Key terms Ideals 3 Theories WK 1 1 Structural Functionalism Davis Moore Macro Parts of society and how it functions economy family education gender legal system One part affects another dependent functions 2 Influence by Karl Marx micro Society as a struggle between two class groups haves and have nots Scarce resources that may change over time Land natural resources 3 Symbolic interactionism micro Understanding symbols are key to understanding a society Societal construction society giving something meaning Things we construct in society institutions reality Sociological imagination cw mills understanding the intersection of history and biography How society and the larger social forces of history impact your individual behavior Patricia Hill intersectionality Marx Modes vs means The means are the land labor factory and capital used to produce The mode is the particular combination of the means and relations to produce Relation of production People sell their labor power in order to live Wright Negotiating a line between Marx and Vaber used Marx to help understand the contemporary world The labor work that fuels this capitalist society is now fundamentally different The capitalist need laborers to need labor unpacks the 20th century 21st century era of working 100 years after Marx focuses on the middle class and their place in society particularly US The exploitative oppressor needs someone to oppress capitalists The non exploitative oppressor would rather have no one there genocide Wright believes there s a growing middle class due to the differing ideas of labor A group of people who don t fit into the bourgeoisie or proletariat Petty Bourgeoisie Wright argues that it s a large percentage weber Economics really matter Income doesn t necessarily decide class But there s more than ownership and means of production 3 P s Power property prestige Class Economic Component money accumulation Status social esteem inherited as achieved notoriety education money sometimes Party Ideological similarities green party trade unions etc Income money coming in Capital something you have that can be used leveraged to get other things Economic capital money can include wealth Human capital skills and ability Social capital networking connections Cultural capital Knowledge of high culture Stratification Types Forms Slavery ownership closed form Estate european feudalism closed form Caste hinduism closed form Class open form of stratification Open Stratification makes room for mobility Intergenerational parents to children Intra generational within one generation Rise to fame high accumulation of wealth Structural macro concept shift in society industrial revolution abolishment of slavery pandemics Functions of Stratification Two motivations at two different levels to instill in the proper individuals the desire to fill certain positions and once in these positions the desire to perform the duties attached to them Their absorption into the positional system must somehow be arranged and motivated A competitive system gives greater importance to the motivation to achieve positions 1 Sustenance and comfort 2 Contribution to humor and diversion 3 Contribute to self respect and ego expansion largely a function of the opinion of others In any social system all three kinds of rewards must be dispensed differentially according to positions the rights and perquisites of different positions in a society must be unequal Readings WK 1 2 Intersecting Oppressions Intersectionality A particular way of understanding social location in trms of crisscross systems of oppression An analysis claiming that systems of race social class gender sexuality ethnicity nation and age form mutually constructing features of social organization which shape Black women s experiences and in turn are shaped by Black women Collins 2000 p 299 Weber s concern was to find the complications that status and power brought to Marx s idea of stratification Class consciousness and social change are more difficult to achieve than Marx first thought status group affiliation and differences in power create concerns that override class issues race may be more important than class for two racially distinct families living below the poverty line Simmel was concerned with how modern living in cities created different kind of friendship patters Rural settings had organic relationships while in modern urban settings they had rational group membership patterns people choose apart from pre existing members Rational group members tend to see themselves as unique Collins is concerned with how the influence of intersectionality create different lived experiences and social realities Like weber she wants to know how they create different inequalities The matrix of domination overall organization of power in society First any specific matrix has a particular arrangement of intersecting systems of oppression Just what and how these systems come together is historically and socially specific Second intersecting systems of oppression are specifically organized through four interrelated domains of power structural disciplinary hegemonic and interpersonal The hegemonic domain links the structural disciplinary and interpersonal domains It is made up of the language we use the images we respond to the values we hold and the ideas we entertain And it is produced through school curricula and textbooks religious teachings mass media images and contexts community cultures and family histories Collins approach also has other important implications Her ideas of intersectionality and the matrix of domination challenge many of our political assumptions Black feminist epistemology for example challenges our assumptions concerning the separation of the private and public spheres What it means to be a mother in a traditional black community is very different than in a white community Black women s experiences have never fit the logic of work in the public sphere juxtaposed to family obligations in the private sphere Collins 2000 p 228 Intersectionality also challenges the assumption that gender stratification affects all women in the same way race and class matter as does sexual identity Davis and moore functionalism Inequality by Design Some laws widen differences in income and earnings among people in the market others narrow differences Many govt programs affect inequality more directly through for example tax deductions food stamps social security Medicare and corporate