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Every time you turn on a cell phone to make or receive a call, send a text, or surf the Internet, youare connecting with a nearby relay tower and leaving an electronic fingerprint that tells the phone

company where you are, what time it is, and to whom (or what) you are connecting. Social scientistsmined this data to study the daily movements of 50,000 people for three months. (Out of privacy

concerns, the data had been stripped of information that could tie it to specific individuals.)

The result? We are all, it seems, creatures of habit, much more predictable and much less

spontaneous than we might like to think. The researchers found that if you know where people have

beenwhatever their age, sex, or native language and whether they live in a city or in the country

you can accurately predict where they will be, on average, 93 percent of the time. We typically sleep

at home (which, for students, might be a dorm room or an apartment), follow a routine in getting

ready for and travelling to school or work, drop by the same coffee shop on the way, and spend the

day at work or in classes. Spontaneous individuals, one of the researchers concluded, are largely

absent from the population (Barabsi 2010).

Foursquarea social networking site that provides a form of location-based advertisingwas one

of the first companies to exploit the commercial potential of data like these to market to consumers.

But the science behind predicting peoples movements may also serve such useful public purposes as

predicting the spread of disease, designing effi cient public transportation systems, and planning for

the effi cient use of energy.

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Do you live in a prosperous, peaceful society with democraticfreedoms or in one where survival is a challenge, violence is aconstant threat, and peoples basic civil rights are suppressed?Is your mother or father a retail clerk, an auto worker, a schoolteacher, an engineer, in the military, a business executive, orunemployed? Are you African American, Hispanic, Asian,White? Are you male, female, or transgendered? Are you gay

or straight? Are you from a rural community, the suburbs, ora major city? Were you raised as a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim,a Hindu, or a nonbeliever? Although we often like to think ofourselves as rugged individuals responsible for our own lives,characteristics and circumstances like these inuence who weare and the options we have. And as Mills (1959) points out, associal conditions change, so do the lives of individuals:

When a society is industrialized, a peasant becomes a worker;a feudal lord is liquidated or becomes a businessman. When

classes rise or fall a man is employed or unemployed; when therate of investment goes up or down, a man takes new heartor goes broke. When wars happen, an insurance salesman be-comes a rocket launcher; a store clerk, a radar man; a wife livesalone; a child grows up without a father. Neither the life of anindividual nor the history of a society can be understood with-out understanding both. (p. 3)

We need only consider the economic downturn of recentyears, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the rapid growth of

technology, and accompanying social developments to see thatMillss observations are as relevant today as they were morethan half a century ago.

In revealing the inherent regularity of human behavior(Song et al. 2010, 1021), the results of the cell phone track-ing study also conrm a central insight of sociology: we liveour lives embedded in social structures that we may not be

aware of, but that shape our daily activities.Te predictability of our daily routines is a simple reminder

that patterns of behavior characterize human life more broadly.As people interact with one another, they develop routines that,taken together, create and maintain society. We go to school,go to work, go shopping, date, raise children, vote. Tesepredictable actions maintain the social institutionsfamily,schools, economy, governmentthat, in turn, shape our lives.

But humans also have the capacity to change their behaviorand, in so doing, to change society. How we create our social

world; how we maintain some semblance of social order amid

constant change; how the culture, structure, and relations ofpower that characterize our world help shape our lives; howsome people break out of predictable routines to help changethe worldthese are some of the topics explored in sociology.

Tis chapter introduces you to sociology, its unique per-spective, and its early development as a discipline. It exam-ines some of sociologys diverse theories and the core conceptsthat unite the eld, along with a number of key concerns ofsociologyindeed, of all of ustoday. We will see how sociol-ogy offers us insight into the forces that are shaping our lives

and, at the same time, how it helps us to recognize our owncapacity to bring about change.

What Is Sociology?Sociology is the systematic study of the relationship between in-dividuals and society. Te approach used in sociology can bethought of as a perspective, a way of looking at the world. o

take a sociological perspectiveis to see and understand the con-nections between individuals and the broader social contexts inwhich they live. You can understand your own lifeincludingthe forces that have shaped your current daily routines andthe options you have in your futureonly by considering thebroader social contexts within which you live. Your identity (in-cluding your race, ethnicity, class, gender, and nationality) as

well as the social environment in which you live (including yourfamily, neighborhood, country, culture, and historical period)

inuence who you are and who you can be. Understandingthose connections is at the heart of a sociological perspective.

T h e S o c i o l o g i c a l P e r s p e c t i v e

American sociologist C. Wright Mills, writing in 1959, pro-vided probably the best-known description of the sociologicalperspective (or, as he called it, the sociological imagination).

According to Mills, Te sociological imagination enables usto grasp history and biography and the relations between the

two within a society (p. 6). In other words, our individualcondition (what Mills calls biography) depends, in part,upon larger forces in society (history).

A motorcycle-riding Texan, C. Wright Mills, wrote a classic

description of the sociological perspective and a series of books

focused on social class and power in the United States (1948, 1952,

1956). He taught at Columbia University from 1946 until 1962, when

he died of a heart attack at age forty-five. Millss critique of the

concentration of power in the United States inspired a generation of

activists in the 1960s to promote a more inclusive and democratic

society, themes that continue to resonate today.

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the option of attending college but chose not to exercise it.Many more people, of course, never had the option of attend-ing college in the rst place; they were dealt a very differenthand in life.

Te idea that people must play the cards they are dealt inlife is consistent with a sociological perspective. But the prob-

lem with relying on common-sense folk wisdom to understandthe world is that, however insightful it may sometimes be, itcan produce a bewildering array of contradictory claims. Temaxim about playing the cards you are dealt in life would seemto contradict another popular saying, Life is what you makeof it, which suggests that individuals have total control overtheir fate. Or perhaps you agree with the maxim, Te appledoesnt fall far from the tree, suggesting that our social ori-gins largely predetermine our character. Without some way of

gauging their accuracy, such wildly contradictory claims pro-vide no insight at all.In addition, an understanding of the world based only on

our own individual experience may not be helpful in unfamil-iar circumstances. Tis is especially true in a world in whichcommunications, media, immigration, and international travelare bringing together people of vastly different backgrounds asnever before. o operate in such a diverse society we need tounderstand not only how wemake sense of the world, but howother people do so as well.

If we are to understand our connection to the social worldbeyond our own limited experience and be able to sort throughcompeting claims about that world, we need a more systematic

way to investigate the patterns of behavior and the processesthat make up social life. We need the discipline of sociology.

S o c i o l o g y a s a D i s c i p l i n e

Sociologists combine the sociological perspective with a varietyof research methods (discussed in Chapter 2) to study in a sys-

tematic way how our actions shape, and are shaped by, broadersocial forces. Because the sociological perspective can apply toany aspect of peoples lives and any social issue, the disciplineof sociology addresses an especially broad array of topics, as we

will see throughout this book.Sociology is one of the social sciences,a group of research-

based disciplines that gather and evaluate evidence in orderto study human society. Tis focus on human society distin-guishes the social sciences from the natural sciences, which fo-

cus on the physical aspects of nature. In addition to sociology,the social sciences include political science, economics, psy-chology, and anthropology. Each of these disciplines highlightsdifferent aspects of social life.

ake crime, for example. Political scientistsmight study howpoliticians use the issue of crime in their campaigns. Econo-mistsmight examine the nancial impact of crime on society.Psychologistsmight look at the individual features of criminals,perhaps suggesting personality traits associated with certaintypes of criminal behavior.Anthropologistsmight compare how

different societies dene crime and respond to it. Sociologistsemphasize the interrelationship between individuals and largersocial forces, as well as the interactions between various so-cial institutions such as government, economy, media, schools,

However, Mills and other sociologists do not argue that peo-ple are simply the passive objects of their social circumstances.Rather, as the sociological perspective reveals, interplay existsbetween the social conditions that shape our lives and the ac-tions we take as individuals. We dont get to choose the condi-tions under which we live, the opportunities we enjoy, or thebarriers we face, but we do have choices about how we respondto those circumstances, both individually and collectively. De-ciding to join the military, have children, attend college, ormove to another city are among the many individual decisions

a person can make that have a major impact on his or her fu-ture. Mills himself was a strong advocate for collective actionto strengthen democracy and help to change the diffi cult andoften unequal conditions that face people in society. Tat idea,too, is as relevant today as ever.

S o c i o l o g y a n d C o m m o n S e n s e

You do not have to be a professional sociologist to look at the

world from a sociological perspective. Indeed, many popularexpressions reect a kind of common-sense folk wisdom thatassumes a sociological perspective. You have probably heardsome version of the expression, Youve got to play the cardsyoure dealt in life. Te card game metaphor makes the pointthat from the beginning, our options in life have been shapedby social conditions that we did not get to pick ourselves.Such factors can heavily inuence the opportunity peoplehave for good health, education, material comfort, and overall

well-being.

You dont get to choose the cards you are dealt, but you doget to decide how you will play them. For example, you nodoubt decided to go to college with the hope that doing socould positively inuence your future. Others may have had

Personal choicesespecially deciding to volunteer for thearmed forcescontributed to this Iraq war veterans current situa-

tion. But those decisions were made in the context of broader social

conditions, including economic pressures to earn a living, a culture

of popular patriotism, key decisions made by those with political

power, and events that transformed international relations. The

connections between individual lives and larger social processes are

rarely so explicit or so poignant.

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Sociology s Historicaland Social Context

Imagine a society in which scientic discoveries reveal moreand more about the world, political unrest sparks calls for socialchange, and economic crises and new technologies transformdaily life. You might suspect this was a description of todaysUnited States, but similar upheavals disturbed Europe in the1800s, which is where and when the formal discipline of sociol-ogy rst emerged. o better understand the origins of the dis-cipline, we need to consider that historical and social context.

T h e R i s e o f M o d e r n i t y

In the 1700s, European society entered a new historical era,modernity, characterized by the growth of democracy and per-sonal freedom, increased reliance on reason and science to explain

and family. Tey explore why crime rates vary over time andare often linked to social trends such as changes in the ageof the population (since younger people commit crimes at ahigher rate than older ones). Tey examine the role of media inhelping to shape peoples perception of crime and the criminal

justice system through both news coverage and enterta inment

dramas. Tey examine the effectiveness of government effortsto reduce crime. Such topics illustrate the broad range of socio-logical research.

Sociologists have many interests, and the discipline asa whole has many areas of specialization, including medicalsociology, sociology of the family, sociology of religion, politi-cal sociology, the sociology of race and ethnicity, the sociol-ogy of work, the sociology of gender, the sociology of media,and the sociology of social movements. As a result, sociologycourses can provide a foundation for further study in any of

these elds. As the Sociology Works box on page 8 suggests,the study of sociology can also provide valuable skills for manycareers, including some that may seem completely unrelated tosociology itself.

These childrens life chancestheir opportunities for good health, education,

material comfort, and overall well beingare significantly influenced by the social en-

vironment into which they were born. What differences are evident from these photo-

graphs? What elements of your social environment influenced your development?

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People, culture, social problems, social changethese are allfascinating topics to study and help explain why studentsoften enjoy sociology. However, practical concerns aboutyour future might lead you to ask, What can I dowith a

degree in sociology?The answer is, Plenty. By majoring in sociology you not only

learn to better understand yourself and your world, but you alsodevelop important skills that can prepare you for entry-level

positions in a variety of employment settings, including business,education, social services, health care, government, and criminaljustice. Sociology can also be an excellent choice for studentswho plan to go on to graduate school. Majoringin sociology allows you to study a subjectarea that interests you andhelps youprepare for your future.

Here are the four key advantages ofmajoring in sociology:

. A sociology degree is flexible.Becausesociology can be applied to virtuallyany aspect of social life, you can majorin sociology with an eye toward yourown particular interests. For example, if you are interestedin health and medicine, you can take a course in medicalsociology; if you are interested in social work, you can takecourses related to the social problems you wish to addressor the populations you wish to serve. Sociology can help youunderstand the issues related to your field of interest.

. Sociology focuses on the critical use of information.As part ofa liberal arts education, a sociology degree prepares you to

find, understand, analyze, use, and communicate information.These fundamental critical-thinking skills apply to an array ofwork settings and will not become obsolete; they are highlyvaluable in todays rapidly changing, information-based jobmarket. Since most people change jobsand even careersduring their lives, mastering such information-based skills iscrucial for success. The ability to work with social science data

found in government reports, marketing surveys, and otherinformation sources is particularly important.

. Sociology provides insights into diversity.In our increasingly diversesociety, success in many fields of employment requires anunderstanding of people from different backgrounds. Sociologymajors have an advantage in understanding diversity. As aresult, they are more likely to work effectively in multiculturalworkplaces such as schools, hospitals, and businesses as well

as in any field in which clients, customers, patients, citizens, orstudents may be from diverse social backgrounds.. Sociology helps you understand the source of social problems.

Are you interested in a field that addresses socialproblems, such as social work, criminal justice,

or health care? Do you plan to work withcommunity organizations, international aidagencies, or social movements to bring aboutsocial change? If so, studying sociology canbe particularly relevant. By focusing on therelationship between individuals and their

broader social context, sociology helps you tobetter understand the roots of social problems.

To help you consider how studying sociology could benefit you,we have included a variety of Sociology Works boxes throughoutthis book that highlight how former sociology students are usingthe insights of sociology in a variety of fields. If you are consideringmajoring in sociology, be sure to talk with your instructor, who willbe able to tell you about the programs available at your school.

think about it. Do you have any tentative ideas about the kind of work youd like

to do when you complete school? What kinds of classes do youthink will help you prepare for the future? Why?

. Take a look at your schools course listings. Do you see anysociology courses that you think you may want to take? Whatinterests you about the topics covered in these courses?

The Sociology Major and the Job Market

Many people who have received degrees in sociology, including some who are well known, have made significant contributions to their professional fields.

Majoring in

sociology allows you to

study a subject area that

interests you and helps you

prepare for your future.

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ment, an eighteenth-century intellectual movement that com-bined a belief in individual freedom and respect for individualrights with the calculated logic of the natural sciences. TeseEnlightenment thinkers, who were among the rst intellectualsindependent of the Church, argued that neither the physical northe social world should be taken on faith. Instead, both shouldbe examined through reason; claims to knowledge should besubject to testing through the collection of evidence, and expla-nations should be based in natural causes and events. Germanphilosopher Immanuel Kant summed up this revolutionary wayof thinking in the motto Dare to know (1784/1999).

P o l i t i c a l R e v o l u t i o n :T h e R i s e o f D e m o c r a c y

Enlightenment thinkers believed that the open debate of ideaswould promote tolerance, individual rights, equality, and de-mocracy. Tey suggested that applying reason and science toquestions of social signicance would inevitably advance in-

dividual rights and freedom. Enlightenment ideas providedthe intellectual basis for both the American (17751783)and French (17891799) revolutions, as well as for a series ofuprisings that swept through Europe in 1848, challenging tra-ditional rulers and promoting democratic ideals. Tese revo-lutions stimulated much interest in achieving a more equalsociety and improved living conditions, but they provokedcondemnation from conservatives who saw them as a threatto stability, traditional values, and social order. Tus contro-

versies about the nature and desirability of social order versussocial change were among the rst topics addressed by earlysociologists.

E c o n o m i c a n d S o c i a lR e v o l u t i o n : I n d u s t r i a lC a p i t a l i s m a n d U r b a n i z a t i o n

Te term Industrial Revolutionrefers to a collection of major

developments that transformed rural agricultural societies intourban industrial societies. Tis process began in Great Britainand spread through Europe and the United States in the nine-teenth century.

the natural and social worlds, and a shift toward an urban in-dustrial economy. Earlier, during the Middle Ages (roughly4001400), religious explanations of the natural and social

worlds dominated intellectual life, the land-owning aristocracyand clerical elite dominated political life, and the economyrested on a rural, agricultural base. (Our romanticized imagesof kings in castles and knights in battle come from this pe-riod.) During the transitional Renaissance and Early Modernperiods (from roughly the 1400s to the 1600s), scholars laidthe foundation of modern science with pioneering works inastronomy, anatomy, and other elds of knowledge; uprisingschallenged traditional political authority; and technologicaladvances improved agricultural production.

Te rise of modernity in the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies was marked by revolutionary cultural, political, eco-nomic, and social change (able 1.1). Te shift from a rural,agricultural economy to an urban industrial economy trans-formed Europes social order. At the same time, the new em-phasis on reason and science created the conditions needed for

the emergence of sociology. Early sociologists sought to under-stand the dramatic changes they were witnessing and to sug-gest what might be done to deal with the social problems thatresulted from them.

C u l t u r a l R e v o l u t i o n : S c i e n c ea n d t h e E n l i gh t e n m e n t

During the Middle Ages the Church and its clergy dominated

European intellectual life, controlling the eras limited num-ber of books, libraries, and schools. Because religious doctrineformed the basis for acceptable social thought, hereticsthose

who held beliefs contrary to Church teachingwere oftenpersecuted and even killed for questioning the accepted order.Tis intellectual climate was not hospitable to the open andfree inquiry required for science,which uses logic and the sys-tematic collection of evidence to support knowledge claims.

Te dominance of the Church slowly eroded, however, asscientic research exposed the shortcomings of religious expla-

nations of the natural world. For example, proof that the earthorbited the sun contradicted Church doctrine that the earth wasat the center of the universe. Writers and philosophers seized onthese advances in the natural sciences to promote the Enlighten-

TABLE . SOCIOLOGY AND REVOLUTION

S .

Cultural Revolution Political Revolution Economic and Social Revolution

The rise of scientific thought American and French revolutions Industrialization

The declining influence of religion Uprisings of 1848 Consumer society

The Age of Enlightenment Growth in democracy and individual rights Capitalism

Urbanization

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workers are paid a wage, and markets facilitate the exchange ofgoods and services.

Economic changes fueled changes in social life. An agrarianeconomy requires farmers to work and live in rural areas. Anindustrial economy requires workers to congregate near cen-

tralized sites of production. Large-scale mass manufacturingoperations were housed in factories and mills, often locatedalong riverbanks to harness water power. As the IndustrialRevolution took hold, many people left their rural homes andtraveled to newly emerging cities for jobs they hoped wouldmean a better life. Tis migration contributed to urbaniza-tion,the growth of cities.Before 1800, more than 90 percent ofEuropeans lived in rural areas; by the 1890s, more than halflived in cities.

Urban life dramatically changed how people lived. In the

agricultural economy of the Middle Ages, peasants worked theelds and lived in tiny rural villages among people mostly likethemselves. Children could expect to grow up and live in the

Te practical application of scientic developments, such asthe creation of the steam engine, paved the way for industrial-ization,the use of large-scale machinery for the mass manufactureof consumer goods. Industrialization required a major invest-ment in factories and mills with complex machinerysuch as

mechanized loomsat a cost that was often beyond the reachof a single owner. Tus industrialization became linked to therise of capitalists,people who pursued prots by investing inand owning businesses. Mass manufacturing relied on a newtype of relationship between workers and owners in which the

workers sold their labor for a wage. Tey used their wages tobuy food, clothing, and shelter, unlike rural peasants who pro-duced many of their own material goods and met their basicneeds by farming. Te result was the birth of both wage laborand consumerism,a way of life that depends on the purchase

and use of commercial goods and services. Tese developmentsfueled the rapid expansion of capitalism,an economic systemin which the machinery used for production is owned privately,

The rise of modernity introduced rapid social change. Work life shifted from the fields to factories. Home and community life was trans-formed as people moved from small rural villages to rapidly expanding urban centers. What effect do you think the shift from rural village life

based on farming to urban life based on wage labor had on family life?

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societymodeled on the natural sciencesthat would iden-tify the laws that govern human behavior.

At the core of Comtes new eld of study were twofundamental questions about social life: How and

why do societies change? (social dynamics) andWhat is the basis of social stability at a spe-

cic historical moment? (social statics). Hewas interested in how society had devel-

oped from humanitys earliest small-scalebands of hunters and gatherers to his ownnineteenth-century European society. Hetheorized that throughout history societ-ies progressed in a straight line through

several stages: the theological (ruled by re-ligion), the metaphysical (ruled by philoso-

phy), and the positivist (ruled by science). ForComte, positivism,a belief that accurate knowl-edge must be based on the scientic method, enabled a

deeper understanding of human life and was the key to solvingpersistent social problems.

Comtes efforts to build a science of society were crude bytodays standards. Few of his ideas have withstood the test oftime, but the focus of his interestthe nature of social sta-bility and social changecontinues to be a major concern insociology.

HE RBE RT SPE NC E R SOC IE TY AS A SOC IALORGANISM Te British intellectual Herbert Spencerwas another early adopter of the term sociology.aking a cuefrom the biological sciences, Spencer argued that society isa social organism, much like a human organism. He theo-rized that, like its biological equivalent, society is made upof separate parts, each with a unique function, that work to-gether to sustain the entire organism. Tus Spencers theoryemphasized the overall structure of society, the functions

served by the various elements of society, and the interactionsamong these elements. Spencer also theorized that when soci-eties evolve, their component partsand the functions theyservechange as well.

Spencer believed that society progresses as it evolves. Tere-fore, evolution should be allowed to take place without inter-ference from government. Rather than intervene with reformsin the face of the growing inequality created by unregulatedindustrial capitalism, Spencer believed in the survival of thettest, a phrase he devised before Charles Darwins work onnatural selection and the theory of evolution was published.Spencers application of the survival of the ttest to humansociety is today known as social Darwinism.Spencer later re-canted some of his more extreme views, but in recent years,those who wish to minimize the role of government in socialand economic affairs have revived some of Spencers ideas.

T h e K e y F o u n d e r s : M a r x ,D u r k h e i m , a n d W e b e r

Spencer and Comte helped to dene the terrain of sociol-ogy in its earliest years. But the thinkers who are widely seenas the founders of sociology and who set the agenda for the

village they were born in and to do the same sort of work theirparents and grandparents did. In contrast, the modern indus-trial economy required wage laborers to work the ma-chinery in the factories of rapidly expanding cities.Tese bustling cities featured considerable diver-sity and rapid social change, some of which

contributed to growing social problems.Early industrial capitalism was highly

productive, but it also created great in-equalities, generating tremendous protsfor a few wealthy owners from the labor ofmany overworked and underpaid workers.Disease (linked to poor sanitation), over-crowded and unsafe housing, inadequatetransportation, and crime plagued the rap-

idly growing cities. Excessive inequality andgrowing social problems caused great concernamong political and social thinkers, inspiring callsfor reform and igniting revolutionary movements.

Te rise of modernity produced rapid and immediately vis-ible changes that showed traditional ways of life were not inevi-table; the fate of individuals was tied to broader social changesbeyond their control; and human action could transform the

world through new ideas, political reform, and technological

innovation. Faced with the challenge of understanding thesedramatic transformations, social thinkers began applying rea-son and scientic techniques to study social life systematicallyand to suggest ways that society might be improved. Te re-sulting ideas became the foundation of sociology.

Foundations of

Sociological ThoughtSociology today has its roots in the ideas developed by earlysociologists more than a century ago. Some of these thinkersasked profound questions of enduring relevance and are still

widely read (Calhoun 2007; Ritzer 2007). Teir work on therapidly changing world of the late eighteenth and early nine-teenth centuries continues to provide insight into our own so-cial world today.

D e f i n i n g t h e T e r r a i n o fS o c i o l o g y : C o m t e a n dS p e n c e r

Auguste Comte (17981857) and Herbert Spencer (18201903) helped establish the idea that the social world could bethe subject of systematic, scientic investigation.

AUG USTE C OMTE STABILITY AND C HANG EAuguste Comte, a French intellectual with wide-ranging inter-ests, coined the term sociologyin the early nineteenth century.Comte sought to establish sociology as a rigorous science of

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enormous fortunes and devastating poverty. Capitalists accu-mulated great wealth precisely because they were able to exploitthe workers who toiled in their factories. Tis wealth gave own-ers great power, which they used to control governments andcultural institutions (Marx 1867/1992).

o Marx, conict between owners and workers was aninevitable feature of capitalism. As a result, he argued that

capitalismlike earlier economic forms based on inequalityhad within it the seeds of its own destruction. He theorizedthat the exploitation of workers would eventually become soextreme that wage laborers would rise up and overthrow thecapitalist system. In its place, they would adopt socialism,a sys-tem in which ownership of the major means of productionsuch as factories, utilities, and railwaysis in public, ratherthan private, hands, and government directs the use of theproductive forces of industry for the public good. Te goal of

socialism would be a society without the extreme inequalitiesthat characterized capitalism. (We explore the nature of capi-talism and socialism more closely in Chapter 16.)

Marxs analysis of industrial capitalism was insightful inspecifying the connection between wealth and poverty. He ac-curately predicted that the search for cheap labor would leadto the expansion of capitalism around the globe. He also cor-rectly predicted the growth of labor movements demanding anend to unregulated capitalism. But he failed to appreciate theability of capitalism to accommodate reform or the important

role markets play in st imulating innovation and effi ciency. Terevolutionary worker movements Marx supported in recentlyindustrialized countries like Great Britain, France, and Ger-

next century of sociological theory were Karl Marx, EmileDurkheim, and Max Weber.

KARL MAR X THE E FFE C TS OF C APITAL ISMTe German-born Karl Marx (18181883) is best known asa revolutionary thinker who advocated radical change to ad-vance the interests of workers. Marx combined writing with

political activism, and much of his life was spent escaping po-litical repression. Because of his writings, Marx was expelledfrom France (twice!) and Belgium. In Germany he was ar-rested, tried, acquitted, and also expelled. Finally, in 1849 he

went to London, where he spent the rest of his life in exile. Helived in poverty while he wrote his greatest works, includingCapital,his comprehensive analysis of the history and dynam-ics of capitalism.

Marx recognized that industrial capitalism was remarkably

productive and thus capable of doing away with hunger andpoverty for all. But instead, industrial capitalism was used toproduce huge fortunes for a few owners, while leaving workersto labor in dangerous conditions and often live in poverty. Inmuch of his work, Marx sought to explain how and why somuch wealth and productivity could coexist with such wide-spread poverty and misery.

For Marx, the answer could be found in the relationshipbetween capitalists, who owned the means of production, andthe laborers, or proletariat, who worked for a wage. Te dy-

namics of capitalism, said Marx, encouraged owners to pay thelowest wages possible because lower labor costs mean higherprots. Tis dynamic explained the simultaneous creation of

EARLY SOCIOLOGICAL THINKERS

Karl Marx Emile Durkheim Max Weber

Biography 18181883

German

Writer and activist

18581917

French

Academic

18641920

German

Academic

Key Issues and

Key Work

The nature of capitalism

Conflict and inequality

Capital

The nature of social solidarity

Shared values and morals

Suicide

Decline of tradition

Rationalization of society

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit

of Capitalism

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of his theory was the proposition that society is held togetherby shared cultural values. As we explore in more detail inChapter 3, cultural norms,or shared expectations about behav-ior associated with a societys values and morals, are promotedinformally through custom and tradition and are spelled outmore systematically in laws. When internalized by individu-

als, shared values and morals become the foundation for socialsolidarity.

Durkheim observed that traditional agricultural societieswere often tight-knit communities. Tey shared social bonds

across generations because people did thesame sort of work, shared a common reli-gion, and followed similar customs. Tesesimilar experiences resulted in mechani-cal solidaritysocial cohesion based onshared experience and a common identitywith limited individuality. As Europeansocieties grew and became urbanized andindustrialized, however, people increas-ingly differed from one another. A morecomplex economy required an increasingdivision of labor,in whichpeople special-ize in different tasks, each requiring specicskills.As cities developed, a diverse arrayof people coexisted, often with different

religions and cultural traditions. Giventhis increasing social complexity and di-versity, how could social solidarity bemaintained?

Durkheims answer was organic solidarity, a new form ofsocial cohesion, characteristic of modern industrial societies,that is based on interdependence. In the tradition of Spencerssocial organism, Durkheim argued that the social glue thatholds together modern societies mirrors the way living organ-isms depend on multiple, specialized components operating in

unison. Social cohesion is possible because we are dependent onone another. With its increased division of labor, modern ur-ban industrialized society requires doctors, construction work-ers, sa les clerks, police offi cers, factory workers, janitors, andthousands of other specialists to keep operating. Durkheimstheory helped to explain why rapid growth and social differen-tiation in European societies did not lead to the breakdown ofsocial solidarity, but instead produced a new and, Durkheimthought, even stronger form of solidarity that would permit a

balance between individuality and a commitment to the group.Durkheims work highlights the interplay between socialstructure and cultural values, especially as they relate to socialsolidarity. Much of Durkheims sociological work builds uponthis central concern with social solidarity. Indeed in Suicide,one of his most inuential works and one of the rst to showthe potential of the sociological perspective combined with sys-tematic research, Durkheim argued that suicide rates could beexplained by the strength of the social ties people have withlarger social groups (Durkheim 1897/1951). (See the Trough a

Sociological Lens box on page 14.)Durkheim also argued that crime and punishment are

fundamentally about solidarity (see Chapter 8). Crimes, for

many ultimately reformed, rather than overthrew, capitalism.Meanwhile, the socialist revolutions that did occur, most no-tably in Russia and China, took place in primarily peasant so-cieties that did not have the capacity to produce an abundanceof material goods. Even though the brutal totalitarian statesthat emerged after these revolutions invoked Marxs name in

their offi cial ideology, they bore almost no resemblance to thehumanist egalitarian vision that Marx had promoted.

Beyond the specic analysis of capitalism, Marxs workhighlighted the importance of powerin this case, economicpower and its role in enforcing inequal-ityas a core concept in sociology. Marxargued that economic power could beused to inuence other aspects of sociallife, including government and cultural

institutions, such as schools and the me-dia. Marxs work also stressed the inter-play between structure and action that isat the heart of the sociological perspec-tive. Men make their own history, he

wrote, but they do not make it just asthey please; they do not make it undercircumstances chosen by themselves, butunder circumstances directly found, givenand transmitted from the past (Marx

1852/1978, 595).Te issues Marx explored continue to

be important today. Questions about thenature and direction of our economy areamong the most signicant ones addressed by sociologists. Forexample, how has globalization changed our economy? Howis the most recent economic crisis linked to the dynamics ofcapitalism? How has the nature of work been changing? Howhave the labor movement and social welfare programsbothexamples of attempts to moderate the excesses of capitalism

affected the lives of workers?

E MIL E DURKHE IM SOC IAL SOL IDARITYEmile Durkheim (18581917), who lived a generation afterMarx, was also concerned with understanding social change inthe modern world, but Durkheims life could hardly have beenmore different from Marxs. Te descendent of a long line ofrabbinical scholars in France, Durkheim studied to be a rabbibut rejected religion in his teens and became agnostic, believ-

ing there was no way to know whether or not God existed.However, he retained a lifelong interest both in the role of reli-gion in social life and in the scientic study of morality.

Durkheim is perhaps the single individual most responsiblefor establishing sociology as an academic discipline. He heldthe rst academic position in sociology; wrote a book laying outthe methods of the discipline, Te Rules of Sociological Method(Durkheim 1895/1938); and established a well-respected aca-demic journal devoted to the new eld.

Like many social thinkers who witness dramatic change,

Durkheim was concerned with how to maintain social order.He was particularly interested in the question of social soli-darity,the collective bonds that connect individuals.At the core

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of common identity? As sociologists investigate such twenty-rst-century questions, Durkheims theories continue to berelevant.

MAX WEBER THE PROTESTANT ETHIC ANDTHE RATIONAL IZATION OF MODE RN L IFELike Durkheim, German theorist Max Weber (pronouncedVAY-ber) (18641920) was also trying to make sense of theshift from traditional to modern society. Te son of a high-ranking government bureaucrat, Weber took a series of uni-versity positions as a young man, carried out major research

projects, and served as a consultant for government agencies.By his mid-thirties, Weber was in a state of exhaustion andsuffered a nervous breakdown that left him incapacitated fornearly seven years. When he was able to return to his writing

Durkheim, are acts that offend the collective conscience,orshared values of a society.Punishment serves as a means to re-inforce social solidarity in the face of such antisocial actions.

Without the moral constraints provided by the collective con-science, Durkheim argued, peopleand society as a whole

would descend into a chaotic state of anomie,or normlessness,without moral guidance.

oday, close to a century later, people are still debating theproper role of values and religion in public and private life.How might Durkheims ideas help explain the resurgence oftraditional religious belief? Can the increasing diversity of

our society serve as a source of strength, rather than division?How can people maintain healthy social ties in a world wherethey regularly move from one community to another? Howcan we affi rm peoples individuality while maintaining a sense

Why do people intentionally kill themselves? At firstglance, suicide seems to be the ultimate example of aprivate individual act, best explained by psychologists,not sociologists. But Durkheim broke new ground: he

made suicide the subject of the first sociological study to uselarge-scale data analysis. After examining offi cial governmentrecords of suicide cases, Durkheim theorized that certain groupsof people are more or less likely to commit suicide because of

their relationship to society. This was a fundamental sociologicalinsight.Durkheims study (Suicide) showed that a sociological per-

spective could help explain how individuals are affected by thequality of their relationship with larger social groups, even tothe extent of taking their own lives. His research revealed, forexample, that unmarried adults had higher rates of suicide thanmarried adults, and Protestants had higher rates than Catholicsor Jews. Durkheim explained these differences in suicide ratesamong various groups through an analysis of social integration,the strength of social ties that allow people to feel they belong to

a group, and social regulation,the strength of social norms thatcontrol peoples behavior. Too much or too little of either wouldincrease the likelihood of suicide. Thus Durkheim identified fourtypes of suicideegoistic, anomic, altruistic, and fatalistic:

Egoisticsuicides result from too little social integration andare committed by people who feel isolated and detached fromsociety. For example, married couples are likely to have a strongbond with one another, whereas divorced, widowed, and un-married people are more likely to lack a strong social connec-tion; thus suicide rates among these latter groups are higher.Protestants lack the intense communal rituals associated withCatholicism and Judaism, which helps explain their higher rates

of suicide. At the other extreme, altruisticsuicides result fromtoo much social integration, leading individuals to sacrifice them-selves for the sake of the collective. For example, during WorldWar II Japan used kamikaze pilots who volunteered to fly suicidemissions for their country.

The absence of regulation in the form of social norms andboundaries is also associated with higher suicide rates.Anomicsuicide often results from a sudden and dramatic change in thelevel of social regulation, which leaves the individual without anyclear rules about how to adapt. These changes can be negative,such as with the death of a spouse or the loss of a job. Ironically,

the changes can also be positive, as when entertainers becomeovernight successes and suddenly have access to endlessamounts of money and attention. The self-destructive behaviorand suicides of many celebrities fit into this category. Conversely,too much regulation can result infatalisticsuicide, as in the caseof slaves, prisoners, or invalids who see no hope or way to escapethe desperate conditions of their lives.

think about it. Using Durkheims insights about suicide, consider which of the

four types of suicide seems to best apply to suicide bombers whoact to advance a cause. Explain your reasoning.

. Based on Durkheims analysis, what positive steps could be takento help reduce the risk of suicide for any particular individual?

Explaining the Social Basis of Suicide

THROUGHA LENS

Suicide and Social Integration

TOO LITTLE TOO MUCH

Integration egoistic altruistic

Regulation anomic fatalistic

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organizationsgovernment agencies, political parties, indus-trial companiesthat manage economic and political life.

Weber could see that rationalization might be productivefor society, since it focused on specifying procedures, trainingoffi cials, and pursuing effi ciency. But he also saw that as ratio-nalization permeated all aspects of social life it would create

cold and impersonal societies. Weber believed that bureau-cracy was self-perpetuating and becoming the domi-

nant type of social organization. He worried itwould constrain human action and imprison

us in an iron cage of bureaucracy.Ultimately, Weber feared that in mod-

ern society humans could engage inmeaningful action only in large organi-zations, in which they were allotted nar-rowly dened tasks and sacriced theirpersonal goals to the impersonal goals ofthe whole. And although he agreed with

much of Marxs critique of industrialcapitalism, Webers theory of rationaliza-

tion led him to predict that postcapitalistsocieties would not produce the kind of egali-

tarian future that Marx predicted, but would in-stead be even more highly rationalized, with more

layers of bureaucracy. In this way, Weber was perhaps the most

prophetic of the three major founders of sociology. He did notshare in the pure optimism for science and rational thoughtthat emerged from the Enlightenment. Instead, he saw theearly signs of a dark side to rationality that has now become acautionary element of contemporary sociological thought.

Webers sociological theory applies to a wide range of con-temporary concerns. Rationalization continues to pervade ourlives at home, school, and work in a variety of ways. Do thelarge lecture halls, high-rise dormitories, and layered bureau-cracy of the large university represent the rationalization of

higher education? How do the bureaucracies of governmentsand corporations assist inand interfere withthe work ofthose organizations? Are such bureaucracies a threat to ourfreedom? Weber gives us valuable tools for analyzing the role ofrational thought and practice in many areas of our lives.

R e c o v e r e d V o i c e s : H a r r i e tM a r t i n e a u , W . E . B . D u B o i s ,

J a n e A d d a m sBecause of the prevailing discriminatory attitudes towardwomen and African Americans during the early years of so-ciology, a variety of social thinkers were excluded from ormarginalized in the academic world. Instead of writing for astrictly academic audience, they wrote for popular publica-tions, authored novels, and spoke out as activists advocatingsocial change. In many ways, they were ahead of their time.

Although often at the margins of academic sociology while

they were alive, these thinkers are now appreciated more widelyfor the contributions they made to our understanding of sociallife. Among these voices are Harriet Martineau, W. E. B. DuBois, and Jane Addams.

full time, Weber produced his best-known work, Te ProtestantEthic and the Spirit of Capitalism(Weber 1905/1958).

In Te Protestant Ethic,Weber argued that culturein theform of Protestantismhad helped to promote the early de-velopment of capitalism in northern Europe. raditionally, theCatholic Church had encouraged the rejection of worldly affairs

and wealth, promising everlasting life to those who were faith-ful and participated in the Churchs dening ritualssuch as baptism and communion. However, afterthe Protestant Reformation, some sectspar-ticularly Calvinistsrejected this approachto salvation and instead maintained thatpeoples fate in the afterlife was prede-termined before birth and could not bechanged by actions they took on earth.But how could a person know whetherhe or she was going to heaven or hell?Some believers thought that wealth, ac-cumulated through diligent work, wasa sign of Gods favor, indicating likelysalvation. Tis cultural belief encouragedhard work, investment, and the accumulationof wealththe essential requirements for suc-cess in a capitalist economy. Marx had focused onthe economys role in inuencing other aspects of social life

including culture. With Te Protestant Ethic and the Spirit ofCapitalism,Weber argued that cultural beliefs could inuenceeconomic development.

As Te Protestant Ethicillustrates, Weber sometimes tried tounderstand social action by viewing it from the perspective ofthe actor, an approach known by the German word verstehen,

which means understanding. Understanding why someonebehaves the way he or she does also provides insight into thebroader culture in which the action is taking place. As we willsee, this approach was an important precursor to later sociolog-

ical theory that focused precisely on how people make mean-ing of the social world.

Weber also contributed to sociological theory through his ef-fort to explain the shift from traditional to rational action. Oneof his central theoretical propositions was that, in earlier societ-ies, traditionbeliefs and customs often charged with emotionalsignicance that are passed on from generation to generationprimarily inuenced the actions of people. However, in newly in-dustrialized capitalist societies, rationalitythe use of reason andlogical calculation to achieve a goal as effi ciently as possiblewasmuch more likely to inuence peoples actions.

Weber argued that the rationalization of societythelong-term historical process by which rationality replaced tra-dition as the basis for organizing social and economic lifepropelled the social change of his day. Te inuence of ratio-nalization went beyond individual human action to includebroader social institutions. For example, Weber argued that

whereas rulers had previously claimed authority based solelyon their claim to descent from previous rulers, the authority of

government offi cials now rests increasingly on such rational-legal foundations as elections or specic training and certica-tion. In addition, Weber argued that the principle of rationality

was responsible for the formation of bureaucracies within large

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breaking research on race in America as well as with his ef-forts to promote racial justice. Du Bois, a descendent of Afri-can, French, and Dutch ancestors, came from a comfortablemiddle-class Massachusetts family that provided him with asolid early education and insulated him from the worst effects

of racism. When he traveled south to Nashvil le to study at FiskUniversity in the 1880s, however, he encountered a rigidlysegregated world in which African Americans were frequentlythe targets of beatings and lynchings. Tis injustice strength-ened his interest in race as a subject of sociological study. In1895, Du Bois became the rst African American to obtaina Ph.D. from Harvard University. He went on to teach soci-ology and to write a series of studies that elevated race to aplace of prominence in sociology. Du Bois published the rstsociological study of a black community, Te Philadelphia Ne-

gro(1899), followed by the widely read Te Souls of Black Folk(1903). Both works explored the complexity of race relations inturn-of-the-century American society.

Troughout his life, Du Bois combined scholarship withactivism. He played an important role in the founding of theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People(NAACP), arguably the leading civil rights organization of thetwentieth century. He foundedand for a quarter-centuryeditedthe NAACPs inuential magazine, Te Crisis,which

is still published today (thecrisismagazine.com). He also nur-tured efforts to promote unity among people of African de-scent worldwide. As an agent of change, he faced opposition

HARRIE T MARTINE AU G E NDE R DISC RIMI NATION Many consider Harriet Martineau (18021876),born into an affl uent English family, to be the rst female so-ciologist. Her work delved into issues of gender discriminationand slavery that many of the white male sociologists of her timehad largely ignored. She also agitated for womens suffrage andthe expansion of womens rights in England.

Self-taught andlike other women at the timeexcludedfrom an academic appointment, Martineau began by writingmagazine articles and then a series of books on economicsand politics that were geared toward the general public ratherthan an academic audience. Her books were highly success-ful, making her independently wealthy as well as a literarycelebrity. After traveling in the United States for two years,

she wrote two books based on her observations, most notablySociety in America(Martineau 1837/2009), a forceful critiqueof the failure of the United States to live up to its democraticpromise in its treatment of both slaves and women. At thistime, she also wrote about the methods of social research inHow to Observe Morals and Manners (1838/2009). Finally,Martineau made an important contribution to sociology bytranslating the work of Auguste Comte for English-speakingaudiences.

W. E . B. DU BOIS RAC IAL INE QUAL ITYW. E. B. Du Bois (pronounced doo-BOYS) (18681963)made important contributions to sociology with his ground-

RECOVERED VOICES MARTINEAU, DU BOIS, AND ADDAMS

Harriet Martineau W. E. B. Du Bois, as portrayed

on a U.S. postage stamp

honoring his social activism

Jane Addams with some of the

youngsters who frequented Hull

House

Biography 18021876

English

Writer and activist

18681963

American

Scholar and activist

18601935

American

Academic

Key Issues and Work Gender, slavery, and

discrimination

Society in America

Race and discrimination

NAACP cofounder

The Philadelphia Negro;

The Souls of Black Folk;

The Crisismagazine

Urban social problems

Hull House founder

Hull House Maps and Papers

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Sociologys DiverseTheoriesTe work of early sociologists served as the source for the de-velopment of later sociological theory. In the chapters to come,we consider different theories regarding specic social phe-nomena. In this section, we examine some of the general ap-proaches to theory that have developed over the years. First,though, we consider what theory is and examine some basicways that sociological theories vary.

U n d e r s t a n d i n g T h e o r y

Te lmAvatarhas sold around $3 billion in movie tickets asof this writing, making it the biggest box offi ce hit in history.Why do you think the lm has taken in so much money? Per-haps the story is compelling, the actors superb, or the specialeffects well worth the price of admission. Or maybe the studioadvertised and promoted the lm especially well. Or perhapsthe lms success is due to the growing number of movie the-aters worldwide, which translates into more ticket sales.

Each possible explanation for the nancial success of Av-

atar is, in effect, a theory because it tries to explain an ob-servation. Accurate evidence and datasuch as Avatars$3 billion in ticket salesdescribesthe world and helps us seewhat has occurred. Teories answer why? questions andhelp explain the data or evidence: Why did this happen?Why is this so? More formally, a social theoryis a set of prin-ciples and propositions that explains the relationships among social

phenomena.Trough their explanations, theories also alert usto the sorts of questions we should be asking in future research.

Of course, sociologists dont just ask about box offi ce hitsalthough media sociologists would be able to offer some likelyexplanations forAvatars success. Instead, sociological theoristsaddress broad questions, such as, Why dont complex societiesfall apart? and Why do wealth and poverty coexist? as wellas more narrowly dened questions, such as, Why do someschools succeed while others fail? or even Why do studentswho sit in the back of the class tend to have lower grades thanthose who sit up front? When we speak of approaches to so-ciological theory, therefore, we are referring to broad explana-

tions sociologists have for why society operates the way it does.Although thinking about theory can seem intimidating at rst,it actually is fairly straightforward and involves answering themost interesting question of all: Why?

A few other characteristics of theories are important toremember:

A theory is not just a hunch or personal opinion.It may startoff that wayjust as our explanations forAvatars successdidbut to be useful, theories have to be put to the test

to see if they are consistent with the evidence; thats thenature of science. Sociological theory is linked to researchand evidence in ways that we explore in Chapter 2.

from powerful forces. During the Cold War anticommunisthysteria of the 1950s, the U.S. Justice Department accused DuBois of being an agent of the Soviet Union because of his peaceactivism and promotion of nuclear disarmament. Although he

was acquitted, the FBI continued to harass him and the gov-ernment revoked his passport. Eventually, he was allowed to

travel abroad and he moved to Ghana, where he became a citi-zen. He died there at the age of 95 on August 27, 1963, theday before the civil rights march on Washington, D.C., whereMartin Luther King, Jr., gave his famous I Have a Dreamspeech.

JANE ADDAMS URBAN SOC IAL PROBL E MSJane Addams (18601935) is best known as a social reformerand the founder of Hull House, which provided a wide rangeof social services in the poor immigrant communities of Chi-cago and served as a model for later similar establishments,known as settlement houses, in other cities. Addams was therst American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, awardedto her in 1931 for her longstanding work in building an inter-national womens coalition to promote peace and prevent war.But Addams also made an important contribution to the devel-opment of sociology. Her social reform work and her researchon social life on the south side of Chicago had a signicantinuence on the development of urban sociology at the Uni-

versity of Chicago, the home of the rst sociology departmentin the United States.However, unlike some University of Chicago sociologists,

who limited their work to understanding urban life, Addamsbelieved that social theory and research should be linked toaction promoting social change. Working to address socialproblems enabled her to contribute to social reform while de-veloping and testing theories about how society worked. In do-ing so, she often challenged those in power, advocating for thepoor and others at the margins of society.

In Hull House Maps and Papers(1895/2007), Addams chron-icled life in the immigrant communities around Hull House,producing data that was used to promote reform. In Democracyand Social Ethics(1902/2002), she linked democracy with di-versity, explaining that a well-functioning democratic societyrequires an understanding of a wide range of experiences andperspectives, something that early sociology was well equippedto provide. In addition, Addams foreshadowed the develop-ment of feminist social theory by critiquing the way male so-ciologists often based their generalizations about society onmens experiences only. She argued that for researchers to fullyunderstand social problems, they needed to have a sympatheticconnection with the people affected by those problems. Hercollaboration with poor immigrants informed her sociologi-cal understanding that people actively seek to improve theirconditions, even when facing great odds in extremely diffi cultsituations.

Although the works of Martineau, Du Bois, Addams, andothers may have been underappreciated when they wrote them,

those works have since had a signicant impact on sociology,encouraging sociologists to pay careful attention to the socialcomplexities of gender, race, class, and power.

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values, and belief systems. Tese all exist in our head, so tospeak, and are part of the cultural aspect of social life.

Both the objective physical world we live in and our subjec-tive interpretations of that world have a signicant impact onour lives and our society. For example, we have seen that Marxemphasized the impact of economic life (an objective factor)

whereas Webers theory regarding the Protestant Ethic high-lighted the role of cultural beliefs (a subjective factor).

MICROLEVEL AND M ACROLEVEL ANALYSESTe third dimension of sociological theory relates to differentlevels of analysisas well as to different levels of society itself.Teories that focus on small scale, usually face-to-face, socialinteraction are operating at the micro level of analysis.(Mi-cro means small.) Teories that focus on large-scale social sys-

tems and processes such as the economy, politics, and popula-tion trends operate at the macro level of analysis.(Macromeans large.) Teories that focus somewhere between verylarge and very small social phenomenaon organizations orinstitutions, for exampleare using a meso level of analysis.(Meso means middle.) Often, sociological work focuses onthe interaction between these various levels of social life.

Now that you are equipped with a better understanding ofwhat theory is and how theories vary, lets take a closer lookat some major theoretical traditions. Since the mid-twentieth

century, sociologists have sometimes grouped varied sociologi-cal theories into three broad categories: structural-functionalisttheories, conict theories,and symbolic interactionist theories.

S t r u c t u r a l - F u n c t i o n a l i s tT h e o r i e s

Structural-functionalist theoriesfocus on consensus and co-operative interaction in social life, emphasizing how different ele-

ments that make up a societys structure contribute to its overalloperation.Te roots of this tradition can be found in the workof Spencer and Durkheim. Structural-functionalismoften re-ferred to simply as functionalismwas dominant in the UnitedStates in the middle of the twentieth century, when its leadingproponent was alcott Parsons (19021979). Parsons saw soci-eties as complex systems made up of interdependent partsforexample, families, courts, schools, the economythat work to-gether to produce social stability. Because the systems are bal-anced, they tend to move toward normal states of equilibrium; achange in one part of the system results in a change in anotherpart to compensate. Individuals are integrated into the socialstructure through culture, especially in the form of shared val-ues. A consensus on basic values results in a moral commitmentto society, which helps enable its smooth functioning.

o endure, a social institution must meet a need of the sys-tem as a whole; institutions that do not contribute adapt or dis-appear. Parsons argued that any social organizationwhethera small group or a large and diverse societymust perform

several key functions to survive, including teaching groupmembers core community values, integrating members intoproductive participation in social life, dening and attainingcommunity goals, and adapting to a changing environment.

Teories evolve and are sometimes rejected, leaving the mostuseful to survive.When evidence repeatedly contradicts atheory, it is either revised or discarded. Te most usefultheories are those that endure, some of which we discusslater in this chapter.

Multiple theories often give us a more complete picture thanany single one.Just as many factors likely contributed to

Avatars success, many factors similarly contribute to mostaspects of social life. Considering different theories can alertus to a variety of possible explanations for a social phenom-enon and to a range of factors that can contribute to it.

Finally, theories tend to vary along a few key dimensions,which we now consider.

K e y D i m e n s io n s o f T h e o r yHow do professional football teams vary? Some focus on of-fense, others on defense. Some rely on skilled veteran players,

whereas others groom the abilities of younger team members.Some teams get most of their points by running the ball,

whereas others generate most of their offense by passing. Teseare among the key dimensions on which teams vary.

Sociological theories, too, vary along key dimensions, in-cluding consensus and conict, subjective and objective real-

ity, and micro-level and macro-level analyses. Tink of eachdimension as a continuum rather than an either-or division.Knowing where a theory lies on each continuum can help youunderstand how it ts into the larger picture of sociologicalthought.

C ONSE NSUS AND C ONFL IC T Conict refers totensions and disputes in society, often resulting from the un-equal distribution of scarce resources, which can contribute tosocial change. Consensusrefers to solidarity and cooperative in-

teraction, often due to shared values and interests, which cancontribute to social stability. Although different theories focusmore on one or the other, both consensus and conict coexistin every society, institution, and organizationindeed, in allsocial life.

In some instances, conict can produce certain kinds ofconsensus (Coser 1956). When countries go to war, a dramaticexample of conict, citizens in each nation often feel a renewedsense of solidarity, which they express through increased patri-otism and nationalism. On the other hand, sometimes appar-ent consensus masks simmering tensions that become evidentonly when they erupt into full-blown conict. For example,the ordinary daily routines of some cities have sometimes con-cealed underlying racial tensions that exploded into broad ur-ban riots sparked by a specic incident.

OBJE C TIVE AND SUBJE C TIVE RE AL ITY Ob-jective conditionsare the material aspects of social life, includ-ing our biological selves, the physical environment, social net-

works, and social institutions. All of these exist outside of us,and collectively they make up the objective dimension of sociallife. In contrast, the subjective dimensionof social life involvesthe world of ideas, including our sense of self, social norms,

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Conict theories, then, see power at the core of social life.Power enables some people to gain an advantage over othersand acquire more resources; more resources, in turn, give them

more power. In this ongoing struggle, different groups use cul-tures values and ideas as weapons to advance their own po-sitions. Te dominant culture supports and justies existinginequalities. Various counter-cultures articulate different val-ues in their challenge to the existing condition.

How would one study the family with conict theory? Con-ict theories explain that the popular image of the traditionalfamily of the 1950s, depicting a smoothly functioning socialinstitution marked by consensus about distinct and clearly de-ned gender roles, was largely a myth. In reality, as we see in

Chapter 12, the prevailing male dominance of the period keptwomen in restricted roles and prevented them from pursuingambitions they might have had for themselves. Te extensivelegal, economic, and social inequalities between women andmen reected the different amounts of power each possessed.Tis inequality had been justied by a dominant culture thatviewed men as naturally superior to women. Another problemwith the traditional image of a family with one wage earnerwas that it applied most often to white, middle-class families;poor and working-class womenespecially women of colorhad long been part of the workforce, and their families operatedquite differently. Inequalities continue to exist around familylife today, both within families, where power may not be sharedevenly, and within broader society, where some forms of family,such as same-sex unions, do not yet have full legal recognition.

S y m b o l i c I n t e r a c t i o n i s tT h e o r i e s

Symbolic interactionist theoriesfocus on how people use sharedsymbols and construct society as a result of their everyday interac-tions. Webers approach of verstehen, in which the researcher

In an important contribution tofunctionalist theory, Robert K. Mer-ton (19102003) distinguished be-tween manifest functions, the rec-ognized and intended consequences ofsocial phenomena, and latent func-tions,their largely unrecognized andunintended consequences.A manifestfunction of schools, for example, isto help prepare people for future em-ployment, whereas a latent function is to serve as a dating poolor marriage market. Merton also reminds us that even thoughsome phenomena are persistent, they can be dysfunctional,

inhibiting or disrupting the working of a system as a whole.Te persistent overcrowding in many schools, for example, isdysfunctional.

Consider how one might study the family as a social in-stitution using functionalist theories. Families serve a numberof functions, including the raising of children (though somesocieties raise children communally outside of the family andmany families do not include children). In recent decades,a changing economy (another part of the social system) andchanges in cultural values have contributed to changes in the

family, including the rise of two wage-earner families, single-parent families, step families, and families with same-sex par-ents. Despite such changes, shared values continue to tell ushow to raise children and maintain family life. Families can bedysfunctional, toofor example, by harboring child abuse ordomestic violence.

C o n f l i c t T h e o r i e s

Conict theoriesfocus on issues of contention, power, and in-equality, highlighting the competition for scarce resources. Teroots of this approach can be found in the work of Marx and

Weber. oday, work that focuses on class, race, gender, andother forms of inequality is often based in this tradition, draw-ing on the work of Martineau, Du Bois, Addams, and others.Te conict approach emphasizes that, to meet common needs,people attempt to acquire scarce and valuable resources. Teseinclude material goodssuch as food, housing, and good

jobsas well as less tangible resources, such as social respect

and freedom. Because these resources are often limited, peoplecompete for them, bringing different groups into conict. Evenwhen conict is not visible, it is often present but repressed bythe dominance of the powerful over the less powerful.

Individuals are embedded within

larger social structures that correspond

to different levels of sociological analy-

sis. These drummers at the 2008 Beijing

Olympics, for example, brought their indi-

vidual talents to the performance (micro

level), but their efforts were coordinatedby the organization behind the Beijing

Olympics (meso level), which was, in turn,

one project of the global International

Olympic Committee (macro level).

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rary perspectives is feminist theory. Feminist theories focus oninequality between women and men and could be consideredin the tradition of conict theories. But feminist theories alsoprovide insight into how those inequalities are created and re-inforced in daily interactions, placing these insights squarely inthe tradition of symbolic interactionism (see Chapter 11).

As with other theoretical traditions, there is no single femi-nist theory. Instead, a variety of feminist theories emphasize theimportance of womens experience, analyze gender inequality,and advocate gender equality (Anderson and Witham 2009;aylor, Rupp, and Whittier 2008). As we saw earlier in the chap-ter, feminist ideas from Harriet Martineau, Jane Addams, andothers were present during the early years of sociology but wereoften marginalized in the male-dominated world of academia.Te womens movement of the 1960s and 1970s, however,helped create a space for the emergence of feminist scholars

who transformed many academic elds, including sociology.Often working across disciplinary boundaries and in newly es-tablished womens studies departments, feminist theorists chal-lenged male assumptions about the world and about how socialresearch should be done (Harding 1991; Reinharz 1992).

Historically, men had dominated the analyses of social lifeand often assumed that their understanding and perspectiveapplied to everyone. Feminist standpoint theory rejected thisnotion, instead emphasizing that all knowledge is constructed

from a particular perspective and that womens different expe-riences need to be included to produce an accurate understand-ing of social life (Harding 2004; Smith 1974, 1989). In theyears that followed, this basic insight was extended to includethe recognition that womens experiences vary depending ontheir class, race, and sexual orientation (Collins 1990; hooks2000). Tis understanding has contributed to a wider recogni-tion that the effects of gender, class, race, and sexual orien-tation intersect in shaping social life (Anderson and Collins2009; Rothenberg 2009) and that womens lives vary across

different societies (Mohanty 2003). Feminist theory has alsocontributed to a focus on womens bodies as a site of socialstruggles involving sexuality, beauty norms, violence, repro-ductive rights, and health (Lorber and Moore 2010). Finally,feminist theory has informed work on men, gender, and sexu-ality, revealing how our ideas about masculinity are sociallyconstructed (Kimmel and Messner 2009; Pascoe 2007).

In addition, various recent theoriesunder the umbrellatermpostmodernismhave highlighted how shared meaningsand assumptions about the worlda central feature of sym-bolic interactionist theorieshave fragmented, as differentgroups in society come to understand social reality differently.Meanwhile, rational choice theories have introduced a sort ofeconomic analysis, suggesting that social interaction be under-stood as exchanges between rational individuals.

One of the great strengths of sociology is that it contains avariety of theories about the workings of social life that reach

well beyond the three traditional approaches. But what unitessociology? What is the common ground that enables people

using such disparate theories to identify as sociologists? Tatcommon ground is the sociological perspective and the coreconcepts that are at its heart.

tries to understand action from the perspective of the actor,laid some groundwork for these theories, as did early work byGeorg Simmel (18581918), who wrote insightful essays onthe dynamics of daily life. However, symbolic interactionisttheories were fully developed in the United States, buildingon work by social psychologists in the early and mid-twenti-

eth century. George Herbert Mead (18631931), for example,wrote about how we develop a sense of self through our inter-action with others and by self-reection (see Chapter 6). In hisdramaturgical theory, Erving Goffman (19221982) showedhow social life was very much like a play, with people adoptingroles, complete with props and scripts (see Chapter 7).

Symbolic interactionist theories are strongly associatedwith the subjective and micro-level dimensions of social life.Tey explain social life by highlighting that the social world isbased on interaction between people using cultural symbols,such as words and nonverbal body language. Trough inter-action, individuals develop a sense of self and create a sharedunderstanding of reality with others. People with more powerare typically better able to inuence this interpretation of real-ity. Tis common interpretation of reality leads to patterns ofsocial interaction within groups that form the basis of socialstructure. But everyday interaction is also constantly recreatingor changing these patterns, so society itself is inherently un-stable and constantly in ux. Always under construction, the

social world is therefore always capable of change. In this way,the symbolic interactionist theories explain social life by high-lighting the active role people take in creating society.

Applied to the family, the symbolic interactionist approachdirects our attention to micro-level interactions between fam-ily members. As they interact, they develop an understandingof who they are and what their role is within the family. Whatdoes it mean to be a good parent today? Who will work toearn money? Who will care for children? What responsibilitydoes a child have for an aging parent? Family members must

come to some mutual understanding about what is expectedfrom each of them. Tis shared interpretation of reality pro-duces patterns of behavior that provide a routine structure tofamily life. But these interpretations and arrangements arenot static; they are continuously reexamined and thus sub-

ject to change. Te changes in family structure over the pasthalf-century illustrate the cumulative effect of individual-leveldecisions. People in different types of familyincluding two-parent families, one-parent families, childless couples, families

with same-sex parents, and step-familiesactively interpretthe meaning of family and act accordingly.

F e m i n i s t T h e o r i e s a n dT h e o r e t i c a l D i v e r s i t y

As we see throughout this book, sociological theory has de-veloped considerably since the mid-twentieth century, whensome sociologists grouped the elds varied theories into the

categories of functionalist, conict, and symbolic interaction-ist perspectives. Newer perspectives often do not t neatly intothese older categories. Among the most important contempo-

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family to incorporate a broader range of relationships. Al-though these approaches differ in their interpretations andemphases, they all agree that culture is a signicant featureof social life worthy of close attention. Similarly, structureand power are important to all sociological theories. able1.2 summarizes how these core concepts provide the com-

mon ground that links the major approaches to sociologicaltheory.

Tis section presents a brief overview of sociologys threecore concepts. Each concept is later covered in depth in a sepa-rate chapter. By learning to use these three concepts to analyzeand understand social life, you will succeed in developing asociological perspective.

C u l t u r e

Culture is the collection of values, beliefs, knowledge, norms,language, behaviors, and material objects shared by a people andsocially transmitted from generation to generation.Culture oper-ates at all levels of society: through everyday interactions be-tween individuals; through organizational norms in schools,businesses, and other groups; and through society-wide

Sociologys CommonGround: Culture,

Structure, and PowerDiverse sociological theories are united by the core conceptsthat are central to a sociological perspective, including culture,structure, and power. As we have already seen, these concepts

were used extensively by sociologys early thinkers and theyhave been at the heart of sociology ever since.

o vary ing degrees, all theoretical approaches rely on soci-ologys core concepts. For example, functionalism highlights

cultures role in providing society with common values, suchas love of family. Conict theory emphasizes

Croteau Chapter 01

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