- •Text 1. What is sociology
- •Text 2. Social organization
- •Text 3. Social status
- •Text 4. Social role. The group structure of society
- •Text 6. Special sociological theories
- •Work or Family: There’s a Problem
- •Idioms and Expressions about Motherhood
- •Definitions of Motherhood
- •Patterns of The American Family Life
- •Social Problems
- •Marriage
- •Changing Roles Within the Family
- •Women’s Liberation Movement
- •The Homeless
- •What do parents owe their children?
- •1.Work in pairs. Which of the following do you think is the riskiest?
- •2. Read the quotation about smoking. What view of smoking does each quotation express?
- •3. Have attitudes to smoking changed in your country over the past few years? How? Do as many people smoke?
- •Bulling. Some causes and effects.
- •The Roots of Violence Are Inside of Ourselves. First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others.
Text 2. Social organization
Task: read the text, find the answers to the questions given below.
The students of sociology pay much attention to discovering how persons and groups relate to each other.
Social organization is the pattern of individual and group relations. There are three levels of social organization. They are: interpersonal relations, that is the micro-order of the society, group relations, that is the medium order of the society, and macro relations of social order.
An interpersonal relation is the most elementary social bond, occuring when two persons stand in some relations to each other. These relations are the building blocks of social structure.
Organization of people in a group is reflected through roles and modes of interaction. Knowledge of the group structure of a community or society gives clues to potential conflicts or solidarity, as well as to forces that may determine the future character of a society or a community.
A social order exists when an entire community or society for a significant period of history is characterized by distinctive and interwoven patterns of social organization. A social order is a type of society.
It is evident that large complex and impersonal organizations are characteristic of our present social world. Most people are associated with them. Decisions of large organizations deeply affect our personal worlds and often quite negatively.
What is social organization?
What are three levels of social organization?
What is the most elementary social bond?
What are the building blocks of social structure?
What is organization of people in a group reflected through?
What gives clues to potential conflicts or solidarity?
What is a social order?
What are most people associated with?
Do decisions of large organizations deeply affect our personal worlds?
How do large organisations affect our personal worlds?
Text 3. Social status
Task: read the text, get ready to render its contents in Russian.
Briefly, a social status is a position within a social system, a social role is the pattern of behavior associated with that position. The role represents the dynamic aspect of status.
A major significance of status is that it can and does determine social identity. A status is salient and tends to fix the identity of the person who occupies it if a large part of the individual’s life is organized around it. Thus, for many people their profession is a salient status.
A transitory social position, for example a temporary job, has little impact upon social identity.
Traditional society depended for its stability on salient statuses. Today salient status is not a dominant principle of social organization. Life is fluid and people occupy may different statuses through the life cycle. But a status may still be relatively salient, at least for a certain period of life. Sometimes the salient status is voluntary or self-determined, but many salient statuses are not voluntary, or ascribed.
An ascribed status is one assigned to the individual by legal or other social criteria (age, sex, race, inheritance, etc.).