Lesson 6: Life in Groups

This is a picture of a dyad group. A group that is only two people and is unstable because if one person leaves then there is no more group.

This picture demonstrates a primary group. A close group of people such as a family.

These people would be considered part of my social network because the influence my behavior.

This is a picture of me performing my duties for my secondary group; the track team. They are a secondary group because it is a larger and less personal group.

People who love cats would be considered a category and not a group because they do not necessarily feel that they have anything in common with other cat lovers.

Lesson 5: Socialization the Self and Social Interaction

This was our waiter at BJ's. In order to be able to perform his job he had to be resocialized to learn how to be a BJ's employee. Resocialization is when someone must learn another role, such as employee or parent.

The family is the most important aspect of learning social norms and values. This is my family and the people that taught me my basic norms and values.

Schools are also a very important part of socialization. They teach us hidden curriculum such as working hard, which my brother is clearly demonstrating.

The looking glass mirror is the idea that we obtain a sense of self by how others react and respond to us.

The mass media has become an important agent of socialization. This ad for Ralph Lauren is showing how guys should look and that they should wear Ralph Lauren.

Lesson 4: Culture

This statue is an example of our material culture. Society has deemed this statue to be an important piece of art and so it was placed into the Getty Museum.

Culture is partly made up of signs that are symbols of something else. These tags all have symbols on them that represent the brand. Our society can easily identify the flying bird as Hollister's logo even without the context.

Listening to the violin or classical music may be one form of high culture. High culture is not formed by the majority but by the elite.

Here we see Captain Jack Sparrow. One of the characters of the very popular Pirates of the Caribbean movies. These movies would be considered popular culture because of its extreme popularity.

Someone with an ethnocentric point of view may not see this as a tasty meal if their culture typically eats other kinds of food. Ethnocentrism is evaluating other cultures with the idea that their culture is normal and others is abnormal.

Lesson 1: What is Sociology

Lesson one: What is sociology?

In this picture I can be seen using my sociological imagination to look through my pictures with a sociological perspective.

Christmas morning! It's very exciting of course but Christmas is entirely a social construct. Christmas does not exist in the natural world sadly. It has been created through years and years of social interactions.

One side of this picture shows an adorable couple that can be looked at from a sociological perspective. The other side would have to be looked at from a perspective of one of the natural sciences. Sociology is a social science and examines the social world while biology is a natural science that examines the physical world.

A small group like this could be studied from a microsociological point of view. Microsociology is the study of small groups and how they affect the larger society.

In this picture these people are playing every day actors. They have the practical knowledge of going through everyday life and can maneuver a social event like prom.