edX M1.3 Sociological Thinking

Summary

This script discusses the importance of thinking sociologically, especially in the context of COVID-19. It emphasizes understanding societal patterns and how external factors like the economy and pandemics affect individuals and groups. The script uses examples like depression rates during COVID, highlighting disparities in mental health outcomes based on social status, gender, and race. It also touches on the importance of intersectionality and the need for a holistic analysis of events like COVID-19 to address broader social issues.

Takeaways

• 🔍 To think sociologically is to shift the perspective from individual to societal patterns and behaviors.
• 🌐 Sociology uses the scientific method to study human society and its external factors like economy, culture, and global events like pandemics.
• 🌟 The ability to self-isolate during Covid-19 has become a significant social status affecting mental health outcomes.
• 👩‍👧‍👦 A gender gap in mental health challenges has emerged among parents during Covid-19, with women reporting more challenges.
• 🏡 The labor of homeschooling and lockdown impacts have played out in gendered ways, with women taking on more unpaid domestic work.
• 📊 Sociologists look for patterns among individuals who might be acting differently to the general population during the pandemic.
• 🌱 Sociological thinking involves looking for general patterns in the behavior of particular people and how society shapes individuals into groups.
• 👀 The sociological imagination helps to see the relationship between individual experiences and the larger society.
• 🌏 Sociologists study the root causes of differences in Covid-19 experiences related to institutions, culture, and social location.
• 📈 Mental health rates and the impact of Covid-19 are shaped by social and national context, varying greatly between countries.
• 📚 The assignment encourages students to research and assess the likelihood of financial and health impacts of Covid-19 for individuals from different cities and social groups.

Q & A

What does it mean to think sociologically?

To think sociologically means to shift the focus from an individualistic perspective to considering the experiences and behaviors of groups or populations within society.

How is the sociological perspective critical during a pandemic?

The sociological perspective is critical during a pandemic because it helps understand how collective actions and societal structures impact individual and group experiences, potentially influencing public health outcomes.

What is the systematic nature of sociology?

The systematic nature of sociology comes from its adherence to the scientific method, using transparent and scrutinized procedures to build upon previous research and generate new, accurate knowledge.

How do external factors like a global pandemic shape individual and collective experiences?

External factors like a global pandemic can shape individual and collective experiences by influencing aspects such as mental health, employment, and social interactions, often disproportionately affecting different social groups.

What is an example of how sociologists view depression differently during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Sociologists view depression during the COVID-19 pandemic as not only an internal issue but also as one organized by social groups, with factors like the ability to self-isolate and gender roles impacting mental health outcomes.

What social status emerged under COVID-19 that affects mental health?

The ability to self-isolate at home emerged as a significant social status affecting mental health during COVID-19, with different mental health outcomes observed between those who can and cannot shelter in place.

Why is there a gender gap in mental health among parents during the pandemic?

A gender gap in mental health among parents during the pandemic may be due to the unequal distribution of unpaid domestic work and homeschooling responsibilities, often falling more heavily on women.

How does the intersectionality of race, ethnicity, and colonialism affect mental health during COVID-19?

The intersectionality of race, ethnicity, and colonialism can exacerbate mental health challenges during COVID-19, as seen with Indigenous people in Canada who were already more likely to report poor mental health and have experienced worsening conditions due to the pandemic.

Why is it important to study COVID-19 sociologically?

Studying COVID-19 sociologically is important to understand the broader impacts of the pandemic on population health and sociocultural outcomes, such as social inequality and health inequities.

What are the characteristics of sociological thinking?

Characteristics of sociological thinking include looking for general patterns in individual behavior, understanding how societal categories shape personal experiences, and using the sociological imagination to connect individual experiences with larger societal contexts.

How does the sociological imagination help in understanding individual experiences during a pandemic?

The sociological imagination helps in understanding individual experiences during a pandemic by connecting personal events, like job loss, to broader social, historical, and cultural contexts, such as national lockdowns and economic recession.

What is the discussion assignment for this module about?

The discussion assignment for this module involves researching the likelihood of financial and health outcomes for individuals from a chosen city and social group during the pandemic, considering factors like the ability to avoid infection, serious health complications, and financial impacts.

Outlines

00:00

🌐 Sociology and COVID-19

The first paragraph introduces the concept of thinking sociologically, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sociology is defined as the study of human society through a systematic and scientific approach, aiming to understand how external factors like the economy, culture, and global events (such as pandemics) shape individual and collective experiences. The paragraph highlights the importance of shifting from an individualistic perspective to a group or population-based one, especially during a crisis where collective action is critical. It uses the example of depression and mental health to illustrate how sociological factors can influence these issues, showing how the ability to self-isolate during COVID-19 has affected mental health outcomes. It also discusses the gender gap in mental health challenges among parents, with women reporting more challenges than men, potentially due to increased unpaid domestic work during lockdowns. The paragraph concludes by emphasizing the value of a sociological perspective in understanding the broader impacts of COVID-19 on health and sociocultural outcomes, such as social inequality and political change.

05:01

🔍 Sociological Imagination and COVID-19

The second paragraph delves into the characteristics of sociological thinking, starting with the search for general patterns in individual behavior. It discusses how societal structures categorize people into groups that influence their life experiences, such as education, food, and social power. The concept of 'sociological imagination' is introduced, a term coined by C. Wright Mills, which refers to the ability to connect individual experiences with broader societal forces. Mills' work is particularly relevant in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it encourages individuals to understand their personal experiences within a historical and institutional framework. The paragraph uses the example of job loss during the pandemic to illustrate how the sociological imagination can help comprehend the interconnectedness of individual troubles and larger societal issues, such as lockdown measures, social distancing laws, and global recession. The paragraph concludes with a discussion assignment that asks students to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on different social groups in various cities, considering factors like financial security, infection risk, health complications, and the social safety net.

10:02

📊 Comparative Analysis of Societal Factors in COVID-19

The third paragraph outlines a task for students to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on different social groups in a chosen city, focusing on the likelihood of financial and health outcomes. Students are asked to consider various socially significant statuses such as gender, age, migration status, and socioeconomic status. They must research and assess the likelihood of four outcomes: avoiding financial hardship due to lockdown measures, avoiding COVID-19 infection, avoiding serious health complications if infected, and avoiding negative financial impacts if infected. The task also involves reviewing the posts of two other students and comparing findings to identify similarities and differences, as well as brainstorming the societal factors that might be causing these patterns. This exercise aims to deepen the understanding of how societal structures and individual social locations influence the experiences and outcomes of people during the pandemic.

Keywords

💡Sociology

Sociology is the scientific study of society, patterns of behavior, social interactions, and relationships among individuals within groups. It is a systematic discipline that uses the scientific method to understand how external factors like economy, culture, and global events, such as pandemics, shape individual and collective experiences. In the context of the video, sociology is critical for understanding the broader impacts of COVID-19 on society beyond individual health, including social inequality and political change.

💡Sociological Perspective

A sociological perspective involves looking at social phenomena from a holistic viewpoint that considers the influence of societal structures and group dynamics on individual experiences. The video emphasizes the importance of shifting from an individualistic viewpoint to considering the collective impact, especially during a pandemic where collective actions have significant implications for public health.

💡Collective Action

Collective action refers to the coordinated efforts of a group of individuals working together to achieve a common goal. In the video, collective action is highlighted as a critical factor in addressing public health crises like COVID-19, where actions such as social distancing and lockdowns are essential for saving lives and controlling the spread of the virus.

💡Mental Health

Mental health encompasses a person's emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how individuals feel, think, act, and cope with life's challenges. The video discusses how mental health is influenced by social structures, with examples such as the impact of lockdowns on depression and the gendered differences in mental health outcomes during the pandemic.

💡Self-Isolation

Self-isolation is the practice of separating oneself from others to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. In the context of the video, the ability to self-isolate has become a significant social status that impacts mental health outcomes, with disparities in who can effectively self-isolate contributing to varying levels of mental well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic.

💡Gender Gap

The gender gap refers to the difference in experiences, outcomes, or attitudes between men and women. The video highlights a growing gender gap in mental health challenges related to COVID-19, with women, especially mothers, experiencing higher levels of stress due to increased domestic responsibilities during lockdowns.

💡Intersectionality

Intersectionality is a concept that recognizes that multiple aspects of a person's identity, such as race, gender, and ethnicity, can intersect and compound to create unique experiences of discrimination or disadvantage. The video uses intersectionality to discuss how Indigenous people in Canada face exacerbated mental health challenges due to COVID-19, compounded by historical trauma and systemic discrimination.

💡Social Location

Social location refers to the position an individual occupies within a social structure based on factors such as gender, class, race, and ethnicity. The video discusses how social location influences the impact of COVID-19 on individuals, affecting their risk of infection, access to healthcare, and economic stability.

💡Sociological Imagination

Sociological imagination is the ability to connect personal experiences with broader social, historical, and cultural contexts. Coined by C. Wright Mills, it is a key concept in sociology that helps individuals understand how their personal troubles are linked to larger societal issues. The video encourages the use of sociological imagination to comprehend the impacts of COVID-19 on personal lives within the context of global and societal changes.

💡Intergenerational

Intergenerational refers to the transmission of characteristics, behaviors, or conditions across generations within a family or society. The video mentions intergenerational patterns, such as the influence of parents' education on their children's educational opportunities, and how these patterns are affected by societal structures and events like the COVID-19 pandemic.

💡Social Inequality

Social inequality refers to the unequal distribution of resources, opportunities, and privileges among different social groups. The video discusses how the pandemic has exposed and exacerbated social inequalities, such as differences in financial stability, healthcare access, and vulnerability to infection based on socioeconomic status.

Highlights

Sociology is the practice of looking for general patterns in society and individual lives.

Thinking sociologically involves shifting from an individualistic perspective to a group or population perspective.

Sociology is systematic and follows the scientific method to build upon previous research.

External factors like the economy, culture, and global pandemics shape individual and collective experiences.

Depression and mental health are influenced by social groups and status.

The ability to self-isolate during COVID-19 affects mental health outcomes.

A gender gap in mental health challenges has emerged among parents during the pandemic.

The labor of homeschooling during lockdown has played out in gendered ways.

In Canada, women are less likely to return to paid work as lockdown eases.

Mental health has been worsened by COVID-19 for a significant percentage of Indigenous people.

The pandemic has exacerbated existing mental health disparities due to historical factors.

Depression rates are shaped by social and national context, such as stigma and available language.

Sociologists provide a holistic analysis of events like COVID-19 and their impact on everyday experiences.

Sociological thinking involves looking for general patterns in the behavior of particular people.

Sociologists use the sociological imagination to see the relationship between individual experiences and larger society.

The sociological imagination helps understand how personal experiences are shaped by social, historical, and cultural context.

Sociologists analyze the root causes of differences in COVID-19 experiences related to institutions, culture, and social location.

Students are tasked with researching the likelihood of financial and health impacts of COVID-19 for different social groups.

The assignment encourages students to compare societal factors affecting COVID-19 outcomes across different cities and social groups.

Transcripts

What does it mean to think sociologically and to think

sociologically about covid specifically.

So sociology is the practice of looking for general patterns in society and the

lives of particular people. To think sociologically is to shift the

lens away from an individualistic perspective

and toward an entire group or population. This perspective is particularly

critical in a time like the one we're living in now

where collective action can save lives.

So put simply, sociology is the systematic study

of human society. But what makes it systematic?

This is because it follows the scientific method, it uses procedures

that are transparent and subject to scrutiny, and its goal is

to build previous research to generate new

knowledge that is as accurate as it can be. Sociology looks at

how external factors like the economy culture and even

global pandemics in our case shape both individual

and collective experiences. So let's look at an example:

the example of depression and mental health: so we often think of

depression and mental health challenges as an issue that might be internal or

personal that requires a response that's

individual or sometimes medical in nature

but sociologists find that depression is also organized by social groups.

So one significant social status that's emerging under covid

is whether you have the ability to self-isolate

at home. We can see that mental health outcomes differ whether you are

sheltering in place or not sheltering in place. So some groups have more

control over this than others as we will discuss

this term. There's also a gender gap emerging in mental health

among parents. A greater percentage of women

than men reported covid related mental health challenges

both in early and late march as the pandemic

ramped up but we see a greater gap between men and women's mental health

when they are parents of children under 18

s shown on the right side here. So we might think about

how impacts of lockdown and the labor of homeschooling can end up

playing out in gendered ways with women taking on more of this

unpaid domestic work. And data published by ubc sociology

two days ago shows that in Canada, at least, women are less likely than men

to go back to paid work, even as this lockdown is easing

up. We can also think of this intersectionally in terms of race and

ethnicity and colonialism. Sixty percent of Indigenous people say

their mental health has been worsened due to covid

and Indigenous people in Canada were already more likely to report

fair or poor mental health prior to the pandemic due to intergenerational trauma,

discrimination, colonialism and so on. And so what we're seeing here is an

exhaustive exacerbation of this pattern

and rates of depression are also shaped by

social and national context. In some societies

like India for example, depression is more stigmatized and there is less

language and social protocols around it so people are less likely to self-report

so we have less data to even begin measuring

mental health rates let alone to provide support and the necessary infrastructure.

By understanding covid 19 and its impacts on

our lives through a sociological perspective

we're able to discover and analyze the impact of this crisis

on population level health and sociocultural outcomes

such as social inequality, global and local health and

inequities and social political change. And this is why it's important to study

covid 19 sociologically even though at its root it is a health

issue. So sociologists are able to provide a

holistic analysis of events like covid 19 and address

issues that may seem unrelated but end up contributing to people's everyday

experiences. There are several characteristics of

sociological thinking. So let's start with characteristic one:

sociologists look for general patterns in the behavior of particular people.

Society shapes individuals into groups like children teenagers or adults,

the healthy and the sick, the rich and the poor

and each of these groups impact the life experiences of individuals in society.

This can range from what kind of education is available to people.

to what food they eat, even to whether an experienced life

in positions of power in society or on the margins.

Seeing the world sociologically includes realizing how the general categories we

fit into can shape our experiences so we could

ask how do our parents jobs impact the level

of education that we receive? If i was to poll this class right now or

any university class, data shows that we would find an

over-representation of students whose parents also attended university

because educational patterns are

intergenerational. So in the context of covid 19

what does looking for the general in the particular look like?

When looking at society in the midst of this pandemic crisis

sociologists look for patterns among individuals who might be acting

differently to the general population so we might ask

who isn't wearing masks when they are asked to or

who's deviating from the norm by going against

government regulations.

For example, this could include an analysis of individuals who have

protested lockdown as was done in this vox article

in april 2020 which i i've included a link to here. The

article links anti-lockdown protests to race in

the context of the United States

and this brings us to our second characteristic of sociological thinking

which is seeing society in our everyday lives. Sociologists call this using the

sociological imagination. In 1959 sociologist C Wright

Mills wrote the book the Sociological Imagination

and he defined this imagination as the ability to see the relationship

between individual experiences and the larger society.

Mills writes "nowadays people often feel that their private lives

are a series of traps they sense that within their everyday worlds they cannot

overcome their troubles yet people do not usually define the

troubles they ensure in terms of historical and institutional

change" So Mills wrote that in 1959 but I think

that it's never been more relevant than today

under this global pandemic. Mills is asking us to put our individual

experiences in historical and institutional context

and chapter one is called The Promise. Mills is promising us the relevance of

this form of thought, that we can understand our lives better

if we understand what is happening in the larger

society and if we understand the root causes of the challenges that we face

that can equip us better to act with a broader perspective on what would

actually address the challenges. So today we're going to use the

sociological imagination to understand how our experiences of covid 19 are

being shaped by what is happening in the world.

So for example an individual may have lost their job in mid-March 2020

and while the individual might at first feel that this personal experience of

being laid off is an isolated event, the sociological imagination enables us

to understand how this event was shaped by social,

historical, and cultural context. This personal experience of course has

been shaped by nationally enforced lockdown,

social distancing laws, companies shutting down, and global recession

as well as the type of industry that a person is in and as we'll see this term

their social location related to gender, class,

race and so on. So the discussion for this module

asks you to think about covid experiences.

In context so we can see here that depending on what part of Canada

you are in you have a different likelihood

of contracting the virus and we can also look at this in a global

perspective. This data is from our world, in data

daily news confirmed covid 19 cases globally so we can see that just by

being in a particular country you have a higher or lower risk.

So sociologists are trying to understand the root causes of these differences

related to institutions, related to culture, related to social location and

so on. So i'll introduce our discussion

assignment for this module and it has a few parts so your task is

to pick any city in the world and it just can't be Vancouver and to

pick one or more socially significant statuses

like gender or age or migration status socioeconomic status

and do some research online and assess the likelihood of four things for

someone from this city and social group. What is the likelihood they would be

able to avoid being financially affected by lockdown measures?

This might be something like losing their job or not.

Their likelihood of being able to avoid getting infected with covid,

their likelihood of being able to avoid serious health complications

if they're infected, so there you'll need to think about the healthcare system and

the response for example. And lastly their ability to avoid

negative financial impacts if they were infected, so that might draw

on things like the social safety net and the amount of

wealth inequality in the country. So this is your first task, then you're

going to review the posts of two other students

and compare them to yours to identify the similarities and differences

and to brainstorm the societal factors that might be causing those similarities

and differences.