn norms and adopt roles and statuses.

Goffman’s Dramaturgical Analysis

One of the most popular variants of symbolic interactionism is dramaturgical analysis

Sociological COMPASS , dramaturgical analysis takes literally Shakespere‘s line from As you like it.

Role distancing involves giving the impression of just ―going through the options, but lacking serious

commitment to a role.

The stability of social life depends on our adherence to norms, roles, and statues.

Ethnomethodology is the study of how people make sense of what others do and say by adhering to preexisting

norms.

Chapter 18

The term mass media refers to print, radio, television and other communication technologies

We spend close to 40 percent of our time interacting with the mass media, more than we do sleeping, working,

or going to school.

The worlds mass implies that the media reach many people.

Cause of Media Growth

The rise of the mass media can be explained by 3 main factors: 1 religious, 1 political, and 1 economic. Pg 459

1. The protestant reformation

2. Democratic movements

3. Capitalist industrialization

Functionalism

George Hegel once said that the daily ritual of reading the newspaper unities the secular world, just as the ritual

of daily prayer once untied the Christian world.

The mass media perform an important function by coordinating the operation of industrial and postindustrial

societies.

A third function of the mass media involves social control; the mass media help ensure conformity.

Conflict Theory

Conflict theorists maintain that there are two ways in which dominant classes and political groups benefit

disproportionality from the mass media.

First mass media create acceptance by broadcasting beliefs, values, and ideas.

Second, ownership of mass media is concentrated to the people who profit from them.

Interpretive Approaches

The signal contribution of symbolic interactionist & related approaches is that they highlight the importance of

such interpretive acts.

Link between persuasive media messages and actual behavior in indirect and a 2 step flow on communication

takes place. High status evaluate messages.

Their high status, they exercise considerable independence of judgment and opinion leaders filter media

messages.

Halls view any adequate analysis and we need to study the meanings intended by the producers. Then we need

to study how audiences consume or evaluate media products.

Feminist Products

Newsworthy issues were associated with men, and men were much more likely than woman were to be used as

news sources and to deliver the news.

Press and Cole found complex, ambivalent and sometimes contradictory attitudes toward abortion among

audience members.

a. Prolife woman from all social classes formed the most homogenous group.

b. Pro-choice working class woman who thought of themselves as members of the working class adopt a

prochoice stand as a survival strategy, not a principle.

c. Pro-choice working class woman who aspired to middle-class status distanced themselves from the

―reckless‖ members of their own class who sought abortions on the TV shows.

d. Pro-choice middle-class woman believe that only an individual woman‘s feelings determine whether

abortion is right or wrong.

Research also suggest that audiences & artists are hardly passive vehicles of these stereotypes, instead

struggling to diversify the way the mass media characterized them.

Access

Globally, the rate of internet connectivity is much higher in rich countries then in poor countries.

Content

American domination of the web is an example of media imperialism.

Media Imperialism is the control of a mass medium by a single nation culture and the undermining of other

national cultures.

Media coverage is also the blending of the world wide web, television, telephone, and other communications

media into new hybrid media forms.

Television access and cellphone expansion are recent illustrations of media convergence.

The big media conglomerates can never fully dominate the internet because this is the first mass medium that

makes it relatively easy for consumers to become producers.

Cultures, including that of the USA are becoming less homogenous and more fragmented as they borrow

elements from one another.

While the average income of Canadians has grown in the last half century, extensive income inequality endures.

Differences in human, social, and cultural capital contribute to existing inequalities.

Levels of poverty are better explained by structural factors than by individual factors.

Marx‘s theory of stratification distinguishes the class that owns the means of production (the bourgeoisie) from

the class that works the means of production (the proletariat). According to Marx, class conflict eventually

produces a communist system.

In Webbers view, stratification is organized around classes, status groups, and parties. Different combinations

of rankings on these dimensions produce varied scarification outcomes.

Functionalist regard unequal rewards was necessary insofar as they motivate people to make sacrifices and

obtain cr4edentials required by more valuable and high paying jobs.

The exercise of power-the imposition of an individuals or groups will on other-does not always require force

and is often invisible. Legitimate power or authority, evokes compliance without force because people view it

as valid.

Socioeconomic status (SES) is a conventional measure of social ranking based on combination of information

about income, education, and occupational prestige.

Social ranking change both within and between generations, but less upward mobility takes place than is

commonly believed.

Canadians are aware that considerable social inequality exists and they are dissatisfied with it. However, most

Canadians do not favor more government intervention to curb it.

The difference between wealth and income and how it distributed in Canada is that wealth is assets minus

liabilities, meaning income is the amount of money earned in a given period. Inequality of wealth of wealth is

greater in Canada, however it is less unequal then USA, but still more unequal then most western European

countries.

Marx theory of stratification distinguishes classes on the basis of their role in the productive process. It predicts

conflict between bourgeoisie and proletariat the birth of the communist system. Webers distinguished between

classes. He argued that class consciousness may develop under circumstances but is by no means inevitable.

The functional theory of stratification argues that

1) Some jobs are more important then others

2)People have to make sacrifices to train for important jobs

3) inequality is required to motivate people to undergo these sacrifice‘s.

**In this case, stratification is functional**

Canadians believe inequality persists because it serves the interests of most advantaged members of society.

Key Terms

Class Consciousness: Being aware of membership in a class.

Bourgeoisie: In Marx‘s usage is the owners of the means of production, including factories, tools, and land.

Feudalism: Was a legal arrangements in preindustrial Europe that bound peasants to the land and obliged them

to give their land lords a set part of harvest.

Proletariat: In Marx‘s usage is the working class.

Social Stratification: Refers to the way in which society is organized in layers or strata.

Socioeconomic Status (SES): Combines income, education, and occupational prestige data in a single index of

a persons position in the socioeconomic hierarchy.

Status groups: Differ from one another in terns of the prestige or social honor they enjoy and also in terms of

their style of life.

Chapter 14

4 Pluralists hold that democratic politics is about compromise and the accommodation of all group interests.

Elite theorists argue that, despite accommodation and compromise, power is concentrated in the hands of high-

status groups, whose interests the political system serves best.

Marxists claim that elites form a ruling class led by large corporate share holders.

Marxists claim that elites form a ruling class led by large corporate shareholders.

Power resource theorists contend that, despite the concentration of power in society, substantial shifts in the

distribution of power do occur, and they have big effects on voting patterns and public policies in the long term.

State-centered theorists posit that state structures also exert an important effect on politics.

The level of democracy in society depends on its dependence.

Key terms

Pluralist Theory: Holds that power is widely dispersed, as a result no group is disproportionate.

Elite Theory: Holds that small groups occupying the command posts of the most influential institutions make

important decisions that effect all members of society.

Power Resource Theory: Holds that distribution of power among major classes partly accounts for the

successes and failures of different political parties over the long term.

State-Centered Theory: Holds that the state itself can structure political life, to some degree, independently of

the way power is distributed between classes and other groups at a given time.

Chapter 17

Schools perform two main functions: they homogenize young people by socializing them into a shared culture

and they sort young people into different levels of certification and, ultimately, different social classes.

Educational achievement and educational attainment are rising in Canada.

Education is associated with better employment opportunities and earning prospects.

The rise of mass school was promoted by the printing press, Protestantism, democracy, and industrialism.

Education is both a cause and effect of national wealth.

Education performs latent functions, including the creation of a separate youth culture and a marriage market.

Them manifest functions of mass education include promoting cultural uniformity and national solidarity.

Common school standards also prepare students for participation in an industrial economy.

Families with few financial resources experiences restricted access to higher education.

Through credentialism and professionalism, education acts as a mechanism of social exclusion.

Limited cultural capital restricts higher educational achievement.

The hidden curriculum operates to restrict the educational success of less advantaged students.

The cultural bias in IQ testing and associated tracking disadvantage underprivileged students.

Self-fulfilling prophecies contribute to academic success and failure.

Women perform better than men do in higher education , even though they are underrepresented in high paying

professions.

Limited Aboriginal education achievement continues to contribute significantly to social inequality in Canada.

Canada is among the top performers in international achievement assessments.

Key Terms

Credential Inflation: Occurs when it takes ever more certificates or degrees to qualify for a particular job.

Cultural Capital: Is the stock of learning and skills that increases the chance of securing a superior job.

Hidden Curriculum: In school teaches obedience to authority and conformity.

Meritocracy: Is a social hierarchy in which rank corresponds to individual capacities fairly tested against a

common standard.

Social Exclusion: Is achieved by creating barriers that restrict certain opportunities or positions to members of

one group.

Pedagogic Violence: Is Bourdieu‘s term for the application by teachers of punishments intended to discourage

deviation from the dominant culture.