The Sociological Imagination
Chapter 1

Jeff Manza, Lynne Haney,
and Richard Arum

What is Society ??

Auguste Comte

Society is no more decomposable unto individuals than a geometric surface is into lines, or a line into pointsWithout extolling or condemning political facts, science regards them as object of observations: it contemplates each phenomenon in its harmony with coexisting phenomena.. And each of them is explained when it has been connected with the whole of the existing situation and the whole of the preceding movementIt is our business to contemplate social order that we may perfect it.Comte, August, The Positive Philosophy, Harriet Martineau, Trans. And ed (New York: AMS press [1855] 1974): 235-522.Biography of Compte

Jeremy Bentham

The community is a fictitious body composed only of its individual members, and thus the interest of the community is no more than the sum of the interests of the individual members who compose itThe notion of a body politic is a metaphor through which poetry has invaded the domain of reasonBiography of BenthamBentham, Jeremy The Works of Jeremy Bentham John Bowring, ed. (Edinburgh: W. Tait; London:Simkin, Marshall, 1843): 306

Georg Simmel

There is an old conflict over the nature of society. One side mystically exaggerates its significance, contending that only through society is human life endowed with reality. The other regards it as a mere abstract concept by means of which the observer draws the realities, which are individual human beings, into a whole as one calls trees and brooks, houses and meadows, a landscape.However one decides this conflict the fact remains that in order to satisfy their urges and attain their purposes, individuals associate in the innumerable forms of social life, all the with-one-another, for-one-another, in-one-another, against-one-another, and through-one-another, in state commune, in church and economic associations, in family and clubs.Georg Simmel The Sociology of Sociability ( Everett C. Hughes Tr.)
The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 55, No. 3 (Nov., 1949: 254Georg Simmel (March 1, 1858 September 28, 1918Biography of Simmel

A society is a group of people who share a culture and live more or less together. They have a set of institutions which provide what they need to meet their physical, social, and psychological needs and which maintain order and the values of the culture.

Social structures are the more or less stable patterns of peoples interactions and relationships.

Institutions are the principal social structures that organize, direct, and execute the essential tasks of living. Societies represent the most comprehensive and complex type of social structure in todays world.

Some institutions are: Family, Medical, educational, economic, religious, legal

and political systems

Copyright 2009 The McGraw Hill Company

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Society Is Studied By

Using Scientific methods to Study

Variations in social structures

Variations in social Institutions

How they are held together

How they change

How they effect the people who interact in them

This is what makes up sociology

The Sociology of the Social Sciences

The development of the discipline of sociology is itself a product of a specific social context. Sociology did not arise naturally. Instead, the discipline became popular within the context of a changing world, when growing numbers of people began to turn from abstract ideas and debates to thinking about how things work in the real world and how that world could be systematically investigated. What was the historical context in which sociology began to develop?Sociology and the Industrial Revolution
Here we explore how sociology emerged during a period of rapid industrialization and urbanization, as prominent thinkers began posing questions that could not be addressed by the natural sciences, questions about the social causes and effects of these broad changes.Industrialization refers to a historical period when factories and large-scale goods production became the centerpiece of Western economies. Urbanization refers to the growth of cities, as people who previously lived in rural areas moved to urban centers looking for jobs in the industrial sector.What units of analysis do sociologists work with, and how do these differ from those of other disciplines?

How can a sociological imagination help you better understand your world?Why do social contexts matter?Where did sociology come from, and how is it different from the other social sciences?How can this book help you develop a sociological imagination?

THE BIG QUESTIONS

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The Sociological Imagination

The sociological imagination is the capacity to think systematically about how many things we experience as personal problems are really social issues widely shared by others born in a similar time and social location as us. The sociological imagination produces important theories about the world and helps us think critically about our own lives, our surroundings, and why we are the way we are. At its core, the sociological imagination is a way of viewing human behavior: individual lives unfold within and are shaped by their surrounding social environments.How can a sociological imagination help us to challenge stereotypes?Looking Through a Sociological LensThis allows us to see the social origins of the world around us, questioning the degree to which it is natural or inevitable and then challenging existing stereotypes about human beings. Engaging Our Sociological Imaginations: Learning to Ask Good Questions Learning to ask good questions involves moving beyond making broad generalizations about people toward well-developed ideas and complex theories.What types of questions are sociologists particularly well equipped to explore?

Looking through a Sociological Lens

Sociological imagination

Capacity to think systematically about how many things we experience as personal problems (C. Wright Mills 1959)

Social networks

Ties between people, groups, and organizations

Globalization

Increased flow of goods, money, ideas, and people across national borders

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Sociological imagination

Challenges our basic impulses to see aspects of life as inevitable or natural
Provides insight into stereotyping and active discrimination
Facilitates more active and effective participation in the world around us

Challenging Stereotypes

We are quick to identify differences across groups of peoplemen and women, rich and poor, whites and other racesas inherent to characteristics of these groups. DefinitionsStereotypes are beliefs about members of a group that are usually false, or at least exaggerated, but are the basis of assumptions made about individual members of the group.Discrimination refers to any behavior, practice, or policy that harms, excludes, or disadvantages individuals on the basis of their group membershipbecause of their age long before they are too old to do their jobs.

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Learning to ask good question

Ability to ask hard questions instead of accepting easily available answers is hallmark of sociological imagination

How are these sociological questions formed?

Lets talk about an example

Engaging Our Sociological Imaginations

It is our ability to ask hard questions instead of just accepting easily available answers that is the hallmark of a good sociological imagination.Everyone has some degree of sociological imagination.Sociological imagination used with every attempt to make sense of our social worldpeople watching.

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Why does the richest country in the world have so many people living in povertyfar more than other, less wealthy countries?

Forming Sociological Questions

Figure 1.1, Manza, Haney, and Arum (2012), The Sociology Project, Chp. 1, p. 8.The Rich Are Getting Richer Income inequality is particularly great in the United States, and the divide between rich and poor is growing.While the rich are getting richer, the majority of Americans are not. In 2010, as the United States continued to recover from an economic recession, a remarkable 93 percent of the additional income created in the country that year went to the top 1 percent of taxpayers, those with at least $352,000 in income, while the bottom 99 percent received a minuscule $80 increase in pay per person.Asking questions can be difficult. But hard questions are important, and oftentimes the world becomes a better place only when the authorities are forced to address such questions.DefinitionsSocial theories: Over-araching frameworks that suggest certain assumptions and assertions about the way the world works, for posing such questions and evaluating evidence related to those questions.Research methods: Ways of systematically studying these questions to develop new evidence that allows new answers to be generated.

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Arum and Roksa (2011)

Tracked young adults progress through diverse colleges and universities and beyond
Revealed different college experiences and different postgraduate paths
Found slightly more than a third of students demonstrated no significant improvement on general skills test

What questions would sociologists pose to understand the above findings?

Forming Sociological Questions

Figure 1.2, Manza, Haney, and Arum (2012), The Sociology Project, Chp. 1, p. 8.

QuestionsDo students spend less time on their studies now than students did a generation ago?Why are certain colleges more focused on academic learning than others/Why do some schools become known as party schools?How has the nature of campus life changed in the last few decades?Are students more or less likely to join organizations or to interact with each other collectively during their college years than at other points in their life?As the ratio of male to female students on college campuses changes, how have dating and courtship patterns been altered?Is the U.S. alone in these changes in higher education, or are there global shifts underway to change the meaning and experience of college across national borders?

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What types of questions are sociologists particularly well equipped to explore?

Forming Sociological Questions

Here are four to consider:

How do students lives before college shape their experiences in college?How do the social organizations of college life shape students; experiences?Does the experience of college benefit everyone equally?How are students college paths shaped by the larger labor markets awaiting students upon graduation?General questionsHow do broader social factors shape academic performance and thinking?How do our relationships with each other and our participation in groups and organizations affect how education is learned and experiences?How do the broader effects of government social policies, regulations, and laws and the way they can make education inaccessible or unappealing to certain social groups affect education?Questions on slideThe four examples suggest, sociological questions are concerned with a broad canvas of the modern world. Our questions range widely from the basic units of human lifeor individuals relationships with othersto the groups and organizations we are a part of, all the way up to a now rapidly changing global economy that is impacting all of our social relationships.Learning how to ask the important questions, and to think hard about how to probe for answers, is the heart of the sociology project.

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Here are questions that
directly affect YOU!

What kind of jobs are recent college graduates getting?How are students college paths shaped by the larger labor markets awaiting students upon graduation?

Forming Sociological Questions

Figure 1.4, , Manza, Haney, and Arum (2012), The Sociology Project, Chp. 1, p. 11

Employment Stat us of RE CEN T College Graduates

What kind of jobs are recent college graduates getting?

Fifty-six percent are working in fields that require a college degree, but 22 percent are working in fields that dont require a college degree, apparently taking jobs they are overqualified . And the bad news is that another 22 percent are out of work altogether.

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Immanuel Wallerstein

Mapping development of a world economy

Troy Duster (1990)

Political and economic ramifications of DNA research (i.e., race)

Harvey Molotch and colleagues (2010)

Various aspects of popular culture

Colin Jerolmack (2013)

Communication between pigeons and humans

The Endless Reach of the Sociological Imagination

Can you think of other examples?

What about exposure to violence?

The Endless Reach of the Sociological Imagination

Living in a high-crime neighborhood increases stress levels and is harmful to children in many waysSee Sharkeys research findings later in the chapterLater in this chapter, we will explore Pat Sharkeys groundbreaking research on the link between neighborhood violence and childrens school performance.He discovered that within the week following a homicide in their neighborhood, children in Chicago scored significantly lower on reading and vocabulary tests than they had in the week prior to the homicide. This drop occurred regardless of whether or not the children had actually witnessed or heard about the violence directly. Sharkeys research teaches us how violence can be absorbed by and transmitted through neighborhood contextsand how children, who are perhaps the most vulnerable to such exposure, experience their effects at school as well as home.

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Why do social contexts matter?

QUESTION 2

Social Contexts: From Individuals to Society

Social context refers to the range of social environments, including economic, political, and cultural, that surround individuals and influence our lives.

How do our families and communities shape our social development?Families and Communities These social contexts shape individual racial, ethnic, religious, and gender identities. They are important for socializing children into social norms. They provide ongoing social networks and invest financial resources in childrens education. They also help us develop emotional and cognitive capacities.How do the organizations and institutions we are a part ofhelp us form our identities?Organizations and Institutions Organizations and institutions include the places we work, worship, relax, exercise, and pursue political and social objectives. These spaces shape what identities are available to us, how we value them, why we gravitate toward some and not others. They also shape what opportunities are available to us by connecting individuals to larger social networks.

Immediate family, parent educational level, and incomeNeighborhood and communityEducationTypes of organizations available and accessedType of employmentCountry of birthHistorical period at birth

Individual Lives Unfold in Contexts

Families as Context

Give racial, ethnic, and religious identitiesTeach basic rules of societyProvide first social networksInfluence education and cognitive capacities through life-long interactionsHelp in later life

How Do Our Families Shape Our Social Development?

Our families shape who we are in a variety of ways: by giving us racial, ethnic, and religious identities; by teaching us the basic rules of society and how to behave in society or in particular social settings; through the networks parents provide us and where they have chosen to live (and thus where we grow up); by the financial resources that our parents can invest in our education as well as the emotional and cognitive capacities they have developed in us through life-long interactions; and (possibly) in the extent to which they are willing and able to help out later in life as we become adults and perhaps even attempt to raise a new generation of children.Sociological research can inform us when families do or do not provide these things.

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How Do Our Communities Shape Our Social Development?

Pat Sharkey

Groundbreaking research on link between neighborhood violence and childrens school performance
Demonstrates how violence can be absorbed by and transmitted through neighborhood contexts
Highlights how children, who are perhaps the most vulnerable to such exposure, experience their effects at school as well as home

Communities as Context

Pat Sharkeys groundbreaking research on the link between neighborhood violence and childrens school performance.He discovered that within the week following a homicide in their neighborhood, children in Chicago scored significantly lower on reading and vocabulary tests than they had in the week prior to the homicide. This drop occurred regardless of whether or not the children had actually witnessed or heard about the violence directly. Sharkeys research teaches us how violence can be absorbed by and transmitted through neighborhood contextsand how children, who are perhaps the most vulnerable to such exposure, experience their effects at school as well as home.

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Organizations and Institutions as Context

Kinds of groups joined and contacts formed create variety of opportunities
Participation in organizations shape personal and public identities available to us

How Do the Organizations and Institutions We Are a Part of Help Us Form Our Identities?

The same is true of the identities we form for ourselvesboth our public identities, like political and religious affiliations, and our personal identities, like our sexual, gender, ethnic, or racial identifications. The organizations we are a part of shape what identities are available to us, how we value them, and why we gravitate to some and not others.

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Can our racial identity can change according to the kind of institutions where we are connected?

What do you think?

YesSociologists recently discovered that male prisoners were more likely to identity as African American after doing time in prison or jail than before (Saperstein and Penner 2010). Researchers who interviewed these men were also more likely to define them as African American after learning they had served timeagain, even when these same men had earlier been categorized as white prior to incarceration.

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Would it be the same today as then?

1910 African American male in South1940s child from Detroit working-class family 1950s woman entering adulthood

How Do the Organizations and Institutions We Are a Part of Help Us Form Our Identities?

Examples like these highlight how C. Wright Mills (1959) notion of sociology as the study of where history and biography meet comes to life.

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Sociology

Involves study of the diverse contexts within which society influences individuals
Distinguishes between social interaction and social structure

Sociology as the Study of Social Contexts

Ranges from how individual attributes are associated with differences in life course outcomes all the way up to the world of politics, government policies, technology, and the global economy and environmentDefinitionsSocial interaction refers to way people act together, including how they modify and alter their behavior in response to presence of others.Norms are the basic rules of society that helps define what is and is not appropriate in any situation.Supporting informationThe importance of the social part of social interaction becomes most clear to us when we violate societal rules of acceptable behavior (or when we imagine the social sanctions that would follow if we did violate the rules).The complexity of the rules of social interaction has perhaps been most clearly revealed by the limits of artificial intelligence. we censor ourselves because of our concern for the social consequences of our action.Societies develop a set of norms that typically govern our behavior. Norms gives us guidelines for our behavior; while they are generally not written down anywhere, we learn and absorb them from our interactions with important others (such as parents, friends, teachers, ministers, or mentors).DefinitionsSocial structure: Refers to the external forces, most notably in the social hierarchies and institutions of society.Social hierarchy : Involves a set of important social relationships that provide individuals and groups with different kinds of status, in which some individuals and groups are elevated above others.Institutions of society: Include longstanding and important practices and the organizations that regulate those practices that provide the framework for our daily lives.Social structures are limiting and enabling; without them, chaos occurs. They provide organization and order but are largely invisible.Components of social structures include hierarchies and institutions. Hierarchies impact who we are and what we can achieve. Our roles in lifeour positions within an institution or organization that come with specific rules or expectations about how to behaveare partly determined by our social standing.Institutions matter as well. Because they are not easily changed, institutions are difficult to avoid, and we frequently must answer to them. This is fairly obvious in the case of laws and the legal system but perhaps less so when we think about institutions like economic markets.

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Where did sociology come from, and how is it different from the other social sciences?

QUESTION 3

The Sociology of the Social Sciences

Sociologys Family: SiblingsSociologys Family includes other social sciences, such as political science and anthropology, that are nonetheless distinct from sociology in two key ways: 1) sociology engages with a broader range of concepts and theories; and 2) sociology encompasses different units of analysisit looks at the social world through various levels of abstraction, akin to a photographer with multiple lenses. What are some of the spin-off fields that originally started in sociology?Sociologys ChildrenThere are a range of disciplines that are spin-offs from sociology, such as African American studies, industrial relations, and demography.How Can This Book Help You Develop a Sociological Imagination?Looking AheadThe authors hope that developing a sociological imagination will help you understand how seemingly personal problems can also be understood as larger problems facing society.What does it mean to describe this book and sociology as a whole as a project?This book, and sociology as a discipline, is truly a project something we are collectively engaged in building and something for which there are relatively few completely settled answers.

Comte (1798-1859)

Coined term sociology

Veblen (1857-1929)

Commons (1862-1945)

Economics and sociology

Smith (1723-1790)

Marx (1818-1883)

Philosophy and economic relations

Sociologys Historical Context: Great Thinkers and Schools

Durkheim (1858-1917)

Father or sociologyFirst European Sociology Department and major European journal of sociology

University of Chicago

First U.S. Sociology Department

What Was the Historical Context in Which Sociology Began to Develop?

In a span of just 20 years, then, a whole battery of social sciences would come to establish an institutional presence in the United States.

Photo: The Chicago School developed many important ideas about society based on detailed studies in the city of Chicago.

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Industrialization

Growth of factories and large-scale goods productionNew technologies and innovationsImmense social changesDifferent approaches needed

Urbanization

Growth of cities in late nineteenth century in U.S., Europe, and elsewhereShift from agriculture to manufacturingProblems were markedly differentNew type of political challenge, including social movements

Sociologys Historical Context

Period of new technologies and innovations contributed to growth of large-scale manufacturing of consumer products-transforming agriculture-based to manufactoring-based economiesUrbanization marked by population growth in urban areas and cities (1850-1920)

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How does sociology differ from other social sciences?

Concepts and theories cover wider range of topics
Explanations of how the external world shapes behaviors of individuals and social outcomes are broader

Sociologys Family: Siblings

Similar impulse to understanding the emerging social worlds spawned by industrialization and urban growth in all social sciencesSociology is not defined according to a specific institution or area of life

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How we see a community or social setting is shaped by what vantage point we use.

Different levelsDifferent units of analysisWider range of connections than other social sciences

Do you know ways in which sociology differs from other social sciences?

How is Sociology Different?

How we see a community or social setting is shaped by what vantage point we use. Viewed from space, social life doesnt appear very different, but the closer we get the greater the differences we can see.Different levelsDifferent units of analysisWider range of connections than other social sciences

Do you know ways in which sociology differs from other social sciences?

What Units of Analysis Do Sociologists Work With, and How Do These Differ from Those of Other Disciplines?

Sociology differs from psychology in explaining individual behavior and the importance of contexts.Sociology differs from economics and tend to believe that economists do not consider a wide enough range of factors and forces affecting human behavior.Sociology is most interdisciplinary of all traditional social science disciplines.

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What are some of the spin-off fields that originally started in sociology?

CriminologyGender StudiesAfrican American StudiesLatino/a StudiesOrganizational or Management Studies

Sociologys Children

Learning the basics of sociology is an essential foundation for any one of these newer fields. At its core, sociology will remains a foundational disciplinefor many of the interdisciplinary social sciences.

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How can this book help you to develop a sociological imagination?

Question 5

To provide background on key areas and research findings for the development of your own sociological imagination
To facilitate an understanding how individuals lives are embedded in social contexts that are not always of their own choosing
To develop an appreciation of how personal issues that individuals face often can be understood as larger social problems facing society
To convey the idea that sociology as a discipline is a project

Goal for this Book: