Chapter 1

Copyright ©2013 W.W. Norton, Inc.

YouMay Ask YourselfCore Third EditionDalton Conley


YouMay Ask YourselfThird EditionDalton Conley


Chapter1

Sociological Imagination: An Introduction

Sociological Imagination: An Introduction

2Copyright ©2013 W.W. Norton, Inc.

Paradox


What Is Socialization?

• Sociology is the study of human society.


The Sociological Imagination• Coined by C. Wright Mills, this tool

helps us to:– connect our personal experiences to

society at large and greater historical forces.

– “make the familiar strange,” or to question habits or customs that seem “natural” to us.


What Is a Social Institution?

• Social institutions are networks of structures in society that work to socialize the groups of people within them. Examples include: – the legal system– the labor market– the educational system– the military– the family


What Is Social Identity?

• The way individuals define themselves in relationship to groups they are a part of (or in relationship to groups they choose not to be a part of).


The History of Sociology• Auguste Comte — society is better

understood by determining the logic or scientific laws governing human behavior, called social physics or positivism.

• Harriet Martineau — first to translate Comte’s written works to English; one of the earliest feminist social scientists

• Karl Marx — theory of historical materialism, which identifies class conflict as the primary cause of social change


The History of Sociology• Max Weber — emphasis on subjectivity

became a foundation of interpretive sociology

• Émile Durkheim — founder of positivist sociology; developed the theory that division of labor helps to determine how social cohesion is maintained, or not maintained, in that society

• Georg Simmel — formal sociology, or a sociology of pure numbers (for instance, how a group of two is different than a group of three)


The History of Sociology• Functionalism, conflict theory, feminist

theory, symbolic interactionism, postmodernism, and midrange theory are all modern sociological theories.


American Sociology• Early American sociology became prominent at

the University of Chicago, so the perspective that emerged became known as the “Chicago School.” Chicago thinkers include:– Charles Horton Cooley– George Herbert Mead– W. I. Thomas– W.E.B. DuBois– Jane Addams

• The Chicago School focused on empirical research, with the belief that people’s behaviors and personalities are shaped by their social and physical environments.


Sociology and Its Cousins• Sociology focuses on making

comparisons across cases to find patterns and create hypotheses about how societies work now or how they worked in the past.

• Sociology looks at how individuals interact with one another as well as at how groups, small and large, interact with one another.


Sociology and Its Cousins• Distinctions are important, but a lot of overlap

exists between the work done in different academic disciplines.

History and anthropology –

cultural anthropology in particular – tend to focus more on

particular circumstances.

Political science

focuses on one aspect of

social relations – power.

Psychology and biology examine things on a more micro level than sociology does,

and economics is an entirely

quantitative discipline.


Divisions within Sociology• Microsociology understands

local interactional contexts, focusing on face-to-face encounters and gathering data through participant observations and in-depth interviews.

• Macrosociology looks at social dynamics across whole societies or large parts of them and often relies on statistical analysis to do so.


Concept Quiz1. Which of the following is an example of using on

e’s sociological imagination?a) being in unfamiliar surroundings and imagining

being in a more comfortable placeb) creating different hypotheses to explain an

individual’s behaviorc) creating a story to explain unfamiliar social

customsd) being puzzled by how people in another country

greet one another and then thinking about how people in your own country greet one another and why they do it the way they do


Concept Quiz2. Social identity is _______.

a) a construct that no longer has meaning in the postmodern era

b) a collection of social roles that a person might fill

c) a way that individuals define themselves in relation to groups they are a part of or groups they choose not to be a part of

d) determined by the social group into which a person is born


Concept Quiz3. The Chicago School of American Sociology

emphasized the importance of ____________.

a) the social and moral consequences of the division of labor

b) the environment in shaping people’s behavior and personalities

c) heavy statistical researchd) none of the above


Concept Quiz4. Sociology is distinct from other academic

disciplines in its attempt to _____.a) embrace quantitative and qualitative

researchb) ask probing questions about how

societies functionc) detect patterns in how different

societies handle or respond to similar phenomena

d) examine human interaction on the micro level


Concept Quiz5. Which of the following is an example of a

study that might be undertaken by a macrosociologist?

a) assessing how people choose where to sit on a public bus

b) observing customers’ responses to being greeted upon entering a store

c) conducting a statistical analysis of when professional men and women choose to start families

d) examining how men and women react to riding in an elevator with an infant


Discussion Questions1. Had you ever heard of sociology before?

a) Yesb) No


Discussion Questions2. Have you ever taken a sociology class

before? a) Yesb) No

You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking Like a Sociologist, 3rd Edition Copyright ©2013 W.W. Norton, Inc. 21

Part opener I


Chapter opener


Sociologist C. Wright Mills commuting to Columbia University on his motorcycle.How does Mills’s concept of the sociological imagination help us make the familiar strange?


Vincent Vega (John Travolta) describes his visit to a McDonald’s in Amsterdamto Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson).


Figure 1.1 Returns to Schooling


Two famous college dropouts. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (left) attended Harvard but droppedout before graduating. John Mackey (right) quit university before founding Whole Foods.


College-campus bulletin boards are covered with advertisements like this promoting Web sites thatgenerate diplomas. Why are these fake diplomas not worth it?


Tobacco company Philip Morris changed its name to Altria at a stockholders’ meeting in January 2003.










W. E. B. DuBois (second from right) at the office of the NAACP’s Crisis magazine.


Female textile workers struggle with a national guardsman during a 1929 strike in Gastonia,North Carolina. How might a conflict theorist interpret labor unrest?


Las Vegas, the ultimate postmodern city, borrows from various regions, times, and cultures to shapeits constantly changing landscape.


Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (on the left) and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler at a 1937 rally in Munich.How do different disciplines provide various tools to analyze the rise of fascism under these leaders?


How does anthropologist Natasha Schull’s research on slot-machine gamblers challenge thetraditional boundaries between anthropology and sociology?

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Chapter 1Sociological Imagination: An Introduction

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Chapter 1

Education

american sociology

cousins sociology

sociology of pure numbers

social physics

social institutions

social cohesion

social identity

feminist theory