Subject: Sociology Text Book: You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking
ID: 106672 • Letter: S
Question
Subject: Sociology
Text Book: You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking Like a ...by Dalton Conley
1. What does the social construction of reality mean? Use your sociological imagination to describe t least one aspect of your life you NOW consider to be socially constructed.
2.What are social integration and social regulation? Describe how these concepts relate to Durkheim's theory of suicide and give one example.
3.In what ways are societies stratified? How is the U.S. stratified?
4.Describe how socialization constructs and establishes gender roles in the workplace. Relate this to the glass ceiling and glass escalator concepts.
5. Describe three ways the legacy of institutional racism is apparent in the U.S. justice system.
6.Name three policy responses to poverty (U.S. and/or global) and describe the results.
7. Describe and critique two theoretical explanations for poverty (and cite).
8. Compare and contrast the institutions of public education and charter schools.
Explanation / Answer
The Social Construction of Reality is a 1966 book about the sociology of knowledge by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann. Knowledge and people's conceptions (and beliefs) of what reality is become embedded in the institutional fabric of society. Reality is therefore said to be socially constructed.In the domain of social constructionist thought, a social construct is an idea or notion that appears to be natural and obvious to people who accept it but may or may not represent reality, so it remains largely an invention or artifice of a given society. Social reality is distinct from biological reality or individual cognitive reality, representing as it does a phenomenological level created through social interaction and thereby transcending individual motives and actions.
Social integration is the movement of minority groups such as ethnic minorities, refugees and underprivileged sections of a society into the mainstream of societies.Regulation consists of rules identifying permissible and impermissible activity on the part of individuals, firms, or government agencies. Social Regulations are aimed at restricting behaviors that directly threaten public health, safety welfare or well-being.Durkheim explores the differing suicide rates among Protestants and Catholics, arguing that stronger social control among Catholics results in lower suicide rates. According to Durkheim, Catholic society has normal levels of integration while Protestant society has low levels. There are at least two problems with this interpretation. First, Durkheim took most of his data from earlier researchers, notably Adolph Wagner and Henry Morselli,[1] who were much more careful in generalizing from their own data. Second, later researchers found that the Protestant-Catholic differences in suicide seemed to be limited to German-speaking Europe and thus may always have been the spurious reflection of other factors.[2] Despite its limitations, Durkheim's work on suicide has influenced proponents of control theory and is often mentioned
Social stratification is a society's categorization of people into socioeconomic strata, based on their occupation and income, wealth and social status, or derived power (social and political). ... Generally, the greater the social complexity of society, the more social strata exist, by way of social differentiation Socioeconomic status is just a way of describing the stratification system of the United States. The class system, also imperfect in classifying all Americans, nonetheless offers a general understanding of American social stratification. The United States has roughly six social classes:
Upper class
New money
Middle class
Working class
Working poor
Poverty level
4.The idea that gender difference is socially constructed is a view present in philosophical and sociological theories about gender. According to this view, society and culture create gender roles, and these roles are prescribed as ideal or appropriate behavior for a person of that specific gender. Some argue that the differences in behavior between men and women are entirely social conventions, whereas others believe that behavior is influenced by universal biological factors to varying degrees of extent, with social conventions having a major effect on gendered behavior instead of vice versa.A glass ceiling is a metaphor used to represent an invisible barrier that keeps a given demographic (typically applied to minorities) from rising beyond a certain level in a hierarchy whereas The glass escalator effect describes the differences in upward advancement between men and women in the workplace, particularly those workplaces that are female-dominated. Some possible solutions to level the gender playing field include promotion based on an evaluation, assessment of performance, seniority systems and so on.