SOC 103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Social Theory, Materialism, Determinism

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 103
• Professor: Kelly Train

Document Summary

How do people interact in the way that we do. We look at social structures, power relations, and how these interactions are shaped through much bigger power relations. Social structures (power relations, not tangible, it shapes how people live) Social organization (how society is actually organized) Define and describe normative behavior, how everyone is expected to behave. Describe what we"re expected to believe, and what we accept as normal. Formal social regulations: based on laws, laws created for society. Informal social regulations: norms we have that are based on culture and social interactions (ex: riding elevators) Through informal social regulation(ex: public humiliation) and social institutions. Formal social regulation form when informal social regulation fail. These actions are called deviance: when people act against social norms in a structural way. The term we use to talk about particular social norms in a specific society. Society is both liberating and constraining: origins of social theory.