Introduction 1
About This Book 2
Foolish Assumptions 4
Icons Used In This Book 5
Beyond the Book 6
Where To Go From Here 6
Part 1: Getting the Basic Basics 7
Chapter 1: Getting Your Head around Sociology 9
Focusing Your Sociological Lens 10
Defining sociology 10
Knowing the history of sociology 10
Doing sociology 11
The Nuts and Bolts of Society 12
Understanding culture 13
Microsociology 13
Understanding Differences Among People and Groups 14
Social stratification 14
Race and ethnicity 15
Sex and gender 15
Religion 16
Crime, deviance, and social control 16
How People Get Organized (Or At Least Try To) 17
Organizations and networks 17
Social movements and political sociology 17
Urban and rural sociology 18
Changes In Your Life, Changes In Your Society 18
The life course 19
Social change 19
Sociology For Dummies, for Dummies 20
Chapter 2: Knowing Why Sociology Matters 21
Figuring Out What Sociology is 22
Defining sociology 22
Studying society scientifically 22
Asking and answering sociological questions 25
Discovering Where Sociology is “Done” 27
Colleges and universities 27
Think tanks and research institutes 27
Nonprofit organizations 28
Government 29
Journalism and reporting 29
Business and consulting 30
Everyday life 31
Recognizing How Sociology Affects Your Life and Your World 31
Thinking about the social world in an objective, value-free way 32
Visualizing connections across times and places 33
Uncovering what really matters and what doesn’t 34
Informing social policy 35
Keeping a unique perspective for everyday problems 36
Chapter 3: Conflict and Cooperation: The History of Sociology 37
So Who Cares about History? 38
Thinking about Society before There Was Sociology 39
People are the same everywhere you go except when they aren’t 39
Pre-sociologists: People with ideas about society 40
Political and industrial revolution: Ready or not, here it comes 41
The Development of “Sociology” 43
Figuring out life with positivism 43
Common themes of early sociologists 43
Sociology: The most ambitious science 44
Sociology’s Power Trio 46
Karl Marx 47
Emile Durkheim 49
Max Weber 51
Sociology in the 20th Century 53
Sociology in America: W.E.B Du Bois and the Chicago School 53
Mass society: Are we, or are we not, sheep? 54
The Power Elite: Marx’s revenge 56
Sociology Today 58
Chapter 4: Understanding the Research Methods: You Can’t Put Society in a Test Tube 59
Performing Sociological Research 60
Asking your question 60
Checking the literature 62
Operationalizing your question and find your data 63
Analyzing your data 65
Step 5: Interpreting your results 65
Getting to Know the Research Methods 67
Getting quantitative data 68
Gathering qualitative data 72
Choosing hybrid methods 73
Preparing For Potential Pitfalls 75
Using inappropriate data 75
Getting overzealous 75
Overlooking relevant information 78
Misusing statistics 79
Making mistakes just plain oops! 80
Part 2: Seeing Society Like a Sociologist 83
Chapter 5: Getting Some Culture: How Socialization Works 85
Understanding What Culture is — and Isn’t 86
Defining “culture” 86
Breaking down structure 87
Does culture matter? 89
Studying Culture: Makin’ It and Takin’ It 91
Other angles on culture 91
The production and reception of culture 93
Culture, information, and the news 94
Paddling the “Mainstream” 95
Subculture 96
Microcultures 97
Socialization: Where You Connect in Culture 99
Nature vs nurture: Social psychology 100
You are who other people think you are 101
Culture Paradox: Pulling Us Together and Pushing Us Apart 103
Uniting through culture 103
Dividing because of culture 104
Chapter 6: Studying Sociology at Its Smallest: Microsociology 105
Grasping the Paradox of Society 106
Social facts: What your society says about you 106
Adaptation and frustration 109
Understanding Why People Make Rational — and Irrational — Choices 110
Making rational choices — or, at least, trying 111
Making bad decisions (we’ve all been there) 114
Getting How Symbolic Interactionism Works 119
Play ball! The rules of the game 120
Stop frontin’: Switching roles, changing frames 122
Part 3: Equality and Inequality in Our Diverse World 125
Chapter 7: Social Stratification: We’re All Equal, But Some of Us Are More Equal Than Others 127
Excavating the Social Strata 128
Understanding social inequality 128
Grappling with the perennial debate: Is inequality necessary? 131
Recognizing the Many Means of Inequality 134
Income and wealth: Making money (or inheriting it) 134
Occupation: Landing in the labor force 135
Innate ability: Capitalizing on your skills 137
Motivation: Getting out of bed in the morning 137
Social connections: Knowing the right people 139
Credentials: Carrying the right cards 140
Education: Learning the ropes 141
Specialized knowledge: Knowing what others don’t 142
Bias and discrimination: Being limited by others’ lack of imagination 143
Considering Global Inequality 144
Chapter 8: Race and Ethnicity: What Others See, Who We Are 147
Race: Real in Its Consequences 148
Knowing the difference between race and ethnicity 148
Grasping the complexities of life in color 152
Debunking the myth of the “model minority” 154
Putting whiteness in the spotlight 155
Considering Individuals and Institutions 158
Racial discrimination: Conscious and unconscious 158
How racism becomes institutionalized 160
Understanding Immigration in a Changing World 161
Crossing borders, keeping ties 162
Immigration today 163
Chapter 9: Sex and Gender: Beyond the Binary 167
Biology is Not Destiny 168
Distinguishing between sex and gender 168
Understanding the sex and gender spectrum 169
Changing Ideas of Femininity and Masculinity 171
The history of feminism 172
Rethinking masculinity 175
#MeToo and a new reckoning 177
Intersectionality: Race and Gender 180
Chapter 10: Getting Religion: Faith in the Modern World 183
Understanding Religion in History 184
Karl Marx on religion: Opium of the people 184
Emile Durkheim on religion: Progressing from specific rules to common principles 185
Weber on religion: A switchman on the tracks 188
Religion in Theory and in Practice 189
Religious ideas, ideology, and values 189
The important role of religious organizations 191
Faith and Freedom in the World Today 194
Shopping for God 194
Belief, action, and everything in between 197
Chapter 11: Crime and Deviance: Who’s in Control? 201
Knowing the Difference between Deviance and Crime 202
Understanding Why People Commit Crimes 204
Theory one: Are criminals bad people? 204
Theory two: Are criminals driven to it? 205
Accepting crime as normal 206
Breaking Down the Social Construction of Crime 208
Writing laws that make sense to a society 208
Enforcing the law 210
Looking Beyond Crime and Punishment 212
Rethinking policing 213
Examining the effects of America’s high incarceration rate 216
Considering whether punishment works 216
Tallying the high costs of incarceration 217
Part 4: All Together Now: The Ins and Outs of Social Organization 219
Chapter 12: Knowing What Works (and Doesn’t): Sociology and Organizations 221
Recognizing the Corporate Conundrum 222
Understanding Weber’s Big Idea About Organizations 224
Getting That People Are More Than Cogs in a Machine 226
Rational systems: Bureaucracy at its purest 227
Natural systems: We’re only human 229
Open systems: The whole wide world of work 231
Seeing Society as a Network 234
Connecting individuals to their society 234
The strength of weak ties 235
Gathering insights from network analysis 237
Exploring the New World of Work 238
Chapter 13: Getting into It: Political Sociology 241
Government: Governing and Being Governed 242
Understanding government as a social institution 242
Knowing what causes political revolution 244
Sharing (or Not Sharing) Power in Society 247
Conflict models: Everyone for themselves 247
Pluralist models: Fair is fair 250
Social Movements: Working for Change 253
Getting off the ground 253
Mobilizing supporters 256
Understanding why social movements succeed — or fizzle 259
Going Viral: How Social Media Transforms Social Movements 261
Chapter 14: Recognizing Why Density and Demographics Matter 263
Studying Sociology in the City 264
Feeling lonely in a crowd: The paradox of social life 264
Observing street corner society 267
Changing Neighborhoods Through History 269
Recognizing the relevance of neighborhoods 269
Understanding how and why neighborhoods change 271
Studying the rise of the suburbs 274
The upper class, the lower class, and the underclass 276
Considering City and Country 279
Who are cities for? 279
Small towns, high hopes 281
Part 5: Sociology and Your Life 285
Chapter 15: Exploring Family and the Life Course as Social Constructs 287
The Social Construction of Age 288
The “invention” of childhood 288
The new senior citizens — and the new young adults 290
Running the Course of Life 292
Demographics and life transitions 292
The changing role of education 294
Taking Care: Health Care and Society 296
Deciding what counts as “healthy” 296
Organizing and distributing health care 299
Families Past and Present 301
The way we never were 301
The family today 304
Chapter 16: Understanding Social Change 307
Understanding How and Why Societies Change 308
Marx: If it’s not one revolution, it’s another 308
Durkheim: Increasing diversity 310
Weber: Into the iron cage 312
Forecasting the Future of Society 314
Globalization: Does the future hold cooperation or conflict? 314
Digital communication: Protecting privacy and freedom in an always-online era 316
Climate change: The unequal effects of a warming world 318
Exploring Sociology of the Future! 320
Social science will be more important than ever 320
Too much information? A good problem to have if you’re a sociologist 322
Will sociology continue to exist? 323
Part 6: The Part of Tens 325
Chapter 17: Ten Sociology Books That Don’t Feel Like Homework 327
W.E.B Du Bois: The Souls of Black Folk (1903) 328
Erving Goffman: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959) 328
Randall Collins: Sociological Insight (1982) 329
Arlie Hochschild: The Second Shift (1989) 329
Patricia Hill Collins: Black Feminist Thought (1990) 330
Evelyn Nakano Glenn (editor): Shades of Difference (2009) 330
Annette Lareau: Unequal Childhoods (2003) 331
Lorena Garcia: Respect Yourself, Protect Yourself: Latina Girls and Sexual Identity (2012) 332
Matthew Desmond: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (2016) 332
Suk-Young Kim: K-pop Live (2018) 333
Chapter 18: Ten Ways to Use Sociological Insight in Everyday Life 335
Thinking Critically About Claims That “Research Proves” One Thing or Another 336
Being Aware of Unprovable Assertions About Society 336
Understanding Barriers to Effective Communication 337
Knowing the Difference Between the Identity You Choose and the Identities Others Choose For You 338
Understanding Art: If It Seems Confusing, That’s Exactly the Point 339
Being Smart About Relationship-Building 340
Staying Safer in a Pandemic 341
Learning How to Mobilize a Social Movement 342
Running Your Company Effectively 342
Thinking Critically About What You Read and Hear 343
Chapter 19: Ten Myths About Society Busted by Sociology 345
With Hard Work and Determination, Anyone Can Get What They Deserve 346
Our Actions Reflect Our Values 347
We’re Being Brainwashed by the Media 348
Understanding Society is Just a Matter of “Common Sense” 348
Race Doesn’t Matter Any More 349
Immigration Equals Invasion 350
Bureaucracy is Dehumanizing 351
People Who Make Bad Choices Are Just Getting the Wrong Messages 351
Society Prevents Us From Being Our “True Selves” 352
There is Such a Thing as a Perfect Society 353
Index 355
