Unit Essay 1:
What I changed and why: I had three oversized paragraphs in the beginning. I was able to split up the paragraphs better so my unit essay flows better and makes more sense. My reference page had two mistakes. One was with the source Edles and Appelrouth, the year just needed to be there and I fixed the italicizing of the title. The second source needed to just be the names Kenneth Allan and Sarah Daynes. I also fixed APA formatting by when performing in text citation putting the period after the source rather than after the quote. I believe that I fully answered all of the questions that were given in the prompt.
“A theory is a system of ideas that has been developed after many studies. Theories are constructed by examining the results of research and repeated observations” (Sternheimer, 2020). Sociological theory makes up how everyday life is maintained. This can be anything from how people behave, how society is kept alive, how people interact in social groups. There are many different background factors that can affect the way people interact with one another such as; cultural and identity.
“Societies are constantly evolving, the source of change is multifaceted, can’t provide universal laws for human behavior, many theories abound” (Edles & Appelrouth, 2010). This quote provides context that the world and the people within society are constantly shifting opinions and changing. Society has norms and criteria for what is acceptable and what is not, most of the time people adapt to the norm. Although through the time of The Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution people changed their views from abstract thinking to looking at a more realistic approach. Through the time period of The Great Depression people were greatly affected as well as everyday life. Social classes and inequality were brought into the mix that affected how sociological theory works. A more recent example is the Coronavirus and how it affected how people can interact within society. There was little to no real personal interactions with those outside of personal households. This led to changes in how society normally interacts socially. I mention all of these moments in history because sociological theory is important but can easily be shifted based on what is happening within society. It is important to go through these kinds of struggles as a society so therefore people can adapt and society can find their way to maintain an everyday manageable life.
Sociological theory is different from other theories because the research has to fully place themselves into personal experiences while examining old theories to provide better theories. What makes sociological theories so special is that they are not intended to be predictive like other theories, which is why they cannot be classified as natural science. Sociological theory is based on observations and the world is constantly changing so therefore sociological theory is always changing. Another idea that distinguishes sociological theory from other theories is it is meant to provide a worldview on a topic that is meant to explain it fully. This is important for future theories as in the process it is needed to reevaluate past theories in order to create new theories more effectively.
“A social theory systematically directs one’s attention to certain features of human social relations; social theories can be distinguished from each other by the features they emphasize”(Lengermann & Niebrugge, 2007, p.2). This quote is explaining that sociological theories can be different depending on what they are focusing on but what makes sociological theory different is that they can all study the same concept but depending on what group is the focus determines the results. “One of the things that makes us human is the way we think, and theory is all about thinking. Theory invites us to have new thoughts, ideas we’ve never even imagined before”(Allan & Daynes, 2017). Sociological theory is so different from others due to the fact personal experience is involved. Not everyone’s personal experience will be the same, not everyone’s environment of study will be the same but what remains is the society.
Sociology, referred to as a scientific discipline, was a foreign concept until Comte, Martineau, and Spencer. These three early people in society shaped the way sociology was thought of in society. To begin, Comte was the first major influence on shifting sociology. He lived through the period of The Enlightenment and The French Revolution. Living through this time period allowed Comte to think in a new way in turn becoming more intellectual about sociology. Comte introduced the idea of Law of Three Stages, theological, metaphysical, and positive stages. Theological stage allowed for people to explain occurrences through supernatural beings. Metaphysical stage made it where people could think abstractly compared to only being able to think realistically. The positive stage is when people think of occurrences in a scientific manner. The positive stage is later turned into positivism, this is a theory of knowledge. Postisim shifted the way people thought about phenomenon into a more realistic approach and only backed by facts or proof. Due to this shift in thinking social dynamics and social statuses were created. Social dynamics is how society progresses and social status is how society creates stability. Comte changed the methods of inquiry by adding historical methods. Without him adding this final step it would not have been any different from natural science.
Martineau was the first female sociologist to write and think from a feminist perspective. This was different for the world because the norm was smart white men. Morals and manners was Martineau’s main focus and identifying the difference and importance between the two. Morals are what people believe and what they say whereas, manners are how people act and behave. Martineau studied the discourse of society in order to understand how people form their own ideas for their purposes in life. She thought it was important for researchers to view a society through the culturals’ eyes compared to viewing a different culture through their own personal experiences. It is important for people to offer assessments without judgment and have sympathy and passion for what is being studied. Although Martineau did not come up with the term feminism she often writes and thinks from a family perspective and believes that women should be heard for how and what they think. Martineau believes that there are differences among women’s opinions based on race and social class. She believes that social change is required and something needs to be done about who society is listening to sociology and it shouldn’t be straight white men but rather from all parties.
Spencer had a huge impact and belief that social evolution was important. He believed that people needed to be adapting with the social changes in order to grow and change with the evolving society. The main three ideas behind people changing with society are growth, structure, and differentiation. Growth is when societies slowly increase in size, starting small and increasing to larger. Structure is how social groups, organizations, and institutions change with the growth of society. Lastly, differentiation is when the society grows and structure changes there are different individuals with different backgrounds and cultures. From that research Spencer created two different types of societies, militant and industrial. Militant is a power hungry designed society that is military, strong, disciplined style. Industrial is a collaborative designed society that is peaceful, with less government involvement. Spencer’s involvement framed how societies should be evolving.
References
Edles and Appelrouth, S. (2010). Sociological theory in the contemporary era: Text and Readings. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books/about/Sociological_Theory_in_the_Contemporary.html?id=8UEAi5pdWn4C
Kenneth Allan, & Sarah Daynes. (2017). Explorations in Classical Sociological Theory : Seeing the Social World: Vol. Fourth edition. SAGE Publications, Inc.
Lengermann, P., & Niebrugge, G. (n.d.). Settlement sociology (Chapter 11) – The Cambridge Handbook of Social Problems. Cambridge Core. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-handbook-of-social-problems/settlement-sociology/9ACF46A883D963103591B46F5B88B0FC
Sternheimer, K. (2020). Theories and hypotheses. https://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2020/02/theories-and-hypotheses.html
Unit Essay 2:
What I changed and why: I received a comment that there was a lack of clarity, in order to fix this I was able to split up my paragraphs to hopefully make the paper easier to follow. In order to fix my APA formatting by when performing in text citation putting the period after the source rather than after the quote. To answer question three better I provided a real life example of Max Weber’s work. I added two more sources to provide more clarity and support for my argument.
Max Weber was a German sociologist that believed that sociology was simply a personal interpretation for social behaviors. “What is considered “worthy to be known” depends upon the perspective of the inquiring scholar” (Coser, 2003, p.220). While interpreting what social behaviors mean Weber thought it was important for the researcher to possess value neutrality. Value neutrality in simple terms is an unbiased individual that can set aside personal values and beliefs while observing those within society. Weber’s ideas differed from Marx; he did not believe that capitalism should be the main idea. “Max Weber conceived of sociology as a comprehensive science of social action…Weber’s primary focus was on the subjective meanings that human actors attach to their actions in their mutual orientations within specific social-historical contexts. Behavior devoid of such meaning, Weber argued, falls outside the purview of sociology” (Coser, 2003, p.217). Weber believed that people behave a certain way based on the people they surround themselves with. This idea can be defined as social action. Weber did not believe there was a certain blueprint for the way people acted but rather what the individual believed was the meaning to the things happening in the world around them. Weber’s key theoretical interest was surrounded by his curiosity for why people act the way they do when in groups of people compared to being alone and how these actions impact the person and shape society institutionally.
Weber had many theoretical contributions to sociology, social action was by far the most important. As I stated before, social action lays groundwork for why and how people interact socially. There are four different types of social action; traditional, affectual, value-rational, and instrumentally rational. All of these actions explain some type of habit, emotion, goal, or a calculated response to achieve the most out of something.
The main reason for Weber placing so much emphasis on social action was due to the idea of rationalism. Rationalism was able to explain why people do things and how they are done efficiently, calculability, demystification, and dehumanization. Dehumanization is often forgotten but this concept is how people overlook how societal institutions and processes affect individuals without them realizing. These factors of rationalism make it hard for people to achieve life goals and values they may have placed upon themselves. Interpretive sociology focuses on what the meaning behind individuals actions are compared to trying to predict what the action is going to be. It is important to Weber that there is a specific reality in which actions of society are created and not just a set of cultural expectations that all individuals perform.
Weber also made major contributions to sociology by identifying different types of authority and bureaucracy and how the two fit together. Types of authority can be traditional, charismatic, and legal authority. Traditional authority is the way things are done because that is what the expectation of society is and what has been done in the past. Charismatic authority is when the authority is dependent on one person and everyone agrees with their ideas. Legal authority is like a president, when someone is elected to make major choices for those in society. These types of authority and bureaucracy fit together by impacting how individuals act within society and how individuals impact others within society. Society is able to operate independently while also organizing roles and organizations within society.
Max Weber’s contributions to sociology are still relevant in understanding and studying society by his nuanced approach to research. Weber’s interpretive understanding and relying upon the non bias of researchers when studying individuals in society is important. If the researcher was biased this would create conflict and confusion within the sociological world. Weber’s ideas of social action are still prominent in qualitative research and when conducting face to face interviews. “Emotional distance is key” (Grether, n.d.). Remaining non biased is the most important part of the research at hand. When Weber is discussing the types of authority and the differences between traditional, charismatic, and legal authority. Knowing the differences allow for current events in today’s world to better be explained. For example, legal authority is a huge decision for the individuals within society as this year is a big presidential election year.
Using Weber’s explanations allows for people to develop an understanding of the ways in which societal organizations and structures work. Weber’s ideas of rationalism and bureaucracy help explain society today within people having a certain set of rules they choose to follow and how different institutions are affecting people. When discussing bureaucracy, Weber’s ideas of dehumanization becoming a problem are important because people are impacted by societal institutions and the effects happen without the realization of individuals. “Sociology is essentially the interpretation of the meanings of social behaviors” (Grether,n.d.). It is essential for understanding how people act and why they act certain ways. An example of Weber’s ideas coming to life is bureaucracy institutions still instilled into today’s society. These can be things like a university or the DMV. Corporations are still running off hierarchies by having a boss, manager, supervisor, and worker.
References
Coser, L. A. (2003). Masters of sociological thought: Ideas in historical and social context (2nd ed.). Waveland Press.
Edles, L. D., & Appelrouth, S. (2010). Sociological theory in the classical era: Text and readings (2nd ed.). Pine Forge Press.
Grether, S. (n.d.) Max & Marianna Weber pptx. Sociology Department, Longwood University.
Lengermann, P. M., & Niebrugge, G. A. (2007). (pp. 193–214).
Unit Essay 3:
What I changed and why: I split up paragraphs in hopes of providing more clarity. I fixed my reference page by just providing the years rather than the full date. I believe I relied on course material with real world experiences to the best of my ability.
Symbolic interactionism is a concept that focuses on understanding the day to day life of individuals. Due to the nature of focusing on the micro level, made up of the small systems, families, friendships, work, and communities allows for a new understanding. Symbolic interactionism is able to help sociologists understand how individuals change their mannerisms and language depending on the situation. This idea is able to explain how social order is in a state of constant change and adaptation. People create different meanings attached to different symbols although these do change overtime. These meanings and symbols are created through interactions which explains why they are changing. With these symbols having different meanings attached to them people are able to communicate non verbally. This is due to the nature of uniqueness humans have because they are able to understand a symbol without any words being communicated.
Individuals are able to shape their language, meanings, and symbols based on who they are communicating with. There are different nonverbal cues depending on the audience, this is due to different modifications that the person has encountered while communicating with different types of people. There are no guidelines to follow because all of these meanings and symbols were made up informally and were agreed upon without the knowledge of agreeing. This creates meaning to social interactions and shows how important social interaction can be. The way humans think and interact with people on a day to day basis is explained by symbolic interactionism.
The main theorist that coined the term symbolic interactionism is Herbert Blumer. “People act toward things based on the meaning those things have for them; and these meanings are derived from social interaction and modified through interpretation” (Grether, n.d.). Blumer was able to clearly define meaning, language, thought, social interaction, and symbol. Blumer defined meaning as something that has an intention for another person, this can be non-verbal or verbal. Language was defined as communicating what the meanings of symbols are identified as. Thought was defined as a type of language that is able to modify the way a person thinks about a particular symbol. Social interaction was defined as how people are able to change the way they speak and act around different groups of individuals based on how they are represented in their life. Lasty, symbol was defined as something that represents something else that was agreed upon by a group of people. Through Blumer being able to identify these terms we can see how each of these work together and need one another to make sense of social order and interactions.
Goffman was another big theorist that helped society understand what symbolic interactionism is. Goffman was able to provide different contributions to understanding. The main contribution was dramaturgical perspective which was followed by three premises. Dramaturgical perspective is arguing that social interactionism can sometimes be similar to a theater performance. The first premise is performance, this is showing that certain individuals play certain roles in society. They are subjected to follow certain social norms or expectations that they should follow based on their role. The second premise is impression management, this is how other individuals perceive the performance of the other person. Goffman compares this performance to backstage and front stage. Backstage the person would be able to relax and be themselves whereas front stage the person would be performing or acting a certain way for the audience. Lastly, face to face encounters. Face to face encounters could impact the way we interact and how comfortable we feel acting in our certain role. In turn all of what Goffman is expressing creates a person’s sense of self. The sense of self impacts how a person thinks, feels, and acts.
These theorists demonstrate how symbolic interactionism is illustrated by pointing out that the reality of society is in a state of constant change. Society is changing all of the time and people are the reason why. The works of Blumer and Gofman show how people create the meaning of society and can change it whenever.
Their ideas are highlighted in today’s world by the use of social media. People are appealing to a certain audience when they are posting on social media. They are able to showcase what they want their audience to see and set the tone for their appearance on social media. As Goffman uses the example of backstage and front stage, people are able to act backstage because they are sitting behind a phone but can act front stage at the same time by appealing to the crowd they have created. It is easy for people to create different forms of themselves in order to appeal to certain people in order to achieve what they want. For example, on Instagram people may give off an adventurous and fun vibe. Whereas, on Linkin they may give off a professional and well educated individual. Social media also has a cancel culture. This cancel culture is created by groups of people in society and is constantly changing depending on what meaning and symbols people place on others. People on social media decide who they support and make famous but they can also cancel that person if that individual does something most people do not agree with. This follows the idea of social norms and the expectations placed on people depending on the group they are surrounded with. Social media and the actions that follow with having social media relate to what Blumer and Goffman were trying to explain.
References
American Sociological Association. (n.d.). Erving Manual Goffman. (2024) from https://www.asanet.org/erving-manual-goffman/
Brooks, S. (2021). Durkheim on Religion: Crash Course Sociology #8 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qe5TI__ZDU
Grether, S. (n.d.) Goffman pptx. Sociology Department, Longwood University.
Sternheimer, K. (2020). When back stage becomes front stage: Goffman’s dramaturgy in the age of teleconferencing. Everyday Sociology Blog.