Class #14, September 26 Classnotes
Luhman Ch 6: Categories, Social Differentiation, and Group Identity

 

Terms

ageism
ethnic group
horizontal group
open group
racial group
sexism
social category
social class
social differentiation
social status
social stratification

1. The distinction between social category and social group is the difference between how we view elements in society from the outside, as outsiders, versus how people that make up one of those elements view themselves as insiders.
   1. A social category is a group of people who share certain characteristics in common that are identified by society and/or that might be measured or described objectively.
      1. We want to make a sharp distinction here, so that we define a social category in terms of qualities that are externally identified, not qualities that we define in terms of our own identity
         1. Of course, there is a feedback loop here: we recognize qualities in ourselves that are externally recognized or objectively present and these things become part of our identity.
         2. We want to be clear, however, that externally identified qualities may have very different meanings when they are viewed from the perspective of an insider, as we saw in the film on disability.
         3. Moreover, these categories are recognized and become significant because they are important in society and in this sense they are social constructions
            1. This is true even for individual qualities that seem to be biological in nature and therefore would seem to be objectively defined.
            2. We have some social categories, like race, that are understood to be biological in character but that scientists have found have no basis in scientific fact
               1. one way the idea of "race" has been challenged is by showing that there is more variation within racial groups than there is between them
               2. thus, there may be more similarity between certain African and European groups than there is between some groups normally identified within those racial groups
               3. we also find that basic human biological characteristics (having to do with body organs, immune systems, psychological characteristics, and physical abilities) are compatible across racial lines
               4. another argument against the biological uniqueness of races is they are based on an assumption that different population subgroups were isolated so that there was little cross-race contact or breeding. In fact historical studies show that there is a long history of migration and intergroup contact so that for the most part racial groups are not "pure"
            3. Race turns out to have meanings specific to national histories and cultures, so that race is a different concept in the United Kingdom than it is in the United States and it also is directed at different groups (in the U.K., blacks are from the Indian subcontinent and usually Africans are not included).
      2. An important part of sociology involves describing and studying the population in terms of social categories and so this way of looking at people is important and useful.
         1. We need to count people and pay attention to social differences in order to do governmental work and in order to achieve social ideals of many kinds.
            1. The concept of "gender equity" in athletics, for example, requires that we identify people in terms of an objective measure of gender and see how they are represented in various social categories like various sports team, various salary groups (for coaches), in terms of resources available (equipment, fields, quality of hotel rooms, modes of transportation)
            2. Similarly, when we are concerned about social inequality and the reality that some groups are higher in some system of hierarchy than another, we often do research to find out the nature of the difference and to learn what might be done to reduce inequality
               1. we need to pay attention to objective student characteristics and also to the objective organizational services provided by schools in order to think about how to reduce differences in educational achievement between groups
               2. This is part of an interest in social stratification in society, which involves differences in income, life chances, and living situations across objectively defined groups of people
         2. An advantage of studying people in social categories is that qualities we think are significant can be observed and measured in an objective way and the categories and our measures tend to remain the same over time.
         3. When we study a group of people taking their internal point of view into account, we may find significant factors that cannot be objectively measured and we also find that a group's perceptions change over time.
   2. A social group involves people who know each other or agree that they share something in common, who share things (usually including some aspects of a collective point of view), and who interact with each other enough that they have developed patterns of group behavior.
      1. This definition includes
         1. small groups where people meet face to face and where small group dynamics shape their individual and collective behavior (we saw this in the film Bad Dads)
         2. people who by virtue of sharing certain experiences that are different from the experiences of most other people have come to behave in similar ways, understand the world with similar concepts, and find that when they come together that they share an identity even though they have not necessarily been part of activities that involved them both (we saw this happening for the narrator in When Billy Broke His Head, as when he went to his first demonstration in Chicago).
      2. One of the important areas of study here involves general social rules that govern the operation of small groups.
         1. We saw some of these processes at work with the manipulation of in-group membership and the drawing of group boundaries, the exercises in role definition and role taking, and ways that power and authority were used
         2. Appreciate that in some respects all small groups are similar and that all follow certain identifiable and relatively unchangable "natural" rules of operation
         3. Also appreciate that small group experiences play a large role in shaping, defining, and changing our identities (as we saw in Bad Dads and as we would expect from the symbolic interactionist point of view).
      3. Recognize that social categorization tends to create common experiences for people such that when they come together into small groups their bonding, group membership defining, and identity shaping aspects become really strong and distinctive.
         1. So appreciate that this deynamic shapes important social categories like ethnic groups, racial groups, gender groups, and social class groups based on similar socioeconomic situations
         2. People tend to be pushed together through their common categorization but they develop an "insiders" perspective about their shared characteristic that is likely to be very different from what is perceived or understood by those outside
            1. they may share understandings about having been abused that are more or less invisible to outsiders
            2. they may create a semi-secret (or very secret) insiders culture (gay culture is an example)
            3. they are likely to have very different ideas about how their insider group is composed or constituted compared to the understandings held by outsiders
         3. We see this especially with ethnic groups and racial groups where people tend to be categorized together in their competition with other groups but where their internal identification is very diverse.
            1. People may be categorized as part of an ethnic group like "Italians" because they and their neighbors compete with another group called "Polish"
            2. However, among the Italians there are likely to be dramatic differences based on where in Italy their families were from and how long their family have lived in this country. So Italians are internally diverse even if they are lumped together by others.
   3. Status groups refer to the whole variety of distinct identity groups created by the combined effect of external social categorizations and the building of in-group identity.
      1. Appreciate that there is a reciprocal process of groups being identified, creating an internal identification, and then creating externally significant institutions, organizations, and activities that affect the way they define and relate to other categories
      2. This leads to institutions that represent and serve social categories---thus we have a whole system of Catholic higher education that is somewhat separate from the secular system of higher education---that's because Catholics collectively are a status group in American society
      3. Status groups in our society tend to have a hierarchical relationship to each other---representing differences in wealth, prestige, and life opportunities
      4. We refer to these differences in status group standing as social stratification; people within the group have a place in the overall social stratification system or system of social inequality in American society.
      5. Because status groups emerge from a complex process of categorization and group formation that produces many different status groups, we refer to this as social differentiation, or the process by which groups become distinctive and unique within the whole system of American society.