socio
Block1.Fundamental concepts of sociology
Status and social position
– STATUS: The social position an individual occupies and that the others recognize. It is a basic element of the social structure.
Social position, status, refer to expectations, responsibilities, privileges, etc. It determines the way a person acts in the social context.
Status provides a social identity.
– STATUS COMBINATION: People occupy more than one social position throughout their lives.
– ACQUIRED STATUS/ MERITOCRATIC: family of origin,
ethnicity, health conditions, gender…
– DOMINANT STATUS: usually very influenced by the occupational or professional status. But sometimes it can be, for instance, a disability.
Equal opportunities’ policies hope people can achieve the desired status according to merits, in a way that the assigned features do not intervene.
– SOCIAL ROLE: Behavioral expectations, according to someone’s status. Each individual has a particular status and develops a role.
Ex.: as a “mother” the role of mother, carer, educator… as a “doctor” the role of expert, scientist, assistance, counselor… as a “friend”… , as a “partner”…
Subject’s perspective: Mead AND Goffman
AUTORES:
G.H. MEAD
Social origin of the person and the mind
We must regard mind, then, as arising and developing within the social process, with the empirical matrix of social interactions.
Social roles are the result of social interaction.
• Me:
the “others” inside of me.
• I:
the reaction of the organism to “me”.
• Self: it’s the result of the continuous dialogue between “I” and “me”.
E. GOFFMAN
Dramaturgic action
Dramaturgy conceives interactions among people as if it was a theatre performance. The individual presents themselves in front of the others controlling the impressions they make on others. Each of us become the public for the rest.
People represent roles in order to present ourselves before other people.
“The world is actually a wedding”
A person’s presentation in the everyday life:
_meeting
_management
of impressions
_front stage and back stage
Identity
It is a type of image we want others to attribute to us. When an individual is involved in the maintenance of a rule they tend to compromise themselves with a particular image of themselves that makes the conformation with their “I” possible.
Identity is not static, but rather relational.
The “I” is, partly, something ceremonial, sacred, and also needs to be in communion with others (and in difference to others).
In each meeting we put our identity at play.
There are two ways through which others place us: what our personality provides to the interaction and what is culturally determined.
Analysis of deviation: Stigma
There are attributes that do not coincide with the idea of how particular people should be of behave. Stigma refers to a discriminative attribute. Attribution has social and contextual connotations. Stigma is thus a relation between attribute and stereotype.
Stigma is an ideology that allows people to explain inferiority of a person and the danger this person represents for the “normality”.
Stigma—-> labeling—> stereotype
“Normal” and “stigmatized” are not people, but rather perspectives which are generated in particular social situations during mixed interaction.
BLOCK 2- SOCIAL AND CLASS STRUCTURE IN DEVELOPED SOCIETIES
2.1. Theories about social inequality, stratification and social class
Social inequality
The possibility to access to resources is not the same for everyone:
– access to resources is related to people’s living conditions (health, housing, food, etc.)
–to have or do not have resources can condition integration to society
Types of social inequality and the concept of Intersectionality:
–Inequalities based on gender
–Inequalities based on age
– Inequalities based on ethnicity
–Inequalities based on income
Social stratification: structures of social inequality. Different positions of people and groups insociety. Also inequalities inside the social group. People and groups, depending on their position in this stratified distribution, have a different access or unequal access to material or symbolic rewards.
AUTORES
GIDDENS
Characteristics that are common to all stratified systems in society:
-The classification is applied to social categories of people who have some characteristics in common without necessarily interacting or identifying themselves with the same group.
-The experiences and opportunities that a person has in life highly depend on the social category they belong to.
-The layers or stratum that determine social categories change very slowly.
Four stratification systems:
–
Slavery: ownership of individuals
-Castes:
is logically tied to the Hindu belief in reincarnation, the caste system
representing a ladder, down which one may slip into the next life if not
virtuous in this one
-Estates:
from traditional states to the end of feudalism (the nobility, the clergy and
the commoners)
–Classes: a large-scale grouping of people who share common economic resources that in turn influence their lifestyle
Social classes
– a group of people with a similar level of economic resources
– the level of economic resources has a big influence on the lifestyle of each social class
– class distinction is fundamentally based on wealth property and occupation
Class stands apart from these other systems of stratification. Four main distinctions can be drawn:
1.Classes
are not dependent on legal or religious decrees and are thus (formally at
least) more fluid.
2.Class
is in part achieved rather than ascribed. Some mobility between groupings can and
does occur.
3.Classes
are dependent on economic differentials between groups, usually either
ownership of or access to material resources.
4.Class systems are more impersonal than other forms of stratification
Karl Marx 1818 – 1883
Social class:
Bourgeois or capitalist: who own the means of production.
Working class: who earns a living by selling their labor force.
1. Class
is defined by the relationship of the group with the means of production.
-Pre-industrial
societies: landowners and peasants
-Industrial societies: owners of the means of production and workers (working class)
2. The relationship between classes is structured around exploitation.
-Pre-industrial
societies: delivery of the harvest to the aristocracy
-Industrial
societies: work generates disproportionate wealth which capitalists take over
(surplus value), whereas workers remain poor. Although improving their economic
condition, the distance with capitalists is huge.
CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS:
Belief in a community of interest between a specific type of socio-economic relations.
Surplus value:
Is the “unpaid labor” which is extracted from the labor of workers from the capitalist.
It is the work performed by the employee beyond what is necessary to cover the value of their labor (beyond the value of their wage)
Exploitation:
Capitalist appropriation of surplus value. The surplus is the basis of the process of capitalist accumulation.
Max Weber 1864 – 1920
He agrees with Marx on that social class is based on objective economic conditions, but believes there are other factors which are also important, such as the technical knowledge and the position of a person in the labor market.
Multidimensional concept of Stratification: Max Weber developed a theory of stratification three components:
–Social Class
–Social Status
–Political power
Social Class
The social classes are defined by economically determined relationship between its members and the market. The classes are one of the forms of social stratification, and do not constitute a group aware of his own unit.
Political Party (power group)
Organizes legislative work, coordinates and includes new interests and preferences of citizens.
Theory of the three components of stratification:
1)Inside the economic order: individuals belong to classes that are stratified according to their relation with the means of production and the acquisition of goods.
2)Inside the political field: people can be part of a political party and these political parties are stratified in relation to power. The party organizes the legislative work, it coordinates and incorporates the new interests of citizens.
3)Inside the social order: individuals belong to status groups that are stratified according to their consumption of goods: a bigger consumption means a higher lifestyle and a higher position in the social group.
He links a group’s status with the position or prestige that the others give to the group as well.
He
links status and lifestyle (way of dressing and talking, work,…) they work to
configure an individual’s position in front of the others, in a way that those
who share the same status have the feeling of sharing an identity.
He considers that the variation of status is independent from the class division: members of aristocratic families have a high status, no matter their wealth; they look from superiority the “nouveau riche” (same money but not the same status).
The dominant class does not find itself in the property of the means of production but in the modern state and in its monopoly of both administration and weapons. With some modern institutions that are more and more complex, bureaucratized and centralized, the dominant classes become rigidly hierarchically organized bureaucracies.
New elements in the evolution of modern societies:
a)Property and control are no longer the same -Owners don’t
control the worker directly
-Direct
control of workers is made through managers: controllers without property
b)Middle classes, new workers
The
growth of the middle class: salaried non-manual workers: new needs of
administration, growth of service sector (bank, insurance companies, business,
transport, …)
Change
of composition: in the past, the middle class was of small industrials and
craftsmen, now of “employees”.
Bourdieu
Social classes and lifestyles:
-The choice of lifestyle is an important indicator of class: four forms of capital that determine the class position and are interrelated:
1- Economic capital: income, role in determining social class
2 -Cultural
capital: education, art appreciation, consumption and leisure
3 -Social
capital: personal network of friends and contacts
4 -Symbolic capital: having or not a good reputation
Distinction
–“Habitus”: 1) structuring structure, which organizes social practices and the perception of these practices; 2) structured structure: the internalization of the division into social classes of our world. (p. 170)
2.2. CULTURAL INEQUALITIES
Modern Racism: There are cultures inferior and superior, their characteristics prevent them from enjoying equal rights and opportunities, will never be the same as the prevailing culture. It derives from the ethnocentrism perspective. It is founded on the idea that there are superior and inferior races. ASSIMILATION
Cavalli-Sforza, when speaking about Roma people states that:
«Should we tolerate, see and protect a culture of thieves and migrant people? In fact, what else can we do? » (1994: 266)
– Industrial Europe. Beginning of the 19th century through to the 60s in the 20th century.
– Entry of immigrant groups as cheap labour who were marginalized and oppressed.
– Unequal relation between cultures they are after a cultural unification.
–Inferior and superior “Races” as a consequence of biologic characteristics like, for instance, the intelligence.
Postmodern Racism: consideration as cultural attributes to those inequality situations. It rejects the idea of a superior ethnic group respect others and the idea of equality. It stress in the DIFFERENCE to justify inequality. EXCLUSION- SEGREGATION
Illiteracy of Roma people, far from being an inevitable handicap, in many aspects is an element of freedom.
(Okely 1997:78)
– Transition from the industrial society to the information society (anti-egalitarian orientation).
– New schools of thought like the postmodern that in their criticism to the ethnocentric universal pretension in the end denies any universal value such as freedom and equality.
–After WWII, modern racism is socially doomed to disappear. When reproving this racism, postmodern racism defines itself as antiracist.
Characteristics:
– Relativism: difference in ethnic groups (there are not superior nor inferior races, they are just different).
–Dialogue is not possible (neo-Nazism) (power, clash of civilizations, right for war…)
BOTH COEXIST NOWADAYS
Dialogic perspective: living together
– Equality of differences (Freire, Flecha)
– Common territories (i.e. Roma people)
-Radicalization of democracy (deliberative democracy; beyond the institutions)
Equality of differences
The goal is the equality including equal rights in their differences. Everybody’s rights, to achieve what they need and want, are protected. This start of egalitarian dialogue implies the rejection of both the ethnocentrism that does not respect the differences as well as relativism that rejects equity (Flecha, 1997: 45).
Our fight against all types of discrimination, against the denial of our being will only reach victory if we perform what seems to be clear:“unity in diversity”. Unity of reconcilable of different, not of antagonistic different. Amongst the latter, in the fighting process, there could be a deal based on circumstancial objectives good enough for both ends. (Freire, 1997: 94).
Samuel Huntington: Clash of civilizations
– Cultures are homogeneous and static entities.
– It does not allow recognition of progress made by human agency in each culture or through their relationship with others.
2.3. GENDER INEQUALITIES
FEMINISM
1.Feminism of equality
In Spain, theoretical approach…
–Traditional Modernity: Defense of EQUALITY
…and historical moments
– 19th Century: Asociación para la enseñanza de la mujer
–20 Century: Beginning of the fight for the recognition of women’s right to vote (1931) . Brake during Civil War and Dictatorship. It comes back during Transition (1975-1979)
HISTORICAL EVENTS
1. National Conference for Women’s Liberation. Madrid, December 1975— Key Debate:
– To maintain a strictly feminist movement, independent from political organizations and trade unions.
– To defence feminist claims together with a general fight towards democracy
2. Catalan
Conference on Women. Barcelona, May 1976 — Key
Debate:
– To
design a strategy to achieve women’s emancipation.
–To design a short-term strategy to establish democracy.
1st Wave of Feminism. Characteristics:
EQUAL rights for everyone (men and women)
Debates starting from women’s individual, collective, social and political interests.
Claim for the right to vote (1931), education, labour market, sexuality…
Includes:
– Liberal Feminism:
Equality in all public institutions and disseminate knowledge on women’s issues, so as these issues could not be ever ignored
– Socialist Feminism:
Focused
on how families and domestic work are created and reproduced through the sexual
division of labour. – Radical Feminism:
Analysis of patriarchy as a masculine domination system and the differences between both genders
LIMITATIONS:
Homogeneous conception of men and women:“want to be equal to men” Impose a rejection of female gender role models Ex. To be sexy = dependency and submission.
Awareness of “equality among us”:
A model of emancipation from above: we (academics) should rise awareness between housewives.
STEREOTYPES
– Those
that no man wants Hysterics
– Against
men
– Hairy
–Anti-femenine
2. Feminism of difference
–Crisis of Modernity: Relativist perspective on feminism (Postmodernism).
–Key authors: Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida
–Feminist authors: Luce Irigaray, Judith Butler
–Difference between men and women – femenine identities
–Identity, free choice, transgression. EX: Transexuality breaks with dominant and imposed heterosexuality
CHARACTERISTICS:
–2nd Wave of Feminism:
Difference
in front of men and among women. Importance of feminine identities
–3rd Wave of Feminism:
Identity,
free choice, transgression. ex.: Transexuality (“drag”) as an example
of breaking with imposed practices of heterosexuality
–The other side of the difference: Defends feminine values, maternity, sensitivity… (they claim for values that were attacked). Defends transgression (eliminate any kind of imposed categories men-women, ex. drag-queen)
–Difference independently from equality
–Free choice is mixed up with difference
3. Dialogic Feminism:
–Theories of dual conception of society: Habermas, Beck, Freire…
–Feminist authors: Sheyla Benhabib, Judith Bulter (last works), Lídia Puigvert, Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim
–21st century: Dialogic Turn in Society: social moviments, social globalization, multicultural societies
–Equality of differences: equal right for all women to live different
–Room for dialogue among women
–Plurality of voices in the feminist debate
–Intellectuals involved with the concerns of the majority of women
What are “the other women” defending? They defend a dialogic feminism, in which all women have voice
Feminism of all women Roma women, Immigrant women, women with low educational level…
BLOCK 3– CONFLICT AND SOCIAL CHANGE
3.1- SOCIALIZATION
A process through which the individuals of a society or culture learn and internalize a combination of rules, values and ways of perceiving reality.
This process gives individuals the necessary capacities to develop themselves in the social interaction with other individuals.
Steps to social construction of reality
1) Externalization is the social order is a human product for two reasons:
–genesis: the past was constructed by people.
–existence: the current order can only exist (in present and future) if people exist who sustain it.
2) Objectivation is the process that turns products of human activity in something external of such activity. This process involves:
– Institutionalization: repetition of an action that becomes typical and, through generations, appears as being objective.
–Legitimation: knowledge and norms that explain and justify institutions.
3) Internalization is our subjective assumption about something that comes from outside and it is perceived as objective, even though it might be a subjective construction of other people. Ex. Fashion, Publicity
When a sufficient level of internalization is reached to consider one person (or oneself) part of a society, this is socialization.
•PRIMARY SOCIALIZATION
–
Childhood and adolescence
–
Internalization of the adult world
•SECONDARY SOCIALIZATION
-Lifelong
–Choosing between different socially available options,whichcanbechanged eventually
What happens in socialization is that the social world is internalized within the child. The same process, though perhaps weaker in quality, occurs every time the adult is initiated into a new social context or into a new social group. Society, then, is not only something “out there,” in the Durkheimian sense, but it is also “in here,” part of our innermost being. (…)
(Berger, P. 1963. Invitation to Sociology. p.121. New York: Anchor books).
Primary and secondary socialization
Society is not limited to control our movements, but it shapes our identity, our thoughts and our feelings. The structures of society become structures of our own conscience. Society does not stop before our epidermis, but gets inside it while it involves us.
(Berger, P. 1963. Invitation to Sociology. p.121. New York: Anchor books).
Can you think of examples of socialization?
Provide examples of things people do, like, wear, eat/drink, show… that you think they (you) have been socialized in it.
Symbolic Interactionism
MEAD DIALOGIC SELF:
(I)
+ (Me)
“ME”: the “others” within me
“Self” developed in the interaction
There is a coercive dominant discourse in which men who have violent and aggressive attitudes and behaviors are presented as most sexually attractive. This demonstrates there is a socialization of attractiveness into a hegemonic masculine model that includes domination and which is linked to the double standard.
Social interactions influence in attractiveness model and in social imaginary of love, choice and intersubjectivity. Our preferences are being transformed through the deliberative.
Preventive socialization of gender violence:
Love and desire are social. There is a socialization that links violence to sexual attraction and desire and also links caring to boredom. Good news: If this is social it can be changed. Who do we like and why is not biological, but a matter of social construction. It is possible to transform the attractiveness model and the relationships through the social interactions.
Research suggests:
− Dialogue to identify and visualize the link between attractiveness and violence.
− Working on the attractiveness of respect, dialogue and equality, providing examples of the link between these values and passion and sex appeal.
What is the Mirage of Upward Mobility?
The Mirage of the Upward Mobility is the erroneous perception that people have when they connect the fact of establishing an affective and sexual relationship (with people who respond to a traditional masculinity model in the cases that prevail imposition and rejection) to an increase of her social status and her attractiveness, when in reality what happens is that their status and attractiveness decreases (Flecha & Puigvert, 2010)
TRADITIONAL MODELS OF MASCULINITY
–Dominant Traditional Masculinity (DTM)
-Oppressed Traditional Masculinity (OTM)
NEW ALTERNATIVE MASCULINITIES
– Self-confident
– Strong and brave to combat and ridicule sexist and racist attitudes
– Combine ethics and desire: they are good and attractive
Promoting Social Change from Preventive Socialization: Romantic Relationships
The romantic relationships (based on feelings) create the opportunities for adolescents to build relationships which inspire security, emotions and attitudes far away from violence. (McCarthy & Casey, 2008)
3.2- RISK AND SOCIAL CHANGE
Reflexive modernization and Risk society
Increasing risks
–Increasing possibilities, options, decision-making alternatives
–Increasing of reflexivity (reflexive modernity)
–Increasing the feeling of taking risks (Risk society)
Reflexive modernization: BECK, GIDDENS AND LASH
REFLEXIVITY:
•From industrial society to risk society
•The risk society is not an option, but the result of modernization, of a classless capitalism that leads us to deepening and individualization of social inequalities, making social crises seem like personal ones. One of the consequences has been the replacement of class struggle with gender struggle.
Beck: focused on the role of unintended dynamics of modernity (non-knowledge) which are what cause the risks, unintended.
Abandoning instrumental rationality (experts who know and lay people who do not know): “De-monopolization of expert knowledge”.
Sub-politics: “Transforming society from below”, outside institutions.
Disenchantment (from the collective meaning)
Collateral effects: The consciousness (the knowledge) determines the being.
Individualization is not atomization, isolation, solitude and disconnection. This is a process toward new lifestyles. It is compulsory and take place at the same time than the globalization process.
Globalization and indivualisation as two sides of the same coin.
Giddens: It is precisely this knowledge that creates most of the manufactured risks that affect us (such as nuclear energy) and that replace the natural ones (suc as earthquakes). Because of the knowledge….
“Beyond left and right”. Democratization of democracy
Lash: End of traditional authorities (doctor, politician, teacher, priest, father…)
De-traditionalization (questioning the traditional authorities)
Block 4
4.1 Basic concepts of political sociology
• Poverty:
– Absolute: lack of resources to cover basic needs such as food, dwelling, education and/or health.
– Relative: whenever, even if basic needs are covered, level of income is below the society’s average income.
How to define poverty:
– Absolute: by establishing a fixed poverty threshold common to every single city.
– Relative: poverty in a particular group gets defined when compared to the rest of the people.
But…
– Home fresh water supply is an indicator?
– What happens when the standard of living is different amongst cities?
Poverty must be regarded as the basic abilities deprival not merely lack of income, thatusually identifies poverty. Sen. 2000. Desarrollo y libertad. p.114
This perspectivedoes not imply refusal of the reasonable idea that lack of income is one of the main causes for poverty, since lack of income could be an important reason for anybody to be deprived from their abilities.
Income is not the only tool generating abilities. There are other factors that have an impact on real poverty .
Correlation between Income and Ability:
This correlation is fundamental for the assessment of public measures to lessen inequalityand poverty.
For example, correlation INCOME/ ABILITY is influenced by:
age (for example , physical needs).
sex and social roles (e.g. family responsibilities).
location (e.g. If there are floods) or other uncontrollable factors.
Some examples…
Age, handicap or illness cuts down both the possibility to receive income or convert the received income in ability (further income is required to carry out same tasks).
Sexual discrimination is an important factor in the distribution of the resources within the family in many countries(e.g.: Italy, high non-recognised employment rates).
DEFEATING DETERMINISM:
Educational improvement and health care increases the quality of life but especially impacts on the ability for a person to receive income, thus escape from poverty.
APPROACH OF ABILITIES:
ABILITIES- fundamental freedom enjoyed by anybody to carry out the desired kind of life.
Ability Set: different options to be chosen by anyone (real opportunities).
Depending on the context (social arrangements)
FUNCTIONING (besides material goods or income)
freedom of people to be properly fed, enjoy good health, avoid mortality causes… to achieve happiness, human dignity, community participation. (Sen, 1992, p. 39).
HUMAN AGENCY:
DEVELOPMENT AS FREEDOM
“… Individuals must look at themselves as beings that actively participate- provided they are given an opportunity— in the configuration of their own destiny, not as mere passive receivers of the ingenious results of the development programmes.” (Sen, 2000, p. 75)
ANALYSIS BASED
ON:
GOALS
THAT INDIVIDUALS WISH TO ACHIEVE AND AVAILABLE FREEDOM THEY HAVE TO MAKE IT
HAPPEN
IF ABILITIES INCREASE —-> INCOME INCREASE
IF INCOME INCREASE —-> ABILITIES INCREASE
4.2 Basic concepts of Political Sociology II
The origins of sociology:
The systematic study of human societies begins at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. Context that gives rise to Sociology: changes precipitated by the French Revolution (1789) and the Industrial Revolution in Europe.
Weber: Social Action
Understanding of social action:
●Human action → action to which the actor attributes meaning.
●Social action → human action in which the meaning is shared between different social actors.
An action is understood as the human behavior which its own agent or agents understand as subjectively significant, and to the extent that actually is. Such conduct may be internal or external and may consist of the agent doing something, refraining from doing so or allowing others to do so.
Social action means that conduct in which the meaning attributed to it by the agent or agents implies a relationship with respect to the conduct of another or other persons and in which such relationship determines the manner in which said relationship proceeds (Weber, 1921)
Weber highlights
the intersubjectivity of social action as an object of study of social theory.
Cumulation of
relationships between subjects moved by intentionality
Weber: Ethics of responsibility
Ethics
of ultimate ends→ individuals act in a faithful, rather than
rational, manner → results are out of one’s hands & out of one’s
responsibility
Ethics
of responsibility→ one has to give an account of the foreseeable
results of one’s action
Conduct can be oriented to an ‘ethic of ultimate ends’ or to an ‘ethic of responsibility.’ This is not to say that an ethic of ultimate ends is identical with irresponsibility, or that an ethic of responsibility is identical with unprincipled opportunism. Naturally nobody says that. However, there is an abysmal contrast between conduct that follows the maxim of an ethic of ultimate ends–that is, in religious terms, ‘The Christian does rightly and leaves the results with the Lord’–and conduct that follows the maxim of an ethic of responsibility, in which case one has to give an account of the foreseeable results of one’s action. (p. 23, Politics as a vocation)
If an action of good intent leads to bad results, then, in the actor’s eyes, not he but the world, or the stupidity of other men, ..The believer in an ethic of ultimate ends feels ‘responsible’ only for seeing to it that the flame of pure intentions is not quenched: for example, the flame of protesting against the injustice of the social order. (p. 23-24)
Critics to democratic societies:
1) Voter apathy:
● Decreasing
levels of citizen participation at elections
●
Lack of interest and involvement on the part of citizens.
→ questions
the legitimacy of elected governments
2) Rule
of the Majority:
●
Minority interests are often not represented
●
The interests of minorities (and of majorities) need to be safeguarded
3) The
rise of nationalism
HABERMAS: The role of dialogue
1. RATIONALITY
–Instrumental rationality → Instrumental use of knowledge, according to ends
–e.g. To teach competitive strategies to improve learning
–Communicative rationality → We use knowledge to understand each other and reach agreements
–e.g. To decide with the educational community the best way to improve learning
2. CLAIMS
–Power claims → to impose, enforce an action (physical or symbolic)
–Validity claims → to reach
agreements through the power of arguments
The
coercionless coercion of the best argument
Habermas: a communicative approach
“The difference between the conceptual level of communicatively coordinated action and that of the interpretation we make of it as observers no longer functions as a protective filter. For according to the presuppositions of the communicative model of action, the agent possesses just as rich an interpretive competence as the observer himself. The actor is now not only equipped with three world-concepts, he can also apply them reflectively. The success of the communicative action depends, as we have seen, on a process of interpretation in which participants com to a common definition of the situation.”
There is no relevant gap between the interpretations of researchers and that of the social actors.
BLOCK 5. WORK, ECONOMY AND SOCIETY
5.1 Population and society
DEMOGRAPHY is the study of POPULATION.
–Demography studies population’s volume and the causes for its growth or decrease.
–It is ruled by three factors: birth, death, migrations.
–The elements that have an influence on these three factors are usually of social and cultural type, which is why demography is considered as a branch of sociology.
-Statistics have great importance in the study of population.
–All countries do periodical statistics to get data of their population in relation to various aspects.
–Nevertheless, statistics do not always reflect 100% real data and this must be taken into account when studying the data.
-Birth rate: the number of annual births/1000 inhabitants.
–Fertility rate: birth average/1000 women in fertile age.
-Mortality rate: number of annual deaths/1000 inhabitants.
–Child mortality rate: number of babies who die annually before reaching a year for every 1000 births.
–Life expectancy: average number of age of the people of a region.
POPULATION GROWTH
–There are European countries that reach negative birth rates, that is, their population decreases because there are more deaths than births.
–Many developed countries do not get past the 0,5% growth rate.
–In countries in developing process this rate can be among 2 and 3%.
–This difference is very meaningful because it must be understood that demographic growth is exponential: with a growth of 3% the population is doubled in 23 years.
World demographic growth
Distinguished structure of population:
-Industrialized countries: low birth and mortality rates – > low fertility
-Countries in developing process: high birth rates, descending mortality rates -> high fertility
IS THIS SUSTAINABLE?
The world population is aging
Between 2000 and 2050, the proportion of the planet over 60 will double, from 11% to 22%. In absolute numbers, this age group will increase from 605 million to 2000 million in the course of half a century
Migrations:
The fact of crossing the line of a political or administrative unity for a minimum period of time. Migratory movements mean demographic changes with important social and economic effects. It may be internal or international.
Some categories of migrants:
BLOCK 6. Main approximations to the organisation of business companies and the productivemodels: the classic school and the network companies.
CRAFTMAN
Technical knowledge in each trade.
Trades
Creativity linked to the profession
Autonomy in the production process
Each trade develops the globality of the process.
TAYLORISM
Control of labour times of each worker
Each worker is looking for his or her own maximum salary. Homo econonomicus
Creation of workplaces
Scientific Management of Work
Specialization of the worker in one stage of the process
Salary according to the tasks developed
FORDISM
Massive production of a product
Labour agreements among workers and business
Assembly line
Reduction of the costs with the line production
Increasing of the salaries and reduction of the workday
ELTON MAYO
Mobilization of collective motivations
Identification with the company
Global human improvement of the comunity- company
Human Relations
Motivation, leadership and team work
Global human satisfaction
TOYOTISM
Diversification of product s
Collective tasks of the staff
Social Responsibility
Production to demand, Stock 0. Just in time production
Contributions of proposals by the staff
High recognition of the capacity of each worker
CURRENT SOCIETY
Technological innovation
Business contribution to society
Social Impact
Participation of the customers in the design of the product
Labor conditions depend on the success of the company
Shared and dialogic leadership
CONSEQUENCES OF INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
–Demographic Transfer of the population from the countryside to the city (rural exodus) – International migrations (– Sustained population growth – Large differences between peoples)
–Economic independence
-Economic Serial production
–Development of capitalism
–Emergence of large companies
–Unequal exchanges
–Social. The proletariat is born
–The Social Question is born
–Environmental Deterioration of the environment and degradation of the landscape, Irrational exploitation of the land.
BLOCK 7. CORPORATE CULTURE
“One in five employees report experiencing a cultural crisis”, so we can deduce how the corporate culture of the company impacts on the employees. For them it is very important that the values of their company and their own values are aligned. For example, according to the increase of social activism (#metoo movement or “Fridays for future”) the CEOs of the companies had to take into account it when it comes to making decisions inside the company.
Thanks to a statistical technique to analyze survey data, they found out which are the main risks that lead to a cultural crisis in a company.
RISK 1: INADEQUATE INVESTMENT IN PEOPLE
The investment on employees is invest in healthy culture and as a consequence better business outcomes. If the employees perceive that their employers are taking them into account in the company, they feel heard and participate in the company, it will have better results.
RISK 2: LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY
Too much flexibility inside the corporation can cause that the workers don’t care so much about their action, due to the fact that lot of companies don’t think that their business is the cause of the problem. We have to find an equilibrium between discipline and flexibility, in order to make workers productive, keeping their values.
RISK 3: LACK OF DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION
Companies must have an inclusive policy that includes everyone in order to have a good environment in the workplace. Some employees indicated that they would have stayed in the company if this had made an effort to fix unhealthy norms and behaviours.
RISK 4: POOR BEHAVIOUR AT THE TOP
The executives are under intense pressure to deliver results for being rewarded about what they achieved without caring about how they achieved it.
RISK 5: HIGH-PRESSURE ENVIRONMENTS
This is the area where employees rank the employers the lowest and identify the biggest opportunities to improve
RISK 6: UNCLEAR ETHICAL STANDARDS
It is usual that workers don’t really know what are the values standards of the corporation, leading to not knowing how to approach certain aspects of their job