All lectures Social Structure of Western Society + 4 articles summary
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Course
The Social Structure Of Western Societies
Institution
Tilburg University (UVT)
This is a complete overview of all lectures of the Social Structure of Western Society (2022). Additionally, I have summarized the following articles:
The gender revolution: a framework for understanding changing family and demographic behavior. (Seminar 2),
The Strange Death of Dutch Toleranc...
The Social Structure of Western Society
Lecture 1: introduction 1
Features of social structures 2
Overarching trend 1: modernization 3
Overarching trend 2: globalization 3
Lecture 2: Family 5
What are we talking about? Do definitions matter? 5
Pathways to today’s family landscape: demographic transitions and their drivers 6
Why does family, this social structure matter? 7
Lecture 3: Family policies and fertility 9
Part I: definitions, recap, why should we care 9
Part II: Mechanisms behind changes in fertility behaviours 11
Part III: What can we do about it? Policies and their (unintended) consequences 13
Lecture 4: The quest for a better life: migration as a structural phenomenon in society 16
1 Migration as a problem 16
2 Migration: the necessary historical perspective 18
3 Migration as a structural phenomenon Europe 19
Seminar 5&6: Migration & social transformation 21
2.1 Three dimensions of integration 22
Lecture 7: Stratification and social class - historical perspective 25
I Concepts 25
II Sociology and History 26
III Social stratification 26
III Social stratification: models 28
IV Social mobility 28
Lecture 8: Social structure: Stability and change - modern perspective 30
Contemporary society: Changes in size !!!!!! 30
Why these changes in class structure? 31
3. Changes in consequences: life chances 32
Lecture 9: Educational Institutions and Inequality of Opportunities 33
Article summary: The gender revolution: a framework for understanding changing family and demographic
behavior. (Seminar 2: Family – a historical and modern perspective) 37
Article summary: The Strange Death of Dutch Tolerance: The Timing and Nature of the Pessimist Turn in the
Dutch Migration Debate. (Seminar 4: Migration and ethnicity – a historical perspective) 39
Summary: The Age of Migration (Chapter 4) (Seminar 5&6: Migration and ethnicity – a modern perspective &
Integration of international migrants in Western Societies) 42
Summary: The Nature of Prejudice (Chapter 16). (Seminar 5&6: Migration and ethnicity – a modern
perspective & Integration of international migrants in Western Societies) 45
1
,Lecture 1: introduction
Social structure = patterned social relationships between (groups) of individuals
Features of social structures
● 1. Socially embodied (visible through actions and beliefs of individuals)
○ Actions like who you marry, what you wear, who you vote
● 2. Coercive (normative system)
○ You cannot opt out
● 3. Assignment of statuses and roles (position system)
○ It gives people a position in society. Role: expectations people have of you.
● 4. Distributive consequences (social outcomes)
○ has to with hierarchy: who gets what.
● 5. Leads both to stability and change
○ Predictability of social structure, it is organized and patterned. Predictability of people and roles and
functions. They make society work, everyone knows their place. Free will but we are also imposed
a structure. It is prone to change.
Example: Social class: most important social structure.
Socially embodied: Social outcomes: health differences. Different clothes.
University: change first in family.
Stability and change: importance of social structure in a family.
Distributive: It determines the behavior of a lot of people.
Example: Family, smallest social structure there is.
Leads both to stability and change: Families are different than they used to be, and also in other countries they think
of a larger amount of people for family.
Roles: children-parents: expectations of care.
Coercive & Normative system: values are transmitted from generation to generations. It is not easy to opt out
informally, to have different values.
Distributive consequences: different outcomes → Some families have more resources, single motherhood.
A lot of it is based on emotion. Function in society: Economic function (resources), educational function (values
transmitted from generation to generation) reproductive function.
Example 3: Ethnicity.
Socially embodied: people from different ethnicities behave differently.
Coercive (normative system): you can not change your ethnicity.
Assignment of statuses and roles (position system): racism
Distributive consequences (social outcomes)
Leads both to stability and change: It changes over time.
Example question: Is religion a social structure? (no wrong or right answer but know and discuss these elements)
Intersection of social structures = we are part of multiple social structures, this forms your identity.
● Class, family, ethnicity
● Identities
● Privilege and discriminate. They add up.
Link to social institutions
Organization of patterned social relationships
Social institutions lead to an organization of social structures. They influence the way social structures are and
operate.
Examples of institutions:
2
,• Economic: to produce and distribute goods (markets)
• Legal: to enforce norms (law)
• Political: for collective decision making and protection (democracy)
• Educational: to train children into the way of life of society (schools)
• Religious: to provide meaning (church)
NB History and (cultural) traditions!
Overarching trend 1: modernization
Modernization = Transformation process from traditional (agrarian) to modern
(industrial) or post-modern (service) society
• Technological changes: production process
• Economic changes: more wealth
• Political changes: democracy
• Spatial (social) changes: urbanization
• Cultural changes: modern values
Modernization = process, different stages. Every society has its own stages.
Overarching trend 2: globalization
Globalization = A set of processes of social change, among which deterritorialization
Deterritorialization → boundaries are not that important anymore. (climate change f.e.)
Human activities and relationships
● Extension across the world → connection to the entire world.
● Insification → increased, more areas and more people are more connected.
● Increasing velocity → speed of connection has increased due to technological advances.
● Interconnectedness → feeling of being connected increased. Before it was more material, but now we really
need to work together: climate change f.e.
● Reflexivity: acknowledging. Government making decisions has implications on a broader level. Raising the
minimum wage can make companies move to other countries.
NB Globalization is not a ‘new’ phenomenon’, but its impact has grown
Social imagination (mills 1959): Importance of seeing the connections between social structure and individual
experience and agency. There are personal troubles (struggling to pay rent), and look at it from a broader perspective
to link it to a higher level (poverty). Going beyond the individual level.
Micro-macro perspective (Coleman, 2002): Sociologist are
interested in transformation from micro to macro level. We want to
do something about the social outcome. The individual is still very
important, we need to include them. Social outcomes (problems) are
maybe caused by something but to understand them we need to go
down to the individual level. We can not study phenomena at only
the macro level. Arrow 3: problematic: not many people focus on
individual problems to a social problem. Transformation from
individual to societal level: you need a system. Market system:
specific conditions. Social structure: conditions of individual action.
Sociology doesn't look at only individual actions or social outcomes.
3
, Contributions of Sociology
• Personal Troubles versus Social Issues (what is the problem)
• Causes and consequences (why: mechanisms)
• Context (macro-micro)
• Heterogeneity (moderation and cross-level interactions)
Structure of the course:
1. Family
• Family policies and fertility
2.Stratification and social class
• Educational institutions and inequality of opportunities
3.Migration and ethnicity
• Integration of international migrants in Western Society
4
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