Unit 2 Home Page

Welcome to Unit 2 Home Page

Unit Overview

In this unit, based on your reading of chapters 5 and 6, you will learn about the final components of society: social structure, social interactions, groups and organizations. These notions, in conjunction with the concepts of sociological perspectives, culture, socialization, will complete the debunking of the ideas of individuality, free-acting agents. In chapter 5, you will learn that the very way we interact with other people, be they our parents or co-workers is shaped by the unspoken rules of interaction of our society, there is nothing really spontaneous about interaction. Moreover,the ways we interact depend on the roles we happen to play in different interactions. We play roles, but the scripts have been written by society.

Second, the evolutionary perspective on societies, developed by the Lenskys will show you that our current societies did not emerge out of nowhere: there are specific social, economic, technological and political reasons to explain the present shape of societies throughout the world.In chapter 6, you will see how our behavior is shaped to a considerable extent by the groups and organizations we belong to.

Chapters 1 through 6 have shown you why society are basically stable arrangements, why we, social actors, basically play by the rules and play the roles we are assigned according to the corresponding social scripts. Chapter 7 shows us that all societies are confronted with violations of - or deviations from - their norms and values, how they react to deviance, what functions deviance serves in society, and which categories of people commit which acts of deviance.

And finally, in chapter 8, you will start studying the very important topic of social inequalities with a basic introduction to the notion of stratification and the class system in the United States. This topic will be explored in further details in Unit 3.

Learning Objectives

After reading Chapter 5, you should be able to:

State the definition of social structure and explain why it is important for individuals and society.

State the definitions of status, master, ascribed and achieved, and give examples of each.

Define role expectation, role performance, role conflict, role strain and role exit and be able to give examples of each.

Explain the difference between primary and secondary groups.

Define formal organization and explain why many contemporary organizations are known as "people-processing" organizations.

Define social institution and name the major social institutions found in contemporary society.

Summarize and evaluate the functionalist and conflict perspectives on the nature and purposes of social institutions.

Identify and describe the 5 major types of societies.

Compare Durkheim's notions of mechanical and organic solidarity with Tonnies's notions of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft.

Explain what the "social construction of reality" is.

Describe Goffman's drmaturgical analysis and explain what the "presentation of the self" is.

Explain what is meant by the sociology of emotions.

Define nonverbal communication and personal space and explain how these concepts relate to our interactions with others.

After reading Chapter 6, you should be able to:

Distinguish between aggregates, categories and groups.

State the definitions for ingroup, outgroup, and reference groups and describe the significance of these concepts in everyday life.

Contrast the functionalist and conflict perspectives on the purposes of groups.

Describe dyads and triads and explain how interaction patterns change as the size of the group increases.

Distinguish between the 2 functions of leaderships and the 3 major styles of group leadership.

Describe the experiments of Solomon Asch and Stanley Milgram and explain their contributions to our understanding of group conformity and obedience to authority.

Define groupthink and discuss reasons why it can be dangerous for organizations.

Compare normative, coercive and utilitarian organizations and describe the nature of membership in each.

Summarize Max Weber's perspective on rationality and outline his ideal characteristics of bureaucracy.

Discuss the shortcomings of bureaucracies and their effects on workers, clients or customers, and levels of productivity.
Describe the informal structure in bureaucracies and list its positive nad negative aspects.

After reading Chapter 7, you should be able to:

Define deviance and describe its most common forms.

Discuss the functions of deviance from a functionalist perspective and outline the main features of strain, opportunity and control theory.

Describe the key components of the differential association theory, differential reinforcement theory, social control theory, rational choice theory, and labeling theory and explain why they are examples of symbolic interactionist perspectives.

Discuss the conflict perspectives on deviance and distinguish the three varieties of feminist approaches to deviance and crime.

Distinguish between the different types of crimes.

Explain why official crime statistics may not be an accurate reflection of the actual number and kinds of crimes committed in the US.

Describe the criminal justice system and explain how police, courts, and prisons have considerable discretion in dealing with offenders.

State the 4 function of punishment and explain how disparate treatment of the poor, all people of color, and white women is evident in the US prison system.

Discuss the concept of global crime, including the 4 major types of global crime.

After reading Chapter 8, you should be able to:

Define social stratification and describe the major sources of stratification found in societies.

Explain social mobility and describe the different types of mobility.

Describe the key characteristics of the three major systems of stratification.

Describe Karl Marx's perspective on class position and class relationships.

Describe Erik Olin Wright's analysis of the class structure in the United States.

Outline Max Weber's multidimensional approach to social stratification and explain how people are ranked on all three dimensions.

Describe Gilbert and Kahl's analysis of the class structure in the US.

Distinguish between the functionalist and conflict explanations of social inequality.

Discuss the distribution of income and wealth in the US and explain how this distribution affects life chances.

Distinguish between absolute and relative poverty and describe the characteristics and lifestyle of those who live in poverty in the US.

Describe the feminization of poverty and explain why 2 out of 3 impoverished adults in the US are women.

Readings & Assignments

Readings from the Textbook - "Sociology in Our Times - for Unit 2:

Chapter 5 - Society, Social Structure & Interaction
Chapter 6 - Groups and Organizations
Chapter 7 - Deviance and Crime
Chapter 8 - Class Stratification in the United States

Readings and Exercises from the Workbook - "Doing Sociology" - for Unit 2:

Exercise 4 - Socialization: Gender Roles
Exercise 5 - Deviance
Exercise 6 - Stratification

Surveys

Survey 5 on Textbook Chapter 5
Survey 6 on Textbook Chapter 6
Survey 7 on Textbook Chapter 7
Survey 8 on Textbook Chapter 8

Internet Research Project

Article Research (you should have identified the articles that you are going to use).

Test

Test 2 on Chapters 5 - 8, 100 Questions

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