SCM Core Text Sociology of Religion. Andrew Dawson
two mutually constitutive elements interact. For Archer, both theorists fail to acknowledge that while structural determination may be to the fore in one time or place, in other periods and locales individual agency enjoys heightened efficacy (1996, pp. 72–96). The relationship between structure and agency is, then, often asymmetric in nature.
Wherever they stand on the spectrum of the determinism debate, most sociologists would agree that every individual is a social being whose values and beliefs, preferences and aversions, aspirations, preoccupations and prejudices, are never purely her own. Rather, they stem also from sources outside of ourselves (e.g. family, peer group, schooling, workplace, religion, media) and are internalized by us through our exposure to the processes of socialization particular to each of the institutions through which we pass. As Berger puts it: ‘Society does not stop at the surface of our skins. Society penetrates us as much as it envelops us’ (1966, p. 140). By virtue of our internalization of them, these exterior influences become integral features of our innermost subjectivity, influencing us in ways which – more often than not – escape our immediate awareness.
The tendency of social processes to influence human beings in ways which escape their immediate notice has sociological implications that go beyond some of the theoretical abstractions of the determinism debate. This is the case because structural determination generates patterns and regularities in human behaviour which impact directly upon the life choices made by and social opportunities available to every individual. As Jonathan Turner notes:
The symbolic and material resources available to individuals, the placement of people in space, the amount of time people have, the options that are realistically available, and just about everything that is possible in a micro encounter are all dictated by macrostructure. (1988, p. 211)
The macro-determination of micro-possibility generates comparative regularities in individual behaviour which can be mapped against shared characteristics of, for example, class membership, sex or ethnic identity. In respect of class, individuals belonging to poorer socio-economic groups exhibit different patterns of consumption from those from more affluent households. In both the UK and USA, for example, poorer families will spend less of their household income on fruit and vegetables than families from more affluent professional backgrounds. At the same time, more affluent families are more likely to purchase their groceries at supermarkets, where prices are generally cheaper and money goes further, while poorer families are more likely to shop at local stores where prices are generally higher. In the same vein, while those from poorer socio-economic groups are more likely than those from more affluent backgrounds to smoke, have a poorer diet, die sooner, suffer more illness, and recover more slowly from these illnesses, they are less likely to consult a dentist, optician and chiropodist and to make use of preventative facilities such as cervical screening and routine medical examination (Butler and Watt, 2007; Gilbert, 2008).
Where race and ethnicity are concerned, UK figures released in 2003 show different patterns of employment relative to differences in racial-ethnic status. For example, the data indicate that one in 20 Indian men is a doctor, compared with one in 200 white men, 45 per cent of Chinese men are in professional or managerial jobs compared with 25 per cent of white and Indian men, and members of the Hindu community are four times less likely to be unemployed than Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims. At the same time, while Black Caribbean women earn £30 more than white women, Pakistani and Bangladeshi women earn £34 less than their white counterparts (Cabinet Office, 2003).
In respect of sex, statistics from the USA clearly demonstrate societal patterning of female agency relative to that of men. For example, the annual income of American women in full-time employment is three-quarters of that of their male counterparts. In the same vein, while a man with a bachelor’s degree will earn approximately $25,000 more than a man with a highschool diploma, a woman with a bachelor’s degree will earn around only $5,000 more than a man with a high-school diploma. At the same time, whereas female professional employment is concentrated in the social and health sciences, male professional employment is concentrated in engineering and new technologies. Furthermore, during the course of their working lives women will enjoy substantially less leisure time than male workers, while subsequent to retiring from the workforce women are far more likely than men to suffer some form of socio-economic impoverishment (McCall, 2001; Ore, 2008; Rothenberg, 2006).
In terms of explaining the above modes of societal patterning, popular myths, ill-informed bigotries or simple ignorance point readily to the fecklessness or determination of the different classes, the idleness or industry of particular racial-ethnic groups and the respective inclinations of the sexes. In addition to perpetuating classist, racist and sexist prejudices, such poorly judged opinion commits the reductionist error of explaining overarching societal processes through reference to singular causes or unrelated phenomena which function in isolation from the complex systems they purport to explain. For example, while the biological differences between men and women are clearly relevant, they do not in themselves account for the processes of socialization and discrimination which sustain patriarchal structures and their gendered inequalities. In contrast, diligent sociological analysis of differential social outcomes takes due account of the macro-structural dynamics, institutional processes and micro-interactions which provide, ration or deny symbolic and material resources to individuals of differing sex, socio-economic standing or ethnic-racial origins.
The sociological gaze
By way of engaging society, the discipline of sociology turns its gaze upon a variety of domains, dimensions and dynamics which manifest and contribute to the social world as both a ‘structuring structure’ (through societal determination) and a ‘structured structure’ (arising from human agency).1 Sociology, then, concerns itself with analysing societal structures and social institutions which both mould their human inhabitants and shape society’s reproduction from one generation to the next. Here, the sociological gaze alights upon the properties and processes of, for example, state, education, employment and family, with particular attention, perhaps, to their variegated mediations of power, privilege, conformity and inequality. At the same time, sociology analyses the dynamics and outcomes of these variegated mediations, not least as they relate to biological characteristics of sex, race and age or the socio-cultural categories of gender, class or caste. In combination, these multiple and variable factors generate a stratified social landscape whose hierarchies of status and authority have direct but differentiated implications for the physical (e.g. health) and social (e.g. mobility) wellbeing of its members.
Traditionally treated through the oppositional themes of ‘integration’ and ‘deviance’, sociology also concerns itself with understanding the ways in which macro-processes and institutional dynamics engender the social conformity or manage the nonconformity of individuals and the groups to which they belong. In addition to analysing the concrete mechanisms of reward and punishment, sociology looks also to grasp the impact of prevailing values, conventional beliefs and common knowledges upon individual and collective behaviour. Exemplified by the recent prominence of cultural sociology, analysis of the socializing processes through which normative behaviour is inculcated has been increasingly complemented by critical attention to popular modes of symbolic expression and aesthetic production. Today, analysis of previously neglected modes of cultural production and everyday expression (e.g. television and popular humour) accompanies established critiques of ‘high’ culture, religious systems and civic traditions. In combination, the values, tastes, practices and conventions of the cultural domain furnish the means – material and symbolic – through which life (both individual and collective) is celebrated and rendered meaningful and its latent possibilities explored and expressed.
The way in which societies change over time is also an important object of sociological scrutiny. As noted above, modern society can be distinguished from earlier (for example feudal) societies through reference both to its typical institutional features and the way these institutions interact relative to the orchestration of particular macro-structural dynamics. As both institutions and macro-structures evolve over time, so too does their interaction and the implications it has for individual members of society. Whether analysing the transition from feudal through pre-modern to modern society or engaging the successive