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Amy Traver

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 Introduction to
Sociology

SOCY-101

Amy E. Traver, Ph.D.

Queensborough Community College, CUNY

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0

license.
 Table of Contents
1– Definition and History of Sociology...................................................................................................... 4
1.1 What Is Sociology? .......................................................................................................................... 4
1.2 Approaches to the Sociological Study of Society and Culture ........................................................ 6
1.3 The History of Sociology.................................................................................................................. 7
Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 12
2 – Sociological Research Methods......................................................................................................... 13
2.1 Introduction to Sociological Research Methods ........................................................................... 13
2.2 Research Methods ........................................................................................................................ 13
2.3 Ethical Concerns ............................................................................................................................ 20
Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 23
3 – Sociological Theories and Paradigms ....................................................................................................... 24
3.1 Theoretical Perspectives on Society ............................................................................................. 24
3.2 Sociological Theory Today............................................................................................................. 30
Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 31
4 – The Sociological Imagination............................................................................................................. 32
4.1 The Sociological Imagination ........................................................................................................ 32
Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 36
5 – Culture and Socialization........................................................................................................................ 37
5.1 What is Culture?............................................................................................................................ 37
5.2 Categories of Culture .................................................................................................................... 39
5.3 Socialization .................................................................................................................................. 45
5.4 Agents of Socialization .................................................................................................................. 47
5.5 Socialization Across the Life Course .............................................................................................. 50
Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 53
6 – Social Structure ..................................................................................................................................... 54
6.1 What is Social Structure? .............................................................................................................. 54
Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 62
7 – Social Stratification ................................................................................................................................ 63
7.1 What Is Social Stratification? ........................................................................................................ 63
7.2 Class Stratification ......................................................................................................................... 64
7.3 Racial and Ethnic Stratification ..................................................................................................... 68
 7.4 Stratification by Sex, Gender, and Sexuality ................................................................................. 72
Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 75
8 – Social Change ....................................................................................................................................... 77
8.1 Macro-Level Social Change ........................................................................................................... 77
8.2 Causes of Social Change ................................................................................................................ 80
Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 88
 1 – Definition and History of Sociology1
1.1 What Is Sociology?
Sociology is the study of human social life. It involves the study of groups and group
interactions, from small and personal groups to very large groups and societies. Society refers
to a population of people who live in a defined geographic area, share a common culture and
identity, and are subject to the same political authority.

Sociologists study all aspects and levels of society. Sociologists working on the micro level study
small groups and individual interactions, while those working on the macro level look at trends
among and between large groups and societies.

Sociologists also study culture. The term culture refers to a group’s shared practices, values,
and beliefs. Culture encompasses a group’s way of life, from routine everyday interactions to
the most important parts of group members' lives. It includes everything produced by a society,
including all of the social rules.

Studying Social Influence and Patterns:

How Sociologists View Society
Sociologists believe that society and culture influence individuals’ attitudes and behavior.
Moreover, sociologists believe that an individual’s attitudes, behavior, and life chances depend,
to some degree, on their location in society (i.e., their gender, race, social class, religion, and so
forth). Does this mean that sociologists believe that society totally determines our attitudes,
behaviors, and life chances? No; sociologists believe that individual differences matter, and that

1
Except where otherwise indicated, the text in this chapter comes from OpenStax (2017).
we do have free will, but that our individuality and freedom are shaped and limited by society’s
expectations.2

For example, society and culture put pressure on people to make one decision over another.
One illustration of this is a person’s decision to marry. In the United States, this choice is heavily
influenced by individual feelings; however, the social acceptability of marriage relative to a
person’s circumstances also plays a part, as revealed by trends in if, when, how, and whom we
marry. Sociologists try to identify general social patterns by examining the behavior of large
groups of people living in the same society and experiencing the same societal pressures.

Changes in the American family structure offer an example of patterns of interest to

sociologists. A “typical” family now is vastly different than in past decades when most American
families consisted of married parents living in a home with their unmarried children. The
percentage of unmarried couples, same-sex couples, single-parent and single-adult households
is increasing, as is the number of expanded households in which extended family members such
as grandparents, cousins, or adult children live together in the family home (U.S. Census Bureau
2013).

Some sociologists might study the social expectations and cultural rules that govern social life,
which may contribute to these changes in patterns of family form and life. Do people in the
United States view marriage and family differently than before? Do employment and economic
conditions play a role? How has culture influenced the choices that individuals make in living
arrangements?

Other sociologists might study the consequences of these new patterns, such as the ways
children are affected by them or how they are changing other aspects of society, like education,
housing, and healthcare.

2
This text is from University of Minnesota (2010).
1.2 Approaches to the Sociological Study
of Society and Culture
When sociologists study society, no topic is off limits. Sociologists question every aspect of the
world that humans have created. To study these topics and best answer these questions,
sociologists conduct research. This research typically follows one of two approaches: the first
approach relies on the scientific method; the second approach engages a more interpretive
framework. These two approaches provide the foundation for quantitative sociology and
qualitative sociology, respectively.

Approach One: Use of the Scientific

Method
A great deal of sociological research engages the scientific method. The scientific method is a
procedural technique followed in the natural, physical, and social sciences to help yield the
most accurate and reliable research conclusions possible, especially ones that are free of bias
(or prejudice) and error.

The scientific method involves a series of prescribed steps that have been established over
centuries. These basic steps include: (a) formulating a hypothesis (i.e., a testable educated
guess about predicted outcomes between two or more variables) that answers a research
question, (b) using research methods to collect empirical evidence (i.e., evidence that comes
from direct experience, scientifically gathered data, or experimentation) to test that hypothesis,
(c) analyzing these data, and (d) drawing appropriate conclusions.3

Quantitative sociology, which involves the use statistical methods such as surveys with large
numbers of participants, relies heavily on the scientific method. Quantitative sociologists

3
This text is from University of Minnesota (2010).
analyze data using statistical techniques to see if they can uncover patterns of – and even
predict – human behavior.

Approach Two: Use of an Interpretive

Framework
Other sociologists operate from an interpretive framework. While this framework also uses
sociological research methods to collect empirical data, it doesn’t follow a hypothesis-testing
model or seek generalizable truths. Instead, sociologists working within the interpretive
framework aim to understand social worlds from the point of view of participants, which leads
to in-depth knowledge.

Interpretive research is generally more descriptive – and less predictive – in its findings. Thus,
this approach aligns well with qualitative sociology, which seeks to understand human behavior
by conducting in-depth interviews, focus groups, ethnographic research or observational
methods, and analysis of content sources (like books, magazines, journals, and popular media).
Researchers in this framework tend to learn as they go, often adjusting their research question
and methods to optimize their findings and results.

1.3 The History of Sociology

Since ancient times, people have been fascinated by the social. As a result, many topics studied
in modern sociology were also studied by ancient philosophers in their desire to describe an
ideal society, including theories of social conflict, economics, social cohesion, and power
(Hannoum 2003).

Following are brief descriptions of six thinkers credited with creating sociology as a discipline,
or area of study. As you read each description, note the thinker’s sociological interest in social
influence and patterns, as well as their embrace of one of the two approaches – scientific or
interpretive – to sociological research.

Auguste Comte (1798–1857)

The term sociology was first coined in 1780 by the French essayist Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès
(1748–1836) in an unpublished manuscript (Fauré et al. 1999). In 1838, the term was
reinvented by Auguste Comte (1798–1857). Comte originally studied to be an engineer, but
later became a pupil of social philosopher Claude Henri de Rouvroy Comte de Saint-Simon
(1760–1825). Both Comte and Saint-Simon thought that social scientists could study society
using the same scientific methods utilized in the natural sciences. Comte also believed in the
potential of social scientists to work toward the betterment of society. He held that once
scholars identified the laws that governed society, sociologists could address problems such as
poor education and poverty (Abercrombie et al. 2000).

Comte named the scientific study of social patterns positivism. He described his philosophy in a
series of books called The Course in Positive Philosophy (1830–1842) and A General View of
Positivism (1848). He believed that the scientific method could be used to reveal the laws by
which societies and individuals interact, and that this knowledge could lead to the prediction
and control of human behavior.

Harriet Martineau (1802–1876)

Harriet Martineau was a writer who addressed a wide range of social science issues, including
economics, social class, religion, suicide, government, and women’s rights. She is widely
considered the first woman sociologist. Her writing career began in 1931 with a series of stories
titled Illustrations of Political Economy, in which she tried to educate ordinary people about the
principles of economics (Johnson 2003).

Martineau was the first to translate Comte’s writing from French to English, thereby
introducing sociology to English-speaking scholars (Hill 1991). She is also credited with the first
systematic international comparisons of society: Society in America (1837) and Retrospect of
Western Travel (1838). Martineau found the workings of capitalism, an economic system in
which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private interests for profit, at odds with
the professed moral principles of people in the United States. She further noted that
Americans’ belief in equality was inconsistent with the lack of women’s rights.

Karl Marx (1818–1883)

Karl Marx (1818–1883) was a German philosopher and economist. In 1848 he and Friedrich
Engels coauthored the Communist Manifesto. This book is one of the most influential political
manuscripts in history. It also presents Marx's theory of society: social conflict leads to social
change.

Marx believed that societies grew and changed as a result of the struggles of different social
classes over the means of production. At the time of his writing, the Industrial Revolution and
the rise of capitalism led to great disparities in wealth between the owners of factories and
their workers. Marx predicted that the inequalities of capitalism would eventually become so
extreme that workers would revolt. This would lead to the collapse of capitalism, and the
ascendance of communism (i.e., an economic system in which everything is owned communally
and distributed as needed).

Émile Durkheim (1858–1917)

Durkheim helped establish sociology as a formal academic discipline by creating the first
European department of sociology at the University of Bordeaux (1895) and by publishing Rules
of the Sociological Method (1895). In another important work, Division of Labour in Society
(1893), Durkheim laid out his theory on how societies transformed from a primitive state into a
capitalist, industrial society.

Durkheim argued that sociologists should study social facts, or those aspects of society and
culture that exist outside of the individual but direct or constrain individual action. In 1897,
Durkheim demonstrated the relevance of this argument when he published Suicide. In this
book, Durkheim examined suicide rates across societies, revealing patterns in who was most
likely to die by suicide, when, and where. Given these patterns, he came to attribute suicide to
social – rather than to individual or psychological – causes.

Durkheim also believed that it was possible to determine if a society was “healthy” or
“pathological.” He saw healthy societies as stable, while pathological societies experienced a
breakdown in social norms, or expectations for behavior.

Max Weber (1864–1920)

Max Weber established a sociology department in Germany at the Ludwig Maximilians
University of Munich in 1919. Weber wrote on many topics related to sociology, including
political change in Russia and the social forces that affect factory workers. He is perhaps best
known for The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904), which argues that Protestant
Christianity, especially Calvinism, led to the creation of capitalism.

Unlike Comte, Weber didn’t think that the scientific method could be used to accurately predict
human behavior in groups. Weber saw culture as a social force that made human behavior too
difficult to predict. In fact, Weber argued that sociologists’ cultural biases, if not controlled,
could also influence their research. To deal with culture, Weber introduced the concept of
verstehen, a German word that means to understand in a deep way. In seeking verstehen,
sociologists try to understand a social world, like an entire culture or a small setting, from an
insider’s point of view.

In this way, Weber and other like-minded sociologists advanced a philosophy of antipositivism,
in which sociological research methods are used not to generalize or make predictions but to
systematically gain an in-depth understanding of different social worlds.
 W. E. B. DuBois (1868-1963) 4

William Edward Burghardt DuBois was born free in Massachusetts in 1868. After graduating
from Fisk University, he earned a Ph.D. (in sociology) from Harvard University – becoming the
first black American to do so (USHistory.org). From academic positions at Wilberforce University,
the University of Pennsylvania, and Atlanta University, DuBois vociferously attacked the Jim
Crow laws and practices that inhibited black suffrage. His most famous books include: The
Philadelphia Negro (1896), which used statistical methods to study society’s impacts on
individuals and communities; The Souls of Black Folk (1903), which focused on African-
Americans’ “double consciousness” and demand for equal rights; and Black Reconstruction in
America, 1860-1880 (1935), which analyzed how race impacted workers’ solidarity in the
Reconstruction south (Cole 2019).

In 1905, DuBois met with a group of 30 men at Niagara Falls, Canada. As the “Niagara
Movement,” they drafted a series of demands essentially calling for an immediate end to all
forms of discrimination. Four years later, members of the Niagara Movement formed the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). DuBois became the
editor of the organization's periodical, The Crisis – a job he performed for 20 years. The Crisis
contained political essays, poems, and stories glorifying African American culture and
accomplishments (Cole 2019).

4
This section is by Traver for this chapter.
Bibliography
Abercrombie, Nicholas, Stephen Hill, and Bryan S. Turner. 2000. The Penguin Dictionary of
Sociology. London: Penguin.

Cole, Nicki Lisa. 2019. “11 Black Scholars and Intellectuals Who Influenced Sociology.”
ThoughtCo. Retrieved July 28, 2020.

Fauré, Christine, Jacques Guilhaumou, Jacques Vallier, and Françoise Weil. 2007 [1999]. Des
Manuscrits de Sieyès, 1773–1799, Volumes I and II. Paris: Champion.

Hannoum, Abdelmajid. 2003. Translation and the Colonial Imaginary: Ibn Khaldun Orientalist.
Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University. Retrieved January 19, 2012

Hill, Michael. 1991. “Harriet Martineau.” Women in Sociology: A Bio-Bibliographic Sourcebook,

edited by Mary Jo Deegan. New York: Greenwood Press.

Johnson, Bethany. 2003. “Harriet Martineau: Theories and Contributions to Sociology.”

Education Portal. Retrieved October 14, 2014.

OpenStax. 2017. Introduction to Sociology, 2e. Houston, Texas: Rice University(PDF). Retrieved
July 28, 2020 . Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY
4.0).

University of Minnesota. 2010. Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World.
Retrieved July 28, 2020 . Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

U.S. Census Bureau. 2013. "America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2012(PDF)." Retrieved
December 30, 2014.

USHistory.org. “W. E. B. DuBois.” U.S. History Online Textbook. Retrieved July 28, 2020 .
 2 – Sociological Research Methods 5

2.1 Introduction to Sociological Research

Methods
Have you ever wondered if home schooling affects a person’s later success in college, or how
many people wait until they’re in their forties to get married? Do you wonder if texting is
changing teenagers’ abilities to spell correctly or to communicate clearly? Do you want to know
how social movements like Occupy Wall Street develop, or how the massive public followings
for Star Trek and Harry Potter coalesced? Sociological research attempts to answer these
questions and more by collecting empirical evidence (i.e., evidence that comes from direct
experience, scientifically gathered data, or experimentation).

2.2 Research Methods

To collect empirical evidence, sociologists use research methods. A sociologist selects a
research method based on the topic or focus of their sociological research question. Questions
constructed around a hypothesis, or a testable educated guess, are best answered using
methods aligned with the scientific method and quantitative data. Questions that aim to grow
understanding are best answered using methods aligned with an interpretive framework and
qualitative data.

Following are the research methods most typically used by sociologists. Regardless of the
method used, all sociologists seek to maximize their research reliability, which refers to how
likely their research results are to be replicated if the study is reproduced. Sociologists also

5
Except where otherwise indicated, the text in this chapter comes from OpenStax (2017).
strive for validity, which refers to how well the study measures what it was designed to
measure.

Surveys
As a research method, a survey collects data from subjects who respond anonymously to a
series of questions about behaviors and opinions, often in the form of an ordered
questionnaire. The United States Census is an excellent example of a large-scale survey
intended to gather empirical sociological data.

Sociologists use surveys to gather different types of information from a large number of people.
While surveys are not great at capturing how people behave in social situations, they are a
great method for discovering how people feel and think – or at least how they say they feel and
think. Surveys can track preferences for presidential candidates, report individual behaviors
(such as sleeping, driving, or texting habits), and even collect factual information such as
employment status, income, and education levels.

A survey targets a specific population of people who are the focus of a study, such as college
athletes, international students, or teenagers living with type 1 diabetes. Most sociologists
choose to survey a small sector of the population, or a sample: that is, a manageable number of
subjects who represent the larger population. The success of any sociological research study
depends on how well a population is represented by the sample. In a random sample, every
person in a population has the same chance of being chosen for the study.

After selecting subjects for the survey, a sociologist presents them with the questionnaire,
which might consist of closed-ended or open-ended questions. Closed-ended questions might
be yes-or-no or multiple-choice questions, where subjects are asked to select from a limited
number of responses to each question. This results in quantitative data, research collected in
numerical form that can be counted and is easy to tabulate. For example, you could just count
up the number of “yes” and “no” responses to survey questions and then chart them into
percentages.
Surveys can also present more complex open-ended questions that seek answers beyond “yes”
and “no.” How do you plan to use your college education? Why do you like a particular
musician or band? With these questions, the answers vary from person to person. They also
require short essay responses, as well as participants who are willing to take the time to convey
more personal information. This results in qualitative data, research that is subjective, based on
what is seen in a natural setting, and is harder to organize and tabulate. Notably, while the
sociologist will end up with a wide range of responses, these responses provide a wealth of
insight that promote understanding.

Interviews
An interview is a one-on-one conversation between a sociologist and a research subject.
Interviews mimic the open-ended questions on surveys: the subject is asked a series of
questions to which they can respond as they wish. In the back-and-forth conversation of an
interview, a sociologist often asks for clarification, spends extended time on a subtopic, and
poses additional questions. There are no right or wrong answers to interview questions. Ideally,
a subject will feel free to open up and answer questions with honesty and in their complexity.

A sociologist engaged in interview-based research benefits from gaining a subject’s trust,

empathizing or commiserating with a subject, and listening without judgment. Sociologists
should also avoid directing or prompting interview subjects to respond to questions in a specific
way; otherwise, their research results will be unreliable.

Most typically, interviews are recorded and transcribed (i.e., turned into text). While
sociologists are certainly interested in an interview subject’s individual experiences and
perspectives, they always interview numerous subjects; aggregating or combining the findings
from each interview to learn something about the subjects, as a whole.

Interview questions like “How did society's view of alcohol influence your decision to drink/not
drink?” and “Did your family support your efforts to enroll in college?” are difficult to answer.
Likewise, the answers to these questions are difficult to categorize and count. Thus, most
interview transcripts are analyzed as qualitative data.

Observational Research/Field
Work/Ethnography
Most sociologists conduct their research out in the world, meeting subjects where they live,
work, and play. One method, known to sociologists by many names - observational research,
field work, and/or ethnography – involves the collection of data through the lengthy/direct
observation of a social life of a group. To conduct observational research, the sociologist must
be willing to step into new environments and observe and experience those worlds. The key
strength of this research method is that it unfolds in the subject’s natural environment,
whether it’s a coffee shop, tribal village, homeless shelter, the Department of Motor Vehicles, a
hospital, airport, mall, or beach resort. In observational research/field work, the sociologists,
rather than the subjects, are the ones out of their element.

While in the subject’s natural environment, the sociologist is busy collecting observational data.
Initially, in the field, these observations are recording as jottings, or informal notes. Later, once
the sociologist returns home or finds the time, these jottings are turned in to formal field notes
(i.e., complete and detailed reports of what was observed).

In some observational research studies, the sociologist is a participant. In participant

observation, sociologists join a group’s routine activities for the purpose of observing group
members within that context. This method lets sociologists experience – firsthand – a specific
aspect of the group’s social life. For example, a sociologist might work as a waitress in a diner,
live as a homeless person, or ride along with police officers as they patrol their regular beat.
Often, sociologists try to disappear into the population they’re studying, hiding their true
identity and purpose in an effort to protect the integrity of their research.
Once inside a group, some participant observers spend months or even years pretending to be
one of the people they’re observing. However, as observers, they cannot get too involved in the
social life of the group; they must keep their purpose in mind and apply the sociological
perspective.

In other observational research studies, the sociologist is a non-participant observer who is

known, by members of the researched community, as someone studying that community.
Observational research tends to focus on how subjects view their own social standing and how
they understand themselves in relation to a community. Sociologists might observe, for
example, a small American fishing town, an Inuit community, a village in Thailand, a Buddhist
monastery, a private boarding school, or an amusement park. These places all have borders
defined by specific behaviors and cultural norms. A non-participant observer would commit to
spending a pre-determined amount of time studying every aspect of that bounded place, taking
in as much as possible.

Both participant and non-participant observers engage in field work to watch and learn. As a
result, observational research is a research method aligned with the interpretive framework
(not the scientific method). Sociologists who use this method try to be alert and open minded,
and they strive to record all observations accurately.

The aim of observational research is the identification of social patterns. As these patterns
emerge, sociologists begin to develop specific questions about what they’re observing; these
questions lead to more pointed observations and further understanding. The sociologist might
present their findings in an article or a book that describes what he or she witnessed,
experienced, and learned.

Experiments
You’ve probably tested personal social theories before; theories like, “If I study at night and
review in the morning, I’ll strengthen my memory of the course material” or “If I stop eating
junk food, I’ll feel better.” In each of these cases, you’re testing a hypothesis or causal theory.
Sociologists do the same when they conduct an experiment. In an experiment, a social situation
is constructed and observed to test a hypothesis or if-then statement. Experiments are a classic
scientific method for collecting data.

To begin an experiment, a sociologist selects a set of people with similar characteristics, such as
age, class, race, or education. These people are then divided into two groups: an experimental
group, which is exposed to the independent variable(s) (i.e., the variable the is changed or
controlled), and the control group, which is not. Then both groups are assessed on the same
dependent variable (i.e., the variable of interest that is tested or measured). For example, to
examine the impacts of tutoring, a sociologist might expose an experimental group of students
to tutoring (the independent variable) while denying tutoring to the control group. Then, the
sociologist would administer the same exam to both groups of students. Any difference in exam
performance (the dependent variable) between the two groups would be attributed to the
presence/absence of tutoring.

In sociology, there are two main types of experiments: laboratory experiments and field
experiments. In a lab setting, sociologists create artificial situations that allow them to
manipulate variables. This means that the experiment unfolds in a research setting that can be
closely controlled. In a field setting (i.e., in the world, as it exists), the experiment cannot be as
easily controlled.

Secondary Analysis (of Existing Data)

While sociologists often engage in original research studies, they also contribute knowledge to
the discipline through the secondary analysis of existing data. Secondary data don’t result from
firsthand collection; instead they are data collected by someone else.

For example, sociologists often analyze data collected by agencies. In fact, governmental
departments and global groups, like the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the World Health
Organization, collect data that are extremely useful to sociologists. Sociologists might find
public statistics on foreclosure useful in studying the effects of the 2008 recession, or they
might compare racial demographic profiles with data on education funding to examine the
public resources made available to different groups.

One of the advantages of secondary data is that it is nonreactive (or unobtrusive), meaning that
it does not include direct contact with subjects. Unlike studies requiring direct contact with
people, using previously-collected data doesn’t require entering a population and the
investment and risks inherent in that research process.

Yet, using available data does have its challenges. Public records are not always easy to access;
a sociologist will often need to do some legwork to track them down. Likewise, there is no way
to verify the accuracy of existing data. For instance, while it’s easy to tally how many drunk
drivers are pulled over by the police, does this number necessarily represent all drunk drivers?
What about those who are never pulled over, thereby escaping count?

Another problem arises when data are unavailable in the exact form needed, or when they
don’t reflect the exact information sought. For example, while the average salaries paid to
professors at a public college or university is public record, these figures don’t necessarily
reveal how long it took each professor to reach the salary range, what their educational
backgrounds are, or how long they’ve been teaching.

Content Analysis
Many sociologists employ content analysis, engaging in the systematic examination of cultural
products and documented communications.

For example, to study how women were encouraged to act and behave in the 1960s, a
sociologist might watch movies, televisions shows, and situation comedies from that period.
Likewise, to research changes in attitudes related to the #blacklivesmatter movement, a
sociologist might rely on Facebook posts, tweets, and Instagram stories.
When conducting content analysis, it is important to consider the moment in time in which the
analyzed products and communications were released, as they tend to reflect the attitudes and
common cultural ideals that existed at the time of release.

Historical-Sociological Methods
According to Kristen Luker (2008:191), sociologists turn to historical methods “to answer one of
two questions: either (a) what events in the past shaped how this turned out in the present? or
(b) why did things turn out this way in one place and another way in another place?” In the
process, they often draw on historical materials sourced from individuals or institutional
archives, and they frequently engage in comparative and/or case-study analyses.6
For example, sociologists using comparative historical-sociological methods are often interested
in the development of a phenomenon over time and space. For example, they might use
archived organizational records to understand how corporate missions have shifted over the
century – or how they differ per national context.7

Sociologists engaged in historical-sociological case-study research use archival materials for the
in-depth analysis of a single event, situation, or individual. A major criticism of this method is
that, while offering in-depth knowledge on a topic, one case does not provide sufficient
evidence to form a social pattern or generalized conclusion. However, case studies can be
useful when the single case is unique. In these instances, a single case study can add
tremendous knowledge to a certain discipline.

2.3 Ethical Concerns

Given their work with humans, sociologists must consider their ethical obligation to avoid
harming subjects or groups while conducting their research. The American Sociological

6
This text is from Traver (2020).
7
This text is from Traver (2020).
Association, or ASA, is the major professional organization of sociologists in North America. The
ASA maintains a code of ethics, or formal guidelines for conducting sociological research,
consisting of principles and ethical standards to be used in the discipline. This code also
describes procedures for filing, investigating, and resolving complaints of unethical conduct.

Some of the ASA guidelines state that sociologists must try to be skillful and fair-minded in their
work. Sociologist must obtain participants’ informed consent and notify subjects of the
responsibilities and risks of research before they agree to partake. During a study, sociologists
must also ensure the safety of participants and immediately stop work if a subject becomes
endangered. Additionally, sociologists are required to protect the privacy of research
participants; even if pressured by authorities, sociologists are not ethically allowed to release
confidential information.

Sociologists must also make their research results available to other scholars, disclose sources
of financial support, and refuse funding from any organization that might cause a conflict of
interest. Notably, the ASA’s ethical considerations shape both the study and the publication of
results.

As an additional layer of subject protection, every college, university, or research institution has
an Institutional Review Board (IRB) that oversees and makes sure all in-house research meets
ethical standards. Thus, before they begin a research project, sociologists are required to
submit a written description of their research plan to their IRB for approval. 8

Notably, Max Weber (1864–1920) identified another crucial ethical concern deserving of
sociologists’ attention. Weber understood that personal values could distort the framework for
collecting and disclosing study data. Sociologists, he stated, must establish value neutrality, a
practice of remaining impartial, without bias or judgment, during the course of a study and in
publishing results.

8
This text is from Hammond and Cheney (n.d.).
Is value neutrality possible? Many sociologists believe it’s impossible to set aside personal
values and achieve complete objectivity. They caution readers, rather, to understand that
sociological studies may, by necessity, contain a certain amount of value bias. Value neutrality
does not mean having no opinions. It means striving to overcome personal biases, particularly
subconscious biases, when collecting and analyzing data.
Bibliography
Hammond, Ron and Paul Cheney. n.d. College of the Canyons: Introduction to Sociology, SOC
101, v2.1. Orem Utah: Utah Valley University. Retrieved July 28, 2020. Licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Luker, Kristin. 2008. Salsa Dancing into the Social Sciences: Research in an Age of Info-Glut.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

OpenStax. 2017. Introduction to Sociology, 2e (PDF). Houston, Texas: Rice University. Retrieved
July 28, 2020 . Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY
4.0).

Traver, Amy E. 2020. “A Case for Historical Sociology: COVID-19 in Context and Comparison.”
Teaching/Learning Matters 48.4 (Spring), American Sociological Section on Teaching and
Learning.
 3 – Sociological Theories and Paradigms 9

3.1 Theoretical Perspectives on Society

Sociologists study social events, interactions, and patterns, and they develop theories in an
attempt to explain why things work as they do. In sociology, a theory is a logical explanation (or
hypothesis) for a relationship between two or more aspects of social life.

Theories vary in scope depending on the issue(s) that they are meant to explain: macro-level
theories relate to large-scale issues and large groups of people; micro-level theories look at
relationships between individuals or small groups.

Paradigms are philosophical frameworks used to formulate theories in a discipline or area of

study. A sociological paradigm is a general way of conceptualizing the world based on abstract
assumptions about the nature of social action and the character of social organization. Three
paradigms have come to dominate sociological thinking and theory development:
functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism. The work of Émile Durkheim, Karl
Marx, and Max Weber ground these paradigms, respectively.

Functionalism and Émile Durkheim

Functionalism, also called structural-functionalism, is a macro-level paradigm that views society
as an organized system of integrated parts that are designed to meet the needs of society.
Functionalism grew out of the writings of English philosopher and biologist, Hebert Spencer
(1820–1903), who saw similarities between society and the human body; he argued that just as
the various organs of the body work together to keep the body functioning, the various parts of
society work together to keep society functioning (Spencer 1898).

9
Except where otherwise indicated, the text in this chapter comes from OpenStax (2017).
Building on Spencer, Alfred Radcliff-Brown (1881–1955) defined the function of any recurrent
activity as the part it played in social life as a whole, and therefore the contribution it makes to
social stability and continuity (Radcliff-Brown 1952). In a healthy society, all parts work together
to maintain social stability, a state called dynamic equilibrium (Parsons 1961).

Robert Merton (1910–2003) pointed out that social processes often have many functions.
Manifest functions are the sought or anticipated consequences of a social process, while latent
functions are the unsought consequences of a social process. A manifest function of college
education, for example, includes gaining knowledge, preparing for a career, and finding a good
job that utilizes that education. Latent functions of your college years include meeting new
people, participating in extracurricular activities, or even finding a spouse or partner. Latent
functions can be beneficial, neutral, or harmful. Social processes that have undesirable
consequences for the operation of society are called dysfunctions. In education, examples of
dysfunction include truancy, dropping out, not graduating, and under-employment.

As a functionalist, Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) believed that all aspects of society serve a
function in and for society. In fact, Durkheim even argued that social deviance, or behavior that
is outside of what is normal or typical in society, is functional: a society’s punishment of
deviance affirms members’ cultural values and norms and reaffirms their moral consciousness.

Durkheim also stressed the necessary interconnectivity of all elements of society. To Durkheim,
society was greater than the sum of its parts. Durkheim’s research on the collective conscience,
or the communal beliefs, morals, and attitudes of a society, reflected this interest – as did his
belief that social integration, or the ties that people have to their social groups, was a key factor
in social life. In fact, one of Durkheim’s primary interests was the cultural glue that held society
together. In his book The Division of Labor in Society (1893), Durkheim argued that as society
grew more complex, our social glue, or bonds, changed.

Preindustrial societies, Durkheim explained, were held together by mechanical solidarity, a type
of social order maintained by the collective consciousness of a culture. Societies with
mechanical solidarity acted in a mechanical fashion; things were done mostly because they had
always been done that way, and because bonds of kinship and a low division of labor created
shared morals and values among people.

In industrial societies, mechanical solidarity is replaced with organic solidarity, which is social
order based on an acceptance of economic and social differences. In capitalist societies,
Durkheim wrote, the division of labor is so specialized that everyone is doing different things
and people with differing values coexist. In societies defined by organic solidarity, laws exist as
formalized morals.

While the transition from mechanical to organic solidarity is, in the long run, advantageous for a
society, Durkheim noted that it can be a time of chaos and social anomie. Anomie – literally,
“without law” – is a situation in which a firm collective consciousness no longer exists in society.
People, while interdependent in the accomplishment of complex tasks, lack a shared sense of
social rules and direction. According to Durkheim, societies that reach an advanced stage of
organic solidarity can avoid anomie by redeveloping a collective consciousness.

Conflict Theory and Karl Marx

Conflict theory, a macro-level paradigm, views society as an arena in which people compete for
scarce resources. This perspective is most closely aligned with the writings of German
philosopher and sociologist Karl Marx (1818–1883). Marx put forth the idea of “base and
superstructure,” arguing that a society’s economic character forms its base, upon which rests
its culture and social institutions (i.e., the superstructure). For Marx, it is the base (economy)
that determines a society’s structure – including its conflicts.

Marx believed that conflict was inherent to capitalism, existing most predominantly between
the capitalist owners of the means of production (the bourgeoisie) and their laborers (the
proletariat). For Marx, this relational dynamic changed the value of work: no longer an
expression of human nature, work was now based on artificial conditions and completed for
wages alone.
Based on these beliefs, Marx described modern society in terms of alienation. Alienation refers
to the condition in which an individual is isolated or divorced from their society, work, or sense
of self. Marx defined four types of alienation related to the conflicts of capitalism.

• Alienation from the product of one’s labor. A modern worker is not given the
opportunity to relate to their creations. For example, instead of training for years as a
watchmaker, an unskilled worker now gets a job at a watch factory – pressing buttons to
seal pieces together. In the same way, a modern worker may not even know what
they’re making. For instance, a worker on a Ford assembly line may spend all day
installing windows on car doors without ever seeing the rest of the car. In other words, a
modern worker doesn’t care if they make watches or cars, only that they have a job.
• Alienation from the process of one’s labor. A modern worker does not control the
conditions of their job because they don’t own the means of production. Every aspect of
the product and production process is decided by the bourgeoisie, who dictate orders to
the workers. For example, a fast-food worker is expected to make food in the way they
were taught; all ingredients must be combined in a particular order and in a particular
quantity, with no room for creativity or change.
• Alienation from others. In the modern workplace, workers are set up to compete – not
cooperate: workers vie for time slots, bonuses, and job security. Even when a worker
clocks out at night and goes home, the competition continues. As Marx wrote in The
Communist Manifesto (1848), “No sooner is the exploitation of the laborer by the
manufacturer, so far, at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon
by the other portion of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker.”
• Alienation from one’s self. A final outcome of capitalist industrialization is the worker’s
loss of an occupational identity. Because there is nothing that ties a worker to their
labor, there is no longer a sense of self found in work. Instead of taking pride in an
identity as a watchmaker, automobile builder, or chef, workers now see themselves as
cogs in the machine.
Another idea that Marx developed is the concept of false consciousness. False consciousness is
a condition in which the beliefs, ideals, or ideology of a person are not in the person’s best
interest. In a capitalist economy, the ideology of the dominant class (the bourgeoisie) is
imposed upon the proletariat. When workers value competition over cooperation, or believe
that hard work is its own reward, they uphold the power of the bourgeoisie, accept their place
in society, and assume individual responsibility for existing conditions.

Marx proposed that false consciousness be replaced with class consciousness, the awareness of
one’s rank in society. Instead of existing as a “class in itself,” the proletariat must become a
“class for itself” in order to produce social change (Marx and Engels 1848). According to Marx,
when a society enters this state of awareness, it is ready for a social revolution.

Several other sociologists proposed variations of Marx’s ideas. For example, German sociologist
Georg Simmel (1858–1918) believed that conflict helped to integrate and stabilize a society,
and that resolving conflicts can reduce tension and hostility and pave the way for future
agreements. Additionally, in the 1930s and 1940s, German philosophers, known as the
Frankfurt School, developed critical theory as an elaboration on Marxist principles. Critical
theorists address the structural issues that cause inequality, identify the people who can make
change, and provide practical goals for social transformation (Horkeimer 1982).

More recently, critical theorists have turned their attention to inequalities of gender and race.
Janet Saltzman Chafetz (1941–2006) presented a model of feminist theory that attempts to
explain the forces that maintain gender inequality as well as a theory of how such a system can
be changed (Turner 2003). Similarly, critical race theory grew out of a critical analysis of race
and racism from a legal point of view. Critical race theory looks at structural inequality based on
white privilege and associated wealth, power, and prestige.

Symbolic Interactionism and Max Weber

Symbolic interactionism is a micro-level paradigm that focuses on the symbol-rich relationships
between individuals. According to symbolic interactionists, communication – or the exchange of
meaning through language – is the way most people make sense of their social worlds. Thus,
while a conflict theorist studying a political protest might focus on class difference, a symbolic
interactionist studying the same protest might focus on protester’s interactions and the signs
and symbols that they use to communicate their messages.

According to Herbert Blumer (1969), symbolic interactionism is premised on three ideas:

1. humans interact with things based on meanings;

2. these meaning comes from our interactions with others and society; and
3. these meanings are a matter of interpretation in context.

For example, if you love books, a symbolic interactionist might argue that you learned that
books have value (i.e., a specific meaning) in your interactions with family, friends, or at school.
Notably, and as this example exemplifies, symbolic interactionists see people as agents – they
shape the social world rather than merely being shaped by it (Herman and Reynolds 1994).

Max Weber’s work illustrates the power and perspective of symbolic interactionism. According
to Weber, ideas form the basis of society. For example, Weber argued that modern society was
grounded in the idea of rationality. A rational society values logic and efficiency over morality
and tradition. To Weber, capitalism is entirely rational: it often leads to efficiency and merit-
based success, but it can have negative effects when taken to the extreme.

As a symbolic interactionist, Weber was also interested in individuals’ perspectives and

relationships. For this reason, when Weber researched social divisions, he focused more on
how individuals experienced those divisions than he did on the divisions themselves. An
example: when studying rationality, Weber also studied the impacts of this idea, finding that
individuals experience rational society as an iron cage in which they’re trapped. For Weber, this
sense of entrapment led to a “disenchantment of the world,” or a reduction in our sense of
magic and wonder in/about the world.

Weber’s research, and that of other symbolic interactionists, has led to theories of
Constructivism, which propose that reality is what humans cognitively construct it to be.
According to constructivists, we develop social constructs based on our interactions with others
and these constructs go on to shape our world. This approach is often used to understand
what’s defined as deviant in a society. According to constructivists, there is no absolute
definition of deviance or normality; different societies have constructed different meanings for
both, and these meanings have given society shape.

3.2 Sociological Theory Today

While these three paradigms still provide the foundation for modern sociological theory, some
theoretical evolution has occurred in the discipline. Structural-functionalism was a dominant
force after World War II and until the 1960s and 1970s, when sociologists realized that it could
not explain the rapid social change happening across the United States.

Conflict theory gained prominence in the 1960s and 1970s, when sociologists revitalized the
study of institutionalized social inequality and critical theorists began to promote change
through the application of sociological principles. Yet, just as structural functionalism was
criticized for focusing too much on the stability of societies, conflict theory has been criticized
for ignoring social stability.

Since the 1980s, symbolic interactionism has expanded in influence – particularly through the
efforts of postmodern social theorists who emphasize the individual nature of reality. Research
done from this perspective is often criticized for lacking objectivity and employing an extremely
narrow focus. Proponents, of course, consider this one of the paradigm’s greatest strengths.
Bibliography
Blumer, H. 1969. Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall.

Durkheim, Émile. 1984 [1893]. The Division of Labor in Society. New York: Free Press.

Herman, Nancy J., and Larry T. Reynolds. 1994. Symbolic Interaction: An Introduction to Social
Psychology. Lanham, MD: Altamira Press.

Horkeimer, M. 1982. Critical Theory. New York: Seabury Press

Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. 1998 [1848]. The Communist Manifesto. New York: Penguin.

OpenStax. 2017. Introduction to Sociology, 2e (PDF). Houston, Texas: Rice University. Retrieved
July 28, 2020 . Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY
4.0).

Parsons, T. 1961. Theories of Society: Foundations of Modern Sociological Theory. New York:
Free Press.

Radcliffe-Brown, A.R. 1952. Structure and Function in Primitive Society: Essays and Addresses.
London: Cohen and West.

Spencer, Herbert. 1898. The Principles of Biology. New York: D. Appleton and Company.

Turner, J. 2003. The Structure of Sociological Theory, 7th ed. Belmont, CA:
Thompson/Wadsworth.
 4 – The Sociological Imagination
4.1 The Sociological Imagination
Although the methods and paradigms that sociologists use in their research differ, all
sociologists share at least one thing in common: each of them looks at society using what
American sociologist C. Wright Mills (1916-1962) called the sociological imagination10: the
ability to situate private or “personal troubles” within an informed framework of larger social or
“public issues.”11

Personal Troubles and Public Issues

Mills defined personal troubles as private problems experienced within the character of an
individual and the range of their immediate relations to others. In contrast, he defined public
issues as those problems that lie beyond one’s personal control and outside the range of one’s
inner life. Public issues pertain to society’s organizations and processes; they’re rooted in
society – not the individual.

For Mills, the sociological imagination allows us to see the relationship between our individual
experiences and the larger society.12 It encourages us to see our personal troubles in the
context of the broader social processes that structure them.

For example, personal troubles like being overweight, being unemployed, having marital
difficulties, or feeling purposeless or depressed can be purely private in nature. It is possible for
them to be addressed and understood in terms of individual, psychological, or moral attributes
– either one’s own or those of the people in one’s immediate milieu. In an individualistic society
like our own, this is, in fact, the most likely way that people will regard the struggles they
confront: “I have an addictive personality;” “I can’t get a break in the job market;” “My husband

10
This text is from Little (2016).
11
This text is from Wikibooks (n.d.).
12
This text is from Hammond and Cheney (n.d.).
is unsupportive,” etc. However, if one’s troubles are widely shared, they’re not simply personal;
rather, they’re common social problems that have their source in the way social life is
structured. Thus, they’re best addressed as public issues requiring a collective response and
solution.

Obesity, for example, has been increasingly recognized as an area of concern for children and
adults in North America. Michael Pollan (2006) cites statistics that three out of five Americans
are overweight, and one out of five is obese. Obesity is therefore not simply a personal trouble
related to the medical issues, dietary practices, or exercise habits of specific individuals.
Instead, it is a widely shared public issue that puts many people at risk for chronic diseases like
hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. It also creates significant social costs for our
medical system and other aspects of society.

Given the number of people impacted by obesity, Pollan sees obesity as a public issue. More
specifically, he argues that obesity is a product of the increasingly sedentary and stressful
lifestyle of modern, capitalist society. He also claims that it’s a product of the industrialization
of our food chain, which, since the 1970s, has produced increasingly cheap and abundant food
with significantly more calories due to processing. Additives like corn syrup, which are much
cheaper and therefore more profitable to produce than natural sugars, have led to trends like
supersized fast foods and soft drinks. In fact, according to Pollan, most processed foods
available for purchase in American supermarkets are made with cheap, calorie-rich, corn-based
additives.

In this example, the sociological imagination allows us to see how the personal trouble of
obesity is related to the public issue of industrialized food.13

Biography and History

In advocating for the sociological imagination, Mills proposed that:

13
This text is from Little (2016).
 "What people need... is a quality of mind that will help them to use information and
to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the
world and of what may be happening within themselves. The sociological imagination
enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning
for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals."14

In other words, for Mills: “Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be
understood without understanding both.” Thus, Mills’ conceptualization of the sociological
imagination also encourages us to recognize how events in our own lives (or our “biography”)
and events in society/culture (or “history”) are intertwined.15

As an example of this intertwining, consider the case of the 44th President of the United States,
Barack Obama. Born in 1961, his “biography” reveals individual intelligence, charisma, and
drive: Obama graduated with a B.A. from Columbia University and a J.D. from Harvard
University; achieved a successful career in law and education; was elected to the Illinois State
and United States Senate; and became the first African American President – all by 2008, when
he was 47 years old (Wikipedia, n.d.).

But what role did “history” play in Obama’s election to President? What if, for example, instead
of being born in 1961, Obama ran for President in 1961? 1961 was a tumultuous year for the
United States, especially in regards to race, race relations, and racial inequality. That year, in an
effort to test a Supreme Court ban on the segregation of interstate bus travel, the Congress of
Racial Equality (CORE) sent a small group of black and white Americans on desegregated buses
from Washington, DC to New Orleans, LA. This “freedom ride” movement was interrupted by
white supremacists, who attacked and even firebombed the buses. Pointedly, police and
political leaders were slow to respond to this violence. Regardless of Obama’s “biography,”
would Americans have elected him President in 1961 (History.com, n.d.)?

14
This text is from Wikibooks (n.d.).
15
This text is from Hammond and Cheney (n.d.).
As Mills saw it, the sociological imagination can help us to cope with and change our “private
troubles” and “biography” by directing our attention to the “public issues” and “history” that
structure our lives. By stepping outside of our personal, self-centric view of the world, we can
begin to see how society and culture – now, and over time – influence our attitudes, behavior,
and life chances.16

16
This text is from Wikibooks (n.d.).
Bibliography
Hammond, Ron and Paul Cheney. n.d. College of the Canyons: Introduction to Sociology, SOC
101, v2.1. Orem Utah: Utah Valley University. Retrieved July 28, 2020 . Licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

History.com. n.d. “Black History Milestones: Timeline.” Retrieved July 28, 2020.

Little, William. 2016. Introduction to Sociology, 2nd Canadian Edition. Retrieved July 28, 2020 ().
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Pollan, Michael. 2006. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York:
Penguin.

Wikibooks. n.d. Introduction to Sociology. Retrieved July 28, 2020 . Licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-Sharealike License.

Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. n.d. “Barack Obama.” Retrieved July 28, 2020 .
 5 – Culture and Socialization 17

5.1 What is Culture?

Humans are social creatures. Since the dawn of Homo sapiens nearly 250,000 years ago, people
have grouped together into communities in order to survive. Living together, people form a
culture. Culture refers to all of the material and non-material products (including beliefs, values,
and expectations for behaviors) that people create through interaction over time.

In a familiar context, culture recedes into the background: you know what is expected of you
and how to conduct yourself, so your beliefs and behaviors are almost second nature. In an
unfamiliar context, however, culture is made more obvious: you’re struck by differences in
expected beliefs and behaviors, and you become conscious of what others take for granted.

Take the case of traveling to work on public transportation. There are cultural differences in
commuting in the United States, Cairo, Dublin, and Mumbai. In the United States, a commuter
will find a marked bus stop, wait for the bus, pay the driver before boarding, and take a seat if
one is available. In contrast, when boarding a bus in Cairo, passengers might have to run; buses
there don’t often come to a full stop to take on commuters. Dublin commuters are expected to
extend an arm to an approaching bus, indicating that they want the bus to stop for them. And
when boarding a train in Mumbai, commuters must squeeze into overstuffed cars amid a lot of
pushing and shoving on crowded platforms.

In this single, simple example of commuting, culture’s complexity is revealed. Culture consists
of many components, including thoughts (e.g., expectations about personal space), behavior
(e.g., extending an arm or pushing), and more tangible things (e.g., bus stops, trains, and
seating capacity). Material culture refers to the tangible things of a culture, like the objects or
belongings of a group of people. Metro passes and bus tokens are part of material culture, as
are automobiles, stores, and the physical structures where people worship. Nonmaterial

17
Except where otherwise indicated, the text in this chapter comes from OpenStax (2017).
culture consists of the thoughts, behaviors, and beliefs of a society. Material and nonmaterial
aspects of culture are linked, however, as physical objects often symbolize cultural ideas. In this
example, a metro card is a material object, but it also represents a form of nonmaterial culture,
namely capitalism, and the widespread acceptance of the need to pay for public transportation.

Cultural Universals
While our movement between cultures brings differences to the fore, it also illuminates those
cultural elements that we all share in common. Cultural universals are patterns or traits that are
globally common to all societies. One example of a cultural universal is the family unit: every
human society recognizes a family structure that regulates sexual reproduction and the care of
children. Even so, across cultures, there is variability in how a family unit is defined and how it
functions. In some cultures, for example, family members from all generations live together in
one household. In other cultures, individuals are expected to leave home and live
independently for a period of time before they form a nuclear family unit (i.e., a family
consisting of a couple and their dependent children) of their own.

Anthropologist George Murdock (1897-1985) first recognized the existence of cultural

universals while studying systems of kinship around the world. Murdock found that cultural
universals often revolve around basic human survival, such as finding food, clothing, and
shelter, or around shared human experiences, such as birth and death or illness and healing.
Through his research, Murdock identified other cultural universals including language, the
concept of personal names, and, interestingly, jokes. Humor seems to be a universal way to
release tensions and create a sense of unity among people across cultures (Murdock 1949).

Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism

Despite how much humans have in common with each other, cultural differences are far more
prevalent than cultural universals. For example, while all cultures have language, analysis of
particular language structures and conversational etiquette reveal tremendous differences. For
example, in some Middle Eastern cultures, it is common to stand close to others in
conversation. In contrast, North Americans tend to keep more distance and maintain a large
“personal space” during conversation.

Sociologists aim to understand cultural differences in a way that is unbiased, avoiding

ethnocentrism, or the evaluation of another culture based on how it compares to one’s own.
According to sociologist William Graham Sumner (1906), ethnocentrism is grounded in the
belief that one’s own culture is better than all others. Notably, almost everyone is a little bit
ethnocentric. For example, Americans tend to say that people from England drive on the
“wrong” side of the road, rather than on the “other” side. Our tendency towards ethnocentrism
can be so strong that when we are confronted with all of the differences of a new culture, we
often experience culture shock (i.e., disorientation and frustration).

To refrain from bias, many sociologists engage in cultural relativism. Cultural relativism is the
practice of assessing a culture by its own standards rather than viewing it through the lens of
one’s own culture. Practicing cultural relativism requires an open mind and a willingness to
consider, and even adapt to, new beliefs and behaviors. Yet, sometimes when people attempt
to rectify feelings of ethnocentrism and develop cultural relativism, they swing too far to the
other end of the spectrum. Xenocentrism is the opposite of ethnocentrism; it refers to the
belief that another culture is superior to one’s own. (The Greek root word xeno, pronounced
“ZEE-no,” means “stranger” or “foreign guest.”)

Perhaps the greatest challenge for sociologists studying different cultures is this struggle to
maintain perspective. It is impossible for anyone to keep all of their cultural biases at bay; the
best we can do is strive to be aware of them. Pride in one’s own culture doesn’t have to lead to
imposing its values on others, and an appreciation for another culture shouldn’t preclude
individuals from studying it with a critical eye.

5.2 Categories of Culture

From a sociological perspective, culture consists of five categories or component parts: a shared
system of symbols; shared technology; shared beliefs and ideologies; shared social norms; and
shared values.

A System of Symbols
Humans, consciously and subconsciously, are always striving to make sense of their surrounding
world. Symbols, or things that stand for or represent something else (i.e., gestures, signs,
objects, signals, and words), help people comprehend that world. They provide clues to
understanding experiences by conveying recognizable meanings that are shared by societies.

The world is filled with symbols. Sports uniforms, company logos, and traffic signs are symbols.
In many cultures, a gold ring is a symbol of marriage. Some symbols are highly functional: stop
signs, for instance, provide useful instruction. Each of the aforesaid objects are examples of
material culture, yet, because they also function as symbols, these objects convey nonmaterial
cultural meanings, as well. Some symbols are valuable only in what they represent: trophies,
blue ribbons, or gold medals serve no other purpose than to represent accomplishments. But
many objects have both material and nonmaterial symbolic value. For example, a police
officer’s badge and uniform are symbols of authority and law enforcement. The sight of an
officer in uniform triggers reassurance in some citizens, and annoyance, fear, and/or anger in
others.

While different cultures have varying systems of symbols, one shared symbol system is
common to all: language. Language is a symbolic system through which people communicate
and through which culture is transmitted. Some languages contain a system of symbols used for
written communication, while others rely only on spoken communication and nonverbal
actions. In terms of nonverbal communication, some gestures are nearly universal: smiles often
represent joy, and crying often represents sadness. Other nonverbal symbols vary across
cultural contexts in their meaning. A thumbs-up, for example, indicates positive reinforcement
in the United States, whereas in Russia and Australia it is an offensive curse (Passero 2002).
Language is constantly evolving as societies create new ideas. Since the invention of the
Internet, people have adapted to new nouns, such as “e-mail,” and new verbs, such as
“downloading,” “texting,” and “blogging.” Twenty years ago, the general public would have
considered these nonsense words.

Yet, even while it constantly evolves, language continues to shape our reality. This insight was
established in the 1920s by two linguists, Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf. The Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis is based on the idea that people experience their world through their language, and
that they therefore understand their world through the culture embedded in their language.
More specifically, the hypothesis states that language shapes thought and reality (Swoyer
2003). Studies have shown, for instance, that unless people have access to the word
“ambivalent,” they don’t recognize an experience of uncertainty. Essentially, according to the
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, if a person can’t describe an experience, the person can’t have that
experience.

Material Technology18
Material technology refers to all of the physical objects that we create and use to satisfy our
needs and desires. In pre-industrial society, material technology was largely limited to a few
tools, the homes people lived in, and the clothes people wore. Notably, one of the most
important developments in the evolution of society was an object of material technology – the
wheel.

Although the wheel was a great invention, material technology is obviously much more
numerous and complex today. Because of technological advances during the past two decades,
many societies now have a wireless culture defined by the dominance of smartphones, laptops,
and GPS devices. Remarkably, these objects of material technology were unknown a generation
ago. Technological development led to the creation of these objects, and to the new symbol

18
This text is from Barkan (n.d.).
system or language that we use to describe them and their functions. In turn, and as indicated
above, this language helps to reinforce our commitment to these material objects.

Sometimes people in one society may find it difficult to understand the material technology of
another society’s culture. For example, if a member of a society in which there are no cell phones
visited the United States, they would obviously have no idea what a cell phone is or of its
importance. Conversely, if we were to visit that person’s society, we might not recognize or
appreciate the importance of their material technology.

Beliefs and Ideologies 19

Beliefs are the tenets or convictions that an individual holds to be true. Ideologies are the belief
systems that ground a society and/or culture. The difference between these two concepts is
often difficult for students to grasp. This is because so many of our individual beliefs stem from
the specific ideologies in which we’re situated.

As an individual, you may believe that evil walks the earth or that children are smarter than
adults. These are beliefs that you, personally, hold to be true. However, and at the same time,
you might also believe that markets are the best decision-maker and that all voices matter.
These are beliefs that are more widely held in America because they stem from our larger
cultural ideologies of capitalism and democracy, respectively. Capitalism, democracy,
communism, and socialism are ideologies that have long grounded the beliefs of the members
of many modern societies.

Social Norms
Social norms are rules of conduct that stipulate proper or necessary social behavior. They are
the visible and invisible behavioral expectations that structure society in accordance with what

19
This section is by Traver for this chapter.
that society defines as good, right, and important. Most social actors adhere to their society’s
norms.

Folkways are customary, widely-performed norms. Folkways direct appropriate behavior in the
day-to-day practices and expressions of a culture. They indicate whether to shake hands or kiss
on the cheek when greeting another person. They specify whether to wear a tie and blazer or a
T-shirt and sandals to an event. Other accepted folkways in the United States may include
holding the door open for a stranger or giving someone a gift on their birthday.

Many folkways are actions we take for granted. People need to act without thinking in order to
get seamlessly through daily routines; they can’t stop and analyze every action (Sumner 1906).
Those who experience culture shock may find that it subsides as they learn the new culture’s
folkways and are able to move through their daily routines more smoothly. Folkways might be
small manners, learned by observation and imitated, but they are by no means trivial – these
norms help people negotiate their daily lives within a given culture.

Folkways are examples of informal norms, casual behaviors to which people generally and
widely conform. Some informal norms are taught directly – “Kiss your Aunt Edna” or “Use your
napkin” – while others are learned by observation, including observation of the consequences
that follow when someone violates a norm.

Mores (mor-ays) are norms that embody the moral views and principles of a group, and
violating them can bring serious consequences. Many mores are judged and guarded by public
sentiment, and people who violate them are often shunned or banned from their group. The
mores of the American school system require that a student’s writing be in the student’s own
words or use special forms (such as quotation marks and a whole system of citation) for
crediting other writers. Writing another person’s words as if they are one’s own has a name –
plagiarism. The consequences for violating this norm are severe and usually result in expulsion.

The strongest mores are codified into taboos and/or laws. In the United States, for instance,
murder is considered immoral, and it’s punishable by law. Laws are formal norms worked out,
agreed upon, and written down in an effort to suit and serve the most people. Formal norms
are the most specific and clearly stated of the various types of norms, and they are the most
strictly enforced.

In terms of enforcement, people sanction certain behaviors by giving their support, approval, or
permission, or by instilling formal actions of disapproval and nonsupport. Sanctions are a form
of social control, a way to encourage conformity to cultural norms. Sometimes people conform
to norms in anticipation or expectation of positive sanctions: good grades, for instance, may
mean praise from parents and teachers. In contrast, breaking norms can lead to cultural
sanctions such as earning a negative label (i.e., “lazy, no-good”) or to legal sanctions, such as
traffic tickets, fines, or imprisonment.

Values
Values are a culture’s standard for discerning what is right and just in society. Values help shape
a society by suggesting what is good and bad, beautiful and ugly, sought or avoided. Consider
the value that the United States places upon youth. Children represent innocence and purity,
while a youthful adult appearance signifies sexuality. Shaped by this value, Americans spend
millions of dollars each year on cosmetic products and surgeries to look young and beautiful.
The United States also has an individualistic culture, meaning people place a high value on
individuality and independence. In contrast, many other cultures are collectivist, meaning that
the welfare of the group and group relationships are a primary value.

Living up to a culture’s values can be difficult. It’s easy to value good health, but it’s hard to quit
smoking. Marital monogamy is valued, but many spouses engage in infidelity. Cultural diversity
and equal opportunity for all people are valued in the United States, but the country’s highest
political offices have long been dominated by white men.

Values often suggest how people should behave, but they don’t accurately reflect how people
do behave. Values portray an ideal culture, the standards a society would like to embrace and
live up to. But ideal culture differs from real culture, the way a society actually is, based on
what occurs and exists. In an ideal culture, there would be no traffic accidents, murders,
poverty, or racial tension. But in real culture, lawmakers, educators, social workers, and others
strive to prevent or repair those accidents, crimes, and injustices.

5.3 Socialization
Socialization is the process by which people learn to be a member of a culture. It describes the
ways that people come to understand social norms, accept a society’s ideological beliefs, and
adhere to society’s values. Socialization is not the same as socializing (i.e., interacting with
others, like family, friends, and coworkers); to be precise, it is a learning process that occurs
through socializing. In other words, if an individual is isolated from social interaction, they
won’t experience socialization and they’ll be rendered ignorant of society’s expected beliefs
and behaviors.

Why Socialization Matters

Socialization is critical both to individuals and to the societies in which they live. It illustrates
how human beings and their social worlds are completely intertwined. In fact, it is through
teaching culture to new members that a society perpetuates itself. If new generations of a
society don’t learn its way of life, that society will cease to exist. In order for a society to
survive, whatever is distinctive about a culture must be transmitted to those who join it.

Yet, socialization is just as essential to individuals as it is to societies. Social interaction allows us

to see ourselves through the eyes of others, and it teaches us who we are and how we fit into
the world around us. It’s also crucial to our acceptance and success: to function effectively in
society, we have to learn the basics of that society’s material and nonmaterial culture, and we
have to learn language in order to communicate and to think.
 Nature vs. Nurture
Sociology’s emphasis on socialization reflects the long-running debate on the influence of
nature vs. nurture. Some experts assert that who we are is a result of nurture – the
relationships and caring that surround us. Others argue that who we are is based entirely on
our genetics. According to this belief, our temperaments, interests, and talents are set before
birth – or determined by nature.

One way that researchers attempt to measure the impact of nature on individuals is by studying
twins. Some studies have followed identical twins who were raised separately. The pairs shared
the same genetics but in some cases were socialized in very different ways. While instances of
this type of situation are rare, studies of identical twins raised apart can give researchers insight
into the way our temperaments, preferences, and abilities are shaped by our genetic makeup
versus our social environment.

While sociologists understand that genetics and hormones play an important role in human
behavior, we tend to emphasize the effect that society (or “nurture”) has on human behavior.
5.4 Agents of Socialization
How does the process of socialization occur? How do we learn to use the objects of our
society’s material culture? How do we come to adopt the beliefs, values, and norms that
represent its nonmaterial culture? This learning takes place through interaction with various
agents of socialization.

Family
Family is the primary – both first, and most significant – agent of socialization. Mothers and
fathers, siblings and grandparents, and members of extended families, all teach a child what
they need to know. For example, they show the child how to use material technology (such as
clothes, computers, eating utensils, books, bikes); how to relate to others (some as “family,”
others as “friends,” still others as “strangers” or “teachers” or “neighbors”); and how the world
works (what is “real” and what is “imagined”).

Keep in mind, however, that families do not socialize children in a vacuum. Many social factors
affect the way a family raises children. For example, we can use our sociological imagination to
recognize that individual behaviors are affected by the historical period in which they take
place. Likewise, we should understand that race, social class, religion, and other societal factors
play an important role in socialization.

Peer Groups
A peer group is made up of people who are similar in age and social status, and who share
interests. Peer group socialization begins in the earliest years, such as when kids on a
playground teach younger children the norms about taking turns and playing in a game. As
children grow into teenagers, peer groups help members develop identities separate from their
parents. In fact, peer groups provide adolescents’ first major socialization experiences outside
the realm of their families. Interestingly, studies have shown that although friendships rank
high in adolescents’ priorities, this impact is balanced by parental influence.

School
Most American children spend about seven hours a day, 180 days a year, in school (U.S.
Department of Education 2004). Significantly, schools don’t just serve a manifest social function
by teaching children math, reading, science, and other subjects; they also serve a latent social
function by socializing children into behaviors like practicing teamwork and following a
schedule.

School and classroom rituals, led by teachers serving as role models and leaders, regularly
reinforce what society expects from children. Sociologists describe this aspect of schools as the
hidden curriculum, the informal teaching done by schools. For example, in the United States,
schools have built a sense of competition into the way grades are awarded and the way
teachers evaluate students (Bowles and Gintis 1976). When children participate in a relay race
or a math contest, they learn there are winners and losers in society. When children are
required to work together on a project, they practice teamwork with other people in
cooperative situations. The hidden curriculum prepares children for the adult world: while at
school, children learn how to deal with bureaucracy, follow rules, meet expectations, take
turns, and sit still for hours during the day.

Schools also socialize children by teaching them about citizenship and national pride. In the
United States, children are taught to say the Pledge of Allegiance at school. Most districts also
require classes about American history and geography. As our academic understanding of
history evolves, textbooks in the United States have been scrutinized and revised to include
new perspectives on other cultures and historical events; thus, children today are socialized
into different national and world histories than were their parents.
 The Workplace
Just as children spend much of their day at school, many American adults invest a significant
amount of time at a place of employment. Although socialized into their culture since birth,
workers require new socialization into a workplace. For example, they must learn how to use
new material culture (such as the copy machine) and to abide by new nonmaterial culture (such
as expectations for speaking directly to the boss or sharing the office refrigerator).

Different jobs require different types of socialization. In the past, many people worked a single
job until retirement. Today, the trend is to switch jobs at least once a decade. This means that
most people will become socialized to, and socialized by, a variety of work environments over
the lifecourse.

Religion
Religion is an important avenue of socialization for many people. The United States is full of
synagogues, temples, churches, mosques, and similar religious communities where people
gather to worship and learn. These institutions teach participants how to interact with the
religion’s material culture (like a mezuzah, prayer rug, or communion wafer), and they uphold
the beliefs, values, and ritualized behaviors of institutional members.

Government
Although rarely considered, many of the rites of passage people go through today are based on
age norms established by the government. To be defined as an “adult” usually means being
eighteen years old, as that is when legal responsibility for self begins. Likewise, sixty-five years
old is widely considered the start of “old age” because it is when most Americans become
eligible for senior benefits.
Each time we take on one of these new categorical identities – adult, senior, taxpayer – we
must be socialized into our new social position. For example, when American males turn
eighteen, they must register with the Selective Service System within thirty days to be entered
into a database for possible military service. Likewise, seniors must learn the ropes of Medicare,
Social Security benefits, and senior shopping discounts when they come of age. These
government dictates mark the points at which we require socialization into a new category.

Mass Media
Mass media distribute impersonal information to a wide audience, via television, newspapers,
radio, movies, music, and the Internet. With the average person spending over four hours a day
in front of the television (and children averaging even more screen time), media greatly
influence social norms (Roberts, Foehr, and Rideout 2005). People learn about objects of
material culture (like new technology and consumer objects), as well as nonmaterial culture
(like what to believe, what to value, and how to act), through mass media.

5.5 Socialization Across the Life Course

As the range of agents above indicates, socialization isn’t a one-time or even a short-term
event. In fact, socialization is an ongoing lifelong process.

In childhood, children experience anticipatory socialization, wherein they acquire the cultural
content needed for future social positions. For example, in “playing pretend,” children prepare
to be doctors or lawyers and to set up homes and dress up.

As we grow older, we encounter age-related transition points that require socialization into a
new role, such as becoming school age, entering the workforce, or retiring. Likewise, the
pleasures of youth, such as wild nights out and serial dating, may become less socially
acceptable. During adulthood, many people enter into marriage or a civil union, bring children
into their families, and focus on a career path. They become partners or parents instead of
significant others and students.

Resocialization
In the process of resocialization, we acquire new and replace old cultural content, as dictated
by our move from an old to a new social position. Resocialization is necessary when a person
goes to boarding school, serves time in jail, or moves to a senior care center. The process of
resocialization is typically more stressful than normal socialization because people have to
unlearn behaviors that have become customary to them.

The most common way resocialization occurs is in a total institution, where people are isolated
from society and forced to follow someone else’s rules. A ship at sea is a total institution, as are
religious convents, prisons, the military, and some cult organizations – all are places cut off
from a larger society.

Typically, individuals are resocialized in total institutions through a two-part process. First,
members endure a degradation ceremony. In a degradation ceremony, new members lose their
old identity and are given new identities. This process is sometimes gentle, as when a person
entering a senior care home is asked to leave their family home and belongings behind. In other
situations, the degradation ceremony is more extreme, as when new prisoners lose freedom,
rights (including the right to privacy), and personal belongings.

Second, after being stripped of their old identity, resocialized individuals must build a new
identity that matches their new social context. In the military, soldiers go through basic training
together, where they learn new rules and bond with one another. They follow structured
schedules, keep their areas clean for inspection, learn to march in correct formations, and
salute when in the presence of superiors.

Learning to deal with life after having lived in a total institution requires yet another process of
resocialization. In the United States military, soldiers learn discipline and a capacity for hard
work. They set aside personal goals to achieve a mission, and they take pride in the
accomplishments of their units. Many soldiers who leave the military transition these skills into
excellent careers. Others find themselves lost upon leaving, uncertain about the outside world
and what to do next. The process of resocialization to civilian life is not a simple one.
Bibliography
Barkan, Steven. (n.d.) Sociology. Davis, CA: University of California. Retrieved July 29, 2020 .
Licensed by CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

Bowles, Samuel, and Herbert Gintis. 1976. Schooling in Capitalistic America: Educational
Reforms and the Contradictions of Economic Life. New York: Basic Books.

Murdock, George P. 1949. Social Structure. New York: Macmillan.

OpenStax. 2017. Introduction to Sociology, 2e (PDF). Houston, Texas: Rice University. Retrieved
July 28, 2020 . Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY
4.0).

Passero, Kathy. 2002. “Global Travel Expert Roger Axtell Explains Why.” Biography July:70–73,
97–98.

Roberts, Donald F., Ulla G. Foehr, and Victoria Rideout. 2005. “Parents, Children, and Media: A
Kaiser Family Foundation Survey (PDF).” The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Retrieved
February 14, 2012 ().

Sumner, William G. 1906. Folkways: A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners,
Customs, Mores, and Morals. New York: Ginn and Co.

Swoyer, Chris. 2003. “The Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, edited by E. N. Zalta, Winter. Retrieved May 5, 2011 .

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. 2004. “Average Length
of School Year and Average Length of School Day, by Selected Characteristics: United States,
2003-04.” Private School Universe Survey (PSS). Retrieved July 30, 2011.
 6 – Social Structure 20

6.1 What is Social Structure?

Social life is composed of many levels of building blocks, from the very micro to the very macro.
These building blocks combine to form social structure. Social structure refers to the stable
recurring patterns of behavior people create through interaction and through which a society is
organized. Social structure can be both horizontal and vertical. While chapter seven deals with
vertical social structure, this chapter focuses on horizontal social structure. Horizontal social
structure refers to the relationships and characteristics of the communities to which we belong.
Horizontal social structure comprises several components, to which we now turn, starting with
the most micro and ending with the most macro.

Statuses
Social status is defined as the socially-defined position that someone occupies in society. While
this position is often a job title, many other types of statuses exist: student, parent, sibling,
relative, friend, etc. In sociology, status does not refer to the prestige of a position: “physician”
is a social position with more prestige than “shoe-shiner,” but both are equally considered a
social status.

An individual can occupy several different statuses at the same time: someone can
simultaneously be a banker, a troop leader, a father, a school board member, a volunteer at a
homeless shelter, and a spouse. Status set refers to all of the social positions that an individual
occupies.

Sociologists usually speak of three different types of statuses. The first is ascribed status, which
refers to a status that someone is born with and has no control over. There are relatively few

20
Except where otherwise indicated, the text in this chapter comes from University of Minnesota (2010).
ascribed statuses; some common examples are our race, parents’ social class, parent’s religious
affiliation, and our biological relationships (child, grandchild, sibling, and so forth).

The second is achieved status, which refers to a status that you accomplish, at some point after
birth. This achievement is sometimes the result of your own efforts and sometimes the result of
good or bad luck. The status of “student” is an achieved status, as is the status of “restaurant
server” or “romantic partner.” Significantly, our ascribed statuses, like our race and social class,
can have an impact on our ability to acquire and maintain many achieved statuses (such as
“college graduate”). Likewise, our achieved statuses can be viewed positively or negatively.
While society usually views achieved statuses like “college student” positively, it generally views
achieved statuses such as “burglar” negatively.

The third is master status, which refers to a status that is so important that it overrides all other
statuses one may hold. For example, while “working parent” is a social position defined by two
achieved statuses, the expectations and importance of parenting may make “parent” (not
“worker”) one’s master status.

Roles
Whatever its type, every status is accompanied by a role, which is the behavior expected of
someone – and, in fact, any and everyone – with a certain status. For example, you are a
“student,” and you share this status in common with other readers of this text. As a student,
there are roles expected of you; these roles include coming to class regularly, doing all of the
assigned reading, and studying for exams. A major dimension of socialization is learning the
roles our society has for each status and then behaving in the way that status’ roles demand.

Regular and predictable interaction is aided by our socialization into statuses and roles.
Suppose you are shopping in a department store. Your status is “shopper,” and the roles
expected of you as a shopper – and of all shoppers – include looking quietly at items in the
store, taking the items you want to purchase to a checkout line, and paying for them. The
person who takes your money is occupying another status in the store, that of “cashier.” The
roles expected of that cashier – and of all cashiers in all stores – is to accept your payment in a
businesslike way and to put your items in a bag. Because shoppers and cashiers have these
mutual expectations, their social interactions are possible.

Groups
Groups are the next component of social structure. A group consists of two or more people
who regularly interact and share a common identity. To paraphrase John Donne, the 17th-
century English poet, no one is an island; almost all people are members of many groups,
including families, groups of friends, and groups of coworkers in a workplace.

It is important to distinguish social groups from two related concepts: social categories and
social aggregates. A social category is a collection of individuals who have at least one attribute
in common but who do not necessarily interact or identify with each other. “Music-lover” is an
example of a social category. All music-lovers have at least one thing in common, their love of
music, even though they don’t interact, share any other similarities, or identify with each other.
Gender, race, and ethnicity are the basis for many social categories. Other common social
categories are based on our religious affiliation, geographical residence, and social class.

A social aggregate is a collection of people who share a common physical location but who do
not necessarily interact or identify with each other. A crowd at a sporting event, the audience
at a movie, and a long line of people at the Department of Motor Vehicles are all examples of
social aggregates.

A common distinction is made between primary groups and secondary groups. A primary group
is usually small, characterized by extensive interaction, defined by strong emotional ties, and
lasting for a long period of time. Members of such groups care a lot about each other and
identify strongly with the group. Indeed, their membership in a primary group gives them much
of their social identity. Charles Horton Cooley (1909) called these groups primary because they
are the first groups we belong to and because they are so important for social life. The family is
the primary group that comes most readily to mind, but small peer friendship groups are also
primary groups.

Although primary groups are the most important groups in our lives, we belong to many more
secondary groups, which are groups that are larger and more impersonal and that exist, often
for a relatively short period of time, to achieve a specific purpose. Secondary group members
feel less emotionally attached to each other and less identified with or loyal to the group. The
sociology class for which you are reading this is an example of a secondary group, as are the
clubs and organizations to which you might belong. Other secondary groups include religious,
business, governmental, and civic clubs. In some of these groups, members get to know each
other better than in other secondary groups; these members might find themselves creating
primary groups out of their secondary-group memberships.

Organizations
One of the most important types of groups is the formal organization, a large secondary group
that follows explicit rules and procedures to achieve specific goals and tasks. For better or for
worse, organizations are an essential feature of modern societies. Our banks, our hospitals, and
our supermarkets are just a few organizations that we encounter regularly.

Max Weber recognized long ago that as societies become more complex, their procedures for
accomplishing tasks rely less on traditional customs and beliefs and more on rational (i.e., rule-
guided and impersonal) methods of decision making. The development of formal organizations,
he emphasized, allowed complex societies to accomplish their tasks in the most efficient way
possible (Weber, 1921/1978).

Building on Weber, Amitai Etzioni (1975) developed a popular typology of organizations. This
typology is based on how an organization induces and maintains membership. Utilitarian
organizations (also called remunerative organizations) provide an income or another personal
benefit. Business organizations, ranging from large corporations to small Mom-and-Pop corner
stores, are examples of utilitarian organizations. Additionally, colleges and universities are
utilitarian organizations – both for the people who work at them and for their students, who
certainly see education and a diploma as benefits gained from higher education.

In contrast, normative organizations (also called voluntary organizations) allow people to

pursue their moral goals and commitments. Their members do not get paid; instead they
contribute their time or money to the organization’s mission. The many examples of normative
organizations include the Boy and Girl Scouts, the Kiwanis Club and other civic organizations,
and organizations with political objectives, such as the National Council of La Raza. Alexis de
Tocqueville (1835/1994) observed some 175 years ago that the United States was a nation of
joiners, and contemporary research finds that Americans indeed rank above average among
democratic nations in membership in normative organizations (Curtis, Baer, & Grabb, 2001).

Some people end up in organizations involuntarily because they’ve violated the law or been
judged to be mentally ill. Juvenile detention facilities and mental hospitals are examples of
coercive organizations, which, as total institutions, seek to control all aspects of their members’
lives. Our chance of ending up in coercive organizations depends on various aspects of our
social backgrounds. For prisons, one of these aspects is geographical. For example, the
imprisonment rate (i.e., the number of inmates per 100,000 residents) is highest in the
American South and in the American West. Do you think that this pattern exists because crime
rates are highest in these regions or because these regions are more likely to send convicted
criminals to prisons?

Social Networks
A social network is a broad web of social ties radiating out from a given individual linking that
individual to a large number of others. While humans have always existed in social networks,
modern life is increasingly characterized by them. And, as Instagram and other social media
show, social networks can be incredibly extensive. In fact, a social network can be so large that
one individual in a network may know little or nothing about another individual in that network
(e.g., a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend). But these “friends of friends” can sometimes be
an important source of practical advice and other kinds of help. They can “open doors” in the
job market, introduce a potential romantic partner, and even share information about the next
big trend.

When considering career development, we often hear of the importance of “networking,” or

taking advantage of your connections with people who have connections to other people who
can help you land a job. You do not necessarily know these “other people” who might be of
help to you, but you do know the people who know them. Your ties to the “other people” are
weak, but research indicates that your involvement in this network can help you find a job (see
Granovetter 1973).

Social networks also bring benefits in other areas of life. For example, if you come down with a
serious medical condition, you would probably first talk with your primary care physician, who
would refer you to a specialist for professional and impartial care. But what if you have friends
or relatives who are physicians? Because of their connections with other physicians, you might
be able to secure an early appointment. And, because these specialists understand that you
know other physicians in their network, they may treat you with more sensitivity and respect.
In the long run, you may even get better medical care from these physicians. But who is most
likely to have such connections? Factors such as social class and occupational status, race and
ethnicity, and gender affect how likely we are to have social networks that can help us get jobs,
good medical care, and other advantages.

Social Institutions
Social institutions are mini systems of social behavior with a recognized purpose rooted in a
relatively stable value system. There are seven social institutions in American society: politics,
education, family, healthcare, religion, the economy, and mass media. These social institutions
help the United States satisfy basic social functions in key areas of social life. For example,
education is a social institution through which a society’s children are taught basic academic
knowledge, skills, and cultural norms. Additionally, the economy is a social institution through
which a society’s resources (i.e., goods and services) are managed. 21

As macro-level entities, social institutions are an object of analysis for functionalists and conflict
theorists, alike. Functionalists argue that a change in one social institution leads to a change in
all social institutions. For example, the industrialization of our economy meant that there was
no longer a need for large families to produce enough manual labor to run a farm. This same
shift also changed the way we view government involvement in the private sector, and it even
spurred new religions and forms of religious worship. Industrialization also informed the way
we educate our children: while schools were once set up to accommodate an agricultural
calendar, teaching models today is largely focused on preparing students for more industrial
jobs. In other words, a change – like industrialization – in one social institution brings an
interconnected change in another social institution. 22

On the other hand, conflict theorists contend that social institutions have failings that prevent
the United States from meeting all of its needs. Given their focus on social inequality, they
argue that social institutions often fail people because of their social class, race, ethnicity,
and/or gender. Because these institutions affect our behavior, attitudes, and life chances, they
have long been, and will continue to be, sources of significant social controversies.

Societies
The largest component of social structure is, of course, society itself. Society refers to a
population of people who live in a defined geographic area, share a common culture and
identity, and are subject to the same political authority. Societies certainly differ in many ways:
some are larger in population and some are smaller; some are modern and some are more
traditional. Since the origin of sociology during the 19th century, sociologists have tried to

21
This text is from Little (2016).
22
This text is from Openstax (2017).
understand how and why modern, industrial society developed. Chapter eight takes up this
focus on social or societal change.
Bibliography
Cooley, Charles Horton. 1963 [1909]. Social Organizations: A Study of the Larger Mind. New
York: Shocken.

Curtis, J. E., Baer, D. E., & Grabb, E. G. 2001. “Nations of joiners: Explaining voluntary
association membership in democratic societies.” American Sociological Review, 66, 783–805.

De Tocqueville, Alexis. 1994 [1835]. Democracy in America. New York: Knopf.

Etzioni, A. 1975. A comparative analysis of complex organizations. New York, NY: Free Press.

Granovetter, M. 1983. “The strength of weak ties: A network theory revisited.” Sociological
Theory, 1, 201–233.

Little, William. 2016. Introduction to Sociology, 2nd Canadian Edition. Retrieved July 28, 2020 .
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

OpenStax. 2017. Introduction to Sociology, 2e (PDF). Houston, Texas: Rice University. Retrieved
July 28, 2020 . Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY
4.0).

University of Minnesota. 2010. Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World.
Retrieved July 28, 2020 . Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Weber, M. 1978. Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology (G. Roth & C.
Wittich, Eds.). Berkeley: University of California Press. (Original work published 1921).
 7 – Social Stratification 23

Social structure can also have a vertical dimension. Vertical social structure, more commonly
called social inequality, refers to ways in which a society or group ranks people in a hierarchy,
with some more “equal” than others. In the United States and most other industrial societies,
class, race and ethnicity, and gender help determine one’s social ranking, or position, in the
vertical social structure. Some people are at the top of society, while many more are in the
middle or at the bottom. People’s positions in society’s hierarchy have profound consequences
for their attitudes, behaviors, and life chances across generations.

7.1 What Is Social Stratification?

Sociologists use the term social stratification to describe the systemic nature of vertical social
structure. Social stratification refers to a society’s organization of people into tiers, which
facilitate patterns of unequal access to basic, yet highly valuable, social resources.

You may remember the word “stratification” from geology class. The distinct vertical layers
found in rock, called strata, are a good way to visualize social structure. Society’s layers are
made of people, and society’s resources are distributed unevenly throughout the layers. The
people who have more resources represent the top layer of the stratified social structure.
Other groups of people, with progressively fewer and fewer resources, represent the lower
layers of our society.

In the United States, people like to believe everyone has an equal chance at success. However,
sociologists recognize that social stratification is a society-wide system that makes for unequal
experiences. While there are always inequalities between individuals, sociologists are
interested in larger social patterns. In other words, stratification is not about individual

23
Except where otherwise indicated, the text in this chapter comes from OpenStax (2017).
inequalities, but about systematic inequalities based on group membership, categories, and
classes. Although individuals may support or fight inequalities, social stratification is created
and supported by society as a whole.

The factors that define stratification vary in different societies. For example, in some cultures,
wisdom and charisma are valued, and people who have them are revered more than those who
don’t. In other cultures, the elderly are esteemed. Societies’ cultural beliefs both establish and
reinforce the inequalities of stratification.

One key determinant of our place in a social stratification system is the social standing of our
parents. We inherit many of their social standings, and we are also socialized into the cultural
norms that define them. As a result, our social standing can become a comfort zone, a familiar
lifestyle, and an identity.

7.2 Class Stratification

Class refers to the economic position in which one is situated and the opportunities associated
with that position. Classes are sets of people who share a similar position with regard to wealth
(the net value of money and assets a person has accumulated), income (a person’s annual
wages), the highest level of education earned, and occupation (particularly occupational
prestige).

Sociologists generally identify three levels of class in the United States: upper, middle, and
lower class. Within each class, there are many subcategories. Wealth is the most significant
means by which to distinguish classes, because wealth can be generationally to perpetuate the
class structure.
 The Upper Class in the United States
The upper class represents the top of the class stratification system, and only the powerful elite
get to see the view from there. J.D. Foster, an economist, defines the top 20 percent of
America’s highest earners as “upper income.” Within that group, people with extreme wealth,
who make up one percent of the entire population, own one-third of the country’s wealth
(Beeghley 2008).

Money provides not just access to material goods, but also access to a lot of power. As
corporate leaders, members of the upper class make decisions that affect the job status of
millions of people. As media owners, they influence the collective identity of the nation. As
board members of the most influential colleges and universities, they influence cultural
attitudes and values. As philanthropists, they establish foundations to support specific social
causes. As campaign contributors, they sway politicians and fund campaigns, sometimes to
protect their own economic interests.

American society has historically distinguished between “old money” (inherited wealth passed
from one generation to the next) and “new money” (wealth that you have earned and built
yourself). These means to wealth have traditionally been associated with different social
standings. People of old money, firmly situated in the upper class for generations, have
historically held high prestige.

The Middle Class in the United States

While many people consider themselves middle class, there are differing ideas about what that
means. Approximately 60 percent of America’s workers constitute the middle class, which
includes people with annual incomes from $30,000 to $150,000. These figures help to explain
why, in the United States, the middle class is broken into upper and lower subcategories.

Upper-middle-class people tend to hold bachelor’s and postgraduate degrees. They’ve studied
subjects such as business, management, law, or medicine in school. Lower-middle-class people
tend to hold bachelor’s degrees from four-year colleges or associate’s degrees from two-year
community or technical colleges.

Comfort is central to a middle-class identity. Middle-class people work hard and live fairly
comfortable lives. Upper-middle-class people tend to pursue careers that earn sufficient
incomes. They provide their families with large homes and nice cars, and their children receive
high-quality education and healthcare (Gilbert 2010).

In the lower-middle class, people hold jobs – like technical, lower-level management and
administrative support positions – that carry some prestige and are supervised by members of
the upper-middle class. With a lower-middle-class income, people can afford a decent lifestyle,
but they struggle to maintain it and to build significant savings. When budgets are tight, lower-
middle-class people are often the first to lose their jobs.

The Lower Class in the United States

In the United States, the bottom 20 percent of American earners are defined as “lower
income.” Just like the middle and upper classes, the lower class can be divided into subsets: the
working class, the working poor, and the underclass. Compared to the lower-middle class,
members of the lower class have less of an educational background and earn smaller incomes.
They work jobs that require little prior skill or experience and they often perform routine tasks
under close supervision. Public support, through food assistance, medical care, and housing, is
often central to the experiences of members of the lower class.

Working-class people, the highest subcategory of the lower class, often land decent jobs in
fields like custodial engineering and food service. This work is hands-on and often physically
demanding, such as landscaping, cooking, cleaning, and building.

Beneath the working class is the working poor. Like the working class, they have low-paying or
minimum-waged employment. However, their jobs rarely offer benefits such as healthcare or
retirement planning, and their positions are often seasonal or temporary. Working-class
Americans often toil as sharecroppers, migrant farm workers, housecleaners, and day laborers,
and many struggle to achieve success or complete milestones in school.

The underclass is the United States’ lowest tier. Members of the underclass are often
unemployed or under-employed. Those who do hold jobs typically perform menial tasks for
little pay, and they often suffer from housing insecurity or homelessness.

Social Mobility
Significantly, class stratification systems are open: people are free to move between the layers
or strata. For example, we can earn more education or income than our parents, and we can
socialize with and marry members of other classes. Social mobility refers to the ability to
change class positions within a class stratification system. When people improve or diminish
their economic status in a way that affects their social class, they experience social mobility.

Intragenerational mobility refers to an individual’s experience of upward or downward social

mobility. Upward social mobility refers to an increase – or upward shift – in an individual’s
social class. In the United States, people applaud the rags-to-riches achievements of celebrities
like Jennifer Lopez or Michael Jordan. Bestselling author Stephen King worked as a janitor prior
to being published. Oprah Winfrey grew up in poverty in rural Mississippi before becoming a
powerful media personality. Yet, while there are many stories of people rising from modest
beginnings to fame and fortune, the truth is that the number of people who rise from poverty
to wealth is very small. Still, upward social mobility is not only about becoming rich and famous.
In the United States, people who earn a college degree, get a job promotion, or marry someone
with a good income may also move up socially.

In contrast, downward social mobility indicates a lowering of an individual’s social class. Some
people move downward because of business setbacks, unemployment, or illness. Dropping out
of school, losing a job, or getting a divorce can also result in a loss of income or status.
It is not uncommon for different generations of a family to belong to different social classes.
Intergenerational mobility refers to those changes in class status that occur over generations.
For example, an upper-class executive may have parents who belong to the middle class, where
she was raised.

Structural mobility happens when societal changes enable a whole group of people to move up
or down the social class ladder. Structural mobility is attributable to changes in society as a
whole, not changes in individual lives or families. In the first half of the twentieth century,
industrialization expanded the American economy, raising the standard of living and leading to
upward structural mobility for many. In today’s economy, the recent recession and the
outsourcing of jobs overseas have contributed to high unemployment rates. As a result, many
people have experienced economic setbacks, creating a wave of downward structural mobility.

7.3 Racial and Ethnic Stratification

The meaning of race, as a concept, has varied over time. Today, we use “race” to refer to a
category of people labeled and treated as similar because of allegedly common physical traits
determined by heredity and genes. Social science organizations, including the American
Association of Anthropologists, the American Sociological Association, and the American
Psychological Association, have all taken an official position rejecting biological explanations of
race. All three groups emphasize the social construction of race, arguing that race is not
biologically identifiable and that previous racial categories were arbitrarily assigned, based on
pseudoscience, and used to justify racist practices (Omi and Winant 1994; Graves 2003).

Ethnicity is a concept that refers to a category of people bound together through actual or
perceived common ancestry, culture, and identity. Like race, the meaning of ethnicity has
changed over time, with individuals today identifying with ethnicities in complicated, and even
contradictory, ways.
 Racial and Ethnic Categories in the
United States
Americans regularly engage racial and ethnic categories – through the census, affirmative
action initiatives, nondiscrimination laws, and in personal day-to-day relations. A brief account
of some of these categories follow.

Constituting the only non-immigrant ethnic group in the United States, Native or Indigenous
Americans once numbered in the millions; today, however, they make up only 0.9 percent of
the American populace. Currently, about 2.9 million people identify as Native American, while
an additional 2.3 million identify as Native American and another ethnic group (Norris, Vines,
and Hoeffel 2012).

The category Black/African American is complex. Many Black Americans may have more recent
ties to Europe or the Caribbean, seeing themselves as Dominican American or Dutch American
instead of African American. Furthermore, immigrants from Africa may feel that they have
more of a claim to the term “African American” than those who are many generations
removed. This category also includes descendants of enslaved Americans, who were kidnapped
from Africa and sold into slavery in the United States. Currently, the U.S. Census Bureau (2014)
estimates that 13.2 percent of the United States' population is Black/African American.

Hispanic Americans also reflect a wide range of backgrounds and nationalities. In U.S. census
reports of 2014, 17.1 percent of the total American population self-identified as Hispanic.
Additional census reports indicate that about 75 percent of those Americans who identify as
Hispanic report being of Mexican, Puerto Rican, or Cuban origin. Notably, while there are
significant differences among the groups that identify or are categorized as Hispanic, there are
also different names for the category itself (i.e., Hispanic, Latino, Latinx, etc.).

The category Asian American denotes a diversity of cultures, experiences, and backgrounds, as
well. For example, Japanese Americans who have lived in the United States for three
generations are situated differently than Laotian Americans who have only been in the United
States for a few years. The most recent estimate from the U.S. Census Bureau (2014) suggests
that about 5.3 percent of the American population identifies as Asian.

If ever a category was hard to define, Arab American is it. After all, Hispanic Americans or Asian
Americans are so designated because of their counties of origin while, for Arab Americans,
Arabia has not existed for centuries. Geographically, the Arab region comprises the Middle East
and parts of northern Africa. People whose ancestry is tied to that area, or who primarily speak
Arabic, may consider themselves Arab Americans. As in previous years, the 2010 U.S. Census
did not offer “Arab American” as a census category; individuals who want to be counted as
Arab Americans had to check the box for “some other race” and then write in “Arab American.”
It is important to note, however, that when U.S. Census data is tallied, “Arab American” is
currently re-classified as “white.” This is problematic, denying Arab Americans opportunities for
federal assistance. According to the best estimates of the U.S. Census Bureau, the Arab
American population grew from 850,000 in 1990 to 1.2 million in 2000, an increase of .07
percent (Asi and Beaulieu 2013).

White ethnic Americans also come from diverse backgrounds and experiences. According to the
U.S. Census Bureau (2014), 77.7 percent of American adults currently identify as white, alone.
Those white Americans who do ethnically identify tend to claim German, Irish, Italian, and
Eastern European heritage. U.S. Census reports from 2008 shows that 16.5 percent of
respondents reported being of German descent – the largest group in the country. Additionally,
there are now more Irish Americans in the United States than there are Irish in Ireland.

Racial and Ethnic Stereotypes, Prejudice,

and Discrimination
Stereotypes are oversimplified generalizations about groups of people. While frequently based
on race and ethnicity, they can be grounded in almost any characteristic. Stereotypes may be
“positive” (usually about one’s own group, as when women suggest they are less likely than
men to complain about pain), but they are most often “negative” (usually toward other groups,
as when members of a dominant racial group suggest that a subordinate racial group is stupid
or lazy). In either case, a stereotype is a generalization that doesn’t take individual differences
into account.

Where do stereotypes come from? Significantly, new stereotypes are rarely created; rather, we
tend to recycle generalizations about previously subordinate groups to describe newly
subordinate groups. For example, most of the stereotypes now used to characterize immigrant
groups from South America and Africa were used to characterize earlier waves of Irish, Italian,
and Eastern European immigrants.

Prejudice refers to the beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and attitudes someone holds about a group.
A prejudice is not based on experience; instead, it is a prejudgment originating outside actual
experience. While prejudice is not necessarily specific to race, racism is a strong type of
prejudice; one used to justify the belief that humans are subdivided into groups that are
different in their social behavior and innate capacities and that can be ranked hierarchically

Racism is also a set of practices used by a racial majority group to disadvantage a racial minority
group. Institutional racism refers to the way in which racism is embedded in the fabric of
society. For example, the disproportionate number of black men arrested, charged, and
convicted of crimes may reflect racial profiling, a form of institutional racism.

While prejudice refers to biased thinking, discrimination consists of actions against a group of
people. Discrimination can be based on age, religion, health, and other indicators.
Discrimination based on race or ethnicity can take many forms, from unfair housing practices to
biased hiring systems. Overt discrimination has long been part of American history. In the late
nineteenth century, it was not uncommon for business owners to hang signs that read, "Help
Wanted: No Irish Need Apply." And southern Jim Crow laws, with their "Whites Only" signs,
exemplify overt discrimination that is not legal today.

While laws against race-based discrimination strive to address this set of social problems,
discrimination is not easily eradicated. Even if a magic pill managed to remove racism from each
individual's psyche, society itself would maintain it. Sociologist Émile Durkheim calls racism a
social fact, meaning that it does not require the action of individuals to continue. The reasons
for this are complex and relate to the educational, criminal, economic, and political systems
that exist in our society.

Institutional discrimination occurs when a society’s institutions have developed with and
through the embedded disenfranchisement of a group. Institutional discrimination can also
include advance a group's status, such in the case of white privilege, which refers to the
benefits people receive simply by being part of the dominant racial group.

7.4 Stratification by Sex, Gender, and

Sexuality
Sex refers to physical or physiological differences between males and females, including both
primary sex characteristics (the sexual and reproductive systems) and secondary characteristics
such as height and muscularity. Gender refers to the culturally-variable behaviors, personal
traits, and social positions that society attributes to being male or female.

Dichotomous views of sex (the notion that someone is either male or female) and gender (the
notion that behavior, for example, is either masculine or feminine) are specific to certain
cultures and not universal. The idea that sex and gender are binaries (involving only two
options) is also culturally and historically specific. In many cultures around the world, gender is
viewed as a fluid accomplishment (i.e., an identity that can change over time) and individuals
are gendered in multiple, diverse ways.

A person’s sexual orientation is their physical, mental, emotional, and sexual attraction to a
particular sex. Traditionally, sexual orientation was divided into four categories:
heterosexuality, the attraction to individuals of the other sex; homosexuality, the attraction to
individuals of the same sex; bisexuality, the attraction to individuals of either sex; and
asexuality, no attraction to either sex. Today, researchers understand that many more
categories of sexual orientation exist, and that sexual orientation is fluid, as well.

Alfred Kinsey was among the first to conceptualize sexuality as a continuum rather than a strict
dichotomy of gay or straight. He created a six-point rating scale that ranges from exclusively
heterosexual to exclusively homosexual. In his 1948 work Sexual Behavior in the Human Male,
Kinsey wrote, “Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual.
The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats … The living world is a continuum in each
and every one of its aspects” (Kinsey 1948). The Kinsey scale indicates that sexuality can be
measured by more than just heterosexuality and homosexuality.

Sex, Gender, and Sexuality-Based

Inequalities
Children learn at a young age that there are distinct expectations for boys and girls. In fact,
cross-cultural studies reveal that children are aware of gender roles by the age of two or three.
At four or five, most children are firmly entrenched in culturally appropriate gender roles (Kane
1996). Children acquire these roles through socialization.

Gender stereotyping involves overgeneralizing about the attitudes, traits, or behavioral

patterns of women or men. Gender stereotypes form the basis of sexism. Sexism refers to
prejudiced beliefs that value one sex over another, and it varies in its level of severity. In parts
of the world where women are strongly undervalued, young girls may not be given the same
access to nutrition, healthcare, and education as boys. Furthermore, they may grow up
believing that they deserve to be treated differently than boys (UNICEF 2011; Thorne 1993).

The United States is one society characterized by gender stratification, particularly in the
economic realm. Despite making up nearly half (49.8 percent) of payroll employment, men
vastly outnumber women in authoritative, powerful, and, therefore, high-earning jobs (U.S.
Census Bureau 2010). Even when a woman’s employment status is equal to a man’s, she will
generally make less than her male counterpart (U.S. Census Bureau 2010). Women in the paid
labor force also tend to do the majority of the unpaid work at home. On an average day, 84
percent of women (compared to 67 percent of men) spend time doing household management
activities (U.S. Census Bureau 2011). This double duty (or “second shift”) keeps working women
in a subordinate role in the family structure, as well (Hochschild and Machung 1989).

Notably, gender stratification through the division of labor is not exclusive to the United States.
According to George Murdock’s classic work Outline of World Cultures (1954), all societies
classify work by gender. While the specifics of this classification are not universal, Murdock did
find an important consistency: across 324 societies, nearly all of the jobs assigned to men were
given greater prestige (Murdock and White 1968). In other words, even if the job types were
very similar and the differences between men’s and women’s work were slight, men’s work was
still considered more vital.

Sexual orientation also mediates how Americans are treated in school, the workplace, and the
military. According to Sears and Mallory (2011), General Social Survey data from 2008 showed
that 27 percent of lesbian, gay, and bisexual respondents reported experiencing sexual-
orientation-based discrimination during the five years prior to the survey.

Sexual-orientation-based discrimination is often grounded in heterosexism, an ideology and a

set of institutional practices that privilege heterosexuals and heterosexuality over other sexual
orientations (Herek 1990). Much like racism and sexism, heterosexism is a systematic
disadvantage embedded in our social institutions, offering power to those who conform to
heterosexual expectations while simultaneously disadvantaging those who do not.
Homophobia, an extreme or irrational aversion to gay people, accounts for further stereotyping
and discrimination. Major policies to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation did not
come into effect in the United States until the last few years.
Bibliography
Asi, Maryam, and Daniel Beaulieu. 2013. “Arab Households in the United States: 2006–2010
(PDF).” U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved November 19, 2014 .

Beeghley, Leonard. 2008. The Structure of Social Stratification in the United States. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Gilbert, Dennis. 2010. The American Class Structure in an Age of Growing Inequality. Newbury
Park, CA: Pine Forge Press.

Graves, Joseph. 2003. The Emperor's New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the
Millennium. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Herek, G. M. 1990. “The Context of Anti-Gay Violence: Notes on Cultural and Psychological
Heterosexism." Journal of Interpersonal Violence 5: 316–333.

Hochschild, Arlie R., and Anne Machung. 1989. The Second Shift: Working Parents and the
Revolution at Home. New York: Viking.

Kane, Eileen. 1996. “Gender, Culture, and Learning.” Washington, DC: Academy for Educational
Development.

Kinsey, Alfred C. et al. 1998 [1948]. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Bloomington, IN:
Indiana University Press.

Murdock, George Peter, and Douglas R. White. 1969. “Standard Cross-Cultural Sample.”
Ethnology 9: 329–369.

Norris, Tina, Paula L. Vines, and Elizabeth M. Hoeffel. 2012. “The American Indian and Alaska
Native Population: 2010 (PDF).” U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved November 19, 2014 .

Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. 1994. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s
to the 1990s (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
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July 28, 2020 . Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY
4.0).

Sears, Brad and Christy Mallory. 2011. "Documented Evidence of Employment Discrimination &
Its Effects on LGBT People( PDF)." Los Angeles, CA: The Williams Institute. Retrieved December
12, 2014.

Thorne, Barrie. 1993. Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press.

UNICEF. 2007. “Early Gender Socialization.” August 29. Retrieved January 10, 2012.

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States: 2009 (PDF).” Retrieved January 10, 2012.

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10, 2012.

U.S. Census Bureau. 2014. “State and County Quickfacts.” Retrieved November 19, 2014.
 8 – Social Change 24

8.1 Macro-Level Social Change

A central focus of sociology is social change, the process by which cultures, social institutions,
social structure, and social interactions are transformed. Sociologists are particularly interested
in the nature of social change and the why and how of social change.

Consider, for example, the social changes that define our collective global history. Our earliest
ancestors lived as hunter-gatherers. Small groups of extended families roamed from place to
place looking for means to subsist. They settled in an area for a brief time when there were
abundant resources. They hunted animals for their meat and gathered wild fruits, vegetables,
and cereals. They distributed and ate what they caught/gathered as soon as possible because
they had no way of preserving or transporting it. Once the resources of an area ran low, they
moved on, taking everything that they possessed with them. Food reserves only consisted of
what could be carried. Typically, groups did not trade essential goods with other groups due to
scarcity. The use of resources was governed by the practice of usufruct, the distribution of
resources according to need.

The Agricultural Revolution

Things changed when people started raising crops and domesticating animals. Although there is
still a great deal of disagreement among archeologists as to the exact timeline, research
indicates that agriculture began independently and at different times in several places around
the world. For example, the earliest examples of agriculture appeared in the Middle East
around 11,000-10,000 years ago. Agriculture developed much later in the western hemisphere,
arising in what would become the eastern United States, central Mexico, and northern South
America between 5,000 and 3,000 years ago (Diamond and Bellwood, 2003).

24
Except where otherwise indicated, the text in this chapter comes from Little (2016).
Agriculture began with the simplest of technologies, like a pointed stick to break up the soil, but
it really took off when people harnessed animals to pull an even more efficient tool for the
same task – a plow. With this new technology, one family could grow enough crops to feed
themselves and others, as well. Knowing there would be abundant food each year led people to
abandon the nomadic life of hunter-gatherers and settle down to farm. The improved efficiency
in food production meant that not everyone had to toil all day in the fields.

As agriculture grew, new jobs and technologies emerged. Excess crops needed to be stored,
processed, protected, and transported. Farming equipment and irrigation systems needed to be
built and maintained. Wild animals needed to be domesticated and herds shepherded.
Economies began to develop because people now had goods and services to trade. As more
people specialized in nonfarming jobs, villages grew into towns and then into cities. Urban
areas created the need for administrators and public servants. Disputes over ownership,
payments, debts, compensation for damages, and the like led to the need for laws and courts,
as well as the judges, clerks, lawyers, and police who administered and enforced those laws.
Early legal codes established the value of money and the rates of exchange for various
commodities; they also established the rules for inheritance, fines as penalties for crimes, and
how property was to be divided and taxed (Horne, 1915).

As city-states grew into countries and countries grew into empires, their economies grew, as
well. And, when large empires broke up, their economies broke up too. The governments of
newly formed nations sought to protect and increase their markets. They financed voyages of
discovery to find new opportunities and resources and to establish and secure colonies all over
the world. This ushered in a long (and continuing) period of economic development and human
and environmental exploitation.

The Industrial Revolution

Up until the end of the 18th century, most manufacturing was done using manual labor. This
changed as research led to the development of machines that could be used to manufacture
goods. In fact, just a small number of technological innovations led to massive changes across
economies. In the textile industries, the spinning of cotton, worsted yarn, and flax could be
done more quickly and less expensively using new machines (Bond et al., 2003). Likewise, the
use of coke from coal in all stages of smelting dramatically lowered the cost of iron production
while increasing availability (Bond, 2003). Yet, James Watt ushered in what many scholars
recognize as the greatest technological innovation, which revolutionized transportation and the
production of goods – the steam engine.

As people moved to cities to fill factory jobs, factory production also changed. Workers did their
jobs in assembly lines and were trained to complete only one or two steps in the manufacturing
process. These advances meant that more finished goods could be manufactured with more
efficiency and speed than ever before.

At the same time, the Industrial Revolution also changed agricultural practices. New technology
introduced gasoline-powered farm tools such as tractors, seed drills, threshers, and combine
harvesters. Farmers were encouraged to plant large fields of a single crop, which helped to
move agricultural economies from subsistence models to the pursuit of profit.

While many people’s lives were improving, the Industrial Revolution also birthed and
accentuated significant societal problems. In fact, there were many inequalities built into the
system of industrialization. Owners amassed vast fortunes while laborers, including young
children, toiled for long hours in unsafe conditions. Workers’ rights, wage protection, and safe
work environments were issues around which people began to organize for reform. Many of
these concerns – and collective actions – continue today.
 Postindustrial Societies and the
Information Age
More recently, modernized nations have transitioned into postindustrial societies, where one
of the most valuable goods is information. Those who have the means to produce, store, and
disseminate information are leaders in this type of society.

The rapid increase in computer use is central to the transition to a postindustrial or information
economy. Nowadays, fewer people are needed to work in factories because computerized
robots handle many of the tasks. Other manufacturing jobs have also been outsourced to
distant countries as a result of the developing global economy.

The growth of the Internet has created industries that exist almost entirely online. Likewise,
technology has changed how goods are produced. For instance, the music and film industries
used to produce physical products like CDs and DVDs for distribution. Now those goods are
increasingly produced digitally and streamed or downloaded at a much lower physical
manufacturing cost. Information and the wherewithal to use it creatively are valuable
commodities in a postindustrial economy.

8.2 Causes of Social Change

Across each of the aforesaid moments of macro-level social change, we see evidence of five
agents or mechanisms of change. These agents are: social institutions, technology, population,
social movements, and the environment.

Social Institutions
Functionalists argue that a change in one social institution yields changes in all social
institutions. This argument is supported by an analysis of changes in – and because of – the
economy.
Today, for example, many societal changes are related to the globalization of the economy.
Globalization is defined as the process by which everyone/everything on earth becomes
increasingly interconnected. Beginning in the 1970s, Western governments began to deregulate
social services while granting greater liberties to private businesses. As a result, world markets
became dominated by unregulated, international flows of capital investment and new
multinational networks of corporations. With the introduction of new technologies, industrial
production was moved to countries where labor costs were cheapest and profit greatest. A new
global economy emerged to replace nationally based economies.

The existence of a global economy means that national borders are markedly less relevant to
everyday life today than they were 50 years ago. The terrain on which corporate, political,
environmental, and other types of decisions are made is no longer confined to the boundaries
of the nation, which diminishes the ability of national governments to independently control
economic and foreign policy. Thus, globalization also represents a weakening of the autonomy
and power of nations.

Happening alongside the process of globalization is cultural diffusion, which refers to the global
spread of material and nonmaterial culture. While globalization refers to the integration of
markets, cultural diffusion refers to the integration of cultures. Middle-class Americans can now
fly overseas and return with an appreciation for Thai noodles or Italian gelato. Access to
television and the internet has brought the lifestyles and values portrayed in Hollywood sitcoms
into homes around the globe. Twitter feeds from public demonstrations in one nation have
encouraged political protesters in other countries. When this kind of diffusion occurs, material
objects and ideas from one culture spread into another.

Global migration also encourages the diffusion of cultural ideas and artifacts, as people from
around the world disperse from their original homeland into diasporas (or scattered, global
communities). Migrants, refugees, and temporary foreign workers have long brought their
beliefs, attitudes, languages, cuisines, music, religious practices, and other elements of life with
them when they moved. What is different today, however, is the way in which electronic media
has made it possible for migrants to keep in daily contact with the friends, family, and culture
left behind. Notably, these same media allow those left behind to imagine future homes
elsewhere in the world, as well. In the era of globalization, the experience of culture is
increasingly disembedded from location.

Cultural hybridity is one of the consequences of the increased global flows of capital, people,
culture, and entertainment. Hybrid cultures are new forms of culture that arise from cross-
cultural exchange, especially in the aftermath of colonialism. On one hand, there are blendings
of different cultural elements that were, at one time, distinct and locally based. On the other
hand, there are processes of indigenization and appropriation in which local cultures adopt and
redefine foreign cultural forms.

Technology
When considering “technology,” you probably picture computers and cell phones; however,
and as discussed in chapter five, technology is not just a product of the modern era. For
example, fire and stone tools were important forms of technology developed during the Stone
Age. And, just as digital technology shapes how we live today, stone tools changed how
premodern humans lived, as well. From the first calculator, invented as an abacus in 2400 BCE
in Babylon, to the predecessor of the modern computer, created in 1882 by Charles Babbage,
all of our technological innovations are advancements on previous iterations.

All aspects of our lives today are influenced by technology. In fact, globalization is impacted in
large part by technological diffusion, the spread of technology across borders. A 2008 World
Bank report found that technological progress and economic growth rates were linked, and that
the rise in technological progress has helped to improve the situations of many living in
absolute poverty around the globe (World Bank, 2008). Yet, it is often the population most in
need of technology that lacks access to it. For example, technology to purify water could save
many lives, but the villages most in need of water purification don’t have access to the funds to
purchase technology or the technological expertise required to introduce it as a solution.
Notably, the increasing gap between the technological haves and have-nots – sometimes called
the digital divide – occurs both locally and globally.

Further, there are often risks associated with the development and use of new technologies,
particularly in the information age: the loss of privacy, the risk of total system failure (like the
Y2K panic at the turn of the millennium), and the added vulnerability created by technological
dependence are just three such risks.

Population
We recently hit a population milestone of 7 billion humans living on the Earth’s surface. While it
took approximately 12 years to grow from 6 to 7 billion people, and it is estimated that the
global population will grow from 7 to 8 billion by 2025 (United Nations Population Fund 2011).
How will that population be distributed? Where is that population going to be highest? Where
is it slowing down? Where will people live? To explore these questions, we turn to demography,
or the study of populations. Three of the most important components affecting population are
fertility, mortality, and migration.

The fertility rate of a society is a measure noting the number of children born. The fertility
number is generally lower than the fecundity number, which measures the potential number of
children that could be born to women of childbearing age. Sociologists measure fertility using
the crude birthrate (the number of live births per 1,000 people per year).

The mortality rate of a society is a measure of the number of people who die. The crude death
rate is a number derived from the number of deaths per 1,000 people per year. When analyzed
together, fertility and mortality rates help researchers understand the overall growth occurring
in a population.

Another key element in studying populations is the movement of people into and out of an
area. This movement is called migration. Migration may take the form of immigration, which
describes people’s movement into an area to take up permanent residence, or emigration,
which refers to people’s movement out of an area to another place of permanent residence.
Migration might be voluntary (as when students study abroad), involuntary (as when Somalians
left the drought and famine-stricken portions of their nation for shelter in refugee camps), or
forced (as when many Native/Indigenous Americans were removed from their ancestral lands).

The growth rate of a population, or how much the population of a defined area grows or
shrinks in a specific time period, is therefore a function of the number of births and deaths as
well as the number of people migrating to and from a country. It is calculated as the current
population minus the initial population (at the beginning of the time period) divided by the
initial population (then multiplied by 100).

Population changes can be due to random external forces, like an epidemic, or shifts in social
institutions. Regardless of why and how such change happens, population trends have a
tremendous impact on all aspects of society. For example, in the United States, we are
experiencing an increase in our senior population as baby boomers begin to retire. This will
change the way many of our social institutions are organized. For example, there is now an
increased demand for housing in warmer climates, a massive shift in the need for elder care
and assisted-living facilities, and growing awareness of elder abuse. There is also concern about
labor shortages and the knowledge gap, as the most senior and accomplished leaders in
different sectors retire. Furthermore, as this large generation leaves the workforce, the loss of
tax income and pressure on pension and retirement plans means that the financial stability of
the country is threatened.

Social Movements
Collective behavior refers to any non-institutionalized activity in which several people
voluntarily engage. A social movement is a form of collective behavior that aims to further
common interests through collaborative action outside the sphere of established institutions.
Social movements aim to create social change (e.g., Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring), to
resist social change (e.g., the anti-globalization movement), or to provide a political voice to
those otherwise disenfranchised (e.g., the civil rights movement).

Social movements can occur on the local, national, and global stage, and their foci can vary.
Reform movements seek to change something specific about the social structure. Examples
include antinuclear groups and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). Revolutionary
movements seek to completely change every aspect of society. These would include the Cuban
26th of July Movement (under Fidel Castro), the 1960s counterculture movement, and
anarchist collectives. Redemptive movements are “meaning seeking,” and their goal is to
provoke inner change or spiritual growth in individuals. Organizations pushing these
movements might include Alcoholics Anonymous, New Age movements, or Christian
fundamentalist groups. Alternative movements are focused on self-improvement and limited,
specific changes to individual beliefs and behavior. These include groups like the Slow Food
movement, Planned Parenthood, and barefoot-jogging advocates. Resistance movements seek
to prevent or undo changes to the social structure. The Ku Klux Klan and pro-life movements
fall into this category.

Significantly, sociologists often study the life cycle of social movements – how they emerge,
grow, and, in some cases, die out. Blumer (1969) and Tilly (1978) outline a four-stage
movement life-cycle. In the preliminary stage, people become aware of an issue and leaders
emerge. This is followed by the coalescence stage when people join together and organize in
order to publicize the issue and raise awareness. In the institutionalization stage, the
movement no longer requires grassroots volunteerism: it is an established organization,
typically peopled with paid staff. When people fall away, adopt a new movement, the
movement brings about the change it sought, or people no longer take the issue seriously, the
movement falls into the decline stage.
 The Environment
Individuals and the environment affect each other. As human populations move into more
vulnerable areas, we see an increase in the number of people affected by natural disasters. We
also see that human interaction with the environment increases the impact of those disasters.

Presently, we face a combination of too many people and the increased demands made by
these people on the Earth. As a population, we have brought water tables to dangerously low
levels, built up fragile shorelines to increase development, and irrigated massive crop fields
with water brought in from far away. These issues have birthed social movements and are
bringing about social change as the public becomes more educated and aware.

The subfield of environmental sociology studies how humans interact with their environments.
Two key concepts in environmental sociology are the concepts of carrying capacity, which
refers to the maximum amount of life that can be sustained within a given area, and the
commons, which refers to the collective resources – like air, water, plant and animal life, and
ecosystems – that humans share in common and that have remained outside of private
ownership or processes of commodification and trade. In an environmental context, the
carrying capacity of different environments depends on the commons to the degree that the
commons are necessary for sustaining life. When the commons are threatened through
pollution or overexploitation, the carrying capacity of the environment is degraded.

Climate change is a global issue in which the degradation of the global commons through
ecologically unsustainable human activities threatens the earth’s carrying capacity as a whole.
Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures due to human activity and, in
particular, the release of greenhouse gases into the environment. A significant effect of climate
change is more extreme weather. There are increasingly more record-breaking weather
phenomena, from the number of Category 4 hurricanes to the amount of snowfall in a given
winter. While the scientific consensus on climate change is overwhelming, some members of
the American public continue to debate the topic. What’s this argument about? The idea of
costly regulations that would require expensive operational upgrades has been a source of
great anxiety to much of the business community, and, as a rebuttal, they argue, via lobbyists,
that such regulations would be disastrous for the economy.
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