SOCI 1000 TEST REVIEW

‘Every lecture tells a story.’

Lecture 1: Individualism, The Greatest Challenge to Sociology

• individualism
• habit-tracking economy
• mood economy
• The Enlightenment
• The Industrial Revolution

Individualism is a dominant worldview that encourages people to see society as nothing more than
a collection of individuals; by focusing only on individual thoughts, feelings, intentions and
actions, it fails to offer useful explanations for social problems. Individualism is not ‘natural’,
rather it is a historical and cultural product. More specifically, it was a unintended consequence of
the Enlightenment, a cultural revolution that challenged the authority of the church by encouraging
the use of reason to improve the human condition and to advance the goals of knowledge, freedom
and happiness. It was strengthened during the Industrial Revolution, which involved a mass
migration of people from small, tradition-bound communities to the city. Individualism came to
replace more communal perspectives. In today’s society, individualism gets reproduced in many
ways. For example, Jennifer Silva describes the mood economy, which is a market or industry that
profits off of our preoccupation with our own emotional and physic development, such that we
buy apps, books, professional services, etc. to assist us in identifying, explaining and managing
our individual emotions and psychological states. Kate added that there is a similar industry (a
habit-tracking economy) that is designed to have us track (and adjust) our everyday habits, from
what we eat, how many steps we walk, how much time we spend reading or on our phone, etc.
Ultimately individualism poses the greatest challenge to sociology because it encourages us to
focus on the individual, rather than on society and the ways in which social and cultural factors
shape our lives and who we are.

Lecture 2: How to Think Like a Sociologist

• sociology
• the game metaphor
• path of least resistance
• sociological imagination
• private trouble
• public issue
• HCCI bias check
• intersectionality

Sociology is individualism’s opposite. Sociology was the first attempt to apply scientific methods
to understand the social problems that first emerged out of the industrial revolution. Today it
remains a systematic study of social life and behaviour, especially focusing on the areas of social
structure, culture and social relations. In order to better understand how sociologists think, it is
useful to start with the metaphor of a game. Society, just like the game of monopoly, has a system
and an organization which includes positions, rules and a material structure. Just as in a game, we
can describe what is happening in society, without reference to the specific characteristics of any
individual (ie, personality, intentions, etc). In this way, there are also paths of least resistance built
into the game and built into society; in other words, in any given situation, there is a particular
behaviour or appearance that is deemed appropriate depending on a person’s position in the
system. There are professional sociologists, of course, but anyone can learn how to cultivate a
sociological imagination – this is the ability to understand your social world by shifting between
your own personal troubles (experiences from your own biography) and to be public issues (shared
experiences that emerge out of historical and cultural context that relate to society’s structure and
the paths of least resistance that have emerged). A ‘checklist’ you should keep in mind when
practicing the sociological imagination is the HCCI. This helps keep your focus on the influence
of history, culture, conflict and intersectionality on the everyday experiences of people in society.
Intersectionality refers to the fact you occupy many social statuses, like your gender, class,
ethnicity, citizenship, age, sexuality and all of these intersect to shape your experiences of the
world.

Lecture 3: Social Structure as Relation and Distribution

• social structure
• social status
• ascribed & achieved social status
• role
• role conflict
• role/status disorientation
• structural functionalism
• conflict theory
• power
• privilege
• capital
• occupational prestige

Sociologists in any field tend to focus on three main things: social structure, culture and social
relationships. Let’s begin with social structure. Social systems have organization and structure.
When sociologists speak about social structure they are referring to the fact that 1) there are
patterns of relationships, roles and statuses and 2) there are patterns that determine who gets what,
in terms of power (the capacity to make decisions & act even in the face of resistance), privilege
(an advantage that is unearned, exclusive to a particular social status and socially conferred by
others), capital (economic capital including land, income, inherited wealth, access to credit etc),
and occupational prestige (reputation or respect tied to what you do for a living). A social status
is a position that you occupy in a social system that locates you in relation to occupants of other
statuses. Some statuses are basically given to you at birth (ascribed) and others are adopted later
on in life (achieved). Roles include the beliefs, norms, values, attitudes that are associated with a
social status that shape our experiences and how we behave. Because we occupy a number of
statuses, it’s not uncommon to experience role conflict. And when our social statuses change, we
can experience role/status disorientation. There are two general sociological approaches to
studying social structure: Structural Functionalism puts the emphasis on how social structure
creates order and predictability and generally sees society as functioning well; whereas Conflict
Theory puts the emphasis on how social structure unfairly creates opportunities for some and
obstacles for others by unequally distributing resources based on social status; it consequently sees
society as a field of inequality, struggle and conflict

Lecture 4: Culture and the Social Construction of Reality

• culture
• symbol
• performative language
• social construction of reality
• worldview
• beliefs
• Thomas theorem
• values
• ethnocentrism
• eurocentrism
• attitudes
• prejudice
• habitus

Let’s move to the second main focus of sociologists: culture. Sociologists show that culture is not
‘natural’ but a human construction that changes from place to place and throughout time.
Sociologists study at least six elements of culture: symbols, language (including performative
language), beliefs, values, norms, and attitudes (including prejudice). Although we inherit these
cultural elements by way of being born in a specific time and place, we are also constantly engaged
in the active social construction of reality, meaning we use language and symbols to create a sense
of what is real and indeed what is valuable. For example, the Thomas theorem states that when
people in a given society define something as real through culture, it will have real consequences,
regardless of whether or not it is actually true! There are many worldviews that have shaped the
lives of people in powerful ways, as these create a specific way of seeing the social world and
acting within it. For example, Christianity or the American Dream are both worldviews that
motivate how people perceive reality, how they make decisions and how they behave. Growing
up, we develop a habitus out of our family experiences and cultural exposure during childhood. In
Canada, cultural elements and worldviews are often ethnocentric and ethnocentric. This is not
surprising given Canada’s colonial links to Europe.

Lecture 5: Norms & Deviance

• norms
• formal norms
• informal norms
• social control
• agents of social control
• internalization
• deviance
 • crime
• labelling
• moral entrepreneur
• moral panic

Sociologists often point out that norms and deviance are two sides of the same coin, meaning that
both are socially constructed through culture. A norm is a social rule of appearance or behaviour
that once violated produces consequences; and deviance refers to the violation of a norm. Norms
can be informal (unwritten social expectations) or formal (codified/written down in a law,
regulation, document). Sanctions are the consequences we face when we violate a social norm and
sanctions can be more or less formal, positive, or negative. It is through social control that norms
come to shape our lives. Agents of social control are people and institutions that enforce norms
and make sure that we internalize and conform to norms. Internalization means that a norm has
become integrated in a person’s personality, sense of self and daily behaviours. Sociologists have
some very interesting things to say about deviance that trouble common-sense notions. For a
sociologist, no act or person is naturally deviant or criminal; instead, deviance is an attribute
(created) in society. What is considered deviant changes across time, between places and is often
dependent on the social status of the person committing the norm violation. A crime is an act of
deviance (norm violation) that is codified in law. When people are made to be deviant in their
interactions, this is called labelling. Those people who take the lead in labelling a particular
behaviour as deviant (or removing a label) are called moral entrepreneurs. A moral panic is a
situation in which public concern over an issue is dramatically increased usually because of the
efforts of moral entrepreneurs who use media to create a stir and arouse emotions (fear and anger
especially.