Sociology: Changing Societies in a Diverse World

Sociology: Changing Societies in a Diverse World (Fourth Edition)

George J. Bryjak & Michael P. Soroka

Chapter One Summary of Key Concepts

Sociology is the field of study which seeks to "describe, explain, and predict human social patterns" from a scientific perspective. And though Sociology is part of the social sciences (such as psychology and anthropology), it is quite set apart from the other disciplines in social science; that is because it emphasizes the study of social groups - and how those social groups shape the thoughts and actions of humans.

The two phases of modernization: the first phase was the Industrial Revolution, which had a dramatic effect on countries like the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand; the second phase began post-WWI and continues now. Globalization alludes to the movement of industry - jobs, people and capital - from one society (and country) to another, as economies grow, throughout the world. Also, part of Globalization is the movement of values and other cultural characteristics with those industries and people. One down-side of Globalization is that if one interrelated economy hits a roadblock, the economies elsewhere in the world that fed or are fed by that slowed down economy, or are partially dependent upon that economy, can also suffer slow-downs. It has a ripple effect.

Sociology is a "debunking science" because it looks for "levels of reality" other than utilizing those already listed in official explanations and definitions. In Positivism, decisions are reached based on available scientific knowledge, whereas intuition means a person uses his best immediate extemporaneous response, judgment and sensory experience about something, not based on fact or previous research. Comte's contribution was to bring sociology into a more scientific genre; and he believed knowledge can only be based on what one sees, touches, feels, hears and tastes. The downside to Comte: he was wrong in his belief that social laws would determine the outcome of societal progression.

Durkheim's four categories of suicide: Altruistic suicide (people over-involved in a group, and have strong inner convictions); egoistic suicide (under-involved, under-committed individuals simply want a way out); anomic suicide (a person never reaches the social status nor achieves out-of-control desires and dreams); fatalistic suicide (victims of despotism, over-regulation, or repression would rather die than be compromised or locked into a life which is despairing and desperate). Theory: a set of logically coherent concepts that explains, or attempts to explain, some observable phenomena, or collection of facts; the life blood of science. A grand theory deals with "universal aspects of social life" and is normally rooted in assumptions which are basic. Middle range theories focus not on "universal" aspects but of "specific problems" in the social world.

Talcott Parsons' functional requirements: Social systems must adapt to their environments (Adaptation); members of social groups must have goals and the wherewithal to achieve those goals (Goal Attainment); today's functionalists understand that all components of society must be coordinated into some kind of a cohesive whole (Integration); everybody needs a psychological and physical break, or rest period, from the fast-paced world we live in (Pattern Maintenance).

Symbolic interactionism is more of a social psychological approach, taking smaller scale issues and subjectively examining them; conflict and functionalist theories deal mainly with larger-scale social phenomena, and they begin with the assumption that tangible facts are of primary importance. Symbols and the context in which they appear help social scientists understand the human culture; people respond to things based upon what meaning those things have for the individual. Survey research is social scientists studying behaviors or attitudes by asking questions; observation study is just observing rather than asking; and experimental research is more of a way to explain social patterns, or predict new ones.

Chapter Two Summary of Key Concepts

Culture is the combined values, norms, institutions and artifacts that reflect a people's way of living and social heritage. Cultures set the guidelines and boundaries for how a people think and live, and they are altered as times and people change within them. Sociobiology proponents observe that since no society has real "instincts" and since every society has certain similar forms of behavior (for example, altruism, aggression, and homosexuality), those behaviors must be "biologically based" and transmitted "genetically" through generations. Those not buying into sociobiology say humans learn through experience, not through biological processes.

Language: a) allows humans to transmit culture from generation to generation; b) is the tool for storing and sharing knowledge; c) allows the transcending of the here and now, into fantasy, and back into history. Material culture comprises things people make and utilize, while nonmaterial culture consists of ideas, beliefs, laws, customs.

Popular culture consists of the things that are part of everyday life, as portrayed in movies, TV, books, magazines, the Internet, sports, music and other forms of entertainment. Observing popular culture gives us a way to explore the present and evaluate it, while having a perspective of the past juxtaposed with the present. America's core values are the key identifying characteristics of our nation. Some of our core values include: work, achievement, material comfort, success, acceptance of change, progress, freedom, individualism, patriotism. As for patriotism, we have seen the current president exploit the concept of patriotism in order to promote his agenda of attacking nations with "weapons of mass destruction" (e.g., Iraq). And in using patriotism, the president is tapping into a core value, and making it work to his political advantage, it would appear.

Norms are simple rules that identify what humans should do and say and think; folkways are the customary ways in which a group of people does things; mores are rules - spoken and unspoken - which must not only be observed, they must be "obeyed." Laws are mores which have legal backing. Ethnocentrism is the somewhat vain belief that the values and norms of one's society are superior to values and norms of other societies, but a less judgmental route is cultural relativism, in which people believe there is no absolute, universal right and wrong, and everything must be judged within the context of its own cultural value. Culture shock occurs when one meets people whose view of the world is radically different; culture shock can cause frustration, confusion, even revulsion. A subculture shares some values and behavioral patterns with the larger society, but have their own specific brand of beliefs and activities within their group. An example would be Southern Baptists, or the Army, or stamp collectors, or baseball players. But countercultures have values and beliefs which contradict the lifestyles and values of the greater culture - and an example of countercultures would be hippies living on a communal farm, or the Ku Klux Klan. One counterculture that was incorporated into the larger society was the Solidarity Movement in Poland; leaders of the SM were elected to national office, and thereby brought the group into national focus and prominence. It was actually a revolution of change, from despotism to democracy, from despair to hope.

Cultural lag occurs when one aspect of the culture changes faster than other aspects. For example, life support systems keep humans technically alive though "brain dead" - and our culture has not come to grips with the manifestations and ramifications of this phenomena as of yet.

Chapter Three Summary of Key Concepts

Social Structure refers to the attempt by a culture to translate its values and patterned relationships into concrete terms. Members of social aggregates will share the exact same physical space at a particular moment (such as several men standing in line in a rest room at a baseball stadium), but have little else in common. Meanwhile, social categories share more than just momentarily being in the same place; for example all men who were born on July 1, 1950, are a social category; or, all women who graduated from the University of Wisconsin would fall into that "social category."

Status alludes to a social ranking or position a person achieves within a group or society. Role just defines what that person within that position in society is expected to do. Role strain is the inability to successfully achieve all the things that are expected of one in a particular role (a teacher is supposed to lead, not be pushed around; but in some gang-infested schools, bullies dictate what teachers will and won't do). But role conflict refers to being caught in the middle of expectations because all people have more than one specific role in the society (a coach is also a teacher, but his dedication to the quality of his football team does not allow him to grade social studies papers as quickly as he would like to, so students are upset with him when they don't get their papers back quickly).

Membership groups are specific groups to which people belong, and within that group the person acquires the values and attitudes of that group. A reference group is similar to a membership group, but it may be a group that a person wishes to identify with, rather than is actually a part of. A union leader in Washington, D.C., isn't a miner, but miner's groups are his reference group because he identifies so strongly with their needs and aspirations.

Primary groups refer to groups where a person received his or her first important lessons about life and social realities - most often, a typical primary group is the family. Individuals develop their self-concepts and their sense of themselves in a primary group. In a secondary group, such as the HR department at work, a person is less emotionally connected, and feels less totally included in the group's values and actions. A secondary group allows for roles to be played in order to carry out that group's utilitarian functions, whereas in a primary group, one's role is pretty much set in cement. When the size of the group is increased, the number of interaction "linkages" within the group also increases, decreasing the personal relationships within the expanding group. Once the group is large, it is difficult for individual members to form primary-like relations, such as happens when the group is two (a married couple). Amitai Etzioni has identified three types of formal organizations: normative organizations are like Boy Scouts, little league teams, where people join because they perceive that those groups are worthwhile and add social or moral contributions to the greater society; coercive organizations require people to join (prisons and military boot camps are examples), and remove them from the larger society for the duration of their membership; utilitarian organizations attract people who are seeking material benefits from their participation in the organization (an example would be a student attending college to better his or her future). Bureaucratic organizations are simply structural devices for making things happen, maximizing the efficiency of humans through the "logical, orderly structuring of individual behaviors within a particular setting." Some strengths of bureaucratic organizations: jobs and authority is clearly delineated and defined; expectations are understood by all within the organization. Shortcomings of a bureaucracy: they can be slow to change, unresponsive and plodding, causing citizens who need help from various bureaus within the government to become frustrated and even angry. It is an old protest by now, issued by multitudes, that government bureaucrats are more concerned with "covering their butts" than serving the best interests of the public.

Societies are groups of people who seek to perpetuate themselves and continue to occupy their defined territory, to continue to interact with one another based on their shared values and culture. The society is different from other groups because a society provides all the services and resources to sustain their members, replace those who are lost, add new members, and hence, perpetuate the society. Gemeinschaft societies were based mainly on primary-group relations; they were smaller groups where friendships were vital and everyone knew everyone else. However, Gesellschaft societies are the larger groups where not everyone knows everyone else, and individualistic values are more important because those cohesive groupings and primary, one-on-one neighborly values are gone, and a larger, less familiar society is now being created.

Chapter Four Summary of Key Concepts

Human social behaviors differ from non-human behaviors because humans' biological inheritance provides people with a set of behavioral "potentials" - the nuts and bolts of raw materials for human development - and additionally, society and culture provide the tools for socialization, which bring the biological potentials into fruition. Non-humans are not blessed with the socialization opportunities and biological potentials as are humans. Social interaction is very important for children because they have no other way in which to learn the attributes known as "human" attributes. When children are raised in isolated environments, as some case studies have shown, they fail to learn the most basic functions, such as feeding themselves, verbal skills, and more.

Socialization, from the point-of-view of Piaget, is the combined interactions of social, cultural and individual factors in terms of shaping humans' ability to learn (cognitive abilities). The focus of sociological models of socialization is to examine the impact group experiences have on the development of the personality. Mead's view of socialization processes is that increasing social contact between an individual and others creates role-playing, and in so doing a young person develops social structure awareness with the "generalized other" (larger structure of social groups) in his or her relationships. The family functions as a primary socialization unit - and sets the stage for the person's first position in society, for the internalizing of cultural values, and for the learning of how to communicate and interact with others and with groups.

Peer groups have a tremendous influence on young people, because they are buffers between the individuals in peer groups and the larger society, and, because they actually become little primary group communities unto themselves. Since the status of their own primary groups hasn't been clearly defined, the peer group is a bit of security for the young person while those other social forces are formed. The mass media play significant - even frighteningly powerful - roles in social learning because, for example, Americans, on average, watch over 4 hours of TV daily, and listen to 3 hours of radio, and no matter what is presented on TV - pap, violence, sex - it has enormous impact, especially on young, susceptible, impressionable minds. Young girls see skinny models on TV and they believe that is the correct way to look. Young boys see killings with guns, and they want that power, too. The fact that TV ads or programming can easily form impressions in young minds is made even more potentially alarming by the recent FCC ruling which allows single corporations to own multiple media outlets in one city. A corporation, for example, could own the main TV station, 2 or 3 of the most listened to radio stations, and the daily newspaper in a medium size community. That kind of power is excessive, potentially undemocratic, and likely abusive to a free society.

Adult socialization is vital in a quickly changing world, because marriage and family life are not the same as they were 20, 30 years ago. In most marriages, both spouses work, and that requires learning both about work and how to manage a family. Resocialization differs from socialization because resocialization occurs in rapid, dramatic patterns, well after the initial socialization, and it involves the making of a new identity. Resocialization may occur in an environment apart from the normal social situation for the person - such as a prison, boot camp, etc.

Chapter Five Summary Key Concepts

Social inequality alludes to unequal distribution of goods and services among a portion of the population at a given time; social stratification refers to the permanent inequality, the permanent lack of equal distribution of goods and services - a situation passed from generation to generation which has become the norm, or the value.

The Davis-Moore functionalist approach is that social stratification is an inevitable result of the human condition; some will always have, some will always be among the "have-nots." In all societies, they argue, humans are best motivated to succeed when they are given the challenge of obtaining fame, fortune, and power; and the more vital the task, the smaller the number of people - because only a few will have the ability to meet the challenge due to generations of stratification. Functionalism is like a "natural superiority" kind of system - the strong will stay strong, the weak will struggle. Melvin Tumin disagreed with Davis-Moore: his "strangulation of talent" effect states that "offering different levels of rewards to different statuses" of people may at first encourage open competition in which the most qualified people will achieve the most desirable social positions. But Tumin said that after some time passes, the children of successful parents will likely be successful, and children of poor parents will also be poor - and hence, competition for those top favored positions will not be "open" competition anymore.

Karl Marx had this basic assumption: stratification was rooted in people's relationship to the economy; class conflicts were the driving force of social history, and every aspect of social life is determined by the material conditions at a given time and place. Human populations, Marx believed, had a mechanism for producing wealth, called its mode of production. In the end, Marx felt that a system of social equality was better than social stratification. Max Weber, meantime, thought Marx's social stratification was too simplistic and simply wrong. He rejected Marx's economic theories, and said that access to basic opportunities and resources, not ownership of private property, defined the class position of the individual. "Life chances" was Weber's phrase for the access to opportunities for all people. Weber saw a social hierarchy (level of prestige or honor), and a political hierarchy (the ability to gather and use power), as ways to define inequality. Studying social classes finds an "open-class" and a "closed-caste" society; open means people can move up the ladder and closed alludes to the fact that individuals do not have opportunities to move up in social standing. Social mobility is moving through the social structures and stratification levels. Horizontal mobility is movement within one specific level of hierarchy; intergenerational mobility looks at people's occupational movement across several different generation in one family (my father was a company president when he was 40; therefore, I am expected to do the same). Intragenerational mobility is social movement within one's own career. Voluntary mobility, for example, is shown when a person takes two jobs, or attends night classes while holding down a full time job - an expression that this person vigorously desires to move upward, and will do so, come hell or high water, or both. Structural mobility reflects significant changes in more than one aspect/component of the social system and how that impacts the social movement of large numbers of people.

When one is in the higher income brackets of the social system, one can afford better health care - and so social class in a way defines mental and physical health opportunities. And so too, those in the poor brackets often are not covered by medical insurance, and when a calamity hits, the poor are out in the street. The lower classes also tend to be less educated, less involved in the political process, and more likely to commit crime - albeit higher income persons do commit "white collar crime" and too often get away with it, because it rarely leaves a body in the street in a pool of blood, for "news at 11" reporters to flock to.

Chapter Six Summary of Key Concepts

Minority groups are called "minority" because they exhibit traits which distinguish them from the larger population of people - and, they occupy a subordinate position within the social structure. Their cultures and lifestyles are looked upon negatively by the larger majority groups. A majority group is in a more predominant and dominate position in society; and in the U.S., the majority group is considered "white" while minorities are black, brown, yellow or "red" (although Native Americans are not "red" at all).

Prejudice is the expression of irrational and negative feelings towards a given group or culture, based on stereotypes and generalizations. Discrimination is the unfair, unequal treatment of a given group; in a sense, discrimination is the result of prejudice. Race is a person's specific genetic realities, features, based on the hereditary history of the person. Ethnicity is reflective of a person's distinctive culture. Race, as defined by the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, is not a scientifically legitimate way to identify people anymore. "The concepts of race and ethnicity lack precise and universally accepted definitions," according to President Bill Clinton's council of Economic Advisors. An example of the misplaced word "race" was the Nazi attempt to eliminate the "Jewish race." There is no Jewish race. The Jews are reflective of a number of cultures, linked by shared religious beliefs.

The six patterns of majority-minority racial and ethnic group relations are: assimilation, pluralism, legal protection of minorities, population transfer, continued subjugation, and extermination. Assimilation is when minorities are absorbed into the majority system and lose their cultural identities; cultural assimilation or acculturation defines when minorities are trying to act and think like the dominate social group, indeed, giving up their values to be like others. Structural assimilation is the more gradual admittance of minorities into the dominate social group.

Pluralism is when minorities - racial and ethnic groups - retain their cultural values and identities. Legal protection of minorities is a society's way, through laws, to make it illegal to discriminate in housing, jobs, etc. When a minority group moves to a different geographic location, to avoid contact with the majority group, it's called population transfer. An example is when Native Americans were moved to reservations and other lands west of the Mississippi. Continued subjugation - such as apartheid in South Africa - keeps the minority groups down by use of force and political power by the majority groups. And extermination is the attempt by tyrannical majority groups (such as the Nazis in WWII) to annihilate a particular minority group. Functionalist sociologists line up (generally speaking) with the assimilation model, while conflict sociologists tend to identify with the subjugation model.

Slavery continues to affect relations between blacks and whites in the 21st Century because of deep-rooted feelings of bitterness on the part of blacks, and on the part of many whites, a feeling that people with black skin just aren't as good or as intelligent or as deserving as are people with white skin. Add to that the demand by some civil rights organizations that there be "reparations" paid to all black people who can prove their ancestors were uprooted from Africa and brought to the U.S. As slaves, against their will. Some whites are angry when blacks play "the race card" (e.g., you cut in front of me on the freeway because I'm black; or, the media plays up my football stunt because I'm black), and many blacks are angry when they see many black baseball players in the big leagues, but only a few black managers, and scarcely any black at all as team owners.

Native Americans are the poorest of minority groups because they have been - in many cases - isolated on desolate, resource-poor reservations, and not given a chance to pull themselves up out of the morass of desperation and desolation. And although casinos are giving some Native Americans a new lease on life with strong cash flows, there is still terrible poverty: 87% of Lakota Sioux in the Standing Rock reservation in South Dakota were unemployed (in 1988-89), and 90% lived in poverty. Alcoholism & depression are rampant on reservations.

Since this text book was published, Latinos (Hispanics) have moved ahead of African-Americans, and are now the largest minority in the U.S. One main reason many Latinos lag behind Caucasians in the income department is their inability to speak English with fluency. Also, they are willing to take low-paying jobs, manual labor jobs in many cases, and they stay at the bottom of the income bracket because the jobs they accept often do not offer upward movement. There is also prejudice against Latinos, and in 25 states, laws on the books call for "English only" instruction, leaving Latino children out in the cold when it comes to bilingual education. Meantime Asian-Americans have a high median income average, highest among minorities; and because historically many Asian cultures place strong emphasis on the value of education, Asian immigrants do well in school, particularly math and science, and place high in corporate structures. That's why they are considered brainy, a "superminority" - and yet they are the victims of discrimination, hence, "Asian bashing" is a reality for them.

Chapter Seven Summary of Key Concepts

Sex is purely a classification based on anatomical differences - such as chromosomal (XX chromosomes for females, SY for males) and hormonal differences, and differences in organs (ovaries and a vagina instead of penis and testicles) - among individuals. Gender, on the other hand, represents the difference between people based on physiological, psychological, and sociological characteristics. Gender identifies a person in a social and cultural sense, too. Biological differences: men are bigger and stronger as a rule, and have more short-term strength, but women have better long-term endurance. Women live longer, and women are less apt to die during infancy. Psychological differences: women are seen as more emotional and artistic, while men are viewed as the more pragmatic and rational of the two. Also, women generally have higher verbal proficiencies yet men are better in math and in visual-spatial areas. Anthropological differences: Margaret Mead's studies show a person's sex is a biological fact, but how people are different, man from woman, is also largely based upon social and cultural factors.

Gender socialization is the set of social mechanisms and patterns through which a boy becomes a man, and a girl becomes a woman. Gender assignment is the category to which a person is assigned, or the stereotype which defines the person. In infants, the gender assignment is powerful, and guides their self-image as they grow into the society. Adolescents are beginning to be defined by the socialization they receive from parents, teachers, peer groups; greater social roles related to gender are practiced into middle and late adulthood. And during the period of advanced age, new roles must be learned, as masculinity and femininity traits are reduced to frail imitations of what once was.

Classical functionalists - such as Talcott Parsons - define gender roles in terms of their contributions to the survival and health of the society. And so, what the man does (instrumental tasks) and the woman does (expressive family work) is simply because those roles are more efficient in terms of bolstering the strength of the family and of society. Critics say this theory fails to relate to the fact that in some societies, women play important economic leadership roles. Also, the expressive role of the woman rarely achieve property and prestige, as does the instrumental roles - and that is stratified, and hence unequal; both roles should be rewarded for excellent carrying out of values and functions.

Conflict theorists, unlike functionalists, believe that gender roles are not just pragmatic family survival tools, but in fact are tools to keep the men strong, and at the top of the power struggle. Women are to be exploited until they pack enough punch to force changes in the patriarchal stratification system. The critics though say the theory overemphasizes conflicts between men and women, as though they are at war with one another. Gender differences in employment are part of the social structure on the U.S. - and as a rule, women make less for doing the same job as men. "The feminization of poverty" means that because of gender prejudice in the workplace, women face severe economic hardships, as though they were a minority in a majority group. In the political process, women vote in greater numbers than men, but they are not represented equally in electoral politics since government policies keep the status quo - with men making most of the decisions. The clumsy way the judicial system handles the crime of rape often puts the woman on trial, and makes it appear the woman is partly responsible - and this, plus turmoil over abortion rights, restrict women's progress in society to a significant degree. There are three sociological perspectives related to the gender equality movement: functionalists (scope and speed of changes brought on by the movement); symbolic interactionists (social / symbolic significance of being a "male" or "female" within the eyes of society); and conflict theorists (strategies for acquiring power to hasten necessary social change).

Chapter Eight Summary of Key Concepts

Deviance is broken down into three explanations: the absolutist perspective is that the act of deviance itself is always wrong; the normative position is that deviance violates a society's (or a group's) rules at a particular moment in history; and the reactive position are that behavior is not really deviant until it has been recognized and condemned. Deviant behavior violates the rules of a group but doesn't necessarily break a law (spouse swapping), whereas criminal behavior violates both the group's cultural norms and society's written laws (murder, rape). According to Emile Durkheim, all societies have criminal behavior of one kind or another, therefore crime is "normal" behavior. Durkheim believes it would be impossible for all people in all societies to agree on what rules should be enforced, and therefore, there will always be crime and deviance. The functionalists say some degree of tolerated crime is "good" for a society because: such deviance ultimately results in social change; and crime is like a red flag saying something is wrong and needs changing; plus, crime clarifies the boundaries of what is good and crime "facilitates group solidarity." Merton's theory of anomie is that crime in "American type" societies occurs because of the pressure associated with the gap between a person's seeking of success and that person's means to achieve success. The deviance produced by anomie: innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion. Differential association: Edward Sutherland believes criminal behavior is learned, not inborn. A person learns deviant behavior not from mass media influences, but from other persons; and also the person learns the attitudes from others, attitudes which allow him or her to rationalize the criminal behavior.

The Marxist perspective on crime is that poor people struggling to gain ground to join the capitalist class commit crimes in the process, and hence, the prisons are full of people who committed crimes of accommodation and resistance. Crime statistics can never be fully accurate because many crimes go unreported, for a number of reasons. Many rapes are not reported, for example, because women do not want to go through the social degradation and emotional torture of accusing, then charging a man with the crime. White collar crime comes in two forms: occupational crime has to do with crimes at work, perhaps stealing money or goods from one's place of employment. Corporate crime, like the Enron crimes, is committed for the benefit of the organization (inflating the value of stocks so top rung executives may profit; or, ripping off consumers with false promises). Corporate crime in the Enron and WorldCom instances cost shareholders - and the public - millions of dollars, or in the case of fixing prices and dumping garbage into the sea, the public pays; while street crime is nickel and dime stuff by comparison. Why decriminalize drugs? The "pro" in the case of marijuana is that police have bigger crimes to protect society against than busting pot smokers; and, reducing penalties for small amounts of pot takes away the stigma of "felony" from a person's record. Also, the government could reap huge amounts of tax revenue from the legal sale of cannabis, similar to taxes now collected from tobacco sales. The "con" is that making grass legal also makes it easier for young people to obtain, and that is not a good thing.

Third World countries enjoying increased industrialization also experience increased crime rates, because as personal incomes improve, and a middle class emerges, more poor people at the bottom of the ladder want to achieve financial success, and may commit crimes to achieve that success.

Chapter Nine Summary of Key Concepts

Social institutions are the orderly, established and enduring ways of arranging human behavior and going things. The three most important social institutions are the family, the government, and the economy - but overall, five social institutions are pivotal in understanding society: education, family, religion, politics and the economy. They are all interdependent because each institution touches the lives of nearly everyone, and everyone is defined to a degree by how they interact with these institutions. In 17th Century America, the home was the center of both outdoor and indoor work, and families were a tighter unit then. But with the coming of the Industrial Revolution, the family began to change: fathers were gone from the house for 8 hours; families moved from the country closer to the city for work; families purchased food and goods rather than produce them. And the family was no longer school, church, hospital, asylum, reformatory. And for women, more and more work outside the home, changing the family structure and values.

Functionalists see the family as functioning for the overall good of the society, meeting biological and economic needs, legitimizing sexual activities, reproducing, socializing children, giving status to children and emotional support and companionship to all family members. Conflict theorists, however, see the family as an institution of "power, dominance, and conflict." Workers who are put down on the job tend to put their family members down in response.

American marriages have several common characteristics: most people seek partners who they are comfortable with, and with whom they share values and cultural similarities, and who resemble themselves, hence the prevalence of homogamy; married people generally have children, generally are healthier than unmarried people and have as a rule a longer life expectancy than people who remain single. The major issues and statistics associated with divorce: couples marrying prior to age 18 are likely to become divorced; couples from low income backgrounds are more likely to be divorced; divorce usually occurs within the first 7 years of marriage; African-Americans' divorce rate is much higher than whites, Hispanics and Asian-Americans; Jews have lower divorce rates than Protestants and Roman Catholics; and if one's parents have been divorce, one is more likely too, to be divorced. Some factors that play into why divorce happens: adultery, desertion, physical and mental cruelty, long imprisonment, drunkenness. Single parent families: 9 out of ten single parents are female, and those women got into that situation because of poor education, husbands who don't pay their share to the family; single mothers suffer job-family role strain and are more prone to depression. Children of single parent families generally have lower levels of education, occupational and economic achievement. Gays want same-sex marriages to be legal because gays believe they should have the same rights as other more traditional marriages - social security benefits, health insurance - and they feel if gay marriages were legal, less promiscuity would occur, hence, fewer sexually transmitted diseases.

Family violence: marital rape is a type of violence; husbands are also abused by wives; mothers are more likely to abuse their children than fathers; children are more likely to be abused by stepparents than biological parents; domestic violence is the leading cause of death and injury to U.S. women. Men often take the authority role, and hence resort to violence to maintain their authoritative role. Normal violence consists of slaps, pushes, shoves, spanking; abusive violence is more along the lines of punches, kicks, choking, beating, shooting, and stabbing. Thirteen percent of abuse cases (of children) involve sexual abuse. When parents abuse each other, boys and girls in the family react with fear, anger, depression, and may blame themselves for their parents' acts. Seeing parents physically abuse each other teaches children that it's okay to use violence to solve problems. Modernization has caused the family to become more complex, and yet it has freed family members from traditional patterns of behavior, so they may adapt to changing times in a growing industrial society.

Chapter Ten Summary of Key Concepts

The major reasons education is a social institution include: education is deemed an important social institution because it has taken over as the main agent of socialization from the family. Functionalists claim education serves as an engine for social reproduction, cultural storage, conflict management and social change and transformation. Moreover, schools serve as auxiliary day care centers. The conflict theorists say education is a means to advance the interests for powerful people who already control society. Marxists have a cynical view of education: they believe education is a societal superstructure that helps to create a false consciousness [of authority] among the powerless - and still other conflict theorists say the hidden agenda in education is to propagandize students into a belief in the government's spin on how we should live our lives. How big is the educational system? There are approximately 117,000 public and private schools in the U.S. - and as of 1998, 74.5 million people were either: students, teachers, administrators or support staff. About $584 billion was spent on public education in the 1997-98 school year.

Bureaucratization is one major problem with education. Other problems: students perform well below "average" in math, science, and other standardized tests when compared with European and Asian students; many students graduate from high school and can barely read; and schools are places where far too much violence occurs. Beyond those issues, U.S. students do not fare at all well when compared with other nations' children. In math in particular, the Third International Mathematics and Science study showed American failures in the classroom: U.S. students scored lower than 18 of the 21 nations in the competition. (This text book was written pre-No Child Left Behind {NCLB}, but despite the glossy political rhetoric about how this new legislation will make teachers and schools finally accountable for success, NCLB has not been fully funded by the current administration, and major questions remain as to the high bar that was set for teachers and schools. Some states are enacting legislation to lower the minimum standards for schools and teachers, so as to not lose federal education dollars - albeit, this appears to defeat the purpose of NCLB.)

Proposals for improving education include an Asian model - longer school sessions, more hours per day both in school and at home. Critics say the Asian system will never work in the U.S., because strict regimentation and demanding memorization is not the way American families and the American culture in general view the learning process. Another proposal (Standards Movement) is now being attempted under No Child Left Behind. Critics say holding children back a grade because they didn't pass a standardized test is unfair, especially to minority and low income children, who are less likely to pass then white kids.

Religion from the functionalist point-of-view (Durkheim in particular): religion serves important purposes, such as giving members of the society a shared set of beliefs, values and rituals, to hold on to. That Durkheim concept is called social cohesion. Durkheim also believed that religion helps to maintain people's allegiance to social goals and participate in social affairs, because religion gives people meaning and purpose. The conflict interpretation of religion is that religion exploits people, and (Marx says) its purpose is to preserve the economic production which enslaves people with its monotony. Marx felt religion is a smokescreen, blinding the working class from seeing how bad their situation was. Max Weber believed religion could be a catalyst for social change because changes in the organization of the religious system could lead to the larger society making sweeping changes. Morality could transcend the dogma of individual denominations and faiths and entice - through the mass media - so that others not part of "organized" religion could adjust their values upwardly. Religious freedom was a main reason the Pilgrims left England and arrived on the U.S. shores, so religion has been part of the American multicultural experience for as long as the country has existed. Most people affiliate with either: Protestantism, Catholicism and Judaism, albeit the fastest growing faith in America is Islam. Folk religions have their place too. Fundamentalism - such as the "Christian right" - attempts to change public attitudes and political policies; television mixes entertainment production with religious speakers, and raises millions of dollars for various faith-based projects. Today, the U.S. is reputed to be the "most religious" nation in the world. 44% of Americans claim they attend church each week, and 53% say religion is important to them. For sociologists, what matters is how religion affects the way people behave in their lives socially, economically, politically, and how belief systems are related to modernization.

Does modernization change religion, or is changed by religion? Both Catholic and Protestant churches in Europe established schools, way before any public schools existed, which is certainly a modern innovation. But, opposition to birth control by religion shows that the church can hinder modernization, as well.

Chapter Eleven Summary of Key Concepts

The role of the economy from a functionalist perspective is that it allows populations to adapt to their environments, by extracting resources needed for people's survival. When the economy is doing well, social organizations can grow to be bigger and stronger. Conflict theorists on the other hand see the economy as the basis for all political, social, and cultural power, and it is what oppresses the many by the powerful few.

Pure capitalist economies feature private property and free markets. In welfare capitalist economies, the state provides little market regulation to promote social stability, and it permits private enterprise. Pure socialist economies feature regulated markets and collective ownership of properties. Democratic socialist systems have government-directed markets and widespread private property ownership. The U.S. economic system is dominated by a few powerful corporations, which lord over market activities and fly in the face of what the U.S. likes to call a "free market." Deregulation in the 1980s under Reagan was intended to reduce red tape, but instead it created market conditions that allowed for many unfriendly corporate takeovers, and drove smaller corporations out of business. Postindustrialization in America is said to now offer a highly educated and trained workforce, the computerized and automated production of goods, affluence, with good government planning - all part of a progressive economy.

East Asia: its economic growth has been huge, in particular in Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore - largely because East Asia emphasizes education and their economies are export-based. China/India: Both the Chinese and Indian economies are growing and healthy, albeit growing slower than East Asian economies. Latin America: many of these nations lost economic ground in the last decade, in a total reversal of economic fortunes. Sub-Saharan Africa: this is the poorest region of the world, plagued by bad economies, corruption, AIDS. North Africa/Middle East: Oil brings in a lot of money for some of these economies, but the wealth is not spread around very well. There is much poverty and conflict. Europe: chaos still rules some of the former iron curtain nations, but the European Union holds out great hope for economic stability and growth.

Functionalists believe the role of the state is to help "goal attainment" - the process through which key societal objectives are defined, and resources are allocated and mobilized to realize those goals. Conflict theorists meantime - Karl Marx among them - see the state as a powerful force designed to keep the ruling class in power, and the status quo preserved. A kind of "power elite" is how conflict theorist C. Wright Mills sees the corporate, political and military leaders who control decision-making in the U.S. And in effect dominate the political system. On the other hand, pluralists (David Riesman) see power dispersed among a number of groups, which act as checks and balances to keep any single group from being too dominant. Political participation in the U.S. is paltry at best: in the 1992 election, only 55.5% of eligible voters came to the polls, and in 1996, 49% of eligible voters cast ballots. The higher the income level and education level, the more likely is the person to vote. Also, the older the person, the more he or she is apt to vote. Whites vote in greater numbers than blacks or Hispanics. The breakup of the old Soviet Union happened because it was increasingly hard for a centralized communist government to bring about needed change to its many and widely scattered republics, which today face terrorism, failing economies, and identity crises.

Chapter Twelve Summary of Key Concepts

The field of demography allows for the study of fundamental population processes like fertility, migration, and mortality; the size of a population and its distribution; and the structure and characteristics of a population. These issues are important to social scientists, businesses and government, because they define a society's size, growth realities and upcoming changes. The "crude birth rate" (CBR) is the number of babies born per year, per 1,000 members of the population. The "crude fertility rate" is a way to measure completed fertility - or the total number of children born per 1,000 women in a community. Variables which affect the birth rate include: Intercourse variables (how often people have sex over a period of time); biological clock (the ages between which women can conceive); conception variables (the woman's ability to conceive depends upon her use of contraception, her breast feeding - if she breast feeds she cannot conceive for 10 to 18 months); and gestation variables (abortion, miscarriage, stillbirth). Mortality rate: the three reasons people die are that they simply "degenerate," they are killed by communicable diseases (like AIDS), or they are killed by products of the social and physical environment (in a car wreck; by a handgun, in a tornado). The mortality rate is related to occupation, gender, race, and marital status.