C. Wright Mills says that “Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both (Howard, p.1).” What does Mills mean and how does Kai Erikson, in his book Everything in its Path, use this idea? C. Wright Mills said that the main aim of sociology should be the connection between the individual and society. He advocated using the "sociological imagination," a perspective focusing on this connection, to understand how the individual's experiences relate with and reflect societal patterns. Kai Erikson uses a very large portion of his book to describe the history and culture of the people of Buffalo Creek, even though the objective of his research was a lawsuit for the disaster victims. He explained how the culture shared by these individuals, which balances independence and dependence, influenced the ways the disaster affected them. For example, a tight-knit community is central to the Appalacian lifestyle, but the government relocated them haphazardly when housing them, separating them from their neighbors and putting them next to strangers. The Appalacian culture is also extremely suspicious of outsiders, especially the government. The people of Buffalo Creek were forced to depend on the government, and staffers sometimes degraded them further by treating them like "beggars." ----- What is meant by “agents of socialization”? Name 2 of the most important ones and then explain how they affect the lives of people. (Ch. 4) Agents of socialization are people and groups that influence self-concept, emotion, attitudews, and behaviors. Family is a person's first exposure to the universe and probably the most important agent of socialization. Through the family a child learns the most basic culture of a society, including language, which to a large degree guides the imagination, values, norms, and customs. Religious, political, and economic class are heavily influenced by family. A family teaches a child how to think. Self-concept develops, along with interaction with others. A young child molds its behavior according to the approval or disapproval of the family. Upon entering school, children learn new values and behaviors. They learn the student role, and are exposed to individual evaluation and record-keeping. The peer group becomes an influence, and children without siblings learn cooperation and sharing. School generally involves much more intense emphasis on gender differentiation than they might have been used to before. Lines, games, play areas, toys, activities, and bathrooms might be gender segregated. ----- Anthropologist Horace Miner wrote “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” in order to help the reader “step back from our own society.” What is meant by this? Why is it important to be able to “step back”? In studying a society, a person should avoid ethnocentrism, or defining it in terms of their own culture. You are supposed to analyze independently of your own point of view. If you don't "step back from your own society," you might misinterpret that culture's norms and values. Many things that seem natural to some people are insane from another perspective. For example, if you take the description of the "holy mouth men" with the perspective Horace Miner writes in, you might think the Nacirema are masochists and incredibly superstitious. He doesn't explain why the Nacirema believe that these procedures are beneficial. Sometimes he uses distant interpretations or describes the meaning of a custom with a preconception, like when he talks about bathroom procedures like mystic rituals. Similarly, a person who dismisses a norm or value as primitive superstition or barbarity without understanding why it seems natural to those who follow it is being reckless. ----- Explain how the symbolic interaction perspective would understand sports. Then explain how the social conflict perspective would understand sports in our society. Give examples for both. (Ch. 1) Sybolic interaction theory looks at the meanings and interpretations assigned to symbols of sports. A little league study is a good example of this. The parents and coaches emphasized the moral lessons that they intended the players to learn from sports, such as teamwork, competition, and good sportsmanship. However, the boys interpreted the game through their desire for peer acceptance, which demanded following an exaggerated stereotypical masculinity. The parents and coaches interpreted aggressive behavior as "hustle" and competitiveness, praising it and encouraging it further. The boys became emotionally distant from each other and exhibited scorn towards those that acted differently, such as younger children and girls. prepare for schedules, solidarity, sportsmanship, business, athlete commodities, scandals According to the book, social conflict theory emphasizes several examples of how sports reflect class divisions and rebuts certain arguments that claim sports promote solidarity and fair play. First of all, sports are a multi-billion dollar business for the rich. Participants buy increasingly sophisticated and expensive equipment to gain an edge, and sports celebrities earn millions to promote a product to consumers. Professional players are commodities bought, sold, and traded by super-rich team owners on an open market. Even if spectators are unified during a game, afterwards they separate into their classes again. If sports encourage cooperation and fair play, they also promote aggression and cheating, and critics can point to numerous scandals and examples of bad sportsmanship to back this up. ----- According to the functionalist perspective, the mass media serves many functions. Explain two functions of the mass media according to this perspective and then give examples for each function. (Ch. 4) info, culture (continuity and integration), entertainment, interpretation, mobilizing The mass media has many functions. It distributes information to the people, including local and international news, general knowledge, and specific instruction, although the quality, accuracy, and completeness of the information is often questionable. Culture is distributed through the media, which socializes its audience and keeps the public up to date on certain styles and events that capture society's attention at roughly the same time. The cultural effect of the media includes discouragement of deviant behavior and thoughts and encouragement of conformity. Mass entertainment usually encourages social stability by relieving stress and diverting the audience's attention, but sometimes the media leads to public awareness and action too. The media interprets all of these things in society's terms, which is one of its most powerful attributes. The interpretations generally fit those of mainstream society and support the status quo.