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Richard Arum
Grew up as white privileged Jewish kid in suburbs of New York
Grew up connected to individuals that included cultural icons & civil rights heroes (like
Muhammad Ali)
Got teaching certificate from Harvard & worked as teacher in segregated public high
school in Oakland, California
Enrolled at University of California, Berkeleytraining in Department of Sociology to
develop sociological tools & skills to better understand problems around schooling in
America
Developing a sociological imagination was an attempt to develop a set of analytical
competencies to participate actively in policy discussions (to improve outcomes of youth)
When describing ourselves, we tend to think about our individuality (likes, dislikes,
interests, skills) but we are also products of the time/place we live in & the family we
were born into
We are individuals but also social individuals (connected to other people in a
variety of different ways)
Facebook
Facebook: worldwide phenomenon w/ hundreds of millions of registered users allowing
us to link & communicate w/ friends & create communities
Popular b/c of its wide variety of uses
Drawn from sociological ideas about social networks (ties b/w people, groups,
organizations, work)
o We are part of hidden social networks in which we know people who
know other people we dont know but share important traits (common
interests, backgrounds, areas of expertise, etc.)
Uses algorithm that makes that makes these normally hidden connections b/w
people visible
Danger of facebook: people could create & spread antigovernment ideas or mobilize
groups of citizens to protest in the streets
Ex: Facebook has been blocked in countries like China, Syria, Pakistan, Iran
Facebook appears to change the nature of friendships
Makes it easier to develop new contacts & keep in touch w/ old friendships even
after people become geographically apart
Part of entire social networking phenomena
Exemplifies one way in which learning sociological ideas can help us better understand
some of the ways that our existence is dependent on our relationships w/ others
Society: large group of people who live in the same area & participate in a common
culture
Hidden in our individual biographies
Sociology: study of societies & social worlds that individuals inhabit w/n them
Faces specific challenge of trying to uncover & analyze patterns that lie beneath
the surface of social worlds for individual lives
What Sociologists do
Sociologists are keen to explore phenomena like Facebookwhich raises fundamental
issues about social aspects of our lives
Ask hard questions about future of social networking & implications for how
individuals & societies relate to one another:
o How has new technology changed the form, content, & character of
friendship?
o How has the emergence of online dating changed the nature of intimate
relationships?
o How has technology changed the way work is organized, how we find
employment, & what kinds of jobs are likely to be available in the future?
o Is the new technology helping governments spy on their citizens or
helping citizens better monitor their governments & exercise their
democratic rights?
Sociologists have begun to think about how what happens in any one society is
influenced by the rest of the world
Digital revolution
The entire social networking phenomena exemplifies one way in which learning sociological
ideas can help us better understand some of the ways that our own existence if dependent on our
relationships w/ others.
Has facilitated & deepened long-standing patterns of global interaction
Sociology always has drawn upon cross-national comparisons & explored how societies
differ
Theories of globalization (increased flow of goods, money, ideas, people across national
borders) have raised host of new questions
Sociology Project
Sociology provides set of tools to understand patterns of globalization & impact on
societies & individuals
Will have tools to think about how & why our world is the way it is & how you can make
decisions to navigate its challenges
Reflects idea that constant changes in world around us make life & study of sociology is
ongoing project
1. How can a sociological imagination help you better understand your world?
Sociological imagination
Sociology puzzles over how we are connected to each other in the world
Relationships shape our unfolding individual lives & how we come to understand our
lives
Book helps you in developing sociological imagination that provides you w/ scientifically
informed understanding of social aspects of life
Raises questions about: where stereotypes come from, what stereotypes are based
on, who benefits from stereotypes, why stereotypes are harmful
Sociology produces important theories & ideas but gives us tools to understand & think
critically & creatively about our own lives, times we are living in, why we are the way
we are
When we possess a sociological imagination, we are able to be more active, effective
participants in the world around us
When it happens, we start asking questions about what we observe around us &
begin to develop our sociological imagination
Many types of jobs once done in US are now performed by workers in other
countries
o As jobs, idea, technology over around the globe at unprecedented pace,
becomes clear that we are connected to people & places far away
Social structure
What is the distinction b/w social interaction & social structure?
Social structure: external forces, esp. social hierarchies & institutions of society
Limiting & enabling
Provide order & organization but are often invisible
Institutions of society: include longstanding/important practices (marriage, family,
education, economic markets)& organizations regulating practices (government, military,
schools, religion)
Give framework for our daily lives
External forces confront us in our daily lives & require that we work w/n them
2 distinct components:
Hierarchies
Institutions
Every society has a set of inequalities (class, race, or gender)
Where we stand in hierarchies impacts who we are & what we can accomplish
Roles in life (positions w/n institution or organization) come w/ specific rules or
expectations about how to behavepartly determined by our social standing
Institutions arent easily changed, difficulty to avoid
Include laws, legal system, economic markets
3. Where did sociology come from, and how is it different from the other social sciences?
Sociology of social sciences
Sociological imagination can be applied to development of sociology & social sciences
In general, sociology & other social sciences began to develop when growing numbers of
people began to turn from abstract ideas or debates into thinking about how things work
in the real world & how that world can be systematically investigated
Traces of sociological thinking can be found everywhere people talk or think about their
communities or institutions
Desire to answer hard questions about world w/ something other than pure speculation
lies at heart of modern sociological enterprise
Point where philosophy crosses over into sociology & social science
Sociology & Industrial Revolution
What was the historical context in which sociology began to develop?
Development of new way of questioning & seeking answers to issues & problems of
modern world unfolded in fits & started throughout 19th century
Idea that social world can be studied w/ rigor & scientific methods can be applied to
nature & natural world developed from 1880s onward
Auguste Comte coined the term sociology
Believed that sociology would eventually become ultimate science of social world
& include social statics (study of societies as they are) & social dynamics
(processes of social change)
As time went by, variety of different ways of studying social world began to emerge
Early social scientists often identified w/ several disciplines
Early economists Thorstein Veblen & John Commons held chairs in sociology at
one point
Philosophers Adam Smith & Karl Marx spent much of their time writing &
thinking about economy & economic relations
B/w 1880-1910: social sciences began to settle down into organized bodies of knowledge
& distinctive professional profiles
Settling down first occurred in Europe
Father of sociology Emile Durkheim founded first European Sociology
Department at University of Bordeaus in 1895 & 1st major European journal of
sociology in 1898
Sociology Department at University of Chicago founded in 1895 as 1st department
in America
2 important developments spurred social sciences in general & sociology especially
Industrialization: growth of factories & large-scale goods production
Urbanization: growth of cities in late 19th century in US, Europe, etc.
New technologies & innovations made growth of large-scale manufacturing of consumer
products possibletransforming economies based primarily in agriculture to those based
in manufacturing of goods
Spread of factory labor created jobs that were concentrated in urban areaspopulation
density of at least 1,000 people per square mile & surrounding areas have overall density
of at least 500 people per square miles
Period of urbanization marked by growth in proportion of population living in
urban areas & citiesgrew rapidly in size b/w 1850 and 1920
Jobs driving growth of cities & surrounding metropolitan areas pulled people away from
farms & rural communitiesproviding economic opportunities for wave after wave of
immigrants form other countries who arrived in steadily increasing numbers
Social changes enabled by industrialization were immense
Contexts of individual lives & whole communities were changing rapidly
Exploding cities developing in US & Europe from middle of 19th century onward had
deep problems that were different from agricultural economies of previous centuries
Cities were rife w/ high levels of poverty
o Early factories paid poorly
o Living in expanding cities was often expensive as housing supply
struggled to keep up with demands
Cities were dirty
o Before public health & public sanitation measures became widely
implemented
o Breeding grounds of disease, infant mortality, early death
Crime & violence were much more common than in rural communities
Had places where people could organize themselves to protest unpleasant
conditions of life
o Possible to meet & discuss problems w/ dozens or hundreds of people in
close proximity
Sociologys children
What are some of the spin-off fields that originally started in sociology?
Sociology has mothered number of new areas of study into existence
Large group of spin-off majors & programs that developed out of social sciences:
Criminology
Gender studies
African American studies
Latino/a studies
Organizational or management studies
Industrial relations or labor studies
Demography
Sociology has long served as important incubator for new arenas of investigation
Even today, there are exciting new areas of study in sociology that may eventually grow
into disciplines of their own
Learning basics of sociology essential foundation for any one of newer fields
Sociology remains foundational discipline for many of interdisciplinary social sciences
Sociology in America