Chapter 18: Social Change and Modernization

   Social change is one of the aspects of society that sociologists examine the most, partly because sociology was developed in a period of time when social chaos was around.

   Sociologists around the world are very interested in social change, social change is defined by sociologists as changes in various aspects of a society over time. Since social change has become such a popular topic within the sociological community, and many sociologists base themselves on different perspectives to find out a theory that would explain social change correctly, there are many theories that attempt to explain this phenomenon. A very important aspect of society that sociologists are interested in and is part of social change is modernization. Modernization is the process by which a society’s social institutions become increasingly complex as the society moves towards industrialization. Sociologists have also come out with many theories that attempt to explain this phenomenon as well.

  

   One the most recognized theories that explain social change is called cyclical theory of social change, this theory views change from a historical perspective, this meaning, they agree that societies undergo a certain process of formation. Societies arise; undergo many stages through which they develop and then, like most societies in history can prove,  decline. In this system, we can classify many kinds of cultures. In an ideational culture, truth and knowledge are acquired through faith or religion.. In a sensate culture, people seek knowledge through science. These are basically the two extremes in the cultures of these societies. No extreme is good, so there is a category that’s lies right in between these two cultures, this culture is called the idealistic culture, knowledge here is transmitted through both religion and science, making both important aspects of the society. Another very recognized theory is he evolutionary theory of social change. This theory views change as a process that moves only towards one direction which is an increasing complexity of the society, the society will reach a maximum point of complexity and won’t fall apart after it has reached that point.

   Modernization, that is one of the most complicated phenomena to understand for sociologists. Sociologists around the world have agreed and coined a theory named modernization theory, the more developed nations modernized because they were the first to industrialize. There is another theory called world system theory which views modernization in terms of the world economy. The world system theory comprises three types of nations, core, peripheral, and semiperipheral. Core nations are the most powerful developed nations that form the center of the world economy, the peripheral nations are the poor countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. They control few productive resources, and they depend on the core nations for financial aid. Semiperipheral nations are the nations in between these two, most probably known as second world nations these nations may or may not have industrialized but are not powerful manufacturer nations like the central nations. 

   Explanation of the Modernization Theory.

   Modernization is a great thing, and in many cases inevitable, anyone would agree it is a necessary factor to the improvement of any society, it brings a country great things aside from industrialization. So, if modernization is inevitable like some claim it is, and for modernization to occur social change must occur first, then we probably agree that social change is inevitable as well. Social change after all is something good then, and many sociologists would agree that necessary for the success of any society.

Chapter 17: Collective Behavior and Social Movement

     

   People within a society most of the time tend to behave in pretty similar ways, mainly because individuals usually tend to, or at least are expected to, follow certain norms society has. Many times individuals that have some kind of bond experience this phenomenon of behaving similar to each other, this is what scientists call collective behavior.

   Norms of behavior within a society are not always clear enough though. During these situations, people begin to follow norms which don’t quite exist but that they think are correct. Sociologist refers to these actions as collective behavior which is the relativity spontaneous social behavior that occurs when people try to develop common solutions to unclear situations. There are many forms of collective behavior. A crowd is a temporary gathering of people who are in close enough proximity to interact. A mob is an emotionally charged collectivity whose members are united by a specific destructive or violent goal. And finally a riot, which is a collection of people who erupt into generalized destructive behavior, the result of which is social disorder. Fear might trigger some collective behavior as well, some examples of collective behavior triggered by fear are the following. A panic is a spontaneous and uncoordinated group action to escape some perceived threat.  A moral panic occurs when people become fearful, often without reason, about behavior that appears to threaten society’s core value. Another collective behavior is mass hysteria which is an unfounded anxiety shared by people who can be scattered over a wide geographic area.

    Not all types collective behavior have fear, an example is fashion which refers to enthusiastic attachments among large numbers of people for particular styles of appearance or behavior.  Fads are ideas that a large number of people are attached to for a very short period of time. . A rumor is an unverified peace of information that is rapidly spread from one person to another. Another form of communication within members of a society is urban legends which are stories that teach a lesson and seem realistic but are untrue. Another collective behavior that depends on communication is public opinion, which refers to the collection of differing attitudes that members of a o public have about a particular issue. Propaganda, which is an organized deliberate attempt to shape public opinion, is also a form of communication within society’s members. Collectivism happens in every society, and it a very big concept that many sociologists try to explain, therefore there are many theories that try to explain this phenomenon. The contagion theory was developed by Gustave LeBon and it said that the hypnotic power to encourage people up their individuality and strong pull of a group. The emergent theory says that the people in a crowd face a situation in which traditional norms of behavior are not applied.  The value added theory predicts if collective behavior would occur and the direction it would take.

   Most social movements happen, or work to change any aspect of society. Reactionary movements are to revers current social trends. Another kind of social movements are conservative movements, they try to protect what they see as society’s prevailing values from change that they consider to be a threat to those values. Revisionary movements work to improve or revise some part of society through social change. Finally, revolutionary movements are a total and radical change of the structure. Just like with collectivism, many sociologists have tried to understand why these movements form, and once again just like collectivism, there are many theories to explain it. The relative deprivation theory states that people join social movements because they feel deprived relative to other people or groups with whom the identify. Modern sociologist believe that social movements can occur only if people are successful in resource mobilization. Resource mobilizations are the organizations and effective use of resources.  Since this is a very important factor, many sociologists developed the resource mobilization theory, which states that not even the most ill-treated group with the most just case will be able to bring about change without resources.

   Collective behavior is simply amazing, no matter if you don’t agree that this phenomenon happens, it does, unconsciously people know that they are expected to follow a determined behavior, and in order to fit in they do. In limited cases do individuals not agree with the collective behavior they must follow, and it’s those individuals that become leaders and initiate a social movement, perfect way to change a well established collective behavior in a society and reestablish unclear norms.

Chapter 16 Population and Urbanization

           Population is the number of people that live in an area at a particular time. It is clear how population in the 1800’s is not the same as today, and this change in population has led to a change in the social characteristics of many individuals within the population. The amount of population is not the only thing that has changed, but also the way they are distributed. Population used to be on separate small groups apart from each other. Population movement, which will be furthered explained, has caused effects such as urbanization, which is how population has been moving towards big cities and concentrating on big cities. Many theories have been created to explain these changes in the population and population movements worldwide.

The field of science that studies population is called demography. Demographers measure the growth of a population by finding its birthrate. The term fertility, when used by sociologists around the world, refers to the actual number of births occurring to women of childbearing age. Fecundity is different than fertility, fecundity refers to the biological capability to bear children. Population is also affected by mortality, which is the number of deaths within a society. Demographers call the amount of deaths that occur in a society, death rate. When the death is of a kid under the age of one, then it is included in the infant mortality rates, which includes the record of all the deaths of children under 1 year old. The average number of years that a person born in a particular year can expects to live is called life expectancy. The third factor that demographers take into account is migration, the number of individuals that are entering the society and come from somewhere else. Demographers can calculate the migration rate by finding the annual difference between migration and emigration. In reality, the long-term effect of such a growth rate on population size is related to a population’s doubling time.

Population growth on the last decades.

              Like mentioned before, there are many theories that try to explain these phenomenon, some of the following are part of the most respected by demographers around the world. The demographic transition theory says that population patterns are tied to a society’s level of technological development. If we were to follow the demographic transition theory, there would be a point in which the stage three population, or society, will reach a point in which its birth rates and death rates are the same, so population won’t be neither increasing nor decreasing, this phenomenon is called zero population growth. Viewing that population might become a major 21rst century problem, many countries have begun to promote family planning, which give many options to families to be able to “plan” their children and not have families with many children, instead have small families that will reduce the population.

              Urbanization, urbanization is a movement involves the concentration of the population in cities. To completely understand the definition of urbanization it would be most proper to understand some key terms of the definition, for example, “a city is a permanent concentration of a relatively large number of people who are engaged mainly in non-farming activities”. Over urbanization, “a situation in which more people live in a city than can be supported in term s of jobs and facilities”, has lately become a great problem in countries that are not yet that developed. The concentric zone model which helps to describe urban structure was created in 1925 by Ernest W. Burgess. The sector model argues that growth occurs in wedge-shaped sectors, outward from the center of the city, the multiple nuclei model, on the other hand, argues that a city does not develop around one central core but around several centers of activity. Unplanned cities, such as Tegucigalpa, follow a urban sprawl pattern, which is characterized by poorly planned development on the edge of cities and towns. Louis Wirth put forward an urban anomie theory.  Compositional theory views the ways in which the composition of a city’s population influences life in the city.

       Population trends have simply gone beyond what anyone would have ever imagined, growing from 1 billion 200 years ago, to over 7 billion today, just amazing, and, where is this population at? 2004 was the official date when exactly 50% of the population lived in rural areas and the other 50% in cities, that number must be much more higher on the city side by now, now that’s what any sociologist would call urbanization.

Chapter 15 Science and Mass Media

   Anyone could find it hard to find a similarity between science and mass media, yet they do have some things in common with each other. Science, the pursuit of knowledge through systematic methods, is a central feature for all industrialized countries and works as a social institution. Mass media are instruments of communication that reach large audiences with no personal contact from the person sending the information to those that are receiving it, mass media is also considered a social institution. Both these social institutions have developed with time and have become much more common in the past few centuries. Probably the most important aspect of these two concepts up until now is the fact that both are considered to be social institutions.

  The sociology of science, the sociological investigation of how scientific knowledge develops, sociology of science is what gives us the perspective to see science as a social institution, in other words, to understand how science can be a social institution we first need to understand the main sociology of science. A very important and known aspect of science is the scientific method, an objective and systematic way of collecting information and arriving at conclusions, scientists often use this method instead of implying philosophical speculations. Like every social institution, science must have norms.Organized skepticism is also a norm, no scientific finding or theory is exempt from questioning. Organized skepticism is not always a norm scientists believe should be followed all the time, Thomas Kuhn, a historian of science, coined the term paradigm to describe the set of shared concepts, methods, and assumptions that make up scientific reality at any point in time. Communalism, all scientific knowledge should be made available to everyone in the scientific community. Another main norms the one of disinterestedness, which states that scientists should seek truth, not personal gain, of course that all these norms are not laws, and therefore some scientists fail to fulfill them. A natural social phenomenon that occurs within the science social institution is the Matthew Effect, we can observe this phenomenon when we see how honors and recognition tend to go to those scientists who have already achieved recognition, on the other hand, they tend to be withheld from scientists who have not yet made their mark.

Different types of mass media in our daily life.

   Mass media usually plays biggest roles in information societies, such as the United States, were the exchange of information is the main social and economic activity. Developing technologies have led to the creation of many new mass media instruments such as TVs and radios, some sociologists believe that these new technologies will cause mass media to merge together into something they call media convergence, the merging of media technologies. The conflict perspective, which mainly bases its thoughts on Marxist ideology in which violence between people and groups is pretty much the cause of most social instability, believes to have found a pattern, which happens thanks to mass media on the society, within every society. The knowledge-gap hypothesis states that as new information enters society, wealthy and better-educated members acquire it at a faster rate than poor and less educated people. Conflict theorists believe this phenomenon might be occurring because of the digital gap(gap between those with access to new technologies and those without) getting wider and wider every day. Many sociologists believe that mass media has led to a decrease in the social capita. Social capita refers to social networks and the reciprocal norms associated with these networks that encourage people to do things for each other. Many people complain about mass media for a simple reason, they argue that the media sets the boundaries of public debate by deciding which issues will receive coverage and which will not, a process known as agenda setting. Agenda setting is undertaken by gatekeepers-media executives, editors or reporters who can open or close the “gate” on a particular news story.

   Both mass media and science are very complex social institutions, yet simple to understand. Giving it some thought, we might as well come to realize that society today is the way it is partly thanks to science and mass media. Both these social institutions play big roles in our society today. We are exposed to mass media and to science a major part of our day, in some cases affecting the way we think and behave, for this reason, many sociologists including myself believe mass media and science have major roles in the social behavior of individuals.

Chapter 13: Economy and Politics

     

    Both, economy and politics, are two concepts very difficult to understand, people that understand both concepts well enough, understand that these two concepts are actually very connected to each other, they affect each other, and we often confuse each other by mixing them together. To satisfy a people’s needs and wants, every society develops a system of roles and norms that governs the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. This system is called the economic institution. An Economic institution is different than a political institution, the system of roles and norms that governs the distribution and exercise of power in society. Different political institutions choose to take to practice different economic institutions, these two kinds of institutions are what form every country’s government. There is much more to these institutions and systems than only this.

    Economic systems are all about who controls the factors of production, resources needed to produce goods and services, either the people, or the government. All economic systems comprise three main sectors: Primary Sector, which deals with the extraction of raw materials from the environment, the Secondary Sector, which concentrates on the use of raw materials to manufacture goods, and the Tertiary Sector, which is composed of providing services. Economy is basically is not all the same, it has many economic models. In capitalism the factors of production are owned by individuals rather than by the government. In Socialism the factors of production are owned by the government, which regulates economic activity. In the picture below, you can see in the spectrum how economic points of view, or practices, change radically from one perspective to another.

    Capitalism is a form of economy where the people own the means of production. The economy is basically determined by the law of supply, states that producers will supply more products when they can charge higher prices and fewer products when they must charge lower prices, and the law of demand, states that consumers will demand more of a product as the price of the product decreases. Capitalism is known as a term called laissez-faire capitalism, which is French for “let the people do what they want to do”. Today we find free-enterprise systems thanks to capitalism limiting government control of business in economy. Another innovation capitalism has brought are corporations, a business organization that is owned by stockholders and is treated by law as an individual person. A problem that tends to happen on capitalist economies is the formation of an oligopoly, the market situation in which a few large companies control an entire industry.

    Totally opposite to Capitalism is communism, a political and economical system in which property is communally owned. Sometimes communism leads to totalitarianism, when this happens, those in power exercise complete authority over the lives of individual citizens.Sometimes governments do influence in capitalist economies though. During protectionism government uses trade barriers to protect domestic manufacturers from foreign competition. Many people are against free trade, trade that is not restricted by trade barriers between countries. There are some important factors inside politics that will help it succeed, one of them is power, the ability to control the behavior with or without their consent. Power is usually exercised by the state, the primarily political authority in society. Different political institution have different legitimacy, which refers to whether those in power are viewed as having the right to control, or govern, others. According to Weber, legitimate power is authority. There are different kinds of authorities, traditional authority is power that is based on longstanding custom. Rational-legal authority is based on rules and regulations, finally charismatic authority is based on the personal characteristics of the individual exercising the power. The opposite of authority is coercion, power that is considered illegitimate by the people.      

Types of Governments 

    There are many types of governments that make politics. There is democracy, power is exercised through the people, monarchy is a type of government in which one person rules, constitutional monarchy where the monarch is nothing but a symbolic head o state and democratic socialism which is the combination of a democratic government with a socialist economy. All these systems have been democratic, except for the monarchy, but there are also other systems, authoritarian systems. Here we include governments based on authoritarianism where power rests firmly with the state. Examples of these kinds of systems are absolute monarchy, an authoritarian system in which the hereditary ruler holds absolute power. A dictatorship, an authoritarian system where all the power is in hands of one individual only, when a little group has seized the power from a previous government, they become a junta. When there is a group trying to seek and gain power by legitimate means, it is called  political party.

    The final question then is, why do these two affect each other? Well, throughout history, it is clear how authoritarian governments have always had socialist/communist economies, while democratic governments have had less socialist and capitalist economies, that is how politics could change economy and how economic institutions shape political institutions, which in the end, were a little more similar than anybody ever thought they were. 

Chapter 14: Education and Religion

    
     Two of the most important factors to modern society are education and religion. Education consists of the roles and norms that ensure the transmission of knowledge, values, and patterns of behavior from one generation to the next, this is the reason why education is fundamental for every society, without education, no society would be able to succeed. Religion is a system of roles and norms that is organized around the sacred world and that binds people together in social groups. Religion, just as education, is also a keystone to society, religion makes people of all different kinds equal, unites people with the same beliefs and makes them closer together. Both education and religion are essential for every society to be successful for a long time.


  Education was created in order to be able to teach new generations the building blocks of the society they live in, to teach them the rules, norms, how to behave, and all other essential matters that will facilitate social control in the future. Kids, just like adults, get educated every day, either by a formal or informal education. There are two kinds of education, formal and informal. Formal education, which involves instruction by specially trained teacher who follow officially recognized policies, is called schooling.Informal education is the one that we get from the people around us and/or our parents. This type of education is mainly on how we should behave within society, and about the norms of our local community. There are many problems to a formal education institution according to conflict sociologists. Sociologists use the term hidden curriculum to describe schools’ transmissions of cultural goals that are not openly acknowledged. Formal education institutions, according to conflict sociologists, also promote inequality by tracking, tracking involves the assignment of students of different types of educational programs, such as general studies, vocational training, and college-preparatory studies. There are some alternatives to education too. Charter schools receive a character of operation from the state and is basically managed by the state, but is ran as if it were a private institution. In this kind of institution, parents have school choice, the amount of money they want the state to spend on them. Another solution is homeschooling, a system in which a child’s main education is undertaken by parents at home. Most schools have also adapted zero tolerance policies. These involves set punishments, even expulsion, for serious offenses such as carrying a weapon, committing a violent act, or possessing drugs or alcohol. A new system in American schools that has derived lately is bilingual education were the children learns two languages at school, including English. In religion, sacred things are very important. Sacred is anything that is considered to be part of the supernatural world and inspires awe, respect and reverence, the opposite of profane, which is anything considered to be part of the ordinary world and thus, commonplace and familiar. Many times being part of a religion involves practicing a certain ritual; a ritual may be defined as an established pattern of behavior through which a group of believers experiences the sacred.

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  There are three main types of religions. The first one is animism. Animism is a belief that spirits actively influence human life. Examples of religions included in this category are, shamanism, where it is believed that spirits communicate only with one person in the group, called shaman, and totemism, which involves a believe in kinship between humans and animals or natural objects. The second kind of religion is theism, the belief in a god or gods. Two derivations from theism are monotheism, which involves only believing in one god, and polytheism, which involves believing in more than one god. The third kind of religion is ethicalism, which is based on the idea that moral principles have a sacred quality.Religion is divided into a couple organizational structures. An ecclesia is a type of religious organization in which most people in the society are members by virtue of their birth. A denomination is a well-established religious organization in which a substantial number of the population are members. A sect is a relatively small religious organization that typically has split off from a denomination differences concerning beliefs. Finally a cult is a new religion whose beliefs and practices differ markedly from those of the society’s major religions.

   Religion and education share the same objective, to promote social control, yet, time has shown how both have had different correlations as to the importance society gives to each. Education used to be a minor detail in a kids daily life, with the years education has become more and more important, today parents give great importance to the quality level of the education their child is receiving. 

                      Different religions in USA.

Meanwhile, religion has been on a constant decrease. American society is becoming more secular, religion is losing its influence in everyday life in the United States. Even though it is hard to measure religiosity, the depth of people’s religious feelings, statistics show that religion’s influence on American life is in constant decline.

Chapter 11: Gender, Age, and Health

     We plan to make an unequal society equal, we try to make a society where there are men and women, two genders with totally different characteristics, equal and have both sexes perform equal roles when its simply impossible. So this difference in genders contributes to an unequal society, many problems come when these genders, male and female, fight for their roles in society. Gender is not the only factor societies look up to, treatment in society is different depending on your age, of course this always depends on the society you are living on. Many times a high age brings disabilities to the human body, and people who suffer of these disabilities see how the chances society gives them to get a decent job are significantly lowered. 

     Gender comprises the behavioral and psychological traits considered appropriate for men and women. People in a society have roles, gender roles are the specific behaviors and attitudes that a society establishes for men and women, and these roles are different, therefore, in many cases, men or women prejudice the other sex based on how well a member of the other sex can fulfill his role. A very important factor to get people to fulfill their role correctly is gender identity, gender identity is the awareness of being masculine of feminine as those traits are defined by culture. Like mentioned before, gender roles tend to lead to social inequality, patriarchy is a system where men are dominant over women, in many cultures the men of the family becomes the leader and decides what happens inside the house. Sexism is the belief that one sex is by nature superior to the other. Many movements have been held in the past century claiming sexes are equal. Women’s movement, in America, held’s that the sexes were socially, politically and economically equal, women make this movement. Women had never had the right to vote in elections, but in the past century they were able to accomplish the suffrage reform, which gave them the right to vote. More and more women are joining the work force every day, decreasing the wage gap, the difference between a woman’s salary and a man’s salary. There once was said that there is a “glass ceiling” in businesses, the glass ceiling is the invisible barrier that prevents women from gaining upper level in businesses, this “glass ceiling” is apparently beginning to vanish though. It is visible how women have a second shift, their work in society, women not only do they work on their professional regular work but they also have  a ”second shift” because they get home and must take care of the kids, clean the house, cook etc… these actions are usually attributed to women in most societies.

Gender roles of women that stay in home cleaning and taking take of children.

     Societies are changing at fast rates, old people have always been the once that you go to look for advice, since old used to be seen as wise, but things have changed. Societies today tend to have preference for some age groups over the others and this causes social inequality, since they prefer a group of people of one certain age over the other. Ageism is the belief that one age group is naturally superior to the others. It is amusing how in a society like the American society where people seem to worship youth and look forward to looking as young as possible, there are each time more and more old people, more than ever before. Sociologist have observed a new phenomenon which they decided to name “the graying of America”, which refers to how by 2050 1 in every 5 people will be elderly, that’s 20% of the entire population. Today there are many elderly people since they are mostly part of the baby-boom generation, period of time when birthrates in the US simply got extremely high, then they lowered again but all those kids born during that period are today around 50-60 years old. Another problem we are facing today is the dependency ratio, back in the 60’s, for every 5 workers there was 1 retiree, this is the dependency ratio, but by 1998 this had lowered to 3 workers per retiree and it is estimated that it will continue to lower and reach a 2-1 ratio by 2030. It is thought that elderly people will continue to increase as well thanks to the availability of medicine, Medicare is the government-sponsored health-insurance plan for elderly Americans and Americans with disabilities. There is also another program; the Medicaid is the state and federally funded health insurance program for low-income individuals.A main reason why elderly population is growing so fast is thanks to health. Even though health might be very good, citizens are not happy with the medical system. Most people are under managed care programs, where you pay a monthly or annual fee and in return receive health-care services. This is the most common method used for health insurance. Medicine has developed and today we can also see alternative medicine, for example, acupuncture, acupressure, massage, yoga and more unconventional methods. One of the biggest problems that today’s medicine has to face is the Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), a disease that attacks the immune system, leaving a person vulnerable to a host of deadly infection.

     Our society is full of prejudice and discrimination, and we complain that everyone should be equal over and over again without any actual response. The truth is, why do we claim so much that we are all equal when we are not, races, ethnicity, gender, age, all those factors make us different, and capable of accomplishing different tasks. Gender and age are two factors that make society unequal, yet we will have to live with it. Should we worship youth so much and leave the elderly people, who brought us to the world, out? Probably we are not taking the right decision when it comes to answering that question.