SOCY 303 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Dental Hygienist, Tattoo Artist, Human Capital
Jan. 10, 2017
SOCY 303 – Lecture # 1 (Week 1)
• Questions about profession:
o What is a profession?
▪ A job with prestige and/or status
▪ Formal acknowledgment from the society
o What makes a “professional” different from a regular worker?
▪ Specialized knowledge attached with professional jobs
▪ Higher payment than the average job
▪ Might have more autonomy than average jobs
o Am I (your instructor) a profession? What do you think I like most about my job?
▪ Have specialized knowledge to be able to teach
▪ PhD degree
▪ A lot of autonomy in the profession
• ‘Questions about sociology:
o What does it mean to take a critical feminist perspective?
▪ Gendered expectations
▪ Professions are socially constructed by gender
o How does this impact our study of professions?
▪ How performance is assessed by gender
▪ How human capital is essential to gain access to professions
▪ How women manage their identity when entering male-dominated
professions (e.g. engineers) and how males manage their identity when
entering female-dominated professions (e.g. nurses)
▪ Marginalization within women profession based on race, class, age,
ethnicity, etc. (intersectional approach)
• Which of the following do we consider a profession?
o Physician
o Teacher
o Accountant
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