Chapter 4, Social Structure and Social Interaction

1. Chapter 4, Social Structure and Social Interaction • Social Structures • Types of Societies • When Institutions Die: The Tragedy of the Ojibwa

2. Chapter 4, Social Structure and Social Interaction • Social Interaction and Everyday Life • Identity Work • A Case Study of Identity Work: The Homeless • Where This Leaves Us

3.  Social Structure Recurrent patterns of relationships that revolve around: • Status • Role • Institutions

4.  Five Basic Human Institutions • Family, to rear children. • Economy, to produce and distribute goods. • Government, to provide defense. • Education, to train new generations. • Religion, to supply answers about the unknown or unknowable.

5. Structural-functional Theory of Institutions • The order and stability institutions provide offers people a “liberating dependence.” • Patterned solutions are present for the most common of everyday problems.

6. Conflict Theory of Institutions • Patterned norms hold people in thrall to norms that may only oppress us. • Stability and order, for example, may require the oppression of women and the inequality of socially defined races.

7. Hunting, Fishingand Gathering Societies • Economically the least complex. • Division of labor is based on age and sex. • Economic activity is an adaptation to the natural environment, and does not produce surpluses.

8. Horticultural Societies • Began when people began to cultivate crops. • Allowed some in the society to pursue art, writing, and warfare. • Status hierarchy began to develop.

9.  Agricultural Societies • Began 5,000 to 6,000 years ago. • Surpluses became far greater and a complex class system developed. • Kings, priests, merchants, soldiers, and peasants were among the new social classes.

10. Industrial societies • Arose only a few hundred years ago. • Animal and human labor was replaced by complex energy technologies. • A new class order reflected a highly specialized division of labor.

11.  The Tragedy of the Ojibwa Ojibwa society before 1963: • Retained the way of life of a hunting and gathering society. • Centered on the family. • Almost no contact with whites.

12.  The Tragedy of the Ojibwa In 1963, Ojibwa society changed forever: • Canadian government moved them from reservation lands to a prepared community. • The result was a collapse of institutions that depended on their traditional ways. • A 1999 decision allowed their land to be clear cut. Their future remains uncertain.

13. Sociology of Everyday Life: Assumptions • The problematic nature of culture. Roles must be negotiated to go along with the general cultural script. • The dialectic. Human interactions are a dialectic between human expression and social forces of restraint.

14. Sociology of Everyday Life: Assumptions • Biography. As social actors bring unique biography to each interaction, those interactions tend to be unique. • Thick description. A sociological technique for describing why actors did what they did, and what it meant to them.

15. Two Ways of Avoiding Blame •  Accounts. Tell stories to justify behavior. Sometimes, they are excuses; sometimes, they are justifications. • Disclaimers. Efforts to evade blame or judgment before an act. We explain that is not our fault, but….

16. Case Study: The Homeless and Self-esteem • Role distancing keeps us from being too closely associated with a status. (I’m not like the others.). • Role embracement is putting the best face on one’s lot and standing up for it. • Storys of how important one used to be, or to foretell better days ahead.