Discuss the importance of social structure from a global perspective.

(course objective 5.9)	When we look out beyond our own society we see that there are many variations of social structure.  These variations have real consequences for the interactions between nations because they result in different ways of life for the people of those nations.  In fact even within our nation, or any nation, we can find variations of social structure. What causes these variations?  What factors made them as they are?  What factors cause further changes?  What is the effect on one society when another one changes?  What is the effect on a society when structural changes affect different parts of it unevenly or at later times?   If we can come to a better understanding of the answers to these questions we have a better chance of understanding global, national and political events. Objective 5.9 has two parts. Both use technological change to understand global variation. The first (5.9.1) looks at fundamental concepts from Durkheim and Lenski about the relationship between technology and the way we interact and form groups.  The second (5.9.2) takes a longer view of society and tries to explain, or at least categorize the way we got to be the kinds of societies we are.
Objective	Discuss the importance of social structure from a global perspective.
Read
Key Terms
Define
Slides
Evaluation	Quiz 5.9
Additional resources	You should review the video Guns Germs and Steel, parts 1-6 available at YouTube.

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[i] http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0077290658/student_view0/chapter1/learning_objectives.html

Analyze the importance of social institutions.

	Write short intro
Objective 5.8	Analyze the importance of social institutions.
Read
	Be able to write an essay on why social institutions matter in our lives.
Key Terms
Define
Slides	Hospitals as an example of a social institution
Evaluation	Quiz 5.8
Additional resources

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[i] http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0077290658/student_view0/chapter1/learning_objectives.html

Discuss the impact of social networks and technology on social relationships.

Objective 5.7	Discuss the impact of social networks and technology on social relationships.
Read
	Review the pros and cons of the new communication techniques.
Key Terms
Define
Slides
Evaluation	Quiz 5.7
Additional resources

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[i] http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0077290658/student_view0/chapter1/learning_objectives.html

Describe the various types of groups.

Objective5.6	Describe the various types of groups.
Read
	Be able to name and define all the types of groups.
Key Terms	None
Evaluation	Quiz 5.6
Additional resources

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[i] http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0077290658/student_view0/chapter1/learning_objectives.html

Discuss the contribution of groups to the function of social structure.

5.5.2	Sociologists use the word group to refer to different types of behavior that do not involve interaction, in-group and out-group are defined by individuals to describe where they stand in relation to others in society. Reference groups also serve to help us establish our relative standing, but they also provide guidance about the kinds of norms we should follow. Coalitions are different.  Coalitions do involve some degree of real interaction, although the interaction is often indirect and through a large social network or a result of like mindedness among people who otherwise don’t know each other. Remember that the term “Social Group” only applies to groups in which there is direct or indirect interaction. The 4 groups described above can have interaction but it is not required.
Objective	Discuss the contribution of groups to the function of social structure.
Read
In-groups	The In Crowd. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WWsOUk9O5g The in-group feels a great deal of power as a result of its popularity.  There is a sense that this group has privileges others are denied, but at the same time the sense is that it’s ok for them to have this power. In-groups are defined by their members as being “in”, usually this is based on the perception they have of their own power. In groups mark the boundaries of behavior so that you must conform to enter.  A child might not be invited to an “in” party because they have the wrong clothes.  Parents can say this is “shallow” but the entire point of being an “in” group is exclusivity and the ability to exclude or include whomever you choose. The Asch experiment applies to all groups and has relevance for understanding “groupthink”.  It is especially relevant to in-groups because of their closed nature. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRh5qy09nNw On the macro-level in-groups look a little different, a bit more like a mass of people with the same beliefs or belief system.  This might be organized around national or religious lines, or on a smaller scale around a ritual or holiday.  On this scale an in-group can look like national pride or ethnocentrism or pride in the home team.  Individuals don’t have to know one another to be part of the “home team”, people display signs and symbols and engage in behaviors that mark show they belong to their favorite side.  They are “in”.  Just think about all the fan paraphernalia that sports teams sell, each piece a marker for belonging to the team group, the in-group; or flags, or pieces of jewelry that mark religious preference. This is a video of the 1980 Olympic Hockey game between the United States and our arch enemy of the cold war the USSR.  The Russian team was one of the best and ours was one of the best.  As you watch the video notice the symbols of national pride on players and in the audience.  The video runs 7 minutes but the first  2 or 3 should give you the idea. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2VVCRJ-688
Out-groups	Out groups are negatively valued.  The idea is to join the more powerful in-group, where advantage can be had and not be left out.  The in-group gets to define who is in and who is out, so the individual who is left out is marked as less desirable in the process.  The most extreme example of an out-group is an enemy.  http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/problem/outgrp.htm
Reference Groups	Reference groups are groups that we use to evaluate ourselves and others.   The show us the established norms and they provide a measuring stick against which we can determine how well we are doing comparatively.  We can also use them to make judgments about how others are doing.
Coalitions	Coalitions form when groups with differing interests work together toward some end that all the group see as desirable.  Those of us who watched “Survivor” are very familiar with coalitions, and were able to observe them forming and breaking up as various competitors decided to work together or not.
Key Terms
Define	In-groups
	Out-groups
	Reference groups
	Coalitions
Slides	none
Evaluation	Quiz 5.5.2
Additional resources	none

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[i] http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0077290658/student_view0/chapter1/learning_objectives.html

Discuss the contribution of groups to the function of social structure.

5.5.1	There is more to social structure than statuses, roles, and institutions.  Social groups are the powerhouse that makes social structure function because these are the interpersonal associations within which social actions take place.Sociologists also use the word group to refer to different types of behavior that do not involve interaction.  Remember that the term “Social Group” only applies to groups in which there is direct or indirect interaction.
Objective	Discuss the contribution of groups to the function of social structure.
Read
View	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnE1tiwQ57M
Primary Groups	There are three essential features of primary groups. They are small. Usually less than 11 people although some researchers claim they can be as large as 21. They are intimate.  This refers to physical and emotional closeness meaning that the members of small groups allow other members to be physically closer (think of the physical distance we keep between co-workers, then think of the distance we keep between ourselves and good friends, family, lovers and children to understand this). In small groups interactions tend to be face to face. Source for above: http://www.internalmedicine.osu.edu/hemonc/857.cfm 3.    They are characterized by cooperation. People within small groups work together to meet their needs and challenges.  Most sociologists would add that primary groups are not usually organized to perform a single task or goal, but work together to assure the well-being of everyone in the group.
Secondary Groups	Secondary groups are more formal, larger and organized around the accomplishment of goals.  Secondary groups can be small:  a 2 person team working on a project who are not otherwise friends or relatives is a secondary group; 5 students in a band may be a secondary group if they don’t’ have closer ties between them other than the band. Work groups are usually secondary, regardless of size and at work friendliness, just think about how rare it is for work “friendships” to survive once we leave our jobs and don’t share that common tie of working toward company goals.Source:  Introduction to Sociology by Ron J. Hammond.  Published online @ http://freebooks.uvu.edu/SOC1010/index.php/about.html
Key Terms
Define	Primary Groups
	Secondary Groups
Slides	none
Evaluation	Quiz 5.5.1
Additional resources	none

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[i] http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0077290658/student_view0/chapter1/learning_objectives.html

Identify and describe the various types of social role situations.

5.4	There are three major situations that complicate our ability to perform roles: role conflict, role strain and role exit.
Objective	Identify and describe the various types of social role situations.
Read
Social Roles	It is helpful to review the concept of social role.  Goffman uses the metaphor of a part in a play, so that when we step into a role we know that we are expected to follow a script.  We are not expected to perform roles robotically, in fact in most social situations strict adherence to the norms of a role would be a bit upsetting to the people we interact with.  We are expected to customize our performance in some way, even if it is only in the tone of our voice or through body language that reflects something of our unique personality. Of course there are situations; especially formal situations such as some jobs in which we are expected keep our behavior very close to the established script.  Those of us who have dealt with telephone sales reps and customer service persons know that this behavior can be somewhat frustrating. It is also true that in some cultures it is essential that the customary forms of behavior must be followed exactly in specific circumstances.  Even in the less formal culture of  United States, there are still situations in which our behavior must be very close to the formal requirements of the role. Most situations are more casual, meaning that we can stray from the ideal behavior without risking serious sanctions.A role is the set of norms that accompany the status we are currently holding.  We move from one role to another, from home to work, from work to home; from parent to child, from friend to boss or employee.  We change our behavior with each role change according to the norms we’ve learned through socialization.  If we make a mistake it is noticed, but generally we have some freedom to “be ourselves” and make the role our own while we occupy it as long as we play our part well enough that others know which role we are playing. YouTube has a clip titled ‘The Perfect Dinner’ which has two clips from the movie American Beauty, directed by Sam Mendes, I am not requiring this clip because it contains strong language, but if you watch it notice that the family is doing a very poor job of playing the roles associated with the institution of family even though they are trying to play them perfectly.
Role Conflict	Role conflicts are very easy to understand because almost everyone runs into the situation at some time or another when one of their roles makes a demand on them that makes it impossible for them to fill the requirements of another role.  Every working parent may have to eventually make a choice between taking care of a sick child and going to work:  birthday parties or weddings may fall on the same days as important meetings at work or an equally important event on the other side of the family… just think about how difficult holiday dinners can be when we may have to join the celebration with both sides of the family.  These are role conflicts.
Role Strain	Role strain happens when we have two responsibilities in the same role that just can’t happen together.  Many jobs are filled with role strain.  A cashier may have to keep the line moving, be friendly with customers, keep the cash accurate, offer to sign people up for credit cards and inform customers of their savings, look for stolen goods and keep their station clean among other job duties. This is role strain.  All that is required for role strain to occur is that a single role make demands on a person that are either very difficult to fill in the required time or are impossible to complete in the required time.
Role Exit	We move through statuses in a pattern that more or less conforms to the life course that our culture sets out for us.  The culture places strong expectations on us about the statuses we hold whether they are achieved or ascribed.  There comes a day when we must go to kindergarten, college, start a job or retire.  Most of us come to a time when we choose to become enter a relationship, marry, become parents or when regardless of our choosing we end a relationship, see children leave home, depart from our employment or move to a new area.  When we leave our statuses we exit the roles associated with them. Usually we prepare for the event (anticipatory socialization) but whether we are ready or not we all come to a time when we must “move on”. Leaving a role is difficult.  The old behaviors must be shed, they won’t serve us well in our new status, they may interfere with how well we perform in our new role. Most of us have heard of “the empty nest syndrome” in which parents have to readjust to a life without children.  Retirement also leaves us feeling at a loss, even when we prepare. In this song “The Watch” the singer compares his retirement to the scrapping of a ship.  Unfortunately the last verses of the song is missing from the video below.  The lyric is The Watch by Stan Rogers They dragged her down, dead, from Tobermory, Too cheap to spare her one last head of steam, Deep in diesel fumes embraced, Rust and soot upon the face of one who was so clean. They brought me here to watch her in the boneyard, Just two old wrecks to spend the night alone. It’s the dark inside this evil place. Clouds on the moon hide her disgrace; This whiskey hides my own. CHORUS  It’s the last watch on the Midland, The last watch alone, One last night to love her, The last night she’s whole. My guess is that we were young together. Like her’s, my strength was young and hard as steel. And like her too, I knew my ground; [ From: http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-watch-lyrics-rogers-stan.html ]      I scarcely felt the years go round In answer to the wheel. But then they quenched the fire beneath the boiler, Gave me a watch and showed me out the door. At sixty-four, you’re still the best; One year more, and then you’re less Than dust upon the floor. CHORUS So here’s to useless superannuation And us old relics of the days of steam. In the morning, Lord, I would prefer When men with torches come for her, Let angels come for me.        It is depressing to compare retirement to death, but all role exit is a departure.  Some are more devastating than others, and sometimes a role exit, hard as it may be, is an open door to a better status and more comfortable roles. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU5LxRP18Is&feature=related
Key Terms
Define	Role conflict
	Role strain
	Role exit
Slides
Evaluation	Quiz 5.4
Additional resources

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[i] http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0077290658/student_view0/chapter1/learning_objectives.html

Discuss the differences between ascribed and achieved statuses.

	Sociologists understand status as having two types:  achieved and ascribed.
Objective  5.3	Discuss the differences between ascribed and achieved statuses.
Read
Status	We need to go beyond the definition of social status and understand that our standing in society is determined by the statuses we hold. These have a real effect on how we see ourselves as well as how others see and treat us. Status means standing.  It has to do with the rights and privileges that society permits us to access and is largely based on the amount of respect, prestige and esteem that society gives to the position we hold. Childhood is a status.  Children have different rights and privileges than adults, that is obvious.  While we respect and value our children we seldom hold them in high enough esteem to defer to their judgments and ideas.  The status of child means that we most likely don’t turn to them for advice or solutions and often we don’t take the advice the offer or even take it seriously. Esteem has to do with the degree of personal respect we give to the person.  The more we esteem a person the more likely we are to defer to them on matters large and small.  One of the types of status is based on the occupation we pursue.  In every society some types of work are more valued than others.  In sociology we call this occupational prestige.  Prestige has to do with the perceived importance of the work and very often it has to do with the degree of difficulty involved in getting into a line of work.  Surgeons have high prestige because the work they do is viewed as both difficult to get into and very important.  Garbage collectors do important work too but it doesn’t require years of training and expense to become a garbage collector; furthermore we don’t value garbage the way we value human life, so the prestige associated with this occupation is almost always viewed as less than that of surgeons.  Interestingly, garbage collectors save millions of lives a year by taking away potentially disease producing materials, while surgeons save far fewer lives in their work, even so the surgeon receives more standing in society.  Not all statuses have specific credentials associated with them but most statuses are associated with symbols that let us know about the standing of the person in the position.  It might be a big desk, or the length of a white hospital coat, or a minivan or the quality of a man’s suit or a judge’s robes or an expensive car and on and on.  These clues tell us something about the respect that society expects to be given to the person wielding the symbols or wearing the clothes. The presence of the symbol is as important to the bearer as it is to the viewer, as we see in this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeGATO571xo&NR=1 Read “The Importance of Status”: http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/social_status/
Ascribed	Ascribed statuses are the first that we receive.  They are a consequence of our sex, our age, the religion and social position of our parents, our race, our ethnicity and even our looks.  In the United States some of these original statuses can be changed; we can adopt a new religion, improve (or degrade) our social position and there are things we can do to meet social expectations for attractiveness; but others can’t be changed.  Age changes, but we are always given a social status associated with our age; our race and ethnicity will affect how people view us and although we may lose our parents they have given us a tie to a part of society which we may deny but which will always have more or less of an effect on our life chances depending on the culture we come from.http://www.sociologyguide.com/basic-concepts/Ascribed-Statuses.php In our culture gender and race are arguably the most important of the ascribed statuses because they permeate every other status we are likely to hold.
Achieved	Our culture determines which statuses we can achieve and which are ascribed.  Cultures differ greatly in the types of achievement which are allowed to individuals in different groups.  In our culture most of our statuses are achieved, in a very traditional culture the majority would be ascribed.Basically an achieved status is one that you have accomplished by doing something which is recognized as having value by the society (getting married, being a parent, getting a job, graduating from school, joining the military; and of course the type of job you do). http://nortonbooks.typepad.com/everydaysociology/2010/05/ascribed-status-vs-achieved-status-the-case-of-homelessness.html http://www.sociologyguide.com/basic-concepts/Achieved-Statuses.php
Key Terms
Define
	Achieved Status
	Ascribed Status
Slides
Evaluation
Additional resources

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[i] http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0077290658/student_view0/chapter1/learning_objectives.html

Identify and discuss the various elements of social structure.

 

	6 elements of social structure.  Each of these will be treated in a separate objective.  For this objective you need to know what they are generally how they create social structure.
Objective	Identify and discuss the various elements of social structure.
Read
Social Structure	Social structure makes life predictable.  We learn norms and then we learn how the norms fit together to tell us how to fill a social role.  Each social role has a specific position (status) in the social structure that we can match with some measure of importance compared to other statuses.  The statuses and their associated roles belong to social institutions.Social institutions exist to meet human needs.  They constructed of statuses that are filled by people who do the duties associated with that status.  The duties are defined by the norms of the roles.  For example cashier is the status within a retail institution.  The cashier works in a store, which is the organizational face of the retail as an institution.  The cashier is a person, but the individual who fills the status can’t act according to his own personality; instead he must follow norms for the status of cashier.  These norms constitute the social role or roles that must be filled when the person is a work, doing the job (status) of cashier. Social institutions, statuses and social roles exist more or less independently of the real people who fill them.  Real people move through them according to the rules of the culture.  For example there are statuses associated with age (infant, toddler, child, preteen, teen, young adult, adult, middle aged, senior citizen, elderly, old) that we move through based on how many years we’ve been alive.  Another institution would have a different set of statuses and associated roles.  The work world might look like this:  dependent, worker, retiree.  Within a job we might be a cashier and have many different types of tasks (roles) to complete as part of the status, but we could get promoted and leave those behind in exchange of a new set of tasks and a new status. Social networks and groups have statuses and roles associated with them but these social forms don’t usually have any existence separate from the individuals within them.  Think about the institution of family:  at its most basic it is parent and child, usually mother, father, child.  The statuses continue to exist even when there is no person to fill them.  So for example if one parent abandons the family that parental status continues to exist even though there is no one filling it.  What usually happens is that the roles associated with the missing parent are reassigned to the other parent or to a non-parent (or, sadly, sometimes to a child). The group is the basic social form.  A social group is one in which the people within have contact with each other.  A social group is a form of social network.  There are different types of groups which sociologists differentiate by the kind and degree of contact the members have. Social networks are chains of interactions that tie us together.  Facebook is a good example of a social network, and also of a virtual world. If we are on facebook we have contact with our “Friends”, but we can also see people we don’t know who are friends of friends and sometimes something we post makes it all the way to friends of friends of friends… people who we don’t know, but who know people we know!
View	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6_eawc3V_4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a_KF7TYKVc  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtH9ghfkb-E http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkQbK-JzRwo&feature=related (virtual worlds)
Key Terms
Define	Statuses
	Social roles
	Groups
	Social Networks
	Virtual worlds
	Social Institutions
	Social Structure
Slides
Evaluation	Quiz 5.2
Additional resources

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[i] http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0077290658/student_view0/chapter1/learning_objectives.html

DEFINE SOCIAL INTERACTION AND SOCIAL REALITY.

Emile Durkheim said that society had a reality of its own.

W. I. Thomas’ Theorem says that if we perceive something as real it has real consequences.

C. Wright Mills says that society is the intersection of biography and history.

Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman argued that social reality is constructed by our actions.

Objective DEFINE SOCIAL INTERACTION AND SOCIAL REALITY.

5.1

Social Reality

Generally sociologists say that society is constructed out of beliefs that underlie our actions. Most of daily reality is routine. We interact with others generally following norms which are reinforced through sanctions, positive and negative. We are free to try new behaviors, to challenge the norms, in which case we observe the reactions of others and the outcomes of our actions.

The topic of social reality is too philosophical to take on in an introductory course, but it is helpful to review the major ideas that relate to how we come to understand the reality of the society around us.
Emile Durkheim

Emile Durkheim said that society was separate from the physical and biological and even the economic realities of life. He argues that there are “social facts” and “social forces” that shape our behavior through symbols and group activities such as ritual. Effectively ritual and routine behaviors enforce a sense of community and collective belonging simply because we are sharing the same actions and giving the same meaning to those actions. These are the social norms that are taken for granted everyday as we interact with others, make political and economic decisions and use the physical artifacts (objects of material culture) that we are so familiar with we barely notice that they have a separate and unique existence from the uses and meanings we associate with them.
W.I. Thomas

The Thomas Theorem “If men define situations to be real, they are real in their consequences.” While the idea of social forces (norms) stresses the shared experience of social interaction, the Thomas Theorem stresses the individual interpretation that people apply to the events and things around them. Since interaction means that we react to each other and respond to others and then get their response it should follow that if some individuals are interpreting events in a way which is different from other people their interpretations of what is going on may be different, even very different. This sense of difference can influence the meanings they get and cause unexpected responses which others have to deal with. In the end the social reality of the group can be affected as Woody Allen shows in this classic clip:

C. Wright Mills

Mills’ Sociological Imagination takes into account both the group awareness of meaning (through history), and the individual awareness of meaning (through biography) and says that these combine to produce social interaction. At the same time Mills accepts that society has an independent reality which offers a structure which we are supposed to use when dealing with other people as well as with the objects in our world.

Berger and Luckman

Thomas Berger wrote a book called “The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life” in which he argued that life is like a performance in which we must follow a script, but were allowed to make changes to that script in order to put our best “self” forward in all situations. Essentially society sets out a series of norms and routines that we are expected to follow; we do our best to follow them so that we can get what we need from the situation. This means that we are likely to do what we are expected to do, even when we don’t want to because it is more important to us to finish our exchanges with other people in ways that put us in the best possible light, or give us an advantage that we might have lost if we let someone know our true feelings, than it is to express our true self.

Anyone who has had a job working with the public is familiar with this, but at the same time we can all think of times when we held back our real feelings even when dealing with those we love and trust.
Social Interaction Social interaction is the way people respond to each other. It is largely determined by the culture of the society through the norms and institutions that have developed over time.

Key Terms
Define Social Reality
Social Interaction

Additional resources Comedy can offer us insight into alternative interactions and interpretations of events that we just take for granted, as the Beatles said “There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done”. Here are some sillies, but possible.

http://www.youtube.com/user/montypython?blend=1&ob=4#p/c/6FD5A97331C1B802