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Sociologists study communities, but what exactly does that entail?
Michael Mechanic’s Jackpot offers an insight into a unique subculture. His subjects are members of the top one percent who possess multiple homes in exclusive neighborhoods around the world, private jets and cars fleets, as well as armies of financial advisors.
Sociology of Race and Ethnicity
Sociologists study how race and ethnicity are socially constructed and intertwine with other categories like class, gender and sexuality. Furthermore, they investigate colonialism’s effect on racial inequality.
Studies such as Hall 1996, Holt 2000 and Winant 2000 employ a structural-Marxist approach to examine how racism is linked with capitalism and patriarchy – structures designed to uphold men’s dominance within societies – while simultaneously showing no scientific evidence for biological differences among people; genetic studies in particular indicate a much wider variation between individuals than among groups that commonly define as “racial”.
Sociologists seek to expose the complex system of injustices that perpetuates racism by creating and supporting racial categories and supporting oppressive racism. Furthermore, sociologists stress how these categories constantly shift over time as certain labels come and go out of favour in different social eras (for instance “negro” was replaced with “black” during this era), reflecting that race is an artificial construct not an inherent biological factor.
Sociology of Inequality
Social change to reduce inequality involves altering societal institutions so as to more evenly allocate resources, through initiatives ranging from nongovernmental nonprofit organizations and government policy analysis and reform to nonprofits and advocacy.
Jackpot communities are marred by inequality due to a range of social forces that impact everyone irrespective of culture, ethnicity, gender identity or tradition. Prejudice and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity exist worldwide – from culturally sanctioned rape to state executions – restricting freedom and life opportunities for some individuals.
Some sociologists, such as functionalists, hold that global inequality benefits society by creating an incentive structure which drives highly qualified people toward positions of power. Others such as Marxists see inequality as indicative of exploitation and believe it erodes civilization itself; they advocate state-oriented efforts to regulate wealth distribution globally and even out global status differences. Interactionists recognize global inequality exists but believe it arises due to individual interactions rather than inherent social structures.
Sociology of the Individual
Sociologists examine individuals and how they interact with society at large. They identify and examine patterns which contribute to contemporary social issues like “Stop and Frisk” policies and Twitter’s effect on everyday communication.
Relationship between individuals and societies remains one of the most perplexing sociological challenges, due in large part to how our societies conceive of them: Norbert Elias coined this term reification to refer to this process in which abstract concepts or social relationships become mistakenly considered real and independent entities.
Individuals shoulder responsibilities and face social repercussions for their actions; yet they also enjoy freedom to make choices that impact society as a whole. Sociologists attempt to comprehend this relationship using something pioneer sociologist C. Wright Mills called the sociological imagination: an awareness that sees individual decisions rooted in larger cultural forces as driving forces behind individual ones.
Sociology of Groups
Sociology of groups provides us with a powerful way of comprehending many complex social problems in today’s world, from understanding gang formation and operation, corporate downsizing and welfare reform, patterns of family interaction and cultural influence on everyday life.
Sociologists use the term group to refer to any collection of people who share some form of relationship; from two people collaborating on a school class project all the way up to an audience watching a street performer – each member must feel part of an overall unitary entity – which sets groups apart from aggregates – such as being on the same bus at the same time.
This course introduces students to the dominant theoretical traditions in contemporary sociology, exploring their key assumptions, terminology, weaknesses and strengths. Sociology encompasses multiple subfields; therefore this course seeks not only to familiarise students with its luminaries but also provide them with intellectual tools necessary for situating whole theoretical traditions relative to each other.
