Weebly
Introducing the Social Sciences:
An Overview of the 3 Disciplines
Social scientists seek to understand people. They are interested in the human experience and they examine cultures, societies and behaviours of different groups of people through their research. As you begin to study and examine society, you will discover that society is not static. Society is dynamic; it is constantly changing and transforming as our environment, beliefs, and values change. These changes can create challenges within a society that need to be addressed. Social scientists are interested in understanding how and why our society changes and how we can address the challenges these changes pose. We tend to break up the social sciences into 3 more specific disciples – anthropology, sociology and psychology.
|Anthropology |Psychology |Sociology |
|[pic] |[pic] |[pic] |
|Human Skull |Freud’s Psychoanalysis Couch |13th Annual Aboriginal Festival |
|Anthropology explores humanity through various |Psychology explores humanity through mental processes |Sociology explores humanity through the interactions |
|cultures’ similarities and differences. This |(individual or group). This discipline contains |of people in a specific society. This discipline |
|discipline contains multiple subgroups (often |multiple subgroups (often associated with the idea’s |contains numerous subgroups (often a blend of the |
|centred on cultural issues), all of which |originator), all of which attempt to understand how and|originator and social structure), all of which |
|attempt to understand how and why cultures |why people think and act. |attempt to understand how and why people interact. |
|exist, survive, and thrive. | | |
|Some Key Contributors: |Some Key Contributors: |Some Key Contributors: |
|Ruth Benedict |Sigmund Freud |Karl Marx |
|Margaret Mead |Ivan Pavlov |George Herbert Mead |
|Franz Boas |B.F. Skinner |Irving Goffman |
|Alfred Kroeber |Jean Piaget |Talcott Parsons |
Questions of Anthropologists, Psychologists and Sociologists
For each of the following questions, determine whether an Anthropologist, Psychologist or Sociologist would ask it, then write A, P or S in the space provided. At the bottom, add your own questions and try to determine which social scientist might ask it.
_______1) What causes mental illness?
_______2) How does the distant evolutionary past affect us today?
_______3) Why are there so many gangs?
_______4) Is personality inherited or learned?
_______5) How are humans different from apes?
_______6) Is our education system successful?
_______7) How is the family changing?
_______8) Does our justice system work?
_______9) Is the discipline of children the same across cultures?
_______10) What rituals are important to a society?
_______11) Do men and women think differently? If so, why?
Please have answered for Week 1. Session 3.
Using the 3 Disciplines to Examine the Montreal Massacre
What was the Montreal Massacre?
The École Polytechnique Massacre, also known as the Montreal Massacre, occurred on December 6, 1989 at the École Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Twenty-five-year-old Marc Lépine, armed with a legally obtained Mini-14 rifle and a hunting knife, shot twenty-eight people before killing himself. He began his attack by entering a classroom at the university, where he separated the male and female students. After claiming that he was "fighting feminism", he shot all nine women in the room, killing six. He then moved through corridors, the cafeteria, and another classroom, specifically targeting women to shoot. Overall, he killed fourteen women and injured ten other women and four men in just under twenty minutes before turning the gun on himself.
Psychological Perspective
What question(s) would a psychologist ask:
( What factors in Lepine’s personality led him to commit this crime?
( Did Lepine have a psychological disorder?
( Were there any traumatic events in Lepine’s childhood that made him act this way?
( Was Lepine violent or suicidal at other times in his life?
What central assumption of the discipline is this based upon? An individual’s personality and behaviour is shaped by his or her prior experiences. Understanding the significance of key events in Lepine’s upbringing as will help us to understand his actions on the day of the massacre.
What method(s) might they use? Psychologists would want to conduct interviews to assess his psychological state; however, since Lepine killed himself, psychologists would not be able to interview him. They would speak to his family and friends. They would also examine his suicide note as well as documents relating to his prior life, particularly his formative early years.
The explanation: Marc Lepine’s father was a brutal man who regularly beat Marc and his mother. When Marc was seven years old, his parents separated. Testimony at the divorce hearing revealed a long history of physical abuse. These traumatic events scarred Marc. Having been brought up in an abusive home, he saw violence as a viable solution to life’s problems. He was a shy and secretive boy who was not brought up in a home where discussing one’s problems was encouraged. When his difficulties began to overwhelm him, he resorted to violence.
Lepine’s father openly expressed his opinion that women were inferior to men. Like his father, Marc believed that women were inferior and he hated them. He did not have close female relationships, and blamed women for most of his problems. The engineering class represented a place where, in Marc’s opinion, women were invading a space that should have been a male domain. His murderous rampage allowed him to act out his hatred. In his suicide note, he wrote, “I have decided to send Ad Patres [Latin: "to the fathers"] the feminists who have ruined my life. ... The feminists always have a talent for enraging me.” Lepine’s mother speculated later that it might have been an attack indirectly aimed at her, since as a single working mother, she embodied some of the “feminist” ideals that Marc hated.
Marc used a gun to kill most of his victims. Marc’s fascination with guns dated from his teenage years, when he spent summers hunting at his uncle’s farm. The guns may have given him a feeling of power and control over his world. He applied for the Canadian Forces but was rejected, and his proclivity for violence and fascination with guns found another outlet.
Sociological Perspective:
What question(s) would they ask:
Sociologists attempting to explain the massacre would look at social trends of gender and gender violence:
( What common factors are in the lives of men who have acted with extreme violence against women?
( What are the social norms and institutions that shaped Lepine’s view of gender?
( How are misogyny, male violence and sexism present in social institutions?
( How are women normally treated in this context (at a technical school)?
( What social interactions in Lepine’s background affected his relationship with women?
( Why did Lepine focus his hatred on women as the hated ‘other’?
What central assumption of the discipline is this based upon: The significance of the acts Lepine committed can best be understood when looked at in context of the social norms and institutions around him and his belonging to certain groups (men, mass murderers, victims of abuse).
What method(s) might they use: Sociologists might study the statistics around gender violence in Canadian society. They would also look at other instances of mass murders – particularly those with women as the victims – and draw conclusions about the perpetrators. They could also analyze the presence of gender stereotypes within the institution of the polytechnic school. In addition, they would study society’s approach to gun control – what are the rules and systems that allowed Lepine to legally acquire a gun and to enter the classroom with a gun?
The explanation: Sociologists would say that mass killers as a group share common characteristics, and Lepine fits the typical profile of a mass killer. He was a loner with few meaningful relationships. He came from a broken family where there was a history of violence and abuse. Early in his development, he began to blame his frustration and failures on a hated “other” – in Lepine’s case – women. Once he had adopted this ideology about gender, he began to perceive everything in terms of how this target group caused his problems. The massacre was his way of taking vengeance on this group.
Lepine’s crime took place within a society that, despite the successes of the feminist movement, was still patriarchal. His victims were chosen because engineering was considered a typically male field of study, and Lepine believed that women were taking over and pushing men out. There are still gender divides in many fields of study and work, and Lepine was not the only one to perceive engineering as a men’s field – educational institutions at this time did not push women to enter these fields and they were the minority in classes and in the workplace. Lepine believed that women were trying to usurp men’s jobs and social roles and that these “radical feminists” (i.e. women enrolled in science courses and in other male-dominated professions) were destroying society. He believed that certain rights and privileges should go hand in hand with being a man and he blamed his shortcomings on women.
There was no gun registry at the time and Lepine was able to acquire a gun legally without an intensive screening. The social structures were not in place to prevent it
Anthropological Perspective:
What question(s) would they ask:
( Why do some men act violently toward women, particularly to the point of murdering them?
( Why does society seem to tolerate violence against women?
( Are there patterns evident when examining this case and other mass murders?
( What cultural norms exist around gender roles and what kind of ‘retribution’ have men taken against women who transgress these roles?
( Why do men in many cultures and eras feel a need to dominate women?
What central assumption of the discipline is this based upon: There are factors in the nature of human society as a while that encourage some men to act violently against women. The incident needs to be examined holistically and in context, and it can be compared to similar incidents in other cultures and periods of time.
What method(s) might they use: Anthropologists would examine statistics of gender violence as well as mass murders in Canadian society and compare it with male violence in other societies and at other points in history to see if there are larger trends.
The explanation: Marc’s murderous rampage was the ultimate act of male violence in a society that has traditionally tolerated acts of violence against women – including domestic violence, rape, and sexual harassment. Statistics show that one in five women has been or will be sexually abused, while one woman in four has been or will be physically abused. In some societies, domestic abuse is still tolerated and men who assault their wives or female relatives are treated less harshly by the courts.
Women often make less money than men in certain careers and have been treated around the world and throughout history as less valued than men. Women are exploited and objectified by the media. In addition, violence is glamourized in the media. Marc Lepine took the message that he got at home and in society – that women are less valued than men and violence against them is acceptable – to its limits.
In addition, anthropologists would look at patterns of mass murder across cultures. Mass murderers usually target a group – generally it is an ethnic or religious group, but in this case, Lepine targeted women. Mass murderers do not kill because they enjoy it, they kill because want to make a statement against the group. Lepine wanted to take out as many of his “enemies” as he could and then die in a blaze of what he perceived as glory.
Apply What You Learned:
Part 1. Using the information gained from the Montreal Massacre case study, come up with 3 questions someone from EACH disciple would have for your selected scenario.
Part 2. Additionally, offer a potential explanation tied to each disciple for your scenario. Look at the various explanation offered for the Montreal Massacre for guidance.
Scenario:
A group of thugs attack and injure two men they see coming out of a gay bar.
| | | |
|Anthropology |Psychology |Sociology |
| | | |
|Part 1. (3 questions) |Part 1. (3 questions) |Part 1. (3 questions) |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
|Part 2. (1 sentence explanation) |Part 2. (1 sentence explantation) |Part 2. (1 sentence explantation) |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
................
................
In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.
To fulfill the demand for quickly locating and searching documents.
It is intelligent file search solution for home and business.