SYA 4110 – Development of Sociological Thought
Tuesday November 18th 2008
1. Announcements
Office Hours Thurs 4-5th in Turl. 3231
What's up on Campus & in the Community?
- AKD Sociology Club Meeting – TODAY Nov. 18 at 6pm in Norman 331
- Gators for a Sustainable Campus general mtg. – TODAY Nov. 18 from 6:30-7:30, in room CSE E121
- ACTIONS! Presents Hunger and Homelessness Week – Nov 17-21; canned food drive, hunger banquest, homeless panel and service projects.
- Artistic Reflections Today Art Exhibition “Power is Beautiful: Celebrating Multifaceted Women” – TODAY Nov. 18 in the Reitz Union Colonnade
- World Diabetes Day at UF –events TODAY held across campus
- Career Quest: A MAJOR Decision; explore the potential of a Business Major – Nov. 19 and 20 from 6-8pm in Bryan 232
- FAB Spaghetti Lunch - $6 at the door, Nov. 20 from 11am-1pm at St. Augustine’s Church (1738 W University Ave)
- Gator Non- Profit Professionals Seminar – Nov. 20 at 7:30pm in Rinker Hall Room 110
- 2008 Fall Pet Adoption & Open House at Alachua County Animal Services – Nov. 22 from 10am-2pm; adoption fees are $33 per cat and $45 per dog.
- Blanket Drive – Please bring new and gently used blankets, coats, hats, gloves, and sleeping bags to these locations:
Alachua Co.Housing Authority: 703 NE 1st Street
HOME Van Central: 307 SE 6TH Street (call first: 352.372.4825)
2. Questions?
3. Review: Social Constructionism and Berger & Luckman
4. Today: Garfinkel’s Breeching Experiments
REVIEW:
Social Constructionism ala Berger & Luckman
S.I. is a Constructionist Perspective
-Knowledge is subjective
-It's the product of the context in which its constructed
-Scientific knowledge is not a "direct representation of the natural world"
Basics of S.I.
Interested in the process of assigning meaning to actions and the responses that follow
-example: being bumped into in a public setting
What's an institution?
-large-scale social structures (family, education, and religion) AND
-actions and behaviors that have a taken-for-granted nature and meaning
-they exist separate from individuals, and act upon and control individual behaviors.
Where do they come from?
-3 step process, according to B & L
1. Humans act upon their social world.
This is externalization.
-others act and react to our actions.
2. These actions become objectified
-Activities become habits
3. These habitualized actions become institutionalized
-"there I go again" –becomes– "this is how things are done”
-we tend to think of this “reality” as “objective”
-These objective practices (institutions) then become internalized
In short:
-We act, form habits, others react to the habits and adopt them, they become institutions.
-It seems that institutions ― (effect) ― people, but it is more interactive than that.
-Social interaction, social institutions and structures are the accomplishment of members
Paradox: humans are effected by institutions, but we also are simultaneously creating (acting and reacting towards) those institutions
Consider: Why do people choose one way to act over others that may work equally as well?
NEW TODAY
Ethnomethodology- how people make sense of their realities
Realities- a system of taken-for-granted beliefs & assumptions, shared by a group of people
5 Characteristics of Realities, according to Ethnomethodology:
Reflexive, Coherent, Interactional, Fragile, and Permeable
-"the properties of social life which seem objective, factual, and transsituational, are actually managed accomplishments of achievements of local processes"
-Accounts and accountability are the processes by which people offer descriptions, explanations, or criticisms to make sense of the world.
Oftentimes, the ways that people explain or describe things (even to themselves in their own head) is more important than what actually happened.
What is Ethnomethodology?
Ethnomethodology is the study of the methods or practices that people use to accomplish their everyday lives. The founder of this sociological approach, Harold Garfinkel (1917-), was particularly interested in how social actors provide accounts of situations. Ethnomethodologists are not so much concerned with the actual content of these accounts, but rather with the practice of accounting as a topic of analysis. For example, an ethnomethodologist might study how a telephone conversation is shaped by the actions of a caller and the responses of a receiver rather than by the subject matter of the conversation. Early ethnomethodological research included breaching experiments, which required subjects to deliberately disrupt the typical procedures of everyday actions (e.g., addressing family members in a formal manner). Today, ethnomethodologists focus their studies on social interactions in two broad areas: conversation analysis and institutional settings.
Studies of Institutions
Analyzing conversations and social interactions that take place within institutional settings is another area of research for ethnomethodologists. Research of job interviews has found that interviewers use different strategies to prevent interviewees from returning to or even correcting questions that have been asked. A study of negotiations among business executives discovered that they are generally detached and impersonal. Telephone calls to emergency centers have been found to be structured in such a way that confusion arises because of the lack of everyday openings, sequences, and recognition. While emergency dispatchers are often blamed for this confusion, ethnomethodologists have shown that it is the specific organization of the conversation that causes mishaps. Finally, research on mediation hearings has shown that the institutional setting of conflict resolution lessens the chance of conversations escalating into arguments.
Criticisms of Traditional Sociology
Ethnomethodologists are critical of traditional sociologists because the latter focus on the socially constructed world instead of the everyday practices of social actors. According to ethnomethodologists, traditional sociologists distort the social world by relying too much on statistical analysis and preconceived coding categories, which mask the sophisticated interactions people use to accomplish everyday life. Indeed, traditional sociologists are becoming increasing removed from the real world as they come to depend on research techniques that do not require them to actually observe everyday practices. Ethnomethodologists criticize conventional sociologists for confusing topic and resource ― the everyday social world becomes more of a resource than a topic in its own right.
Garfinkles' Breaching Experiments
Breaching- breaking the "taken-for-granted" rules of interaction
Makes these "rules" or "assumptions" clear and obvious
Breaching can change or redefine the reality or make the interaction come to a confusing halt
"When assumptions are breached, people look for a reasonable explanation, something that reaffirms the underlying assumptions”
If you continue to act as if nothing is wrong (while you are breaching), they become even more confused
They begin to question the reality of the situation, even if just for a second (whoa!!! “what is going on here?” “what is that person doing?” what is wrong with that person?” “what did I do wrong?”)
They will search for "interactional corroboration" of the reality that "everyone knows"
Note: Breeching breaks rules NOT to just merely break them or be silly or deviant or "weird."
Breeching makes visible our taken-for-granted (not explicitly articulated) rules for interacting in society.
TRY IT!!! Here are some suggestions, but you can be creative:
Plaza
Personal space
Gaze/stare
Hub
Pay more
Butt in line
Bathroom
Make eyecontact
Library
Speak loudly
Elevator
Doors
(don't hold open, intentionally slam)
ICA #7
Turn this in at the beginning of class on Thursday, 11/20.
Please write your CODEWORD & ICA #7 on the top right of your paper
1. Describe what you did to "Breach"?
2. What "taken for granted assumptions about reality" were you questioning or challenging?
3. What did you learn about the “rules” for “how we should act” in society?
Remember:
-Breeching breaks rules NOT to just merely break them or be silly or deviant or "weird."
-Breeching makes visible our taken-for-granted (not explicitly articulated) rules for interacting in society.
Be creative as to what you choose to do and be detailed in your writeup. There are lots of things we do in society that break norms (but are legal). For example, shopping out of other people's grocery carts-- totally legal but not commonly done. Also, pay attention to demographics-- gender, race/ethnicity, age, social class, etc. all will impact what you find. You may get totally different reactions from women (for example) than you do from me. Think about breaching “the gaze”, looking for “too long” at someone of the other gender may be perceived to be flirting where it may be perceived to be aggression or “creepy” to someone of the same gender. You should repeat your “experiment” a number of times so you can pay attention to these nuances.