A Sociological Perspective Studying History A Sociological Perspective

Sociology It is the study of how people interact with each other and how human behavior is shaped by social structures (groups, communities, organizations), social categories (age, race, sex, class, etc.), and social institutions (politics, religion, education, family, etc.) The study of society Social institutions are established or standardized patterns of rule-governed behavior. They include the family, education, religion, and economic and political institutions.

Culture It is the shared attitudes, values, goals, beliefs, and practices that characterize a social group It is related to behavior and environment, as well as time For quite sometime culture and race were thought to be interchangeable. However culture is related to behavior and environment. Culture is the shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterize a social group. Growing up American and having a relationship with someone from France would be classified as intercultural due to the fact that their values and beliefs would differ based on each country’s environment. However, at the same token two individuals from the same country can identify with being intercultural or not depending on how they each classify their learned and shared ideals and belief systems.

Material & Nonmaterial Culture Material Culture is the tangible, visible items of a culture Nonmaterial Culture refers to intangible, invisible parts of a culture Nonmaterial culture would be “values” and “religion”

Subculture Variations within a society regarding some aspects of religion, language, traditions, or outward appearance that sets them apart from the dominant culture

Socialization The lifelong social experience by which individuals are taught and learn patterns of their culture Agents of socialization are people, groups, and experiences that influence our behavior and self-image

Gender Socialization The tendency for boys and girls to be socialized differently

Culture Shock Personal disorientation that accompanies exposure to foreign cultures or unfamiliar ways of life different from your own Culture shock….chicken feet

Multiculturalism The preservation of different cultures or cultural identities within a unified society (like a state or nation) the preservation of different cultures or cultural identities within a unified society, as a state or nation. Original cultural heritages of citizens are recognized and respected

Assimilation The process whereby members of a group give up parts of their own culture in order to blend into a new culture

Cultural Diffusion The process whereby an aspect of culture spreads throughout a culture or from one culture to another

Ethnicity Refers to a group of people that share a commonality based on heritage/ancestry Ethnicity is more closely related to culture rather than race, but is not synonymous with either. The word ethnicity comes from the Greek word ethnos which translates to English to mean “nation”. Smith (1987) states that ethnicity refers to a group of people that share a commonality based on heritage that is real or assumed while Banks (1996) notes that ethnic groups focus on common ancestry. For instance, a couple could identify themselves as being of the same ethnicity (i.e. African, Jamaican, etc.) and at the same time identify with different races

Race A categorization of humans into populations based on genetic or heritable traits such as skin color, hair texture, and facial features Focus is on physical features It is an “artificial” classification Race is generally defined as a categorization of humans into populations based on genetic or heritable traits such as skin color, hair texture, and facial features (Bamshad & Olsen 2003). Race refers to physical features rather than personality traits and spiritual and religious practices. A couple who defines their relationship as interracial may do so solely based on the fact that one party is Asian and the other is Caucasian, or one party could be of Indian descent while the other is Hispanic. All men of whatever race are currently classified by the anthropologist or biologist as belonging to the one species, Homo sapiens.This is another way of saying that the differences between human races are not great, even though they may appear so, i.e. black vs white skin. All races of mankind in the world can interbreed because they have so much in common. All races share 99.99+% of the same genetic materials which means that division of race is largely subjective, and that the original 3-5 races were also probably just subjective descriptions as well. The United Nations, in a 1950 statement, opted to “drop the term ‘race’ altogether and speak of “ethnic groups”. In this case, there are more than 5,000 ethnic groups in the world, according to a 1998 study published in the Scientific American. A category composed of humans who share certain biologically transmitted traits that members of a society deem socially significant; in reality, it’s an artificial classification because the differences genetically or biologically are too few and insignificant bioldogically or genetically to represent truly different categories.

Norms & Taboos Norms are rules, guidelines, and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members Taboos are norms so strongly held by a society that their violation brings extreme disgust Committing taboos may result in you having a stigma These become laws when they are written down and enforced by an official agency STIGMA: A powerfully negative social label that radically changes a person’s self-concept and social identity A trait we possess that causes us to lose prestige in the eyes of others

Stereotype An assumption made about a person or group, often on the basis of incorrect or incomplete information

Ethnocentrism The tendency to judge another culture by the standards of one’s own culture (you think your’s is superior

Status A recognized social position and identity that an individual occupies Achieved status is a status that we either earn or choose that is not subject to where or to whom we were born Ascribed status is a trait or characteristic people possess as a result of the circumstances of birth

Stratification An unequal distribution of society’s rewards and people are arranged hierarchically into layers according to how many of society’s rewards they possess Social mobility may or may not happen