Summaries: home page for society, culture and arts

1: The Perspective, Theory, and Method of Sociology

This chapter gives an introduction to the discipline of sociology. The most important skill to gain is the ability to use the sociological perspective. This chapter will also introduce the sociological theory which will help you to build an understanding about what you see when using the sociological perspective. Furthermore this chapter will explain how sociologists ‘do’ sociology by describing three general approaches to conduct research and four specific methods of data collection.

1.1: The Sociological Perspective

Sociology is the systematic study of human society. At the heart of sociology is a distinctive point of view called the sociological perspective.

Seeing the General in the Particular

Sociological perspective is defined as: seeing the general in the particular (Berger, 1963). This tells us that sociologist look for general patterns in the behavior of particular people. It is true that every individual is unique but society shapes the lives of people in various categories very differently. You will begin to see the world sociologically when you start realizing how the general categories into which we fall shape our particular life experiences. A good example of this is the classic study by Lillian Rubin(1976) about women’s hopes for their marriages. Rubin found that higher-income women typically expected the men they married to be sensitive to others, to talk readily, and to share feelings and experiences. Lower-income women had very different expectations and were looking for men who did not drink too much, were not violent, and held steady jobs.

To sum it up: what women expect in a marriage partner has a lot to do with their social class position. The sociological perspective shows us that factors such as our sex, age, race, and social class guide our selection of a partner. It also tells us that it might me more accurate if we see ‘love’ as a feeling we have for others who match up with what society teaches us to want in a life partner.

Seeing the strange in the familiar

It seems at first

Chapter 1 Introduction to cultural studies

In short, cultural studies is about language, power and the people. Cultural studies is a field involving multiple disciplines concerning diverse subjects. By examining social institutions, scholars of cultural studies are trying to capture the distinct movements, values and habits of people living together within a society.

Eight Key Concepts

Cultural studies is mainly concerned with eight key concepts namely: signifying practices, representation, materialism and non-reductionism, articulation, power, popular culture, texts and readers, subjectivity and identity. Writers are constantly in debate about how to deploy theses key concepts and which is the most significant one. The theories from which the concepts are drawn from will be discussed after briefly introducing each of the concepts.

1. Culture and signifying practices are focusing on the production of meaning in order to make sense of the world. Here the importance of language becomes apparent as language is a way to produce signs and hence, meaning.

2. Representation refers to the construction of meanings through several means such as images or sounds. However, meanings are connected to specific social contexts and are therefore understood differently according to distinct circumstances.

3. Materialism and non-reductionism are two interrelated concepts in cultural studies. Materialism is tied to the production of cultural meanings. At this point several questions arise such as who controls the production, how is it distributed and how does that affect the cultural environment. Hence, as already mentioned before, cultural meanings are related to a specific context with its own particularities. Such meanings cannot be reduced what is described as non-reductionism.

4. Articulation describes the relation of several elements in cultural studies. Hence, certain subjects are constructed through other subjects which are context dependent.

5. Power stands central in cultural studies as it highly influences, generates and determines social relationships.

6. Popular culture includes the concept of power generated through ideology and consent which results in hegemony. Ideology invisibly maintains power by presenting certain norms and values as universal truths. If a large group of people consents to a certain structure in society, hegemony is created which reproduces certain meanings and practices as forms of power over the subordinated group.

7. Texts and readers are culturally constructed such as sounds, images or

PART A BASICS OF ORGANIZATION THEORY

Where can the organization theory be found?

• Human Resource Area: Organization theory is evident in the recruitment, selection and training procedures of the organization.
• Strategy Area: Organization theory is used to direct the accomplishment of the organizations goals.
• Marketing Area: Organization theory helps everyone understand the organization itself, its strategy and its brand.
• Operations Area: Organization theory influences areas such as production, logistics and sales.

What is a theory?

Theory: “The phenomenon of interest” + concepts

• Phenomenon of Interest: This is the main part of the theory which is explained by the concepts. Even though this can be expressed as a formula, this is not always the case. For instance, some phenomenon of interest can be explained in terms of statistics, or sayings. This is extremely common when it comes to explaining human behaviour, as it is very difficult to describe.

• Concept: These are like folders, which we create to store similar experiences and ideas, only highlighting a few similar features. A concept is formed after abstraction has taken place.

By matching more personal experiences to a concept, the more elaborate the concept will become and the more likely you are to remember and understand it.

Chunking: Abstraction also allows the “chunking” of information. This is the process that enables us to think of many different things at the same time. This is evident in concepts as they are made up of large or big “chunks” of information.

Analysing Organizations - How?

There are three perspectives, collectively known as multiple perspectives which help to analyse and understand organizations. These include the modern, symbolic interpretive and post modern perspectives.

In order to understand these perspectives, one must know about ontology and epistemology.

Ontology: Area of study that focuses on what we think is real. It also asks questions such as whether or not we believe if our lives are already planned out for us, or if we control it ourselves.

• Subjectivists: believe that reality varies from person to person due to differing viewpoints and experiences.

• Objectivists: believe that our behaviour is predictable and can be controlled.

Epistemology: Area of study that focuses on “knowing how you can know.”

• Positivist Epistemology: This area says that an organization can be understood through the means of measurement, such as statistics, or scientific experimentation.

• Interpretive

Chapter 1: Clearing the Ground: Basic Issues, Concepts and Approaches

• Sociolinguistics is the subfield of linguistics that examines the relationship between language and society.
• Sapir describes language as a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.
• Modern Linguistics see language as a system of arbitrary vocal symbols (sound and meaning vary in language) used for human communication.

Sign and Object in words

• Onomatopoeic/sign: Sign/word replicates some characteristic of the object (for example Buzzz)
• Symbol: Arbitrary relationship between the sign and object, but which is understood as a convention. (green light in traffic = go)
• Index: logical relation between sign and object (weathercock)
• Icon: involves a relationship whereby the sign replicates some characteristic of the object, such as a drawing of a cat replicates the shape of a cat.
• Linguists see language as an instinct, as a manifestation of an ability that is specific to humans.

History of Sociolinguistics

In 500BC the first linguistic study was done by Pánini and his followers in India. They did oral treaties on phonetics and language structure. In 1786 Modern Linguistics was founded by Sir William Jones. In the early 20th century structuralism predominated linguistics (internal systems of language, instead of historical comparisons), but in 1957 the Generative Linguistics is founded by Chomsky (shift to a more psycho-biological stage, how do children acquire language).

Chomsky: Linguistic theory is primarily concerned with an ideal speaker-listener, in a completely homogeneous speech community, who knows its language perfectly and is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory limitations, distractions, shifts in attention and interest, and errors (random or characteristic) in applying his knowledge of the language in actual performance.

→ Chomsky's emphasis in the 1960s on abstracting language from the context in which it was spoken.

Break between the linguistics

• Psycholinguistics with an interest in language use within human societies

• Sociolinguistics with the ideas of Chomsky (focuses on what can be said, to whom, in whose presence, when and where, in what manner etc.). → acquiring language not just a cognitive process, but it's a social process as well.

Language is not just denotational (refers to the process of conveying meaning),