week 3: Discussion 1 and 2

Weekly Activities

Here is what you will be doing this week:

• Read Chapter 4 in the text: Individual Rights in the Workplace

• Post to Discussion Board 1 on Ageism (due by Day 3, Thursday)

• Post to Discussion Board 2 on Regulating Off-Duty Conduct (due by Day 3, Thursday)

• Respond to two discussion posts by classmates in each discussion (by Day 7, Monday)

• Submit a 3-page draft of your final paper (due by Day 7, Monday)

Statuses, Roles and Social Structures

What are the components that make up a society? This may seem like a simple question, but it actually is quite complex, as society is enormously complicated. An initial response might be that society is composed of individuals. After all, it is people that make up society, right? Certainly, society is a concept that generally, for our purposes, refers to humans (although it can be used for other species as well), and many humans together form a society. But, interestingly, sociologists could come up with other responses that show that society is not really made up of the individuals that comprise it; or, perhaps more accurately, it is not the individuals alone that make up society, as society is much more than just the sum of all the individuals.

A more sociological approach is to look at the basic components of society as being statutes and roles, rather than individuals. A status is a social construct―it is an idea or perception that has been created through people’s social and cultural practices and beliefs. And to define these terms, a status is a position that a person occupies in society, and the role is what the person does in that status, or the expectations that others have for someone in that status. So, for example, in a classroom one status is teacher, and some of the expectations that are attached to the status of being a teacher are leading the class, offering instruction, giving assignments, helping students who are struggling and the like. All of these expectations form the role of teacher; because others have, through experience, formed expectations of what teachers should do, teachers see all of these as their job description. Another status in a classroom is a student. What are some of the roles attached to the status of student?

So, while we might think of a classroom as consisting of individuals, what we really have are individuals who are occupying specific statuses and playing specific roles. Note that these statuses and roles consist of roughly the same qualities irrespective of any specific individual; the expectations for a teacher are roughly the same whether it is Mr. Gomez or Ms. Yamamoto who is the specific teacher in the classroom. Each has to do many of the same things. Of course, it is fair to say that the expectations are roughly the same because every individual who acts as a teacher will have her own particular way of doing the job, but there are general characteristics of what a teacher is, and what others (students, administrators, parents, others in the community) expect of a teacher. If any teacher deviates too far from these norms, then those around them will start to question and may even punish this deviant behavior, to get them to act more in line with expectations.

So we can think of statuses and roles as social structures, as the stable and constant elements that make up social institutions and hierarchies, and that endure independent of the specific individuals who may occupy these statuses at any given time (Merton, 1938). It is because we have these statuses and roles that we can effectively carry out education; individuals who have some experience with education can quickly move into these statuses and move through an educational system by reproducing the statuses at each level. No one has to relearn the statuses constantly.

What are some other statuses in society? Within families we see mother, son, cousin, grandfather, and many others. Within government we see senator, mayor, voter, and the worker at your local Department of Motor Vehicles, among many others. In the realm of religion, we have rabbi, pope, imam, minister, parishioner, organist, and others. Within a business, statuses might be vice president, accountant, sales representative, or mail room clerk. In addition to defining what others expect, statuses also carry a particular weight both in the institution and society—people form judgments based on how they perceive the importance of the status. Thus, statuses also separate people out into hierarchies. Institutions and social hierarchies are also examples of social structures.

Social Structures and Morality

In addition to judgments about the social weight of different statuses, people form judgments about the social value of what other people do. Values shape our perceptions of what is right or wrong, good or bad, positive or negative. As we have seen, people typically make moral or value judgments based on what is best for social functioning—generally speaking, something is viewed as moral if it advances the collective good, and immoral if it interrupts social functioning (Durkheim, 1925/1973). Morals are embedded in the social statuses and roles (expectations) that make up society, and like other social features, they create and shape the identities of individuals in that society. Morals do not dictate behavior; rather, they provide guidelines for individuals to make ethical choices and to behave in particular ways, both right and wrong.

Rights and Responsibilities

Social structures provide the means to create and enforce the rights and responsibilities that individuals enjoy in social settings. Morality shapes how we perceive these rights and responsibilities. Those who exercise their rights within the moral codes of society—generally, those who adhere to the responsibilities that attach to any right—are viewed as more worthy of those rights. Their actions are moral because they advance social functioning, or the common good. Likewise, those whose actions disrupt social functioning as it is commonly conceived are not exercising their responsibilities and are punished by society. Punishment may take various forms—it may be directed at bringing the deviant back into society (e.g. through education or rehabilitation), it may be directed at pushing the deviant out of society (e.g. through the death penalty or life in prison), or it may aim somewhere in between, for example by allowing a deviant to interact in society but under specified conditions. To view a list of rights and responsibilities of American citizens as defined by the American government, see this page from the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services:

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.749cabd81f5ffc8fba713d10526e0aa0/?vgnextoid=39d2df6bdd42a210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=39d2df6bdd42a210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD

Note that the common good is not always conceived of as a collective good, per se, in contrast to the individual good. Some social theory constructs individual rights and responsibilities as the foundation of social functioning. For example, some sociologists study a particular perspective called rational choice theory, which proposes that society functions best when individuals are given the liberty to make choices that are in their own self-interest (Collins, 1994). (This is similar to the psychological egoist perspective). When individuals act in their own interest (or “maximize their utility,” in economic terms), they can more easily accumulate wealth, and this has a social value—if individuals are not allowed to act in their own interest, no one would have the individual motive to take the risks and make the investments of time and money to generate that wealth, and the wealth would not be available to society. Once the wealth exists, it goes to the social good in many ways—in taxes paid to government, in philanthropy by the one who created it, in jobs and wages to those the owner hires to create more wealth, in capital that is available for others to invest, and in benefits to the members of the owner’s own family, including descendants. All of these promote a particular vision of the social good, one that is commonly held in the United States and other Western countries. For more information on rational choice theory, see this page from Iowa State University:

http://www.soc.iastate.edu/Sapp/soc401rationalchoice.pdf

Our perceptions about ethics in the workplace are shaped by our ideas of rights and responsibilities. Rights and responsibilities can be shaped by various theories, but rational choice theory is one approach that is influential in American workplaces. In what ways does a rational choice approach shape what is perceived as ethical in the case studies discussed in Chapter 4?

Here are some videos to help with the discussion on Ageism this week...

Here are some videos to help with the discussion on Regulating Off-Duty Conduct this week...

References:

Collins, R. (1994). Four sociological traditions. New York: Oxford University Press.

Durkheim, E. (1925/1973). Moral education: A study in the theory and application of the sociology of education. New York: The Free Press.

Merton, R. (1938). Social structure and anomie. American Sociological Review, 3(5), 672–682.