Introduction to Sociology -...

I N STRU C TO R’S M A N UA L

Introduction to SociologySEVENTH EDITION

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http://TestbankCollege.eu/Solution-Manual-Introduction-to-Sociology-7th-Edition-Giddens

I NSTRUC TO R’S M A N UA L

for Anthony Giddens,Mitchell Duneier,Richard P. Appelbaum,and Deborah Carr ’s

Introduction to SociologySE V ENTH ED ITI O N

J OSEPH CO NTIUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA

M I C H A EL F LOTADAYTONA BEACH COMMUNITY COLLEGE

DA N A M . GREEN EWAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY

H U EI-HSI A W UBOISE STATE UNIVERSITY

B W • W • NORTON & COMPANY • NEW YORK • LONDON

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Copyright © 2009 by W. W. Norton & Company.

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ISBN: 978-0-393-93274-4

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W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1 What Is Sociology? 1

Chapter 2 Asking and Answering Sociological Questions 20

Chapter 3 Culture and Society 34

Chapter 4 Socialization and the Life Cycle 50

Chapter 5 Social Interaction and Everyday Life 64

Chapter 6 Groups, Networks, and Organizations 82

Chapter 7 Conformity, Deviance, and Crime 103

Chapter 8 Stratification, Class, and Inequality 122

Chapter 9 Global Inequality 152

Chapter 10 Gender Inequality 171

Chapter 11 Ethnicity and Race 185

Chapter 12 Aging 205

Chapter 13 Government, Political Power, and Social 218 Movements

Chapter 14 Work and Economic Life 243

Chapter 15 Families and Intimate Relationships 258

Chapter 16 Education and the Mass Media 271

Chapter 17 Religion in Modern Society 287

Chapter 18 The Sociology of the Body: Health and Illness 303 and Sexuality

Chapter 19 Urbanization, Population, and the Environment 320

Chapter 20 Globalization in a Changing World 341

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C H A P TE R 1

What Is Sociology?

I. OVERVIEWGiddens, Duneier, Appelbaum, and Carr begin this seventh edition of their Introduction to Sociology text with a basic historical overview of the field. After being introduced to the explanatory and predictive powers that sociology offers, students want to understand how the theories offered by the founding fathers (AKA dead white sociologists) can explain current events. In essence, this chap-ter is a Pandora’s Box, of sorts. Once they open it, students will want to become veritable detectives in an attempt to determine and understand how the various theories can help them critically analyze social events occurring around them. In Chapter 1, students are introduced to the sociological canon—the works of Auguste Comte, Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Émile Durkheim—as well as to the reality that sociology does not exist in a vacuum. Instead, students learn that sociology draws on numerous other disciplines (including politi-cal science, psychology, economics, and cultural anthropology) to gain its broad ability to examine both the microsociological and macrosociological events occurring in modern social life. Several themes are begun in Chapter 1 and remain pervasive through the text: the focus on symbolic interactionism, con-flict theory (Marx), and functionalism (Durkheim) is particularly noteworthy, as is a strong emphasis on the effects of industrialization and globalization. Each chapter makes reference to these theorists and issues, thereby providing a con-sistent orientation for students.

II. LECTURE OUTLINE I. Definition: Sociology is the scientific study of human social life,

groups, and societies.

II. Developing a Sociological Perspective A. Looking beyond the surface level or personal perspective of events

to the deeper, wider social context

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2 ◆ Chapter 1 What Is Sociology?

B. Ability to identify general patterns of behavior and the systematic social influences that cause them

C. The Sociological Imagination: making linkages between private issues and social problems

D. Requires students to “think themselves away” from the familiar routines of daily life

E. Studying Sociology: The sociological imagination allows us to see that many events that seem to concern only the individual actually reflect larger social issues.

1. Like our perception of the world, who we are is partially determined by our choices and by the social context in which we find ourselves.

a. As individuals, we both make and are made by the society we live in.

2. Social Structure: the underlying regularities or patterns in how people behave and in their relationships to one another

3. Structuration: the two-way process by which we shape our world through our individual actions and are in turn reshaped by society

F. Developing a Global Perspective: communication can now take on a truly global nature, requiring us to think globally about sociological phenomena.

1. Advances in communications, transportation, and information technology have linked the local to the global. Also known as:

2. Globalization: the growth of world interdependence 3. We are connected to other societies and other societies to us;

our actions have consequences for others and their actions have consequences for us.

4. Local problems can become global problems; global problems are local problems.

G. Understanding Social Change is a major concern of sociological analysis and a major theme of this book/class.

1. The early sociological thinkers tried to understand the process of social change taking place between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

2. Early theorists struggled to understand the shift from societies in the West based on agriculture to societies based on industrialization.

III. The Development of Sociological Thinking: A. Theories and Theoretical Approaches



Chapter 1 What Is Sociology? ◆ 3

1. Theories: abstract interpretations that can explain a wide variety of situations

a. The complexity of human societies means that factual research must always be assisted in explanation by theoretical frameworks.

2. Theoretical Approach: a perspective on social life derived from a particular theoretical tradition

B. Early Theorists: 1. August Comte: coined the term “sociology,” regarded

sociology as the last science to be developed, and thought social scientists would be able to predict and control social behavior through scientific knowledge.

2. Émile Durkheim: first of three major sociological thinkers a. Social Facts: aspects of social life that shape our actions as

individuals, such as the state of the economy or the influence of religion.

b. Organic Solidarity: modern societies are held together by specialized systems all working in harmony just as in a living organism.

i. Requires cooperation and consensus on basic values and customs

c. Social Constraint: social structure is more than the sum of individual parts; constrains and directs human action as if an external force.

d. Anomie: a feeling of aimlessness or despair provoked by modern social life

i. Study of suicide rates demonstrated this principle ii. Social and cultural change cannot keep pace with the

rapid and intense changes of modern life (i.e., technology), causing breakdown in the values and meaning of many individuals’ daily lives.

3. Karl Marx: second major sociological theorist a. Materialist Conception of History: material or economic

factors have a prime role in determining historical change. b. Class conflict under capitalism has become the most

important social relationship. c. Owners become a ruling class while workers are exploited

for their labor. i. Eventually the workers would overthrow this system

and replace capitalism with a system of greater equality and communal ownership of the means of production.




4. Max Weber: the last of the three major theorists. a. Although heavily influenced by Marx (“debating with the

ghost of Marx”), Weber differed in important ways: notably his insistence that values, ideas, and meaning played at least as important roles in society as economic factors.

b. Rise of capitalism in Western societies: i. Religion: Protestant ethic of hard work, frugality, and

sacrifice led to economic expansion. c. Bureaucracy: a large organization divided into jobs based

on specific functions and staffed by officials ranked according to a hierarchy

i. Bureaucracies would grow and expand in the modern era due to their efficiency, but they would also make effective democratic governance more difficult.

d. Weber was more cautious than Marx or Durkheim in claiming sociology is a science that can use the same techniques as those used in studying the physical world.

C. Neglected Founders: 1. Harriet Martineau a. Argued researchers must look at all aspects of a society,

including political, religious, and social institutions b. Emphasized that the analysis of women’s lives must also be

a central feature of social research c. First to turn a sociological eye toward many ignored issues

such as marriage, children, race relations, and religion d. Argued sociologists must make society better, and

advocated women’s rights and the emancipation of slaves 2. W. E. B. Du Bois a. Double Consciousness: the split consciousness that

African Americans feel about being both “American” and “black,” and that the black self-concept is allowed to be seen only through the eyes of others, namely whites

b. Sophisticated analysis of race relations still holds true as he delved into the social and economic underpinnings of race and poverty that sociologists widely accept today

c. Du Bois argued that social analysis should be connected to social reform. He was one of the founding members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and a long-time advocate for the collective struggle of African Americans.




D. Modern Theoretical Approaches 1. Symbolic Interactionism: theoretical approach that

emphasizes the symbolic nature of interaction, especially through language

a. Language allows us to become self-conscious beings b. Symbol: something that stands for something else, allows

symbolic thought. c. Interaction consists of the exchange of symbols i. What is appropriate, what is not? d. The theory directs our attention to the details of

interpersonal interactions and how we use that detail to make sense of what others say and do.

e. Weakness: May focus too much on small-scale activity 2. Functionalism: theoretical perspective based on the notion

that social events can best be explained in terms of the functions they perform; things exist because they serve a function

a. Society is like the human body: diverse systems working together to ensure the survival of the organism.

b. Society tends toward order and stability. This is achieved through the maintenance of a moral consensus.

c. Manifest Functions: functions known to and intended by the participants in a social activity

d. Latent Functions: consequences of a social activity of which the participants are unaware

e. Weakness: often unduly stresses the factors leading to cohesion and order at the expense of those causing division and conflict, as well as sometimes unjustifiably attributing individual human qualities such as “needs” and “purposes” to societies

3. Marxism and Class Conflict: society is characterized by division and class conflict over scarce or valued material resources

a. Associated closely with the radical political movement of Karl Marx

b. Power: the capability of groups or individuals to make their own concerns or interests count, even when others resist

c. Ideology: the ideas of the powerful are used to justify the actions of the powerful in the minds of those they exploit

i. If ideology fails, the use of force is always an option.




4. Feminism and Feminist Theory: contemporary perspective notable for placing the issues of gender and women in particular at the forefront of sociological analysis.

a. Argues for the link between social analysis and social action

b. Sees gender relations and inequality as key social life in institutions such at the family, workplaces, the educational system, etc.

c. Gender patterns are not natural, they are socially constructed systems of power.

d. Increasingly focuses on the intersection of gender, race, and class

5. Rational Choice Theory a. Draws on one of Weber’s four categories of behavior: i. That which is oriented toward higher values ii. That which is oriented toward habits iii. That which is oriented toward emotion iv. That which is oriented toward self-interest b. The Rational Choice Approach focuses on the last of these. i. Self-interest is the best single variable to explain

society. A popular example is that of “marriage markets.”

c. Irrational behavior among humans is very rare and should normally be discounted in social analysis.

6. Postmodernism and Postmodern Theory: states that society is no longer governed by history or progress. Postmodern society is highly pluralistic and diverse with no “grand narrative” guiding its development.

a. Contemporary society is dominated by the new media, virtual realities of film, videos, commercialism, and the Internet.

b. Baudrillard: electronic media have destroyed our relationship to the past and created a chaotic, empty world.

i. Economic forces no longer shape society as Marx argued, but instead life is influenced by signs, images, and symbols.

ii. Much of our world has become a make-believe universe in which we are responding to media images rather than real persons or places.

E. Theoretical Thinking in Sociology 1. In sociology, a distinction is made between theoretical

approaches and theories themselves.




a. Theoretical Approaches refer to overall orientations to the subject matter of sociology.

b. Theories are more narrowly focused and represent attempts to explain particular social conditions or types of events.

i. Example: Durkheim’s theory of suicide 2. Following Merton, many sociologists argue that theories of

the middle range should be pursued rather than the grand narratives of the founders such as Marx or Durkheim.

a. Middle Range Theories are specific enough to be tested empirically, yet sufficiently general to cover range of different phenomena.

i. Example: Relative Deprivation theory 3. Although wide-ranging theories are more difficult to test or

prove empirically, there seems no reason sociology should be confined to the middle range.

4. The diversity of approaches and theories might seem a weakness, but it is not. It simply reflects the complexities and diversity of the human condition.

F. Levels of Analysis: Microsociology and Macrosociology 1. Theoretical approaches occur at two different level of

analysis: a. Microsociology is the study of everyday behavior in

situations of face-to-face interactions. b. Macrosociology is the analysis of large-scale social

systems, such as the political system or the economic order.

c. Although these two seem quite distinct from one another, they are in fact closely connected.

i. Macroanalysis is essential to understand the institutional background of everyday life.

ii. Micro studies are in turn needed to illuminate broad institutional patterns.

d. Face-to-face interactions form the basis of all social organization, no matter how large in scale.

IV. Is Sociology a Science? A. The founders of sociology thought of it as a science, but is it

really? To answer this question we must first discover what we mean by “science.”

B. Science is the use of the systematic methods of empirical investigation, the analysis of data, theoretical thinking, and the




logical assessment of arguments to develop a body of knowledge about a particular subject matter.

1. Sociology is a scientific endeavor according to this definition (it is conducted scientifically).

a. Systematic methods of empirical investigation b. Analysis of data c. Assessment of theory in light of evidence and logical

argument 2. Studying human beings is different from observing events in

the natural world. a. Humans are self-aware, have intentions and free will. They

can be influenced simply by knowing they are being scrutinized and may behave differently than they normally would.

V. How Can Sociology Help Us in Our Lives? A. Awareness of Cultural Differences: can help us to understand how

others live and what they feel their own problems are B. Assessing the Effects of Policies: 1. Why did a policy fail? 2. Why did the policy have unintended consequences? C. Self-Enlightenment: 1. The more we know about why we act as we do, the better we

are able to control our own futures. 2. Less powerful groups can gain information on how to respond

effectively to government policies or form policy initiatives of their own.

D. The Sociologist’s Role: 1. Many concern themselves with practical matters as

professionals: a. industrial consultants, urban planners, social workers,

personnel managers, journalism, law, business, medicine, etc.

2. Sociologists frequently develop a social conscience and advocate for social change.

a. A debate exists over the appropriateness of their advocating for change, but most feel it would be strange if sociologists did not take sides on practical issues.

3. Sociology isn’t just an abstract intellectual field, but has practical implications for people’s lives.




III. LECTURE NOTESWhat is sociology? This is the question that every student will have on the very first day of your class. Is this a real science, or is it just common sense? What can I really learn about society and people by studying this topic? Who are sociologists? How do they know that what they see happening in social life is actually what is occurring? What is real and what is perceived? What about bias and values getting in the way? How do we go about studying society and groups of people scientifically? These are all questions that students in an intro-ductory sociology course will have as they embark on the fascinating and thrill-ing ride of understanding societal dynamics at work! We will often begin our classes with the question, “What is sociology?” Then we post student responses on the board. Students will often come up with the basic definitions of sociology, like “it is the study of society,” or “it is the study of people and culture.” Both these definitions are partially correct. Giddens, Duneier, and Appelbaum define sociology as “the scientific study of human social life, groups, and societies.” We like to elaborate on this definition for our students to include the following: Sociology is not only the study of human social life, groups, and societies, but it is also the study of people in groups. It gives us the tools to understand the most far-reaching and global phenomena while at the same time letting us understand why we, as individuals, act, react, and interact with our culture and society in the ways we do. In essence, most of us experience society in only a limited way—we know our families, we are famil-iar with some politics (mostly those that affect us or our families in some way), we know the culture in which we were raised, and we are familiar with the idea that people and customs that exist in our society and internationally differ from our own. Sociology challenges us to leave the familiar behind and to delve into the inner workings of our society. Sociology demonstrates that we need to take a broader look at why we are as we are, and why we act as we do. It teaches us that what we often take for granted in society (i.e., that which is natural, good, or even inevitable) is very strongly influenced by historical and social forces. Thus, what Giddens, Duneier, Appelbaum, and Carr argue is very true: “Understanding the subtle yet complex ways in which our individual lives reflect the contents of our social experience” is basic to the sociological outlook. Now that we have a working definition of sociology, we can move on to a more difficult question: How can we learn to think sociologically? How do we develop a sociological perspective? We find that some students may think of sociology as simply the affirmation of common sense or common knowledge, as discussed by the authors in the first chapter. But in fact thinking sociologi-cally can be in direct conflict with many of the ways that students, particularly if they were raised in the United States, think about the world and their role




in it. For example, individualism or belief in the United States as a meritocracy often makes it difficult to think about the world sociologically. Thus, sociolo-gists often talk about the art of studying society being largely imaginative. That is, in order to understand the nature of social events, one must actively cultivate his or her sociological imagination. Sociologists must be able to detach from personal circumstances to look at the world around them. C. Wright Mills called the ability to put events into a wider context the sociological imagination. Mills argues that “the sociological imagination requires us, above all, to think ourselves away from the familiar routines of our daily lives in order to look at them anew.” In this way, we like to demonstrate how we use the sociological imagination and to demonstrate its use through examples. Durkheim’s study of suicide is a good example because the students will have read about it in the chapter. Most people tend to think of suicide as the most personal decision an individual can make, but Durkheim’s work shows how those decisions are influenced by larger social forces, such as issues of social solidarity and cohesion. We then bring in more examples of contemporary research that may be more immediately interesting to the students and relevant for understanding the contemporary world. Since Hurricane Katrina and other disasters around the globe, sociologists have con-tinued to build on a long tradition of examining the social causes, impacts, and effects of such disasters. The former UN secretary general Kofi Annan stated that there were no such things as “natural” disasters. This statement is a good place to begin thinking sociologically about events that are sometimes described as “natural.” Sociologists have studied the impacts of environmental racism, where poor communities of color often feel the greatest impacts of disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. Wildfires in southern California, cyclones in Myanmar, earthquakes in China, floods in Midwestern cities all provide examples in which students can begin to make connections between what are often portrayed as personal tragedies and larger, systemic issues. At this point, we invite students to begin to use their sociological imaginations and connect their own personal experiences or problems with larger social issues. We ask students to write about an event that they feel has shaped their lives, such as divorce or attending college, and ask them to connect that experi-ence to larger social structures or patterns of behavior. If students are comfort-able, we ask them to share their first attempts at exercising their sociological imaginations with the rest of the class to begin larger discussions about the many social structures that shape their lives. Thus, we stress to our students that even though we are all influenced by the social contexts in which we find ourselves, none of us are determined in our behavior by those contexts. Instead, we create our own individuality. As sociologists, we are given the task of looking at the interconnectedness of what society makes of us and what we make of ourselves.




Events (such as September 11) give shape to how we navigate our social worlds; at the same time, we (as social beings) are structured by that world. At this point in the section, we emphasize structuration, or the idea that social structures pattern our behaviors but that those structures are at the same time reconstructed by human action. That is, we emphasize the dialectic rela-tionship between the individual and society. Students often tell us that sociol-ogy can make them feel helpless or like simply the product of large social forces, such as globalization, that are outside of their control. It is important to empha-size how people can change social situations, especially those that they con-sider unjust. Emphasis on social movements and particularly such movements as the civil rights movement that changes systems of racial oppression in the United States can remind students of their own agency in their social worlds. We then emphasize that sociology is about the construction of meaning. Every action is symbolic and every action has meaning. A student’s simply electing to take a class has meaning and is symbolic of his or her desire to learn something. The Federal Aviation Administration’s revised security guidelines are symbolic of the reality that the perception of safety with which we had lived for so long is false and that actions need to be taken to ensure the safety of all passengers in the air. Therefore, we need to consider that there are intended and unintended consequences of every action. At this point, we ask our students what the terms intended and unintended consequences mean to them. It’s pretty clear. Results that are the purpose of actions are intended consequences. Results other than the purpose of the actions are unintended consequences. The intended consequences of the new FAA regulations are that all passengers will have to spend more time getting screened at checkpoints and the airways will be safer. The unintended consequences are that this system causes delays and that people slip through with knives and other weapons. Thus, sociologists examine the balance between social reproduction and social transformation. At this point, we like to delve a bit deeper to ask students to go beyond simply challenging their thought processes and consider the theories that have made sociology the science that it is. Sociology is not just fun and conceptual, it’s theoretical. One of the most difficult portions of sociology for students to understand is the theoretical orientation of the discipline. Many introductory students are first-year students who are fresh out of high school and have not had the expe-rience of learning and applying theory to social phenomena. We often like to demystify theory by talking to students about how they use theories in their everyday lives as they are navigating the social world. Theories are abstract interpretations of how things work that are based on empirical observation. We use them when we try to make sense of our dorm mates’ behavior, when we choose our classes, when we talk to our parents. In this way, students will




not be so intimidated by the mention of the word theory. To combat this prob-lem, we often introduce the sociological canon by telling the students that the founders of sociology are “dead white men” and that it was these individuals who laid the groundwork for the fascinating work that we will be doing over the course of the term. We then introduce the early theorists—August Comte, Émile Durkheim, Karl Marx, and Max Weber—by highlighting their contribu-tions to the field and showing how each of these “dead white men” can continue to help us understand social phenomena—even today. Giddens, Duneier, Appelbaum, and Carr have also included in this textbook a section on the “neglected founders” and focus on Harriet Martineau and W. E. B. Du Bois. We find it useful to discuss the social conditions and the condition of women and people of color during the time when Marx, Weber, Durkheim were writing and the inequalities within sociology itself as a disci-pline that led to these exclusions. It is also important to emphasize the neglected founders’ unique and ultimately influential contributions to the sociological canon. Because the ideas of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber are foundational to the theoretical discussion in the remainder of the text book, we recommend covering concepts from each theorist in detail during lecture. It is important to contextualize the incredible transformations brought about by industrialization that each theorist attempted to explain. At this point, it might be useful to compare these changes to contemporary changes brought about by globaliza-tion. Marx, Weber, and Durkheim emphasized different causes and effects of large-scale social change, ranging from economic to cultural explanations. These emphases are important for students’ understanding of the theoretical develop-ments that they will learn about in later chapters (i.e. the cultural turn). Comte, Durkheim, Marx, and Weber represent the sociological canon, but theirs are by no means the only theoretical orientations in the discipline. More modern approaches (symbolic interactionism, functionalism, and conflict theory) also lend important contributions to the study of modern social events and interaction. Proponents of each of these theories build on the base created by the canon and reach very interesting conclusions. For example, one of the founders of symbolic interactionism, George Herbert Mead, argued that lan-guage is one of the most important keys to understanding social life. Language is perhaps the greatest symbol in our social realms. We communicate through our words, our gestures, and even our nonverbal interaction. We like to empha-size how much of our most mundane interaction involves the interpretation of symbolic action. We often ask a student volunteer or a teaching assistant to have a conversation with us in front of the class. We then ask students to engage in an impromptu analysis of some of the meanings they attached to the actions of the people involved in the conversation, including the words we used, our gestures, our tones of voice, etc. This small exercise demonstrates the incred-




ible amount of social knowledge it takes to communicate with others and all of the social processes that shape our most mundane of interactions. In many chapters of the textbook, the authors provide functionalist explana-tions of various topics. Therefore, a strong foundation in the basic tenets of functionalism is important. In lectures and discussions, we emphasize the func-tionalist comparison of the human body and society. We describe how early proponents of this theoretical perspective emphasized social order and cohe-sion and the self-regulating capacities of societies. We challenge students to think about how functionalists would think about globalization and global society. Can the analogy of the human body describe the increased intercon-nectedness of very different societies? How would functionalists explain war-fare in contemporary global society? Conflict theory is similarly an important theoretical perspective in the text-book. Again we ask students to think about conflict theory in the context of global society. Many contemporary social theorists have pointed out rising global inequalities due to globalization. (This theme is addressed throughout the textbook.) Do students think that there are global social classes? What sorts of divisions do they see defining the twenty first century? What are the roles of power and ideology, exploitation and alienation in contemporary global society? Can they give examples of sites of global social order and cohe-sion? Globalization is central to this textbook. Therefore, engaging students in thinking about the implications of these classic theoretical perspectives on global society will set the stage for lively discussions in future sections. Even though students will be grappling with a number of theoretical orien-tations, we like to stress the importance and even primacy of culture in our lectures. We feel that by stressing culture, we can get a better sense of what motivates individuals and groups to do and act as they do. Instead of simply comparing and contrasting Marx and Durkheim (or the conflict and function-alist perspectives) alone, we recommend challenging students to engage the microsociological and the macrosociological and to engage culture (language, symbols, customs, etc.) in their analyses of social events.

IV. DISCUSSION TOPICS AND CLASS ACTIVITIESA. The Three Perspectives

This initial chapter is the forum in which the three perspectives (conflict the-ory, functionalism, and symbolic interactionism) are introduced. The discus-sion of unintended consequences fits directly into Robert K. Merton’s distinction between latent and manifest functions (according to the func-tionalist perspective). Similarly, the manner in which Giddens, Duneier,




Appelbaum, and Carr show the importance of “defining a situation” and rec-ognizing the interaction of the various social phenomena that go into the social construction of the situation directly reflects the perspective offered by sym-bolic interactionists. Last, the discussions of Marx and Marxism trace the development of conflict theory within sociology.

B. In Class

Durkheim asked the most fundamental question: What holds society together? This led to his concern with the division of labor at the macro level and ritual at the micro level. Marx asked, “Why history?” This big question led to his investigation of the origin and nature of capitalism, the economic aspect of the historical change in the modern world. Weber asked two questions. First, “Why did the modern social order arise in Western Europe rather than some-where else?” This fundamentally comparative historical question led Weber to his investigation of world religions, of medieval cities, and of the role of the state. Looking into this question is a healthy antidote to Eurocentrism since one discovers that a betting person wouldn’t have given good odds on the rise of the West had one been wagering in 800 c.e. Weber’s second question, “Why do people do what they are told?” seems less basic, but led him to his analysis of bureaucracy (as a form of domination, remember) and takes us back full circle to the first question, since the development of rational legal authority contributed to the rise of the West. When we introduce our students to the sociological canon, we do so with the intention of introducing them to the history and basic precepts on which each theory was based. In class, we often refer to Marx, Weber, and Durkheim as the “dead white founding fathers” of sociology so that their work is distinguished not only as the canon but is set apart from more modern theories within the field (which will be presented later in the course) that not only built on their work but expanded it for mod-ern times. We stress that the three men approached the field of sociology from unique perspectives. Karl Marx was primarily interested in socioeconomic class distinctions and struggle. Issues of bureaucracy and rationality intrigued Max Weber. Durkheim was fascinated by the presumed functionality of every-day social experience. Despite their unique orientations, however, all three shared a common goal: they all strove to explain social change and generalized that concern into questions to which we all desire answers. Because the indi-vidual acts on society at the same time that society acts on the individual, we recommend that you give strong emphasis to the ideas of culture, structura-tion, and globalization in class. Giddens, Duneier, Appelbaum, and Carr aptly portray these themes throughout all twenty chapters in the text, and all three are likely to resonate with your students. Ideas pertaining to the relevance of




culture abound—especially with regard to the emphasis on globalization in the text—and an understanding of sociocultural characteristics is likely to be of interest to students. Connected to this is the idea that social beings create culture, and culture acts as an agent of constant redefinition of society (struc-turation). The growing emphasis on globalization is also important. Students will see that as our society grows more complex and more interdependent with other nations (it is not enough merely to accept the notion that the United States is a major world superpower and just leave it at that), alliances with other nations that are not only political or economic but also social increase in importance. In our first lectures, we give the example of September 11 and ask students to understand how American society was transformed by this event and how it altered the ways they navigate even the simplest act, such as packing a suitcase for a trip home that involves air travel. We implore them to watch the physical, ethnic, and national characteristics of those who get stopped for “random” searches at airport gates. We ask them to consider the ideas relating to racial profiling. American society, and indeed the world and all global citizens, have been transformed by September 11. As sad as it is, how many in society do a double-take when they hear Arabic being spoken or see someone who might be Muslim? The events of September 11 have reduced us to this. Asking questions about these patterns of behavior will open into a discussion of major concepts in the field: race, religion, culture, globalization, and social structure.

V. SUGGESTED FURTHER READINGC. Wright Mills maintained that social beings need to develop their own “soci-ological imaginations”: the ability to view themselves as the “products of socialization, as persons who are constrained by norms and mores, and as people whose personal biography has been shaped by history and social events.” This discussion is detailed in C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (New York: Oxford, 1959). One of the best summaries of a chain of unintended consequences is Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton, American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 182–185. A section on “dead white sociologists” is presented in Mark G. Eckel, “Great Dead Sociologists and Felicity’s Condition: Fundamental Ideas Is the One and Only Sociology Course,” Teaching Sociology 13, no. 1 (October 1985), 61–69. Easily taught and easy-to-understand definitions of Marxist theory are found in the Dictionary of Marxist Thought (London: Blackwell Publishers, 1991). Key terms relating to social inequality are defined in user-friendly ways.




We recommend using the definitions of social class, alienation, exploitation, and Marxism. If you discuss September 11 in your courses, a fabulous discussion of the events of that day may be found in Noam Chomsky, 9–11 (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2002). Students will benefit greatly from purchasing and referring to Nicholas Abercrombie, Stephen Hill, and Bryan S. Turner’s Penguin Dictionary of Sociology (London: Penguin Books, 2000). As they read Giddens, Duneier, Appelbaum, and Carr’s text, they may need or want clarification regarding concepts or ideas. This dictionary of sociology provides concise definitions that are easily understood and applied by students.

VI. SUGGESTED FILMS■ Because students are introduced to the sociological canon in this chapter, we enjoy showing a brief (46-minute) film that defines more clearly the work of Max Weber. The film, entitled Philosophy: The Social Context (distributed by BBCTV, 1997), discusses the radical expansion of scientific knowledge and its dehumanizing effects on society as expressed by Max Weber.■ We enjoy showing clips of films that have aired in the popular media. In introductory courses, we generally begin with clips from Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever (MCA Home Video [Universal Pictures], 1991). This film is helpful because it depicts the interaction of race, class, gender, family dynamics, urbanization, religion, and culture in its depiction of a married African American architect who begins an affair with his working-class Italian American secretary. Their relationship results in their being disowned by their families, shunned by their neighbors, and scrutinized by their acquaintances. Showing clips from this film will open up the discussions of broad sociocultural and global themes that will be more completely discussed throughout the course.■ Social reality isn’t always what it appears to be. Isn’t that what we are teach-ing our students: to evaluate critically what they observe, hear, and feel? If this is the case, as we believe it to be, showing clips from Being John Malkovich (USA Home Entertainment, Gramercy Pictures, 1999) will permit you to do just that. This is an odd film in which a struggling street puppeteer who works as a filing clerk discovers a secret door that enables him to enter the mind of John Malkovich for fifteen minutes prior to being dropped from the sky. His observations and interactions with society immediately following his experi-ence lend credence to the idea that one must not only question authority, but also question everything.




VII. CLASS ACTIVITYThree Dead White Guys Debate

Distribute short news articles to each student on several major current events and ask them to read these articles by the next class period. Good recent can-didates might include the Iraq War; Hurricane Katrina; the immigration debate; the celebrity gossip about Madonna, Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson; the wage gap between men and women; government wiretapping, etc. (We wouldn’t introduce more than five and no fewer than three).

Also tell them to make sure that they read the section on the major theorists of sociology.

During the next class period, break the class into three to five groups with each group representing one of the five theorists featured in the chapter (con-sider leaving out Comte).

Tell each group it must interpret each article from the viewpoint of its respective theorist. Float from group to group to make sure each one is reason-ably interpreting its theorist, but be sure to let the groups develop their own arguments.

When each group has developed an argument for each issue, tell them the class will now have a McLaughlin Group–style debate on these issues. You as the instructor will play moderator. Introduce each new issue with the theme of “How should we as sociologists explain so and so? I ask you Karl ‘Bad Hair’ Marx!”—or whatever variant you are comfortable with. Karl “wearing break-fast in his beard” Marx works pretty well also.

If numbers permit, let all members of the group take turns representing their theorist as the issues come up. If not, everyone gets a turn; that is still better than just one person from each group speaking the whole time, as other group members may lose interest. Many times you may find that most group members get a turn, but a few do not.

A humorous option to use during this exercise is secretly to bring in a bell, gong, or whistle. When a group has done a very bad job of explaining its theorists, you might gong them, blow a whistle, or even throw out a yellow penalty flag. When a group has done a particularly good job you might ring the bell or throw confetti from your pocket. (Of course the custodial staff may not appreciate this much, so be ready to ask everyone to help you clean up afterward!) The first time you do any of these it is sure to elicit laughter. Make sure you are light hearted about this practice, though—don’t scare them to death! The idea is to keep things fun but serious. Use your best judgment and don’t go beyond your own comfort level. If the theatrics don’t seem your style, just keep the exercise light hearted.




The goal of this project is to get group members talking to one another (team building, if your groups are permanent in the class) and engaged with the material in a thoughtful way. Typically, the first part of the exercise may not involve a great deal of discussion as students peruse the book for clues on how their theorist would respond. However, if they have done their reading, this period of quiet should not last long, as the sections on the theorists are short and easy to read.

Once the debate gets going, keep it moving at a constant pace. Try to min-imize “dead air.” Students will perceive this as a high-energy exercise despite the intellectual work that is occurring.

When the debate is over, hold a classwide discussion and ask the students which theorist they thought had the best approach to each issue and why, regardless of whom they tried to represent. A final piece of the assignment can be to have the students do an in-class free-write on what they think was the weakest argument any of the theorists tried to make with regard to one of the issues and why. Whose ideas were the “worst fit” for any given issue? Ask students to turn this writing in for a participation grade.

Advice for Large Classes: the best strategy for a very large class is to break the assignment up into several cells, all running the same exercise. If teaching assistants are available, allow them to assist in monitoring the cells and mod-erating the debates. If simultaneous debates seem a bit chaotic, that can be a good thing in moderation—it presents a sense of energy and activity in the class that can present a useful team-building atmosphere. Take care to not let this get out of control, and as with all things in a very large course, the more help you have in monitoring, the more smoothly things are likely to run.

Information on Hurricane Katrina:www.nola.com/katrina/

The Iraq War:http://usiraq.procon.org/

The Immigration Debate:www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId�5310549

The Wage Gap:http://gstudies.asp.radford.edu/sources/wage_gaps/wagegap.htm

Wiretapping Debate:www.npr.org/news/specials/nsawiretap/legality.html

The Double Standard and Pop Stars:www.nytimes.com/2006/07/13/fashion/thursdaystyles/13women.html




Name:Class:Group Number:Date:

Chapter 1 Class Activity

Three Dead White Guys Debate

Your task in this assignment is to take your assigned theorist and use his ideas to explain the issues before you. Consider yourselves spokespeople for the theorist. How would the theorist explain this event? What would the theorist emphasize about this event?

You will develop arguments that your theorist would use to explain each event. At the end of this process, your team will debate the other teams in the class to see which theorist can best explain each issue.

Questions to consider when constructing your positions for the debate:

1. After reading the section on your theorist in the text book, what do you think would be the first step your theorist would take in order to under-stand this problem?

2. What would be the main points of interest that your theorist would take on this issue? What would he try to point out that other theorists might not?

3. How would your theorist incorporate his main issues (terms that are bold-face, in italics, or listed in the text, etc.) into the debate over this issue?

4. What are the main weaknesses of your theorist in regard to the present issue? What are things that do not fit his ideas or that he does not address adequately?



20

C H A P TE R 2

Asking and Answering Sociological Questions

I. OVERVIEWLaud Humphreys’s study The Tea Room Trade, which is described at the begin-ning of this chapter, provides an example of a sociological research approaches and practices. Students are introduced to the types of questions sociologists ask, the processes of conducting research, and the variety of research methods sociologists use. In the process, foundational concepts, such as hypotheses, correlation, and causation, and sampling are defined and discussed. The chap-ter concludes by considering the ethical dimensions of doing sociological research and how safeguarding the rights of research participants can shape the methodological approaches available to the researcher. Examining the basic types of questions and approaches to sociological research enables your students to become involved in the subject matter on more than just a super-ficial level. On reading and learning the subject matter presented in this chap-ter, students will learn that they can study the key themes of the book ethically and systematically.

II. LECTURE OUTLINE

I. Sociological Questions A. To do research, sociologists must know how to ask different types

of questions. These questions are usually framed from a theoretical perspective.

B. Sociologists must also know the most useful research methods to apply to answer their questions and how to analyze the results.



Chapter 2 Asking and Answering Sociological Questions ◆ 21

C. Sociologists ask several different types of questions in their research:

1. Factual Questions: what happened? Can tell us whether we are dealing with an unusual case or a general set of influences.

2. Comparative Questions: did this happen everywhere? Relate one social context within a society to another, or contrasting examples drawn from different societies.

3. Developmental Questions: has this happened over time? Look at previous forms of society and study the main directions that processes of change have taken.

4. Theoretical Questions: what underlies this phenomenon? They above all involve what sociologists call empirical investigations; however, the need to be able to interpret what these facts mean requires the use of theory.

II. The Research Process A. Steps in the research process: 1. Define the Problem: select a topic for research. 2. Review the Evidence: familiarize yourself with existing

research on a topic. 3. Making the Problem Precise: testable hypotheses are

developed. What do you intend to test? What is the relationship among the variables?

4. Working Out a Design: choose one or more research methods: experiment, survey, observation, use of existing sources.

5. Carry Out the Research: collect your data, record your information.

6. Interpret the Results: work out the implications of the data you collect.

7. Report the Research Findings: what is their significance? How do things relate to previous findings?

B. In reality, this seemingly neat process rarely goes so smoothly.

III. Understanding Cause and Effect: A causal relationship between two events or situations is an association in which one situation produces another.

A. Causation and Correlation: Correlation refers to the existence of a consistent relationship between two variables. Causation cannot be inferred directly from correlation. A variable is any dimension along which individuals and groups vary.



22 ◆ Chapter 2 Asking and Answering Sociological Questions

1. Causal Mechanism: is there a causal connection to a correlation and if so, what is the cause?

2. Controls: holding some variables constant to look at the effects of others

a. Independent Variable b. Dependent Variable 3. Identifying Causes a. guided by previous research b. always some doubt about possible causal relationships

IV. Research Methods A. Ethnography: The first-hand studies of people by means of

participant observation or interviewing. 1. Strengths: generates richer and more in-depth information

than other methods and can provide a broader understanding of social processes

2. Limitations: used to study only relatively small groups or communities, and the findings generated might only apply to them. Also, it is difficult to generalize on the basis of a single fieldwork study.

B. Surveys: a method in which questionnaires are administered to the population being studied

1. Standardized and Open-Ended Questionnaires Standardized: fixed-choice questions Open-ended: not limited to pre-set responses Pilot studies: a trial run in which a questionnaire is completed

by just a few people to iron out difficulties before the main survey is done.

2. Sampling: studying a proportion of individuals or cases from a larger population as representative of that population as a whole

Random Sampling: every member of a population has the same chance of being chosen—ensures that sample will be representative

3. Strengths: makes possible the efficient collection of data on large numbers of individuals; allows for precise comparisons to be made between the answers of respondents; standardized surveys can be analyzed easily

4. Limitations: may be superficial; differences between respondent’s views may be glossed over by highly standardized questionnaires; responses may be what people profess to believe rather than what they actually believe




C. Experiments: variables are analyzed in a controlled and systematic way often in an artificial situation constructed by the researcher or in naturally occurring settings

1. Strengths: influence of specific variables can be controlled by investigator; are usually easier for subsequent researchers to repeat

2. Limitations: many aspects of social life cannot be brought into the laboratory; responses of those studied may be affected by the experimental setting

D. Life Histories: biographical material assembled about a particular individual—usually as recalled by the individuals themselves

E. Comparative Research: compares one set of findings on one society with the same set of findings on other societies

F. Historical Analysis: investigating past events in order to establish a time perspective for the material we collect about a particular problem

G. Combining Comparative and Historical Research: combining the logic of comparative research in a historical context (time and space)

V. Research in the Real World: Methods, Problems, and Pitfalls A. Triangulation: Because all research methods have their limitations

as well as strengths, it is common to combine more than one approach in a single piece of research, using each to supplement and check the limitations of the others.

B. Human Subjects and Ethical Problems 1. All research concerned with human beings can pose ethical

dilemmas. 2. A key question that must be asked is whether the research

poses risks for the subjects that are greater than the risks they face in their everyday lives.

3. In recent years the federal government has become increasingly strict in requiring universities that make use of government grant money for research purposes to outline how human subjects will be treated.

4. Universities also have routine and involved review procedures for human-subjects studies.

5. This has led to greater awareness than ever before of the ethical considerations of research, but it has also made human-subjects research increasingly difficult due to having to secure informed consent from the research subjects before they can be studied.




C. The Influence of Sociology 1. Reflexivity: the interchange between sociological research and

human behavior.

III. LECTURE NOTESPerhaps our favorite lecture in an introductory class is the one that students will find the driest and perhaps even the most boring: the dreaded lesson in sociological methodology. All students have inherent fears when they open their textbooks and see that they have to learn about the difference between quantitative and qualitative methodologies and the different types of questions that sociologists ask and seek to answer. The way we combat these fears is to be really up front about how dry methodological studies can be. We then try to get the students to ask the important questions and get them involved in their own learning process. This way, they don’t realize they are learning about the one topic they probably had the least interest in as they began the course. We use the concept of globalization as an orienting framework to teach students how to ask sociological questions. On the board or overhead projec-tor, we simply write globalization and then begin by asking our students to tell us what this word means. The responses are generally about interconnected-ness, the Internet, trade, and other descriptive elements related to globaliza-tion. We keep track of these ideas on the board. We then ask students to try and delve beneath the surface and think about globalization as a sociological phenomenon. We might ask them, “As sociologists, what kinds of questions should we ask about globalization? What kinds of questions would lead to fruitful research? And what do you want to know about globalization?” We keep track of these questions, organizing them on the board by the categories of question detailed in the textbook: factual, comparative, developmental, and theoretical. The questions that we like to see asked (and sometimes this requires some probing) include the following: “What are the dimensions of globalization?” “Is it just about trade and economics?” “Is globalization new?” “Is globalization affecting poor people as much as rich people?” “How does globalization affect women?” “Does globalization affect women differently in other parts of the world?” “How does globalization happen?” “How do people make globalization?” By asking our students to come up with questions such as these, we stress the point that while sociologists ask many important and pertinent questions that we also seek to answer, our findings are not always as conclusive as we would like them to be. Thus, we must make our questions as clear and concise as possible so we can garner the most complete and informed results. Additionally, we need to refine the questions we ask to be as specific




as possible so we will be able to figure out which research method will help us achieve the best results. By grouping the class’s questions into the four categories in the textbook, we demonstrate the analytic utility of thinking about different types of ques-tions and how questions can be developed in combinations that are useful for guiding research. This exercise creates the opportunity to demonstrate differ-ent types of questions in a specific context so that students will learn about the different types of questions rather than just memorizing their definitions. The ability to apply the correct line of questioning to certain phenomena will assist the student in understanding both the way to do sociology and the impli-cations of a variety of sociological studies. When students were in junior high school and even in high school, they were introduced to the scientific method. When we introduce sociological research methods, we tell them that what they will be doing in sociology is really no different from what they learned so many years ago. This helps to make the process less foreign and scary for the students in the course, and they are able to sit back and listen more effectively. We go through the steps of the scientific method: defining the problem, reviewing the evidence, creating a hypothesis (that will either be supported or rejected), refining the problem, figuring out how to prove the hypothesis, carrying out the research, interpret-ing the results, and reporting the findings. We stress that one of the primary problems that needs to be addressed in research methodology is the examina-tion of the causal relationship. As the old saying goes, “correlation does not equal causation,” and we maintain the definitional differences between the two in our lectures. Correlation means that there is a consistent relationship between two variables, and variables are anything that might vary in a relation-ship (degrees of religiosity, age, educational attainment, income, etc.). It is often difficult for students to grasp the difference between independent and dependent variables. An independent variable is a variable that produces an effect on another variable (the dependent variable). This distinction refers to the causal relationship that we are studying. It is here that we use controls (we hold one or more variables constant in order to look at the effects of others) so that we can more effectively judge causal and noncausal relation-ships. For example, Is there a causal relationship between the economic power of a country and its influence on forms of cultural globalization through such mediums as television and movies? Is there a causal relationship between a person’s social status and the likelihood that he or she will view globalization as a positive development? We note, however, that as much as we can study all the factors that may be attributed to causal relationships, some speculation always remains about the validity of the proposed relationship. As such, noth-ing in the social sciences is as precise as we would like it to be.




We use a variety of research methods in sociology to examine such socio-logical phenomena as globalization. (They are clearly outlined in the book.) These methods include ethnography and fieldwork (qualitative methodolo-gies), surveys and questionnaires (quantitative methodologies), and compara-tive historical inquiry. Here we stress some of the benefits and differences among the methodologies and indicate to our students that the research ques-tion itself is what should determine the methodology used in a study. We also let students understand that it is good to combine methodologies and do a study that is perhaps partially ethnographic. (For example, doing participant observation among garment workers in Los Angeles to learn about how they experience their working conditions and think about unionization and then also doing a survey about work among maquilla workers in Mexico.) Combining methodologies, or triangulation, can give the researcher valuable information and direction within the study. Some of the points we stress include the idea that if one engages in purely qualitative research, sample sizes are significantly smaller than they are in quantitative work, but the information that is gathered is much richer and more informative about both microsociological and mac-rosociological phenomena. Similarly, if one engages in quantitative work, sur-veys and interviews reach a larger number of people and thus more responses are included in a sample. However, in this situation, the information is more restricted (it is generally coded and interpreted statistically), and thus less-detailed information is available about the sample in the study. Comparative historical research is our favorite because at its very core is the combination of a variety of different ways to examine data. A comparative historical study will look at historical data (generally pretty rich) and documents and will likely include some quantitative data if it is available or can be recreated. Sometimes sources cannot be recreated, and this can present a problem. Whenever any form of research is conducted, students should be aware of any and all ethical concerns regarding honesty and integrity and human-subject review. We often present our students with copies of the American Sociological Association’s Guidelines for Ethical Behavior and ask them to con-sider these practices when designing their research projects. Many valuable Web sites also focus and run tutorials on ethics for students and others who are interested in conducting research. At the close of the methodology lecture, we always give a fairly in-depth assignment that requires class members to go out and do sociological meth-odology. The first part of the assignment requires them to designate a research problem. The second part asks them to construct a twenty-item questionnaire for which they must write ten open-ended and ten closed-ended questions. The third part mandates that they administer the questionnaire to twenty people on campus or in the community, and then write up their findings.




IV. DISCUSSION TOPICS AND CLASS ACTIVITIESA. The Three Perspectives

This is a methods chapter and, as such, it is not a rich source of material on the three perspectives. However, you could mention that some methods are better suited than others to inquiries from one perspective. Which perspective is best suited to explain the experience and reaction of American factory work-ers as a result of free-trade agreements? Why do advanced industrial countries tend to benefit the most from globalization? What is the role of globalization in ensuring the availability of a wide selection of consumer goods for people living in the United States? Last, can the recognition and analysis of economic disparities between the United States and Afghanistan help us understand the military response to the September 11 attacks? The answers represent sym-bolic interactionism with the first question, the conflict/Marxian perspective with the second, and functionalism in the third case. Taking points of reference from all three approaches, we can do qualitative, quantitative, and comparative historical research. It is now up to the students to determine which of their research questions is best explained with which theoretical framework and using which type of methodology.

B. In Class

The humorist Dave Barry wrote, “The Greeks gave us the Pythagorean Theorem. When we graduated from high school, we gave it back.” We are sure something like this happens for many students with regard to scientific meth-ods. It seems clear that the typical younger college student has learned what a hypothesis is, how to read a table, the difference between the mean and the median, and enough about the Cartesian plane to comprehend scatterplots and correlation. However, it appears that a substantial proportion of the stu-dents give this information back when they graduate. Also, our classes always have students who have been disadvantaged by national, regional, or ethnic origin or who either have never encountered those concepts or did so a long time ago. All this makes methods hard to teach. Here are some teaching tactics that work well for us:1. Don’t forget about methods once you finish covering Chapter 2. Introduce

them early, but throughout the course remind the students of the methods used in the various studies you refer to. Ask test questions that refer to methods: How did the choice of method shape what Kinsey was able to learn about sexual practices in the United States during the 1950s?

2. Reinforce the parallel between so-called hard science and sociology. Our subjects may be self-aware and our research reflexive, but the logic of a




sample in sociology is exactly the same as that of a sample in biology. To the degree to which your students accept the legitimacy of natural and physical science (don’t overestimate this), this comparison confers legiti-macy on social science.

3. Another parallel to draw is between experiments in natural science and in social science. We introduce independent and dependent variables by comparing a test of a new drug on treatment and control groups of rats with a social experiment, such as the classic Zimbardo prison experiment cited in the text.

4. Use humor to make scientific methods less intimidating. The “mad scien-tist,” the “absent-minded professor,” and the computer “geek” are familiar comic figures. We’re a bit of all three ourselves, and we adopt these per-sonas from time to time as we teach methods.

Chapter 1 introduces students to the general precepts of sociology and to the sociological canon. In that chapter, students learned that sociologists study all types of social phenomena and that such study may be explained by numer-ous theoretical orientations. When we get to how sociology is done, however, the waters get muddied a bit. Students often come to class thinking that soci-ology seems to be just common sense. Therefore they ask why it is useful to engage in any methodological inquiry at all. For example, one student asked why sociologists would even bother studying the effects of September 11 on the rescue and recovery workers who were on the scene in New York City. The student said that the effect was devastating on all who were there or who had any part whatever in the rescue and recovery, and that the answers would yield the results he expected—so why bother with this type of study? Our response was that individuals are unique social beings, and the way they interact with their environment and interpret the events they experience might be surpris-ing. In essence, what we try to show to our students is that sociology is not at all about pure common sense (sure, we think we know what a response might be, but do we really know until we do the research?), and that perhaps we might approach the rescue worker question from another vantage point (other than the devastation itself); namely, that helping in the rescue and recovery efforts might be cathartic and do some good for these individuals. We will not know until we do the study, so sociology does have a lot of value and does contribute to a more general understanding of the social world around us. We often hear students gripe and grumble about statistics. They will say that statistics are easily manipulated to show anything that one wants them to show, so what is the point in them anyway? How can we trust statistics? Statistics are important in explaining social phenomena, but we need to under-stand how they should be interpreted to realize that sometimes their relevance and significance should be left to the individual reading the study.




Many issues in social research methods are left to the interpretation of the researcher and to those individuals who are reading the studies that result. Sociologists have produced a lot of very intriguing and interesting social research that has had a tremendous impact on the field. For instance, Theda Skocpol’s work States and Social Revolutions completely revolutionized the way social scientists think about revolution, and much of the work by Dorothy Smith has also introduced a new perspective into the field (standpoint theory). Jay MacLeod’s work on two groups of youths (Ain’t No Makin’ It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low-Income Neighborhood) detailed the disparities in the urban and suburban experience for youth. The methods used yield studies that have resonating effects within the field, and students will begin to appreciate their importance and relevance. A final note: when we teach the section on research methods, we like to introduce the American Sociological Association’s Guidelines for Ethical Social Research. This shows students the forms that a researcher must complete to conduct research using human subjects. In so doing, we point out that many of the studies done in the past (Milgram’s social obedience studies, the Zimbardo prison experiment, and so on) are not viewed as ethical research projects today. The guidelines for doing research involving human subjects have expanded. Presenting this material to students further legitimizes social research for them.

V. SUGGESTED FURTHER READINGDuneier’s Slim’s Table: Race, Respectability, and Masculinity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992) is excellent background reading for the instructor. If you wish to assign a book or two in addition to the textbook, it would provide good background reading for students, too. Duneier’s study is significantly different from the tradition of Tally’s Corner and Streetwise and he contradicts the conclusions of macro-level studies such as those of W. J. Wilson and Douglas S. Massey and Nancy K. Denton. Duneier’s thesis provides an oppor-tunity to consider the position of African American men in our society. The working-class men at Slim’s table are different from the stereotype of African American men as either street gang members or “Buppies,” but Duneier’s study proves, not disproves, that such men are marginalized in African American urban life today. Most of them do not live with wives or children, which is why they are at the cafeteria in the first place. Furthermore, if whites still know so little about African Americans that it’s necessary to do this sort of research, that’s a sign of the pernicious consequences of the “hyper segregation” identi-fied by the macro studies.




We also highly recommend Jay MacLeod’s Ain’t No Makin’ It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low-Income Neighborhood (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995) for both instructors and students. This text introduces students to a wide variety of variables (urbanization, race, social class, deviance) and pro-vides an informative chapter on the methods that MacLeod used in his study. The idea of the achievement ideology as it is linked to perceptions of race and class is laid out well in this volume and is presented in such a way that the utility of social methods is readily apparent to the reader. A good qualitative study is also found in Lynn Davidman’s Tradition in a Rootless World: Women Turn to Orthodox Judaism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). The comparative study takes, as its orienting questions, why contemporary women are attracted to Orthodox Judaism and how that transformation is accomplished through the interactions between the newcomers and the Orthodox institutions they attend. The primary argument is that “each form of Orthodoxy has a particular approach to moder-nity that shapes all aspects of the re-socialization process, which affects the type of woman attracted to each group, the way the group presents its teachings on Orthodoxy, and the final outcome of the socialization process in each setting.” We also highly recommend any work by Earl Babbie and Andrew Abbott on the topic of social research. Both sociologists present explanatory frame-works that are highly useful to both instructors and students. Introductory students will benefit most fully from Earl Babbie’s The Practice of Social Research (8th edition) (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1995). More advanced students will find wonderful explanatory frameworks in Abbott’s Time Matters: On Theory and Method (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001). C. Wright Mills’s Sociological Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959) is a classic statement about asking sociological questions. In Mills’s formulation, the sociological imagination is the ability to make connections between personal biographies and history, linking the social-psychological orientations of people to historical social structures. He argues that the sociological imagination leads to asking three types of questions: What is the structure of this particular society as a whole? Where does this society stand in human history? What kinds of “human nature” are revealed in the conduct and character we observe in this society in this period? (Mills 1959: 6). We have found that discussing Mills’s idea can be an important vehicle for students to think about their own personal biographies in a larger social context. Finally, Michael Burawoy’s writings on public sociology (2004 American Sociological Association Presidential Address, British Journal of Sociology 56:2 [2005]) could be useful background reading for thinking about the place of




sociological analysis in larger social contexts. Like Mills, Burawoy is less con-cerned with specific methods than with metamethodological concerns about the people and purposes that sociological research serves. Considering such questions is important for how and why sociological research is conducted. They can be useful starting points for students as they try to make sense of why sociology matters and why it is more than just common sense. You probably won’t have the time to do much with this book in an introduc-tory class, but it might sharpen your own sense of how to do sociological research to read Edward O. Laumann et al., The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). There is a great deal of material here about how and whether to do social science, how to handle sensitive topics, and whether it’s possible to cope with bias.

VI. SUGGESTED FILMS■ Because this is a chapter on social methods, only a few films might be used as teaching tools. One favorite is The Eye of the Storm (ABC films, distributed by the Center for the Humanities, Mt. Kisco, NY, 1969). This twenty-eight-minute film presents a key experiment in prejudice and discrimination in a third-grade classroom. The teacher divides the students according to their eye color and treats one group as though they are superior to the other group for a day. (She reverses the trend on the second day so that the previously inferior children are now the superior ones.) The students begin to act out their roles, and the teacher watches carefully the behaviors that she observes among the children. This study was conducted in an attempt to document that prejudice and discrimination are learned attitudes.

■ One of the classic films on sociological methods and ethics, Obedience to Authority, which documents the infamous Milgram Experiments, is now avail-able on line. Searching for “milgram experiment video” should allow you to locate both segments and the full film (one such site is here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid�3641061077810748243&q�milgram�experiments&ei�w1UOSM_QI6jk4AKDj5m0BA&hl�en).

This film shows how Milgram conducted his experiment, designating partici-pants as “teachers” in charge of administering electric shocks to “learners,” who were asked to perform memory tests. Actually, the “learners” were con-federates who acted the part of receiving shocks. The “scientist” running the experiment (another confederate) encouraged the “teachers” to continue administering shocks even though they believed that they were seriously injur-




ing, and in some cases killing, the “learners.” Milgram was inspired to conduct this research by the trial of the Nazi Adolf Eichmann. Milgram wanted to understand how ordinary people could take part in atrocities. What his exper-iment demonstrated was that ordinary people are susceptible to authority and can be made into agents of atrocities by merely doing what they are told. As with The Eye of the Storm, students generally find this film highly provocative. It is useful for stimulating debate about research methods and about the ethics of conducting research. Sometimes we begin with a clip from the mid-dle of the film, showing the application of electric shocks and the horrific response that they “elicit.” This allows students an opportunity to consider the ethics of the situation from the participant’s point of view. At that point, we show the beginning of the film so students can see how the participants were instructed. Although experiments such as these would be difficult to get approved by Human Subjects Review Boards today, they remain intriguing pieces of social scientific and social psychological research. Students will benefit from viewing these films because they open the floor for questions not only about the prac-ticality and ethics of some studies, but also the covert, institutionalized, and learned dynamics of prejudice, authority, and discrimination.

VII. CLASS ACTIVITYPrejudice: A Contact Sport?

In this exercise the students must create their own research design. One way to practice creating a research design is to ask your students to conduct a survey on individuals living in forced circumstances, such as military barracks. Individuals would be interviewed about their racial attitudes at their induction into the military and then interviewed after some period of time living at the barracks.

For this assignment it can be useful to prod students along a bit since this may well be the first time they have tried to construct a research design, but they will gain great mileage in trying to find the answer for themselves. Have them turn their research design in for a grade and for a critique and then hand it back to them for revisions.

When you have allowed them to try several turns at creating a workable plan, you can present the military barracks idea and have a class discussion on the strengths and weaknesses. (For instance, might a barracks housing soldiers going through basic training be problematic because soldiers tend to “bond” during the grueling ordeal?)

This should open students’ eyes and minds to the tricky world of research!




Name:Class:Group Number:Date:

Chapter 2 Class Activity

Prejudice: A Contact Sport?

You are a team of sociologists that has been given a large grant to study the effects of close personal contact on prejudice among individuals of different racial and ethnic back grounds. In other words, the government wants to know if making friends and interacting on a daily basis with people from other racial and ethnic backgrounds has any effect on levels of prejudice. A hypothesis exists that it does, now they want you to find out and will pay you to do so.

Your task here is to design a research methodology to find out the answer to this question. The trick here is to think about all the thorny issues involved in constructing a research design that will allow you to answer this question without biasing the data. In this case, the first steps have been done for you, and a hypothesis has already been constructed.

Consider:

1. Do you agree with the government’s hypothesis?

2. What research design will you use to test it?

3. How have you controlled for outside effects, things that might be influenc-ing your study in ways you had not expected?

4. How have you dealt with the problem of self-selection? Members of a study can select themselves for inclusion in the study (either knowingly or not) and thus are different from the general public in important and systematic ways.

5. Where can you find a situation that might put people of different back-grounds together without a self-selection bias?



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