7: Social Interaction

Discuss Chapter 4: Social Interaction in Everyday Life

What is a "status"?  In sociology, this means a social position someone holds.

            A position means a location relative, and relevant, to others within a social structure.  The location comes with certain roles and responsibilities that others can reasonably expect, and these expectations define their relationship.

            We can have many statuses with different "others", and they form a SET that helps define our identity and personality.  The statuses in our set can change over time.

            ASCRIBED status is something we have no easy way to change.  Black, white, male, female, widow, prisoner, child, cancer patient, etc.  They are socially constructed as relevant/important.

        

            ACHIEVED status is something that reflects our actions.  Sociologist, president, honor student, wife, husband, athlete, juvenile delinquent.  These can be affected by ASCRIBED.

            A MASTER status has special importance for one's identity, and it is a status that bleeds over into other status categories.  Gender, certain kinds of jobs, celebrity status, disabilities.

            ROLES are linked to statuses, and they are the specific social and behavioral expectations that come with having that status.  Many statuses have SETS of many roles.  It is something you DO, not something you ARE, but they are linked. (See graphic on p.91)

            ROLE STRAIN is when the roles of a single status contradict each other, for example, professors are expected to be friendly and cordial with students, and yet we are also expected to be  strict with students.  So while I may act like your friend in conversations, I may have to give you a bad grade or be strict about attendance requirements.

             ROLE CONFLICT is when your statuses have contradictory roles.  For example, let's say a woman owns a business, and gives her son a job there.  Now her "mother" role is to be kind, nurturing, forgiving... but her "boss" role is to be strict and give orders.  How should she act if her son shows up for work late?

  

            Sometimes conflicts become so great that a person is forced to leave one status.  (like a college student / alcoholic)  The process for disengaging can be complicated because our statuses can be deeply embedded in our identity.  This is ROLE EXIT.

             This can lead to alienation / anomie.  Becoming an "ex" typically starts with doubting one's ability to perform a role satisfactorily.  One begins spending mental effort imagining other situations, and if they reach a certain tipping point, they shift. 

            But people carry over a self-image shaped by their previous roles into their "ex" lives, like the shadow or ghost of an old status.  The transition also affects their relationships with specific people who's expectations are no longer valid (resulting in anomic confusion).  They may have to work hard to reconfigure or rebuild these relationships in new ways...

            SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION.

            We present ourselves in a form, kind of like a theatrical role, that we think is suitable to the relationships we seek to create or maintain.  This is a bit like with "anticipatory socialization."  So the reality of our "selves" is not fixed, but is constantly shifting as we reevaluate ourselves and others – our free will, shaped by what we think we want, shapes our presentation.

            Does this mean we are not "real" in an objective sense?  That there is no "me" in here because I am socially constructed?  Well, again, think about a house.  We wouldn't say it's not really a house just because it was constructed by a social group (even though it is objectively just a pile of wood, metal, glass, and stone).  The THOMAS THEORUM  (p.93) says that a situation that is defined as real can have consequences that are most surely real, and this "hardens" and validates the reality of the situation.

            We collaboratively create the meaning of our reality: FLIRTING is a good example of how we socially construct the situation, where ambiguity is an intentional feature...

             

DISCUSS meaning of words, 
e.g. "homophobe" 
connotations of "unemployed" vs. "between jobs," 
Different words denotation (dictionary) and connotation (implied/evoked)

    

            
 ALSO see OK CUPUD BLOG & content analysis

                                    http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/page/4/

       

            This leads us to the DRAMATURGICAL perspective, which is a type of micro-level analysis that treats interaction as theater.  A status is like a part, and a role is like a script.  Analysis is then literally "de-scribing" meanings that are "in-scribed" in the scripted expectations of a part.

            BREACHING EXPERIMENTS can teach us what the boundaries are, and what they mean to people, and the functions they serve. (See "Ethnomethodology" on p. 93)The meaning we see can depend on our class, culture, etc.   You will be doing this as an assignment, with a partner or on you own, in a couple weeks.

            GENDER AND PERFORMANCE

Powerful people are more free to act... as a breaching experiment, try putting your feet up on a desk around people who think they are your superior, see if they react.
Body deployment.

            Women learn to craft their performances more carefully than men, and tend to defer to men more often than vice versa.

            Use of space, territory

                        DISCUSS: what techniques do people in public places use to claim more personal space? (airports, bus stops, cafe's, etc.)
(subway behavior study)

            Touching as a subtle ritual of dominance

                        embarrassment – discomfort over a spoiled performance of an idealized role

                        tact – when an audience overlooks a flaw to keep an actor going, or somehow acts to help the performer recover.   In other words, you understand the ideal role the performer is TRYING to convey, even if they fail.

EMOTIONS

All humans have the same basic emotions, and act them out the same way. This is a PATTERN, so we look for a FUNCTION.   BUT the situations that TRIGGER them are culturally variable.  Also RULES for the display of emotions are culturally variable.

reddit discussion on whether laughter is biologically innate, or socially conditioned.

Jennifer Keys' study (p.98) of emotional scripts/feeling rules that govern how women feel about ending a pregnancy...                

  
Arlie Hochschild's emotional management at work, requires flight attendants to use "deep management" of own emotions, this is LABOR in the Marxist sense, which leads to alienation!

           
HUMOR - The collision of 2 versions of reality

Function – safety valve for pressure/embarrassment ?

Race and Ethnicity

possibly discuss blowback to teaching about white privilege...

demogrpahics of MKE

Chapter 11 – race & ethnicity

...psychology today article debunking biological race...

definitions – these are categories: people with a social status in common, but not a group because they don't all regularly interact with each other.

race is biological traits that have socially constructed significance. It is a socially constructed system of imposing categories on a continuum of genetic traits.

More variation within than between, traits are inherited independantly (not as part of a white or black "package").

According to biologists, race does not exist – there are not human "subspecies", we are all the same race. There is only Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species

race has only been around since the 1800s, caucasoid, negroid, mongoloid categories. Other societys have different systems of categorization.

Census issue on the race question – should it be something we self-identify as?

Negro category, Rush Limbaugh people putting American, etc.
Enumerator perception vs. self-identification?

(MORGAN FREEMAN CLIP) 1 min

Now that makes me think of the MLK, Jr. Quote near the top of p. 312

but then I think, what would have happened if MLK had simply "not talked" about race?

NOW I just want to point out that talking/thinking about race does not make you racist.

People simply talk about things we see, and things that affect us. "Not everything you face can be changed, but nothing that is not faced can be changed."

In fact, RACE is a SOCIAL ISSUE that will not go away just because we ignore it. We have to face the issue head on – the civil rights victories of the past century were not a result of NOT talking about race.

Pretending to be colorblind is not the same as creating equality.

Here's someone who pretends to be colorblind satirically.

COLBERT CLIP

jokes to talk about

"I don't see race"

"I have a Ph.D, am I white? - relationship to class"

"gets fired up about Scots-Irish people – historical/religious antagonism"

"White people are the default color"

"class, Jimmy Buffet records"

-it's about the MEANING of being white that CULTURE projects on to us...

EXERCISE ON TOP OF p.305 (identify races of faces)

parentage math example (and NEW REDDIT THREAD on it)

• everyone had 2 parents, 4 (2^2) grandparents, 8 greats (2^3), and so on
• generation = 30 years,
• so to find out how many ancestors you had X generations ago, just take 2^X
• so if you go back about 600 years is about 20 generations, you had approx 1 million ancestors who contributed to your genetic code. (2^20 = about 1 million)
• In 1000 years or 37 generations, you had approx (2^37) = 100 billion ancestors.
• Wikipedia says that there have been, at most, 106 billion homo sapiens alive on earth EVER including now. So we all share some ancestors.

race and depictions of evolution...

increasing mixture, purity is a myth, but is socially symbolic. SEEING SOCIOLOGY IN THE NEWS – interracial girls wants to be accepted, but faces the notion that there is some "authentic" race. Since these categories are weakening and breaking down, she suffers ANOMIE similar to how men suffer gender-anomie in the age of industrialization.

Conflation! Two related ideas treated as the same.

Ethnicity is cultural

• poverty, idea traps link

Arab/Muslim conflation and terrorism in the past decade.

minorities, prejudice, stereotypes, discrimination

pre-judging – before you hear the evidence!

-denies people their individuality and value as distinct persons

hispanics and the immigration issue – Hard Work article on p. 310

how easy should it be to become a citizen? Statue of liberty quote on p. 317

RACISM on an individual level, is a belief that some races are innately better than others.

It seems to have been getting worse the past few years...

Prejudice – prejudging people, not on the basis of their character, but on things like color

THEORIES – p. 312-314

THEORIES

-scapegoating, safe targets

-authoritarian personality, rigid beliefs, moral convictions, society is competition

-culture, part of the culture we all learn

-conflict, used as a tool by the powerful to justify exploitation

Is it getting better? What do you think of what Chris Rock says?

(CHRIS ROCK CLIP) 2 min

(ENDED DAY 1 HERE)

One example – intelligence – bell curve in the population, explain Intelligence Quotient

blackboard links!

how much of this can be traced to CLASS inequality? -links

discrimination

-vicious cycle on p. 314

institutional discrimination, blacks and the police and CJ system in MILWAUKEE's(Plaisted Writes)

links on racial disparties in sentencing?

(Now last time I talked about how, if we stopped talking about race like Morgan Freeman suggested, that might help reduce INDIVIDUAL PREJUDICIAL ATTITUDES, but that I DIDN'T think that would solve the bigger systemic issues.

The bigger social problem is STRUCTURAL RACISM, where this kind of belief and discrimination becomes institutionalized in society.

Here's an example of what I mean: the story of our legal history:

1935 – Soc. Security – if you work you pay into the system, and this guarantees you income after you retire. BUT the law originally excluded agricultural workers and domestic servants, who were mostly black, mexican, and asian (and were least able to save or have pension plans)

1935 Wagner Act – established right to unionize, but American Federation of Labor fought for the right of unions to exclude non-whites. So minorities were locked out of higher-paying union jobs, and denied benefits such as health and job security. Legally lasted through the 1950's, but it wasn't until the 70's that many unions really did start admitting minorities.

1930's-'40's: Federal govt. Began programs to subsidize low-cost loans for millions of working class americans. Govt. Underwriters used a "national appraisal system" tying property value and loan eligibility to race – all white communities got the highest ratings and loans with the best terms. Minority neighborhoods got low ratings and bad loan terms or were denies. Less than 2% of these loans went to non-whites. So minorities were locked out of home ownership.

1948 – US Supreme Court finally outlawed "Restrictive Covenants" REQUIRING homeowners not to sell or lease to non-whites. Private developers and real estate agents could still choose to. Lenders continued to base property appraisals and loan terms on race (higher fees and interest to cover the "risk" – THIS SYSTEMATIC DEVALUING OF NONWHITE NEIGHBORHOODS AND HOMEBUYERS BY MEANS OF FEDERAL INTERVENTION DISGUISED RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND ENABLED MANY TO CLAIM THAT SEGREGATION WAS "MARKET DRIVEN"

1949 – National Housing Act. Most non-whites were renting, and so government stepped in and developed "Urban Housing Projects", destroying many taxable properties. So the tax burder was shifted onto fewer and fewer residents. Encouraged white flight.

1950's-60's: Economic/Housing Boom. Fed/State subsidies to development of suburbs. Construction of many freeways connecting residentail areas to business centers in cities, often right through urban "neighborhoods." Many whites moved to suburbs. In the 1960's, many businesses began moving to the suburbs, depriving urban areas of jobs and taking even more taxes out of the cities.

1968 – Kennedy's Fair Housing Act, meant to reduce this discrimination, but in practice many appraisers continued to factor in race, use racial steering and predatory lending. In 1988 this law was expanded to make it more powerful.

1970's, 80's, 90's – housing prices rose dramatically, increasing wealth for homeowners who were mostly white. This also increased the cost of entry into the housing market for renters.

PBS website on WHITE FLIGHT

Demographic map of Milwaukee from Census data?

Patterns of interaction

-Pluralism

-Assimilation

-Segregation

-Genocide

specific categories:

native americans were here first

WASPs – Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

African-Americans and slavery

Asian-Americans – chinese, japanese, and the rest

Hispanic/Latin Americans

Arab americans

Ethnic whites (non-english)

SOCIAL DISTANCE SCALE

LOOK UP the INVISIBLE KNAPSACK of WHITE PRIVELAGE

DREK

Regardless, while on my journey into Women's Studies I happened upon the famous article by Peggy McIntosh, "White Priviledge: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack." The basic contention of this article is that while we tend to focus on social inequity in terms of the priviledges denied to low power groups, it's also true that high power groups actually gain certain priviledges.

RACE – THE POWER OF AN ILLUSION Video

started at 5:30

-genetics, athletics, measurements, social differences, interracial marriage, eugenics, mongrels,

-back to athletics – jesse owens african american won hitler's olympics. Prior to that, american race scientists had considered black physically weaker, frailer, more illness prone, but after that culture began to concede physical superiority to blacks at the cost of being civilized (closer to primitive state, where physicality matters more).

-took one hour!

Part 2- socially constructive narrative – politics, history, symbolic interactionism.

As an aside to add on racism, here is a response to a reddit question on why dividing scholarships by race is not racist:

Racism, like sexism, is a term used confusingly to refer to two related but importantly different subjects. The casual usage refers to any incidental act of discrimination. The second, more political usage refers to systems of discrimination that form when prejudice is backed up by (social, cultural, political -- which are all differents ides of the same triangular coin) power.

The second is what we're primarily concerned with. There are always going to be individual arseholes discriminating against this or that, we can't expend our effort on policing every rude interaction. What we care about are oppressive institutions and elements of our culture that are generated an reinforced by our collective social power.

So, for example, if your conspiracy-theorist neighbour thinks that white men are injecting HIV into the world's chicken nuggets, that's a singular instance of discrimination. If popular culture reinforces the idea that black men are inherently violent and stupid, then that's oppressive racism. Your neighbour's a dick but he's not using his social power to reinforce real and serious problems. He's not going to affect anything.

We care about individual instances more when they reinforce existing social problems because everything -- our thinking, our practice, our policy -- ultimately derives from our culture. One of the main methods to solve social problems is to change the culture by restricting and chipping away at the negative reinforcements.

This is why 'nigger' and 'cracker' are not considered the same.

This is something that confuses many people, who initially look at actions as discrete instances and not in a broader social context, or who don't hold that culture has a profound real-world effect.

In your example of scholarships, the individual instance is discrimination, but it's a narrow and temporary discrimination with the intent of eradicating racism as a broader permanent social institution. Certain races in certain countries are trapped in poverty loops; systems of exploitation based on race were imposed on them for centuries. Within the last 50 years, much of the legal barriers to their participation in larger society have been removed -- but does that suddenly make them no longer an underclass? We can use the example of black Americans, since I don't think many non-Australians are very familiar with the example of Aboriginal Australians. Black Americans were initially enslaved. After a few centuries, slavery was abolished, and the slaves turned loose... as illiterate, uneducated, unskilled workers, who were not given adequate education, power, or the rights to live and mix with those parts of society that had those things. So they remained an underclass living in their own neighbourhoods with little opportunity or infrastructure for the next century. Starting 50 years ago, the legal barriers to their participation in larger society were lifted. But did this suddenly make them no longer an underclass? Did the babies born that year grow up to be exactly equal to whites in every way? No, because none of us operate in vaccuums and none of us are born on fresh slates; our environment, our history, and others' engagement with us shapes how we live. Your family grew up under those racist institutions, so they are impoverished and living in a bad area, so you grow up with poor schooling. You don't have access to the resources that people with wealthier histories have, or the social opportunities that people not subject to negative cultural elements have. Your family, struggling, may require you to leave school early and take a job to help. Economic crises will hit you harder. It's just harder for you to live, to study, and to move in the world, because of your background. And if you don't move, then your children are born into the same situation... and it continues forever, because of the history and because of the culture. And because your race remains an underclass, with its own impoverished neighbourhoods and ghettos, social culture's negative attitudes will be reinforced by popular perception, making that another factor you have to try to escape.

So how do you fix this problem? Given that the situation was caused by direct negative power, would it be fair to solve it with direct positive power? Society can discriminate on the individual basis to reduce barriers for members of underclasses. This makes it more likely for them to have social mobility, more likely for them to break the cycle. The positive change in their life directly changes all of their descendants, and their families. It affects their communities, and the combination of these things affects social culture as negative stereotypes are broken and clear divisions are softened. It's an instance of discrimination in a single moment that helps to dissolve discrimination on a permanent basis. The end goal is for it to no longer be necessary; eventually it will be abolished.

It may help to compare it to clearer and more obvious examples. Starting in the 1950s and continuing through to the modern day, especially in areas like India, people have been opening schools specifically for adult women. Why haven't we seen more schools opening for Indian men? The answer should be obvious: the culture has long decreed that men are educated breadwinners who engage with society while women are simple parents and wives who engage with the home, and people are trying to change that. With a superficial glance it seems discriminatory, but it's actually an attempt to end discrimination.

Things that can seem silly when analysed in a vaccuum can make perfect sense when you look closely at their context.

Stratification

more data on increasing stratification due to Recession bailouts.

possible worksheet article for strat/gender strat (and find other, first one about the woman named in the artilce)

what's happening to the middle class? more complex?

video from Omar:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QPKKQnijnsM

Ch. 8: Stratification

Because cultures are so diverse, we find that they differ on almost everything we look at. There are very few cultural universals we can study, one of them has been the "incest taboo." Another universal is that ALL societies rank people systematically in a hierarchy. This is called stratification.

Stratification determines how resources are distributed in a population.
Paradoxically, the more resources a society has, the less equal this distribution is.
This short video explains this paradox that abundance causes inequality (note the material determinism here)

Hunter/gatherers - 1 calorie expended for every 3 calories gained
Horticultural and pastoral - 1:5
Agricultural - 1:50
Industrial - 1:5,000



Stratification has 4 principles:

• It is a property of a society, not of individuals.
• • even though we as individuals tend to think of ourselves (in terms of our talent and effort) relative to others around us.
• It frequently carries over from one generation to the next, depending on the ease of social mobility.
  • How do parents pass on position to kids?
  • Depending on whether the system is "closed" or "open," some people have social mobility, which can be upward or downward, but most people in our society don't move very far over their life courses.
  • Some data on the US here.  Notice that it's hard to move up from the bottom, but also to move down from the top.
• While all societies do it, they vary on the combination of criteria, or socio-economic status factors (SES): prestige, wealth, and power. How does our society do it? A bit of each. Configurations vary widely by occupation. Status consistency refers to whether these factors match up - how commensurable various measures are: money, power, prestige.
• • Religious leaders and politicians have power and prestige, but relatively low wealth.
  • Doctors and entertainers have money and prestige, but relatively low power.
  • Lawyers and business leaders (CEOs) have money and power, but relatively low prestige.
  • College professors like me don't usually make much money; we have a moderate amount of power in that sometimes our research affects public policy and we can influence our students' thinking, and we have a lot of prestige in society. Thus, we have low status consistency.
  • If you are in the military, rank (prestige) comes with certain authority over others in the chain of command (power), and a specific pay grade (money). Thus, they have high status consistency.
• It involves not just inequality in the hierarchy, but also ideologies (a.k.a. belief systems) that explain and justify it. (people get what they deserve vs. cognitive dissonance)(poverty may drain cognitive resources)
  • Systems of inequality must define themselves as fair... for example "it is good for someone to have more money, power, or status than someone else, because they are smarter, work harder, or are in some way better and more deserving." ...societies think there should be reasons linking who you are and what you have... post-hoc rationalizing. (Again, like in the chapter on deviance, if you DON'T think society is just, you are more likely to find criminal actions, or political revolutions, to be plausible.)

Caste -----Class ------ Perfect meritocracy

Caste - one's status in the hierarchy is ascribed rather than achieved. There is little social mobility, and rigid boundaries between the strata.

e.g., in India, caste determines your occupation:

1. Brahmin (priest)
2. Kshatriya (politician/warrior)
3. Vaishya (merchants)
4. Sudra (laborers)

Caste systems keep people in the company of their own kind – norms enforce this with belief in "pollution," which normalizes homophily and endogamous marriage.

Accepting one's place in the social order is seen as a moral duty, which shows merit and loyalty to society, just as a capitalist work ethic became a moral duty for Protestants (Weber)


The United Kingdom – The RISE of Class FROM Caste
Under the aristocratic feudal system, 5% hereditary nobles owned most land, had no “occupation” and viewed work as beneath them. Most people were commoners or serfs, who worked the land and paid rent.

The industrial revolution drained farms of serfs; they moved to cities and got wage-jobs which allowed them to save money and eventually challenge the nobility.

England still retains vestigial caste-like elements, such as the hereditary House of Lords (part of their Parliament, like the Senate is part of our Congress). Less social mobility than in U.S.

The Soviet Union: Classlessness via Communism?
Russian experiment of socialism and perestroika (restructuring).
There still was stratification under "communism":

1. High officials (apparatchiks)
2. Intelligentsia
3. Manual workers
4. Peasants and farmers.

They did virtually eliminate abject poverty (and opulent wealth), but the average standard of living was much less than in other (capitalist) industrial countries.

Gorbechev reduced centralized control to stimulate growth, allowing local industries to expand. This was evidence of structural social mobility – shift in position of large numbers due to changes in society, not individuals.

China – after WWII, went "communist" with central coordination of farms and factories. Mao declared all work equally important. Similar results to Russia.

In the late 70s a gradual shift began to more capitalism and manufacturing, especially along coastal areas. Since then, inequality has increased dramatically, and the current stratification system is a mix of the old political hierarchy and the new business hierarchy.


IDEOLOGY of INEQUALITY
A stratification system also consists of the beliefs that support it.
For example, India's caste system is accepted because of belief in dharma (duty), karma, and reincarnation.
The United Kingdom's old caste system was accepted because of belief in predestination and the "divine right of kings."
The beliefs that allow us to accept our American brand of stratification are beliefs such as that "rich people are rich because they are smart and hard-working, and poor people are poor because they are lazy and foolish."


Structural-Functionalism

Herbert Spencer on "social Darwinism," p. 216 – is inequality a mechanism ensuring the survival of the fittest?

• This view is not supported by modern sociologists, but it is common in pop culture and the media

Davis-Moore thesis, p. 217 – inequality is functional for society. Inequality is found in every society, so it's a pattern, and structural-functionalists look for functions. The greater the importance of a position, the more rewards society attaches to it as symbolic markers. They provide motivation to the smart and talented to work harder, better, and longer. This may explain why many people go into medicine, business, law, politics, etc...

• Does this explain why Oprah makes more in a day than Obama makes in a year? Does society value a talk show more than the leader of our country?
• How many soldiers are worth a CEO of a tech company?
• Does this apply to teachers assigning grades, A through F?

So what's the difference between Herbert Spencer's view and the Davis-Moore Thesis?


Survival of the fittest (social Darwinism) focuses on individual traits that propel certain individuals to the top: how competitive, smart, strong, cut-throat are you? Only the strong survive, the cream rises to the top.

Davis & Moore focus on what positions society thinks are important. So it is the position that gets loaded with rewards that kind magnetically draw people who are competent enough to do it. Thus, inequality is a mechanism that makes sure the smartest, hardest working people are doing the most important kinds of things.

Social Conflict Approach

Marx on conflict between bourgeoisie and proletariat.
Scientific management, assembly line, etc. produces alienation, less SES for workers.
Makes workers poorer and poorer, exploits their labor to make profit.

So why no Marxist revolution? Even the poor have a higher standard of living than in the past!
Also, diffusion of ownership through stock programs, etc, allows pressure to be relieved.
Diffusion of power through unions (which "let off steam" and provide a bulwark against low pay and other exploitation), consequently laws to provide safety and security, which is why a conflict theorist would be concerned about the recent political situation in Madison – collective bargaining rights over conditions of labor.


Symbolic Interactionism
Normally takes a micro-level look at peoples' day to day interactions and how we construct their meaning. But, as we have said, stratification happens on the level of society, but of course we, as individuals, find ourselves within certain strata. We generally can see where we stand relative to others, and that colors our perception of the world. We internalize our SES as part of our self-concept, and this affects how we interact with others (via language, and symbols we use) and what we buy (conspicuous consumption).

Remember, this perspective is founded on a philosophical doctrine of ideal determinism, and so we can also see how the material world around us is shaped by the meanings we attach to it!

WEBER – Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (a symbolic interactionist explanation for capitalist structures coming from religious ideology.)


America - have you heard? We've been going through a bit of a recession lately.  (videoWhat has that done to our system of stratification?  This short video on class disparities gives us an idea of how pronounced inequality is today.
What has that done to our system of stratification? Here is a graph of the share of income taken home by different segments of the population.
As we've talked about before, American society kind of measures peoples' status by their monetary worth.
Here is an indication of the magnitude of the gap between rich and poor : if you made minimum wage adjusted for inflation, and you started working in the year 246 B.C. and saved every penny, you would have just caught up to what the CEO of Hewlett Packard took home in just one year, 2009. that's an extreme example, but how does the picture look more generally? How much inequality is there? This closely matches WEALTH chart on p. 201 – difference between income and wealth?

• the wealth of most people as a house and a car, and the wealth of the rich as stocks and investments that PRODUCE income

CLASS IN THE U.S.A.(compare to new class in the U.K.?)

• We are becoming less of a “middle-class” society as inequality grows. A small minority have most of our wealth, better education, health, longer lives, etc.
• prestige of different jobs in America (p.202)?
• What are the classes?
  
  1. Upper class (about 5%)
  • upper-upper class gets their wealth through inheritance (i.e. old money)(a.k.a. "the 1%")
  • lower-upper class may have similar or even greater wealth, but they earned it somehow through their own efforts and abilities
  2. Middle class (about 35%)
  • upper-middle class are doctors, lawyers, engineers, businesspeople who are doing very well in terms of income; they have some wealth and investments that make additional money for them, too.
  • average middle class people tend to have white-collar jobs: they are managers, teachers, civil servants, and even some highly skilled blue-collar workers (tradesmen, contractors).  They usually have a bit of wealth, but it is almost entirely tied up in homes and retirement savings.
  3. Working class a.k.a. "lower-middle class" people (about 35%) are mostly blue-collar or service-industry workers with routinized jobs requiring little creativity.  They get few benefits and have little or no wealth, usually renting or perhaps owning inexpensive homes in poor neighborhoods. Their kids probably won't go to college.  They are vulnerable to illness and unemployment, since they probably lack health insurance and have no wealth to tide them over while looking for work after they lose a job.
  4. Lower class people a.k.a. "the working poor" (about 25%), if they have a job at all, have jobs that pay very little, have low prestige, and certainly offer no benefits or job security.  They are extremely vulnerable to illness and unemployment, and often rely on social safety nets to meet basic needs.

the language of subjective class... 

the continuing relevance of class... 


where is the money, block by block in America?

4:05 - POP QUIZ
FOR NEXT TIME :

• Read 207-217 and 248-252 Due

box on p. 205 – nickel and dimed – shows that low wage service work does not really reflect abilities or work-ethic. Does what a CEO makes really reflect the value of what he produces? Is he really worth 5,000 janitors? We are socialized by meritocratic capitalism to view these people are lazy or lacking ability, but those jobs take serious energy and mental/emotional effort.

How much inequality is there?

Beer and Population Analogy: Imagine that the US is represented by 10 people. The gross national resources are represented by 10 beers. Here are two ways of organizing the economy: the first is according to egalitarian principles. The second is a reflection of the current capitalist system. Which party would you rather attend?

---------------------------------------OR----------------------------------------------

This closely matches WEALTH chart on p. 224 – difference between income and wealth?

• the wealth of most people as a house and a car, and the wealth of the rich as stocks and investments that PRODUCE income

WEBER: “SES” = cla$$ + status + power

Weber differs from Marx in predicting that socialism, while it may reduce MONEY inequality, would only replace it with POWER inequality (power elites in centralized bureaucratic system) (explains USSR)

KUZNETS CURVE – explanation caption p.222– developed by economists in 50's and 60's, predicted current uptick in inequality in post-industrial society. → explains why socialist revolutions took place in agrarian countries like russia and china, rather than industrial countries like US.

Health, Values & attitudes, politics, family and gender (p.231) (top of page on what women want)

Social Mobility – inter/intra generational

chart on p. 232

Is the American Dream still a reality? Or do we need to be asleep to believe it? - p.233

POVERTY

absolute vs. relative

reduce it by providing jobs AND childcare (p.239)

blame the poor vs blame society on p. 238,

Welfare – p. 240

Show poverty game? PLAYSPENT.ORG

OK QUIZ

POP QUIZ?

\



CHAPTER 10" GENDER STRATIFICATION

Patriarchy and institutional sexism

Gender and socialization redux
Why are people concerned about equal pay for equal work?
Why did our congress pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009?
Why do American women make $0.78 for every $1 earned by men? (worse in some states than others)

different tracks (and see the pay gap by occupation)

What are "pink-collar" jobs?

fewer hours

Who does the housework?

less skilled at negotiation

 speaking up for oneself

about 8 cents remain unaccounted for

Effects of shifting from an agricultural, to an industrial, to a post-industrial economy?

as we advance technologically, physicality becomes less important. Computer programmers need less strength than factory workers, who need less strength than farm laborers. But it is still "masculine" to be independant, self-supporting, a "bread-winner," but it is becoming less important to be physically strong to do that.

So is there a gender anomie for males? Is there a cultural compensation?

DEMMIAN FROM REDDIT:

Really? That's what the US Department of Labor says?

Myth Busting the Pay Gap

MYTH: Saying women only earn 77 cents on the dollar is a huge exaggeration – the “real” pay gap is much smaller than that (if it even exists).

REALITY: The size of the pay gap depends on how you measure it. The most common estimate is based ondifferences in annual earnings (currently about 23 cents difference per dollar). Another approach uses weekly earnings data (closer to an18 or 19 cents difference). Analyzing the weekly figures can be more precise in certain ways, like accounting for work hours that vary over the course of the year, and less accurate in others, like certain forms of compensation that don’t get paid as weekly wages. No matter which number you start with, the differences in pay for women and men really add up. According to one analysis by the Department of Labor’s Chief Economist, a typical 25-year-old woman working full time would have already earned $5,000 less over the course of her working career than a typical 25-year old man. If that earnings gap is not corrected, by age 65, she will have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars over her working lifetime. We also know that women earn less than men in every state and region of the country, and that once you factor in race, the pay gap for women of color is even larger.

MYTH: There is no such thing as the gender pay gap – legitimate differences between men and women cause the gap in pay, not discrimination.

REALITY: Decades of research shows a gender gap in pay even after factors like the kind of work performed and qualifications (education and experience) are taken into account. These studies consistently conclude thatdiscrimination is the best explanation of the remaining difference in pay. Economists generally attribute about 40% of the pay gap to discrimination – making about 60% explained by differences between workers or their jobs. However, even the “explained” differences between men and women might be more complicated. For example: If high school girls are discouraged from taking the math and science classes that lead to high-paying STEM jobs, shouldn’t we in some way count that as a lost equal earnings opportunity? As one commentator put it recently, “I don’t think that simply saying we have 9 cents of discrimination and then 14 cents of life choices is very satisfying.” In other words, no matter how you slice the data, pay discrimination is a real and persistent problem that continues to shortchange American women and their families.

MYTH: Women are responsible for the pay gap because they seek out flexible jobs or choose to work fewer hours. Putting family above work is why women earn less.

REALITY: Putting aside whether it’s right to ask women (or men) to sacrifice financially in order to work and have a family, those kinds of choices aren’t enough to explain away the gender pay gap. The gender gap in pay exists forwomen working full time. Taking time off for children also doesn’t explain gaps at the start of a career. And although researchers have addressed various ways that work hours or schedule might or might not explain some portion of the wage gap, there may be a “motherhood penalty.” This is based on nothing more than the expectation that mothers will work less. Researchers have found that merely the status of being a mother can lead to perceptions of lowered competence and commitment and lower salary offers.

The pay gap isn’t a myth, it’s a reality – and it’s our job to fix it.

1: Introductions & Fundamentals

Hello students! Welcome to SocBlog, the class weblog for Introduction to Sociology.

Here's the agenda for our first day together...

00 - take attendance, pass out name cards

05 - introductions (instructor bio, go around and say name and program - if undecided, just say that)

20 - syllabus, collect Course Contracts
 
1:00 - Blackboard demo

What this blog IS:
A tool for the instructor to organize topics for in-class discussion, and post links to relevant websites and other content.

What this blog IS NOT:
A replacement for reading the textbook.  What I post here is what I plan to discuss in class, because I have found in the past that students have a little more difficulty understanding these topics.  I will not have time to discuss EVERYTHING in a chapter that could be on a test.  ANYTHING within the pages listed in the reading assignments in the syllabus schedule is potential test material... you may feel free to print out the blog entries and add them to your notes, but do not assume that printing out this blog is all the note-taking you need to do to be successful on the tests...

FOR NEXT TIME:

• Read pp. 2-11 in Macionis
• Complete the Technological Competency assignment (see assignment details by clicking the "Assignments" button in the menu bar to the left)

NEXT CLASS STARTS HERE

 3:00 - Attendance

3:05 - Go over Technological Competency assignment results

3:10 - So what's the big idea of sociology?  Let's delve into our textbook and find out.


Chapter 1

• p. 8-9, 200+ years ago, industrialization + urbanization + political revolution ("enlightenment" ideals and scientific development from people like Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton) led Comte to coin the term sociology, as a method to describe society as it actually was rather than with abstract utopian theorizing. "Positivism" refers to positive, empirical facts as opposed to speculation.
• People have always wondered and theorized about society (Plato, Confucius, Aristotle, the Romans, St. Thomas Aquinas, Shakespeare, etc..)
  • Comte saw early social thinkers as being in the THEOLOGICAL stage, viewing society as an expression of God's (or the gods') will.
  • The Renaissance period saw the change into a METAPHYSICAL stage of social thought, where society is seen as a natural phenomena that could be apprehended through reason alone, like Thomas Hobbes who saw it as the natural playing out of an original State of Nature of "all against all."
  • The SCIENTIFIC stage began with the work of famous scientists like Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton, who tried to understand the fundamental forces at work (theorizing) by looking at empirical evidence, and from these folks Comte applied this positivist method to society.

OK, so how exactly is sociology scientific?

(Powerpoint)

Another way to put it...

Science is a way of knowing, and a body of knowledge.

Sociology is related to anthropology, economics, political science, and history.

THEORY

What is a law?

A description of the relationship between facts. 
(Ex. gravity)

 
What is a theory?



An explanation of the relationship between facts.

What is a hypothesis?



A specific prediction, derived from a theory and designed to be tested.  The word comes from the Latin for "to suppose," so think of it like a way to test a theory: "Let's suppose your theory (i.e. explanation) is correct.  If we are held down to the surface of the Earth by an invisible noodly appendage of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, then..."  What would that imply?  Could you test it?





What is a "theoretical perspective"?
A way to orient yourself to what you see, like a lens that focuses on certain aspects of reality, while obscuring others.

METHODS

How can we know how people behave?

Surveys, interviews, focus groups, observation, ethnography, history, content analysis

STATISTICAL INFERENCE

populations = Census (expensive, hard to do)

samples and generalizability

random, stratified, convenience, snowball

THINKING SOCIOLOGICALLY

Look at the Chapter overview story on p. 2 – society influences a seemingly individual decision: who to love.

Arranged marriage? Gay marriage? Monogamy vs. polygamy/gyny/amory?

What about the decision to have children? see map on p. 4

Why do averages differ so? Macionis explains there are socio-economic factors like education, jobs, contraceptive technology, and cultural ideas about women's roles.

In 2012, the U.S. birth rate dropped to the lowest on record...

Another, even more individual decision: suicide – see chart on p. 5.

Emile Durkheim wrote one of the first true sociological studies on this topic.

What about the feeling of personal responsibility for our lives? What about agency?

Certainly, what we do affects our lives, but so do social forces – see story on p. 6 of changes in the economy, laws, and culture, creating conditions where lots of folks lose their jobs to outsourcing.

DISCUSS "WHAT DO YOU THINK?"

One of the things we do in sociology is inform laws: see p. 7 Sociology and Public Policy

What else is sociology good for? From a personal perspective:

• Allows us to assess the truth of "common sense"
  • conventional wisdom can be false, contradictory, or overly simplified
• Makes opportunities and constraints visible that many people do not see.
• • The sociological perspective allows us to peek behind the curtains of society, like in the Wizard of Oz
  • Shakespeare once wrote that "all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely platers; they have their exits and entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts," like in a theater (dramaturgy)
• Empowers us to be active participants in society.
• • regarding "social justice": knowing social forces exist does not deny our agency, but on the contrary it empowers us to interact with social forces to change the world
    • C Wright Mills – sociological imagination – seeing that our personal problems are public issues... Durkheim would say that these social forces, difficult to understand previously, were seen as mysterious and supernatural.
• Helps us live in a diverse world – the farther you travel, the less you know
• • Helps us think critically about the relative strengths and weaknesses of our way of life.

FOR NEXT TIME:

• Read pp. 10-13 in the textbook

• POSSIBLY?????? Read "We Are Fractal Sheep"