Sociology Now, Census Update

Nations, or regional organizations like the European Union, attempt to bring differ-
ent countries together under one bureaucratic organization and even a single mone-
tary system (the euro).
And, of course, even the reactions againstglobalization use the forms and insti-
tutions of globalization to resist it. Religious fundamentalists or political extremists
who want to return to a more traditional society all use the Internet to recruit mem-
bers. Global media organizations like Al Jazeera (a global Arabic Muslim media source,
with TV and online outlets) spread a specific form of Islam as if it were the only form
of Islam—and Moslems in Indonesia begin to act more like Moslems in Saudi Arabia.
Every antiglobalization political group—from patriot groups on the far right to radi-
cal environmentalists on the far left—uses websites, bloggers, and Internet chat rooms
to recruit and spread its message. Globalization may change some of the dynamics of
groups and organizations—some new ones emerge and others fade—but the impor-
tance of groups and organizations in our daily lives cannot be overstated.

Groups ’R’ Us: Groups and

Interactions in the 21st Century

Although we belong to fewer groups than our parents might have, these groups may
also be increasingly important in our lives, composing more and more the people with
whom we interact and the issues with which we concern ourselves. We’re lonelier than
ever, and yet we continue to be a nation of joiners, and we locate ourselves still within
the comfortable boundaries of our primary groups.
We live in a society composed of many different groups and many different cul-
tures, subcultures, and countercultures, speaking different languages, with different
kinship networks and different values and norms. It’s noisy, and we rarely agree on
anything. And yet we also live in a society where the overwhelming majority of peo-
ple obey the same laws and are civil to one another and in which we respect the dif-
ferences among those different groups. We live in a society characterized by fixed,
seemingly intransigent hierarchy and a society in which people believe firmly in the
idea of mobility; a society in which your fixed, ascribed characteristics (race, class,
sex) are the single best determinants of where you will end up and a society in which
we also believe anyone can make it if they work hard enough.
It is a noisy and seemingly chaotic world and also one that is predictable and rel-
atively calm. The terms we have introduced in these two chapters—culture, society,
roles, status, groups, interaction, and organizations—are the conceptual tools that
sociologists use to make sense of this teeming tumult of disparate parts and this orderly
coherence of interlocking pieces.

GROUPS ‘R’ US: GROUPS AND INTERACTIONS IN THE 21st CENTURY 99

Chapter

Review

1.What do sociologists think about society?Sociologists

try to see the social context of individual lives. They look

at how society influences people and how people con-

struct society, as well as the interactions among indivi-

duals and the institutions in which these take place.

These institutions, along with social interactions, form a

social structure that organizes and provides context for

social life.

2.What is the social construction of reality?Sociologists

believe that there is no such thing as an objective

reality. Instead, according to Berger and Luckman, we