1. Introduction to sociologysociology.org.uk/notes/AS_Intro.pdf · 2019-07-26 · 3 Introduction to sociology collecting and making sense of evidence. One example of this is that

WARM UP: ASKING QUESTIONS

Sociology, at its most basic, is the study ofpeople, their life and their relationships, andyou can find out a great deal about people ifyou ask them the right questions. In pairs,therefore, discover as much as you can aboutyour neighbour by asking them about theirlife. You might, for example, try asking themabout their:

• family relationships (do they havebrothers and sisters?)

• education (what subjects are they studyingand why?)

• work (what they do, what they hope to doin the future).

You could develop this questioning byasking them what they feel about the peopleand relationships in their life (how do theyget on with brothers, sisters, work colleaguesand so forth?).

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1. Introduction to sociology

INTRODUCTIONFor most students reading this book, AS level is probably a first introduction to sociology in any serious way.This is not to say you do not have some idea about the subject, but it is probably true that the extent of yourknowledge is somewhat limited. In the normal course of events this is not a problem although, as with anynew subject, you will have to become familiar with the particular ways in which sociologists like to look atthings and the ‘technical language’ they use.

Leaving aside any positive or negative preconceptions you have, the idea of ‘learning a new language’ isactually a useful way of starting to think about sociology, since it involves approaching things that are familiarto us – people and their behaviour – and looking at them in a new and different way. As Peter Berger (AnInvitation to Sociology, 1962) puts it: ‘The fascination of sociology lies in the fact that its perspective makesus see in a new light the very world in which we have lived all our lives . . . ’.

This idea is both important (if sociologists had nothing new to say about the social world there would not bemuch point to the subject) and, I think, interesting, mainly because it suggests there are different ways oflooking at and understanding human behaviour.

We need to do some initial preparation work as a way of sensitising you to the idea of looking at humanbehaviour sociologically. This introduction, therefore, is designed to help you identify the subject matter ofsociology and to do this we will be looking at three main ideas:

• an initial definition of sociology

• the difference between facts and opinions

• the sociological perspective – how sociologists look at the social world.

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AS Sociology for AQA

Definingsociology

Preparing theground

In basic terms, sociology is the study ofhuman societies. In other words, its subjectmatter is both human behaviour and, mostimportantly, human relationships. It isusually, as you may be aware, classed as oneof the social sciences along with subjects likepsychology. It was largely established as adiscipline in the late eighteenth centurythrough the work of writers such as AugusteComte.

As an academic subject, sociologydeveloped in the late nineteenth to earlytwentieth centuries through the work ofwriters such as Emile Durkheim, Max Weberand Talcott Parsons (all names that, for thepresent, probably mean nothing to you). Onename you may have heard – Karl Marx(1818–84) – has probably done more tostimulate interest in the subject than anyoneelse, even though he wrote in a period beforesociology became fully established as adiscipline. Sociology, therefore, has areasonably long history of development(150–200 years), although in Britain it hasonly achieved prominence as an examinedsubject in the last 30 to 40 years.

Definitions of the subject are not hard tocome by, although for our purposes we canrestrict ourselves to just a couple to give yousome idea about what sociologists study and,equally importantly, how they study it.

• What sociologists study: A useful startingpoint is George Ritzer’s (Sociology:

Experiencing a Changing Society, 1979)observation that: ‘Sociology is the study ofindividuals in a social setting thatincludes groups, organisations, culturesand societies. Sociologists study theinterrelationships between individuals,organisations, cultures and societies’.In this respect, sociology involvesstudying human beings (which youprobably knew) and, perhaps moreimportantly, their patterns of behaviour(which you may not have thought about).To do this, we focus on the relationshipspeople form and how these connect toeach other. In other words, the focus ofthe sociologist’s attention is groupbehaviour and, more specifically, how ourmembership of social groups (such asfamilies, friends and schools) impacts onindividual behaviour.

• How sociologists study behaviour: BarrySugarman (Sociology, 1968) suggests:‘Sociology is the objective study of humanbehaviour in so far as it is affected by thefact that people live in groups.’For the moment, the idea of objectivitycan be taken to mean that sociologists tryto create factual knowledge, rather thanknowledge based on opinion and, in thisrespect, sociologists – as they study groupbehaviour and relationships – try to avoidpersonal bias intruding into theirresearch. To achieve this, they try to besystematic in their study of people’sbehaviour. This means that whencollecting information about behaviour,sociologists use research methods(questionnaires, observations,experiments etc.) governed by certainrules of evidence – rules which tellsociologists how to go about the task of

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Introduction to sociology

collecting and making sense of evidence.One example of this is that a sociologistwill try to test their ideas in some way,rather than simply assuming something iseither true or false.

Concepts of ‘truth’ and ‘falsity’ are alwayssignificant for many reasons, not the leastbeing that sociologists – like most people –want the information they produce to beconsidered true. Assessing these concepts is,as we will consider at various points in thiscourse, not always simple andstraightforward, but for the moment we justneed to consider the distinction betweentwo types of information closely related tothese ideas, namely facts and opinions.

• Facts are things that are true, regardlessof whether or not we would like them tobe true. For example, it is a fact that ASSociology courses currently involve publicexaminations; you may not like this factbut if you want to achieve an ASSociology qualification you will have tosit exams to determine your final grade.One major characteristic of factualknowledge, as I have suggested, is that itis considered true because we have triedto test it in some way (for example,through observing something over time)and found we cannot prove it false. Thisis a nice though initially somewhatconfusing distinction that will beincreasingly useful as your coursedevelops. For example, I have observedvarious Advanced Level Sociologycourses over time and found it to be truethat there is always an examination ofsome kind involved. This is not to sayfacts are true for all time (in the future,sociology grades may not be awarded onthe bases of tests) but, given certain

specified conditions, a fact is a statementthat is true while those conditions apply.

• Opinions on the other hand can begenerally defined as ideas that may or maynot be factual or true. An opinion, in thisrespect, is simply a statement we makethat we believe to be true (or not as thecase may be), regardless of whether or notwe have any evidence to support it. Forexample, I may hold the opinion that Iam the most intelligent person in theworld, but the only way to assess the truthor falsity of this opinion is to test it.

The main purpose of this little detour fromthe path of sociological enlightenment is tosuggest sociologists try to create factualknowledge about human behaviour. That is,we try (not always successfully it has to besaid) to produce statements about humanrelationships that are not only true, butdemonstrably true – in other words, we areable to demonstrate such statements are notfalse on the basis of testing and evidence.

At A-level it is necessary – butunfortunately not sufficient – for students toboth separate facts from opinions and beable to demonstrate a sound knowledge ofthese facts. Sociology, at this level, is not asimple memory test (‘If I can memoriseenough facts I will pass the course’), butclearly factual knowledge is very important.

Sociologists, however, are not simplyinterested in facts for their own sake; rather,we are (possibly more) interested in howfacts are produced. In other words, how isfactual knowledge created? The deceptivelysimple answer is that factual sociologicalknowledge is created by asking theoreticalquestions. Theory, for our purpose here, issomething that explains the relationshipbetween two or more things. For example, it

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is a fact that in 1995 approximately 160,000marriages in Britain ended in divorce.Sociologically, we would like to know whythis happens – what are the causes ofdivorce?

We can only explain facts by constructingpossible explanations (theories) and thentesting our theory against other, known,facts (or ‘reality’ as we sometimes like to callit). For example, a very basic theory in thisinstance might be that ‘If a man and awoman are both in their teens when theymarry, they are more likely to divorce’(something that, statistically, happens to betrue).

Digging deeperSo far we have looked at a couple of basicdefinitions of sociology, in terms of whatsociologists study and how they study it.Before we move on to look at someimportant introductory sociologicalconcepts, we need to step back for a momentto consider some of the basic beliefs sharedby most sociologists.

Basic beliefsSociologists, like any social group, share anumber of beliefs about the enterprise inwhich they are engaged (which, for those ofyou with very short memories, is tounderstand human behaviour). This is notto say sociologists are a group of like-mindedindividuals, always in complete agreementwith each other; on the contrary,sociologists rarely agree with each other –but that is a story we will developthroughout this book. However, it is truethat to be a sociologist means to subscribe toa set of principles that govern our basicoutlook on ‘Life, the Universe and, indeed,

almost Everything’ to paraphrase DouglasAdams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,1979). In other words, if you do not orcannot agree with any of the following then,at best, you are going to find sociologydifficult and, at worst, very frustratingindeed. Let us begin, therefore, by notingthe following basic beliefs.

• Human beings are social animals: Not aparticularly controversial openingstatement, but one that needs to benoted. Sociology stems from the idea that‘the human animal’ lives, works and playsin groups and this group behaviourinvolves the requirement to cooperatewith others to produce the social world inwhich we live.

• Human beings belong to social groups:To understand human behaviour we focuson the groups to which people belong.This follows from the above in the sensethat, if people form social groups (such asa family), it makes sense to examine andtry to understand how these groupsinfluence our behaviour. You might, forexample, like to briefly reflect on howyour family or friends have influencedyour personal development (or, thenagain, you might not – we will need, atvarious points, to think about how thechoices we make affect both our ownbehaviour and that of the people around us).

• Human beings learn: A fundamental ideafor sociologists is that social behaviour islearned, not instinctive. This, of course,is a rather more controversial statement(for reasons we will develop in amoment), but it expresses the basicsociological belief that there is nothing inour biological or genetic make-up that

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forces us to behave in particular ways (tobe, for example, selfish, aggressive orcaring – to mention just three of mymany human characteristics). This is not to say human biology andgenes are unimportant; you only have tolook around to see they are – as a species,human beings are, for example,genetically different from cats and we areall, in various significant and insignificantways, biologically different from eachother. However, in terms of the relativeinfluence on our behaviour, ‘learning’ isconsidered the most important forsociologists.

It is important you understand and, to someextent, accept these ideas and, in order toencourage such acceptance, we can brieflyoutline some of the reasons why sociologistssee social behaviour as learned behaviour.Although it is not a particularly hardconcept to grasp, one difficulty students tendto have at the start of a course is overcominga lurking belief that, deep down, humanbehaviour really does have some sort ofinstinctive basis. This is not too surprising(and is really nothing to be ashamed about)given two things.

• Teaching: Firstly, we tend to be taughtthat animal behaviour is guided byinstinct (by which, for the moment, wegenerally mean to be some sort of geneticprogramming that tells animals how tobehave without them having to thinkabout such behaviour). Since people areessentially animals too, it is only a shortstep to believe that some – if notnecessarily all – of our behaviour has asimilar instinctive basis.

• Language: Secondly, the concept of

instinct is frequently used in everydaylanguage. For example, we hear or usephrases like ‘The striker’s instinct forgoal’ or ‘She seemed to instinctivelyknow they were talking about her’. Thiseveryday usage gives the impression thatinstinct commonly influences behaviourand enters the realm of ‘what everybodyknows’. It becomes, in effect, part of ourcommon sense store of knowledge.

InstinctTo understand why sociologists oftenquestion the usefulness of thinking abouthuman behaviour in terms of instincts, weneed to be clear about its meaning. Instinctshave three main features: they tell ananimal, for example, what to do, when to doit and, finally, how to do it. To clarify theseideas, consider this example from the bird world.

• What: Every year for as long as I canremember, blue tits have nested in thebird box I have so thoughtfully providedfor them in my garden (except, I shouldadd, when my garden was beingredesigned and I took the box down –they nested in my barbeque instead). Thisis evidence of instinctive behaviourbecause the adult blue tits know whatthey have got to do each year.

• When: Aside from nesting every year, theblue tits also know at what point in theyear to start nest-building, egg-laying andchick-rearing. Again, this is instinctivebehaviour because it does not have to betaught or learned – they just seem toknow when to start nesting.

• How: Without fail, these birds buildexactly the same sort of nest each year (asingle-storey ‘everyone-in-it-together’

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affair). This, yet again, is instinctivebehaviour because the adult birds have nochoice in the matter – they build the typeof nest they have been geneticallyprogrammed to build.

In terms of the above, human beings do notbehave instinctively in the way weunderstand some animals or birds to.However, we can qualify this slightly bynoting a further concept, frequently confusedwith the idea of instinct, namely biologicaldrives. These are things that are biologicallydesirable or necessary, examples of whichmight include eating and sleeping. Weshould note that even though such drives arepart of our biological make-up, they can beregulated though our social experiences (inother words, we may exercise some degree ofchoice about when and how we do them).Eating, for example, can be regulated throughdieting, and sleep patterns can be fairly easilyadjusted, depending on social circumstances.

WARM UP: INSTINCTIVE BEHAVIOUR?

In the following exercise we are going to testwhether or not it is possible to identifyhuman instincts. As you may imagine (givenwhat you have just read), this is not verylikely; nevertheless, it is a useful exercise,not simply to test this idea, but also becauseit leads into the main part of this chapter, adiscussion of learned behaviour.Firstly, make sure you understand theconcepts of instinct and biological drives andthe difference between them.Secondly, make a list of anything you thinkcould conceivably be instinctive humanbehaviour (for example eating or sleeping,crime, looking after children).Next, remove from your list any biologicaldrives.

Finally, for each of the remaining things onyour list, remove it if we have a choice aboutwhether or not to do it – which will put paidto things like crime (many people neverbreak the law) and looking after children(many people choose to remain childless, orthey employ other people to look after theirchildren). You should be left with a suspiciously blanklist – and if it is not blank then you haveeither cheated, have a chronic inability tofollow simple instructions or have listedthings that are too trivial to have any realimpact on people’s behaviour).

Before we start to look at sociological ideasabout learned behaviour, we can note thatsociologists are sceptical about the idea ofinstinct as the basis for human behaviour,for three main reasons.

• Choice: Instincts, by definition, involve alack of choice (their purpose, after all, isto create order by explicitly removingchoice from the agenda). Humanbehaviour, on the other hand, involvesan almost limitless set of choices, some ofwhich are fairly banal (‘Should I do mysociology homework or watch TV?’) andsome of which are not (‘Should I buy thisvery interesting book or steal it from thebookshop?’).

• Diversity of our behaviour: One of thefascinations of sociology is the factdifferent people develop different (ordiverse) ways of doing things. If humanbehaviour was simply based on instinct,we would expect to see much the samesort of behaviour wherever we were in theworld – and while there are, as we willsee, many similarities and continuities inhuman behaviour, there is also a vast

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range of differences that stem from ourability to make choices.

• Adaptation: We live in a vast andcomplex world, one that seems to changeincreasingly rapidly. People have to beable to adapt to changes in their worldand instinctive behaviour is, by its verynature, not well-suited to change.

Having suggested our behaviour is based onexperience rather than instinct, what weneed to do next is look at how sociologistsconsider social behaviour to be a learnedprocess.

Learnedbehaviour

Preparing theground

The first point to note is that if behaviouris learned, it follows it must also be taught– which leads to the idea that ourmembership of social groups is the initial

key to understanding behavioursociologically. We need, therefore, tounderstand the concept of a social groupand how belonging to groups affects ourbehaviour. As you probably appreciate,there are various types of social group wecan identify, such as:

• Family groups, consisting of peoplerelated to each other through kinship (adirect biological relationship – such asmother and daughter) or affinity (theirrelationship is by marriage or some otherliving arrangement).

• Educational groups, which could includepeople studying together in the sameschool/college or class.

• Work groups – people who do the sametype of job, for example.

• Peer groups, consisting of people ofroughly the same age (teenagers, forexample) who share a number of commoninterests, such as music and fashion.

Our individual lives, therefore, aresurrounded by social groups – some of whichwe actively join and others which we may

Growing it yourself: social groups and theireffects

Identify a group to which you belong (if done as a class, split into small groups, and eachgroup identify a different social group). Examples of groups you could use are: family,education, work, friends and peers. Draw a table such as the one below and provide examplesthat answer the two questions (I’ve given you a couple of examples to get you started).

Group How has my behaviour beenshaped by this group?

How has the behaviour of groupmembers been shaped by mybehaviour?

School class I sit quietly and listen I am a style icon – they look to mefor fashion advice

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merely observe. Their significance to us,however, needs to be considered in terms of how membership of these groups affectstwo things:

• how we think about the social world (ourpersonal ‘sociological perspective’)

• how we behave – in other words, how ourbehaviour is both learned from andshaped by the behaviour of others.

This exercise will have demonstrated twothings: firstly, that we all belong to a widevariety of social groups and these groupsshape our behaviour in some way; andsecondly, as a member of these groups we areinvolved in shaping the behaviour of others.

In other words, this is a two-way process –my behaviour towards you affects yourbehaviour towards me which, in turn, affectshow I behave towards you. The significanceof this idea, if it is not immediatelyapparent, will be made clear in a moment.However, rather than explore these ideasfurther now, what we need to do is to brieflyexamine one of the largest groups to whichwe all belong, namely a society. This isuseful for a couple reasons.

• Common behaviour: Membership of asociety is something we have in common– we are all aware (because we have beentaught such awareness) that we live in aparticular society. Since it is a familiarconcept to us, we should already havesome basic idea about what it involves.

• Sociological problems: Examining thisidea will help us understand some of theproblems sociologists face in their study ofsocial behaviour, mainly because, as wewill see, it is not easy to pin down exactlywhat we mean by the ‘thing’ (society) weare supposed to be studying.

When we think about the concept of a‘society’ we tend to characterise it in termsof ideas like:

• Geographical area, which is marked byeither a physical border (such as a river),or a symbolic border (for example, animaginary line marking where one societyends and another begins).

• System of government, which mayinvolve things like a monarchy,parliament and civil service, for example.

• Language, customs and traditions whichpeople within a society share (speakingthe same language, for example, orcelebrating a particular religious festival).

• Identity: we develop an awareness that‘our society’ is different from othersocieties and ‘We’, in turn, considerourselves different from ‘Them’ (forexample, the English may see themselvesas different from French or Americanpeople).

• Culture: What we are starting to develop,in very general terms, are ideas aboutdistinctive ‘way of life’ characteristics ofdifferent societies. This concept is one towhich we will necessarily return in amoment, since it involves the need tolearn certain things.

Digging deeper One of the problems sociologists have is thatthe ‘thing’ we want to study doesn’t have aphysical existence. ‘Society’, in other words,cannot be sensed – seen, smelt, touched,tasted or heard. This, as you might expect,creates a couple of immediate problems.

• Arguments: Our inability to point tosomething solid and say, ‘This is society’

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means sociologists have developeddifferent opinions about the nature ofsociety – how it’s organised or how itaffects our behaviour, for example. Inaddition, not all sociologists agree abouthow to define ‘society’ or, indeed, how itcan be studied.

• Knowledge: Sociologists are often accusedof not being ‘real’ scientists (such asphysicists, for example). Whether thismatters probably depends on howimportant you consider this status to be.However, it does tend to mean the valueof sociological knowledge is generallydowngraded, mainly because sociologistsseem incapable of predicting humanbehaviour. Whether this ‘unpredictability’is a quality of sociology or of humanbehaviour is a matter for debate.

For the moment, we can note that there areplenty of things in the natural world thatcan be studied without the scientist beingable to see them. Gravity, electricity,radiation and oxygen, for example, are allthings we know exist, but they are notthings you could easily pick up andphysically examine.

The important point here, therefore, isthat we know these things exist (or, if youprefer, we can theorise their existence) notbecause we can physically sense them butbecause we can feel their effects. This is animportant idea because it gets us thinkingabout something like society in terms of itbeing a force, rather than a physical object –in the same way that gravity is a force ratherthan an ‘object’. We can’t see it, but we knowit’s there because we feel its effect. In a similarway, if we think about society as an invisibleforce, it should be possible to study its effectsand, by so doing, demonstrate its existence.

If we view society in this way, it would behelpful to think about how this force iscreated and, to do this, we can use the ideaof society as an imagined community.Benedict Anderson (Imagined Communities:Reflections on the Origin and Spread ofNationalism, 1983), for example, argues thatsociety ‘is imagined because the members ofeven the smallest nation will never knowmost of their fellow-members, meet them, oreven hear of them, yet in the minds of eachlives the image of their communion.’

In other words, society exists for us in ourthoughts – each of us, in some way, imagineswe belong to that community we call ‘oursociety’, just as we imagine we belong tosocial groups (such as a family) within thatsociety. This may seem a complex idea tograsp (especially this early in the course),but we can simplify it by thinking about howand why we imagine ourselves to be part of acommunity, based on the idea ofrelationships.

RelationshipsWhenever we enter into a relationship withsomeone – either through choice ornecessity – we create an invisible bond. Forexample, when you say something like,‘That person is my friend’, you recognisesome kind of special relationship betweenthe two of you. This relationship isdifferent from the one created when yousay something like, ‘That person is mymother’.

There are hundreds (probably, I haven’tcounted them) of different socialrelationships we could identify. Some ofthese relationships are personal (‘This is mylover’) and some are impersonal (such aswhen you watch television), but theimportant thing is they all affect your

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What should be clear from the above is thatrelationships and their meanings areimportant to us – not just on an individuallevel, but also in terms of the various wayswe imagine our connections to other people.What we need to do next, therefore, is toexplore in more detail the various ways weconstruct our social relationships.

Culture andsocialisation

Preparing theground

In this section we can develop some of theideas we have touched upon in relation tothe idea that social behaviour is learned. Inparticular, we can look more closely at twocentral ideas, namely, what we learn and howwe learn it.

As we have just seen, the idea of beingborn into – and living in – a society is animportant one, not simply because thishappens to be true (everyone is born into anexisting society), but also because it suggests

Growing it yourself:classifying people

Next time you walk around your school orcollege, think about the different ways youclassify people and how this classificationaffects your behaviour towards them. Tohelp you, think about the following classesof people and how you’re expected tobehave towards them:

• strangers (people you don’t know)

• acquaintances (people you recognise,but don’t really know very well)

• friends

• close friends

• best friends.

behaviour in some way. You might like tothink about this in terms of the way youclassify the people around you – and howthis classification system affects yourrespective behaviours.

If you think about this exercise, therelationships we form are significant to usbecause of the meanings we give to them.In a way, it is as if we are involved in anelaborate game, where we convinceourselves that the relationships we form arereal, in the sense of having some sort ofphysical existence. We can think aboutthis in terms of behaviour. How would astranger be able to identify the differenttypes of relationship in your life? How, forexample, would they know which personwas your father or sister, employer or lover?The simple answer is that, merely bylooking, they wouldn’t. They could onlyguess at these relationships by the wayboth you and these people behave towardseach other.

Discussion point:using your

imaginationWhat would happen if you imagine arelationship exists and the people aroundyou deny that it does?

What would happen, for example, if youwent up to a complete stranger and startedbehaving towards them as if they wereyour boy/girlfriend?

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‘a society’ involves some sort of organisation.In other words, for a society to exist it musthave order and stability and for these to existpeople’s behaviour must display patterns andregularities – ideas we can initiallyunderstand in terms of culture. At its mostbasic, a culture is, as I have already noted, a‘way of life’. It consists, in other words, ofthe behaviour and beliefs that characterisepeople of a particular society, and we canstart to explore this idea in the followingexercise.

WARM UP: BEHAVIOUR AND BELIEFS

This exercise involves identifying behavioursand beliefs characteristic of British culture.It can be done individually, but it is morefun if you do it as a class.I have provided one example of behaviourand beliefs in each section to get you started.What further examples could you add toeach of the categories?In this exercise we have identified threemain aspects of culture we can develop inthe following way:

• Social institutions: We can think about‘our culture’ (or indeed any culture) interms of general patterns of behaviour

based around four different categories:politics, economics, family life and culture(which includes areas like education andreligion). The technical term for theselarge-scale, persistent (long-term) patternsof behaviour is ‘social institution’ – anidea we will develop in more detail in amoment.

• Norms: When we think about ‘typical’forms of behaviour (such as going toschool or working) we are referring tonorms (short for ‘normative’ or ‘normal’)These can be defined as expected forms ofbehaviour in a given situation. Forexample, it might be a norm in oureducation system for students to sit quietlyand listen when their teacher is talking tothe class.

• Values: When we think about beliefsassociated with institutions and norms(such as the belief someone is ‘innocentuntil proven guilty’) we are expressing avalue – a belief about the way somethingshould be. Thus, when you catch yourselfsaying what you believe someone shouldor should not do, you are expressing yourvalues.

Aspect ofCulture

Behaviour typical of Britishculture

Typical beliefs of Britishculture

Politics Legal system – law abiding Fair trial

Family Marriage/cohabitation Romantic love

Economic (Work) Employer/employee Work for money

Education Attending school (5–16) Qualifications important

Media Watching TV Private/public ownership

Religion Prayer Christianity/Islam

Science Medical surgery Keeping people alive as long aspossible

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Digging deeper So far we have seen that a society has aculture that consists of a combination ofsocial institutions, norms of behaviour andvalues. Before we examine these ideas inmore detail, however, we can dig a littledeeper around the concept of culture toidentify some of its most important aspectsand suggest why culture (rather thaninstinct) is the basis for human behaviour.Let’s begin, therefore, by noting that cultureconsists of two basic elements, materialculture and non-material culture.

Material cultureThis aspect of culture consists of thephysical objects (cars, telephones,computers, etc.) a society produces to reflecttheir knowledge, skills, interests andpreoccupations. These objects do, of course,have meaning for the people who produceand use them, adding a further dimension tothe concept of culture which we canillustrate in the following way.

If you think about a mobile phone it isfairly easy to see these two dimensions ofmaterial culture:

• Technology: On the one hand, themobile phone is an object that allows youto communicate with anyone who hasaccess to a telephone, wherever you may be.

• Meaning: On the other hand, yourmobile has certain cultural meanings; itsays something, in other words, aboutwho you are.

For example, your ringtone, the functionsyour mobile can perform and so forth, all saysomething about you. Whether or not it’s

Discussion point:cultural meaningLook at the picture and describe what itmeans to you.

Now look at the following picture anddescribe what it means to you.

These are the very latest mobilephones from Nokia

This picture of Alan shows himusing an early mobile (a word Iuse loosely) phone

What do the two pictures tell us about:

• how meanings change• how changes in technology may change

the meaning of something?

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Growing it yourself:finding functions

In the following table I have identified someexamples of behaviour in our society. Insmall groups, reproduce the table andsuggest manifest and latent functions forthe actions I have left blank.

As a class, if you have the time (and theinclination), suggest some further actionsand their associated manifest and latentfunctions.

who is in charge of the class (since only theteacher is allowed to mark the register).

Action Manifestfunction(s)

Latentfunction(s)

Taking theregister

To see whois present orabsent

To establishauthority ofthe teacher

A teacherstandingat thefront ofthe class

Going toschool

A schoolassembly

Wearinganengage-ment ring

A wedding

Non-material cultureThe second aspect of culture we can usefullynote is non-material culture, which consistsof the knowledge and beliefs that influencepeople’s behaviour. For example, in our

what you intend them to mean is, of course,something other people will decide –perhaps that Cliff Richard ringtone youintend to be an ironic comment on popularculture is just seen as totally naff by peoplewho have to listen to it.

The Discussion Point has started youthinking about the idea of social status,which involves ideas about how you areviewed by others and, most importantly, thelevel of respect they give you on the basis oftheir understanding of your status. Anotheraspect to status, in this particular context, isthat a mobile phone is an example of a statussymbol – an object that partly functions totell other people something about you(which, in terms of the second picture atleast, may or may not be what youintended). This, in turn, leads us to thinkabout the concept of function: RobertMerton (Social Theory and Social Structure,1957) argued that the purpose of something(its function) can always be considered ontwo levels, namely in terms of:

• Manifest function, which relates to anapparent or obvious purpose (the manifestfunction of a mobile phone, for example,is to communicate with people)

• Latent function, which involves the ideasomething may have a hidden or obscuredpurpose (for example, the idea of amobile phone being used as a statussymbol).

A further example of manifest and latentfunctions might be when a teacher takes theregister at the start of a class. The manifestfunction of this behaviour is to see who ispresent and who is absent. However, thisbehaviour also serves a latent or hiddenfunction – one that demonstrates to students

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culture, behaviour may be influenced byreligious beliefs (if you are a Christian or aMuslim, for example, the teachings of thesereligions may exert a powerful influence overyour behaviour) and/or scientific beliefs –your view of human biological development,for example, has probably been influencedby Charles Darwin’s ‘Theory of Evolution’.

Having outlined these two basicdimensions of culture, we can develop theconcept of non-material culture further byexamining a number of related ideas.

Roles, status,values, norms

Preparing theground

So far we have touched on the idea ofsocieties and cultures being characterised bycertain behavioural patterns or regularities.The main question to address next,therefore, is that if we are all individuals,unique in our own small ways, and withoutinstincts to guide us, how is it possible forthese patterns of behaviour to exist?

For sociologists, the answer to thisquestion is behaviour patterns are culturallycreated; that is, individual behaviours areshaped by the groups – and culture – towhich we belong and with which weidentify. To understand this idea, we need tointroduce a couple of new concepts andrevisit some we have already (briefly) met.

Social rolesThese are one of the main ways the‘invisible hand’ of culture reaches out toinfluence people’s behaviour. Roles are the

parts we play in our relationships with others– an idea similar to that of an actor in aplay. Just as an actor may play many partsduring their career, each of us plays manyroles during our lifetime; teacher, student,mother, son, employer and employee are justa few examples we can identify.

Roles are an important part of culturebecause they are the basic foundations forbehaviour; without instincts to guide us weare forced to develop a sense of how we areexpected to behave in particular socialsituations. This means that roles have someinteresting features worth noting.

• Sharing: A role is always played inrelation to other roles. My role of teacher,for example, would be meaningless if itwasn’t played out in relation to students(standing at the front of an emptyclassroom patiently explaining theconcept of social roles would probably beinterpreted as a sign of insanity).

• Expectations: Because roles alwaysinvolve certain expectations (I expect toteach, you expect to learn) they create asense of order and predictability in ourrelationships. This is because role-play isgoverned by certain rules of behaviour(sometimes termed a prescribed aspect of arole – expectations about how you shouldbehave when playing a particular role),which links to the concept of:

• Norms: As I have suggested earlier, theseare expected, socially acceptable ways ofbehaving when playing a role. Forexample, as a teacher, it’s a norm for meto arrive on time for my classes, mainlybecause my students expect their classesto start on time and it would beunacceptable for me to turn-up an hour late.

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Similarly, there are a variety of normsassociated with the student role; I expectmy students to listen to my words ofwisdom, ask intelligent questions, pretendto look interested, laugh at my ‘jokes’ andso forth. Norms, in this respect, arespecific guidelines, designed to govern ourbehaviour in various situations; they are,if you like, the basic rules of behaviour wedevelop and use to perform rolespredictably and acceptably.One further point to note is that normsare frequently open to negotiation; it maybe possible to play the same role (such asa student) differently in differentsituations. For example, when attendingone class the teacher may interpret theirrole narrowly, enforcing all kinds of rulesand restrictions (working in silence, forexample). However, in a different classthe teacher may interpret their role verybroadly, allowing their students to behavein ways unacceptable to the first teacher.This idea leads us neatly into a discussionof a related concept, that of values.

ValuesAs we have briefly seen, values are beliefsabout what is important, both to us and tosociety as a whole. We can, however,develop this idea by noting three furtherpoints.

• Interpretations: Our values influencehow we interpret and play a particularrole and, in turn, influence the normswe associate with that role. Forexample, if, when playing the role of‘father’, you believe ‘Children should beseen but not heard’, you’re not likely tobother asking your kids about where togo on holiday.

• General Guidelines: If norms are specificbehavioural guidelines, values providevery general behavioural guidelines. AsThio (Sociology: A Brief Introduction,1991) puts it: ‘While norms are specificrules dictating how people should act in aparticular situation, values are generalideas that support the norm’.

• Judgements: Values, by definition, alwaysinvolve judgements about behaviour;whenever we think about – or express –the values we hold we are choosing tobelieve one thing rather than another.

Social roles

Digging deeperThe different roles we play can be neatlygrouped into two main categories.

• Achieved: These are roles we choose – orare allowed – to play and they are‘achieved’ because we have to dosomething to earn the right to play them(a doctor, for example, will have workedto gain the qualifications necessary toplay this role). The majority of roles inour society are achieved.

• Ascribed: These roles are ones we’reforced to play by other, more powerful,people. For example, between the ages of5 and 16 in Britain, the government giveseveryone the ascribed role of ‘schoolchild’.Although, in our society at least, ascribedroles tend to be in the minority, they arenevertheless still significant – think, forexample, about the possible consequencesof being male or female, young or old,rich or poor.

As I have suggested, role-play is a source oforder and predictability in both our

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individual and institutional relationships –which is one of the reasons we develop andplay roles. Without them the social worldwould be a very confusing place – imagine,for example, a situation in which you couldnot remember what your relationship toeveryone around you was supposed to be.

One benefit of role-play, therefore, isthat once we’ve learned what’s expected ofus, we use that knowledge whenever weplay that role – it helps us accomplishcertain tasks. The teaching and learningprocess, for example, is made easier if bothteacher and student behave towards eachother in ways considered appropriate fortheir roles (think how difficult it is to learnif the teacher is unclear about what they’reteaching or if students misbehave in theclassroom).

Another aspect of social order, therefore,is that role-play helps us regulate both ourbehaviour and that of others. Role-playing isa way of controlling people’s behaviour, forexample, because the norms associated witheach role give us boundary markers againstwhich to judge acceptable and unacceptablebehaviour. This idea of social control isimportant enough for us to consider in moredetail in a moment.

One feature of role-play, as we’ve seen, iseach role is played out in relation to otherroles; a group of roles relating specifically tothe role we’re playing is called a role-set andan example of a student’s role set might be:

• other students• your class teacher• other teachers• caretaking staff• administration staff• your parent(s)/guardian(s).

This idea leads us inexorably to a furtherconcept related to roles and role-sets, calledsocial status. As I have suggested, socialstatus involves the ‘level of respect we’reexpected to give someone playing aparticular role’. Every role has an associatedstatus and we can, for example, measure thestatus of a student against the status of ateacher. Alternatively, we could measure thestatus of a teacher against the status of theQueen. As with the concept of role, socialstatus has two basic forms.

• Achieved status involves doingsomething to earn that status – ateacher’s status is earned, for example,because they have achieved the level ofqualification and training necessary toplay this role.

• Ascribed status, on the other hand, isgiven to you, whether or not you want it.You may not, for example, have wantedthe status of ‘pupil’, but you were given itregardless.

The way we feel about our status in relationto others affects the way we behave incertain situations. This is because status isclosely related to a further concept, that ofpower. This involves the ability to forcepeople to do something, regardless of theirability to resist. A teacher, for example,probably believes that, because their status isgreater than that of their students, they arejustified in:

• setting students work do outside theirclass

• telling a noisy student to be quiet• making an unruly student leave the class.

One final idea to note here is that, for allthe advantages they give us in the

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organisation of our lives, the wide numberand variety of roles we play occasionallycauses us problems, one aspect of which wecan note in terms of role conflict, whichoccurs when the norms consistent with onerole prevent us from behaving in accordancewith the norms consistent with another role.Imagine, for example, you play two differentroles in your life:

• Student role: For this, one norm is youhave to be in class at 3 pm on a Friday.

• Part-time employee role: When a crisisoccurs at work your employer demandsyou start work 3 hours earlier than usualon a Friday. Instead of starting at 5 pm,they ask you to start at 2 pm.

This is a no-win situation for you. If youfollow the norms associated with one role(student), you break the norms associatedwith the other (employee). The fact that it’snot your fault and that whatever you choosewill mean getting into trouble, merely makesyou an innocent victim of role conflict.

NormsDigging deeper

Although you’re probably not aware of it(and why should you be?), norms come in avariety of shapes and sizes which we cannote as follows.

• Folkways (or informal norms) are a weakkind of norm; if you break them, thesanctions (penalties) involved are fairlyminor. Folkways relate mainly to socialpoliteness and customs. For example,when you meet someone you know it’s

polite to greet them (‘Hello’) and expectthem to respond in kind. Similarly, it’scustomary in our culture to send peoplebirthday cards. In many ways folkways areexamples of situational norms – they onlyapply in specific situations. Your failure tosend me a birthday card is unlikely toworry me unduly, for the deceptivelysimple reason that I don’t know you (itmight have been nice if you’d made theeffort, however); your failure to remembera loved one’s birthday, on the other hand, is likely to result in some sort ofpenalty . . .

• Mores (pronounced ‘more-rays’) arestronger norms and a failure to conformto them will result in a consequentlystronger social response from whoeverresents your failure to behaveappropriately. In some ways it’s useful tothink of them as rules relating toparticular situations – for example, a no-smoking policy in an office. Anotherexample might be a rule that banscheating in an exam.

• Laws (legal or formal norms) are thestrongest norms in any society. They areexpressions of moral feelings and exist toexplicitly control people’s behaviour.Punishment for breaking legal normsvaries in terms of their perceivedseriousness. In our society, punishmentsvary from things like community ordersand fines to life imprisonment (althoughin some societies, such as the USA orSaudi Arabia, capital punishment may bethe most extreme sanction for breakingthis type of norm).

Discussion point:exploring normsExploring personal and cultural norms can be an interesting and sociologicallyrewarding experience because it helps us understand the nuts-and-bolts ofcultural life.

In small groups, or as a class if you wish,choose one of the following to think aboutand discuss:

• the norms of window shopping• when and how to kiss• the gender norms of public lavatories• personal space.

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So far we have talked in general terms aboutthe concept of culture, outlined in terms of asociety having general beliefs that apply tothe majority of its members. While this isboth true and useful, it is interesting to notehow this sense of belonging to the sameculture can be broken down into more specificvalues and norms since, although we sharemany things with others, not every group hasexactly the same values and norms – and thisis where the concept of sub-cultures comesinto its own. This concept refers to the idea ofsome (smaller) groups within a generalculture sharing a particular way of life. Someexamples that show the wide range of sub-cultural groups in our society might be:

• football supporters• train-spotters• orthodox jews• travellers• A-level students.

We can use the last example – being part ofa student sub-culture – to illustrate the

possible relationship between cultural andsub-cultural groups.

A student is part of a sub-cultural groupwith its own particular ‘way of life’(attending classes, and doing all the thingsstudents are supposed to do.). However, justbecause they are part of this sub-culturedoesn’t mean they can’t be part of other sub-cultural groups or, indeed, the culture ofsociety as a whole.

While some of the values of a studentsub-culture (wanting to get an A-levelqualification, for example) and the normsassociated with these values (such as gaininga qualification by passing examinations) maybe different from the values and norms ofother sub-cultures, they can still be part ofthe wider culture of society. Indeed, thereason you might value an educationalqualification is precisely because it has avalue in wider society. A prospectiveemployer, for example, might offer you a jobon the basis of your qualifications.

So far we have looked at the things weneed to learn (roles, values, norms and soforth) in order to take our place in society.What we need to do next, therefore, is tolook at how we learn these things – througha process called socialisation.

Thesocialisationprocess

Preparing theground

Learning how to behave in ways that accordwith the general expectations of others (in

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short, to be socialised) is a process thatbegins at birth and continues throughout ourlife. We never stop learning how to behave,mainly because society is always changingand we are continually faced with learninghow to behave in new and differentsituations (especially in terms our individualrelationships). When we start to look atsocialisation as a process, therefore, we canbegin by identifying two basic types.

• Primary socialisation occurs between theindividual and those people in their lifewith whom they have primaryrelationships; that is a relationshipinvolving close, personal and face-to-faceinteraction with the people responsiblefor doing the socialising. For most of us,the first primary relationship we form iswith our parent(s); as we grow older, weform primary attachments with people wecall friends and, eventually, perhaps, withother adults.

• Secondary socialisation, on the otherhand, occurs, as you can probably guess,between the individual and those peoplewith whom they have secondaryrelationships – situations where theindividual doesn’t necessarily have close,personal and/or face-to-face contacts withthe people responsible for thesocialisation process. This form ofsocialisation represents the way we learnabout the nature of the social worldbeyond our primary contacts, mainlybecause in our society we have to learn todeal with people we meet, the majority ofwhom are not emotionally close to us.

Given that the socialisation process –whether primary or secondary – involvesboth teaching and learning, we can talkabout those responsible for teaching us roles,

norms, values and so forth as agents ofsocialisation. For most of us, the first agencyresponsible for primary socialisation is ourfamily, and the main agents of socialisationare a child’s parents (although brothers,sisters and wider relations – such as aunts,uncles and grandparents – may also beinvolved). The family group initially takesresponsibility for teaching the basic thingswe need to learn as part of growing-up –how to walk, talk and use culture-appropriate tools (such as knives and forks),among other things.

Parents don’t just teach the basics of‘becoming human’, however. They are alsoinfluential in teaching basic values, such astheir perception of right and wrongbehaviour, how to relate appropriately toother people such as family, friends,strangers and so forth.

Although this socialisation process islengthy and complicated (there’s a great dealto learn), it is important not to see it as asituation where a socialising agent, such as aparent, simply teaches behaviour that isthen copied without question. Althoughpart of a child’s socialisation does involvecopying the behaviour they see around them(children frequently copy adult roles throughtheir play, using games such as ‘Mothers andFathers’ or ‘Doctors and Nurses’ to bothmimic and practise behaviour), the child isalso actively involved in the socialisationprocess.

Children, for example, don’t always obeytheir parents and even at an early age,conflicts occur – the socialising efforts ofparents, relatives and friends, for example,don’t always neatly coincide. In addition,while the child is learning how to adapt totheir environment they are changing theway the people around them behave (think,

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for example, about how parental attitudes toyour behaviour have changed as you havegrown older).

Finally, perhaps, as we get a little olderwe start to make decisions for ourselves,based upon our experience; we learn, ineffect, how to deal with other people byunderstanding the behaviour they expect of us.

Many of the things we learn during ourinitial, family-based, primary socialisationstay with us for life. This is because we learnthe basic principles of ‘being human’, ratherthan simply a set of things we must or mustnot do. This is important because it meanswe can apply these principles to new anddifferent situations. For example, we don’tjust learn how to relate to adults, we learnhow to distinguish between different types ofadult on the basis of their status andrelationship to us – we don’t, for example,behave towards a parent in the same way webehave towards a teacher or a completestranger.

Young children, when introduced tounfamiliar adults, frequently become quietand shy. This is because they are unsureabout how they are expected to behavetowards the stranger. The same processhappens in any new situation. Teenagemales and females, for example, may beinitially shy and awkward in each other’scompany (for about 30 seconds, anyway).One of the main things socialised into usduring this particular period of primarysocialisation is a knowledge of gender roles;that is, what it means, in our society to beeither masculine or feminine – somethingwe will return to at a later point.

In terms of secondary socialising agencies,these may include schools, religiousorganisations, the mass media and so forth.

Associated agents of socialisation herewould, therefore, include people liketeachers, priests, television personalities andpop stars. In some cases, such as in school,we are in daily, face-to-face contact with thepeople socialising us without everdeveloping a primary attachment to them.In other cases, such as when admiring aparticular film star, we may never meetthem, yet we can still be influenced by whatthey look like, what they do and how theydo it.

Digging deeperBefore we examine examples of socialisingagencies in more detail, we need to say acouple of things about the purpose ofsocialisation.

Firstly, primary socialisation is necessarybecause human infants require the assistanceof other members of society to develop asboth human beings (the walking, talkingbit) and as members of a culture (thelearning roles, norms and values bit). Interms of secondary socialisation, this is alsonecessary because, as Talcott Parsons (TheSocial System, 1951) argued, its main purpose(or function) is to ‘Liberate the individualfrom a dependence upon the primaryattachments and relationships formed withinthe family group.’

What Parsons meant by this is that, inmodern societies, the vast majority of thepeople we meet are strangers and it would beboth impossible and undesirable to relate tothem in the same way we relate to people forwhom we have great affection. We have,therefore, to learn instrumentalrelationships, or how to deal with people interms of what they can do for us and whatwe can do for them in particular situations.

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For example, think about what life would belike if we only knew how to deal with peopleon the basis of primary social attachments(love, trust, affection and so forth).Whenever we went shopping, the assistantwould deal with us as if we were a long lostand very dear friend. We might find thisquite nice at first, but imagine having to dealwith this sort of behaviour every time youpassed someone in the street.

Secondly, although one purpose ofsocialisation is clearly to teach, it also has afurther purpose, namely social control. Theideas we have examined so far have beenlargely concerned with the various wayspeople attempt to create order, stability andpredictability in their own and otherpeople’s behaviour. In this respect, we havebeen indirectly talking about the way anysociety attempts to control the behaviour ofits members. These controls affect not justthe way people actually behave, but also theway they think about the nature of theworld (both social and natural) in whichthey live. We can start to bring these ideastogether under the general heading of socialcontrol and look a little more closely at thevarious forms of control in any society.

At its most basic, social control involvesall of the things we do or have done to usthat are designed to maintain or changebehaviour. The primary socialisation process,for example, involves social control becauseit attempts to shape the way a child is raised.When we develop certain values and adoptparticular norms, this too is a form of controlsince we are placing limits on what weconsider to be acceptable (or normal)behaviour. Role-play is another a form ofcontrol because we are acting in ways peopleconsider appropriate in certain situations.We can think about social control, at least

initially, in terms of rules. Social life, in thisrespect, is a life-long process of rule-learning.We may not always agree with those rules(nor do we always obey them, come to that),but the fact remains they exist and we haveto take note of their existence. People,therefore, create behavioural rules as thebasis for social organisation and since wealways have a choice as to whether or notwe obey these rules, they are supported bysanctions – things we do to make peopleconform to our expectations and which canbe one of two types.

• Positive sanctions (or rewards) are thenice things we do to make people behavein routine, predictable, ways. Exampleshere might be things like buying a childan ice cream to make it stop crying (anodd example of the way breaking a normcan actually bring a reward) or awarding astudent a valuable qualification if theypass an AS-level exam.

• Negative sanctions (or punishments) arethe not-very-nice things we do to try tomake people conform. There are a vastrange of negative sanctions in our society,from not talking to people if they annoyus to putting them in prison. Theultimate negative sanction, perhaps, is tokill someone.

Social controls are, as I have suggested,closely related to norms and just as there aretwo basic types of norm (informal andformal), we can talk about there two basictypes of social control.

• Formal social controls may be based onthe idea of legal norms (laws). That is,written rules of behaviour that,theoretically, apply equally to everyone(although not all societies apply formal

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rules equally). Where laws are involvedwe usually find people (normallyemployed by the government), whose jobinvolves enforcing such laws. In oursociety, the main agencies of formal socialcontrol are the police and the judiciary(the legal system), although the armedforces can, on occasions, be used toperform this role.Not all formal norms are laws, however.In a workplace, for example, there areformal rules governing behaviour while atwork – if you are repeatedly late for workyou may be punished in some way. Ingeneral terms, formal rules and socialcontrols exist to tell everyone within asocial group what is – and is not –acceptable behaviour. Such formalcontrols usually exist where a group is verylarge and its members are not necessarilyall in day-to-day contact with each other.

• Informal social controls, like their formalcounterpart, exist to reward or punishpeople for acceptable or unacceptablebehaviour (‘deviance’) and cover a vastarray of possible sanctions that may differ

from individual to individual, group togroup and society to society. Suchcontrols apply to informal norms andinclude things like ridicule, sarcasm,disapproving looks, punching people inthe face and so forth. As an example, at a Women’s Institutegathering a disapproving look may beenough to tell you people think it’sinappropriate to flirt with the vicar.Among members of a criminal gang,however, it’s unlikely a disapproving lookwould be used as a means of informal socialcontrol should you tell them you intend toinform on their activities to the police.

To complete this section on socialisation, itmight be helpful to look a little more closelyat some examples of agencies ofsocialisation, partly to provide a flavour ofthe wide range of actions and behavioursinvolved and partly to firm-up the workwe’ve done previously. In this respect, wecan identify a range of significant agenciesand outline selected roles, values, norms andsocial controls (both positive and negative)involved in each.

WARM UP: AGENCIES OF SOCIALISATION

Either individually or in groups (each group can look at one agency), and using the followingtable as a guide, identify examples of the roles people play, values they might develop andnorms they are expected to obey for your chosen agency. In addition, identify examples ofpositive and negative sanctions employed by agents of socialisation within each agency.

Agency ofsocialisation

Roles Values Norms Positivesanctions

Negativesanctions

Family

Peers

School

Work

Media

Religion

Documents

1. Introduction to sociologysociology.org.uk/notes/AS_Intro.pdf · 2019-07-26 · 3 Introduction to sociology collecting and making sense of evidence. One example of this is that