Sociology For Dummies

Jay Gabler, PhD is a writer and editor living in Minneapolis. He has authored or coauthored several books and sociological research studies, including Reconstructing the University. He works as a digital producer at The Current (a service of Minnesota Public Radio) and holds three graduate degrees from Harvard University.

Introduction 1

About This Book 2

Foolish Assumptions 4

Icons Used In This Book 5

Beyond the Book 6

Where To Go From Here 6

Part 1: Getting the Basic Basics 7

Chapter 1: Getting Your Head around Sociology 9

Focusing Your Sociological Lens 10

Defining sociology 10

Knowing the history of sociology 10

Doing sociology 11

The Nuts and Bolts of Society 12

Understanding culture 13

Microsociology 13

Understanding Differences Among People and Groups 14

Social stratification 14

Race and ethnicity 15

Sex and gender 15

Religion 16

Crime, deviance, and social control 16

How People Get Organized (Or At Least Try To) 17

Organizations and networks 17

Social movements and political sociology 17

Urban and rural sociology 18

Changes In Your Life, Changes In Your Society 18

The life course 19

Social change 19

Sociology For Dummies, for Dummies 20

Chapter 2: Knowing Why Sociology Matters 21

Figuring Out What Sociology is 22

Defining sociology 22

Studying society scientifically 22

Asking and answering sociological questions 25

Discovering Where Sociology is “Done” 27

Colleges and universities 27

Think tanks and research institutes 27

Nonprofit organizations 28

Government 29

Journalism and reporting 29

Business and consulting 30

Everyday life 31

Recognizing How Sociology Affects Your Life and Your World 31

Thinking about the social world in an objective, value-free way 32

Visualizing connections across times and places 33

Uncovering what really matters and what doesn’t 34

Informing social policy 35

Keeping a unique perspective for everyday problems 36

Chapter 3: Conflict and Cooperation: The History of Sociology 37

So Who Cares about History? 38

Thinking about Society before There Was Sociology 39

People are the same everywhere you go except when they aren’t 39

Pre-sociologists: People with ideas about society 40

Political and industrial revolution: Ready or not, here it comes 41

The Development of “Sociology” 43

Figuring out life with positivism 43

Common themes of early sociologists 43

Sociology: The most ambitious science 44

Sociology’s Power Trio 46

Karl Marx 47

Emile Durkheim 49

Max Weber 51

Sociology in the 20th Century 53

Sociology in America: W.E.B Du Bois and the Chicago School 53

Mass society: Are we, or are we not, sheep? 54

The Power Elite: Marx’s revenge 56

Sociology Today 58

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

Performing Sociological Research 60

Asking your question 60

Checking the literature 62

Operationalizing your question and find your data 63

Analyzing your data 65

Step 5: Interpreting your results 65

Getting to Know the Research Methods 67

Getting quantitative data 68

Gathering qualitative data 72

Choosing hybrid methods 73

Preparing For Potential Pitfalls 75

Using inappropriate data 75

Getting overzealous 75

Overlooking relevant information 78

Misusing statistics 79

Making mistakes just plain oops! 80

Part 2: Seeing Society Like a Sociologist 83

Chapter 5: Getting Some Culture: How Socialization Works 85

Understanding What Culture is — and Isn’t 86

Defining “culture” 86

Breaking down structure 87

Does culture matter? 89

Studying Culture: Makin’ It and Takin’ It 91

Other angles on culture 91

The production and reception of culture 93

Culture, information, and the news 94

Paddling the “Mainstream” 95

Subculture 96

Microcultures 97

Socialization: Where You Connect in Culture 99

Nature vs nurture: Social psychology 100

You are who other people think you are 101

Culture Paradox: Pulling Us Together and Pushing Us Apart 103

Uniting through culture 103

Dividing because of culture 104

Chapter 6: Studying Sociology at Its Smallest: Microsociology 105

Grasping the Paradox of Society 106

Social facts: What your society says about you 106

Adaptation and frustration 109

Understanding Why People Make Rational — and Irrational — Choices 110

Making rational choices — or, at least, trying 111

Making bad decisions (we’ve all been there) 114

Getting How Symbolic Interactionism Works 119

Play ball! The rules of the game 120

Stop frontin’: Switching roles, changing frames 122

Part 3: Equality and Inequality in Our Diverse World 125

Chapter 7: Social Stratification: We’re All Equal, But Some of Us Are More Equal Than Others 127

Excavating the Social Strata 128

Understanding social inequality 128

Grappling with the perennial debate: Is inequality necessary? 131

Recognizing the Many Means of Inequality 134

Income and wealth: Making money (or inheriting it) 134

Occupation: Landing in the labor force 135

Innate ability: Capitalizing on your skills 137

Motivation: Getting out of bed in the morning 137

Social connections: Knowing the right people 139

Credentials: Carrying the right cards 140

Education: Learning the ropes 141

Specialized knowledge: Knowing what others don’t 142

Bias and discrimination: Being limited by others’ lack of imagination 143

Considering Global Inequality 144

Chapter 8: Race and Ethnicity: What Others See, Who We Are 147

Race: Real in Its Consequences 148

Knowing the difference between race and ethnicity 148

Grasping the complexities of life in color 152

Debunking the myth of the “model minority” 154

Putting whiteness in the spotlight 155

Considering Individuals and Institutions 158

Racial discrimination: Conscious and unconscious 158

How racism becomes institutionalized 160

Understanding Immigration in a Changing World 161

Crossing borders, keeping ties 162

Immigration today 163

Chapter 9: Sex and Gender: Beyond the Binary 167

Biology is Not Destiny 168

Distinguishing between sex and gender 168

Understanding the sex and gender spectrum 169

Changing Ideas of Femininity and Masculinity 171

The history of feminism 172

Rethinking masculinity 175

#MeToo and a new reckoning 177

Intersectionality: Race and Gender 180

Chapter 10: Getting Religion: Faith in the Modern World 183

Understanding Religion in History 184

Karl Marx on religion: Opium of the people 184

Émile Durkheim on religion: Progressing from specific rules to common principles 185

Weber on religion: A switchman on the tracks 188

Religion in Theory and in Practice 189

Religious ideas, ideology, and values 189

The important role of religious organizations 191

Faith and Freedom in the World Today 194

Shopping for God 194

Belief, action, and everything in between 197

Chapter 11: Crime and Deviance: Who’s in Control? 201

Knowing the Difference between Deviance and Crime 202

Understanding Why People Commit Crimes 204

Theory one: Are criminals bad people? 204

Theory two: Are criminals driven to it? 205

Accepting crime as normal 206

Breaking Down the Social Construction of Crime 208

Writing laws that make sense to a society 208

Enforcing the law 210

Looking Beyond Crime and Punishment 212

Rethinking policing 213

Examining the effects of America’s high incarceration rate 216

Considering whether punishment works 216

Tallying the high costs of incarceration 217

Part 4: All Together Now: The Ins and Outs of Social Organization 219

Chapter 12: Knowing What Works (and Doesn’t): Sociology and Organizations 221

Recognizing the Corporate Conundrum 222

Understanding Weber’s Big Idea About Organizations 224

Getting That People Are More Than Cogs in a Machine 226

Rational systems: Bureaucracy at its purest 227

Natural systems: We’re only human 229

Open systems: The whole wide world of work 231

Seeing Society as a Network 234

Connecting individuals to their society 234

The strength of weak ties 235

Gathering insights from network analysis 237

Exploring the New World of Work 238

Chapter 13: Getting into It: Political Sociology 241

Government: Governing and Being Governed 242

Understanding government as a social institution 242

Knowing what causes political revolution 244

Sharing (or Not Sharing) Power in Society 247

Conflict models: Everyone for themselves 247

Pluralist models: Fair is fair 250

Social Movements: Working for Change 253

Getting off the ground 253

Mobilizing supporters 256

Understanding why social movements succeed — or fizzle 259

Going Viral: How Social Media Transforms Social Movements 261

Chapter 14: Recognizing Why Density and Demographics Matter 263

Studying Sociology in the City 264

Feeling lonely in a crowd: The paradox of social life 264

Observing street corner society 267

Changing Neighborhoods Through History 269

Recognizing the relevance of neighborhoods 269

Understanding how and why neighborhoods change 271

Studying the rise of the suburbs 274

The upper class, the lower class, and the underclass 276

Considering City and Country 279

Who are cities for? 279

Small towns, high hopes 281

Part 5: Sociology and Your Life 285

Chapter 15: Exploring Family and the Life Course as Social Constructs 287

The Social Construction of Age 288

The “invention” of childhood 288

The new senior citizens — and the new young adults 290

Running the Course of Life 292

Demographics and life transitions 292

The changing role of education 294

Taking Care: Health Care and Society 296

Deciding what counts as “healthy” 296

Organizing and distributing health care 299

Families Past and Present 301

The way we never were 301

The family today 304

Chapter 16: Understanding Social Change 307

Understanding How and Why Societies Change 308

Marx: If it’s not one revolution, it’s another 308

Durkheim: Increasing diversity 310

Weber: Into the iron cage 312

Forecasting the Future of Society 314

Globalization: Does the future hold cooperation or conflict? 314

Digital communication: Protecting privacy and freedom in an always-online era 316

Climate change: The unequal effects of a warming world 318

Exploring Sociology of the Future! 320

Social science will be more important than ever 320

Too much information? A good problem to have if you’re a sociologist 322

Will sociology continue to exist? 323

Part 6: The Part of Tens 325

Chapter 17: Ten Sociology Books That Don’t Feel Like Homework 327

W.E.B Du Bois: The Souls of Black Folk (1903) 328

Erving Goffman: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959) 328

Randall Collins: Sociological Insight (1982) 329

Arlie Hochschild: The Second Shift (1989) 329

Patricia Hill Collins: Black Feminist Thought (1990) 330

Evelyn Nakano Glenn (editor): Shades of Difference (2009) 330

Annette Lareau: Unequal Childhoods (2003) 331

Lorena Garcia: Respect Yourself, Protect Yourself: Latina Girls and Sexual Identity (2012) 332

Matthew Desmond: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (2016) 332

Suk-Young Kim: K-pop Live (2018) 333

Chapter 18: Ten Ways to Use Sociological Insight in Everyday Life 335

Thinking Critically About Claims That “Research Proves” One Thing or Another 336

Being Aware of Unprovable Assertions About Society 336

Understanding Barriers to Effective Communication 337

Knowing the Difference Between the Identity You Choose and the Identities Others Choose For You 338

Understanding Art: If It Seems Confusing, That’s Exactly the Point 339

Being Smart About Relationship-Building 340

Staying Safer in a Pandemic 341

Learning How to Mobilize a Social Movement 342

Running Your Company Effectively 342

Thinking Critically About What You Read and Hear 343

Chapter 19: Ten Myths About Society Busted by Sociology 345

With Hard Work and Determination, Anyone Can Get What They Deserve 346

Our Actions Reflect Our Values 347

We’re Being Brainwashed by the Media 348

Understanding Society is Just a Matter of “Common Sense” 348

Race Doesn’t Matter Any More 349

Immigration Equals Invasion 350

Bureaucracy is Dehumanizing 351

People Who Make Bad Choices Are Just Getting the Wrong Messages 351

Society Prevents Us From Being Our “True Selves” 352

There is Such a Thing as a Perfect Society 353

Index 355