■ general categories of social structure (gender, age, race, class) shape our

● Industrial revolution
particular life experiences
○ What is industrial revolution
■ Intersection of biography (individual experience) and history (social
a time of technological, economic, and social change
structural force)
■ change all around, different future>possible
■ terrible lesson and a magnificent one
● Marx
● Comte
○ Base and superstructure
○ sociology as science
All social patterns and relations stem from economic system(BASE)
■ wanted social science to be as exact as physics
includes:
■ a hierarchy of the sciences
■ two antagonistic classes (bourgeoise and proletariat)
■ essential, envisioned sociology as a crisis science
■ system of production
● Sewell
■ labor
○ casual structures
■ resources
■ social scientists see their task as rising above the contingency and
■ technologies
messiness of everyday life to find the lawful regularities that govern the
○ Superstructure is everything else (ideas, culture, politics)
whole
■ ideas grow out of mode of production
■ but instead temporality is lumpy, uneven, unpredictable, and discontinuous
■ completely misrepresent social life
■ underlying causal structures change according to the context
○ Bourgeoisie and proletariat
■ argues in favor of causal heterogeneity, historical contextualization and
■ capitalists: those who own the means of production
chronology
■ bourgeoisie: revolutionary, but now have upper hand
○ Three temporalities
■ proletariat: those who do not own the means of production
Teleological temporality
○ False consciousness
what happens today can be explained by the past, use present event to predict future
■ Workers misunderstand their position in the social/economic system
○ Experimental temporality
(individualistic bias)
freezing history
■ but with true consciousness, people can achieve agency
○ Eventful temporality
■ the communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other
■ prioritises events as crucial inflection point
working-class parties, instead they are revolutionary vanguard
○ generalized trust question
○ Philosophy of history
generally speaking would you say that most people can be trusted or need to be careful
-proletariat would unite and create change through revolution, overthrow
people in different country interpret questions in different ways
bourgeoisie and take political power
● Dubois
-resulting society: eliminate private property
contributions on:
- instead: from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs
○ objectivity
-but no matter how good our understandings are/ how much we have -succeeded in
○ subjectivity
cultivating ourselves as agents, course of history will not be changed by it
○ intervention
● Bourdieu
● Sociological imagination
○ challenge common sense
○ Mills
never taking a problem at face value
Study human society
but also seeing problems are a problem and so there is a historic genesis of problems
■ make the familiar strange
■ question habits or customs that seem natural
■ use sociological imagination: help us connect our personal experiences to
society at large and to historical forces, especially social institutions
■ seeing patterns and connections between personal experience and social
structures
Social Transformations, Agency, and Action ■ agency and structure presuppose each other
■ structures constrain but also enable human agency
● Integrating agency and structure ■ structure must be regarded as a process, (because it is changeable),
○ social structure, insight from sociological imagination not as a steady state
● agency
■ behaviors happens within larger framework, a social context ○ What is agency?
■ all in same situation, interconnected
■ individuals embedded within social networks different forms of agency depending on situational circumstances
○ what is sociology?
work on different temporal landscapes
■ study of dynamic relationship between individual agency and social
structure
type of analytical temporal scope characteristics
agency scope
■ their joint influence on human behavior and social life
existential all all temporla horizons fundamental element of free
■ defined more by its perspective (sociological imagination in all its varieties) circumstances will
than a particular subject matter
pragmatic novel situation knife’s edge present ability to innovate when
■ Individualism moment routines break down

■ strongly rooted in the enlightenment identity routine situationally-oriented capacity to act within socially
■ social problem caused by flaws in individual character (poor cuz X situation goal attainment prescribed role expectations
work hard enough)
life course life pathways long-range future life decision made at turning
■ society=individual people
plans points and transitions
■ ignore differences between individuals and social relationships,
social forces
○
■ in terms of what goes on inside people’s head
one underpins the other
■ Social structures

Agency=perceived capacities (mastery/efficacy/personal control)+ perceived life

individual cannot be defined without understanding relationship to the
chances(expectations)
social

○ Everyday observations VS systematic inquiry

“identity=social creation that is constantly sustained by social relationships
both small and large”
everyday observations:
****e.g. families, universities, whole societies
■ gather poor quality data
■ do not analyze data well
○ Between structure and agency
■ misperceive the world
■ What is structure?

■ a word to conjure with the social sciences

○ Why do sociological research?
■ less a precise concept than a kind of founding of social scientific
discourse
■ systematic collection & analysis of data >> avoid problems associated with
■ use for anything that is powerful or important
everyday observations
■ Two problems:
■ research methods—standard rules>>social scientists follow when trying to
establish a relationship between social phenomena
■ structural arguments assume a rigid cultural determinism, ignore
■ Variable types
agency, X shape but determine social life
■ dependent variable: outcome that a researcher trying to explain
■ makes dealing with change awkward, change is located outside the
■ independent variable: factor the researcher believe influences the
structures
dependent variable
■ if one do not have agency then cannot change structure
■ What makes good research?
■ Structure as dual (Anthony Giddens)
■ validity: study measure what it is intend to measure
■ reliability: conduct the study again, get the same result
■ Structure as both the medium and the outcome of the practices which
■ generalizability: findings of the study apply to other population or group
constitute social systems
of people?
■ structures shape people practices, people’s practices constitute and
■ Establishing causality
reproduce structures
 ■ Establish correlation Risk and Uncertainty in Modern Societies
■ independent and dependent change together ⿑上⿑落
■ but correlation X= causation ● modernity
■ Establish time order ○ risk society
■ independent precedes/go before dependent
what ytd still far away will be found today and in the future at the front door
■ but still X= causation
■ Rule out alternative explanations modernity=emancipation(freeing a person) and self-endangerment
■ spurious correlation: 3rd variable causes both independent ○ pervasive risk
and dependent ■ high modernity world>risks and dangers
■ so good models have control variables
● Hitlin and Johnson ■ crisis X interruption, but continuous state of affairs
○ Methods ■ risk=systematic way of dealing with hazards and insecurities induced by
modernization itself
DVs: earnings, income, financial problem, self-rated health, self-esteem, feel
■ risk=unmanageable, pervasive, transverse older distinctions
depressed?
■ cannot be overcome by more knowledge, but the result of more knowledge
Main IVs: mastery and expectations ■ cannot avoid risk (risk anticipation)
■ every catastrophe=spatially, temporally, socially determined
IV controls: family income, parental educational attainment, family structure, gender,
nativity, race/ethnicity ■ category of risk signifies controversial reality of the possible
○ Reading (Toxic uncertainty)
Use growth models>>track relationships among these variables over time
■ premises (Auyero and swistun)

○ Findings ■ critique marxist model of consciousness

■ exclusive focus on successful cases(people able to deal with risk)
Types of description outcomes ■ present negative case (don’t feel risk)
people ■ Toxic uncertainty
confidents high expectation, high mastery (16%) Highest ■ misinformation
■ shifted responsibility
hopefuls high expectation, low mastery (21%) somewhat
high ■ denial-challenge existing dat that show the problem
■ blindness-ignore own risk-perpetuating
average (48.6%) somewhat low
■ confusion and denial from authority as well
pessimists very low expectations and mastery lowest Relational anchoring
(15%)
uninterrupted routines and interactions worked smoothly as blinders to
increasing environmental hazards
● constructing agency
○ Responses to deteriorating quality of goods (albert hirschman)
labor of confusion produced by socially consequential institutions
3options: exercise of agency through resilience(ability to cope with adversity) actions of state and authorities, less consistent, more contradictory than
either denial or under estimation
■ exit: leaving social structures
■ voice: speaking up to reform social structures e.g. protest multiple, contradictory actions gave shape to what we term
■ loyalty: sticking by the firm combine insights from students of symbolic power and newsmaking
○ just world beliefs labor of confusion: decisive effect in creating shared (mis)understanding
–Findings
belief in a just world
immense structural limitations: still describe high ambitious career goals and
■ =people get what they deserve and deserve what they get sense of self-efficacy
■ enhance mental health

regarding chances of achieving these goals

■ 治標不治本
has palliative effects
Education VS marriage
■ allow people to be satisfied with their situations and society as a whole
education > marriage, while recognize drawbacks of late marriage
 Career goal + sustained effort + positive thinking + resistance to temptation = Urbanization and ecologies
bright future
○ Too much individual agency

○ building resilience ■ mental health

○ Reading (business people cope with resilience) level of personal control encourage agentic activities against immutable

■ premises conditions

■ seeking to respond to risk society > make space for resilience in the self-recrimination and self-blame occur when activities unable to alter these

face of uncertainty conditions

■ people live among crises, accumulate crisis experience>previous crisis more personal control, less depression

exp. brought on to bear on subsequent ones too much personal control, more depression

■ small business owner because too much mastery forget abt social structure you live in, X blame the

■ make mistake and learn from them world, blame yourself

■ learning+constantly growing= form of adapting ■ resilience in the face of challenges

■ adapt>come up from nothing, (as long as healthy and safe>can get ■ entrepreneurs learn and build resilience in face of crisis

through and come up with ways that can survive ■ BUT optimism can be damaged if unfounded >> ignoring social structures
■ Hopefulness: unrealistically optimistic
■ reinforceing heroic mythologies about entrepreneurial agency
■ Hopeful people are priviledged people
■ generialized expectations: sense of optimism about life, general attitudes
towards the future
■ individuals think their life will turn out well
■ comparative life expectations: future is conceived ~ observed conditions
■ compared to one’s own life now or in the past
■ compared to the lives of relevant others (family friends)
■ Findings
■ High SES youth: high expectations for success, but no strong sense be
more successful than their parents
■ Lower SES youth: develop a range of future expectations (general and
comparative), but not optimistic about the future
■ beneficial to be higher on generalized or comparative expectations
■ But generalized expectations matter more
■ Reproduce inequality across generations or resource to promote
resilience?
■ effects of life course expectations: shared equally across all levels of
socioeconomic disadvantage
■ generalized expectations: reproduce inequality across generations
■ But, because it is also beneficial among disadvantaged youth, represents the
type of resource that can facilitate resilience and life course achievement
■ Increase future expectations>decrease poverty?
■ aspirations gaps: over life course, poverty + deprivation>limit individual’s goals,
will not aspire to their full potential
■ capacity to aspire: ability emerge and responds to the particular inequalities
facing individuals>>set of beliefs individual holds about her future+reflection of
individual’s capacity to actualize these aspirations
■ poverty trap: external constraints>poor more susceptible to aspirations failure
 ■ more hopeful>>more aspire>>do better in life ■ collective efficacy=social cohesion among neighbors+willingness to intervene
low aspire>>low effort>>low motivation>>reinforce low aspire on behalf of the common good, linked to reduced violence>>linked to
resources~aspiration structural contexts
● how we think through social resilience ■ Job for a neighborhood=for everyone to feel safe
○ resilience in policy closely linked with neoliberal agendas ○ have collective efficacy>>less violence>>people help each other
○ resilience tends to be framed in terms of self-sufficiency and self-reliance
○ resilience tied up with agendas of abandonment and responsibilisation of citizens
● how people understand themselves X material constraints
lack resilience>>personal problem, not social problem
but feel like have resilience>>not enough
Solution: Community or social resilience
○ collective ability of a social group: sustain well-being when facing challenges/ cope
with/recover from stresses
○ engage with ordinary and everyday modes of vulnerability + extraordinary events and
unfolding processes
○ resilience not only survival but central to successful societies
○ constantly manage stigma and negotiate strategies of worth (rebuild their resilience)
e.g. turn to law to manage assaults on their worth
○ belief system: provide collective cultural frameworks:
○ make sense of world around them
○ reaffirm own worth in light of disadvantage
○ preserve their equanimity(calmness) even facing persistent challenges
● social support and survival (Klinenberg)
○ survive or not depends on access to social support
○ people at risk>>least want/accept support from government, isolated marginalised
people (social and spatial division)
○ But it is the condition they living make them difficult to lead to govt. they think outside
is dangerous, X go out
○ build forms of insecurity
○ can do things as a group (norms of connection and framework of social support)
○ Klinenberg’s model
■ social morphology + political economy of vulnerability >> determines disaster
damage
■ role of the state in determining this vulnerability at both structural and conjunctural
levels
■ political officials + journalist ignore vulnerability of political economy + the role of the
state in reconstructing disasters they produce
● Ecologies of resilience
○ Collective efficacy
■ ecological approach: social + organizational characteristics of neighborhoods
explain variations in crime rates, X only attributable to aggregated demographic
characteristics of individuals
Businesses and Globalization kernel of subdiscipline in analysing relations between societies and
What is nature? environments
3 meanings: ■ Fix it by changing industrialization
■ develop new technologies that are more intelligent than older
■ essential quality and character of something
ones+benefit the environment
■ inherent force which directs either the world or human being or both
■ concept of ecological modernization includes economizing ecology by
■ material world itself: include human/ not include human
placing economic value on the third force of production: nature
○ Nature and culture (levi-strauss)
■ only can prevail when dismantle capitalism
■ premise: man=biological being+social individual
■ different view of problem of ecological crisis
■ problem: how tease out influences of nature(biology) and culture(sociology)
For ecological modernization theorists:
■ preferred solution: suppose everything universal in man~natural
■ culprit: industrialism
order+characterized by spontaneity+everything subject to a
■ solution: reforming industrialism (go further into industrialism,
norm=cultural+relative+particular
towards hyper- or superindustrialization)
○ against nature
■ For eco-Marxists:
natural order alone cannot dictate which specific norms to follow cuz many orders in
culprit: capitalism
nature
■ solution: abolishing capitalism
nature many variety as culture
■ capitalism=particular relationship between humans and natural
norms form nature>converge mroe convincingly than those freely invented by art as
environment
illusory
■ interested in analyzing relationship between dynamics of
○ Connections between environment and people
capitalism and environmental degradation
environmental sociology:
■ treadmill of production: image of society running in place
■ examine how human interact with nonhuman beings+entities+processes on
without moving forward
Earth
■ opposite to ecological modernization, different political
■ how these relationship shape mutual existence+survival+possibilities for
implications to neo-malthusianism
flourishing
■ Goldstein: businesses
● human ingenuity can/X prevail
■ planetary improvement: cleantech arc>monthly savings (energy bills,
○ cannot prevail
waste disposal fees)>environmental savings (reduce
■ Malthusianism
CO2)>environmental transformation (reduce dependence on fossil
overarching concern: limits
fuels)>>save planet
■ population+economic growth>>ultimately checked by absolute limits
■ attract investors: successful, profitable business
on resources
■ but there are important ways that people involve. in green economy
■ grew in popularity (1940s-60s): evidence>population growth (+related
earnestly believe in what they are doing
environmental stress)>>irrversible environmental damage
■ Core contradiction: professionals create+commercializing disruptive
■ new ecological paradigm
tech.>radically transform our lives VS when came to actual find
although inventiveness of humans and powers derived may seem for a while to
commercially viable projects, considerations of anything disruptive
extend carrying capactity linits, ecological laws cannot be repealed
quickly gave way to assessments of which tech. demonstrate potential
○ can prevail
to provide incremental gains in already established markets
■ ecological modernization theory
■ non-disruptive disruptions: green spirit of capitalism: mobilize radical,
■ ecological modernization: social scientific interpretation of
anti-systemic critique of captialism>>provide moral legitimacy and
environmental reform processes as multiple scales in the contemporary
affective force>>make modern industrial economy less environmentally
world
destructive, still capitalism, just greener version
■ far less pessimistic compared to neo-malthusianism
■ Making an impact:
■ hostile to new ecological paradigm
impact as capital↔impact-beyond capital
■ environmental sociology benefit from further emancipation from
can’t define impact expect in negative
dominance of biocological schemes and models>form socioecological
 focus on(often exclusive) big business(solve planetary problem) Social Control and the Construction of Deviance
elaborate themselves as business people
● Norms
Conclusion:
○ What is a norm?
entrepreneurialism Xcategorically dismissed by critics of captialism, instead
■ Conducting rules that specify appropriate behaviour in a range of social
seen as shorthand for forms of creative labor that can and should be reclaimed
situations
and redirected
X reject green tech. because currently mobilized to proved incremental gains to ■ Learn through socialization

status quo ■ What is socialization?

but need to question whether can afford (collectively socially environmentally) social process through which we internalize the values, beliefs, and norms of a

to place so much focus on developing solutions that are predicated upon the society

perseverance of very problems that need to be solved in the first place Deviance from norms is enforced through sanctions

● capitalism and climate ● Deviance

pattern: belief in global warming decrease non-conformity to/violation of a set of cultural norm

possible explanation: ■ Informal deviance

–info about potential consequences of global warming threatens deeply held beliefs(world is Minor transgressions of norms

just, stable, orderly) ■ Formal deviance or crime

○ individuals overcome this threat by denying existence of global warming Violation of norms that codified into law; punish with fines; jail terms; or other

○ decrease willingness to counteract climate change sanctions

○ less dire messaging more effective for promoting public understanding of (not all crime are social deviant, not all deviance is crime

climate-change research ○ How social construct deviance?

■ varies across cultures/subcultures
■ definition of deviance influenced by social status
○ Theories that explain deviance?
■ Biological/psychological
■ Who observed physical characteristics of criminals
■ Caesar Lombroso (1911)
■ What are the physical characteristics
■ shifty eyes, receding hairline, red hair, strong jaws, wispy beards
■ But non-criminals dou can have these features
■ What is his recent work
■ Gene X environmental interactions
■ Functionalist
■ What is the two theories and who write that?
■ What is Anomie (Durkheim)
■ What is collective conscience?
common set of norms and beliefs about how the world
works
■ What is the function of collective conscience?
■ Binds people together, encourage
conformity
■ define what is considered as deviant and
how it is punished
■ What does it tells about deviance?
Deviance is inevitable and performs useful
functions
 ■ What is the definition of anomie?
sense of aimlessness or despair that arises when social
norms no longer strongly guide individual behavior &
social life is no longer predictable ( 道德淪喪）
■ What does it tells about deviance?
■ Define deviance can reestablish collective
consience, clarifying moral boundaries
■ Deviance can push/change those boundaries
■ What is Strain theory (Merton)
■ It argues that anomie&deviance occur when a society
does not give all its member equal means to achieve
socially acceptable goals
■ people feel strain when cannot achieve cultural goals
through culturally approved means
■ Symbolic interactionism
■ What are the 3 ideas?
■ Differential association
■ Deviant behavior, learn through socialization process
that occurs from associating with others who engage in
crime
■ have support but can only explain some things
■ Social disorganization/broken windows
■ Deviance is caused by broad social factors, particularly
disorganization in the social environment
■ Any sign of social disorder leads to more disorder
■ Zimbardo experiment
■ Labeling(Goffman)
■ Deviance and conformity result not so much from what
people do as from how people define their actions
■ People see how they are labeled and may accept the label
is “true”
■ behave the way they think someone with their label
should behave
■ What is primary deviance?
The first act of rule breaking, which may result in being
labeled deviant and influence how people think about you
■ What is secondary deviance?
act of rule breaking that occur after primary deviance
and as a result of a person’s new deviant label
■ What is stigma?
■ negative social label that changes your behavior
towards a person and can change that person’s
self-concept and social identity
■ can dramatically reduce the opportunities of
people in stigmatized group
■ Goffman: people conceal deviance to avoid stigma
(hide criminal record/tattoo)
■ Conflict theory
■ Who wrote this?
Power elite/ Mills
■ What is its definition?
People with power protect their own interest and define deviance to suit
their needs
■ What does it affects>
■ Affects what gets defined as deviant
■ Differential justice: different suspects treat and sentence
differently
■ e.g. college student smoke weed less likely to be
prosecuted than low income minority youth
● Social Control
○ What is social control?
Regulation and enforcement of norms through sanctions
■ What are the two types of sanctions?
■ Formal - official (Law, police)
■ Informal - unofficial (looks of disapproval)
■ Could Negative- Punishment as deterrence?
■ many debate on capital punishment
■ other goals: deterrence VS retribution
■ Does prison makes offenders less likely to reoffend?
■ Prison little effect on whether adults commit future crimes
■ for juveniles, longer time in prison, higher chance of reoffending
■ What are the approaches to social control
■ Punitive justice
■ Make violator suffer
■ often at the hands of a group
■ to define acceptable behavior and create unity
■ Rehabilitative justice
Examine why a individual was deviant and try to rehabilitate them
■ Crime reduction (Rosenfeld & Messner)
■ Reduce crime opportunities through criminal justice
■ e.g. mass incarceration, policing
■ reduce criminal motivation — guarantee decent living standard
○ Positive -Rewards
● Cop wise (reading)
○ What is the definition of copwisdom?
■ allows individuals to render seemingly-random police activity more legible,
predictable and manipulable
 ■ leads to creative and circumspect tactics for evading, deflecting and subverting Inequality: Class
criminal justice interventions
■ tracking collateral consequences
● Inequality, stratification, class
negative effects of criminal justice that extend beyond traditional
○ Inequality
sentencing/courts
■ Definition of social inequality
○ What is the context and method of copwisdom?
when people have different amount of wealth, prestige, power
■ dramatic increase in incarceration in the US
■ Standards of equality
■ e.g. Skid Row is a place where police adhere to the broken windows theory of
■ Equality of opportunity
crime
Inequality: acceptable, if everyone has the same opportunities, then
■ 5 years of ethnographic fieldwork
judged by same standards
■ What are the findings
■ Equality of condition
■ police suspect and therefore threaten everyone
Everyone should have equal starting point from which to pursue goals
■ Residents realize that refraining from violent behavior isn’t enough to
■ Equality of outcome
prevent unwanted and somtimes violent police contact
Everyone in society end with same rewards regardless of starting
■ Conclusion
point, opportunities, or contributions
■ constant threat of police contact operates as a powerful cultural agent
■ Policies
that significantly transform cultural contexts and social relations of poor
■ Equality: same support
communities of color
■ Equity: different support for equal access
■ heightened law enforcement reproduces inequality
■ No support: remove cause of inequity
○ Stratification
■ What is stratification?
Systematic inequality between groups of people
■ What are the 4 basic principles?
■ Social ranking apply to social categories of people who share a
common characteristics
■ Life experience and opportunities depend heavily on how
people’s social category is ranked
■ Differences are socially motivated/ differentially valued
■ Rankings change slowly over time
○ Class system
■ What is the definition of class system?
stratification system that is largely economic
■ What does it base on?
■ Ascribed (birth)
■ Achieved statuses (e.g. education)
■ What does people in same class system share?
■ life chances
■ attitudes
■ behaviors
■ Is social mobility possible?
intragenerational and intergenerational, but unlikely
○ Estate system
■ based on law that dictate rights and duties
■ limit social mobility (e.g. feudal Europe)
 ○ Caste system ■
■ based on heredity and notions of religious purity Conclusion
■ offers almost no social mobility Middle class kids:
● Social mobility ■ gain sense of entitlement from their family no matter their race
○ What makes social mobility less likely? ■ Advantage transmitted from class rather than race
getting socialized into class ■ Cultural logics of how they are raised>>resources for kids to interact
○ Reading: Lareau: invisible inequality differently with authority figures
■ Setup ■ entitlement and comfort with authority figures
■ Understand the mechanism: class advantage is passed on by parents ■ social class create distinctive parenting styles
beyond just money ■ children internalize these styles>>create advantage for middle class kids
■ Summary of childbearing approach ○ Basic pt: Privilege>>understand social contexts+how to navigate them to your benefit
● Capital
○ What is capital?
Dimension Concerted Accomplishment of Natural
■ Economic capital: money
observed Cultivation Growth
■ Social capital: network
■ Cultural capital: knowledge, values, behaviors
○ Reintroduce all forms of capital>>account for the structure and functioning of the
Key elements Actively fosters and Cares for child and allow child to
social world
assesses child’s talents, grow
○ What is converting capital?
opinions and skills
■ How social and cultural capital not only arise from economic capital but can
become economic
daily life multiple leisure child hangs out with kin ○ Three fundamental guises:
organization activities orchestrated

Convertible into+institutionalized
in form of:
Language use reasoning/ directives, directives, rare to
child contest, extend question/challenge parents,
negotiations general acceptance
Economic capital Money+property rights

Social weak extended family Strong extended family ties, in

Social capital (made of social Economic capital (in certain
connections ties, in homogenous heterogenous age groups
obligations(connections) condition)+title of nobility
age groupings

Cultural capital Economic capital(in certain

Interventions in Criticisms and Dependence on institutions, sense
condition)+educational qualifications
institutions interventions on behalf of powerlessness and frustration,
of child, train child to conflict between childbearing
intervene on own practices at home and school ■
behalf What are the effects of capital conversion?
Culture’s effect on job market outcomes:
investigate cultural similarities between employers and job candidates
Consequences Emerging sense of Emerging sense of constraint matter for hiring decisions
entitlement ■ shared tastes
■ experiences
 ■ leisure pursuits Inequality: Boundaries and Valuation
■ self-presentation styles
■ In context where everyone has the right credentials, what actually gets you the Social construction of race
jobs?
● What is race?
■ Want to work with someone who makes you comfortable ○ socially constructed category of people who share physical characteristics that
■ Skills don’t even matter members of society consider important
■ Conclusion ○ Not biologically identified
○ imposed/ascribed, hierarchical, exclusive and unequal
Cultural matching: ● What is ethnicity?
Employers: competent+culturally similar to themselves ○ Shared cultural practices
■ How to get an elite job? (Lauren Rivera) ○ attitudes that set people apart
○ Religion can be part of ethnicity, but not always
Hiring: broad toolkit (tools require elite resources and capabilites)
● Race socially constructed?
■ Most cultural activities use to define Race:
similarity>>Xhighbrow/artistic, but are expensive ○ changes over time
○ varies by place
■ Leisure time: hall mark of upper middle class cultures of elites
○ does not map into biological differences
■ Extracurricular activities associated with: ● no deterministic, biological basis
■ white upper middle class at the same time, race is powerful that can have life-or-death consequences
■ acquired through intense, prolonged investment of material
Boundaries
and temporal resources
■ by themselves and their parents ● Theory of boundaries
Boundaries matter across range of empirical areas
■ types of cultural similarities valued in elite firm’s hiring processes ○ social and collective identity
potential to create inequalities in access to elite jobs (based on ○ class, ethnic/racial, and gender/sex inequality
parental socioeconomic status) ○ professions, knowledge, and science
○ communities, national identities, spatial boundaries
● Underlying theme: the role of symbolic resources in creating, maintaining, contesting,
dissolving institutionalized social differences
○ symbolic resources
■ conceptual distinctions
■ interpretive strategies
■ cultural traditions
○ social differences
■ class
■ gender
■ race
■ territorial inequality
● What is social boundaries?
objectified forms of social differences manifested in unequal distribution of resources and
social opportunities
● What is symbolic boundaries?
conceptual distinctions made by social actors to categories:
○ objects
○ people
○ practices
○ time and space
● Separate people into groups
generate feelings of similarity and group membership
○ Between social and symbolic boundaries
■ Symbolic boundaries used to enforce, maintain, normalize, rationalize social
boundaries
■ for contestation and reframing of social boundaries
■ both are essential medium where people acquire status and monopolize
resources (control)
 ● Institutional racial discrimination Inequality: Intersectionality
○ closure between groups and how this is maintained through symbolic boundaries
○ What is institutional discrimination? ● Sex VS gender
■ system that bias built into the operation of society’s institutions ○ What is Sex?
○ produce unequal outcomes even actual policies/opportunities are race-neutral biological differences that distinguish male from female
● What are the consequences of boundaries? (for people’s resilience/wellbeing) ○ What is Gender?
○ Focus ■ cultural or social distinctions and structural positions that are expected or
■ consequences of incarceration for employment outcomes of black and white regarded as appropriate for members of each sex
men ■ Socially constructed
○ Research questions ■ often hierarchical
■ whether and to what extent employers use information about criminal histories ● Expect sex match gender(appearance, interests, behaviors)
to make hiring decisions but definition of masculinity and femininity change across time
■ extent to which race continues to serve as major barrier to employment ○ Gender role socialization
■ compare experiences of equally qualified black and white applicants>>ascess ■ gender roles have more to do with social status than biology
extent to which direct racial discrimination persists in employment interactions ■ Learned through gender role socialization
■ access whether effect of a criminal record differs for black and white applicants ■ Family: boys and girls treated differently, children observe parents enact
○ Findings gender roles
■ criminal records close doors in employment situations but not always ■ School: teachers interaction, different expectations for behavior and
■ employers for a cleaning company attempted to dissuade the white achievement
non-criminal tester from applying because the job involved “a great deal of dirty ■ Media representation
work”. Tester with criminal record was offered the job on the spot ● Gender stratification
○ Conclusion ○ What is gender stratification?
■ mere contact with criminal justice system, without any transformative or unequal distribution of wealth, income, status and power between men and women
selective effects, severely limits subsequent employment opportunities ○ What is sexism?
■ powerful effects of race continue to affect employment decisions, which the belief that one sex is innately superior to the other, though typically against
contribute to persisting racial inequality women
(often used as justification for gender stratification/partiarchy
○ What is Patriarchy?
Valuation a form of social organization involving the subordination of femininity to masculinity
(can hurt men too: emotion expression, family ties-seen as feminine
● Reading (Espeland and Sauder) ○ Gender pay gap
○ What is reactivity? gender is a multi-level social structure>>gender and its consequences for earnings:
idea that people change their behavior in reaction to being evaluated, observed or ■ individual (internalize by socialization)
measured ■ interactional (through norms, expectations)
e.g. rankings shape how we behave: school we choose, how much money alumni give ■ institutional (hiring, raises, promotions)
to schools, media ranking of law schools ○ Gender inequality in earnings
○ Findings ■ Sex-segregated occupations
small rankings differences have big effects ■ gender typing: designation of occupations as either male or female, with
■ Three aspects of commensuration female jobs receiving lower pay and status than male jobs
1. its capacity to reduce, simplify, integrate information ■ Discrimination
2. the new, precise, and all-encompassing relationships it creates among ■ overt: illegal but evidence it persists
different law schools and among departments within law schools ■ glass ceiling: promotion barrier preventing women from rising to high levels in
3. its capacity to elicit reflection on the validity of quantitative evaluation their career
○ Conclusion ■ glass escalator: men in traditionally female jobs rise more rapidly to higher
levels than women
■ Rankings are self-fulfilling prophecy ● Intersectionality
■ a way of justifying market dynamics ○ What is privilege?
the dominant group’s experience is considered normative and this is reinforced by
everyday experiences
we all have it in different ways

○ What is intersectionality?
■ knowledge project that lies in its attentiveness to power relations and social
inequalities
■ critical insight that race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nation, ability, and
age operate not as unitary, mutually exclusive entities, but as reciprocally
constructing phenomena that in turn shape complex social inequalities
■ Three interdependent concerns
 ■ field of study situated within the power relations that it studies Inequality: Colonialism
■ analytical strategy that provides new angles of vision on social
phenomena ● Power and authority
■ critical praxis that informs social justice projects ○ What is power?
○ What is feminism? the ability to exercise one’s will over other
at social level: exercised through the state (political. system) and economy
the political, economic and social equality of the sexes
■ Types of power
■ gender structures social relations, power differentials by gender ■ What is state?
■ gendered division of labor (devalues work done in the home, economic human community that successfully claims the control of the
dependence of women, lack resources and power) legitimate use of physical force in a given territory
■ feminists propose solutions: resources, choice, respect ■ What is nation-state?
○ Intersectionality theory a state where most people also belong to the same nation (e.g. the
same ethnic group)
■ not only gender alone ■ What is hard power?
use of military or economic force to influence behavior
■ intersection of gender with race, class, ability, sexual orientation ■ What is soft power?
the use of cultural or ideological means to influence behaviors
■ some women more/less priviledged than other women ○ What is authority?
the legitimate/accepted use of power
■ feminism criticized for not always taking intersectionality into account ■ types of authority
■ traditional authority: accept the exercise of power because of
■ Class and race tradition
■ e.g. british monarchy
class important in explaining the persistence of racial inequality often shaped by race, class and gender

e.g. economic gap grow between rich and poor african american ■ charismatic authority: accept the exercise of power because of
personality of the leader
mm hai does not give enough attention to ongoing discrimination and racist ■ rational-legal authority: accept the exercise of power because of laws
beliefs or rules
■ e.g. bureaucracy (legal-rational organization or mode of administration that
it is race an class and other privileges that all interact to specify an individual’s governs with reference to rules and roles and emphasizes meritocracy(sucess
experiences because of ability)
● Configurations of empire
● Reading (becoming entrepreneurs) ○ What is empire?
■ denote/represent authority
○ premises ■ extended to denote Rome’s right to command ANYONE
■ intersectional approach to black women’s entrepreneurial activity ■ expansive militarized and multiethnic political organizations that
■ how intersecting oppressions often relegate minority women into the bottom significantly limit the sovereignty of the peoples and polities they conquer
of the labor queue, where economic stability is precarious and they are ■ matter of power rather than authority
over-represented in low-skill, low-status work ○ What is imperialism?
○ Unique challenges a strategy of political control over foreign lands that does not necessarily involve
■ limited access to startup capital conquest occupation and durable rule by outside invaders
■ lack of access to other entrepreneurs ○ What is colonialism?
■ still experience ghettoization(discriminalize) conquest of a foreign people followed by the creation of an organization controlled by
members of the conquering polity and suited to rule over the conquered territory’s
indigenous population

inevitably a rule of difference

○ Imperial strategies and configurations of empire

■ Premodern land-based empire
○ often preserved cultural difference
■ Modern territorial empire
■ Colonialism
○ based on common values and assumptions, includes settler colonialism and
eventually internal colonialism
■ Informal, non territorial imperialism
 ○ no conquest or permanent seizure of political sovereignty
○ chartered companies
■ created for trade, exploration, and exploitation
■ in some cases, charged to govern (british east india company)
■ economic exploitation merges with political rule
○ Reading
■ Colonial projects
■ rarely realized in full
■ done differently in different places
■ differences explained by tensions within a colony and translocal
tensions that go back to the metropole itself(chains of empire)
■ implementing colonial policies are complicated because
■ local populations not always comply passively with the dictates of
colonial power
■ colonial agents not always unified in their goals
■ chains of empire: numerous and multifaceted links which colonial rule
necessarily entailed
■ include links:
■ between colonizer and colonizer
■ between colonial administrators and the metropole
■ everyone entangled, not always put in the same direction
● Postcolonialism
○ decolonization and imperial decline
■ one of our culture’s standard literary forms is the dirge for a fallen empire
■ colonial empires have gradually disappeared
■ nation-sates have become the default unit or organization in the international
system
● poscolonialism thought
○ investigation into the ways colonialism continues to shape former colonies and
metropoles
○ lots of sociologists doing some form of colonial research
○ playing a central role in research on development/under-development after
decolonization
○ but the knowledge that sociologists produce is inherently colonial
○ decolonizing sociology: epistemic inequality and marginalization
■ problem
■ knowledge hierarchies: certain standpoints marginalized as inferior;
while other standpoints get valorized as superior e.g. excluding certain
people/marginalize anyone who is not a white man
■ sociology first emerged as a knowledge project of empire
■ all knowledge is socially situated
■ embeds an imperial standpoint because it was formed in empire
■ provincial and parochial, reflect very particular standpoint of those at the
heart of empire while masquerading as universal
■ limited applicability
■ solution
■ recognize that no knowledge is universal e.g. definitino
■ recognize that analytical concerns, assumptions are socially situated in
particular locations and histories
■ ensure openness to multiple and different standpoints, not just involving
more people but also accepting many types of knowledge