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Sociology For Dummies
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Table of Contents

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Conventions Used in This Book 2

Sociology is Controversial: Brace Yourself! 3

How This Book is Organized 4

Part I: The Basic Basics 4

Part II: Seeing Society Like a Sociologist 4

Part III: Divided — er, United — We Stand: Equality and Inequality in Our Diverse World 5

Part IV: All Together Now: The Ins and Outs of Social Organization 5

Part V: Sociology and Your Life 5

Part VI: The Part of Tens 6

Icons Used In This Book 6

Where To Go From Here 7

Part I: The Basic Basics 9

Chapter 1: Sociology: Getting Your Head Around It 11

Understanding Sociology 12

Defining sociology 12

The history of sociology 12

Doing sociology 13

Seeing the World as a Sociologist 14

Understanding culture 14

Microsociology 15

Network sociology 15

Understanding Differences Among People and Groups 16

Social stratification 16

Race and sex 16

Religion 17

Crime and deviance 17

Social Organization 18

Corporate culture 18

Social movements and political sociology 18

Urban sociology 19

Sociology and Your Life 19

The life course 19

Social change 20

Sociology for Dummies, for Dummies 20

Chapter 2: What is Sociology, and Why Should I Care? 23

Figuring Out What Sociology is 24

Defining sociology 24

Studying society scientifically 25

Asking and answering sociological questions 26

Discovering Where Sociology is “Done” 28

Colleges and universities 29

Think tanks and research institutes 29

Nonprofit organizations 30

Government 30

Journalism and reporting 31

Business and consulting 32

Everyday life 32

Recognizing How Sociology Affects Your Life and Your World 33

Thinking about the social world in an objective, value-free way 33

Visualizing connections across times and places 35

Uncovering what really matters and what doesn’t 35

Informing social policy 37

Keeping a unique perspective for everyday problems 38

Chapter 3: Making It Up as They Went Along: The History of Sociology 39

So Who Cares about History? 39

Thinking about Society before There Was Sociology 40

People are the same everywhere you go except when they aren’t 41

Pre-sociologists: People with ideas about society 42

Political and industrial revolution: Ready or not, here it comes 42

The Development of “Sociology” 44

Figuring out life with positivism 44

Common themes of early sociologists 45

Sociology: The most ambitious science 46

Sociology’s Power Trio 47

Karl Marx.48

Emile Durkheim 50

Max Weber 52

Sociology in the 20th Century 53

Taking it to the streets: The Chicago School 54

Mass society: are we, or are we not, sheep? 55

The Power Elite: Marx’s revenge 56

Sociology Today 58

Chapter 4: Research Methods: Because You Can’t Put Society in a Test Tube 59

The Steps of Sociological Research 60

Ask your question 60

Check the literature 61

Operationalize your question and fi nd your data 62

Analyze your data 64

Interpret your results 64

Choosing a Method 66

Quantitative vs. qualitative 66

Cross-sectional vs. longitudinal 68

Hybrid methods 69

Analyzing Analytical Tools 70

Statistics 70

Qualitative data 72

Preparing For Potential Pitfalls 73

Data/theory mismatch 73

Getting overzealous 73

The missing links 75

Statistical snafus 77

Mistakes just plain oops! 77

Part II: Seeing Society Like a Sociologist 79

Chapter 5: Socialization: What is “Culture,” and Where Can I Get Some? 81

Understanding What Culture is — and Isn’t 82

Defi ning “culture” 82

Breaking down structure 83

Examining the culture-structure continuum 85

Studying Culture: Makin’ It and Takin’ It 87

Other angles on culture 88

The production of culture 89

The reception of culture 90

Paddling the “Mainstream” 91

Subculture 92

Microcultures 93

Socialization: Where You Connect in Culture 94

Nature vs. nurture: Social psychology 95

You are who other people think you are 96

Culture Paradox: Pulling Us Together and Pushing Us Apart 98

Uniting through culture 98

Dividing because of culture 99

Chapter 6: Microsociology: If Life is a Game, What are the Rules? 101

Within You and Without You: The Paradox of Society 102

Social facts: The sum of our parts 102

Use a tool (from your social repertoire) — don’t be one 104

Rational — and Irrational — Choices 106

Making rational choices — or, at least, trying to 107

D’oh! Making poor choices 109

Symbolic Interactionism: Life is a Stage 114

Play ball! The rules of the game 115

Stop frontin’: Switching roles, changing frames 116

Chapter 7: Caught in the Web: The Power of Networks 119

The Global Village: Seeing Society as a Network 119

It’s all about you: Egocentric networks 120

A web of relationships 122

The Strength of Weak Ties 124

Why your acquaintances are more valuable than your best friends 124

Find a structural hole and jump in! 127

Insights from Network Analysis 129

The difference between “your society” and your society 129

Opening the channels of communication 132

Social networking online: Making the invisible visible 133

Part III: Equality and Inequality in Our Diverse World 137

Chapter 8: Social Stratification: We’re All Equal, But Some of Us are More Equal Than Others 139

Excavating the Social Strata 140

Understanding social inequality 140

The perennial debate: is inequality necessary? 142

The Many Means of Inequality 145

Income and wealth 145

Occupation 146

Innate ability 147

Motivation 148

Connections 149

Credentials 150

Education 151

Specialized knowledge 151

Race/sex/caste discrimination 153

Age discrimination 153

Comparing inequality internationally 154

Chapter 9: Gender and Ethnicity: I Know My Race, But Where’s the Finish Line? 157

Bias and Discrimination: A Two-Sided Coin 158

Race and Ethnicity 160

You can choose your ethnicity, but you can’t choose your race 160

Racial discrimination: Conscious and unconscious 162

The myth of the “model minority” 165

Immigration and “assimilation” (or not) 167

Sex and Gender 169

“You’ve come a long way, baby”?: The women’s movement and its discontents 169

GBLTQ rights and the deconstruction of gender 172

Race, Ethnicity, Sex, and Gender: Why They Still Matter 173

Chapter 10: Getting Religion: Faith in the Modern World. 175

Understanding Religion in History 176

Marx: Opiate of the people 176

Emile Durkheim: A metaphor for society177

Weber: A switchman on the tracks 180

Religion in Theory and in Practice 181

Religious ideas, ideology, and values 181

Open the church: Religious organizations 183

Faith and Freedom in the World Today 185

Shopping for God 185

Belief, action, and everything in between.187

Chapter 11: Crime and Deviance: I Fought the Law and I Won! 191

All Crime is Deviance, but Not All Deviance is a Crime 192

Criminals in Society 193

Some criminals are just bad people (but ) 193

Some criminals are “driven to it” (but ) 194

Some crime is simply normal 195

The Social Construction of Crime 197

In the courts 197

On the streets 199

Becoming Deviant 201

Fighting Crime 203

What works, and what doesn’t 203

America’s high incarceration rate 206

Part IV: All Together Now: The Ins and Outs of Social Organization 211

Chapter 12: Corporate Culture: The Study of Organizations (and Disorganizations) 213

The Corporate Conundrum: Making a Profi t Isn’t as Easy — or as Simple — as it Sounds 214

Weber’s Big Idea About Organizations 215

Rational Systems: Bureaucracy at its Purest 218

Measuring the shovels: Efficiency! Efficiency! 218

The bounds of reason 220

Natural Systems: We’re Only Human 222

Making people feel special: The Hawthorne Studies and the Human Relations Movement 222

Corporate culture: Trust falls and free coffee 224

Open Systems: The Whole Wide World of Work 226

Keeping the riff-raff out: Setting organizational boundaries 227

Organizations as networks, networks in organizations 228

Institutional isomorphism: If that company jumped off a cliff, would your company jump off a cliff, too? 229

Mission drift: Searching for a purpose 231

Chapter 13: The Rules of the Game: Social Movements and Political Sociology 233

Government: Governing and Being Governed 234

Social structure and the state 234

The big takeover: Causes of political revolution 236

Sharing (or Not Sharing) Power in Society 238

Conflict models: Every man, woman, and child for themselves 239

Pluralist models: Fair is fair 241

Social Movements: Working for Change 244

Getting off the ground 244

Rounding up the posse 248

What it means for a social movement to be successful 250

Chapter 14: Urban Sociology and Demographics: (Ain’t No) Love in the Heart of the City 253

Sociology in the City 254

The loneliness of a crowd 254

Street corner society 256

Changing Neighborhoods 258

It’s 10 PM. Do you know who your neighbors are? 258

Neighborhoods on the tipping point 260

The rise and fall of the suburbs 262

Life in the City: Perils and Promise 264

The upper class, the lower class, and the underclass 264

Gentrifi cation and the new creative class 266

Order and disorder on the streets.267

Part V: Sociology and Your Life 271

Chapter 15: Get Born, Get a Job, Get a Kid, Get Out of Here: The Family and the Life Course 273

The Social Construction of Age 274

The “invention” of childhood 274

18 again: The new senior citizens 276

Running the Course of Life 278

Demographics and life transitions 278

Different shapes of the circle of life 280

Taking Care: Health Care and Society 282

Deciding what counts as “healthy” 282

Organizing and distributing health care 285

Families Past and Present 287

The way we never were 287

The family today 290

Chapter 16: Future Passed: Understanding Social Change 295

Why Societies Change 296

Marx: If it’s not one revolution, it’s another 296

Durkheim: Increasing diversity 298

Weber: Into the iron cage 300

What Comes Next? 301

Globalization.302

Increasing — and decreasing — diversity 305

The march of technology 307

The growth of the middle class 308

A lesson from the past: Work for change, but don’t panic 310

Sociology in the Future 312

Will sociology continue to exist? 312

The paradox: More data, less information 313

Part VI: The Part of Tens 315

Chapter 17: Ten Sociology Books That Don’t Feel Like Homework 317

Randall Collins: Sociological Insight 317

William Foote Whyte: Street Corner Society 318

William H. Whyte: The Organization Man 319

Erving Goffman: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life 319

Elijah Anderson: Streetwise 320

Arlie Hochschild: The Second Shift 320

Viviana Zelizer: Pricing the Priceless Child 320

Michael Schwalbe: Unlocking the Iron Cage 321

Richard Peterson: Creating Country Music 321

Katherine Newman: No Shame in My Game 322

Chapter 18: Ten Ways to Use Sociological Insight in Everyday Life 323

Think Critically About Claims That “Research Proves” One Thing or Another 324

Beware of Unprovable Assertions About Society 324

Understand Barriers to Effective Communication 325

Know the Difference Between the Identity You Choose and the Identities Others Choose For You 326

Understanding Art: If It Seems Confusing, That’s Exactly the Point 327

Be Smart About Relationship-Building 327

Changing Society: Be Optimistic, But Keep Your Expectations Reasonable 328

Learn How to Mobilize a Social Movement 329

Run Your Company Effectively 330

Understand How We Can All Be Different, Yet All Be the Same 330

Chapter 19: Ten Myths About Society Busted by Sociology 333

With Hard Work and Determination, Anyone Can Get What They Deserve 334

Our Actions Refl ect Our Values 334

We’re Being Brainwashed by the Media 335

Understanding Society is Just a Matter of “Common Sense” 336

Race Doesn’t Matter Any More 337

In Time, Immigrant Families Will Assimilate and Adopt a New Culture 337

Bureaucracy is Dehumanizing 338

People Who Make Bad Choices are Just Getting the Wrong Messages 338

Society Prevents Us From Being Our “True Selves” 339

There is Such a Thing as a Perfect Society 340

Index 341

About the Author

Jay Gabler, PhD, is a writer, editor, and college instructor. Gabler received his PhD from Harvard University and now teaches at Rasmussen College in Minnesota.

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