Sociology And Ethnocentrism And Cultural Differences To Sociology

1996 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Sociological imagination c wright mills biography

Section 1 The five questions I have chosen to answer are the contributions of C. Wright Mills to sociology. As I explain his contributions, I will identify major ideas he had as well as how they were used in study, and provide an example. The next question I will answer is demonstrating my understanding of how individuals respond to cultural difference by explaining both ethnocentrism and cultural relativism. This one I will address how each have positive and negative characteristics and the impact they have on social relationships. The third question is the deviance question. By explaining how researchers can ensure objectivity in studying the social reaction to a particular behavior. The fourth question answered in this midterm will …show more content…

1869, not being concerned so much with personality traits of the people who committed the act, he looked more at the rate of suicide per country. Trying to find a common social link in the differing countries that may influence a higher or lower rate of the suicide. He wanted to study each country’s values, beliefs norms, and traditions to see if these factors influenced the rate of suicide. With integration, it is the level in which a person feels connected or accepted to or by a group or society. With high levels of integration the person feels loved and accepted by a group and more than likely have a lower chance of committing such an act. Whereas a person with lower levels of integration, feel unwanted, unloved, rejected, and excluded. Thus leads to a higher chance of committing suicide. The fact that suicide does tend to occur more based on societal behavior and not an individual act come solely from research, meaning those who committed the act did not feel like they fit in anywhere within society so it was better to not be around. The act can be considered deviant, because although a person may not fit in a particular group or social area in life, they still had a family that loved them for who they were, and they did not particularly think of the consequence behind the

Show More
Related

  • Durkheimian Theories Applied to Buffalo Creek

    1934 Words  | 4 Pages

    Durkheim’s concept of social integration refers to social groups with well-defined values, traditions, norms, and goals. These groups will differ in the degree to which individuals are part of the collective body, also to the extent to which the group is emphasized over the individual, and lastly the level to which the group is unified versus fragmented. Durkheim believed that two types of suicide, Egoistic and Altruistic, could stem from social integration. Egoistic suicide resulted from too little social integration. Those people who were not sufficiently bound to a social group would be left with little or no social support in times of crisis. This caused them to commit suicide more often. An example Durkheim discovered was that of unmarried people, especially males, who, with less to connect them to stable social groups, committed suicide at higher rates than married people. Altruistic suicide is a result of too much integration. It occurs at the opposite end of the social integration scale as egoistic suicide. Self sacrifice appears to be the driving force, where people are so involved with a social group that they lose sight of themselves and become more willing to take one for the team, even if this causes them to die. The most common cases of altruistic suicide occur to soldiers during times of war. Religious cults have also been a major source of altruistic suicide.

    Read More

  • Sociology: Dramatic Changes To the American Family

    1018 Words  | 3 Pages

    Why the family is considered the most important agent of socialization? What caused the dramatic changes to the American family? What are those changes? Describe the differences in marriage and family life that are linked to class, race, gender, and personal choice. Do you feel the trend toward diverse families is positive or negative? If the trend changed toward traditional (pre-World War II) families, how would that affect women’s rights?

    Read More

  • Buffalo Creek Flood Disaster

    1908 Words  | 4 Pages

    According to Durkheim, two types of suicide arise from the different levels social integration. One cause of suicide is extremely low social integration, which is referred to as egoistic suicide. Durkheim argues that this is the case because others give the individual’s life meaning, so without this support from the group the person may feel hopeless (Conley 188). The other type of suicide, altruistic suicide, reflects the opposite situation: when an individual is too socially integrated (Conley 189). This type of suicide occurs when members of a group or community become so totally engrossed by the group tha...

    Read More

  • Conflict Theory and the Movie Glory Road

    771 Words  | 2 Pages

    Brinkerhoff, David B., Rose Weitz, Suzanne T. Ortega. Essentials of Sociology Ninth Edition. Belmont: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013. Print.

    Read More

  • Durkheim's Theory Of Suicide

    76 Words  | 1 Pages

    Durkheim contended that the consistency of suicide rates was a social reality, disclosed by the degree to which people were incorporated and controlled by the compelling good powers of aggregate life. Self absorbed and unselfish suicide emerged from the separate under-coordination and over-incorporation of the person by society. Anomic suicide and fatalistic suicide were separately cause by under-regulation and over-regulation in the general public. Durkheim watched that in Western culture, anomie was prompting expanded suicide

    Read More

  • Solomon Asch Conformity Experiments (1951)

    1532 Words  | 4 Pages

    Macionis. J, J. Plummer, K. (2005). Sociology. A global Introduction. Pearson Education Limited. Essex. (UK) Third Edition.

    Read More

  • What is Sociology?

    676 Words  | 2 Pages

    After reviewing the article titles given for this first assignment, I believe they indicate that Sociology, generally speaking, is not only a study of diversity or commonality in traits among people; it is also a science about factors in a person’s life and how these factors culminate responses. Interestingly enough, its topics of concern seem to be directly determined by current and common events of the world. Through the invention and expansion of new ideas, popular trends and fashions through time, Sociology adapts to responsibly to service the very subjects of interest it studies; for, even the slightest change of a person’s daily experience can have an insurmountable impact on attitude, personal growth, family dynamics and basic group behavior.

    Read More

  • The Social Causes of Suicide and Durkheim's Theory

    1907 Words  | 4 Pages

    Durkheim was a functionalist, and theorised that a holistic social narrative could be identified which would explain individual behaviour. He argued that, whilst society was made up of its members, it was greater than the sum of its parts, and was an external pressure that determined the behaviour of the individuals within it. At that time, suicide rates in Europe were rising, and so the causes of suicide were on the agenda. Since suicide is seen as an intrinsically personal and individual action, establishing it as having societal causes would be a strong defence for Durkheim’s functionalist perspective. Durkheim used the comparative method to study the official suicide rates of various European countries. While he was not the first to notice the patterns and proportional changes of suicide rates between different groups in European societies, it was this fact that was the foundation of his theory – why did some groups consistently have much higher rates than others? This supports the idea that it was the external pressures placed on certain groups within society that induced higher rates of suicide, and is the basis of Durkheim’s work.

    Read More

  • Understanding Eating Disorders

    1178 Words  | 3 Pages

    Giddens, Anthony, Mitchell Duneier, Richard P. Applebaum and Deborah Carr. Introduction to Sociology. New York: Norton & Company, 2012. Print.

    Read More

  • Emile Durkheim Social Fact Essay

    911 Words  | 2 Pages

    The act of suicide prior to Durkheim’s discovery was seen as simply a disorder solely concerning an individual’s mind and it’s inability to cope with life’s misfortunes such as setbacks, depression, and even bankruptcy (Morrison 2006). However, Durkheim challenged this notion by looking at suicide in a more social context. He believed that people committing suicide had more to do with their integration in the society and the quality and stability of their relationships with people around them (Hassan 1998). The more a person feels acquainted with his/her society and a sense of belonging is felt, then they are less inclined to kill themselves (Poole & Germov 2015). Durkheim also distinguished different kinds of suicide: egoistic, altruistic, anomic and fatalistic. Though the level of integration and regulation varies for each of these kinds, a common denominator in all of them is that they are still caused by external factors such as rapid social change and upheavals, war, and detention centres (Poole & Germov

    Read More

  • Sociology and Globalisation

    2154 Words  | 5 Pages

    Many historians and sociologists have identified a transformation in the economic processes of the world and society in recent times. There has been an extensive increase in developments in technology and the economy as a whole in the twentieth century. Globalization has been recognized as a new age in which the world has developed into what Giddens identifies to be a “single social system” (Anthony Giddens: 1993 ‘Sociology’ pg 528), due to the rise of interdependence of various countries on one another, therefore affecting practically everyone within society.

    Read More

  • Sociological Imagination vs. Common Sense

    1814 Words  | 4 Pages

    Scanlan J Stephen; Guest-editor; Grauerjolz Liz (2009) 50 Years of C.Wright Mills and the Sociological Imagination, Teaching Sociology 37, (1), pp1-7

    Read More

  • Sociology: The Study Of Sociology In Everyday Life

    1100 Words  | 3 Pages

    Before I started taking the course of sociology I wasn’t really expecting to learn anything, it was just supposed to be an easy online class. However, that was not the case. It challenged my mind. I started to see sociology all around me, starting with family, then friends, and how I see things overall in general. The fact that we have an everyday life in which there are patterns in ways of living is what sets a platform for a sociological breakdown and for being a part in what we do. A better way of understanding ourselves. We use sociology in many ways every day. One central and important study of sociology is the study of everyday social life. Everyday life and sociology are definitely two different words and situations, but they tend to hold a close relationship. While sociology is the study of the human interaction, everyday life consists of everyday human interaction. Everyday life is filled by human beings interacting with one another, ideas, and emotions. Sociology studies the interactions with all of these and shows how mere interaction resulted in things such as ideas. For an example, race and ethnicity are important concepts in the field of sociology and are ones that are studied a great deal. Race plays a large role in everyday human interactions and sociologists want to study how, why, and what the outcomes are of these interactions. Current sociological theories focus mainly on how there are many different factors in our everyday items of life, like movies. We were assigned a final to write a review for a movie in sociological form. The movie that was on the list that also happened to be one of my favorite movies, Toy Story. When we were assigned the assignment, I never thought about how in-depth it was with sociol...

    Read More

  • Essay On Ethnocentrism

    858 Words  | 2 Pages

    Norms are by definition general society guidelines and expectations of appropriate behavioral conduct in a particular environment or society. These guidelines could be formal and written such as laws that prohibit stealing or they could be implicit such as behavioral conduct or dress code. Every society has its own way of endorsing and enforcing certain norms and standards of proper behavior while renouncing and sanctioning improper behavior. In general, norms are of a significant importance because they guide our behavior and maintain order in society by providing conformity. Furthermore, norms render behavior predictable rather than random, thus allowing us to predict and understand other people’s actions and behaviors in different situations. On the other hand, divergence from norms is termed “deviance” and can lead to chaos and instability. It is noteworthy to mention, that the culture background and context play an important role as each culture processes its own norms, values, standards and expectations. For instance, in certain cultures shaking hands between opposite sexes is inappropriate, and this is the case in Yemen. Thus our perception of norms in different culture is critical: either we choose to understand an individual’s behavior according to his own culture context and set of norms (cultural relativity) or we choose to understand an individual’s behavior according to our own culture which we believe to be more superior (ethnocentrism). An example of ethnocentrism where norms and values of a certain culture have been imposed on another is the banning of the veil worn by muslim women in France. In contrast, cultural relativism appears in Lebanon where muslim women are perceived in terms of their own culture and are a...

    Read More

  • Structural Functional Theory Case Study

    1595 Words  | 4 Pages

    1.Explain the three dominant sociological theories discussed in class. How do they impact our understanding/explanation of social phenomena?

    Read More

More about Sociology And Ethnocentrism And Cultural Differences To Sociology

Open Document