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x  SOCIOLOGY READINGSsociological perspective and providing rigorous coverage of the discipline, we hope theselections are thought-provoking, generate lots of discussion, and are enjoyable to read.There are 41 selections in this reader, and 12 of them are new. These new readingsfocus on current, important social issues such as the pace of life in urban societies, giftexchange, media manipulation of statistics, status performance and race, parentingamong same-sex couples, marriage promotion, cyberbrides, sexual regulation andconsumer culture in high schools, gender technology in historical context, racismamong well-intended white people, and working-class social movement tactics.Most of the new readings are based on research studies that were written in the past5 years. In recent editions of this reader, we have increased the number of selectionsdrawn from contemporary social research. In doing so, we hope to provide you withillustrations of the ways in which social researchers combine theories and empirical studies to gain a better understanding of social patterns and processes. Although the professional language of some of these selections may seem challenging for introductory readers, we are confident that you will find them highly relevant and come away with a senseof being immersed in the most significant details of contemporary sociology.To help you get the most out of these selections, we’ve written brief introductionsthat provide the sociological context for each chapter. We also included reflectionpoints that can be used for comparing and contrasting the readings in each section andacross sections. For those of you who are also reading the accompanying textbook,these introductions will furnish a quick intellectual link between the readings andinformation in the textbook. We have also included in these introductions briefinstructions on what to look for when you read the selections in a given chapter. Aftereach reading, you will find a set of discussion questions to ponder. Many of these questions ask you to apply a specific author’s conclusions to some contemporary issue insociety or to your own life experiences. It is our hope that these questions will generatea lot of classroom debate and help you see the sociological merit of the readings.A website established for this ninth edition includes do-it-yourself reviews andtests for students, web-based activities designed to enhance learning, and a chat roomwhere students and teachers can post messages and debate matters of sociological significance. The site can be accessed via the Pine Forge website at www.pineforge.com.Books like these are enormous projects. We would like to thank David Repetto,Laureen Gleason, Erin Livingston, and the rest of the staff at SAGE for their useful adviceand assistance in putting this reader together. It’s always a pleasure to work with this veryprofessional group. Thanks again to Jennifer Hamann for her assistance with readingselections and editing. Michelle Robertson joins us in this edition as a contributingeditor, and we are especially grateful for her input.Enjoy!David M. NewmanDepartment of Sociology/AnthropologyDePauw UniversityGreencastle, IN 46135E-mail: dnewman@depauw.eduJodi O’BrienDepartment of SociologySeattle UniversitySeattle, WA 98122E-mail: jobrien@seattleu.edu

About the EditorsDavid M. Newman (PhD, University of Washington) is Professor of Sociology atDePauw University. In addition to the introductory course, he teaches courses inresearch methods, family, social psychology, deviance, and mental illness. He has wonteaching awards at both the University of Washington and DePauw University. Hisother written work includes Identities and Inequalities: Exploring the Intersections ofRace, Class, Gender, and Sexuality (2012) and Families: A Sociological Perspective(2008).Jodi O’Brien (PhD, University of Washington) is Professor of Sociology at SeattleUniversity. She teaches courses in social psychology, sexuality, inequality, and classicaland contemporary theory. She writes and lectures on the cultural politics oftransgressive identities and communities. Her other books include Everyday Inequalities(Basil Blackwell), Social Prisms: Reflections on Everyday Myths and Paradoxes (SAGE),and The Production of Reality: Essays and Readings on Social Interaction (5th edition,SAGE).xi

PA R T IThe Individualand Society

Taking a New Lookat a Familiar World1The primary claim of sociology is that our everyday feelings, thoughts, and actionsare the product of a complex interplay between massive social forces and personalcharacteristics. We can’t understand the relationship between individuals and theirsocieties without understanding the connection between both. As C. Wright Millsdiscusses in the introductory article, the “sociological imagination” is the ability to seethe impact of social forces on our private lives. When we develop a sociologicalimagination, we gain an awareness that our lives unfold at the intersection of personalbiography and social history. The sociological imagination encourages us to movebeyond individualistic explanations of human experiences to an understanding of themutual influence between individuals and society. So rather than study what goes onwithin people, sociologists study what goes on between and among people asindividuals, groups, organizations, or entire societies. Sociology teaches us to lookbeyond individual personalities and focus instead on the influence of social phenomenain shaping our ideas of who we are and what we think we can do.Peter Berger, another well-known sociologist, invites us to consider the uniquenessof the sociological enterprise. According to Berger, the sociologist is driven by an insatiable curiosity to understand the social conditions that shape human behavior. Thesociologist is also prepared to be surprised, disturbed, and sometimes even bored bywhat he or she discovers. In this regard, the sociologist is driven to make sense of theseemingly obvious with the understanding that once explored, it may not be so obvious after all. One example of the nonobvious is the influence that social institutionshave on our behavior. It’s not always easy to see this influence. We have a tendency tosee people’s behavior in individualistic, sometimes even biological, terms. This tendency toward individualistic explanations is particularly pronounced in U.S. society.The influence of social institutions on our personal lives is often felt most forcefully when we are compelled to obey the commands of someone who is in a positionof institutional authority. The social institution with the most explicit hierarchy ofauthority is the military. In “The My Lai Massacre: A Military Crime of Obedience,”Herbert Kelman and V. Lee Hamilton describe a specific example of a crime in whichthe individuals involved attempted to deny responsibility for their actions by claimingthat they were following the orders of a military officer who had the legitimate right tocommand them. This incident occurred in the midst of the Vietnam War. Arguably,people do things under such trying conditions that they wouldn’t ordinarily do,even—as in this case—kill defenseless people. Kelman and Hamilton make a keysociological point by showing that these soldiers were not necessarily psychologicalmisfits who were especially mean or violent. Instead, the researchers argue, they wereordinary people caught up in tense circumstances that made obeying the brutal commands of an authority seem like the normal and morally acceptable thing to do.3

4  PART 1THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETYSomething to Consider as You ReadAs you read these selections, consider the effects of social context and situation onbehavior. Even though it might appear extreme, how might the behavior of thesesoldiers be similar to other examples of social influence? Consider occasions in whichyou have done something publicly that you didn’t feel right about personally. How doyou explain your behavior? How might a sociologist explain your behavior?

The Sociological ImaginationC. Wright Mills(1959)“The individual can . . . know his own chances in life only by becoming aware of those ofall individuals in his circumstances.”Nowadays men often feel that their privatelives are a series of traps. They sense thatwithin their everyday worlds, they cannotovercome their troubles, and in this feeling,they are often quite correct: What ordinarymen are directly aware of and what they try todo are bounded by the private orbits in whichthey live; their visions and their powers arelimited to the close-up scenes of job, family,neighborhood; in other milieux, they movevicariously and remain spectators. And themore aware they become, however vaguely, ofambitions and of threats which transcend theirimmediate locales, the more trapped they seemto feel.Underlying this sense of being trapped areseemingly impersonal changes in the verystructure of continent-wide societies. The factsof contemporary history are also facts aboutthe success and the failure of individual menand women. When a society is industrialized, apeasant becomes a worker; a feudal lord is liquidated or becomes a businessman. Whenclasses rise or fall, a man is employed or unemployed; when the rate of investment goes up ordown, a man takes new heart or goes broke.When wars happen, an insurance salesmanbecomes a rocket launcher; a store clerk, aradar man; a wife lives alone; a child grows upwithout a father. Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can beunderstood without understanding both.Yet men do not usually define the troublesthey endure in terms of historical change andinstitutional contradiction. The well-beingthey enjoy, they do not usually impute to thebig ups and downs of the societies in whichthey live. Seldom aware of the intricate connection between the patterns of their own livesand the course of world history, ordinary mendo not usually know what this connectionmeans for the kinds of men they are becomingand for the kinds of history-making in whichthey might take part. They do not possess thequality of mind essential to grasp the interplayof man and society, of biography and history,of self and world. They cannot cope with theirpersonal troubles in such ways as to control thestructural transformations that usually liebehind them.Surely it is no wonder. In what period haveso many men been so totally exposed at so fasta pace to such earthquakes of change? ThatAmericans have not known such catastrophicchanges as have the men and women of othersocieties is due to historical facts that are nowquickly becoming “merely history.” The historythat now affects every man is world history

Sociology : exploring the architecture of everyday life : readings / editors, David M. Newman, Jodi O'Brien. — 9th ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-4129-8760-8 (pbk.) 1. Sociology. I. Newman, David M., 1958– II. O'Brien, Jodi. HM586.S64 2013 301—dc23 2012031247 This book is printed on acid-free paper.