Sociology has made me think more about
society. I never thought that society was so vast and complex.
Sociology also made me see how societies and people interact. I knew
people and societies interacted but I never thought they interacted
all the time and that there are many different processes of
interaction. Sociology is not very interesting, especially when
compared with psychology, but I learned things that I may have not
without this class. The articles helped me remember the subjects we
learned in class but I did not like how, when we made a presentation
about a chapter we still had to write an article. I would have liked
to watch more documentaries or take some sort of sociological test
like we did in psychology. In psychology we took fun
psychological/brain tests, I would have liked to take fun tests like
that but sociology based. Sociology is not a fun subject to learn but
if we had more activities like last semester, it could have been more
fun than it was. I felt I learned a bunch of cool facts, like the age
of the youngest mom is five. Sociology taught me to endure classes
that were boring because it did not interest me. I was glad to have
taken the class though, so I know what I like and what I don't.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Documentary Reflection
In 2011, “The Arab Spring” arose.
The Arab countries like Tunisia, Egypt, and others used to be
censored. But due to facebook and internet access, things have
started to unravel. It started in Tunisia with Sid Bouzid, a food
seller. Some corrupt government officials wanted him to pay money for
no reason, he was taken to town hall but nothing was done. He ended
up committing suicide by setting himself on fire. Some people took
videos of his suicide and word spread. People soon gathered to
protest against the corrupt government.
It started off as a peaceful
demonstration but soon turned into a confrontation. Policemen started
to arrest those with cell phones, for the videos were being posted on
facebook. And sent across the Arab countries and the globe.
Everywhere, on facebook and twitter, there were videos being posted
of the corruption in Tunisia. Soon it spread to Egypt and then to
Libya and later to the island country of Bahrain. Revolutions were
spreading like wildfire, people were taking a stand against the
corruption. A group of activists lead the protests throughout the
different countries. Police forces tried to stop the activists and
others from protesting. People were shot and killed and even still,
more videos were being posted about the corruption. People in Tunisia
wanted their leader out, they hated him. He eventually stepped down
and people were rejoicing. But in Libya a new leader came, and people
revolted against him just like in Tunisia. This has subsided, people
are still going against the government in order to win democracy for
their countries.
One theory of collective behavior is
seen during this Arab Spring. The theory that I think is shown is the
resource-mobilization theory
which states that even the most ill-treated group with the most just
cause will be able to bring about change without resources. If the
Arabs had no internet access or phones with the technology to video
what was going on, it wouldn't have succeeded. The Arabs needed the
internet and technology in order to carry out their plan of
revolution. One theory of social change is shown aw well. I think
that the theory that is shown is the conflict theory of
social change which states
that change results from conflicts between groups with opposing
interests. The Arabs wouldn't have revolted if it wasn't for the
conflict between the people and the government. Without that
difference in beliefs, the revolution wouldn't have happened and
change wouldn't have been made.
So
as we can see, collective behavior and social change occur all the
time. It is a repeating process. So many times people revolt because
of conflict, sometimes for the better sometimes not. People want
change, even though change is sometimes hard, we secretly crave it.
Social change occurs constantly, that is why society, in most cases,
gets better.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Chapter 18: Social Change and Modernization
Social change occurs in any society that is willing to develop and
grow. Social change is very important for a society to become the
best they can be. Modernization goes along with social change for a
society must change to become modernized. As modernization occurs, so
does social change.
Sociologists
define social
change
as alterations in various aspects of a society over time. A cyclical
theory of social change
views change from a historical perspective; societies arise, go
through various stages o development, and then decline. Oswald
Spengler suggested that all societies pass through four stages –
childhood, youth, adulthood, and old age. Pitirim Sorokin's view was
that all societies fluctuate between two extreme forms of culture. In
an ideational
culture,
truth and knowledge are sought through faith or religion. The other
extreme is a sensate
culture,
where people seek knowledge through science. Sometimes, societies
reach a middle point between those extremes, which he called the
idealistic
culture.
Sorokin referred to this natural tendency (of swinging back and forth
between ideational and sensate cultures) toward social change as the
principle
of immanent change.evolutionary
theory of social change
views change as a process that moves in one direction – toward
increasing complexity. Evolutionary theorists of the 1800s believed
that all societies progress through the same distinct stages of
social development. By the early 1920s, most social scientists had
rejected evolutionary theory. It did not remain out of favor for
long, however. Modern evolutionary theorists do not claim that all
societies pass through a single set of distinct stages of development
on their way toward some ideal of Western society, they hold that
societies have tendency to become more complex over time. Talcott
Parsons, a functionalist theorist, offered the equilibrium
theory of social change,
which argued that a change in one part of the system produces change
in all of the other parts of the system. According to the conflict
theory of social change,
change results from conflicts between groups groups with opposing
interests. Karl Marx saw violence as a necessary part of social
change. Ralf Dahrendorf believed, opposing Marx, that social conflict
can take many forms.
The
Modernization
is the process by which a society's social institutions become
increasingly complex as the society moves toward industrialization.
According to sociologists' view of modernization
theory,
the more-developed nations modernized because they were the first to
industrialize. Immanuel Wallerstein proposed the world-system
theory,
which views modernization in terms of the world economy. Core
nations
are the most powerful developed nations – the United States,
Canada, Japan, and the countries of Western Europe – that form the
center, or core, of the world economy. Peripheral
nations
are the poor countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
Semiperipheral
nations
are somewhere in between core and peripheral nations. A country's
external
debt
is the amount it owes to foreign individuals, organizations,
companies, and governments. Modernization has both negative and
positive consequences for social life and the natural environment.
Modernization offers many benefits to developing countries.
Modernization is often accompanied by the arrival of electricity and
communication technology such as telephones. The very same
technological innovations that improve the standard of living and
prolong life in modern societies also give rise to problems. The
family and religion lose some of their traditional authority in
modern society. Modernization has brought with it the problems of
soil, water, and air pollution. Modern technology also gives rise to
moral and ethical questions.
As we can see social change is inevitable and important to a
developing society. Modernization plays a big role in the development
of nations from peripheral to core nations possibly in the future.
Modernization is great for a society to grow but sometimes the
growing of a society can cause damage to other societies or to the
environment around them.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Chapter 17: Collective Behavior and Social Movements
Collective
behavior includes all different types of groups interacting with each
other. This is important in sociology for sociology is all about the
interactions of people. So collective behavior and all that is
associated with it is very important to sociology as well as to a
society.
Collective
behavior is the relativity
spontaneous social behavior that occurs when people try to develop
common solutions to unclear situations. A collectivity
is a gathering of people who have limited interaction with one
another and do not share clearly defined, conventional norms or a
sense of group unity. A crowd
is a temporary gathering of people who are in close enough proximity
to interact. A mob
is an emotionally charged collectivity whose members are united by a
specific destructive or violent goal. A riot
is a collection of people who erupt into generalized destructive
behavior, the result of which is social disorder. A panic
is a spomoral panic
occurs when people become fearful about behavior that appears to
threaten society's core values. Mass hysteria
is an unfounded anxiety shared by people who can be scattered over a
wide geographic area. Fashions
refer to enthusiastic attachments among large numbers of people for
particular styles of appearance or behavior. A fad
is an unconventional object, action, or idea that a large number of
people are attached to for a very short period of time. A rumor
is an unverified piece of information that is spread rapidly from one
person to another. Urban legends
are stories that teach a lesson and seem realistic but are untrue.
The term public
refers to a group of geographically scattered people who are
concerned with or engaged in a particular issue. Public
opinion refers to the
collection of differing attitudes that members of a public have about
a particular issue. Propaganda
is an organized and deliberate attempt to shape public opinion.
According to the contagion theory,
the hypnotic power of a crowd encourages people to give up their
individuality to the stronger pull of the group. According to
emergent-norm theory,
the people in a crowd are often faced with a situation in which
traditional norms of behavior do not apply. According to the
value-added theory,
collective behavior had six basic preconditions: structural
conduciveness, structural strain, growth and spread of generalized
belief, precipitating factors, mobilization for action, and social
control.
Social
movements are much more
deliberate and long-lasting forms of collective behavior. The main
goal of reactionary movements
is to reverse current social trends. Most conservative
movements try to protect what
they see as society's prevailing values from change that they
consider to be a threat to those values. The goal of revisionary
movements is to improve some
part of society through social change. The main goal of revolutionary
movements is a total and
radical change of the existing social structure. There is a life
cycle of social movements, starting with agitation, then comes
legitimation, then bureaucratization, it then ends with
institutionalization. Relative-deprivation theory,
people join social movements because they feel deprived relative to
other people or groups with whom they identify. Resource
mobilization is the
organization and effective use of resources. According to
resource-mobilization theory,
not even the most ill-treated group with the most just cause will be
able to bring about change without resources.
As we saw,
collective behavior is very important. We also saw that social
movements are important as well. Social movements are important for
they add to a growing society and even promote already grown
societies. In some cases, social movements can create damage to the
government but may be beneficial to the people.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Chapter 16: Population and Urbanization
Population is a very
important part of a society. Population can show whether a society is
increasing, decreasing or neutral. This is important because when a
society has more people, I is considered more powerful. Urbanization
is important also for it shows how developed a country or society is
based on their cities and their populations.
A population
is the number of people living in an area at a particular time.
Demography is the
are of sociology devoted to the study of human populations. The
measure most often used by demographers to describe the births within
a population is the birthrate.
Fertility refers to
the actual number of births occurring to women of childbearing age.
Demographers distinguish fertility from fecundity,
the biological capability to bear children. Mortality
is the number of deaths within a a society. The measure most often
used by demodeath rate. The
infant mortality rate
is the annual number of deaths among infants under one year of age
per 1000 live births in a population. Life expectancy
refers to the average number of years that a person born in a
particular year can expect to live. Migration
is the movement of people from one specified area to another.
Migration rate is
calculated as the annual difference between in-migration and
out-migration. Growth rate
is the rate at which a country's population is increasing. Doubling
time is a period of time that
is the number of years necessary for a population to double in size,
given its current rate of growth. Demographers also study population
composition. A population composition is shown in a pyramid, of the
age and sex distribution of the population. The Malthusian
theory predicted that the
population would soon reach astronomical numbers. The demographic
transition theory holds that
the population patterns are tied to society's level of technological
development. Zero population growth
is the point as which nearly equal birthrates and death rates produce
a growth rate of zero. Family planning
is the conscious decision by couples to have a certain number of
children. Some critics of family planning policies believe that
economic development must proceed before people in less-developed
nations will voluntarily limit their family size.
graphers to describe the deaths in a population is the
Urbanization
involves the concentration of the population to move towards cities.
A city is a
permanent concentration of a relatively large number of people who
are engaged mainly in non-farming activities. Most preindustrial
cities contained a few thousand people while some were considerably
larger. The industrial city covered a greater area and had a much
larger population. Overurbanization
is a situation in which more people live in a city than can be
supported in terms of jobs and facilities. Urban ecology
examines the relationship between people and the urban environment.
According to a concentric zone model
a typical industrial city spreads outward from the center, resulting
in a series of circles, or zones. In the sector model
growth occurs in wedge-shaped sectors outward from the center to the
edge of the city. In the multiple nuclei model
a city does not develop around one central core but around several
centers of activity, or “nuclei.” Urban sprawl
is characterized by poorly planned development on the edge of cities
and towns. According to the urban anomie theory
the city is an anonymous and unfriendly place, and living there
carries serious negative consequences for residents. Compositional
theory examined the ways in
which the composition of a city's population influences life in the
city. Subculture theory
was used to explain the nature of city life, the characteristics of
the city encourage rather than discourage the formation of primary
group relationships.
As
we can see population is very important for society. We saw that
three factors influence population. We also saw that urbanization can
bring about positive and negative effects. It is very important that
we understand these two major concepts in order to further understand
sociology.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)