SOC 102 Lecture 6: "The Forest and the Trees" Chapter 2: Symbols, Ideas and the Stuff of Life
Document Summary
Example of structure"s impact on behavior (merton"s theory, view of family structure) The organizaion of relaionships at all levels of society. Early sociologists focused on structure, but sociology now focuses more on the ideas of culture. Johnson says structure and culture cannot be separated. Also the distribuions that occur in social relaionships (wealth, power, people in various posiions) Social structure is about how we"re organized and how we use that organizaion to enrich and empower certain people more than others. The posiion one holds in a given system. Each person paricipates in many systems, and therefore holds many statuses. Ex: my statuses classroom -> student, family->daughter, sister. One person can occupy more than one posiion in a system. More than one person occupies a posiion in a system. Ex: in my family, i am a daughter and a sister. Ex: there is more than one daughter in my family, and more than two daughters in the world.
