First use the glossary definitions in the Society & Culture syllabus then deepen your understanding of concepts with the historical and critical contexts, theories and contemporary applications listed below.

 

 

acculturation

 

agent of socialisation

 

authority

 

belief systems

 

case study

 

change

 

 

class: http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/interventions/clan.htm

A post-modern interpretation of class allows for various criteria: how a person sees themselves, how much cultural and social capital a person can access, the level of education, the status attached to the type of work they do,their taste in art (music, films, television, literature etc) and whether their work requires physical labour or intellectual labour.

 

The Marxist criteria for class is different. You might think you're middle class when you are really working class because bourgeois ideology (in the media for example) trick you into thinking you are middle class. The Marxist understanding of class is objective and determined by the person's relationship with the means of production. The means of production is the assets of capital - the insfrastructure that makes wealth (machinery, factory buildings) and superstructural assets like intellectual property. A simple way to understand the Marxist definition of class is whether you control the surplus. A worker makes profit for their employer and gets a set wage no matter how much surplus is accumulated from their labour. The person might be promoted and their wage increased, but this depends of the boss. The interest of the worker is to defend her wage and work conditions. The interest of the boss is to keep wages low, maintain the freedom to change workers' conditions when needed and to intill a competitive workplace culture. The middle class are those that have relative power over the surplus of their labour such as small business owners and contractors. Their class power is controlled by macro capitalist structures so they sometimes have less social power than workers. Workers fundamental social power is the ability to unionise and strike against capital. Marx called the working class and its ability to strike "capitalism's gravedigger". He also wrote of the "spectre" (or bogey-man) of communism that strikes fear in the heart of every capitalist. This demonstrates Marx's interest in the relationship between class and ideology: its important for the bourgeousie to stop class consciousness developing in the working class. If the "gravediggers" realise which class they belong to, they will realise their class interests, organise amongst themselves, take over the factories and redistribute the wealth! (Oh boy - imagine society completely reorganised - would culture be remade in its image ? What would post-capitalist television look like?! - thats what the Frankfurt School theorists wondered!)

 

commercialisation

 

commodification

commodity

 

communication technologies

 

community

 

conflict - Marx thought conflict was fundamental to social change. Conflict includes that between people, between ideas, and between institutions. (Consider, for example, the ideological conflict at play when the government threatens to cut ABC funding - government vs media) Marx was interested in what we call social dynamics - the human and institutional forces of social change. The oppostive of social dynamics and change is social statics and continuity -that is, how things stay the same through institutional order and social consensus (agreement)

 

conformity

 

consumption

 

content analysis

 

continuity (see conflict)

 

cooperation

Why is cooperation idealised in a society where there is so much inequality - between classes, cultural groups and the sexes?

consider the very useful concept of hegemony:

The marxist Antonio Gramsci addressed a specific problem in marxist thought: The exploitation of the working classes and poor is really obvious. The rich keep getting richer and the poor get poorer. Yet there are more poor and working people than there are rich. So why do the poor and working classes accept this system? Why dont they revolt? “Gramsci rejected the deterministic notion that the exploited working classes must inevitable recognize revolution as being in theior own interests. marxism had failed to consider how ideology actually works to make itself unrecognizable as such (another disguise) This is the trick of hegemony.” (Sim and Loon, 2009,  p37)

Emile Durkheim, a fan of Compte (see modernisation concept) was a founder of functionalist theory which explains why persons in society cooperate and maintain continuity. He used Compte's idea of the organic model, arguing that society functions as a system of interdependent parts or organs. The energy that compels the organic model (keeps it alive) is morality. Institutions therefore, do the "right" thing for society, and when they fail they can be corrected by other organs. For example, if a politician does something bad, she will be corrected by her electorate, the media and maybe even the courts. Like Compte, Durkheim was a positivist, focused on quanititative facts that enable us to describe but not necessarily explain or evaluate.

 

 

culture:

http://www.learner.org/workshops/tfl/resources/s5_artifacts.pdf

 

Foucault describes culture as 'a hierarchical organization of values, accessible to everybody, but at the same time the occasion of a mechanism of selection and exclusion'. What he means is that culture is the domain of power. Those with power and uthority in society have the means to exclude and include groups and individuals through culture. Consider the exclusion and inclusion of ethnic identities in a TV show like Neighbours for example.

Foucault (2001). L'hermeneutique du sujet. Cours au Collège de France, 1981-1982. Paris: Gallimard Seuil, p. 173.

 

cultural diversity

 

cultural heritage

 

cultural relativism

 

customs

 

dendividuation

 

discrimination

 

empowerment

 

equality

 

ethical

 

ethnicity

 

evolutionary change - Herbert Spencer applied Darwin's scientific evolutionary theory to social development and this is called "Social Darwinism". It's controversial because the oppression of groups in history such as African slaves, indigenous people and Jews is attributed to the weaknesses of those groups. The colonisers, slavers and Nazis where the "fittest" and hence survived. (Obviously this is terribly wrong!) Spencer, like Compte (see modernisation concept) liked to use nature as a metaphor for society. During the industrial revolution, Malthus argued against welfare for the poor, seeing poverty and death as an effective form of population control.

 

family - my article on class and motherhood

 

focusgroup

 

 

gender: This site has tonnes of thoughprovoking academic gender and sexuality links: http://www.tasa.org.au/what-is-sociology/sociologyresources/gender-sexuality/

 

gender/sexuality: https://overland.org.au/2014/08/stop-giving-space-to-transphobia/

'Stop giving space to transphobia!' Eloise Brook, 8.Aug.14, Overland

Overland Theories of sexuality and gender, mysogeny and transphobia in popular culture and academia

 

Those of you interested in gender, beauty and the media: great theory here: 

 

queerness

great reaidngs and resources! http://qipc.wordpress.com/readings/

 

Russell Brand discusses Karl Jung's theory of the evolution of feminity through content analysis of Disney!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cjGIba3e-0 (from 7:30 - before that is just funny rambling! (LANGUAGE WARNING)

 

 

feminsim - what is it today? Debates within feminism:

https://overland.org.au/2014/11/what-is-feminism-now/

 

Also this page has a useful bibliography for feminism students

http://www.tulane.edu/~feminist/syllabus.html

 

pornocracy - rule by prostitutes; rule by complicit subjects of exploitation - a fun metaphor! (Tiqqun's Sonogram of a Potential)

 

 

globalisation

 

hybrid identity

This is a big one for postcolonial theoriests who are interested in the impact of historical colonial oppression on the identity. Edward Said developed the concept of western identities "othering" colonised people by portraying them in art and literature as exotic, infantile (childish) and feminine. Franz Fanon theorised the  role of violence in fighting back against colonial oppression. Homi K. Bhabha developed the idea of hybrid identities. People are a combination of identities depending on their class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, etc. Bhaba theorised that this hybridity gives people power. Hybridity is often discussed in Intersectionality theory (Kimberlé Crenshaw )

 

identity

 

ideology (see also: institutional power)

Marx was interested in the un-scientific nature of "commonsense" (see social construct concept). Those who accepted the lie that black people were suited to slavery thought it was "common sense" that there would be discriminatory laws for black people. Their beliefs were ideological rather than scientific. Marx described ideology as "false consciousness". Sociology, the science of understanding society, seeks to reveal what ideology obscures. (This is why social and cultural theory is so exciting!!!!)
 

Althuser, a Marxist, describe cultural institutions such as the media, education system and the arts as the "ideological state apparatus". It explains superstructural power outlined below.

Marxism is accused as being a "grand narrative" that seeks to explain everything. Poststucturalist proponents of "little narratives" "refuse to allow themselves to be turned into authoritarian ideologies of the kind they are rejecting" (Sim and Loon, 2009). They says Marxism is hypocritical in wanting to replace one kind of authority (the capitalist state) with another (the authority of the united international working class) This worldview based on "narratives" - big or small - is called narratology.

 

insitutional power - In Marxist thought institutions are structural and operate to reproduce and maintain themselves. These institutions consist of fundamental "base/infrastructure" to do with the market (the economy) and production - employer-employee relations and private property. Cultural/"superstructural" institutions like religion, law, education, the arts grow out of the base superstructure. For example, the police force was invented in Industrial England to defend private property and prevent union strikes. Simarly the law reflects base needs to defend individual rights to commercial interaction and private property. Sociologists, including marxists, later realised that not only does the "base" inform the "superstructure" but the "superstructure" also informs the "base." This is best exemplified in the example of the mass media, which both shapes reality and reflects it.

More on media as an example of insitutional power

 

media and propaganda

anhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlRyQTad_xc&feature=youtu.be

sourced here, where there is a great explanation: http://www.thesociologicalcinema.com/videos/the-art-of-manufacturing-consent

 

police

http://marxistleftreview.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=97:coercion-consent-and-australian-policing&catid=43:number-6-winter-2013&Itemid=82

 

 

interview

 

kinship

 

life chances

Max Weber claimed that the lifecourse of an individual can be accurately predicted based on socio-economic status and other factors such as gender, sexuality and geographic location. If Weber was right, institutions can actually engineer alternative life chances by reconstructing the economy and promoting changein values and attitudes.

Example: To counter the high risk of suicide in the rural same-sex-attracted youth demographic, government could prioritise development and funding of educational and health initiatives for these groups and change legislation to minimise discrimination against gay people nationally. This social engineering would change the life chances of rural same-sex-attracted young people. One of the main ways governments conduct structural readjustment is to change the taxation system. See The Young Turks discussion of Gina Rhinehart's call for reduced corporate taxes and increased individual responsibility here. Life chances are discussed by the Young Turks and the rich criticised for blaming the poor for their poverty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2urc13mMR8k

 

lifecourse

 

localisation

 

micro, meso, macro levels of society: society can be described as communist, liberal, neo-liberal and capitalist depending on the paradigm you are most interested in (see secondary research concept) and depending on the society itself. The West is certainly neo-liberal and if you are sympathetic to Marxism you would call society capitalist. The West today could be described as any of these terms, and some places are more liberal than others.

 

*Capitalism: society operates around the economy. In the macro world, the wealthy maintain wealth through institutions. (see institutional power) In the meso world schools reinforce capitalist values by teaching children discipline and a work ethic compatible with work life.Learning is compartmentalised into subjects and periods of the day and dictated by bells and close supervision, simulating factory life. In the micro world, family and neighbourhoods provide values and morals that reinforce capitalism. Children are gendered, heterosexuality is compulsory and private property and the amassing of wealth takes precedence in family decisions such as who will work and who will stay home. Key thinkers: Marx and Engels

 

*Liberal societies are those seen as valuing individual rights and freedoms.As in capitalism, private property is important. Liberalism prioritieses social equality, freedom of media, religious freedoms and progressive gender and sexuality mores. Key thinker: John Locke

Watch here, 'Ron Swanson' defines LIberalism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BczvZVqQAbE

 

*Neo-liberal societies are both capitalist and liberal. The focus of their liberalism is economic. This means individuals and companies have the right to earn as much ,money as they can without governments trying to tax them or protect their employees from exploitation. Key thinkers: Milton Friedman and Freidrich Hayek. (Think Ron Swanson in Amy Poehler's TV series Parks and Recreation!)

This is an amazing montage of Ron Swanson demonstrating liberal-neo-liberal or conservative views on local government - note the sexist and anti-worker anti-socialist views!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK4kQF6Zu6w

"Child labour laws ruined this country"

"team work! Equality important, selfishness! Take what's yous!"

"There's only one bad word! Taxes!"

"Capitalism: Gods way of deciding whose poor and whose rich""

 

 

 

modernisation - modernisation and industrialisation overturned religion and agriculture (farming) as the main organisers of society. Society and culture restructured in its wake.

Sociology and modernity:

Sociology came out of this social unheaval. In times of change structures which seemed invisible before suddenly appear and can be discussed. The French Revolution started by throwing out the monarchy. Early sociologist Compte developed positivist (quantitative) methods to study society hoping to rationally restructure it and end the chaos of revolution. The question of the time was, who should rule and how? The modernist project of sociology sought a "grand narratives" that could scientifically explain everything that exists.

Post-modernity recognizes a speeding up of change due to technology and globalisation and seeks to explain difference rather than unity in the "little stories" of societies and cultures.

Compte's rational approach led him to develop the "organic analogy" of society - suggesting that like a living creature, society was made up of interdependent "organs". This metaphor is fundamental to Durkheim's functionalist theory, a structuralist theory that seeks balance between organs/parts of society and "equilibrium" - balance, consensus, order and continuity. Marx's theory of conflict, historical materialism, was structuralist and functionalist in that it too sought to understand how different parts of society maintain order. While Compte and Durkheim were interested in order and cohesion, Marx was critical of how certain parts exercised dominance. He liked conflict while Compe and Durkheim wanted to avoid it. These significant structuralists, Compte, Durkheim and Marx were all theorists of a "grand narrative" of the world.

 

Useful resource on modernisation of Europe:    http://mossiso.com/2010/10/19/european-modernization.html

 

 

multiculuralism

 

mythology

Russel Brand discussing american mythology in 2014 commercials

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JXWtx42-Kc

 

Althuser writes of interpellation - where we are "hailed" by the messages encoded in culture (TV, music, literature etc) We accept these constructed ideas as reality and mistake mythology for reality

 

non-participant observation vs observation

 

norms

 

personal reflection

 

philosophy

 

popular culture

 

power (see institutional power)

 

prejudice

 

primary research

 

questionaire

 

race and racism (see notes on postcolonialism under hybridity)

 

research design and method

 

rights

 

ritual

 

secondary research

Its important to contribute something "new"; to "synthesise" from personal experience and public knowledge. Public knowledge can be categorized into "fields" and significant writings in these fields can be understood as belonging to "interpretive communities" Stanley Fish came up with this way of seeing materials so they can be interpreted based on the collective practices of scholars in that field or "community". Thomas Kuhn concieved of these communities or fields as "paradigms" (Sim and Loon, 2009) For example, scholars interested in colonialism and identity in the fashion of Edward Said could be described as belonging to a post-Orientalist paradigm, field or interpretive community.

 

secularisation

 

self-concept

 

social class (see class)

 

social cognition

 

social construct - everything appears on the surface to be natural: families, marriage, our personalities, taste in music, the percentage of society with "good employment rates" that should be unempolyed. But how does all this get decided? Why does society believe children need a "man and a woman" as parents? Or any parents at all forthat matter? Our "common sense" is actually not just logic but constructed. Sociology asks us to question everything that anyone tells us is "common sense".

 

social differentiation/exclusion

 

social mobility

 

social stratification

 

socialisation

 

society "You cant study society, you can only study people and how they interact... society is an abstraction, you cant see it... society is structure and power. You can see it in action." (Osborne and Loon p15 2009) What this means is that society is a complex concept that needs to be inderstood in relation to all the other concepts on this page. Society is characterised by the people in it and those people are charactersied by the culture they have internalised (absorbed) in socialisation (being brought up) Society is therefore the sum of interaction between persons. C.W Mills describes this attempt to understand society as the "sociological imagination." Sociology employs in his words, "the vivid awareness of the relationship between personal experience and the wider society." (Note the PIP requires you to integrate personal experience with public knowledge - essentially you are being asked to demonstrate the sociological imagination)

 

socioeconomic status

 

statistical analysis

 

stereotype

 

subculture

 

sustainability

 

symbol

Symbols can be understood as part of language. The structuralist Suassure was interested in the "grammar" of language - universal systems that allow us to convey meaning. He came up with semiotic theory which explains how meaning is communicated not just through words but through visual "signs" around us. For example, the McDonalds "golden arches" signify burgers and fries you can buy anywhere in the world. A wiggly circle signifies a cloud, etc. As we share words, we also share signs and thus there is structural meaning outside of ourselves. Poststructuralists like Jean Baudrillard suggest these signs take on meanings beyond the control of individuals. "A cultural phenomenon like Disneyland no longer means anything: it is neither the real thing nor a representation of the past" (Sim and Loon, 2009, p170) Baudrillard theorises that we live in a "hyperreal" world that sums up postmodern life as inexplicable. in

 

technologies

internet: something I wrote about the internet, regulation and democracy  

internet and objectification of women: Laura Mulvey's scopophilia, cinema and the internet.

https://overland.org.au/2014/10/gamergate-sadistic-pleasure-and-internet-space/

 

Does modern technology "marginalise the human dimension in our wolrd" ? (Sim and Loon, 2009) This was a concern of the comedian Charlie Chaplin, arrested for being a communist. Alternatively, does modern technology offer ways for us to overcome the limits of nature? Jean Francis Lyotard was interested in the notion of the "inhuman" nature of computerisation and interference with nature and society.

 

Does the internet lead to totalitarianism or democracy? Check out Morozov's anti-internet arguments. "Morozov expresses skepticism about the popular view that the Internet is helping to democratize authoritarian regimes, arguing that it could also be a powerful tool for engaging in mass surveillance, political repression, and spreading nationalist and extremist propaganda...." (Wikipedia)

 

Are science and religion really polar oposites as they are often believed to be

? http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2014/06/fte_20140608_1130.mp3

 

"Innovation is one of those buzz-words that makes you feel warm and fuzzy. Like motherhood and democracy, many of us think of innovation as an intrinsic good.  But new research from the UK suggests deep levels of suspicion within society about what innovation means and where it’s taking us." http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2014/06/fte_20140615_1150.mp3

 

tradition

 

transformative change

 

values

 

westernisation

 

worldview

Worldviews rest upon theories even though many people dont realise it. Our world view develops as we are socialised and affects who we vote for, what TV, musicians, writers, teachers, laws, and ideas in general that we love or hate.

Social interactionists view the world in terms of uniqueness and surprising twists. The founder of the theory, George Herbert Mead says, "each morning we open our eyes to a different universe. Our intelligence is occupied with continued adjustments to these differences. That is what makes the interest in life. We are advancing constantly into a new universe." This informs a world view that seeks qualitative detail, difference, and context.(insult: hipster)

Postmodernists think along the same lines of specificity; nothing can be explained by a grand narrative, all little narratives must be respected as presenting their own issues.

Marxists see the world in terms of class inequality and understand most oppression and violence as stemming from capitalism. They see the competition between bosses as the key obstacle to what they desire - peace and socialism.

Feminists consider gender inequality to be the key obstacle to social progress.

Anarchists see government and rules in general as unnecessary and oppressive.

Functionalists often cite common sense as the base of their world view. They worry that rapid change will lead to anarchy and disorder. They accept  inequality as necessary to ensure people try their best to learn and believe without competition and law enforcements individuals would be lazy and, as Thomas Hobbes feared, simply kill each other.

 

 

Consider the world view or set of ideas that informs Gina Rhineheart's father, the capitalist Lang Hancock who suggested non-assimilated aboriginal people, that is those who do no "accept society" and whom "society does not accept", could be herded together and sterilised with doped water so they cannot reproduce. He speaks of "society" as though it is objective. In his view, society and its power structures as they exist in 1984 are ideal and anyone who does not suit this model does not deserve to exist. People, in his world view, must conform to society, rather than society accomodating its groups and individuals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMaRuk6pGOc

 

 

References:

Osborne, Richard and Van Loon, 2009, Boris, Sociology, a Graphic Guide, Icon Books Ltd

Sim, Sim and Van Loon, Boris 2009, Introducing Critical Theory, Icon Books UK

 

Recommended:

The Young Turks youtube channel: Journalists Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1yBKRuGpC1tSM73A0ZjYjQ

The Trews, Russel Brand https://www.youtube.com/user/russellbrand