by DK
the ghetto MOMENT
Anderson argues that, although more black people are employed in middle-class professions than ever before, educated and successful black people are still regarded by some as the “exception rather than the rule”. He points out that successful black people still experience racist incidents – known as “ghetto moments” – when they are made to feel that they do not belong in white middle-class society.
Anderson experienced his own “ghetto moment” in Cape Cod, when a white man told him to “Go home!” – meaning back to the ghetto.
Though sociology is the study of society, it is also concerned with the individuals who make up our society. our choice of partner, for example, which may seem an entirely personal event, is actually influenced by the society we live in. if society approves or disapproves of our choice, it can make us feel part of society or an outsider.
Society and sexuality
It might seem strange to think that society can have an impact on something as intimate and personal as sexuality. Surely feelings of love and desire are natural responses that are triggered when someone feels romantically or sexually attracted to someone else? However, sociologists would say that sexuality, and indeed many other emotional responses and feelings, are strongly influenced by the society in which a person lives.
Society can influence human desire in a number of ways. It can indicate what is an acceptable way to begin dating someone. Do you send them flowers or just press a “like” response on a dating app? Society can also delineate which forms of sexuality are deemed acceptable at the current time, such as being straight or gay. It can even shape the expression of emotion and what can and should be said. For example, Valentine’s Day, which is celebrated in many countries around the world, brings a social expectation that people will express their love and affection for a partner, or for someone they hope will be their partner, on this day.
A personal choice? Falling in love seems like the most private thing we can do but society’s approval or disapproval can have an impact even on this part of our lives.
Boxes and labels
Sexuality is not a fixed entity that has always been the same throughout history. In ancient Greece and Rome, for example, people held quite different ideas about sexuality. It was not uncommon for men to have same-sex physical relations with younger men or with slaves. That form of sexual activity was not understood at the time as gay.
Indeed, the whole way of thinking that seeks to put people’s sexuality into boxes with labels such as straight, gay, or bi-sexual is something that is very much part of modern life. This idea that everything needs to be put into categories can be traced largely to a historical period known as the Enlightenment in the 18th century. In his work on human sexuality, French philosopher and sociologist Michel Foucault discovered that the category of “homosexual” only came into being in the 19th century. It was at that time that same-sex attraction began increasingly to be seen as something bad and wrong.
One of the reasons homophobia exists in society is due to what sociologists call “heteronormativity”. This is the term for the assumption that heterosexuality is the norm. For example, when someone refers to a partner there is often an assumption is that he or she is of the opposite sex. Heteronormativity is often reinforced by culture and the law. It is worth noting that the right to marry someone of the same sex has only become law in many countries in the early years of this century.
However, perhaps the need to put people in a box is gradually disappearing. Among today’s Millennial Generation (born in the 1990s or later) people are increasingly relaxed about their sexuality and sexual identities. That change in attitude among young people does not mean that all societies have become open and accepting of different sexualities. In many parts of the world, people who are attracted to the same sex or are openly gay or lesbian still encounter hostility and discrimination in the form of homophobia.
proud to be gay
Gay pride celebrates diversity with parades through cities in many parts of the world. At first, gay pride marches were more political, challenging bigotry and hostility towards gay and lesbian people. The first gay pride took place in June 1970 in Chicago. It marked the anniversary of a riot outside the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York, where patrons fought back against police harassment.
In 2009 Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir became Prime Minister of Iceland, and the world’s first openly lesbian leader of a country.
See also: What role does RELIGION play in society? | PIERRE BOURDIEU | What does FAMILY mean? | Identity | What does the Internet DO for us?
getting older is a fact of life. our bodies change over time, the elasticity of our skin decreases, hair thins and turns grey, and the taken-for-granted energy of youth reduces. all humans age, but what it is to get older, and the experiences of older people, depend greatly on the kind of society in which one lives.
How old is old?
Life expectancy depends on where one is born. In some countries life expectancy is very low because of war, poverty, or the extent of communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS. In Malawi in Africa, for example, there is an average life expectancy of just under 44 years for both men and women. In Japan it is more than 84 years.
The wealth of a country does not mean that its people will live longer. The level of equality, that is the difference between the poorest and the richest people in a society, is important too. So, in Norway, which has a more equal society, the life expectancy is nearly 82 years; while in the USA, which has a much more unequal society, it is nearer to 79 years.
In some countries the population is ageing so the experience of older people is of increasing importance. In Britain the over 65s outnumber those under 16, and in Japan there has been a surge in the elderly population.
How old age is seen
The way different societies view old age also varies. The visible signs of ageing – the grey hair and lines on the skin – have been interpreted in different ways by societies at different times. For example, it was socially desirable to appear more mature in Victorian England (1837–1901) and young men would try to make themselves look older by growing a beard as soon as they could. In present-day North America and Europe, where youth is highly valued, a wide range of technologies exist, including painful medical procedures, that can help people maintain a youthful appearance by hiding the natural signs of ageing. Singaporean sociologist Angelique Chan notes that in Malay cultures where religious wisdom is prized, older people enjoy a reasonable social status. However, in countries like China that prize people who are earning money, being older is not so valued.
New things Getting older can be a time to explore new pastimes and pursue dreams that were put on hold during busier times.
A golden time?
British sociologist Paul Higgs has been interested in studying what it is to be older in wealthy countries across Western Europe and North America. His research has taken him away from stereotypical views that old age should be seen as a low point in people’s lives. He sees older age as being a “golden time” for many older people alive today, a time when they can enjoy pursuing the activities, goals, and dreams they did not have the time to realize when they were younger.
However, it may be different for today’s young people. The generation that Higgs refers to grew up in a time of economic and social stability. British journalists Ed Howker and Shiv Malik in their book Jilted Generation (2013) and US sociologist Jennifer Silva in her book Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty (2013) have argued that today’s young people lack the same job security and finances to buy a home that were available for previous generations. They might be the first generation whose standard of living will be lower than that of their parents. When they get older their lives could be marked by inequality and poverty.
So society’s view of what it is to be old is evolving and depends on economic as well as cultural factors.
older runners
French soci
ologist Emmanuelle Tulle’s research on older competitive runners challenged stereotypes about older people. In her work with runners in their 40s, 50s, and 60s she found that they had developed an urge to run over many years. Despite being older, their motivation was not to prevent illness, neither did they want to be seen as heroes of old age, just to run without being dismissed as foolish.
According to the United Nations, by 2050 the global population of people over 60 will be 2.1 billion.
See also: Identity
The family is often seen as the building block of society. a child’s experience of family, whether good or bad, shapes his or her whole life. The family should be a stable place for children to learn the behaviour and values of society. however, the image of the family is evolving and these days families come in many different forms.
Family values
The family is regarded as being at the heart of society. It is seen as a safe and secure place where children are brought up. As such, the family acts as an important agent of socialization, the process by which the norms (what is regarded as the acceptable way to behave) and values of a society are passed from one generation to another.
However, the family can also have a negative side. Sometimes, it can be a place of abuse and violence, and an area where men exert their control over women and children. Given the importance and complexity of the family, sociologists have long been interested in trying to both understand what the family is and examine how the family has changed over time.
A perfect family
US sociologist Talcott Parsons carried out one of the most influential sociological studies of the family unit in the 1950s. He was interested in the role that the family played in making society work smoothly. For him, the family was a place where children learned the values of their society and where the emotional needs of the adult were taken care of. He also thought that it was best that the husband took on the role of earning the money for the family, while the wife stayed at home and looked after the emotional needs of the family. In many ways Talcott’s work reflects the time in which he was writing. The American family of the 1950s had an idealized “apple pie” image of family life (the stereotypical happy mum and dad with two perfect children). In fact, this image of a “traditional” family has not always existed.
In industrial societies of the 19th century, poorer people, including children, worked long hours, which meant that they hardly saw each other, and it was feared that the working-class family might disappear.
Different forms of family
Changes in family life make it hard to talk of “the family” as a fixed thing. Perhaps it is better to use the term “families” to allow for the idea that there are many different forms of family these days. “Blended” or “reconstituted” families where children live with a step-parent and step-siblings are increasingly common. This kind of family forms when adults make a new relationship after the ending of a previous one; often following a divorce.
Other family forms include same-sex relationships, which can include children. The slow, but steady trend in accepting gay and lesbian families as part of mainstream society has followed the legalizing of same-sex marriage and civil partnerships in many European countries and some states in the US. While there are many different ways that people form intimate relationships, what is striking is that most people still opt for some kind of long-term relationship with a partner, and frequently with children. These may not last “till death us do part” as in previous times, but families seem likely to endure as social forms.
Family forms Relationships change so that children may grow up with a step-parent or single parent or with parents in a same-sex partnership.
no one to blame
Most divorces these days are “no fault” divorces, meaning that neither partner is blamed for the breakdown of the marriage, a situation that is better for both parties and any children involved. It used to be that to get a divorce one partner had to have committed adultery, been violent, or be suffering from insanity.
In 2015, there were 2.2 million marriages in the US and 800,000 divorces.
See also: Who do you LOVE?
When the discipline of sociology was forming in the early 19th century, cLASS was ONE OF THE MOST FREQUENTLY discussed TOPICS. WHAT IS MEANT BY CLASS, HOW DIFFERENT CLASSES ARE DEFINED, AND WHETHER CLASS STILL EXISTS are subjects that are still hotly debated by many sociologists today.
Different views of class
Early sociological thinkers Max Weber, Karl Marx, and Émile Durkheim all wrote about class. Marx is well known for his writings on the subject, which describe a divide in society between the ruling class, the profit-seeking owners of businesses, and the people they exploited, the working class, who were employed in the factories. Weber agreed with Marx that class existed but also noted that the differences were not only economic. Some jobs, such as being a minister or priest, were poorly paid but carried a high social status. Other jobs offered little wealth but, because they made someone an elected state official, they brought considerable power. For Durkheim, however, the allocation of people to different classes, based on their abilities, was essential to the smooth running of society.
Does class still exist?
All three were writing about society in the mid-19th to early 20th centuries. It was easier then to identify class differences. There were sharp divisions between working-class manual labourers who worked amid the grime of the factory floor and middle-class, non-manual workers, who worked in clean offices. But is it easy to define the classes today? In 1996, Australian Jan Pakulski and Briton Malcolm Waters claimed in their work The Death of Class that class has disappeared in modern society. They argued that globalization, a reduction in the concentration of wealth, and the decline of traditional industries has made the concept of class irrelevant. They claimed that nowadays differences between social classes are based on status, and this is indicated by the ownership of consumer goods: the clothes you wear, the phone you have, and so on.
Acting middle class Though class distinctions may be less clear cut these days, the class system itself has not disappeared. As well as having money, knowing the right people and having middle-class manners can bring many benefits.
Class is not just about money
However, class appears to be more resilient than Pakulski and Waters thought. Looking at events since the mid-1990s, society has actually become more unequal (see What’s our IMPACT on the PLANET?) and two major events in 2016, the EU referendum (“Brexit”) in the UK and the US presidential election, appeared to show that class identity and class issues are very much alive. Both results revealed a working class that did not feel represented by a political elite and voted to change it.
French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) argued that class was still important. He offered a more nuanced understanding of how differences between social classes remain. Class distinctions, for Bourdieu, are composed of the combination of three different forms of capital. The first is economic capital, or how much money someone has. The second is social capital meaning the connections people have to resources such as money and jobs. The third is cultural capital, which refers to knowing how to behave (such as how to speak, what clothes to wear) in certain situations. The debate will continue, but it seems that class identities have not disappeared.
blue or white?
The terms “blue-collar”, meaning someone who is working class, and “white-collar”, meaning a middle-class office worker, come from the clothing traditionally worn in the workplace. The blue overalls that manual workers wore tended not to show dirt or grease. While office workers favoured white shirts and blouses. Nowadays these terms act as a useful shorthand.
48% of people in the US define themselves as working class.
See also: Are INSTITUTIONS a good thing? | Who’s to BLAME?
Karl Marx was born in Trier, Germany, the son of a successful lawyer. He studied law at the University of Berlin, although he was more interested in hi
story and philosophy. In 1843, he moved to Paris, where he met several leading socialists, including Friedrich Engels, with whom he wrote The Communist Manifesto. Regarded as one of the founding fathers of sociology, Marx was also an influential economist, philosopher, and historian, whose writings have inspired political movements around the world.
the PURSUIT of PROFIT
Marx’s most famous work, Das Kapital, examines the nature and development of capitalist societies. The first volume was published in 1857; two more volumes appeared after his death. In Das Kapital, Marx argues that working people are exploited in a capitalist society and that human labour has become a “commodity”. According to Marx, it is the relentless pursuit of profit and wealth that defines capitalism as a social system.