Social Theory & Core Concepts
What is the sociological imagination?
The sociological imagination refers to the capacity to think systematically about how things that we make experience as personal issues are really larger social problems. The sociological imagination enables us to understand how individual lives unfold in shared (and sometimes disjoint) contexts.
Define inequality
Unequal distribution of valued goods and opportunities
Differentiate between migration, emigration, and immigration
Migration: moving from one place to another
Emigration: leaving one place
Immigration: arriving and settling in another place
What is a population? What is a sample?
A population is a collection of persons, things, or objects under study. A sample is a subset of the population.
Name one example of how class power is organized from below (working class power)
unions, social movements, interest groups
What are the four components of social structures?
Norms, institutions, roles, and hierarchies.
How do sociologists understand "class"?
Groups of people in similar social and economic positions. Four dimensions: conflicting economic interests with other classes, similar life chances, potential to engage in collective action, similar attitudes
In section, we discussed the challenges of an aging population with low birth rates. How might immigration help relieve some of these issues?
Immigration adds working-age people to the population, filling important jobs and contributing to social service programs like retirement.
What is the first demographic transition?
A population's transition from high fertility and high mortality to low fertility and low mortality.
What are the structural power of business and the power elite theories?
Structural power of business: Governments in capitalist societies are compelled to focus on policies that keep the economy growing and health (favoring businesses)
Power elite thesis: A small group of interconnected leaders wield a disproportionate influence over society through control of key institutions. People in power predisposed to favor the interests of the power elite.
What does Marx say is the relationship between the base and superstructure?
A society's economic base (or its mode of production) determines its superstructure, which is comprised of culture, laws, politics, ideas, etc. The superstructure then serves to justify the economic base.
What is the Gini coefficient and the Lorenz curve?
The Gini coefficient is a measure of societal inequality from 0-1, with 0 being the most equal and 1 the most unequal. The Lorenz curve maps the cumulative percentage of a population (poorest to richest) to cumulative percentage of national income. Egalitarian = 45 degree line. If the area under the curve is bigger, the society is more unequal.
What is the neoclassical economic theory of international migration? What is the new economics of migration theory?
List three plausible reasons for fertility decline in developed nations
Lower infant mortality, economic development, birth control, changing benefits of having children, advancements in the status of women, norms and values around children and families
Name and describe the three dimensions of power
1) One party openly prevails in conflict, often as a result of force or greater resources
2) Agenda-setting, the power to prevent or deflect challenges
3) Ideological, those in power convince those without that their views are correct
Describe Durkheim's two types of solidarity
Mechanical solidarity, common in societies with a low division of labor, is based on sameness.
Organic solidarity, characteristic of modern societies in which there is an extensive division of labor, is based on interdependence.
How does Prof. Jerolmack's concept of the "public-private paradox" relate to environmental inequalities?
The public-private paradox refers to how one's pursuit or prioritization of private rights/freedoms may contribute to negative outcomes for a larger collective (like society as a whole). This relates to the issue of environmental inequality, because people do not all consume at the same level and people are not affected by environmental degradation and disaster to the same degree. Although our private environmental decisions are our own, they may have negative consequences for the world as a whole, and certain groups within that will be disproportionately harmed, compared to others.
Define the world system theory and give one example of a phenomenon that supports the theory
Give one example of a societal institution that is affected by the epidemiological transition in a nation and explain why.
Social security, healthcare, education, welfare
Name a policy (past or present) that affects the distribution of power in the United States and explain why
Taxes, capital gains, inheritance, workplace regulations, welfare, reproductive rights, segregation, redlining, environmental regulations, immigration law, etc
Choose a contemporary social issue/current event and provide examples for how two of the major theories we learned at the beginning of the semester (e.g., symbolic interactionism, structural functionalism, historic materialism, or conflict theory) could be used to analyze and make sense of them.
Answers vary.
Explain the social reproduction theory as it relates to educational inequality. (1) Provide one example that illustrates how this reproduction of inequality manifests within schools and one example of how it manifests across schools. (2) Explain how social reproduction in educational inequality might affect intergenerational social mobility.
Social reproduction theory pertaining to the education system suggests that rather than equalizing the playing field in which students will develop the skills that will be of value in the labor market, the system reproduces or exacerbates the advantages and disadvantages that students enter with. (1) Examples for within-school inequality may speak to how students of middle- and upper-class families are likely to already have language and communication skills that are valued and enable success in school. Examples for across-school inequality may speak to how school funding is determined by the neighborhoods in which they are situated, meaning that schools in low-income neighborhoods are likely to be less well-resourced than those in middle- or upper-class neighborhoods. (2) Social reproduction of educational inequality would likely limit or close intergenerational social mobility, making the class of children's parents or neighborhoods more determinative of their future class status in adulthood.
Make a sociological argument related to immigration (e.g. immigration policy perpetuates a racial hierarchy) and come up with a research question and methods that could test your argument.
Example: Immigration policy perpetuates a racial hierarchy.
Research question: Do non-white immigrants in the United States have disproportionately reduced access to legal or social benefits compared to white immigrants?
Method: Survey immigrants of all races and ask if they applied for social benefits and legal status, and if they were successful in accessing benefits or legal status. Use regression analysis to determine if differences between groups are statistically significant.
Describe how social determinants of health contribute to health disparities in the United States. Discuss at least two specific determinants and analyze how broader social structures, cultural norms, and institutional policies shape unequal health outcomes among different social groups.
SES, race, gender, neighborhood. These social determinants of health shape unequal health outcomes through, for example, redlining, unequal education funding, lack of universal healthcare policy, limited access to grocery stores, higher exposure to environmental toxins, doctor bias and stereotyping, high cost of healthcare, etc.
Analyze how each of the three dimensions of power are present in current university student protests across the country
1) police force, prisons, weapons such as tear gas, arrests
2) university admins making decisions about their responses to encampments/protests (e.g. whether or not to call the police) do not have student input in decision-making
3) anything about media framing which convinces people of the validity of the perspective of the powerful