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
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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