What is a Group? SOCI 101.002.FA14 August 26, 2014 SOCI - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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What is a Group? SOCI 101.002.FA14 August 26, 2014 SOCI 101.002.FA14 What is a Group? August 26, 2014 1 / 15 What is a Group? 1 Groups: A Definition 2 Types of Groups 3 Individuals and Groups 4 Durkheims Great Insight 5 The Modern

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What is a Group?

SOCI 101.002.FA14 August 26, 2014

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What is a Group?

1 Groups: A Definition 2 Types of Groups 3 Individuals and Groups 4 Durkheim’s Great Insight 5 The Modern Individual 6 What is a Group? SOCI 101.002.FA14 What is a Group? August 26, 2014 2 / 15

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Sociology

The systematic study of human behavior in groups

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Group /Group/ (gr[=oo]p), n. [F groupe, It. gruppo, groppo, cluster, bunch, packet, group; of G. origin: cf. G. kropf craw, crop, tumor, bunch. See Crop, n.] 1. A cluster, crowd, or throng; an assemblage, either of persons or things, collected without any regular form or arrangement; as, a group of men or of trees; a group of isles.

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Achieved and Ascribed Groups

Ascribed: Assignment to a group based on judgment by others or by an external force. Generally can’t be changed. Achieved: Assignment to a group based on an individual’s experiences, talents, or wishes. Generally easier to change.

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Types of Groups

Organized Groups Political groups, associations, etc. Identity Groups Race, sex, nation, religion, etc. Solidary Groups Friends, family, etc.

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Types of Groups

Gardner Hall Section

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Individuals and Groups

“To exist at all, all communities must be imagined.”

Fields, xxxiii

People must believe in the reality and group-ness of the groups to which they belong.

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SOCI 101.002.FA14 What is a Group? August 26, 2014 9 / 15

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Durkheim’s Great Insight

It is not, in fact, individuals who form groups. Rather, it is groups that form individuals. People do not know what individuals are until their social lives tell them.

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Excursus: The Part and the Whole

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The Modern Individual

Structurally independent Economically rational Group membership by choice Interests and opinions

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What is a Group?

The fundamental unit of human behavior Often reducible by breaking down into individuals Source of ideas, feedback, problems, and solutions In modern society: cross-cutting allegiances that construct the individual–the “self”–by generating unique intersections of social webs.

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Networks, Groups, and Separation

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Networks, Groups, and Separation

Epistemic closure

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