Chap 1 Understanding Sociology | Môn Sociology - Trường Đại học Quốc tế, Đại học Quốc gia Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh

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Today you may have thought about what to wear. But did you ask yourself where
those garments came from, or who made them?
Journalist Kelsey Timmerman offers some answers to these questions. His book
speaks to the way we see ourselves, not only in the mirror when we’re getting
dressed, but in the world at large.
I was made in A merica. My W orkers flood the narrow alley beside the Delta Apparel
Factory in Jingle These Christmas boxers San Pedro Sula, Honduras. They rush to catch
one of the many waiting were made in Bangladesh. buses at the highway. Merchants hoping
to part them from a portion of their
I had an all-American daily earnings—$4 to $5—fight for their attention. Vehicles push
through the childhood in rural Ohio. My crowd. A minivan knocks over a girl in her
midtwenties and then runs over all-American blue jeans were her foot. She curses, is helped
to her feet, and limps onto a waiting bus. made in Cambodia.
The buildings behind the fence are shaded in Bahamian pastels
I wore flip-flops every day and very well kept. The shrubs have been recently shaped,
and the for a year when I worked as grass trimmed. In the bright Honduran sun, they seem
as pleasant as a SCUBA diving instructor in a factory can get.
Key West. They were made in T he lady at Delta Apparel, based in Georgia, giggled at me on the China.
phone when I told her my plans. She was happy to tell me that their O ne day while staring at
Honduran factory was located in the city of Villanueva just south of
a pile of clothes on the floor, I noticed the tag of my favorite T-shirt: San Pedro Sula. She even wished me good luck. “Made in Honduras.”
N ow that I’m in Honduras, the company doesn’t think it’s very funny.
I read the tag. My mind wandered. A quest was born.
I stand among the chaos overwhelmed. A thousand sets of eyes
W here am I wearing? It seems like a simple question with a simple stare at me; perhaps they recognize my T-shirt. The
irony that this is answer. It’s not. Tattoo’s tropical paradise wore off long ago—somewhere between the
T he question inspired the quest
confrontation with the big-bellied that took me around the globe. It Where am I
wearing? This isn’t so much a question guards at the factory gate who cost me a lot of things, not the least had
guns shoved down their related to geography and clothes, but about the people
of which was my consumer inno-
pants like little boys playing cow-
cence. Before the quest, I could put who make our clothes and the texture of their lives. boy and the conversation with the
on a piece of clothing without read-
tight-lipped company representaing its tag and thinking about Arifa in Bangladesh
or Dewan in China, about tive who failed to reveal much of anything about my T-shirt or the peotheir children, their hopes and
dreams, and the challenges they face. ple who assembled it. There was no way I was getting onto the factory
Where am I wearing? This isn’t so much a question related to geog- floor. All I learned was that eight humans of
indiscriminate age and sex raphy and clothes, but about the people who make our clothes and stitched my shirt together in
less than five minutes. the texture of their lives. This quest is about the way we live and the
way they live; because when it comes to clothing, others make it, and (Timmerman 2009:xiii–xiv, 14) Additional information about this
excerpt can be found we have it made. And there’s a big, big difference. . . . on the Online Learning Center at w ww.mhhe.com/schaeferbrief10e . lOMoAR cPSD| 58097008 5 4 W hat Is Sociology? The Sociological Imagination lOMoAR cPSD| 58097008
use your sociological imagination
You are walking down the street in your city or
hometown. In looking around you, you can’t help
noticing that half or more of the people you see are
overweight. How do you explain your observation?
If you were C. Wright Mills, how do you think you would explain it?
Sociology and the Social Sciences lOMoAR cPSD| 58097008 7
Sociology is the scientific study of social behavior and human groups. 6 lOMoAR cPSD| 58097008
As the nation struggled to recover from a
deep and lengthy recession, recently laid-off
workers jostled the longterm unemployed at
a crowded job fair in San Francisco.
Sociologists use a variety of approaches to
assess the full impact of economic change on society.
TABLE 1-1 SECTIONS OF THE AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION Aging and the Life Course Environment and Technology
Peace, War, and Social Conflict Alcohol, Drugs, and Tobacco
Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis Political Economy of the World-System
Altruism, Morality and Social Solidarity Evolution, Biology and Society Political Sociology Animals and Society Family Population Asia and Asian America
Global and Transnational Sociology Race, Gender, and Class Body and Embodiment History of Sociology Racial and Ethnic Minorities Children and Youth Human Rights Rationality and Society
Collective Behavior and Social Movements International Migration Religion
Communication and Information Technologies Labor and Labor Movements
Science, Knowledge, and Technology Community and Urban Sociology Latino/a Sociology Sex and Gender
Comparative and Historical Sociology Law Sexualities Crime, Law, and Deviance Marxist Sociology Social Psychology Culture Mathematical Sociology
Sociological Practice and Public Sociology Disability and Society Medical Sociology Teaching and Learning Economic Sociology Mental Health Theory Education Methodology Emotions
Organizations, Occupations, and Work Think about It
Which of these topics do you think would interest you the most? Why? lOMoAR cPSD| 58097008 9 lOMoAR cPSD| 58097008 10 Sociology and Common Sense thinking CRITICALLY
What aspects of the social and work
environment in a fast-food restaurant would
be of particular interest to a sociologist? How
would the sociological imagination help in analyzing the topic? What Is Sociological Theory? lOMoAR cPSD| 58097008 11
Can you think of any other explanation for the high
suicide rate in Las Vegas? Does that explanation
agree with Durkheim’s theory? The Development of Sociology Early Thinkers Auguste Comte Harriet Martineau lOMoAR cPSD| 58097008 12 Émile Durkheim
H arriet Martineau, an early pioneer of sociology who studied social
behavior both in her native England and in the United States,
proposed some of the methods still used by sociologists. Herbert Spencer lOMoAR cPSD| 58097008 13 Max Weber lOMoAR cPSD| 58097008 14
FIGURE 1-1 CONTRIBUTORS TO SOCIOLOGY E mile Durkheim Max Weber 1864–1920 Karl Marx 1818–1883 W. E. B. DuBois 1858–1917 1868–1963 Academic Philosophy
Law, economics, history, philosop Phyilosophy, lw a Sociology training Key works 189 —
3 The Division of Labor
1904–1905—The Protestant Ethic 1848—The Communist Manifesto1899—The Philadelphia Negro in Society
and the Spirit of Capitalism 1867—Das Kapital
1903—The Negro Church 1897—Suicide: A Study
1921—Economy and Society1903—Souls of Black Folk in Sociology 1912— Elementary Forms of Religious Life Karl Marx lOMoAR cPSD| 58097008 15 W. E. B. DuBois lOMoAR cPSD| 58097008 16
Twentieth-Century Developments
J ane Addams (right) was an early pioneer both in sociology and in
the settlement house movement. She was also an activist for many
causes, including the worldwide campaign for peace. Jane Addams Charles Horton Cooley lOMoAR cPSD| 58097008 17 Pierre Bourdieu Robert Merton lOMoAR cPSD| 58097008 18
What kinds of social and cultural capital do you possess?
M ajor Theoretical Perspectives
Manifest and Latent Functions Functionalist Perspective lOMoAR cPSD| 58097008 19 Conflict Perspective Dysfunctions
C ows (zebu), considered sacred in India, wander freely through
this city, respected by all who encounter them. The sanctity of the
cow is functional in India, where plowing, milking, and fertilizing
are far more important to subsistence farmers than a diet that includes beef. The Marxist View lOMoAR cPSD| 58097008 20
The Feminist Perspective
Those who take the Marxist view ask “Who benefits, who suffers, and who dominates?” How would a Marxist
analyze the situation at this homeless encampment in Reno, Nevada? lOMoAR cPSD| 58097008 21 imagination
You are a sociologist who takes the conflict perspective.
How would you interpret the practice of prostitution? How
would your view of prostitution differ if you took the func-
tionalist perspective? The feminist perspective?
Ida Wells-Barnett explored what it meant to be female and Black in the United States. Her work established h a e s r
one of the earliest feminist theori sts. SPOTTING The Changing Third Place
For a generation, sociologists have spoken of the “third
place,” a social setting between the “first place” of home and lOMoAR cPSD| 58097008 22
the “second place” of work. People gather routinely in the
third place, typically a coffeehouse or fast-food restaurant,
to see familiar faces or make new friends.
Will this social pattern persist? Sociologists have identified forces that both
encourage and discourage it. The availability of free Wi-Fi definitely encourages people to seek
out such establishments, but do laptops truly enhance social interactions there? And though talk
ing among friends may be easy in the living-room settings that coffeehouses provide, proprietors
don’t always welcome these social gatherings. Some enforce antiloitering regulations or require
patrons to make purchases at regular time intervals. Still, as the second place (the workplace)
becomes less relevant to growing numbers of telecommuters, the third place may well grow in social significance. The Sociological Approach
Relate the toys on display in your local store to issues of race, class, and gender.