Sociological Perspective
Sociological Perspective
Sociological Perspective
Sociological Perspectives
• Sociology: the study of how membership of social groups from families through schools and
workplaces, influences people’s behaviour
• The Enlightenment period: first attempt to challenge traditional beliefs through reason and
science. Europe’s cultural upheavals.
- Sir Isaac Newton - questioning the prevailing world view that’re based on facts
- French Revolution — political challenge (monarchs are overthrown by republican)
- Industrial Revolution — economic disruption (mechanisation of production)
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Debate on Sociology as a Science
Defining Science
• Popper (1934): science involves identifying problem, collecting information and offering
explanation
• methodology — a way of producing knowledge
• scientific knowledge: FOTEP + RV
- Factual - Reliable (accurate by replicating)
- Objective - Valid (measures what it describes to
- Evidence based measure)
- Predictive - certain it will happen in future
• Non scientific: opinion, guesswork, untested assumptions, faith
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Methodology of Positivism
• Goal: explain, not describe, social phenomena
• To discover the “General Rules” or “Structural Force” that causes behaviour to happen
• Scientist must be personally objective
- shouldn’t participate in the behaviour being studied
- “Standing Apart” from behaviour
- shouldn’t depend on subjective interpretation of researcher
• Must be able to quantify and measure behaviour
- favours quantitative method because allow data collection to be Objective and Reliable (can
be replicated or easily repeated with same result)
• Technique to study this “invisible forces”: • How to produce Knowledge:
- Systematic observation - Observing social behaviour
- Rigorous testing - Developing and testing hypotheses
- Quantitative measurements that create - Analysing and evaluating Evidences
reliable knowledge
• The process explains observations and predict future behaviours
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INTERPRETIVISM: Sociology cannot be a science
• different people need different situation to understand, or interpret the social world differently
• sociologist can only describe reality from the viewpoint of those creating and defining it
• Harris (2005a): difference w/ positivist
- people are different with inanimate object bc of their Consciousness — awareness of
themselves and the world they live in
- people have the ability to think, reflect, and act, not just react
- hence a subtle and flexible approach
- social behaviour is described through the meanings and interpretation that the ppl give to the
behaviour
• Explain behaviour thru how people understand the behaviour in which they are involved in
• Human ability to empathise: take role of each other — researcher must experience the world in
the way that those researched experience ==> vital sight into why they behave so
• Sociology cant predict the behaviour of conscious human
- behaviour is determined by context — change depend on the understanding of themselves
about situation they're in
• Qualitative data: tells experience and feelings
- less reliable = impossible to replicate
- greater validity = reveal much ore about how and why people behave
• Berg (1999): methodology = Emergent Research Design
- dont start with hypothesis and end with confirmation or rejection
- Lindauer (2005): goal free. explore whatever they or the object of study feel is important and
interesting ==> flexible, weak, bends to take in new ideas and development throughout
1. Planning: identify issue
2. Data Collection and Data Analysis: feedback loop
- Schultz: data analysis happens throughout the collection, not after
- analysis can be used for further collection and hence further analysis
3. Evaluation: non-judgemental. readers make their own conclusion.
- Firestone (1987): objective of research is to help reader understand and see
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Methodology of Interpretivism
• Different people interpret their world differently, hence to understand, researcher must be in their
view point, interpreting the same way
• Goal: describe social behaviour in terms of meanings and interpretations of subject
• Laing (2007): objective of research is “Recovery of Subjective Meaning” which is to “tell their
story” so behavioural choices can be understood and described
• Involves close study of people’s behaviour to gain good understanding of the context —> hence
why Participant observation
- Humpries (1970): Participation is desirable because researcher gets a deeper insight into
behaviour
• Validity is much more important than reliability
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Postmodernism // Realism
• a critical world view based on the idea that people construct stories (narratives) for them to
makes sense of the world
• how people view ‘big stories’ — not true or flase, but it can be revealed by research
• Usher & Edwards (1994): postmo is a different way of seeing and working, not a fixed ideas
• Metanarratives — the big stories that society constructs to explain something about the nature of
the worlds (religion, nationalism, political philosophies)
- Pre industrial society — religion
- Industrial society — science
- Postmodern society — Lyotard (1979): incredulity towards metanarratives
—> people stop regarding those as believable or sustainable
• Science is a metanarrative struggling to establish hegemony over other metas
• Sociological research is presenting different versions of truth
- making subjective judgements
• Concept of Truth: inherently subjective because they're based on power relationship
—> those with power define the criteria against which status of knowledge is
measured effectively decide whats true
• Critics on positivist and interpretivist:
- Polyani (1958): observation is theory dependant = to understand what we see we must
already know what it is. ==> questions positivist objectivity
- Knowledge about the social world is active created by people going about their daily lives
- knowledge isn't something waiting to be discovered (positivist)
- Its impossible to study people in a small group without changing their behaviour in some way
- research will change behaviour (interpretivist)
- Consider scientific ethos (belom velar nih)
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Conflict Structuralism: Marxist, Feminist
• stability is caused by powerful group imposing order on powerless group
Marxism
• Work is the most important activity in any society
- nothing can exist without people first having a way to survive
• Order and stability is maintained through the institutions making up the base and superstructure,
which are controlled by those owning the economic base
• Base and Superstructure: shows relationship b/w institutions (economic, political, ideological)
- base = economic (capitalist workplace)
- foundation where society is built
- includes: Means of Production (tools, machines) + Relations of Production (relationship
organised hierarchically b/w owners, managers, workers)
- means of production (FOP) are owned by one class and the majority owns nothing hence
forced to sell their ability to work in order to survive
- organised hierarchically —> further up, more power (owner, manager, labor)
- Forces Of Production: how labor power is organised to produce wealth by harnessing it
into various forms of technology
- superstructure = political and ideological
- bourgeoisie aren't only economically, but also politically powerful
- Order & Stability ==> maintained at a system level through ideological and political
superstructure
- these superstructures are owned and controlled by ruling class, they got their power from
owning the economic base
- government, agencies of social control (police, courts)
- religion, media, education
• Althusser (1917): ruling class controls RSA + ISA
• Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) or ways of forcing people to conform by force
- hard policing: police and armed forces as agents of social control
- soft policing: social workers and welfare agencies ‘policing’ behaviour
• Ideological State Apparatus (ISA)
- own and controls institutions instilling values and ideas that fits the capitalist system
(education) —> benefit ruling class
• Socialisation is an affective control — ideological manipulation in which it convince people that
the ruling class interest is the interest of all and its impossible to change
• People are locked = exploitation in workplace + locked by ideas supporting status quo (spread
by superstructure)
• Marxist Feminism
- development of patriarchal ideas are the product of cultural differences in the way men and
female is raised
- capitalist economic system encourage and reward sexist attitude
- social change / solving this = erasing capitalist system
• Radical Feminism
- men: Gender Enemy bc they always exploit women
- Change/Solve through: overthrowing ruling class men + establishing matriarchal
- replacing patriarchal with equality and mutual respect
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Action Approach aka Interactionism
• Order and Control are created from ‘bottom up’ — individuals into society
• Society is created and re created through people’s daly interaction
- individual and collective behaviour constantly reproduce of social order
• Order and Stability is created = people act like Society is a “mental” (unreal) force that limits and
controls people’s behaviour, although it only exist mentally not physically
- society is not a thing acting on behaviour
• Garfinkel (1967): demonstrates how social order is a fragile belief
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CHAPTER 2: SOCIALISATION AND THE CREATION OF SOCIAL IDENTITY
STRUCTURALIST - Macrosociology
• Society or “structure” acts as a force shaping individual behaviour and thoughts (external forces
driving individual internal behaviour)
• social action is the product of a powerful force that individual has no freedom to oppose (passive
individuals)
• Social structure establish roles to pick up, that are associated with certain values and beliefs
about how something should be (expectations) —> people are actors playing part in the society
• Marxism: structural force in modern industrial society = capitalist relations of productions
- it acts as an invisible mechanism that controls the way in which society operates
• Functionalism: society’s structure is in the form of institutional arrangement that has
established patterns of behaviour, hence ensuring individuals to behave accordingly and smooth
running society is a achieved
INTERACTIONISM - Microsociology
• involves Phenomenology, Ethnomethodology, Symbolic Interactionism
• Based on Weber (1922): Social Action Concept
• Behaviour becomes Action when people act according to how the ppl we interact with act and
would react (behave based on how they behave) —> social action involves a knowledge of how
our behaviour might affect the people its directed to
• People are able to make choices about how to act (Active individuals)
• Phenomenology: social world consist of phenomena where the meaning of it is negotiated and
interpreted through interaction
- Wilson (2002): We experience the world with and through others
- Social context can determine (interpret) and change (negotiate) the meaning of something
——> meaning of behaviour can change depends on context
- Interpretation of a meaning is based on shared definition of a situation, which may also be the
product of negotiation
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• Symbolic Interactionism: people impose subjective meanings on objects, events, and
behaviours
- Society is constructed by social interaction where meanings are imposed, then interpreted
- Society is a complex, symbolic world where the meaning of our actions, our choices,
languages, are open to interpretation
- The meaning of a physical object or symbolic system (language) can be changed depending
on the social context in which it appears
- Schutz (1962): subjective meanings give rise to an apparently objective social world
(add researches from internet)
• Ethnomethodology: every social interaction is based on the meaning imposed to it
- meanings people give to a situation should be understood to understand their behaviour in
that particular situation.
- Garfinkel (1967): Breaching Experiment
- purposely upset people’s definition (meaning) of a situation to show how they ‘Construct
Reality’
- reseracher is sent to a restaurant to purposely mistake a customer for waiters. the
customer reaction includes amusement, confusion and anger
- conclusion: sociey is not a “thing” or “force” that acts on behaviour since it has no objective
reality beyond social interaction
• Schutz: society has a subjective reality = reality is experienced through interaction. Society is a
label that is given to rules and responsibilities arising from our interaction/relationship.
• Labelling Theory: the definitions (meanings) people impose on situations or on other people
can have real consequences (even if those definitions are not based in reality)
- people in power generally have more ability to impose their definitions on situations than the
powerless
- applied in Education and Crime&Deviances
• Erving Goffman’s Dramaturgical Approach:
- Human social behaviour is seen as scripted, with humans as role-taking actors
• Critics on Structuralist:
- Wrong (1961): structuralist has an “Over-socialised Conception of Man”: rejects the idea that
human behaviour is governed entirely by the effect of socialisations. People have a degree of
freedom from the influences of their social environment (society)
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STRUCTURATION
• A theory by Anthony Giddens which argues that structure and action are equally significant
• People have the ability to choose how to behave, but behavioural choices are influenced,
limited, and enhanced by the framework of rules and responsibilities created by social structure
• People develop relationships —> interaction and relationship involves interpreting meanings and
taking into account how others behave and react —> the rules governing their behaviours are
formalised (became a definite way of behaving) —> became routine ways of behaving in an
interaction (became practices) —> range and varieties of these practices a sense of structure is
developed —> rules becoming involved in this structure
• Individual rules are externalised, creating structure which may seem to separate from our
individual behaviour
• Some rules can be negotiated (friendship), and some are non-negotiable (imposed on
individuals by powerful groups)
(add researches)
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• Barnhart (1994): interaction is a performance shaped by the audience and environment, and
constructed or done to provide impressions to others. in which those impression will show how
the actor wants to be seen.
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Evidence against Genetics 1 - Feral children
• Genie, 13 years old californian girl founded in 1970
• isolated in a small room and had not been spoken to by her parent since infancy.
• malnourished, abuses, unloved, no companionship
• Pines (1997): when she was found = cant stand, cant speak, only whimper
after brought back to human society, she couldn't easily pick up
normal behaviour
• raised with no contact = fail to show social and physical development that is expected in a
conventionally raised child
• if human behaviour is Instinctive / capability that we’re born with, Genie should’ve develop
normally
• Fallon’s (2006): brain structure of psychopathic killers are NOT always different with ppl who
dont engage in violent behaviour. whats different is the social environment they're raised in.
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Genetics — Nature
- behaviour is guided by instincts thats based on biological imperatives
- commands cant be ignored
- people are born with abilities of ‘human nature’
- instincts: fixed human traits — things we born knowing
- culture play little or no role in the development of instincts
- people are born with capabilities that is realised during environmental experience
- Nature gives hints on how to behave. we can choose to ignore or follow this.
- Self Awareness is instinctive human attribute
• Wilson (1979): Biological principles we’re born with creates biological basis for our behaviour
- human behaviour isn't genetically determined, but strongly influenced by Biological
Programming
- the natural traits we’re born with predisposed/make us feel inclined to behave accordingly
hence leading to different cultural roles:
——> women is passive and caring hence suited for child rearing. men is
aggressive hence best suit to providing role which is paid work.
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Agencies of Socialisation
• Cooley: primary socialisation is a process happening face-to-face intimate association and
cooperation
- critical to the development of human fundamental behaviour
- infants need other ppl to develop as a human and member of culture
• Berger & Luckmann: secondary socialisation is characterised with a sense of detachment from
the ones teaching socialisation
- formality and anonimity. no personal contact or intimacy with those socialising
- Parsons: purpose of it is to liberate individual from dependancy to their primary attachments
(family group)
- developing instrumental relationship: based on what they can do to us and we can do for
them
Social Control
• socialisation brings stability, order, and predictability of peoples behaviour
• Pfohl (1998): socialisation is a form of social control. deviancy = noise, and social control
transform the noise to a music of comformity
• human behaviour is a long life process of rule learning thats underpinned by sanctions
- Positive sanctions (rewards): pleasant things we do to make people behave in routine,
predictable, accordingly ways. —> smiling, praising, gifts, merits
- Negative sanctions (punishments): negative things done to make people change or reverse
their behaviour. stop deviancy. —> exclusion from peer group, ridiculed, prison
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Primary Socialisation
Family
• changing roles: husband/wife - parent - step parent and baby-child-teen-adult-parent
• relationship based on love, responsibility and duty
• Mead: Significant others shapes our basic values and our moral values—> ppl who’s important
to us and their opinion matters
• basic norms: addressing family members, table manners, definitions of acceptable behaviour
• sanctions are mainly informal —> facial expression, verbal approval/reinforcement, physical
rewards
• Functionalist —> one way process from adults to children, but not an unquestioning acceptance
• Hartley (1959): Imitation of children is important (copying behaviour) because they’re actively
involved in negotiating their socialisation (not obeying)
Peers
• groups made up of similar age
• primary because ppl with similar age would influence behaviour thru interaction
• secondary because they are used as reference group
- Hughes (2002): models we use for evaluate and shaping our attitude, feelings, action
- like fashion, general behavioural trend in certain age groups = age appropriate behaviour
• informal social sanctions
Secondary socialisation
Education
• curriculums
- formal curriculum: specific subject and knowledge student explicitly taught
- Jackson (1686): hidden curriculum = things student learn from the experience of attending
school like how to deal w/ new ppl, obedience, punctuality, respect authorities
• school is a place to limit individual desires —> think abt needs of others
• Marxist: Bowles and Gintis (2002): correspondence between school norms and workplace
- school prepares them to be functioning works and socialising them into the workplace
values => sanctions, norms like punctuation and hard-work
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Mass Media
• relationship with it is Impersonal: unlikely to meet those who's socialising
• it has a long direct, long-term effect on behaviour
• Potter 2003: short term effects include: imitation (copying), desensitisation (lowering emotional
reaction from constant repeated things), learning (new ideas)
• influence of television includes
- Consumerism: active and ever increasing pursuit if goods and services that define
lifestyle and identities in contemporary capitalists society
- Fear: heavy exposure to negative violent — over estimation and paranoia towards such
things
- Agenda Setting: Philo et al: media determines how something will be debated. sub-text
that shapes the meaning of particular subject (muslim=terrorist)
• Habituation: the more people are exposed to certain images, and ideas the more likely it is
that they will incorporate them into their personal value system
• Chandler 1995: television’s Indirect longterm effect is small, gradual but cumulative and
significant
• media is influential in supporting and marginalising certain values. promoting certain values
while devaluing others.
• Durkheim: boundary making function of media
- it publicises acceptable and acceptable forms of behaviour to reinforce perceptions of
expected behaviours
- they may preserve particular ways of behaving thru campaigns
- it also employs range of sanctions to reinforce its messages: praise, unflattering pose,
critical articles, public ridicule
Religion
• important moral values, the strong beliefs about how people should behave are influenced by
religious values
- Ten Commandments in Christians are reflected in legal systems around the world
• many world religions are also accused of promoting patriarchy through general organisation and
gender values that encorange
• religious values is a very powerful force for those who believe
• Design for Living — provides help and guidance to live a life in accord with God
• can also become a source of conflicts: between religion and within it
• religious values are portrayed through styles and res, indicating religiosity and think identity
• positive sanctions:
- belief in reincarnation for hinduism
- notions of sin
- excommunication — exclusion from the church
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Ideologies:
- Joseph (1990): constructed around fundamental belief with the purpose of explaining
something (the meaning of life, the nature of family organisation, superiority or inferiority of
certain group)
- Blake (2004): ‘ideological’ belief involves partial or biased account.
- all ideologies involve propaganda — always seek to convince other
- Henderson (1981): pattern of idea that claims to explain and legitimise social structure and
culture
- Marxism/Critical Theory: ideologies have manipulative element —> Frankfurt School
- capitalist controlled media directly attempts to induce audience by constructing and
presenting a version of reality favourable to the ruling class
- Adorno and Horkheimer (1944): ruling class ideology is transmitted through culture
industry that creates popular cultures which are consumes uncritically and passively by
the masses
- controlling the culture industry = controlling mental production or how people see and
think about the world
Concept of Power
• Dugan: capacity ot bring about change
• Lukes: making others believe that nothing has to be changed
• Weber: 2 types of power
1. coercive: forced to obey under threat of punishment
2. consensual (authority): obey because they think its right to do so
- charismatic: because of trust
- traditional — custom and practices. because thats what's always been done
- rational/legal: except commands because their position owns the right to demand
compliance
• decision making:
- ability to make decisions
- to prevent decisions
- and to do nothing or remove decision making agenda (keeping things as it is)
• Giddens: power related to social construction od reality — the ability of individuals to make their
own concerns and interest count. those with pewee can impose their definition of reality to
others where with this, they could bring order and stablity
• Foucault: power in modern society is opaque and difficult to see
- people are unaware of being controlled and unaware of the power they have over them
- in the past: based on raw coercive power
- in modern society: increasing exercised in subtle mode ways
- knowledge about the social would are both aspects of belief system that controls about
behaviour by influencing how people think about the world
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Social Construction of Identity
Class Identity (Marxist)
• Not only built around the idea of that they are, but also what they are not
• Lower class
- fixed around manual work and manufacturing industry
- urban and close know community where working class lived
- similar occupation and social outlook
- cultural beliefs are continually reinforced through experience
- Emergence of ‘New Working Class’ — Crompton (2003)
- caused by the decline in manufacturing works and increase in services
- causing new identity: privatised and home centred, work was a mean to an end
- Devine (1992): there’s still a strong sense of differentiation bw working class and middle class
• Middle class
- professionals — high educational achievement with personal autonomy (freedom of action)
and decision making
- managers — running companies. have power and control over others
- intellectuals — reflect academic identity dealing with knowledge
- consultants — selling knowledge, information and skills
- routine service workers — low band of middle class. but a non manual worker.
• Upper class
- landed aristocracy — source of power from bustoric ownership and political monarchy
connection
- business elite — immense income and wealth based on ownership of global company
• Ev: Davies et al (2008): world’s richest 1% own 40% of the global wealth. 60% of the 1% live in
japan and US.
• Prandy and Lambert (2005): theres a gradual shift from people looking at themselves as working
class to middle class
• Savage (2007): although people still use this catagory, its meaning has changed. working class
identity has become varies.
• —> identity is becoming fluid. its based on someone’s ability to choose who they are and who
they want to be
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• Criticism: Brookes: the idea is pushing ‘coherent and stable’ middle class identity too far. middle
class can still be distinguished through:
1. ambivalent class position but still not working class: below the upper class and aspiring to
be them, but above the working class and wanting to be separated by them
2. disgusted subject: Lawler 2005: expression of disgust towards working class and claims
“ownership of taste”
3. social capital: connected to networks of people that have ‘value’. they are in best position to
integrate into significant social networks that reinforce their sense of identity and difference
- Putnam (2000): norms of reciprocity — what people willing to do for each other
- Catts and Ogza (2005): social glue — sense of belonging
- Bordieu (1986): cultural capital
Gender Identities
• sex: physical characteristics ; gender: social characteristics given to each sex
• Lips (1993): difference between identities don't occur from biological differences, but it is learnt
and relative as they differ historically and cross culturally
• Connell (1087): we are not born as women or men. we become men and women through social
construction of gender identities
- dominant gender identities:
1. hegemonic masculinity: traditional masculinity are based on physical and mental
characteristics —> body type, physical strengths, men as leaders, providers, calm
2. emphasised femininity: accommodating interest and needs of men. match and complement
men hegemonic masculinity. passive, emotional. defined by male needs and desire
(kitchen’06)
• Male
- Schauer (2004): alternative masculinity
1. Subordinate: who are unwilling or unable to perform hegemonic masculinity
2. Subversive: who changes and undermines hegemonic masculinity
3. Complicit: newly feminised masculinity aka “new man”. see women as equal. because
according to conell, when has become more powerful.
4. Marginalised: who feel like they have been pushed to the margin of family life (long term
unemployment. Wilmott and Griffin (1996): usually develop in unemployed working class
because they fail to fulfil the belief of “good family man”)
• Crisis of Masculinity
- Benyon (2002): contemporary society experience this because:
1. longterm unemployment
2. loss of traditional male employment in secondary
3. lower educational achievement than girls
4. rise of female friendly service industries
- margianlised masculinity occur bc they no longer control the economic resources in which
masculinity is bases
- crisis of masculinity result in exaggerated masculinity as men try to reassert traditional male
identity:
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1. retributive: emasculated peers. binge drinking, fighting, womanising. rigidly patriarchal,
aggressive, reject equality, wants to reclaim masculinity.
2. hyper-masculinity: authoritarian, autocratic, impersonal, violent.
• Female
1. contingent: framed and shaped by male beliefs
- normalised: play as s secondary role to men. struggle to secure male approval.
- sexualised: fashioned thru male eyes. as sexual objects.
2. assertive identities: changing position of women in society break them free from traditional
ideas
- froyum (2005): resist male power without actually throwing to overthrow such power. it
includes:
- girl power: coping with masculinity. sex as fun.
- modernised femininities: new cultural and economic power in family. desire for
personal freedom and expression.
- ageing femininities: the right of elder women to be sexual, active and fashionable.
3. autonomous: competition between male and female. see for a ‘new gender regime’
- evans (2006): new gender regime that frees woman from traditional constraint
- women are: highly educated, successful, professional middle class, career focused
- non committal heterosexual relationship
Ethnic Identities
- ethnicity is a combination of religion, family structures, beliefs, values, norms.
- key factor: conscious of belonging into the group
- references: country of birth, traditions and customs, shared histories, religious beliefs
- ethnic identities are negoriable: meaning can change because of contact with other culture
(external) or clash of ideas within members (internal)
- require constant maintenance through collective activities, and symbolic cultural objects
- Winston (2005): ethnic identities develop when they see themselves as ‘distinctive’ with others
because of there ‘shared cultural background and history’
- Wimmer (2008): how an ethnic identity is imposed. Some ethnic group partly or wholly construct
their sense of self opposing others.
• sense of difference —> positive (sense of belonging) or defensive (racism and discrimination)
• cultural stereotypes
• minority vs majority in terms of “otherness”
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Modernist on Identity
Functionalism
• Fisher (1997): culture is shared behaviour that systematises the way people do thing hence
avoiding infusing and allowing cooperation to happen and allows people to achieve something
that cant be achieved alone
• Mazrui (1996): 7 functions of culture
1. communication: language
2. perception: shapes how ppl see the world
3. identity: influence how ppl see themselves and see others
4. value system: cultural institutions are socialises values for influencing behaviour
5. motivation: have sanctions that promote and discourage behaviour
6. stratification: ranking individual through existing categories (age, gender, etc) for an
incentive system
7. production and consumption: need use and value
Marxism
• functions of identity:
- enhance the sense of self
- social cohesion for the dominant social class
- lower the social status of other competing class
• High Culture: some cultural products are superior than others
- pre industrial societies: clear status distinction between ruling and lower class as status are
fixed by inheritance and law
- nowdays: social mobility can occur because of mass education and growth of higher paid jobs
—> an identity crisis for the elite groups (cant maintain superiority)
- Cultural attribute (taste) cant be brought or lear, hence it is a way to maintain the superiority
- Hobsbawn and Ranger (1992): globalised society makes it difficult to maintain status
distinction based on how people speak, live or dress, hence the difference is through the
consumption of cultural products and ideas
- Cooney (1994): elite are determining what happens in society and hence they identify their
culture as “the best” and defining others as “worthless, mass-produces and artificial (low
culture)’
- This is used to:
• assert their cultural identity “us” and not “them”
• establish cultural hegemony —> they decide what is considered to be ‘high’
• create “taste barrier” between itself and the masses
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• Low Culture or Popular or Mass Culture
- defined by ruling class as: shallow, disposable, worthless and manufactures
- its mass produces and inauthentic (no emotional investment or interest in making it)
- passive consumption and does not need an understanding
- commercialised and made for mass appeal to make money hence inclusive and profitable
- It is a way of distracting working class from the real causes of their problems in the capitalist
society —> false sense of happiness, togetherness and well-being
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Postmodernism
• changing ideas on identity
• center identities are clear and fixed with narrow choices available on how those identities are
defined and it is rigidly enforced.
• social change of global economic, cultural influences have open and expose societies and
individuals to new and different experiences and ideas —> fragmented/decentralised identity
- monolithic identities (idea that there is a correct way to be a certain identity) can be no longer
sustained
- people develop the freedom to invent and adapt to identities that fits their personal tastes and
styles —> always unique in its shape and form
- people are still socialised but it doesn't shape their identity but rather, identity choices is
added as people is socialised
- people are open and accepting of different experiences
• Phillips (2003): consumption pattern is changing, people but things more for what they mean
than what they do. consumption is based on their identity and based on what they wish to project
or communicate to others
• Rampton (2002): identity construction in postmodern society involves assembling and piecing
together from many changing options —> free to browse and pick according to personal taste
- people are ‘identity consumer’ that ‘shop for identities’
• identities are easily combined to form Hybrid Identities
- Hybrid or mixing of ethnic identities: gradual alterations to an established identity.
- new influences and re establishing old identities in the face of new challenges.
- incorporation and modification to an existing sense of identity of style
1. Conventional hybridisation: mixing distinctive styles to produce new and unique
identities. take place in margins of identity and combines features of diverse identity
rather than a complete change.
2. Contemporary hybridisation: constant maintenance, change and development of ethnic
identities by: immigration (physical meeting, and/or cultural globalisation (exposure to
varieties of identities)
Sociological Perspectives — 29 of 29