Social Parameters

Examples of Social Parameters in the following topics:

• The Functionalist Perspective on Deviance

  • While this us-versus-them mentality solidified social identities and solidarities within the two categories, there was nevertheless an overarching social schism.
  • A structural functionalist approach emphasizes social solidarity, divided into organic and mechanical typologies, and stability in social structures.
  • Structural functionalists ask "How does any given social phenomenon contribute to social stability?"
  • Second, these social parameters create boundaries between populations and enable an "us-versus-them" mentality within different groups.
  • While this us-versus-them mentality solidified social identities and solidarities within the two categories, there was an overarching social schism.

• The Functions of Deviance

  • While this us-versus-them mentality solidified social identities and solidarities within the two categories, there was nevertheless an overarching social schism.
  • A structural functionalist approach emphasizes social solidarity and stability in social structures.
  • Structural functionalists ask: How does any given social phenomenon contribute to social stability?
  • Second, these social parameters create boundaries between populations and enable an us-versus-them mentality within various groups.
  • While this us-versus-them mentality solidified social identities and solidarities within the two categories, there was nevertheless an overarching social schism.

• The Social Construction of Gender

  • Social constructivists propose that there is no inherent truth to gender; it is constructed by social expectations and gender performance.
  • The social construction of gender comes out of the general school of thought entitled social constructionism.
  • Money is a socially constructed reality.
  • Social constructionists might argue that because categories are only formed within a social context, even the affect of gender is in some ways a social relation.
  • We are aware that others evaluate and characterize our behavior on the parameter of gender.

• Gender Socialization

  • Sociologists and other social scientists generally attribute many of the behavioral differences between genders to socialization.
  • Preparations for gender socialization begin even before the birth of the child.
  • Gender stereotypes can be a result of gender socialization.
  • Identities are therefore normatively constructed along this single parameter.
  • Explain the influence of socialization on gender roles and their impact

• Alienation

  • Tönnies's work shifted from conceiving of alienation in economic terms to thinking of alienation in social terms.
  • Anomie describes a lack of social norms, or the breakdown of social bonds between an individual and his community ties, resulting in the fragmentation of social identity.
  • According to Durkheim, when one is caught in a normless state in society, one has no parameters to hold on to and, accordingly, cannot situate oneself within that society, and so becomes socially adrift and isolated.
  • Current debates about social alienation and anomie pop up in many social critiques of an increasingly technological world.
  • Compare the theories of economic and social alienation posited by Marx, Simmel, Tönnies, and Durkheim

• Bibliography

  • Cumulated social roles: The duality of persons and their algebras, Social Networks, 8: 215-256.
  • A graph theoretic blocking procedure for social networks, Social Networks, 4: 147-167
  • Centrality in social networks: Conceptual clarification, Social Networks, 1: 215-39.
  • Structural parameters of graphs: A theoretical investigation, in Blalock et al.
  • Dual Exchange Theory, Social Networks, and Informal Social Support.

• Age

  • Aging in humans refers to the accumulation of processes of physical, psychological, and social change over time.
  • Aging in humans refers to a multidimensional process of physical, psychological, and social change.
  • Chronological aging may also be distinguished from "social aging" (cultural age-expectations of how people should act as they grow older) and "biological aging" (an organism's physical state as it ages).
  • The large number of suggestions in the literature for specific interventions to cope with the expected increase in demand for long-term care in aging societies can be organized under four headings: improve system performance, redesign service delivery, support informal caregivers, and shift demographic parameters.

• Community

  • A community is typically a social unit that is larger than a single household, comprised of individuals that share values and thus create an environment of social cohesion.
  • Governance does not need to be strong to enforce social norms due to a collective sense of loyalty that individuals feel for community, and an internal alignment and identification with the social norms.
  • Social cohesion in gesellschaften typically derives more from an elaborate division of labor.
  • In this work, Durkheim establishes two types of social communities that correlate with types of society.
  • Under the parameters of organic solidarity, Tina and Amy feel like they belong to the same community because they perform different tasks and help one another.

• A note on statistics and social network data

  • Social network analysis is more a branch of "mathematical" sociology than of "statistical or quantitative analysis," though social network analysts most certainly practice both approaches.
  • In chapter 18, we will explore some of the basic ways in which statistical tools have been adapted to study social network data.
  • Often this type of inferential question is of little interest to social network researchers.
  • The other major use of inferential statistics in the social sciences is for testing hypotheses.
  • Suppose, for example, that I was interested in the proportion of the actors in a network who were members of cliques (or any other network statistic or parameter).

• The Working Class

  • Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs (as measured by skill, education, and income), often extending to those who are unemployed or otherwise earning below-average incomes.
  • In the United States, the parameters of the working class remain vaguely defined and are contentious.