Traditions Of Different Social Groups example essay topic

1. Social action is defined as day to day decisions and actions of individuals within the social world. Social actions both influence and are patterned and influenced by social structure. According to Marx's theory, in order for the potential of social action occurring to take place a society must face resistance and revolution.

According to Marx's theory societies are already divided into two main groups, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie are the upper class who are owners of capital and exploiters of labor, while the proletariat, or lower class, are the blue collar workers who use their hands or a certain skill to perform some sort of labor. The proletariat usually work and answer to the bourgeoisie. Marx's theory states that a critical element of society is social control and that the social structure is based on the oppression of some people by others.

According to Marx's theory the class you are born in is very likely going to be the class you die in. Furthermore, the class that your great grandparents belonged to is more or less going to be the class that your great grandchildren will belong to. Moving from class to class is very rare and is very difficult to accomplish. The only way for class movement is through resistance and or revolution.

According to Marx's theory the potential for resistance and revolution is present in all social situations because the less powerful can always, and are very likely to, act against the status quo. Due to the fact that the social structure is so well defined the only way to have any sort of social action is through some sort of radical means. Looking back on history at times where there were two very distinct class structures the only way that the social structure changed was through revolution. For example, the Civil War. Though the Civil War was not fought solely over slavery, slavery was a big issue. The only way the distinct class differences between slaves and slave owners could come to an end was through war and revolution.

Without radical resistance and revolution the class structure would have never changed and social action would have never occurred. 2. Social research is never a routine matter. There are so many different variables involved in each study that the same study could be done over and over and the response would differ slightly each and every time. All social research contains variables and when there are variables involved the study cannot be routine. Every detail, no matter how slight, affects the variable and can affect the outcome.

This creates a situation that requires a very large attention to detail from the sociologist. Social research measure qualitative data a majority of the time. Qualitative data is data that cannot be assigned real numbers. Instead it is data that is made up of detailed reports of behaviors, quotes from research subjects, and observations of the settings. When researching this data and correlating it, it takes a lot more time and thinking than when doing the same with quantitative data. As a result a sociologist must be very detailed, because the research is never routine.

3. Gender socialization is the process of learning to see oneself as a male or female and learning the roles and expectations associated with that sex group. It is a perfect illustration of the interaction of biological and environmental influences. The biological influences associated with gender socialization refer to the "natural instincts" of the two different sexes and how they are both born with different types of behaviors. For instance, a male, in most cases, is born with a natural attraction towards the female. This attraction gives them a natural ability of wanting to watch over and protect a female.

This is a naturally occurring behavior in nearly every male. A female on the other hand is born with the biological influence of being more emotional and caring than a male. This instinct stems from the motherly role that the female is born to take upon. Other biological factors are the body structures of males and females.

Males are naturally much more muscular than females and this occurs because the male's role is that of protector and the female's role is one of being a mother. The environmental influences refer to the changes or manipulations of behavior that occur as a result of the environment a person grows up in. For instance a female who grows up in a broken home without a father figure may have the expectations that a single parent family is fine, while a girl growing up in a two parent household may see a single parent family as not OK. These two girls will also have different expectations of what a mother is responsible for.

The girl from a single parent family will see the mother as someone who cares for her, provides for her, protects her, and raises her. The girl from a two parent household may see the mother as only someone who cares and raises her because a father figure assumed the two roles. As shown, gender socialization shows many examples of biological and environmental influences. 4.

Ascribed status, such as gender or race-ethnicity, is commonly associated with an individual's social capital and power. Social capital refers to the resources or benefits that people gain from their social networks. Race or ethnicity is commonly used to measure a person's social capital and power. For instance, if a Caucasian male who speaks very proper English was to go to a BMW dealership to look at an $80,000 car he will be treated much more seriously than a Latino male, who speaks broken English. The assumption is made, by a simple observation, that the white male has more social capital and power. It is commonly assumed that white, middle aged males who present themselves well have a great deal of social capital and power and they are very rarely treated with disrespect.

The reason they are prescribed this status is due to the roles middle aged white men play in this country. The president has always been a middle aged, white male and a majority of the countries lawmakers are middle aged, white males. These images of middle aged, white males are drilled into American citizens from birth and it becomes natural for an American citizen to accept the ascribed status that middle aged, white males have a great deal of social capital and power. 5.

Prejudice and discrimination is very influential of a minority group's cultural identity. Cultural identity is how you come to see yourself as being part of a culture or a cultural group. Feeling part of one's culture can help a person feel secure and more connected to others, but in the case of being in a discriminated against minority group it can make you, as a group, feel inferior to others. The opposite affect is ethnocentrism and refers to when a group feels their own culture or way of life is superior to that of others.

The groups that suffer from ethnocentrism are usually the groups that are committing the acts of prejudice. A group who the prejudice is being committed against may start to feel inferior and the people who find this group as their cultural identity will start to feel inferior. The group members will look towards each other more often for support as a result of prejudice. This could bring together the group and make it more intimate and face to face, thus making it a primary group. As long as discrimination and prejudice occur it will keep the cultural identities very distinct and different, which means it is impossible for assimilation to occur.

As a result of the prejudice and discrimination the group boundaries of the minority group will be much more difficult to break down than are the identities of other ethnic groups. 6. Complete assimilation of all groups into the broader culture of the United States is not desirable. On the other hand, partial assimilation is a much better alternative and much more likely to succeed without weeding out the cultures of smaller ethnic groups. The basis of assimilation or "the melting pot theory" is that eventually various ethnic groups that make up the country will melt down into one undifferentiated community. The sociological reasons underlying this principle is that once people from different groups develop secondary and then primary relationships with one another, the group boundaries that separate their cultures will break down.

The problem with this is that cultures and traditions will be lost, which is not acceptable to most cultural groups. It would also be a loss of society to lose the traditions of different social groups. It is impossible for groups with different traditions to completely diverge without some of the traditions being given up. This would not be acceptable to a lot of groups. What would work is partial assimilation, which would mean adopting U.S. customs in addition to keeping the customs associated with your culture. In this case every U.S. citizen would have the common ground of American customs, but also the ability to keep their own customs, thus keeping their traditions alive.

7. Many sampling problems could occur in conducting a study of why individuals shoplift. The first problem could occur in choosing individuals from the exact same area. This would make it impossible to accurately generalize their findings to an overall population, unless they wanted a study referring to just a particular shopping mall. Ultimately most Sociologists want to generalize their study to an overall population and they do this buy using probability samples. This generally involves some type of random selection process that gets a wide array of groups or cases they could potentially study.

Random selection ensures that each member of a population has an equal chance of being included in a sample. The next problem occurred could be in finding a good measure of the variable. In order for the measures to be accurate they must have two key characteristics: validity and reliability. The measure must be valid, meaning that they must measure the phenomenon they are supposed to be measuring. The measure must also be reliable, that is the results will not vary if different researchers use the same measures on the same subjects at different times. These variables could be thrown of by shoplifters not giving truthful answers, which would be human nature when getting caught breaking the law.

The procedure for interviewing shoplifters would have to be exact for each and everyone interviewed. The simple mistake of having a policeman visible or present with a few shoplifters could easily throw off the entire study. Sampling problems are likely to occur in any study that is not measuring quantitative data, because none of the data is exact. Quantitative studies have exact data, because it is usually numbers. 11. Merton's strain theory suggests that people choose deviant actions because of their place within social structures and not because of a personality flaw.

According to the theory all societies have two types of norms; culturally defined goals and institutionalized means. Culturally defined goals are the goals that are valued within a society and Institutionalized means are the culturally approved ways of achieving these cultural goals. Merton suggested that most people value financial success and usually follow the socially accepted means of trying to attain this goal. Merton also stated that some people who accept this goal do not have the means of achieving it.

According to the strain theory they will use illegitimate means to obtain this goal because deviant behavior results when individuals accept culturally defined goals but lack the institutionalized means of attaining them. This situation creates a structural strain, which leaves only one logical response; fraud, theft or some other deviant behavior. 13. McDonaldization is a term invented by the American sociologist George Ritter. It refers to the process of rationalization taken to extreme levels. The McDonald's chain of restaurants is an example for this, as the idea behind the restaurant is offering efficient, predictable, calculable and controlled fast food.

The four basic principles of Mcdonaldization are efficiency, calculability, predictability and control. Efficiency is the optimum method for completing a task and calculability is ensures an assessment of outcomes based on quantitative data rather than subjective. Predictability means the production process is organized to guarantee uniformity of products and standardized outcomes. Control refers to the substitution of more predictable non human labor for human labor, which requires a deskilling of the work force. The process of McDonaldization takes a task and breaks it down into smaller tasks. This is repeated until all tasks have been broken down to the smallest possible level.

The resulting tasks are then rationalized to find the single most efficient method for completing each task. All other methods are then deemed inefficient and discarded. The result is an efficient, logical sequence of methods that can be completed the same way every time to produce the desired outcome. The outcome is very predictable and all aspects of the process are easily controlled and efficient.

Additionally, quantity (calculability) becomes the measurement of good performance. It turns out that over-rationalizing a process in this manner has an unexpected side effect. It's called irrationality which means that a rationalized system may result in events or outcomes that were neither anticipated or desired, and in fact, may not be so good. For example, look at McDonald's chain of restaurants. The premise of fast food often turns out to be just the opposite and is usually accompanied by long waits in lines. Fast food is not necessarily good food and in fact, McDonald's food is extremely unhealthy and the taste is average and bland.

The system of efficiently producing and distributing their food has some other consequences, namely millions of tons of trash each year and a food cultivation system of questionable ethics. With Mcdonaldization it is all about the numbers and that causes business ethics and morals to go out the window. 15. A bureaucracy is a highly structured and formalized organization that is governed by laws and rules. Max Weber has four characteristics of a bureaucracy. The first is that roles within a bureaucracy are highly specialized.

Individuals are only assigned a small number of tasks and therefore become experienced at their jobs and are able to perform them well. Second, bureaucracies are organized hierarchically, with layers of authority an elaborate lines of communication. Instead of having one person supervise all of the employees it is arranged by having officials in higher positions supervise those in lower positions, who in turn supervise those below them. Thirdly, bureaucracies are governed by rules.

The rules determine what each official in the bureaucracy can and cannot do. The rules give the officials authority to carry out tasks, but are also in place to limit how they can be carried out. Lastly, bureaucracies are impersonal. Official business and private matters are strictly separated. Bureaucrats do not own the resources they use when conducting business. There are no property rights to jobs, and they cannot be handed down to children or friends.

In addition, official business is always based on written documents and records so that others who might occupy a given position can always do the work. In other words, no one in a bureaucracy is irreplaceable.