Sociology quiz (4 questions)
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Sociology v1.0.1 Steven E. Barkan Citation details
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1.1 The Sociological Perspective
Learning Objectives
1. Define the sociological perspective.
2. Provide examples of how Americans may not be as “free” as they think.
3. Explain what is meant by considering individuals as “social beings.”
Most Americans probably agree that we enjoy a great amount of freedom. And yet perhaps we have
less freedom than we think. Although we have the right to choose how to believe and act, many of
our choices are affected by our society, culture, and social institutions in ways we do not even
realize. Perhaps we are not as distinctively individualistic as we might like to think.
The following mental exercise should serve to illustrate this point. Your author has never met the
readers of this book, and yet he already knows much about them and can even predict their futures.
For example, about 85% of this book’s (heterosexual) readers will one day get married. This
prediction will not always come true, but for every 100 readers, it will be correct about 85 times and
wrong about 15 times. Because the author knows nothing about the readers other than that they live
in the United States (and this might not be true for every reader of this Flat World Knowledge
book), the accuracy of this prediction is remarkable.
The author can also predict the kind of person any one heterosexual reader will marry. If the reader
is a woman, she will marry a man of her race who is somewhat older and taller and who is from her
social class. If the reader is a man, he will marry a woman of his race who is somewhat younger and
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shorter and who is from his social class. A reader will even marry someone who is similar in
appearance. A reader who is good-looking will marry someone who is also good-looking; a reader
with more ordinary looks will marry someone who also fits that description; and a reader who is
somewhere between good-looking and ordinary-looking will marry someone who also falls in the
middle of the spectrum.
Naturally, these predictions will prove wrong for some readers. However, when one takes into
account all the attributes listed (race, height, age, social class, appearance), the predictions will be
right much more often than they are wrong, because people in the United States do in fact tend to
choose mates fitting these general descriptions (Arum, Roksa, & Budig, 2008; Takeuchi, 2006).
If most people will marry the type of person who has just been predicted for them, this may mean
that, practically speaking, one’s choice of spouse is restricted—much more than we might like to
admit—by social class, race, age, height, appearance, and other traits. If so, the choice of a mate is
not as free as we might like to think it is.
For another example, take the right to vote. The secret ballot is one of the most cherished principles
of American democracy. We vote in secret so that our choice of a candidate is made freely and
without fear of punishment. That is all true, but it is also possible to predict the candidate for whom
any one individual will vote if enough is known about the individual. Again, our choice (in this case,
our choice of a candidate) is affected by many aspects of our social backgrounds and, in this sense,
is not made as freely as we might think.
To illustrate this point, consider the 2008 presidential election between Democrat Barack Obama
and Republican John McCain. Suppose a room is filled with 100 randomly selected voters from that
election. Nothing is known about them except that they were between 18 and 24 years of age when
they voted. Because exit poll data found that Obama won 66% of the vote from people in this age
group (http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/ExitPolls), a prediction that each of these 100
individuals voted for Obama would be correct about 66 times and incorrect only 34 times. Someone
betting $1 on each prediction would come out $32 ahead ($66 – $34 = $32), even though the only
thing known about the people in the room is their age.
Now let’s suppose we have a room filled with
100 randomly selected white men from
Wyoming who voted in 2008. We know only
three things about them: their race, gender, and
state of residence. Because exit poll data found
[1]
Figure 1.1 Young people were especially likely to vote for Barack Obama in 2008, while white men tended, especially in Wyoming and several other states, to vote for John McCain. These
that 67% of white men in Wyoming voted for
McCain, a prediction can be made with fairly
good accuracy that these 100 men tended to
have voted for McCain. Someone betting $1 that
each man in the room voted for McCain would
be right about 67 times and wrong only 33 times
and would come out $34 ahead ($67 – $33 =
$34). Even though young people in the United
States and white men from Wyoming had every
right and freedom under our democracy to vote
for whomever they wanted in 2008, they still
tended to vote for a particular candidate
because of the influence of their age (in the case
of the young people) or of their gender, race,
and state of residence (white men from Wyoming).
Yes, Americans have freedom, but our freedom to think and act is constrained at least to some
degree by society’s standards and expectations and by the many aspects of our social backgrounds.
This is true for the kinds of important beliefs and behaviors just discussed, and it is also true for
less important examples. For instance, think back to the last class you attended. How many of the
women wore evening gowns? How many of the men wore skirts? Students are “allowed” to dress
any way they want in most colleges and universities (as long as they do not go to class naked), but
notice how few students, if any, dress in the way just mentioned. They do not dress that way
because of the strange looks and even negative reactions they would receive.
Think back to the last time you rode in an elevator. Why did you not face the back? Why did you not
sit on the floor? Why did you not start singing? Children can do these things and “get away with it,”
because they look cute doing so, but adults risk looking odd. Because of that, even though we are
“allowed” to act strangely in an elevator, we do not.
The basic point is that society shapes our attitudes and behavior even if it does not determine them
altogether. We still have freedom, but that freedom is limited by society’s expectations. Moreover,
our views and behavior depend to some degree on our social location in society—our gender, race,
social class, religion, and so forth. Thus society as a whole and also our own social backgrounds
affect our attitudes and behaviors. Our social backgrounds also affect one other important part of
patterns illustrate the influence of our social backgrounds on many aspects of our lives.
Source: Obama photo courtesy of the Obama-Biden Transition Project, http://change.gov/about/photo; McCain photo courtesy of the United States Congress, h ttp://www.gpoaccess.gov/pictorial/111th/states/az.pd f.
our lives, and that is our life chances "—our chances (whether we have a good chance or little chance) of being healthy, wealthy, and well educated and, more generally, of living a good, happy
life.
The influence of our social environment " in all of these respects is the fundamental understanding that sociology "—the scientific study of social behavior and social institutions— aims to present. At the heart of sociology is the sociological perspective ", the view that our social backgrounds influence our attitudes, behavior, and life chances. In this regard, we are not
just individuals but rather social beings deeply enmeshed in society. Although we all differ from one
another in many respects, we share with many other people basic aspects of our social backgrounds,
perhaps especially gender, race and ethnicity, and social class. These shared qualities make us more
similar to each other than we would otherwise be.
Does society " totally determine our beliefs, behavior, and life chances? No. Individual differences still matter, and disciplines such as psychology are certainly needed for the most complete
understanding of human action and beliefs. But if individual differences matter, so do society and
the social backgrounds from which we come. Even the most individual attitudes and behaviors,
such as the marriage and voting decisions discussed earlier, are influenced to some degree by our
social backgrounds and, more generally, by the society to which we belong.
In this regard, consider what is perhaps the most personal decision one could make: the decision to
take one’s own life. What could be more personal and individualistic than this fatal decision? When
individuals commit suicide, we usually assume that they were very unhappy, even depressed. They
may have been troubled by a crumbling romantic relationship, bleak job prospects, incurable
illness, or chronic pain. But not all people in these circumstances commit suicide; in fact, few do.
Perhaps one’s chances of committing suicide depend at least in part on various aspects of the
person’s social background.
To illustrate this point, consider suicide rates—the percentage of a
particular group of people who commit suicide, usually taken as, say,
eight suicides for every 100,000 people in that group. Different groups
have different suicide rates. As just one example, men are more likely
than women to commit suicide (Figure 1.3). Why is this? Are men
more depressed than women? No, the best evidence indicates that
women are more depressed than men (Klein, Corwin, & Ceballos,
2006) and that women try to commit suicide more often than men
Figure 1.2 Although suicide is popularly considered to be a very individualistic act, it is also true that individuals’ likelihood of committing suicide depends at least[2]
[3]
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2008). If so, there
must be something about being a man that makes it more likely that
males’ suicide attempts will result in death. One of these “somethings”
is that males are more likely than females to try to commit suicide with
a firearm, a far more lethal method than, say, taking an overdose of
sleeping pills (Miller & Hemenway, 2008). If this is true, then it is
fair to say that gender influences our chances of committing suicide,
even if suicide is perhaps the most personal of all acts.
In the United States, suicide rates are generally higher west of the Mississippi River than east of it
(Figure 1.4). Is that because people out west are more depressed than those back east? No, there is
no evidence of this. Perhaps there is something else about the western states that helps lead to
higher suicide rates. For example, many of these states are sparsely populated compared to their
eastern counterparts, with people in the western states living relatively far from one another.
Because we know that social support networks help people deal with personal problems and deter
possible suicides (Stack, 2000), perhaps these networks are weaker in the western states,
helping lead to higher suicide rates. Then too, membership in organized religion is lower out west
than back east (Finke & Stark, 2005). If religious beliefs and the social support networks we
experience from attending religious services both help us deal with personal problems, perhaps
suicide rates are higher out west in part because religious belief is weaker. A depressed person out
west thus is, all other things being equal, at least a little more likely than a depressed person back
east to commit suicide.
partly on various aspects of their social backgrounds.
© Thinkstock
[3]
[4]
Figure 1.3 Gender and Suicide Rate, 2006
Source: Data from U.S. Census Bureau, 2010.
[5]
[6]
Key Takeaways
According to the sociological perspective, social backgrounds influence attitudes, behavior, and life chances.
Social backgrounds influence but do not totally determine attitudes and behavior.
Americans may be less “free” in their thoughts and behavior than they normally think they are.
For Your Review
1. Do you think that society constrains our thoughts and behaviors as the text argues? Why or why not?
2. Describe how one aspect of your own social background has affected an important attitude you hold, a behavior in which you have engaged, or your ability to do well in life (life chances).
Figure 1.4 U.S. Suicide Rates, 2000–2006 (Number of Suicides per 100,000 Population)
Source: Adapted from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Division of Violence Prevention. (2009). National suicide statistics at a glance. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/violen ceprevention/suicide/statistics/suicide_map.html.
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Footnotes
[1] Arum, R., Josipa R., & Budig, M. J. (2008). The romance of college attendance: Higher education stratification and mate selection. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 26, 107–121; Alexander, T. S. (2006). On the matching phenomenon in courtship: A probability matching theory of mate selection. Marriage & Family Review, 40, 25–51. ↑
[2] Klein, L. C., Corwin, E. J., & Ceballos, R. M. (2006). The social costs of stress: How sex differences in stress responses can lead to social stress vulnerability and depression in women. In C. L. M. Keyes & S. H. Goodman (Eds.), Women and depression: A handbook for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences (pp. 199–218). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. ↑
[3] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2008). Suicide: Facts at a glance. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/ Suicide-DataSheet-a.pdf ↑
[4] Miller, M., & Hemenway. D. (2008). Guns and suicide in the United States. New England Journal of Medicine, 359, 989–991. ↑
[5] Stack, S. (2000). Sociological research into suicide. In D. Lester (Ed.), Suicide prevention: Resources for the millennium (pp. 17–30). New York, NY: Routledge. ↑
[6] Finke, R., & Stark, S. (2005). The churching of America: Winners and losers in our religious economy. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. ↑
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Sociology v1.0.1 Steven E. Barkan Citation details
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1.2 Sociology as a Social Science
Learning Objectives
1. Explain what is meant by the sociological imagination.
2. State the difference between the approach of blaming the system and that of blaming the victim.
3. Describe what is meant by public sociology, and show how it relates to the early history of sociology in the United States.
Notice that we have been talking in generalizations. For example, the statement that men are more
likely than women to commit suicide does not mean that every man commits suicide and no woman
commits suicide. It means only that men have a higher suicide rate, even though most men, of
course, do not commit suicide. Similarly, the statement that young people were more likely to vote
for Obama than for McCain in 2008 does not mean that all young people voted for Obama; it means
only that they were more likely than not to do so.
A generalization ! in sociology is a general statement regarding a trend between various dimensions of our lives: gender and suicide rate, race and voting choice, and so forth. Many people
will not fit the pattern of such a generalization, because people are shaped but not totally
determined by their social environment. That is both the fascination and the frustration of
sociology. Sociology is fascinating because no matter how much sociologists are able to predict
people’s behavior, attitudes, and life chances, many people will not fit the predictions. But sociology
is frustrating for the same reason. Because people can never be totally explained by their social
Aa" 1.2 Sociology as a Social Science Help Login Sign Up
environment, sociologists can never completely understand the sources of their behavior, attitudes,
and life chances.
In this sense, sociology as a social science is very different from a discipline such as physics, in
which known laws ! exist for which no exceptions are possible. For example, we call the law of gravity a law because it describes a physical force that exists on the earth at all times and in all
places and that always has the same result. If you were to pick up the book you are now reading or
the computer or other device on which you are reading or listening to it and then let go, the object
you were holding would obviously fall to the ground. If you did this a second time, it would fall a
second time. If you did this a billion times, it would fall a billion times. In fact, if there were even
one time out of a billion that your book or electronic device did not fall down, our understanding of
the physical world would be totally revolutionized, the earth could be in danger, and you could go
on television and make a lot of money.
For better or worse, people and social institutions—the subject matter of sociology—do not always
follow our predictions. They are not like that book or electronic device that keeps falling down.
People have their own minds, and social institutions their own reality, that often defy any effort to
explain. Sociology can help us understand the social forces that affect our behavior, beliefs, and life
chances, but it can only go so far. That limitation conceded, sociological understanding can still go
fairly far toward such an understanding, and it can help us comprehend who we are and what we
are by helping us first understand the profound yet often subtle influence of our social backgrounds
on so many things about us.
Although sociology as a discipline is very
different from physics, it is not as different as
one might think from this and the other “hard”
sciences. Like these disciplines, sociology as a
social science relies heavily on systematic
research that follows the standard rules of the
scientific method. We return to these rules and
the nature of sociological research later in this
chapter. Suffice it to say here that careful
research is essential for a sociological
understanding of people, social institutions, and
society.
Figure 1.5 People’s attitudes, behavior, and life chances are influenced but not totally determined by many aspects of their social environment.
At this point a reader might be saying, “I
already know a lot about people. I could have
told you that young people voted for Obama. I
already had heard that men have a higher
suicide rate than women. Maybe our social
backgrounds do influence us in ways I had not
realized, but what beyond that does sociology
have to tell me?”
Students often feel this way because sociology
deals with matters already familiar to them.
Just about everyone has grown up in a family,
so we all know something about it. We read a lot
in the media about topics like divorce and
health care, so we all already know something
about these, too. All this leads some students to
wonder if they will learn anything in their introduction to sociology course that they do not already
know.
How Do We Know What We Think We Know? Let’s consider this issue a moment: how do we know what we think we know? Our usual knowledge
and understanding of social reality come from at least five sources: (a) personal experience; (b)
common sense; (c) the media (including the Internet); (d) “expert authorities,” such as teachers,
parents, and government officials; and (e) tradition. These are all important sources of our
understanding of how the world “works,” but at the same time their value can often be very limited.
Let’s look at them separately by starting with personal experience. Although personal experiences
are very important, not everyone has the same personal experience. This obvious fact casts some
doubt on the degree to which our personal experiences can help us understand everything there is
to know about a topic and the degree to which we can draw conclusions from our personal
experiences that necessarily apply to other people. For example, say you grew up in Maine or
Vermont, where more than 98% of the population is white. If you relied on your personal
experience to calculate how many people of color live in the country, you would conclude that
almost everyone in the United States is also white, which obviously is not true. As another example,
say you grew up in a family where your parents had the proverbial perfect marriage, as they loved
© Thinkstock
each other deeply and rarely argued. If you relied on your personal experience to understand the
typical American marriage, you would conclude that most marriages were as good as your parents’
marriage, which, unfortunately, also is not true. Many other examples could be cited here, but the
basic point should be clear: although personal experience is better than nothing, it often offers only
a very limited understanding of social reality other than our own.
If personal experience does not help that much when it comes to making predictions, what about
common sense? Although common sense can be very helpful, it can also contradict itself. For
example, which makes more sense, haste makes waste or he or she who hesitates is lost? How
about birds of a feather flock together versus opposites attract? Or two heads are better than one
versus too many cooks spoil the broth? Each of these common sayings makes sense, but if sayings
that are opposite of each other both make sense, where does the truth lie? Can common sense
always be counted on to help us understand social life? Slightly more than five centuries ago,
everyone “knew” the earth was flat—it was just common sense that it had to be that way. Slightly
more than a century ago, some of the leading physicians in the United States believed that women
should not go to college because the stress of higher education would disrupt their menstrual cycles
(Ehrenreich & English, 1979). If that bit of common sense(lessness) were still with us, many of
the women reading this book would not be in college.
Still, perhaps there are some things that make so much sense they just have to be true; if sociology
then tells us that they are true, what have we learned? Here is an example of such an argument. We
all know that older people—those 65 or older—have many more problems than younger people.
First, their health is generally worse. Second, physical infirmities make it difficult for many elders
to walk or otherwise move around. Third, many have seen their spouses and close friends pass away
and thus live lonelier lives than younger people. Finally, many are on fixed incomes and face
financial difficulties. All of these problems indicate that older people should be less happy than
younger people. If a sociologist did some research and then reported that older people are indeed
less happy than younger people, what have we learned? The sociologist only confirmed the obvious.
The trouble with this confirmation of the obvious is that the “obvious” turns out not to be true after
all. In the 2008 General Social Survey, which was given to a national random sample of Americans,
respondents were asked, “Taken all together, how would you say things are these days? Would you
say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?” Respondents aged 65 or older were
actually slightly more likely than those younger than 65 to say they were very happy! About 40% of
older respondents reported feeling this way, compared with only 30% of younger respondents (see
[1]
Figure 1.6). What we all “knew” was obvious from common sense turns out not to have been so
obvious after all.
If personal experience and common sense do not always help that much, how about the media? We
learn a lot about current events and social and political issues from the Internet, television news,
newspapers and magazines, and other media sources. It is certainly important to keep up with the
news, but media coverage may oversimplify complex topics or even distort what the best evidence
from systematic research seems to be telling us. A good example here is crime. Many studies show
that the media sensationalize crime and suggest there is much more violent crime than there really
is. For example, in the early 1990s, the evening newscasts on the major networks increased their
coverage of murder and other violent crimes, painting a picture of a nation where crime was
growing rapidly. The reality was very different, however, as crime was actually declining. The view
that crime was growing was thus a myth generated by the media (Kurtz, 1997).
Expert authorities, such as teachers, parents, and government officials, are a fourth source that
influences our understanding of social reality. We learn much from our teachers and parents and
perhaps from government officials, but, for better or worse, not all of what we learn from these
sources about social reality is completely accurate. Teachers and parents do not always have the
latest research evidence at their fingertips, and various biases may color their interpretation of any
evidence with which they are familiar. As many examples from U.S. history illustrate, government
officials may simplify or even falsify the facts. We should perhaps always listen to our teachers and
parents and maybe even to government officials, but that does not always mean they give us a true,
complete picture of social reality.
Figure 1.6 Age and Happiness
Source: Data from General Social Survey, 2008.
[2]
A final source that influences our understanding
of social reality is tradition, or long-standing
ways of thinking about the workings of society.
Tradition is generally valuable, because a
society should always be aware of its roots.
However, traditional ways of thinking about
social reality often turn out to be inaccurate and
incomplete. For example, traditional ways of
thinking in the United States once assumed that
women and people of color were biologically
and culturally inferior to men and whites.
Although some Americans continue to hold
these beliefs, as we shall see in later chapters,
these traditional assumptions have given way to
more egalitarian assumptions. As we shall also
see in later chapters, most sociologists certainly
do not believe that women and people of color
are biologically and culturally inferior.
If we cannot always trust personal experience,
common sense, the media, expert authorities, and tradition to help us understand social reality,
then the importance of systematic research gathered by sociology and the other social sciences
becomes apparent. Although sociology sometimes does confirm the obvious, often it also confirms
the nonobvious and even challenges conventional understandings of how society works and of
controversial social issues. This emphasis is referred to as the debunking motif, to which we now
turn.
The Debunking Motif As Peter L. Berger (1963, pp. 23–24) notes in his classic book Invitation to Sociology, “The first
wisdom of sociology is this—things are not what they seem.” Social reality, he says, has “many
layers of meaning,” and a goal of sociology is to help us discover these multiple meanings. He
continues, “People who like to avoid shocking discoveries, who prefer to believe that society is just
what they were taught in Sunday School…should stay away from sociology.”
This is because sociology helps us see through conventional understandings of how society works.
Figure 1.7 The news media often oversimplify complex topics and in other respects provide a misleading picture of social reality. As one example, news coverage sensationalizes violent crime and thus suggests that such crime is more common than it actually is.
© Thinkstock
[3]
Berger refers to this theme of sociology as the debunking motif !. By “looking for levels of reality other than those given in the official interpretations of society” (p. 38), Berger says, sociology
looks beyond on-the-surface understandings of social reality and helps us recognize the value of
alternative understandings. In this manner, sociology often challenges conventional
understandings about social reality and social institutions.
For example, suppose two people meet at a college mixer, or dance. They are interested in getting to
know each other. What would be an on-the-surface understanding and description of their
interaction over the next few minutes? What do they say? If they are like a typical couple who just
met, they will ask questions like, What’s your name? Where are you from? What dorm do you live
in? What’s your major? Now, such a description of their interaction is OK as far as it goes, but what
is really going on here? Does either of the two people really care that much about the other person’s
answers to these questions? Isn’t each one more concerned about how the other person is
responding, both verbally and nonverbally, during this brief interaction? Is the other person paying
attention and even smiling? Isn’t this kind of understanding a more complete analysis of these few
minutes of interaction than an understanding based solely on the answers to questions like, What’s
your major? For the most complete understanding of this brief encounter, then, we must look
beyond the rather superficial things the two people are telling each other to uncover the true
meaning of what is going on.
As another example, consider the power structure in a city or state. To know who has the power to
make decisions, we would probably consult a city or state charter or constitution that spells out the
powers of the branches of government. This written document would indicate who makes decisions
and has power, but what would it not talk about? To put it another way, who or what else has power
to influence the decisions elected officials make? Big corporations? Labor unions? The media?
Lobbying groups representing all sorts of interests? The city or state charter or constitution may
indicate who has the power to make decisions, but this understanding would be limited unless one
looks beyond these written documents to get a deeper, more complete understanding of how power
really operates in the setting being studied.
Social Structure and the Sociological Imagination One way sociology achieves a more complete understandng of social reality is through its focus on
the importance of the social forces affecting our behavior, attitudes, and life chances. This focus
involves an emphasis on social structure !, the social patterns through which a society is organized. Social structure can be both horizontal or vertical. Horizontal social structure !
[4]
refers to the social relationships and the social and physical characteristics of communities to which
individuals belong. Some people belong to many networks of social relationships, including groups
like the PTA and the Boy or Girl Scouts, while other people have fewer such networks. Some people
grew up on streets where the houses were crowded together, while other people grew up in areas
where the homes were much farther apart. These are examples of the sorts of factors constituting
the horizontal social structure that forms such an important part of our social environment and
backgrounds.
The other dimension of social structure is vertical. Vertical social structure !, more commonly called social inequality !, refers to ways in which a society or group ranks people in a hierarchy, with some more “equal” than others. In the United States and most other industrial societies, such
things as wealth, power, race and ethnicity, and gender help determine one’s social ranking, or
position, in the vertical social structure. Some people are at the top of society, while many more are
in the middle or at the bottom. People’s positions in society’s hierarchy in turn often have profound
consequences for their attitudes, behaviors, and life chances, both for themselves and for their
children.
In recognizing the importance of social structure, sociology stresses that individual problems are
often rooted in problems stemming from the horizontal and vertical social structures of society.
This key insight informed C. Wright Mills’s (1959) classic distinction between personal troubles ! and public issues !. Personal troubles refer to a problem affecting individuals that the affected individual, as well as other members of society, typically blame on the individual’s own
failings. Examples include such different problems as eating disorders, divorce, and
unemployment. Public issues, whose source lies in the social structure and culture of a society, refer
to a social problem affecting many individuals. Thus problems in society help account for problems
that individuals experience. Mills, feeling that many problems ordinarily considered private
troubles are best understood as public issues, coined the term sociological imagination ! to refer to the ability to appreciate the structural basis for individual problems.
To illustrate Mills’s viewpoint, let’s use our sociological imaginations to understand some important
contemporary social problems. We will start with unemployment, which Mills himself discussed. If
only a few people were unemployed, Mills wrote, we could reasonably explain their unemployment
by saying they were lazy, lacked good work habits, and so forth. If so, their unemployment would be
their own personal trouble. But when millions of people are out of work, unemployment is best
understood as a public issue because, as Mills (1959, p. 9) put it, “the very structure of
[5]
[6]
opportunities has collapsed. Both the correct statement of the problem and the range of possible
solutions require us to consider the economic and political institutions of the society, and not
merely the personal situation and character of a scatter of individuals.” The growing unemployment
rate stemming from the severe economic downturn that began in 2008 provides a telling example
of the point Mills was making. Millions of people lost their jobs through no fault of their own. While
some individuals are undoubtedly unemployed because they are lazy or lack good work habits, a
more structural explanation focusing on lack of opportunity is needed to explain why so many
people were out of work as this book went to press. If so, unemployment is best understood as a
public issue rather than a personal trouble.
Another contemporary problem is crime, which we explore further in Chapter 5 “Deviance, Crime,
and Social Control”. If crime were only a personal trouble, then we could blame crime on the moral
failings of individuals, and many explanations of crime do precisely this. But such an approach
ignores the fact that crime is a public issue, as structural factors such as inequality and the physical
characteristics of communities contribute to high crime rates among certain groups in American
society. As an illustration, consider identical twins separated at birth. One twin grows up in a
wealthy suburb or rural area, while the other twin grows up in a blighted neighborhood in a poor,
urban area. Twenty years later, which twin will be more likely to have a criminal record? You
probably answered the twin growing up in the poor, run-down urban neighborhood. If so, you
recognize that there is something about growing up in that type of neighborhood that increases the
chances of a person becoming prone to crime. That “something” is the structural factors just
mentioned. Criminal behavior is a public issue, not just a personal trouble.
A final problem we will consider for now is
eating disorders. We usually consider a person’s
eating disorder to be a personal trouble that
stems from a lack of control, low self-esteem, or
other personal problem. This explanation may
be OK as far as it goes, but it does not help us
understand why so many people have the
personal problems that lead to eating disorders.
Perhaps more important, this belief also
neglects the larger social and cultural forces that
help explain such disorders. For example, most
Americans with eating disorders are women,
Figure 1.8 Although eating disorders often stem from personal problems, they also may reflect a cultural emphasis for women to have slender bodies.
not men. This gender difference forces us to ask
what it is about being a woman in American
society that makes eating disorders so much more common. To begin to answer this question, we
need to look to the standard of beauty for women that emphasizes a slender body (Whitehead &
Kurz, 2008). If this cultural standard did not exist, far fewer American women would suffer from
eating disorders than do now. Even if every girl and woman with an eating disorder were cured,
others would take their places unless we could somehow change the cultural standard of female
slenderness. To the extent this explanation makes sense, eating disorders are best understood as a
public issue, not just as a personal trouble.
Picking up on Mills’s argument, William Ryan (1976) pointed out that Americans typically blame
the victim when they think about the reasons for social problems such as poverty, unemployment,
and crime. They feel that these problems stem from personal failings of the people suffering them,
not from structural problems in the larger society. Using Mills’s terms, Americans tend to think of
social problems as personal troubles rather than public issues. They thus subscribe to a blaming the victim ! ideology rather than to a blaming the system ! belief.
To help us understand a blaming-the-victim ideology, let’s consider why poor children in urban
areas often learn very little in their schools. A blaming-the-victim approach, according to Ryan,
would say that the children’s parents do not care about their learning, fail to teach them good study
habits, and do not encourage them to take school seriously. This type of explanation may apply to
some parents, in Ryan’s opinion, but it ignores a much more important reason: the sad shape of
America’s urban schools, which are decrepit structures housing old textbooks and out-of-date
equipment. To improve the schooling of children in urban areas, he wrote, we must improve the
schools themselves, and not just try to “improve” the parents.
As this example suggests, a blaming-the-victim approach points to solutions to social problems
such as poverty and illiteracy that are very different from those suggested by a more structural
approach that “blames the system.” If we blame the victim, we would spend our limited dollars to
address the personal failings of individuals who suffer from poverty, illiteracy, poor health, eating
disorders, and other difficulties. If instead we blame the system, we would focus our attention on
the various social conditions (decrepit schools, cultural standards of female beauty, and the like)
that account for these difficulties. A sociological perspective suggests that the latter approach is
ultimately needed to help us deal successfully with the social problems facing us today.
Sociology and Social Reform: Public Sociology
© Thinkstock
[7]
[8]
This book’s subtitle is “understanding and changing the social world.” The last several pages were
devoted to the subtitle’s first part, understanding. Our discussion of Mills’s and Ryan’s perspectives
in turn points to the implications of a sociological understanding for changing the social world.
This understanding suggests the need to focus on the structural and cultural factors and various
problems in the social environment that help explain both social issues and private troubles, to
recall Mills’s terms.
The use of sociological knowledge to achieve social reform was a key theme of sociology as it
developed in the United States after emerging at the University of Chicago in the 1890s (Calhoun,
2007). The early Chicago sociologists aimed to use their research to achieve social reform and, in
particular, to reduce poverty and its related effects. They worked closely with Jane Addams (1860–
1935), a renowned social worker who founded Hull House (a home for the poor in Chicago) in 1899
and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931. Addams gained much attention for her analyses of poverty
and other social problems of the time, and her book Twenty Years at Hull House remains a moving
account of her work with the poor and ill in Chicago (Deegan, 1990).
About the same time, W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963), a sociologist and the first African American to
obtain a PhD from Harvard University, wrote groundbreaking books and articles on race in
American society and, more specifically, on the problems facing African Americans (Morris, 2007).
One of these works was his 1899 book The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study, which
attributed the problems facing Philadelphia blacks to racial prejudice among whites. Du Bois also
helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). A
contemporary of Du Bois was Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862–1931), a former slave who became an
activist for women’s rights and also worked tirelessly to improve the conditions of African
Americans. She wrote several studies of lynching and joined Du Bois in helping to found the
NAACP (Bay, 2009).
American sociology has never fully lost its early calling, but by the 1940s and 1950s many
sociologists had developed a more scientific, professional orientation that disregarded social reform
(Calhoun, 2007). In 1951, a group of sociologists who felt that sociology had abandoned the
discipline’s early social reform orientation formed a new national association, the Society for the
Study of Social Problems (SSSP). SSSP’s primary aim today remains the use of sociological
knowledge to achieve social justice (http://sssp1.org). During the 1960s, a new wave of young
sociologists, influenced by the political events and social movements of that tumultuous period,
again took up the mantle of social reform and clashed with their older colleagues. A healthy tension
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
has existed since then between sociologists who see social reform as a major goal of their work and
those who favor sociological knowledge for its own sake.
In 2004, the president of the American Sociological Association, Michael Burawoy, called for
“public sociology,” or the use of sociological insights and findings to address social issues and
achieve social change (Burawoy, 2005). His call ignited much excitement and debate, as public
sociology became the theme or prime topic of several national and regional sociology conferences
and of special issues or sections of major sociological journals. Several sociology departments began
degree programs or concentrations in public sociology, and a Google search of “public sociology” in
June 2010 yielded 114,000 results. In the spirit of public sociology, the chapters that follow aim to
show the relevance of sociological knowledge for social reform.
Key Takeaways
Personal experience, common sense, and the mass media often yield inaccurate or incomplete understandings of social reality.
The debunking motif involves seeing beyond taken-for-granted assumptions of social reality.
According to C. Wright Mills, the sociological imagination involves the ability to recognize that private troubles are rooted in public issues and structural problems.
Early U.S. sociologists emphasized the use of sociological research to achieve social reform, and today’s public sociology reflects the historical roots of sociology in this regard.
For Your Review
1. Provide an example in which one of your own personal experiences probably led you to inaccurately understand social reality.
2. Provide an example, not discussed in the text, of a taken-for-granted assumption of social reality that may be inaccurate or incomplete.
3. Select an example of a “private trouble” and explain how and why it may reflect a structural problem in society.
4. Do you think it is important to emphasize the potential use of sociological research to achieve social reform? Why or why not?
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Footnotes
[1] Ehrenreich, B., & English, D. (1979). For her own good: 150 years of the experts’ advice to women. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. ↑
[2] Kurtz, H. (1997, August 12). The crime spree on network news. The Washington Post, p. D1. ↑
[3] Berger, P. L. (1963). Invitation to sociology: A humanistic perspective. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. ↑
[4] Berger, P. L. (1963). Invitation to sociology: A humanistic perspective. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. ↑
[5] Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination. London, England: Oxford University Press. ↑
[6] Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination. London, England: Oxford University Press. ↑
[7] Whitehead, K., & Kurz, T. (2008). Saints, sinners and standards of femininity: Discursive constructions of anorexia nervosa and obesity in women’s magazines. Journal of Gender Studies, 17, 345–358. ↑
[8] Ryan, W. (1976). Blaming the victim. New York, NY: Vintage Books. ↑
[9] Calhoun, C. (2007). Sociology in America: An introduction. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Sociology in America: A history (pp. 1–38). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ↑
[10] Deegan, M. J. (1990). Jane Addams and the men of the Chicago school, 1892–1918. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. ↑
[11] Morris, A. D. (2007). Sociology of race and W. E. B. Du Bois: The path not taken. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Sociology in America: A history (pp. 503–534). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ↑
[12] Bay, M. (2009). To tell the truth freely: The life of Ida B. Wells. New York, NY: Hill and Wang. ↑
[13] Calhoun, C. (2007). Sociology in America: An introduction. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Sociology in America: A history (pp. 1–38). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ↑
[14] Burawoy, M. (2005). 2004 presidential address: For public sociology. American Sociological Review, 70, 4– 28. ↑
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