CH-1-2 Understanding Sociology – Sociology in Modules : Chapter Notes

This Document Contains Chapters 1 to 2 CHAPTER 1 UNDERSTANDING SOCIOLOGY CHAPTER SUMMARY Sociology is the scientific study of social behavior and human groups. In attempting to understand social patterns of behavior, sociologists rely on a unique type of critical thinking referred to by C. Wright Mills as the sociological imagination. A key element of the sociological imagination is having an awareness of the relationship between an individual and the wider society. Sociology, along with anthropology, psychology, economics, history, and political science, is a social science. Sociology is unique in its emphasis on external factors—that is, the influence that society has on people’s attitudes and behaviors. Sociology is extremely broad in scope and encompasses a number of substantive topics ranging from aging and the life course to crime, education, health, religion, and sexuality. Unlike common sense, sociological data is empirical, meaning that sociologists rely on scientific studies in order to describe and understand a social environment. Common sense, on the other hand, is based on conventional wisdom which as we know, is often inaccurate and unreliable. Sociologists use theories to help explain events, forces, ideas, or behavior in a comprehensive manner. A theory is simply a set of statements that seeks to explain. The strongest theories are those which both explain and predict. Sociologists rely on a variety of theories, each with a different set of assumptions and a unique perspective. Several European social theorists made long-standing contributions to the development of sociology and to sociological theory. Auguste Comte (1798–1857) coined the term sociology and was one of the first to suggest an application of scientific principles to the study of human behavior. Harriet Martineau (1802–1876), an English sociologist, is known for both her translations of Comte’s writings as well as her original studies of the customs and social practices of Britain and the United States. Martineau’s pioneering efforts at social research would most likely have landed her the title of “founder of sociology,” had it not been for her gender. One of the most controversial social theorists of the 19th century was Herbert Spencer (1820–1903). Drawing on the ideas of Charles Darwin, Spencer argued that like animals, humans have varying levels of social fitness and those who are the most fit will thrive, while those who are less fit will struggle and eventually, die out. His theories appealed to many throughout Britain and the United States, especially the powerful who had a vested interest in protecting the status quo. Émile Durkheim was one of the first individuals to hold a professional appointment with the title of “sociologist.” Durkheim was interested in the processes and consequences of modernization. According to Durkheim, the modernization of society may lead to a condition known as “anomie,” or normlessness. Anomie is experienced when social norms lose their effectiveness as instruments of control. The inability of modern societies to regulate or control behavior may lead to higher levels of deviance, including suicide. Indeed, Durkheim’s most well-known work is the publication Suicide, which examines the social patterns underlying suicide rates. Considered a sociological “giant,” Max Weber (1864–1920), was well-versed in many subject areas, including history, law, and religion. Weber made several contributions to the field of sociology, including the concept of verstehen, the German word for “understanding” or “insight.” Weber argued that social phenomenon cannot be studied using objective criteria only. Rather, sociologists must understand the subjective meanings human actors attach to their actions and to things around them. Weber is also known for a concept known as ideal type. An ideal type is a construct based on pure characteristics. Ideal types are used in sociology for understanding, describing, and comparing. Like Spencer, Karl Marx (1818–1883) is one of the most controversial figures in sociology, although for very different reasons. Marx was highly critical of existing social institutions and their tendency to create and maintain the status quo. He was especially outspoken on the matter of worker exploitation by the bourgeoisie. Together with his friend and colleague, Friedrich Engels, Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto, a brief but compelling document, urging the working class (or “proletariat”) to overthrow the ruling class (“bourgeoisie”). Because of his subversive writings, endorsement of major social change, and involvement with underground organizations, Marx was eventually exiled from Germany. His work, however, continues to have an enormous influence on sociological research and theory even to this day. (Ironically, Marx and Spencer are buried next to each other in London’s High Gate Cemetery). A number of contemporary social theorists, many from the United States, have also made contributions to the field of sociology. W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963), one of the founders of the NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons, used sociological research to study urban life for Black and White Americans in hopes that his studies would be used to assist in the struggle for racial equality. Du Bois stressed that empowerment comes through knowledge and he was a champion of equal access to higher education. Like Marx, Du Bois encountered a certain amount of resistance from the academy due to the political and activist nature of his writings. Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929), a micro-sociologist, preferred to look at smaller units, including intimate, face-to-face groups such as dyads. Cooley’s work contributed immensely to our understanding of group dynamics, particularly as they relate to group size. Jane Addams (1860–1935), practiced “applied sociology,” meaning that she combined intellectual rigor with political activism. She is known for the establishment of “Hull House” in Chicago, a settlement house for the poor. Addams was involved in a number of social causes, including the rights of women, children, and immigrants. It was largely out of the work and ideas of Addams that the field of Social Work emerged. Robert Merton (1910–2003), recently a sociologist at Columbia University, proposed one of the most popular and frequently cited explanations for deviant behavior. According to Merton, deviant behaviors are a result of breakdowns or “dysfunctions” in the social structure. When social norms advocate a certain lifestyle but simultaneously prevent some from achieving that lifestyle, deviance and criminal behavior is likely to result. Finally, Pierre Bourdieu, a sociologist from France, developed the concept of “cultural capital.” In addition to material assets, capital may take the form of cultural assets, including such things as family background, occupational prestige, and access to important informal networks. The dominant class possesses more cultural capital which, in turn, ensures that their children will possess more—thereby reproducing the class structure. Sociologists, like lay persons, view society in different ways. The functionalist perspective views society like a living organism in which each part contributes to its overall survival. This perspective was developed primarily by Talcott Parsons (1902–1979), a sociologist at Harvard University. According to this view, any aspect of society which persists over time does so because it serves some purpose and in some way contributes to its livelihood. Even something such as crime or poverty may persist so long as it serves some purpose or “function.” For functionalists, the parts of society normally work together toward a common goal. Conflict theory, on the other hand, views the parts of society as at odds with one another. From the conflict perspective, groups in society are constantly engaged in a power struggle over scarce, highly valued, resources. Dominant groups, wishing to maintain their positions of power, create ideologies and institutions which serve to protect the status quo. Karl Marx, a key figure in the conflict perspective, viewed conflict (rather than consensus) as the primary characteristic of all human societies. Furthermore, it was his belief that it was capitalism which was primarily responsible for the exploitation of the working class. Derived from the conflict perspective, the feminist perspective (or “feminist theory”) views gender as the primary sorting device in all societies. Not only are women and men separated, they are also stratified. Patriarchy, like other forms of social and economic dominance, is maintained through the presence of ideologies and institutional arrangements. Finally, the interactionist perspective is concerned with everyday forms of interaction, including symbols, language, and non-verbal communication. George Herbert Mead (1863–1931), an American sociologist and philosopher, first developed interactionism in the United States and is regarded as the founder of this perspective. It should be noted that sociologists make use of all perspectives since each offers unique insights into the character of social behavior. Applied sociology involves the use of sociological findings or insight with the specific intent of yielding practical applications for persons or society. Clinical sociology is dedicated to altering social relationships or to restructuring social institutions. Both applied and clinical sociology can be contrasted with basic or pure sociology, which seeks to build a knowledge base of the fundamental aspects of social phenomena. In other words, pure sociologists pursue knowledge “for knowledge’s sake.” RESOURCE INTEGRATOR Focus Questions Resources What is sociology and what is meant by the sociological imagination? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: sociology, sociological imagination, science, natural science, social science IN THE INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL Classroom Discussion Topics: The Sociology of Tattooing (1-1); First Day of Class (1-2); Introducing the Sociological Perspective (1-3); Personal Experiences and the Sociological Imagination (1-4); The Sociological Imagination Through Photographs (1-5); Sociological Imagination (1-6) Student Research and Assignments: Annual Views of Sociology Video Resources: The Promise of Sociology; Why Sociology 1. What is sociological theory? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: theory IN THE INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL Additional Lecture Ideas: Emile Durkheim’s Analysis of Suicide (1-1) Classroom Discussion Topics: Using Maps to Understand Sociological Theory (1-7) Video Resources: Sociological Perspectives How did sociology develop as a discipline? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: anomie, verstehen, ideal type, proletariat, bourgeoisie, double consciousness, macrosociology, microsociology, cultural capital, social capital IN THE INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL Additional Lecture Ideas: Emile Durkheim’s Analysis of Suicide (1-1); Women Sociologists in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries (1-2); W.E.B. Du Bois—The Sociologist (1-5) Classroom Discussion Topics: First Day of Class (1-2); Introducing the Sociological Perspective (1-3); Founders of Sociology (1-8); Talcott Parsons and the FBI (1-9); Talking with the Experts (1-10) Video Resources: Karl Marx—The Massive Dissent; Marxism: The Theory that Split the World; W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography in Four Voices What are the key theoretical perspectives in sociology? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: functionalist perspective, manifest function, latent function, dysfunction, conflict perspective, Marxist view, feminist view, interactionist perspective, nonverbal communication, dramaturgical approach Boxes: Research Today: Looking at the Gulf Coast oil spill from Four Theoretical Perspectives IN THE INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL Additional Lecture Ideas: India’s Sacred Cow: A Functionalist View (1-3); Functionalist and Conflict Views of Popular Music (1-4); W.E.B. Du Bois—The Sociologist (1-5); Breaching Experiments (1-6); Interactionist View of Sidewalk Etiquette (1-7); Sociologists and Their Theoretical Preferences (1-8) Classroom Discussion Topics: Talking with the Experts (1-10); Revisiting Functionalism (1-11); The Perspectives—A College Education (1-12); Theory Triumvirate (1-13) Topics and Sources for Student Research: Identifying Theories; Goffman and the Feminist Perspective; Interaction in Public Space; Gender and Nonverbal Communication; Contemporary Sociological Theory Video Resources: Karl Marx-The Massive Dissent; Marxism: The Theory That Split a World; The Promise of Sociology; Sociological Perspectives REEL SOCIETY VIDEO Topic Index: Sociological Perspectives 2. What are applied and clinical sociology? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: applied sociology, clinical sociology, basic sociology, pure sociology, globalization, social inequality Boxes: Sociology in the Global Community: Your Morning Cup of Coffee LECTURE OUTLINE I. What Is Sociology? • The scientific study of social behavior and human groups. Sociology focuses on social relationships and how those relationships influence people’s behavior. It also focuses on how societies develop and change. The range of sociological issues is very broad. The primary organization that is responsible for disseminating information about the discipline of sociology is the American Sociological Association or ASA. A. The Sociological Imagination • American sociologist C. Wright Mills (1916–1962) described this type of creative thinking as the ability to view one’s own society as an outsider. Examples: What constitutes a normal sporting event is different in the United States than it is in Bali. What constitutes a farm animal used for food (versus a sacred object) varies across cultures. • The sociological imagination allows us to look beyond a limited understanding of things and people in the world, and allows for a broader vision of society. B. Sociology and the Social Sciences • The term science refers to the body of knowledge obtained by methods based on systematic observation. Just like other sciences, sociology involves the organized, systematic study of phenomena. • Natural science is the study of the physical features of nature. Astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, and physics are natural sciences. • Social science is the study of the social features of human society. Sociology, anthropology, economics, history, psychology, and political science are social sciences. • In contrast to other social sciences, sociology emphasizes the influence that society has on people’s attitudes and behaviors, and examines the ways in which people interact and shape society. Example: Sociologists and other social scientists offer a unique perspective on such events as Hurricane Katrina. C. Sociology and Common Sense • Common sense is often unreliable and inaccurate. Example: There is a common belief that women are more talkative than men. However, researchers found that both male and female college students spoke about 16,000 words per day (Mehl et al. 2007). • Sociology tests, records, and analyzes information scientifically to describe and understand a social environment. Example: Common sense may tell us the world is round, but the notion is based on centuries of scientific work. II. What Is Sociological Theory? • Theory is a set of statements that seeks to explain problems, actions, or behaviors. Effective theory may be both explanatory and predictive. Example: Durkheim’s theory on suicide both explains and predicts which groups are most at risk for suicide. • Durkheim’s research suggested that, while a solitary act, suicide is related to group life. Suicide rates reflect the extent to which people are integrated into the group life of society. Modern research reveals a similar pattern. Example: Las Vegas has a low level of community cohesiveness and a high suicide rate compared to the rest of the United States. • Theory and research should not be thought of as separate processes. Remember, an essential task in building sociological theory is to examine the relationship between bits of data that are gathered through the research process that may seem completely unrelated. III. The Development of Sociology • European theorists made pioneering contributions to the development of a science of human behavior. A. Early Thinkers 1. Auguste Comte (1798–1857) • Comte coined the term sociology to refer to the science of human behavior, thus he is considered the founder or “father” of sociology. • Comte believed a theoretical science of society and systematic investigations of behavior were needed to improve society. 2. Harriet Martineau (1802–1876) • Martineau offered insightful observations of the customs and social practices of both Britain and the United States. She emphasized the impact of economy, law, trade, health, and population on social problems. • She spoke in favor of the rights of women, the emancipation of slaves, and religious tolerance. • Until recently, Martineau’s contributions to the field of sociology have been largely discounted, presumably because she was a woman. 3. Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) • Spencer adapted Charles Darwin’s evolutionary view of the “survival of the fittest” by arguing that it is natural that some people are rich while others are poor. • Spencer’s view appealed to those with a vested interest in the status quo, and was most opposed by those seeking social change. • The idea of “social Darwinism” is highly controversial. B. Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) • Durkheim stressed that behavior must be understood within a larger social context, not just in individualistic or psychological terms. • Durkheim concluded that religion reinforces a group’s solidarity. • Consequences of work were of interest to Durkheim. He suggested that the highly specialized division of labor in industrial societies leads to anomie, a state of normlessness. • Durkheim was concerned about the dangers that alienation, loneliness, and isolation might pose for modern industrial societies. C. Max Weber (1864–1920) • Weber was a German sociologist who suggested social researchers should employ verstehen (a deep level of understanding) in their intellectual work. To fully comprehend behavior, we must learn the subjective meanings people attach to their actions—how they themselves view and explain their behavior. • Weber is also credited with the concept of an ideal type, a construct based on pure or ideal characteristics. He described various characteristics of an organizational model of bureaucracy as an ideal type. D. Karl Marx (1818–1883) • Marx suggested that society is fundamentally divided between classes that clash in pursuit of their own class and self-interests. He saw the factory as the center of conflict between the owners of the means of production (bourgeoisie) and the exploited labor forces (proletariat). • Marx and his colleague Friedrich Engels argued that workers should unite to overthrow capitalist societies. E. W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) • Du Bois, a Black sociologist, contended knowledge was essential to combat prejudice and discrimination. He believed that full political rights and education were both key to economic and social progress for Black Americans. • Because he challenged the status quo, he didn’t find a receptive audience in either government or academia. • Du Bois coined the term double consciousness, referring to the division of a person’s identity into two or more social realities. According to Du Bois, this concept captures the experiences of Blacks living in a White America. F. Modern Developments • Sociologists within the United States have contributed to the development of new insights to better understand the workings of society. 1. Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929) • Cooley preferred to use the sociological perspective to look first at smaller units, such as intimate face-to-face groups. He saw these groups as the seedbeds of society in the way they shape people’s ideals, beliefs, values, behavior patterns and ultimately, our sense of self. • Cooley’s work increased our understanding of group dynamics, particularly in the area of group size. 2. Jane Addams (1860–1935) • A social reformer, Addams co-founded Chicago’s Hull House. • Working with Ida Wells-Barnett, she successfully prevented racial segregation in Chicago public schools. • Advocated for a more egalitarian society. • Addams’ work is an excellent example of applied sociology. 3. Robert Merton (1910–2003) • Merton produced a theory that is one of the most frequently cited explanations of deviant behavior. In it, he noted different ways people achieve success. • Emphasized sociology should strive to bring together the macro-level and micro-level approaches to the study of society. • Macrosociology concentrates on large-scale phenomena such as institutions. • Microsociology stresses small group interaction. 4. Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) • According to Bourdieu, capital has many forms, including knowledge, prestige, culture, formal schooling, and social connections. • Cultural capital sustains individuals and families from one generation to the next. • Cultural capital, therefore, contributes to a reproduction of the class structure. IV. Major Theoretical Perspectives • The major perspectives provide an introductory look at the discipline of sociology. They are used to help explain, interpret, and analyze social patterns uncovered by sociologists. A. Functionalist Perspective • In the view of functionalists, society is like a living organism in which each part of the organism contributes to its survival. • Functionalism emphasizes the way that the parts of a society are structured to maintain its stability. • Talcott Parsons dominated functionalist thought in sociology for over four decades in the United States. 1. Manifest and Latent Functions • Robert Merton described manifest functions as open, stated, conscious functions which involve intended, recognized consequences. • Latent functions are unconscious or unintended functions, which may reflect a hidden purpose. Example: Education has the manifest function of teaching and training the next generation of workers. At the same time, schooling ensures that a certain segment of the population will not compete for jobs. In addition, colleges and universities often serve as meeting grounds for people to form new relationships. Thus, we might say that mate selection is a latent function of education. 2. Dysfunctions • This term refers to an element or process of a society that may disrupt the social system or reduce its social stability. • Dysfunctions can be negative or positive in nature. Example: Prison gangs can be functional for prison security. B. Conflict Perspective • The conflict perspective assumes that social behavior is best understood in terms of conflict or tension between competing groups. • Expanding on Marx’s work, conflict theorists are interested in how society’s institutions maintain privileges for the upper classes and keep others in a subservient position. • The conflict approach (also known as “conflict theory”) has become increasingly persuasive since the late 1960s. 1. The Marxist View • This view considers the exploitation of workers under capitalism. • The perspective emphasizes social change and a redistribution of resources. • This view is considered more radical and more activist-oriented than the functionalist view. 2. The Feminist View • This view suggests that gender is the major sorting device in society. • The feminist view derived from and is typically allied with the conflict perspective. • Feminist theory focuses on macro-level relationships, like conflict theory. • Feminist theory views the subordination of women as inherent in capitalist societies. • Radical feminists hold the oppression of women as inevitable in all male-dominated (patriarchal) societies. C. Interactionist Perspective • The interactionist perspective generalizes about every day, taken-for-granted, forms of social interaction in order to better understand society as a whole. It involves the assumption that human beings live in a world of meaningful, or symbolic, objects. Example: Commuter “slugging” in response to higher gas prices. • American sociologist George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) is regarded as the founder of interactionism. • Symbols are the basis of human communication. Example: Consider what is communicated by a salute or a clenched fist. Nonverbal communications can include facial gestures, expressions, and postures. • Canadian sociologist Erving Goffman (1922–1982) popularized what is known as the dramaturgical approach. This approach compares the actions of individuals in everyday life to actors performing on a stage. Example: Consider how we may project a serious image in class but a recreational or “party” image with friends. D. The Sociological Approach • Sociology makes use of all the perspectives. See Table 1-2. • No one approach is the correct one. Perspectives may often overlap, and they can also diverge. Each offers a unique perspective on social life. V. Applied and Clinical Sociology • Applied sociology is the use of sociology with the specific intent to yield practical applications for human behavior and organizations. Example: An applied sociologist might study the connections between illegal drug use and the spread of HIV/AIDS. • Applied sociology has led to specializations, such as medical and environmental sociology. • Clinical sociology is dedicated to facilitating change by altering social relationships (as in family therapy) or restructuring social institutions (as in the reorganization of a medical center). • Basic (pure) sociology seeks to expand a knowledge base and our understanding of a topic. Example: Durkheim’s research on suicide is an example of basic or pure sociology rather than applied or clinical sociology. VI. Developing a Sociological Imagination A. Theory in Practice • Illustrates how the sociological perspectives are useful for understanding today’s issues. B. Research Today • Reveals new information on social factors that influence human social behavior. • Direct application to improving people’s lives. C. Thinking Globally • Globalization refers to the worldwide integration of government policies, cultures, social movements, and financial markets through trade and the exchange of ideas. • Globalization is increasing. Sociologists recognize that social behavior must be viewed within a global context. • Some view globalization as a natural result of advances in communication (i.e., the Internet). Others suggest the expansion of multinational corporations has created a world without borders. D. The Significance of Social Inequality • Social inequality is a condition in which members of society have differing amounts of wealth, prestige, or power as well as different levels of access to these important resources. • Sociologists often see behavior as shaped by social inequality. E. Speaking across Race, Gender, and Religious Boundaries • Men and women, as well as people from a variety of ethnic, national, and religious origins, are included in research by sociologists. Not long ago, only men were included as subjects in sociological research. • Sociology today seeks to better understand the experiences of all people. F. Social Policy throughout the World • Some sociologists, particularly those with an applied orientation, examine social policy as it relates to current social issues. Example: Sociologists might consider government funding of childcare centers, laws relating to immigration, or policies and practices related to religion in schools. • Sociology is useful in evaluating the success of programs or the impact of changes brought about by policymakers and political activists. Sociologists play an increasing role in government by researching and developing public policy. KEY TERMS Anomie Durkheim’s term for the loss of direction felt in a society when social control of individual behavior has become ineffective. Applied sociology The use of the discipline of sociology with the specific intent of yielding practical applications for human behavior and organizations. Basic sociology Sociological inquiry conducted with the objective of gaining a more profound knowledge of the fundamental aspects of social phenomena. Also known as pure sociology. Clinical sociology The use of sociological findings/research to alter social relationships or restructure social institutions. Conflict perspective A sociological approach that assumes that social behavior is best understood in terms of conflict or tension between competing groups. Cultural capital Noneconomic goods, such as family background and education, which are reflected in a knowledge of language and the arts. Double consciousness A term coined by W.E.B. Du Bois, referring to the division of an individual’s identity into two or more social realities. Dramaturgical approach A view of social interaction popularized by Erving Goffman in which people are seen as theatrical performers. Dysfunction An element or a process of society that may disrupt a social system or reduce its stability. Feminist view A sociological approach similar to the conflict perspective that views inequity in gender as central to all behavior and organization. Functionalist perspective A sociological approach that emphasizes the way in which the parts of a society are structured to maintain its stability. Globalization The worldwide integration of government policies, cultures, social movements, and financial markets through trade and the exchange of ideas. Ideal type A construct or model for evaluating specific cases. Interactionist perspective A sociological approach that generalizes about everyday forms of social interaction in order to explain society as a whole. Latent function Unconscious or unintended function that may reflect hidden purposes. Macrosociology Sociological investigation that concentrates on large-scale phenomena or entire civilizations. Manifest function Open, stated, and conscious function. Microsociology Sociological investigation that stresses the study of small groups, often through experimental means. Natural science The study of the physical features of nature and the ways in which they interact and change. Nonverbal communication The sending of messages through the use of gestures, facial expressions, and postures. Science The body of knowledge obtained by methods based upon systematic observation. Social capital The collective benefit of social networks, which are built on reciprocal trust. Social inequality A condition in which members of society have differing amounts of wealth, prestige, and power. Social science The study of the social features of humans and the ways in which they interact and change. Sociological imagination An awareness of the relationship between an individual and the wider society, both today and in the past. Sociology The systematic study of social behavior and human groups. Theory In sociology, a set of statements that seeks to explain problems, actions, or behavior. Verstehen Developed by Max Weber, the German word for “understanding” or “insight”; used to stress the need for sociologists to take into account the subjective meanings people attach to their actions. ADDITIONAL LECTURE IDEAS A set of numbers precedes each additional lecture idea. The first number is the text chapter number and the second number is the number of the additional lecture idea. 1-1: Émile Durkheim’s Analysis of Suicide Émile Durkheim’s classic analysis of suicide distinguishes among primarily three major forms of this act: egoistic, anomic, and altruistic (a fourth type, fatalistic, was also identified but was discussed much less in his writings). This is a good topic for class discussion. When students are asked to identify the causes of suicide, they tend to focus on depression and stress. However, as Durkheim uncovered, most people who are depressed or who experience stress do not commit suicide. Only a small number of individuals who experience these symptoms end their lives. Furthermore, women experience higher rates of depression and mood disorders than do men but it is men who more often commit suicide. There must be some other factor that explains why a few depressed and stressed individuals commit suicide and most do not. At this point, students are ready to be introduced to the classic work of Durkheim. Students rarely have difficulty understanding altruistic suicide, but the distinction between anomic and egoistic suicide is more difficult for them to grasp. Use the following chart, which may be amended with different examples, as the basis for a discussion. The discussion can have two parts. First lead students through the chart, asking, for example, “Who is more likely to commit suicide, a Catholic or a Protestant?” Be sure students understand that this is not a religion course; you do not want a discussion of how religious ideology (or theology) influences suicide rates. After the chart is completed, explain the difference between the different types of suicide and then ask students to explain which of the illustrations are examples of anomic suicide and which are examples of egoistic suicide. Note that people in both columns commit suicide, but that the people in the left column are “more likely” to commit suicide than people in the center column. Note, also, that women attempt to commit suicide more often than men, but men succeed more often than women. You may wish to use this as an opportunity to introduce the topic of gender socialization (i.e., norms regarding masculinity encourage more aggressive methods for attempting suicide). MAKE IT RELEVANT: Another idea to generate class discussion is to have students identify recent examples of popularized suicides and have them discuss (or do a bit of research on) these cases, using Durkheim’s theory to guide the discussion. Cases such as Kurt Cobain or the recent wave at Cornell University come to mind. More Likely to Commit Suicide Less Likely to Commit Suicide Type of Suicide Protestant (Reform Jew) Catholic (Orthodox Jew) Egoistic Scandinavian Italian Egoistic Divorced individual Married individual Anomic Divorced individual Never married individual Anomic Never married individual Married individual Egoistic Person living in a country at peace Person living in a country at war Egoistic Person living in a suburb Person living in a ghetto Egoistic Men Women Egoistic Army recruit Student at local community college Anomic College freshman away from home Student at local community college Anomic Factory worker College student Egoistic See Émile Durkheim. Suicide. New York: Free Press, 1951. (Originally published in French in 1897.) See also K. D. Breault, “Suicide in America: A Test of Durkheim’s Theory of Religion and Family Integration,” American Journal of Sociology 92 (November 1986): 628–656. See also Bernice A. Pescosolido and Sharon Georgianna, “Durkheim, Suicide, and Religion: Toward a Network Theory of Suicide,” American Sociological Review 54 (February 1989): 33–48. 1-2: Women Sociologists in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries The dearth of female founding figures in sociology attests to the fact that women faced strong barriers to entering academia in the past. What many students will not realize is that—in sociology and in most other disciplines—women continue to face substantial barriers to acquiring academic jobs, attaining tenure, and contributing to their fields. Lecturing on this issue will make students more aware of the barriers that women in sociology still face, despite the common impression that the academy is one of the few gender-neutral, bias-free institutions. Moreover, it will give students a preview of the complicated sociological processes through which gender inequalities are manifested in the work place. While in the past it was common for women to be kept out of academics because of overt discrimination, today marital status and family obligations (and assumptions about women’s and men’s relative involvement in the family) are a central obstruction to women’s advancement. One excellent source of information about the trials of twentieth-century female sociologists is the book Gender and the Academic Experience (Meadow and Wallace 1994). In this book project, the first 20 women to receive Ph.D. degrees in sociology from the University of California-Berkeley were invited to write essays describing their experiences in graduate school and beyond. These women received their degrees between 1952 and 1972, a period during which UC-Berkeley had already become a top breeding ground for research sociologists. Their fascinating accounts of the female experience in the academy show numerous ways in which it was often far more problematic for women of this era to complete the Ph.D. process than it was for men. Although some of the women describe sociology departments that were supportive of them, others recount always feeling like unwelcome intruders in a man’s world—a message they received from male students and faculty alike. Many had more difficulty acquiring graduate funding than their male peers did. One woman (Harriet Presser) was actually taken out of consideration for funding when the department chair discovered that she was a single mother, and therefore not fit for graduate study. A number of the other women also had children, and had to forge a difficult balance between academics and family—at a time when outside childcare was not readily available. In part because of the very different gender expectations of the time, graduate studies often strained their marital relations. One woman (Dorothy E. Smith) experienced serious tension in her marriage when it became clear that she was a more promising student than her husband, who was enrolled in the same department. He ended their marriage within a few weeks after she completed her Ph.D. degree. Students with a particular interest in feminist sociology may wish to read Smith’s The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology (1987), an account of women’s experiences not only in the academy but in life more generally. In it, she writes about the “bifurcated consciousness,” a condition in which women experience a disconnect between their lived realities and the ideologies which surround them. Women completing their Ph.D. degrees in more recent decades would no doubt write a different book. But gender still poses a number of complications for women who decide to become professors. The work-family balance is a central issue for today’s female academicians. Given the long hours that academic jobs demand as well as the gendered expectations of parenting, women in the academy often anticipate that motherhood will make it difficult for them to amass the publication and teaching record required for tenure. Moreover, many believe that their departments will perceive them as lacking commitment to the job, should they choose to have children before achieving tenure. For these reasons, more female than male academicians remain childless. Among women who do have children, tenure becomes a more difficult goal. Not surprisingly, studies have found that women with children are less likely to attain tenure than women who do not have children. By contrast, men with children are actually more likely to achieve tenure than are childless men (Mason and Goulden 2002). This finding probably reflects the fact that mothers spend more time caring for children than do fathers. Likewise, it may suggest that academic departments (unfairly) assume that fatherhood makes a man more stable, responsible, and committed to his career, while motherhood makes a woman less committed to her career. Other studies indicate that women who complete the Ph.D. are more likely to drop out of academia, to fall behind men in salary and post-tenure promotions, and to have appointments at lower-ranked institutions (Caplan 1995; Williams 2000). A number of books have been published documenting the differential work experiences of women and men, whether in the paid or unpaid realm. Those interested in the topic may wish to consult The Second Shift, by Arlie Hochschild and Anne Machung; Working Women in America: Split Dreams, by Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber and Gregg Lee Carter; and/or Women and Men at Work, by Irene Padavik and Barbara Reskin. While these and other issues are sure to remain for some time in the future, more and more departments are beginning to recognize the special barriers female academics face. In a stunning acknowledgement, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently acknowledged that an investigation had uncovered a pattern of long-term systemic gender discrimination in salaries and other valued resources, and that it would implement a program to redress these inequalities (Miller and Wilson 1999). Sources used for this essay and additional reading ideas include: Paula J. Caplan. Lifting a Ton of Feathers. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995; Constance Coiner and Diana Hume George. The Family Track. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998; Mary Ann Mason and Marc Goulden, “Do Babies Matter?” Academe 88 (November/December 2002); Kathryn P. Meadow and Ruth A. Wallace (eds.). Gender and the Academic Experience. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994; D.W. Miller and Robin Wilson, “MIT Acknowledges Bias Against Female Faculty Members,” The Chronicle of Higher Education 45 (April 2, 1999); Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber and Gregg Lee Carter. Working Women in America: Split Dreams. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Irene Padavic and Barbara Reskin. Women and Men at Work. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. Arlie Russell Hochschild and Anne Machung. The Second Shift. New York: Penguin, 2003; Emily Toth. Ms. Mentor’s Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997. 1-3: India’s Sacred Cow: A Functionalist View To an American tourist in India, the Hindu prohibition against slaughtering cows may appear to be an ignorant belief that stands in the way of progress and human well-being. The cattle browse unhindered in street markets, eating oranges and mangoes, while people compete for meager food supplies. Why is there such a devotion to the cow, or zebu, the large-humped species found throughout Asia and Africa? The simple explanation is that it is an integral part of Hinduism. Yet we know that many Indian people are often on the edge of starvation. So why has this practice, which appears to be manifestly dysfunctional, persisted for centuries? Economists, agronomists, and social scientists working from a functionalist perspective have found that cow worship is highly functional for Indian society. For example, the zebus perform two essential tasks—plowing the fields and producing milk. If eating zebu meat were permitted, families might be tempted to slaughter their cows for immediate consumption, leaving themselves susceptible to eventual ruin. In addition, zebus produce dung, which is recovered as fertilizer and as a fuel for cooking. (American scientists are even attempting to replicate this practice to help our society meet its needs for more energy sources.) Finally, the prohibition against slaughtering cows serves the function of assisting India’s poor. Untouchables (India’s lowest-status group) eat zebu beef in the secrecy of their homes. Thus, the prohibition against eating beef restricts consumption by most of the population while allowing the poorest sections to obtain vitally needed nutrients otherwise missing from their diet. The American tourist returns to the United States with stories about the “ignorant” Indians. In reality, the tourist is ignorant of how functional cow worship is for Indian culture—and of how the West fails to learn from the wisdom of Indian traditions. See Marvin Harris. Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of Culture. New York: Random House, 1978, pp. 11–32. See also Harris, Human Nature 1 (February 1990): 28–36. For a discussion of how poverty benefits society and its members (particularly the middle- and upper-classes), readers may wish to consult The War Against The Poor: The Underclass And Antipoverty Policy, by Columbia University sociologist Herbert Gans. New York: Basic Books, 1995. 1-4: Functionalist and Conflict Views of Popular Music We generally think of the functionalist and conflict perspectives as being applied to “serious” subjects such as the family, health care, and criminal behavior. Yet even popular music can be analyzed using these sociological approaches. Functionalist View: Although intended primarily to entertain people, popular music serves definite social functions. For example, such music can bring people together and promote unity and stability. When Iran held 53 Americans hostage during 1979 and 1980, people across the nation remembered them with yellow ribbons. Tony Orlando’s song “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ’Round the Old Oak Tree” achieved a new surge of popularity. Yellow ribbons continued to serve as a patriotic symbol when the United States greeted returning Desert Storm soldiers in 1991. Moreover, Bette Midler’s song “From a Distance” expressed solidarity with troops serving in the Persian Gulf. From a functionalist perspective, popular music also promotes basic social values. The long tradition of gospel music suggests that faith in Jesus Christ will lead to salvation. In the 1960s, the Beatles told us “All You Need is Love.” Then, during the era of the Vietnam War, they asked that we “Give Peace a Chance.” Conflict View: Popular music can reflect the values of a particular age group and therefore intensify the battle between the generations. In the 1960s, folksinger Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’“ warned older people to get out of the way of the younger generation. More recently, much of punk rock and alternative music (and attire) is designed to shock conventional society and reflect the sense of alienation and outrage that its enthusiasts feel. Popular music can also represent a direct political assault on established institutions. The Sex Pistols’ “Anarchy in the U.K.” and the Smiths’ “The Queen Is Dead” attack the British monarchy. Many of the reggae songs of Bob Marley and the Wailers, such as “Burnin’ and Lootin’,” endorsed a revolution in Jamaica. Similarly, certain rap songs, among them Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” and Ice-T’s “Cop Killer,” challenge the established social order of the United States. Rap music has also been criticized for its misogynistic overtones. Rap music videos commonly feature women in ornamental and/or objectified poses. Finally, whereas functionalists emphasize that popular music promotes social values that bring people together, conflict theorists counter that popular music often focuses on injustices and on how certain groups of people are victimized by others. In this regard, Midnight Oil’s “The Dead Heart” laments the mistreatment of Australia’s native Aborigines, while Suzanne Vega’s “Luka” and Garth Brooks’s “The Thunder Rolls” both focus on the ugly reality of domestic violence. Clearly, there is more to popular music than simply entertainment. Most songs have lyrics that carry explicit messages of one sort or another. From the functionalist approach, popular music reinforces societal values, while conflict theorists see popular music as another reflection of the political and social struggles within a society. Sources used for this essay include: Christy Barongan and Gordon C. Nagayama, “The Influence of Misogynous Rap Music on Sexual Aggression Against Women,” Psychology of Women Quarterly 19, Issue 2 (July 2006): 195–207. B. Lee Cooper, “Popular Songs, Military Conflict, and Public Perceptions of the United States at War,” Social Education 56 (March 1992): 160–168; R. Serge Denisoff and Rhys H. Williams. An Introduction to Sociology. New York: Macmillan, 1983, pp. 23–26; John Leland, “Rap and Race,” Newsweek 119 (June 29, 1992): 46–52. 1-5: W.E.B. Du Bois—The Sociologist Social scientists are gradually recognizing William Edward Burghardt Du Bois as a sociologist rather than as a historical figure. It is certainly understandable, given his fascinating life. He was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on February 23, 1868. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of both Fisk and Harvard Universities, Du Bois actually received two bachelor’s degrees. In his graduate work at Harvard, he arranged to spend two years studying with Max Weber in Germany and eventually became the first Black person to be awarded a Ph.D. from Harvard (1895). Upon graduating, he found that no White college would hire him, and he received his first academic appointment at all-Black Wilberforce College outside Dayton, Ohio. This was the first of many times during his life that Du Bois felt he received second-class treatment from White academe in general and the sociology establishment in particular. During his career, Du Bois wrote more than 20 books and 100 scholarly articles. He was a pioneer both in historical studies of the black experience and in sociological explorations into African-American life. His argument, expressed with passion in The Souls of Black Folk (1903), that an educated Black elite, “the talented tenth,” should lead Blacks to liberation, contrasted sharply with the ideas of his contemporary, Booker T. Washington. Washington put his emphasis on industrial training for Blacks and maintained virtual silence on the questions of social and political equality. It is clear that in both his sociological perspective and his actions, Du Bois typified the conflict perspective. One of Du Bois’s first major works was The Philadelphia Negro, which was the result of two years of funded research that allowed him to have the somewhat trivial title “assistant in sociology” at the University of Pennsylvania. The purpose of his research was to enlighten the powerful movers and shakers of Philadelphia on the plight of Black people. Like Jane Addams, he clearly was a social reformer. Because of their activist approaches, as well as their statuses as minority group members, both have been overlooked as sociologists. Du Bois sought to show that the problems encountered by Blacks were not rooted in heredity, but in the social environment, a novel idea at the time. Although he was critical of the rich of Philadelphia, he did believe with some reservations that they had the capacity for benevolence. He conducted the entire study personally, collecting the data and walking the streets of Philadelphia’s Seventh Ward. He felt that the problems of Blacks stemmed from their past servitude, and in this early work he was unwilling to look at the capitalistic system as being responsible for the continuation of the subordinate position of African Americans in urban America. Clearly, Du Bois became impatient for social change. He quickly sought to empower the talented tenth of which he wrote. With the aim of ending racial discrimination, Du Bois founded the Niagara Movement in 1905. This was a forerunner of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which he helped organize in 1909 and for which he edited the periodical The Crisis from 1910 to 1934. For decades, this was essential reading for all those interested in the fate of the African-American people. Du Bois resigned from the NAACP in 1934, following a dispute in which he argued that Blacks should expect segregated schools and other institutions to serve them even as Blacks struggled to eliminate the racism that had created these institutions. Du Bois’s view that Africans, freed from their colonial status, should help determine the world’s destiny was scarcely more appealing to civil rights leaders in the United States than his pragmatic approach to segregation. He returned to the NAACP in 1944 after a 10-year absence, but was forced to resign in 1948 when his association with the cause of world peace, his expressed admiration for the U.S.S.R., and his articulate condemnation of racial oppression at home and abroad made him a liability to the organization in a time of political reactionism and anticommunist hysteria. It is difficult now to imagine that Du Bois became a pariah in many quarters of the Black community (and that he remained unknown to Whites) throughout the 1950s. Du Bois spent his last years in virtual exile, but he lived to see advances in racial relations in the United States and the coming of independence, which he had helped to make possible, to much of Africa. In 1963, at the age of 93, Du Bois joined the U.S. Communist party before renouncing his U.S. citizenship and becoming a citizen of the West African nation of Ghana. He was at work on a monumental study of African culture, the Encyclopedia Africana, at the time of his death. Du Bois’s principal scholarly works, other than those already mentioned, include The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638–1870 (1896), The Philadelphia Negro (1899) (see the fine new edition with an introduction by Elijah Anderson published in 1996 by the University of Pennsylvania Press), and Black Reconstruction in America (1935). His autobiography appeared in 1957. 1-6: Breaching Experiments Understanding and discussing theory can be difficult for many students. A good, educationally sound ice-breaking discussion can be based on norm-breaching experiments. Ask students to do a norm-breaking activity outside of class. Then ask them to report to the class on the impact that the norm violation had on social interaction. Ethnomethodologist Harold Garfinkel (professor emeritus, University of California at Los Angeles) pioneered the use of what he called “breaching experiments” designed to violate critical but unstated rules of daily social interaction. Ethnomethodologists examine existing patterns of conventional behavior in order to uncover people’s background experiences—that is, their shared interpretations of the world around them. Norm-violating activities might include taking an item out of someone else’s grocery cart in the supermarket, staring at a stranger in an elevator, loudly burping in a public place, interjecting a comment in a discussion that is being held in an adjoining table in a restaurant, stopping in front of someone who says “Hi! How are you?” and answering their question in great length while blocking their escape route, or wearing formal evening attire to a class. Of course, you’ll want to make sure that these experiments are within the range allowed by your institution’s IRB (Institutional Review Board). Below are some additional suggestions and examples of past used breaching experiments. Ask a McDonald’s cashier for a Whopper. After the first person breaches the fast food order routine, have another student walk up and order a slice of pizza. Conduct a game of tic-tac-toe where the experimenter asks the subject to make the first move, then erases that mark and moves it to another square before making the responding move. Garfinkel instructed a class of students to return to their parental homes and to act as lodgers. Sources used for this essay include: Harold Garfinkel. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1967; Harold Garfinkel. Seeing Sociologically: The Routine Grounds of Social Action. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2006. 1-7: Interactionist View of Sidewalk Etiquette Erving Goffman (Relations in Public. New York: Basic Books, 1971, pp. 9–18) offers a new look at sidewalk behavior, drawing on the interactionist approach. When we sit behind the wheel of a car and begin driving, we are confronted immediately with many rules that govern our behavior. Society provides us with reminders of these rules—traffic lights, stop signs, speed-limit signs, white lines marking lanes, and, ultimately, police officers. Interestingly, pedestrians also abide by a certain mutual understanding of proper behavior in traffic. We may not have read a book of “rules of the sidewalk” or been formally taught them, and we do not need to worry about getting a ticket for “walking too fast.” Nevertheless, we have learned certain social standards for pedestrian behavior that are part of our culture. Traffic on the sidewalk sorts itself into two sides going in opposite directions. The dividing line is near the middle of the sidewalk, yet it can shift quickly when traffic bunches in one direction. As in vehicular traffic in the United States, pedestrian movement tends to stay to the right side of the dividing line. Those who are walking more slowly generally stay nearer the buildings, while those in a hurry are nearer the curb. The workability of such lane rules and of rules for passing is based on two subtle practices, “externalization” and “scanning.” When we externalize, we use body gestures to show people the direction in which we are heading. Scanning involves moving our line of sight to observe people coming in our direction and to confirm the forward progress of pedestrians immediately ahead of us. A person’s scanning range is usually three or four sidewalk squares if the street is crowded, and more if few walkers are present. In order to avoid small objects and unpleasant or contaminated spots, we practice “sidestepping.” George Orwell (Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1950, p. 15) observed an interesting example of this practice in Burma. An Indian prisoner was walking between two guards on the way to his execution. He came near a small puddle and sidestepped out of the path for a moment in order to avoid it. This little act points out the often unconscious nature of sidestepping. If a collision with another pedestrian seems imminent, we attempt to create immediate eye contact. The hope is to quickly indicate a new route and avoid a collision. This is a common practice when people are crossing a street at a busy intersection. It can be argued that, given such pedestrian routing customs, the individual effectively becomes a vehicular unit. He or she is expected to conform to many unstated, yet socially agreed upon, standards. 1-8: Sociologists and Their Theoretical Preferences One hundred sixty-eight American members of the American Sociological Association were each asked to identify his or her primary theoretical perspective. The conflict perspective had the most adherents. Few respondents regarded biological factors (i.e., sociobiology) as important. Grouping the responses yields the following results: Conflict/Marxism 24.7% (40) Functionalist/structuralist 20.4% (33) Interactionist/ethnomethodologist 17.9% (29) All other 33.9% (55) Atheoretical 3.1% ( 5) The conflict, functionalist, and interactionist perspectives cover about 60 percent of sociologists’ primary theoretical approaches. See Stephen K. Sanderson and Lee Ellis, The American Sociologist 23 (Summer 1992): 26–42. CLASSROOM DISCUSSION TOPICS The Sociology of Tattooing: On the first day of class, ask for a show of hands from students who have tattoos. Lead into a discussion about how tattooing today has become trendy and is no longer just associated with social outcasts. Explain why tattooing can be a topic of sociological research, and use it to give the class an overview of what the discipline of sociology entails. Have students identify characteristics (demographic or personal) which they associate with those who have tattoos, either aloud as a group or anonymously on index cards (then share with the class). Do students tend to associate certain social locations or group memberships with tattoos or with persons who have tattoos? First Day of Class: For an unusual activity for the first day of class, see Paul Higgins, “Unconventional First Days: Encouraging Students to Wonder about Social Life and Social Learning,” Teaching Sociology 27 (July 1999): 258–263. Introducing the Sociological Perspective: This imaginative first-day discussion uses a seemingly trivial issue (toilet paper etiquette), to open students up to the sociological way of thinking. Edgar Alan Burns, “Bathroom Politics: Introducing Students to Sociological Thinking from the Bottom Up,” Teaching Sociology 31 (January 2003): 110–118. Personal Experiences and the Sociological Imagination: The author provides a thought-provoking illustration of how instructors can use their personal experiences to illustrate the sociological imagination and elicit classroom responses. See Walter R. Jacobs, “The Teacher as Text: Using Personal Experience to Stimulate the Sociological Imagination,” Teaching Sociology 26 (July 1998): 222–228. The Sociological Imagination through Photographs: The author describes a fascinating activity through which Depression-era photographs are used to teach the concept of the sociological imagination. Chad M. Hanson, “A Stop Sign at the Intersection of History and Biography,” Teaching Sociology 30 (April 2002): 235–242. Possible Class Project: Many topics in the introductory course lend themselves to student projects involving “photo essays” or portfolios. For example, have students gather images of social class differences from their local communities, taking pictures of schools, houses, churches or other places of worship, shopping centers, and eating establishments in different areas of the city. Students should supplement their photo essay with a written report, describing the physical and social surroundings of the areas they visited (did schools seem to be in need of repair; were churches large, new, and modern, or small and quaint; was there a prevalence of “big box” stores or smaller merchants, etc.) and interpersonal relations which they may have witnessed (were persons milling about; describe facial expressions; did individuals in the area appear to be happy; did they see more men or women and/or children; did they see persons of different races/ethnicities; did they see family life—nuclear or extended families, etc.). An example of a more narrowly focused approach might be a pictorial essay of rural poverty in the South. Sociological Imagination: See John R. Brouillette and Ronny E. Turner, “Creating the Sociological Imagination on the First Day of Class: The Social Construction of Deviance,” Teaching Sociology 20 (October 1992): 276–279. See also Kathleen O’Flaherty, “Introducing Students to the Concept of the Sociological Imagination: A Written Assignment,” Teaching Sociology 20 (October 1992): 326–328. Using Maps to Understand Sociological Theory: Although designed as an out-of-class assignment, this exercise can easily be transformed into an in-class activity for discussion. Barbara Trepagnier, “Mapping Sociological Concepts,” Teaching Sociology 30 (January 2002): 108–119. Founders of Sociology: This activity was developed by Dick Colvard of Southern Oregon State College to help students see that the early masters of sociology were real people. See Technique No. 20 in Edward L. Kain and Robin Neas, (eds.). Innovative Techniques for Teaching Sociological Concepts. Washington, DC: American Sociological Association, 1993. Talcott Parsons and the FBI: An interesting anecdote about the celebrated theorist is explored in Mark F. Keen, “No One above Suspicion: Talcott Parsons under Surveillance,” The American Sociologist (Fall/Winter 1993): 37–44. Talking with the Experts: Some sociology classes have been successful in arranging telephone hookups with contemporary “giants” in sociology. Students find it fascinating to ask these people why they chose to study certain subjects, what problems confront the discipline, and so forth. Revisiting Functionalism: Consult N.J. Demarath III, “Who Now Debates Functionalism? From System, Change, and Conflict to ‘Culture, Choice, and Praxis,’” Sociological Forum 11(June 1996): 333–345. The Perspectives—A College Education: There are never enough examples to illustrate the three sociological perspectives as students try to learn them. Here is another example that is relevant to college students because it focuses on colleges. Functionalism: The manifest function of a college is to educate people and to teach them job skills. A latent function of a college is to be a place to make friends and find dates. A dysfunction of colleges is that they are expensive and that you might graduate without learning useful skills. Conflict: A college education may be expensive and access may be difficult or impossible for poorer individuals. Schools in wealthy communities may do a better job of preparing individuals for admission to prestigious colleges. Graduation from a prestigious private college more readily opens up prestigious and well-paying career paths than graduation from many public colleges and two-year schools. Interactionism: A professor’s teaching style may determine the likelihood of a successful classroom discussion. A professor frequently serves as a role model for students. Student diversity in a classroom may have repercussions for classroom interaction. How do students “tell” a teacher not to call on them when a question has been asked? Theory Triumvirate: Have students form three panels to analyze some topic or social problem using the three sociological perspectives introduced in Chapter 1. After the presentations, have the class evaluate the different insights that emerge from using all three approaches. Using Humor: Joseph E. Faulkner has produced a monograph that includes funny examples that could be incorporated into lectures associated with Chapter 1. See Chapter 1 in Faulkner, Sociology Through Humor. New York: West, 1987. This book is out of print, but used copies are readily available. Conflict/Feminist Theory-Apply to College/University Life: A number of colleges have now abandoned the term “freshman” in favor of other, more gender-inclusive expressions such as “first year student.” Have students discuss the implications of using male-exclusive language. Do they feel that such language has far-reaching implications for social inequality? Do they believe language patterns need to be changed in order to achieve a more egalitarian society? Students may need to do a bit of research on the history of higher education in the United States to have a full understanding of the controversy surrounding this term. A related discussion would be to have students discuss faculty policies which disallow the use of masculine exclusive language in research papers. TOPICS FOR STUDENT RESEARCH AND CLASSROOM DISCUSSION 1. Have students analyze an article from the daily newspaper from a sociological perspective, using a sociological imagination. What differences in their conclusions result from using a sociological imagination? What differences in their analysis/interpretation result from using two different perspectives? Answer: Using a sociological imagination, students might analyze the article by connecting individual experiences to broader social patterns, revealing how personal issues are linked to societal structures. For example, an article on unemployment could be examined in terms of economic systems and social policies. In contrast, a purely individualistic perspective might focus solely on personal responsibility or lack of effort. Thus, using the sociological imagination offers a deeper, systemic understanding, while traditional perspectives may lead to more limited, individual-centric conclusions. 2. Discuss why students might wear clothing with certain logos or insignias, and ask students to analyze their choices using the three major sociological perspectives. Following the discussion, instructors should point out patterns which students may have missed. For example, do they wear certain brands/styles to demonstrate inclusion within a group, which would support a functionalist perspective? Do they purchase certain brands because the brand or label is indicative of a particular socio-economic status (link to Veblen’s conspicuous consumption)? Answer: Students might wear clothing with specific logos or insignias to signal group identity, social status, or personal values. From a functionalist perspective, these choices can reflect social cohesion and group inclusion. The conflict perspective might highlight how these choices reinforce socio-economic divisions and perpetuate social inequalities. Meanwhile, symbolic interactionism would focus on how individuals use brand symbols to construct and communicate their personal identity and social roles. Instructors can point out patterns like how brands might signify social stratification or group affiliation, adding depth to students' analyses. 3. Ask students to compare the number of male professors at your college or university with the number of female professors, and have students factor in salary disparities for both, if access to salary information is possible. If salary information is unavailable, have the students consider the ranks of women and men who are full-time faculty members. Perhaps have students poll faculty members as to their marital and parental status and then compare this information with information about their professional rank (assuming this is acceptable per IRB policy). Then discuss gender inequality using the conflict and feminist perspectives. Answer: Students comparing the number of male and female professors, along with salary disparities or professional ranks, can uncover patterns of gender inequality. Using the conflict perspective, they might analyze how systemic power imbalances and resource distribution contribute to these disparities. From a feminist perspective, they could examine how gendered expectations and institutional biases affect women's career advancement and earnings. Discussing these findings reveals how gender inequalities are embedded within institutional structures and social norms. 4. Discuss the shift in social attitude toward smoking over the last 50 years, and ask students to analyze the change in attitude using the three major sociological perspectives. As a part of this research project, have students explore the size & strength of the tobacco lobby as well as their political allies. Does the tobacco industry provide some of the support for Partnership for a Drug Free America (or other anti-drug campaigns)? If so, what are the implications of this? Answer: Over the past 50 years, social attitudes toward smoking have shifted from acceptance to widespread stigma due to increased awareness of health risks and anti-smoking campaigns. From a functionalist perspective, this shift reflects changes in public health norms and societal values. The conflict perspective might highlight how powerful tobacco lobbies have historically resisted these changes to protect their interests. Symbolic interactionism could focus on how smoking has been redefined from a social norm to a health hazard. If the tobacco industry funds anti-drug campaigns, it suggests potential conflicts of interest and manipulative strategies to divert attention from smoking-related issues. 5. Ask students to analyze the creation of seat belt laws using all three sociological perspectives. Answer: Students analyzing the creation of seat belt laws might use the functionalist perspective to see how such laws enhance public safety and societal order by reducing traffic injuries and deaths. From the conflict perspective, they could examine how power dynamics and lobbying by automotive industries influenced the timing and enforcement of these laws. The symbolic interactionist perspective would focus on how seat belt use became a symbol of responsible behavior and evolving social norms regarding safety. Each perspective reveals different facets of how and why these laws were implemented and their societal impact. SERVICE LEARNING ACTIVITY When a chemist or physicist goes to the lab, he/she usually has to enter a building. But when a sociologist goes to the lab, he/she usually has to exit the building. Society is the body that the sociologist must examine and assess. This requires an understanding of “the sociological imagination,” as discussed in Chapter 1. Students must remember that the sociological imagination “allows us to go beyond personal experiences and observations to understand broader public issues.” The practical application of sociology seems difficult for most students. However, they must realize that there is a need to connect theory and practice. Service learning can bridge the gap. As an introductory activity have students complete the following service learning activity and consider the broader sociological implications: Obesity in America is a growing (no pun intended) problem. Form research teams that will list and assess (based on nutritional value) snacks that are available in vending machines on your campus. Also, with permission from the necessary authorities, see if teams can get this information from local high schools, as well as middle and elementary schools. Compile this information and forward it to local public school administrators, your school newspaper, or other health conscious organizations in your community. If becoming healthier is our intent, what’s really going on? Have students discuss what a functionalist, symbolic interactionist, or conflict theorist would say about this issue. CHAPTER 2 SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH CHAPTER SUMMARY Sociologists are committed to the use of the scientific method in their research. The basic steps in the scientific method are defining the problem, reviewing the literature, formulating the hypothesis, selecting the research design, and collecting and analyzing the data. Finally, the researcher develops a conclusion based on the findings of the research. An operational definition is an explanation of an abstract concept that allows a researcher to assess or measure the concept. Numerical variables, such as income, age, or educational attainment, are simple to operationalize. However, other variables, which are not summarized numerically, are much more difficult to measure. Such variables might include marital happiness or religiosity. A review of the relevant literature helps to refine the problem, consider previous attempts to investigate it, and reduce avoidable mistakes. A hypothesis is a speculative statement about the relationship between two or more variables. Sociological studies sometime fail to support the original hypothesis and researchers must reformulate their conclusions. Variables are measurable traits or characteristics that are subject to change under certain conditions. The variable hypothesized to cause or influence another variable is called the independent variable (sometimes referred to as the “causal” variable). The variable that is changed or dependent on the independent variable is called the dependent variable. A correlation exists when a change in one variable coincides with a change in the other. A correlational relationship does not necessarily indicate a causal relationship, however. Control variables are those factors that are held constant to test the strength of a relationship between the independent and dependent variables. In most studies, social scientists carefully select a sample. A sample is a selection from a larger population that is statistically representative of the population. In a random sample, every member of the population being studied has the same chance of being selected for the study. The scientific method requires both validity and reliability. Validity refers to the degree to which a measure or scale truly reflects the phenomenon under study. Reliability refers to the extent to which a measure produces consistent results. A research design is a detailed plan or method for obtaining or collecting data. Surveys are a common method of quantitative research used by researchers to collect data. A quantitative method is one in which data are represented as numbers or statistics. Surveys may consist of oral interviews or written questionnaires. Observation is a qualitative research method, which allows researchers to collect data through everyday interaction with a group or community under study. Qualitative research involves smaller samples and different research methodologies. Experiments are artificially created situations in which researchers can manipulate variables. Typically, an experimental group is exposed to the independent variable (or “stimulus”) and the control group is not. Analyzing existing data that has been previously collected is called secondary analysis. Content analysis involves the systematic coding and objective recording of data, such as using newspapers, periodicals, and other common documents or venues to interpret and test the significance of data. All researchers must abide by a code of ethics to ensure that researchers are not causing harm or violating a person’s privacy. The ASA, American Sociological Association, is responsible for publishing a code of ethics for researchers in the field of sociology. Most research seeks to remain value neutral in its judgments when interpreting research results. However, some have suggested neutrality may be impossible to attain. As the feminist perspective gains influence among sociological researchers, feminist methodology is changing both how issues are defined and how data is collected. Computers and the Internet are exciting technologies that are having an impact on research. RESOURCE INTEGRATOR Focus Questions Resources What is the scientific method? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: scientific method, operational definition, hypothesis, variable, independent variable, dependent variable, causal logic, correlation, sample, random sample, validity, reliability, control variable IN THE INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL Additional Lecture Idea: How Would You Obtain a Representative Sample (2-1) Video Resources: Scientific Method and Values; Sociological Thinking and Research REEL SOCIETY VIDEO Topic Index: Scientific Method What are the major research designs in sociological research? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: research design, survey, interview, questionnaire, quantitative research, qualitative research, observation, ethnography, experiment, experimental group, control group, Hawthorne effect, secondary analysis, content analysis Boxes: Research Today: Surveying Cell Phone Users IN THE INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL Additional Lecture Ideas: Asking the Correct Questions (2-2); Framing Survey Questions about Interracial Relationships (2-3); The Personal Implications of Ethnographic Research (2-4); Content Analysis of Coverage of the Rodney King Beating (2-5); Useful Statistics (2-6) Classroom Discussion Topics: Defending Surveys (2-3); NORC and the Internet (2-4); Coding (2-5); Ethnographies (2-6); Role Conflict and Observation Research (2-7); Content Analysis of Children’s Book (2-8); Content Analysis and Magazines (2-9); Content Analysis and Personal Ads (2-10) Topics and Sources for Student Research: Content Analysis—Comic Superheroes; Content Analysis—Newspapers Video Resources: Sociological Inquiry; Research Methods for the Social Sciences Internet Connection: Oral History Society; Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Social Policy: How Americans Feel—An Introduction to Survey Research What are the key ethical issues in sociological research? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: code of ethics, value neutrality Boxes: Research Today: Gender Messages in Scout Badges IN THE INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL Classroom Discussion Topics: Teaching the Ethics of Sociological Research (2-11) 1. What are the key issues in feminist methodology? IN THE INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL Classroom Discussion Topics: Using Content Analysis to Research Gender (2-13) Student Research and Assignments: Feminist Methodology; Fieldwork/Observation and Feminist Scholarship LECTURE OUTLINE I. What Is the Scientific Method? • A systematic, organized series of steps that ensures maximum objectivity and consistency in researching a problem. It is important to be able to distinguish between scientific and popular sources, as we are constantly bombarded with information and so-called “facts.” A. Defining the Problem • An operational definition is necessary to assess or measure a concept. Example: A sociologist may use membership in exclusive social clubs as an operational definition of “status.” B. Reviewing the Literature • This process serves to refine the problem under study, clarify data collection techniques, and reduce avoidable mistakes. C. Formulating the Hypothesis • Hypothesis: A speculative statement about the relationship between two or more variables (A variable is a measurable trait or characteristic). • Independent variables cause or influence change in dependent variables. • Dependent variables are changed by the independent variables or are dependent on them. • Causal logic refers to the relationship between a condition or variable and a particular consequence, with one event leading to the other. Example: Time spent studying may result in a higher grade on an exam. • Correlation is only an indication that causality may be present. Other factors are necessary to determine causation. D. Collecting and Analyzing Data • Research designs guide researchers in collecting data. 1. Selecting the Sample • Sample: The sample is a statistically representative selection from a larger population. Researchers collect samples because the population is too large to be studied. • A random sample occurs when every member of an entire population has the same chance of being selected for the study. 2. Ensuring Validity and Reliability • Validity refers to the degree to which a measure or scale accurately reflects the phenomenon under study. • Reliability refers to the extent to which a measure produces consistent results. E. Developing the Conclusion • Conclusion represents both an end and a beginning in research. 1. Supporting Hypothesis • Some studies refute a hypothesis, which leads to reformulations about a conclusion and adjustments in research designs. 2. Controlling for Other Factors • A control variable is a factor held constant to test the relative impact of the independent variable. Example: If a researcher were interested in comparing life expectancy among persons of different races or ethnicities, he or she might wish to control for socio-economic status (SES). II. Major Research Designs • A detailed plan or method for obtaining data scientifically. A. Surveys • Surveys are generally in the form of an interview or questionnaire, providing researchers with information about how people think or act. Example: Gallup poll. • The survey is an example of quantitative research, which collects and reports data primarily in numerical form. • Survey questionnaires have the advantage over most other methods of being cheaper to administer. They also offer the advantage of uniform questions and answers, thereby allowing researchers to make comparisons across the sample. Samples for survey research are often quite large. B. Observation • Qualitative research offers more depth and detail than quantitative analysis. This type of research relies on what is seen in field and naturalistic settings, and often focuses on small groups and communities. Observation is the most common form. Example: A researcher might observe gang life or homeless persons. Observational research relies on small samples. • The Hawthorne effect refers to the tendency for subjects of research to deviate from typical behavior because they are under observation. • William F. Whyte’s 1930s study, in which he moved into a low-income Italian neighborhood in Boston, is a classic example of a participant observation research. • Ethnography: The study of an entire social setting through extended systematic observation. The Adlers’ study of self-injury, described in the chapter opening, was an ethnographic study. C. Experiments • Experiments involve artificially created situations. Pure experiments require the use of an experimental group exposed to an independent variable, and a control group, which is not exposed to the independent variable. • Sociologists do not rely on classic forms of experiment/control groups, due to the danger they might cause to humans. Sociological topics often do not lend themselves well to experimental designs. • The Hawthorne effect refers to the tendency for subjects of research to deviate from typical behavior because they are under observation. D. Use of Existing Sources • Secondary analysis refers to making use of previously collected or publicly accessible information and data. Example: Census data. • Existing data is nonreactive, since it does not influence people’s behavior; thus, researchers can avoid the Hawthorne effect by using secondary analysis. Example: Durkheim’s research on suicide. • Content analysis is the systematic coding and objective recording of data. Example: Analyzing the content of films to determine if there has been an increase in the depiction of smoking in movies. III. Ethics of Research • The American Sociological Association’s Code of Ethics for sociologists was first published in 1971. • Objectivity, integrity, privacy, protection from harm, confidentiality, informed consent, acknowledge collaboration and assistance, and disclose sources of financial support. A. Confidentiality • Rik Scarce jailed for refusing to divulge what he knew about a 1991 raid on a university lab by animal rights activists. • The Supreme Court has failed to clarify the rights of scholars preserving the confidentiality of research subjects. B. Research Funding • When accepting funding for their research, sociologists must be careful that the funding source does not taint the objectivity of the research. Example: Exxon funded research on jury deliberations after the Valdez disaster. C. Value Neutrality • Weber and value neutrality in research. Neutrality may be impossible. IV. Feminist Methodology • The feminist perspective has had an impact on sociological research, both in terms of methodology and in terms of substantive content. Example: Research is now being conducted on the integration of work and family, rather than viewing the two topics as unrelated. Feminist scholars were among the first to identify unpaid, domestic labor as a form of work. • Historically, sociologists researched men’s work, associations, communities, and generalized this research to all people, resulting in a biased picture of social life. • Feminist scholarship often employs a multidisciplinary approach to the research itself and its application. V. Technology and Sociological Research • Impact of computers and Internet on research. Example: Software programs. • Web-based surveys are promising, but may not be random samples. VI. Social Policy and Sociological Research: Studying Human Sexuality A. The Issue • Human sexuality is a difficult topic to research, yet a scientific understanding of human sexuality is important, especially in an age of devastating sexually transmitted diseases, relatively high teenage pregnancy rates, and concerns over early onset of sexual activity. B. The Setting • There have been few reliable studies of patterns of sexual behavior in the U.S. The sensitive nature of the subject makes it difficult to obtain accurate information, and until the AIDS crisis, there was little scientific demand for data on sexual behavior. • Government funding for studies of sexual behavior is controversial. C. Sociological Insights • Sociologists may fear studying and objectively reporting findings for fear of losing government funds, in the event the research criticizes government policies. D. Policy Initiatives • In 1987, the federal government’s National Institute of Child Health and Human Development sought research proposals for a national survey of sexual behavior. • In 1991, the U.S. Senate voted to forbid funding any survey on adult sexual practices. • Researchers secured private funding for the research to go forth: National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS). Careful procedures helped establish validity of the NHSLS findings. • Authors of the study contend their data will allow sociologists and policymakers to better address such issues as AIDS, sexual harassment, welfare reform, sex discrimination, abortion, teenage pregnancy, and family planning. • The research findings countered conventional notions about abortion and birth control. Example: Researchers found that women do not regularly use abortion for birth control and that affluent women are more likely to have abortions than poor teens. Both of these findings challenge conventional wisdom and common sense about abortion. KEY TERMS Causal logic The relationship between a condition or variable and a particular consequence, with one event leading to the other. Code of ethics The standards of acceptable behavior developed by and for members of a profession. Content analysis The systematic coding and objective recording of data, guided by some rationale. Control group The subjects in an experiment who are not introduced to the independent variable by the researcher. Control variable A factor that is held constant to test the relative impact of an independent variable. Correlation A relationship between two variables in which a change in one coincides with a change in the other. Cross-tabulation A table that shows the relationship between two or more variables. Dependent variable The variable in a causal relationship that is subject to the influence of another variable. Ethnography The study of an entire social setting through extended systematic observation. Experiment An artificially created situation that allows a researcher to manipulate variables. Experimental group The subjects in an experiment who are exposed to an independent variable introduced by a researcher. Hawthorne effect The unintended influence that observers or experiments can have on their subjects. Hypothesis A speculative statement about the relationship between two or more variables. Independent variable The variable in a causal relationship that causes or influences a change in a second variable. Interview A face-to-face or telephone questioning of a respondent to obtain desired information. Mean A number calculated by adding a series of values and then dividing by the number of values. Median The midpoint or number that divides a series of values into two groups of equal numbers of values. Mode The single most common value in a series of scores. Observation A research technique in which an investigator collects information through direct participation and/or closely watching a group or community. Operational definition An explanation of an abstract concept that is specific enough to allow a researcher to measure the concept. Percentage A portion of 100. Qualitative research Research that relies on what is seen in field or naturalistic settings more than on statistical data. Quantitative research Research that collects and reports data primarily in numerical form. Questionnaire A printed or written form used to obtain information from a respondent. Random sample A sample for which every member of an entire population has the same chance of being selected. Reliability The extent to which a measure produces consistent results. Research design A detailed plan or method for obtaining data scientifically. Sample A selection from a larger population that is statistically representative of that population. Scientific method A systematic, organized series of steps that ensures maximum objectivity and consistency in researching a problem. Secondary analysis A variety of research techniques that make use of previously collected and publicly accessible information and data. Survey A study, generally in the form of an interview or questionnaire, that provides researchers with information about how people think and act. Validity The degree to which a measure or scale truly reflects the phenomenon under study. Value neutrality Max Weber’s term for objectivity of sociologists in the interpretation of data. Variable A measurable trait or characteristic that is subject to change under different conditions. ADDITIONAL LECTURE IDEAS 2-1: How Would You Obtain a Representative Sample? Students and their instructors have typically been saturated with telephone and shopping mall surveys. But do students know why they have been selected, and whether their selection is part of a representative sample? Suggest to the class that they have been given the responsibility of developing a representative sample in their school’s county that will be asking questions about a controversial subject (e.g., abortion rights, capital punishment, or gun control). How would they go about selecting a representative sample of county residents for this study? Student responses will tend to gravitate toward the following: shopping malls, telephone interviews, birth certificates, tax reports, grocery stores, bus depots, their college, and other suggestions that will not generate a representative sample. Each response should be met with an explanation of why the suggestion is not representative. Students will generally suggest that members of the sample population should be selected based on their characteristics, which is a good place to introduce a discussion of variables and quota samples and the weaknesses of this type of sample. Finally, the students should be asked, “If I were trying to select a random sample of this class, a sample in which every member of the class has the same chance of being selected, how could I do this?” Almost immediately, students will suggest placing names into a hat and pulling out one or more names at random. At that point, students can be led through a discussion of how the “hat selection” process can be used for a large population in order that everyone in the county has a chance to have their names “pulled out of a hat.” See Earl Babbie. The Practice of Social Research (10th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2003. See also Peter Rossi et al. Handbook of Survey Research. New York: Basic Books, 1983; and Morton M. Hunt. Profiles of Social Research: The Scientific Study of Human Interactions. New York: Russell Sage, 1986. 2-2: Asking the Correct Questions Sociologists try to phrase questions carefully so that there will be no misunderstanding on the part of the respondents. If a question is improperly worded (or biased), the results are useless for the researchers. POOR QUESTION PROBLEM BETTER QUESTION Do you favor urban homesteading? People may not understand the question. Do you favor a government program that encourages families to improve inner city housing? Did your mother ever work? Misleading; Sexist. Did your mother ever work for pay outside the home? Should it be possible for a woman to obtain a legal abortion? Too general. Should it be possible for a woman to obtain a legal abortion if there is a strong chance of serious defect in her baby? If she became pregnant as a result of rape? Do you favor making it legal for 18-year-olds to drink liquor and smoke marijuana? Double-barreled (two questions in one). Do you favor making it legal for 18-year-olds to drink liquor? Do you favor making it legal for 18-year-olds to smoke marijuana? Don’t you think that the press is slanted and that we should distrust whatever it says? Biased question; leads people toward a particular response. Would you say that you have a great deal of confidence, some, or very little confidence in the press? After reading through and discussing these examples, have students get into small groups and prepare three or four well-written, unbiased survey research questions about topics of their choosing. 2-3: Framing Survey Questions about Interracial Relationships Do White people really have close Black friends, and vice versa? Many surveys have attempted to gauge the amount of White–Black interaction. But unless the questions are phrased carefully, it is possible to overestimate just how much “racial togetherness” is taking place. Sociologist Tom Smith, who directs the respected General Social Survey, noticed that a high proportion of Whites and African Americans indicate they have close friends of the other race. But is this, in fact, true? When Smith and his fellow researchers analyzed data from the 1998 General Social Survey they found that response rates varied according to how the question was phrased. For example, when asked whether any of their friends that they feel close to was Black, 42.1 percent of Whites said “yes.” Yet when asked to give the names of friends they feel close to, only 6 percent of Whites listed a close friend of a different race or ethnicity. Talk about this with the students and use it as a learning opportunity in two areas. First, discuss the validity of the original question cited above (i.e., what were the researchers actually measuring here? Did this question simply generate the normative or politically correct response?). Secondly, use this as a platform for a larger discussion about the issue of race relations in the United States. Perhaps have students conduct an informal survey of their own or do some observations of race relations on campus. Do they find that racial segregation is prevalent, for example, in the cafeteria, library, or at social events? 2-4: The Personal Implications of Ethnographic Research Ethnography is one of the most fascinating methods of data collection open to social scientists—so much so that it is worthy of sociological analysis itself. For one, ethnography requires an unusually long and intense period of observation, interviewing, and participation. It is also a method of study that involves an inherent dialogue between researcher and subject. In contrast to a survey or an experiment, those under observation in an ethnographic study can always “talk back” in ways that are unexpected for the researcher, thereby changing the scope and content of the research project as it moves along. For most practitioners, an ethnographic study also requires a long period in which the ethnographer is removed from familiar social settings, and is immersed in a very different culture or subculture. Often, one unintended consequence is that the ethnographer finds himself or herself personally changed by the research process. In contemporary ethnographies, it is now common for one or more chapters to reflect upon these personal implications of ethnographic work. Crafting Selves is Dorinne K. Kondo’s ethnography of a Tokyo confectionary. Kondo, a Japanese American with native fluency in Japanese, was often able to “pass” as Japanese. Because of her ethnicity and language abilities, she also found that her research subjects increasingly held her to the behavioral expectations of a young Japanese woman, rather than an American ethnographer. As a result, Kondo gradually found herself possessing two distinct “selves”: the “American self” and the “Japanese self,” with the Japanese self becoming increasingly dominant. This process came to a head one day when Kondo unexpectedly saw her reflection in a mirrored surface, but failed for a moment to realize that she was seeing herself rather than an unknown Japanese woman. In this moment, Kondo felt that her American identity had collapsed completely, and that her Japanese identity had taken over in its absence. Shaken, she realized that it would be necessary in the coming months to extricate herself somewhat from the environment into which she had so fully immersed herself (Kondo 1990). In many cases, the ethnographer not only reports on the personal impact of ethnographic fieldwork, but also uses the experience to better analyze the social context under study. One of the most well known examples is in the work of Renato Rosaldo. While Rosaldo and his wife were studying the Ilongot people of the Philippines, Rosaldo’s wife, Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo, accidentally fell from a cliff to her death. In his essay “Death and a Headhunter’s Grief,” Rosaldo describes how the immense grief he experienced gave him new insight into the emotional motivations for headhunting among the Ilongot (Rosaldo 1989). Such “vulnerable writing”—in which the ethnographer explicitly incorporates personal experiences into his or her work—can also lead to a new level of understanding for the reader of that ethnography, according to Ruth Behar (1996). When Behar wrote a book in which she compared the life of a Mexican peddler to her own experience in the academic tenure process, several readers wrote to tell her that they found the comparison to be a vital element of the book. It had allowed them to identify better with the peddler’s experiences. Not surprisingly, there is growing interest among ethnographers—especially among those who are anthropologists—in a type of ethnography called autoethnography. While this term has been defined in a number of different ways, autoethnography can refer to a type of ethnographic text in which the writer explicitly addresses his or her own personal identity and history, and how it is linked to his or her work as an ethnographer (Reed-Danahay 1997). Of course, there are those within the social sciences who question the credibility of research methodologies which are considered “soft” or subjective. Sociology continues to be dominated by quantitative methodologies. Consequently, until recently, qualitative studies (and scholars) have been somewhat “ghettoized” and placed outside the mainstream of the sociological canon. Sources used for this essay and additional reading ideas include: Ruth Behar. The Vulnerable Observer. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996; Dorinne K. Kondo Crafting Selves: Power, Gender, and Discourses of Identity in a Japanese Workplace. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990; Annette Lareau and Jeffrey Schultz, Journeys through Ethnography. Boulder: Westview, 1996; Deborah E. Reed-Danahay (ed.), Auto/Ethnography: Rewriting the Self and the Social. New York: Berg, 1997; Renato Rosaldo. “Grief and a Headhunter’s Rage.” Pp. 1–21 in Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis. Boston: Beacon Press, 1989. 2-5: Content Analysis of Coverage of the Rodney King Beating Sociologist Ronald N. Jacobs examined media coverage following the severe beating of an African-American motorist, Rodney King, by members of the California Highway Patrol and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) on March 3, 1991. Unknown to the police officers, the event was videotaped by an amateur cameraman who subsequently sold the tape to a local television station. Interest in the incident diminished about a month after the release of the Christopher Commission report on July 9, 1991, but exploded again in April 1992 with the return of not-guilty verdicts for the four police officers who were indicted for the beating. By the end of the crisis, Police Chief Daryl Gates had resigned, Mayor Tom Bradley had decided not to run for reelection (for the first time in 23 years), and the city of Los Angeles had experienced the most costly civil disturbance, or riot, in the nation’s history. In order to analyze the discourse concerning the Rodney King case, Jacobs examined all articles appearing between March and September 1991 in the daily Los Angeles Times (357 articles) and the weekly Los Angeles Sentinel (137 articles). The Sentinel is the largest African-American newspaper in terms of circulation in Los Angeles, while the Times has by far the largest circulation of any newspaper in the region. Both papers presented a similar narrative or construction of the events. They showed a “drama of redemption,” pitting the heroic acts of local government (the mayor and the city council) against the antiheroic ones (Gates and the LAPD). The Sentinel, however, typically posited members of the Black community as heroic actors, while championing democratic ideals. Employing a style common to the African-American press, the newspaper invoked the ideals of American society while criticizing that society as it actually exists. The Christopher Commission was very critical of the LAPD and particularly critical of Police Chief Gates. Both newspapers spoke in positive terms of the Commission’s work and its conclusions. The Los Angeles Times saw the commission as giving the community and various government units an opportunity to come together and learn from the tragic events. The Sentinel expressed similar sentiments, but did not construct its version as a bridge toward legitimization of local government leaders. The Sentinel saw the concerns over police brutality as a justification for the long-standing criticisms of law enforcement made by the African-American community. Émile Durkheim has spoken of the “collective conscious” of a society. However, analysis of the discourse concerning the 1991 King beating reveals that the incident was socially constructed as several different problems in several different public spheres. On the basis of content analysis of the Los Angeles Times coverage, the Times constructed the issue as a problem of police brutality, of factionalism, and of political divisiveness. In the Los Angeles Sentinel, the incident was constructed as a problem of police brutality, of insincerity on the part of Whites, and of the need for African-American empowerment. The Times saw the beating as the beginning of a crisis, while the Sentinel saw it as part of an ongoing narrative about civil rights and police brutality. This content analysis of the two newspapers’ perspectives appears to support Stephen Hilgartner and Charles Bosk’s “public arenas” model of social problems, which argues that problems can be viewed differently, and recognizes multiple public spheres for debating such issues. See Stephen Hilgartner and Charles Bosk, “The Rise and Fall of Social Problems: A Public Arenas Model,” American Journal of Sociology 94 (July 1988): 53–78; Ronald N. Jacobs, “Civil Society and Crisis: Culture, Discourse, and the Rodney King Beating,” American Journal of Sociology 101 (March 1996): 1238–1272. 2-6: Useful Statistics In their effort to understand social behavior better, sociologists rely heavily on numbers and statistics. How large is the typical household today compared with the typical household of 1970? If a community were to introduce drug education into its elementary schools, what would be the cost per pupil? What proportion of Baptists, compared to that of Roman Catholics, contributes to their local churches? Such questions, and many others, are most easily answered in numerical terms that summarize the actions or attitudes of many persons. The most common summary measures used by sociologists are percentages, means, modes, and medians. A percentage shows the portion of 100. Use of percentages allows us to compare groups of different sizes. For example, if we were comparing contributors to a town’s Baptist and Roman Catholic churches, the absolute numbers of contributors from each group could be misleading if there were many more Baptists than Catholics living in the town. However, percentages would give us a more meaningful comparison, showing the proportion of persons in each group who contribute to churches. The mean, or average, is a number calculated by adding a series of values and then dividing by the number of values. For example, to find the mean of the numbers 5, 19, and 27, we add them together for a total of 51. We then divide by the number of values (3), and discover that the mean is 17. The mode is the single most common value in a series of scores. Suppose we are looking at the following scores on a 10-point quiz: 10 10 9 9 8 8 7 7 7 6 6 The mode—the most frequent score on the quiz—is 7. While the mode is easier to identify than other summary measures, it tells sociologists little about all the other values. Therefore, we use it much less frequently in this book than we do the mean and median. The median is the midpoint or number that divides a series of values into two groups of equal numbers of values. For the quiz discussed above, the median, or central value, is 8. The mean would be 86 (the sum of all scores) divided by 11 (the total number of scores), or 7.8. According to the Census Bureau, the U.S. median family income for the year 2002 was $42,409; this indicates that half of all families had incomes above $42,409, while the other half had lower incomes. In many respects, the median is the most characteristic value. Although it may not reflect the full range of scores, it does approximate the value in a set of scores. Also, it is not affected by extreme scores. Some of these statistics may seem confusing at first. But think about how difficult it is to study an endless list of numbers in order to identify a pattern or central tendency. Percentages, means, modes, and medians are essential time savers in sociological research and analysis. CLASSROOM DISCUSSION TOPICS Demedicalization of Self Injury: Questions for stimulating a classroom discussion about Patricia A. Adler and Peter Adler’s study of the phenomenon of self-injury include: As a sociologist, why might you be interested in the age, social class, racial and ethnic statuses of members of these groups? Would this type of group be difficult for a social researcher to penetrate openly? Why or why not? What difficulties might the Adlers have encountered in trying to gain acceptance in friendship groups, both online and in person, while disclosing that they were researchers rather than fellow self-injurers? Would the desire for acceptance into the groups in order to gain more information for their research justify refraining from disclosing that they were researchers? What research methodologies did the Adlers use? If they had used a different research approach, would the findings have been different in some way? How do the Adlers use the three main sociological perspectives in their study? Instructors may wish to introduce and/or compare the design of this study to The Tearoom Trade, done by Laud Humphreys in the 1970s. Discuss whether or not covert observation was justified by the information Humphreys gathered and the knowledge base to which he ultimately contributed (i.e., expanding our awareness and understanding of the complexities of sexual orientation and identity). Theory and Research: The important tie between theory and research is reinforced by this classroom exercise. See Technique No. 73 in Edward L. Kain and Robin Neas (eds.). Innovative Techniques for Teaching Sociological Concepts. Washington, DC: American Sociological Association, 1993. Defending Surveys: Surveys, despite often being criticized, are very useful to both the general public and policymakers. See Andrew Greeley, “In Defense of Surveys,” Society 33 (May/June 1996): 26–29. NORC and the Internet: Students can access the data from the General Social Survey, or GSS, which is an annual, omnibus personal interview survey of U.S. households conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC). The first survey took place in 1972, and since then more than 35,000 respondents have answered over 2,500 different questions. Through the NORC website at www.norc.uchicago.edu, students can visit the GSS Data and Information Retrieval System, which allows access to the code book and the actual results of any variable from all the GSS surveys, including the most recent study. Coding: Have members of the class ask people on campus a question of contemporary interest, for example, “What do you like or dislike about the current president?” or “What causes crime?” Then have the students (individually or as a class) classify the responses and assign codes to them. The emphasis in this project is on data manipulation rather than on the accuracy of the sampling techniques. Ethnographies: The author explains the use of motion pictures as the basis for teaching ethnographic research methods. See Lauraine LeBlanc, “Observing Reel Life: Using Feature Films to Teach Ethnographic Methods,” Teaching Sociology 25 (January 1997): 62–68. Role Conflict and Observation Research: Two sociologists describe their dilemma of role definition: the pressure to go “native,” and the public pressure to take a stand while doing participant observation in the Unification Church. See Arson D. Shupe, Jr., and David G. Bromley, “Walking a Tightrope,” Qualitative Sociology 2 (1980). Content Analysis of Children’s Book—A Class Activity: Bring enough children’s books to class for each student (or for every two students if the class is large). Have the class set up a very simple code sheet and conduct a content analysis of the books. For example, they could simply count the number of time boys appear in the books as compared with the number of times girls appear in the book; they could look for presentation of traditional gender roles (e.g., girls playing with dolls, boys with trucks); or they could count the number of times children from various racial and ethnic groups appear in the book. This activity will be most effective if the books you bring were published over the last 20 years. Content Analysis and Magazines: See Techniques Nos. 4 and 5 in Edward L. Kain and Robin Neas (eds.). Innovative Techniques for Teaching Sociological Concepts. Washington, DC: American Sociological Association, 1993. Content Analysis and Personal Ads: This exercise guides students through a research project that teaches them about content analysis through the analysis of personal ads. Beth Rushing and Idee Winfield, “Learning about Sampling and Measurement by Doing Content Analysis of Personal Advertisements,” Teaching Sociology 27 (April 1999): 159–166. Teaching the Ethics of Sociological Research: This exercise, developed by Stephen Sweet, is an interesting way to draw students into a discussion of research ethics. See Stephen Sweet, “Using a Mock Institutional Review Board to Teach Ethics in Sociological Research,” Teaching Sociology 27 (January 1999): 55–59. Using Humor: Joseph E. Faulkner has produced a monograph that includes funny examples that could be incorporated into lectures associated with Chapter 2. See Chapter 1 of Faulkner, Sociology Through Humor. New York: West, 1987. This book is out of print, but used copies are readily available. Using Content Analysis to Research Gender: Introduce students to Jean Kilbourne’s research on women and advertising. (See, for example, Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel by Jean Kilbourne and Mary Pipher, Touchstone, 2000). Discuss her research approach as well as her findings. Have students critique her approach—do they believe her conclusions are valid? Did she see what she wanted or expected to see? Does she assign too much responsibility to advertisers and not enough to women? Does she perpetuate the notion that women are weak, passive, vulnerable, and unable to think for themselves? Then, have students conduct a similar content analysis of gendered advertisements from more contemporary media. To re-emphasize the importance of research design (rather than content), have students work in groups and attempt to collect a representative sample of images from popular media. Have them defend their choices. Be sure to point out places where they’ve selected images from outlets which cater to a narrow economic, age, or ethnic population (i.e., Cosmopolitan magazine). TOPICS FOR STUDENT RESEARCH AND CLASSROOM DISCUSSION 1. Ask students to provide an operational definition of an abstract notion, such as the influence of poverty on crime. Students can also provide a hypothesis statement concerning the nature of any relationship. Answer: Students should define the influence of poverty on crime operationally by specifying measurable indicators, such as the correlation between poverty rates and crime statistics in different neighborhoods. For example, they might operationalize poverty as the percentage of the population living below the poverty line and crime as the number of reported incidents per 1,000 residents. A possible hypothesis could be: "Higher poverty rates are associated with increased crime rates in urban areas." This definition and hypothesis allow for empirical testing and analysis of the relationship between these variables. 2. Ask students to bring a mail-back survey (from a product recently purchased) into class, and have students discuss what the researchers may be trying to measure or ascertain from the survey. Answer: Students should examine the mail-back survey to identify what the researchers are aiming to measure, such as customer satisfaction, product quality, or consumer demographics. They might discuss how the survey questions are designed to gather feedback on user experience, identify areas for improvement, or assess the effectiveness of marketing strategies. Understanding the survey’s purpose helps reveal how businesses use this data to enhance products and services. 3. Ask students to bring in an article addressing the results of a study of some social phenomenon or behavior. Stress that the article must be published by a reputable local or national newspaper or magazine, rather than from a sociological research publication. Examine the extent to which the information published allows the reader to assess reliability and validity. Attempt to identify method, variables, controls, limits to generalizability, and funding sources. Discuss misinformation, critical reading, and the importance of healthy skepticism. This activity can also be used when covering Chapter 6 (Mass Media). Answer: Students should bring in an article from a reputable newspaper or magazine about a social study and analyze it for reliability and validity. They should identify the study's method, variables, controls, and any limitations to generalizability. Discussion should focus on potential biases, funding sources, and the importance of critical reading to avoid misinformation. This activity underscores the need for healthy skepticism and careful evaluation of media reports on social research. 4. Ask students to examine a mail-back survey form for any indications of misleading, double-barreled, or biased questions, and discuss how the questions could be revised to avoid these problems. Answer: Students should review the mail-back survey form for misleading, double-barreled, or biased questions, such as those that lead respondents toward a specific answer or combine multiple issues into one question. They should discuss how to revise these questions to ensure clarity and neutrality, such as separating compound questions into single issues and providing balanced response options. This exercise highlights the importance of designing surveys that accurately capture respondents' true opinions and experiences. 5. Ask students to replicate a small-scale study similar to that of Erving Goffman in which students explore newspapers and magazines for evidence of women being portrayed as subservient to men. Ask students to note the relative frequency of uses of members of various racial and ethnic groups and their apparent socioeconomic status as well as their apparent status as dominant or subservient. Discuss the impact of such research on social policy. Answer: Students should replicate a small-scale study akin to Erving Goffman's work by analyzing newspapers and magazines for portrayals of women as subservient to men, noting the frequency of representation among different racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups. They should assess how these portrayals reflect power dynamics and social hierarchies. Discussing their findings, students can explore how such representations impact social policy by influencing public perceptions and potentially reinforcing stereotypes or biases. 6. Ask students to discuss why policymakers and corporations may intentionally refute some research findings revealed by sociologists, or attempt to cover up research findings. Answer: Students should discuss why policymakers and corporations might refute or obscure sociological research findings, such as when the findings threaten their interests, challenge existing policies, or reveal detrimental impacts on their reputation or profits. They should consider how such actions can serve to maintain power, avoid financial losses, or prevent public backlash. This discussion highlights the tension between research integrity and institutional self-interest. SERVICE LEARNING ACTIVITY Although some scholars find it difficult to call sociology a “science,” it certainly qualifies as such because of its methods and purpose. Prediction of human behavior can be a difficult task. But a disciplined researcher can provide meaningful insight to social phenomena. Causal relationships can be established as a result of a thorough examination of collected data. This chapter explains to students the “science “of social science and why sociology qualifies as a legitimate and important vehicle for assessing social change. Of particular worth in this chapter is the section that deals with “major research designs.” Below is a relevant service learning activity: Have students contact a local organization such as Planned Parenthood, AIDS Outreach Program, or a Drug Awareness Program and have the students assist in the administration of a survey. They should volunteer to staple, collect, or to make any contribution that will allow them to get an insider’s view as to how these instruments are created and how the information gathered is used. Allow students to choose an organization that they are interested in knowing more about, or an organization that they feel is providing a worthwhile service to the community. Instructor Manual for Sociology in Modules Richard T. Schaefer 9780078026812, 9780071318419