1. Sociological Society
How society functions

2. Objectives
Students will understand how people are able to balance individualism with the need to ‘act socially’
Students will learn basic sociological terms
Students will begin to understand how we learn roles, values, norms and sanctions
Students will be able to work in small learning groups
Students will be able to identify 5 different definitions of Sociology

3. “What is sociology?” – the study of society, groups.
It is different from psychology, which studies the individual.
We need to think of society as the
object of study.

4. Sociology is the study of…
Social groups and culture (way of life)
How our identity (view of self) is shaped by group membership
How we shape the behavior of others
Study of social order, or the organization of society

5. So sociology attempts to understand society or groups of people in a scientific manner – analyzing data on people, generalizing groups and predicting behaviors…

6. Then, we need to address a contradiction.
How are we individuals but yet we ‘act socially’? How can we have free will, yet function as a society?

7. For the rest of today and tomorrow we will examine this contradiction and learn some basic introductory sociology terms.
We need to look at how people are different and what we have in common.

8. How are you all the same?
Come up with a list of at least 10 things that the people in your group have in common. How are you the same?
Did you learn that you had something in common with someone you would not have thought you would have had something in common with?

9. Students write about How is society different?
Have students brainstorm at least 10 ways people are different (physical, social, familial, class, etc) in small groups

10. “If we are so different then how can we live together
“If we are so different then how can we live together?” What stops us from doing whatever we want whenever we want? What stops us from running around naked, encroaching on personal space, driving “too fast”, driving on the wrong side of the road, talking back to the teacher?

11. “With so many differences in people, how do we all get along in society? How do we know what is ok and what isn’t ok in terms of behavior?”
Come up with at least 5 ways we learn/know how to get along – 15 minutes

12. We have already talked abut the contradiction between individualism and getting along in society. We asked two questions:
How can we be individuals and ‘act socially’ at the same time?
How can we have free will and yet function as a society?
Why is it that some people are more likely to conform to societies expectations, while it is easier for others to withdrawal from society?

13. You worked in groups and listed ways that people are different like [use examples from class list]. Even with our long list we only scratched the surface
– like snowflakes, no two people are the same.

14. So we put on our sociological hats and we have to wonder:
How do we all get along?
How does society function with all these individual differences?

15. Discuss in your groups ways that we maintain social organization and social order?
What were some of the ways that help balance our individualism with society’s need for order.
In what ways is conformity a good thing? In what ways is conformity a bad thing?

16. Social Structure: stable arrangement of institutions whereby human beings in a society interact and live together
Institutions: family, peers, government, religion, health care, …
Social order: expected patterns of behavior, what to expect (when we act how we are expected to act)

17. Roles Role/s: student, friend, boy, girl, worker…
roles are defined by society and groups
vary from group to group and culture to culture
lay out what is expected of us.
Make a list of 10 roles that you play throughout the day, week or life…

18. Values Values: describe what is desirable or good
used to make judgments
as a society we agree to abide by them.
Value – education, cleanliness, personal space

19. Norms http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_HrzDoSHn4&feature=related
urinal social norms
Norms are expected patterns of behavior
Norms: derived from values
No formal sanctions (they are not the law)
Not formal rules – texting while walking bans…
Just the way things are
Can vary widely and change over time. Personal space is a value; 3ft away is the norm…discipline of children values, spanking a norm that has changed.
Sanctions: encourage or discourage behavior.
positive (money, praise) or negative (frown, prison).

20. Values, norms and sanctions are closely related
Values, norms and sanctions are closely related. Take a value, find many norms and understand the sanctions.

21. OK, now back into our groups and I want you to give examples of roles found in this class and then examples of values, norms and sanctions that exist in this class. For example – we value order, norm is to sit up in class, sanction is a write up, grades, or detention…
Example:
Roles: Value: Norm: Sanction:
Student Education Doing your Failing the class
homework

22. Have these values change over time
Have these values change over time? Were they different for your parents? What would life be like if we didn’t have any sanctions?
Would the Roles, Values, Norms and Sanctions be the same if you were a different gender, race, live in a different country..?

23. Deviance, or the violations of social norms, can be easier to identify than the norm itself. For this reason, deviance frequently provides a tool to learn about norms.
Norms and deviance always depend on the culture in which they exist. To study norms and deviance, one must contextualize the action, or
consider the action in light of
all of the circumstances
surrounding it.
Reaction to this image?

24. Informal deviance, or violation of unwritten, social rules of behavior, results in social sanction, or stigma.
A folkway leads to the development of a preference rather than stigmatization.
Stigma is a negative label