Abstract
The introductory sociology course is typically the only course most students take in sociology; hence, the introductory textbook becomes the only sociology textbook they may ever read as college students. The textbook, however, often lacks rigor in explaining concepts. This study focused on the thoroughness of explanations of the relations of substructure and superstructure of society by Karl Max (economic determinism) and Max Weber (ideological determinism) in a sample of introductory sociology textbooks. We found only one textbook to be consistently thorough in explaining both determinisms, and most textbooks were rated as low in their explanations of both concepts. We argue for greater thoroughness in introductory sociology textbooks, especially in the interest of students who participate in online learning and those who may not take another course in sociology and whose impression of the discipline would be framed by the introductory textbook.
As the discipline of sociology approaches its 200th-year birthday, literature appears to suggest a progression of thoughts in the discipline regarding the presence of a universal set of required disciplinary knowledge. The perception of the discipline for most of the twentieth century was that it lacked a core knowledge and required competencies. This perception, perhaps, dates to 1909, when Jerome Dowd of the newly formed American Sociological Society (ASS) investigated, to no avail, the feasibility of establishing a standardized content for instructors of sociology (Howard 2010). Also, in 1991, the ASA report, Liberal Learning and the Sociology Major, suggested that introductory sociology should strive to provide a survey of the discipline, but efforts to identify a core set of topics, concepts, and ideas had achieved limited success (Howard et al. 2014).
The perceived lack of a core standard knowledge in the discipline had led some sociologists to investigate the possibilities of establishing a standard core knowledge and a set of skills for the discipline. D’Antonio (1983), for example, proposed that the discipline should require knowledge on classical theoretical thinkers like Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim as well as topics such as groups and organizations, sociological theories, research methods, and social stratification as minimum core knowledge for the discipline. He, however, also indicated that his proposals were his preferences based on what he considered essential for the discipline rather than based on the findings of any study or assessment of the views of sociologists in general.
In their survey and analysis of the content of introductory sociology textbooks, Keith and Enders (2004) also found that introductory textbooks were very diverse in content and explanations of concepts. The authors found that most concepts were not covered in multiple books, and in most cases, several concepts were covered in only one textbook. They also discovered that only about 3 percent of all concepts were covered in all 35 textbooks they studied. Similarly, in the survey of about 301 teachers of the introductory sociology course regarding what should be covered in the course, Wagenaar (2004) indicated that no one concept was endorsed by all 301 respondents. In fact, no one concept was agreed on by more than 10 percent of the respondents (Wagenaar 2004).
More recent scholarship in teaching sociology has, however, challenged old assumptions and produced a new narrative that now demonstrates the presence of key concepts and competencies for the discipline. For example, Susan Ferguson (2016) demonstrated the presence of commonly accepted key concepts and competencies in the discipline both internationally and domestically in the United States. She indicated that the U.K. Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) outlines a comprehensive set of learning goals for sociology in its 2007 report, United Kingdom Quality Assurance for Higher Ed Sociology. Furthermore, in 2012, the Australian Sociological Association (TASA) published Sociology: Threshold Learning Outcomes, which responded to a governmental charge that disciplines in higher education in Australia must define learning outcomes as part of their assessment activities. (P. 165)
Here in the United States, in 2013, the American Sociological Association (ASA) released the “Sociological Companion Document,” which listed sociology core requirements for high school teachers of introductory sociology (Ferguson 2016). For higher education, evidence of core content area for sociology can be found in Liberal Learning and the Sociology Major (McKinney et al. 2004), which identified 16 areas of knowledge and competence recommendations for the development and structuring of a sociology curriculum. Also, the 2008 ASA Task Force on College-Level Introduction to Sociology Course reported nine topics (the sociological perspective, research methods, culture, socialization, social organization, social inequalities, deviance and conformity, social institutions, and social change) as learning goals for introductory sociology (Ferguson 2016).
Further evidence of the presence of core concepts and competences can be found in the sociological literacy framework (Ferguson 2016) and “Measuring College Learning in Sociology” (Ferguson and Carbonaro 2016), which demonstrated the presence of five concepts and competencies in the introductory sociology and sociology degree curricular in the United States. These concepts and competencies were: (a) the sociological eye (key theoretical frameworks and assumptions upon which the discipline was founded and differentiated from other social sciences), (b) social structure (understanding the concept of social structure and how structural forces affect human action and social life), (c) socialization (understanding the social construction of self through relationships with society), (d) stratification (understanding how social structures create, reproduce, and maintain different forms and consequences of stratified inequality) and (e) social change and social reproduction (comprehending how social structures reproduce themselves and how social change occurs in different aspects of society; Ferguson 2016; Ferguson and Carbonaro 2016). These concepts and competencies have been endorsed by the ASA, as evident in its publication authored by Pike et al. (2017), who published those same concepts and competences in The Sociology Major in the Changing Landscape of Higher Education: Curriculum, Careers, and Online Learning.
This present study on thoroughness of explanations of relations among social structures in introductory sociology textbooks is informed by the articulated key concepts and competencies demonstrated in recent studies about the discipline and particularly, the introductory sociology course. The concepts and competencies, especially as presented by Ferguson (2016) and Ferguson and Carbonaro (2016), have the potential to widely inform the delivery of both a curriculum in the discipline and the learning outcomes of an introductory sociology course. These outcomes especially, as outlined in recent studies (Ferguson 2016; Ferguson and Carbonaro 2016; McKinney et al. 2004), are expected to be consistent with the perspective of the discipline that explains human social behaviors and all social phenomena by forces of social structures.
The understanding of social structures as the architect of human realities is fundamental to the discipline of sociology, as emphasized in the seminal works of Peter Berger (1963) and C. Wright Mills (1959). In Sociological Imagination, Mills (1959) expressed the central tenet of sociology as a discipline that connected personal biographies with history. Hence, personal experiences are best understood through the larger general social issues generated by social structures. Also, in Invitation to Sociology, Berger (1963) described the sociological perspective as the recognition that human behaviors and all social phenomena were not accidental but structurally produced. He explained that the point of sociology was to investigate and explain how social structures determined social realities. Similarly, Elwell (2013) demonstrated in Sociocultural Systems: Principles of Structure and Change how macro social structures were at the center of understanding all social phenomena consistently with the origin of sociology. Essentially, the understanding of relations of social structures to human realities is the raison d’etre of the discipline (Keith and Ender 2004).
Objective
In that the central focus of sociology as a discipline as well as the introductory course is the understanding of the relations of social structures and human realities, the quality of explanations of these relationships becomes important in introductory sociology textbooks as students first become exposed to the discipline. Also, thoroughness in textbook explanations of concepts is, arguably, becoming critical as the nature of distance learning requires online students to rely on studying textbooks for knowledge more so than students in brick-and-mortar classrooms who benefit from instructors’ face-to-face explanations. For this study, our interest lies mainly in the thoroughness of explanations of relations between the substructure and the superstructure of society in introductory sociology textbooks.
The substructure and superstructures of society are typically discussed in introductory sociology textbooks as part of Karl Marx’s idea of economic determinism (Marx [1859] 1970) and Max Weber’s ideological determinism (Weber [1904–1905] 2010) for an understanding of how social structures shape human experiences. If the introductory course is expected to give students a strong preparation in sociology as well adequately represent the discipline to them, how well textbooks for the course explain concepts becomes an integral part of these expectations. As such, thoroughness in the explanations of the concepts of substructure and superstructure and their relationships with each other in introductory sociology textbooks became the impetus for this study including the determination of two specific goals:
to assess the thoroughness of the explanation of Karl Marx’s substructure-superstructure relations in his economic determinism in a sample of introductory sociology textbooks
to assess the thoroughness of the explanation of Max Weber’s substructure-superstructure relations in his ideological determinism in a sample of introductory sociology textbooks.
Our choice of studying the thoroughness of explanations of Marx’s economic determinism and Weber’s ideological determinism lies in our judgment of the relative importance of these concepts for the understanding of relations among social structures. This is consistent with the assertions of the relevance of understanding social structures by Mills (1959), Berger (1963), Elwell (2013), and as listed among the competencies for introductory sociology and the discipline in the sociological literacy framework (Ferguson 2016) and “Measuring College Learning in Sociology” (Ferguson and Carbonaro 2016).
Both economic and ideological determinisms are typically covered in one of the opening chapters in introductory sociology textbooks (typically within the first five chapters), hence, presenting an early impression of relations among social structures to students. Given that sociology emphasizes the roles of social structures in human realities, an understanding of patterns of relations among social structures and their consequences to human behavior and social conditions deserve careful and thorough explanations when first introduced to students. This is because the first introduction to, or encounter with, sociological reasoning (in this case, relations among social structures) would probably set the stage for how students would form their first impressions of the discipline.
Method
To determine thoroughness in coverage of Marx’s deterministic economic substructure (economic determinism) and Weber’s deterministic ideological substructure (ideological determinism) in introductory sociology textbooks, we provide in the following sections, a brief narrative of our benchmark knowledge for assessing the contents of introductory sociology textbooks on the two concepts. Our benchmark knowledge was determined based on the key concepts and knowledge in Marx’s economic determinism (Marx [1859] 1970) and Weber’s ideological determinism (Weber [1904–1905] 2010).
Economic Determinism
Karl Marx explained that there were two main dimensions to every society: a substructure (or infrastructure) and a superstructure. The substructure is the foundation of society, like the foundation of a building, and the superstructure, consisting of the rest of society (e.g., all social institutions, human behaviors, and all human social conditions), is built on the substructure (Marx [1859] 1970). This means that the nature of the superstructure of a society will reflect the nature of the society’s substructure. For Marx, the forces of the mode of economic production, that is, the totality of all economic activities of society, constituted the substructure that determined all other social structures and their outcomes in society (Marx [1859] 1970).
Marx’s postulation that the forces of economic production determined society’s superstructure became known as economic determinism. That is, even though sociologists termed Marx’s work as economic determinism, Marx did not directly use the term (McMurtry 1973). He, however, persistently and dogmatically described how the economic substructure of society was deterministic of all social realities. He repeatedly used the German words bestimmt (which means determining) and bedingt (meaning conditional) to explain how all social realities were determined by or conditional on the economic substructure (McMurtry 1973). He indicated that the mode of economic production was at the center of society (Morrison 2006; Ritzer 1983), determining society’s legal and political structures, philosophies, ideologies, literature, art, and all forms of social consciousness (Marx [1859] 1970). Therefore, the titling of Marx’s relationship between the substructure and the superstructure as economic determinism is correctly apposite (McMurtry 1973).
According to Marx, the economic substructure of society produced two major classes of people based on each class’ relations to the means (tools and all materials) of production. The bourgeoisie class comprised of owners of means of production, whereas the proletariat class consisted of nonowners who sold their labor to the owners (Marx [1859] 1970). Commenting particularly about capitalism, Marx indicated that the two classes would engage in a symbiotic relationship of job producers and labor that would give the bourgeoisie class the structural opportunity to exploit the labor of the proletariat class (Marx [1859] 1970). In the process, the extent of the exploitation of proletariat labor would determine the extent of profit and wealth that would accrue to the bourgeoisie class and conversely, the extent of poverty of the proletarians. Therefore, the forces of economic production became deterministic of the creation of both wealth and poverty in society (Marx [1859] 1970).
Ideological Determinism
Max Weber agreed with Karl Marx that society had the two dimensions of a substructure and a superstructure and that the substructure determined the superstructure (Weber [1904–1905] 2010). Weber, however, disagreed with Marx on what constituted the substructure because Weber saw the prevailing ideologies of society, rather than the economic institution, as the substructure of society (Weber [1904–1905] 2010). Specifically, Weber claimed that the substructure of the collective of society’s ideologies of politics, law, and religion shaped all social realities (Weber [1904–1905] 2010). Hence, the term ideological determinism becomes equally accurately entitling to Weber’s work as economic determinism is appropriate to Marx’s.
Weber further contended that the economy was a part of society’s superstructure (rather than substructure) because it resulted from the dominant ideologies of society (Weber [1904–1905] 2010). Therefore, for Weber, to understand why a particular society had, and maintained, a particular economic mode of production, the prevailing dominant ideologies of the society must be understood because they revealed the ideas upon which the economic system was built ([1904–1905] 2010). Weber explicated his notion of ideological substructure with an account of the emergence of modern capitalism from the religious ethics of the 1500s Protestants.
As Weber explained, John Calvin, the founder of Calvinism, criticized the Catholic Church for its lenient and permissive doctrine of salvation that permitted the cycle of atonement, confession, and forgiveness, which wiped away sin and allowed one to sin again (Weber [1904–1905] 2010). Because of his disagreement with the Catholic Church, Calvin left Catholicism and started Calvinism, which promoted ascetism and a more restrictive measure for salvation (Weber [1904–1905] 2010). Calvin also preached the doctrine of predestination that taught how God had assigned people into one of two categories, the saved or the damned, and how nothing could be done to reverse one’s assignment. Upon death, the saved would gain everlasting life, and the damned would perish in hell (Weber [1904–1905] 2010).
To eliminate the uncertainties of predestination assignments, Calvinism adopted the symbol of the “calling” invented by Martin Luther as the sign of salvation (Weber [1904–1905] 2010). For the Calvinists, the calling indicated that those who achieved economic success through legitimate activities like hard work, savings, financial investments, diligence at work, ascetism, and becoming men of vocation were those whom God had called or assigned for salvation (Weber [1904–1905] 2010). This led the 1500s Calvinists to become economically enterprising for the purpose of attaining salvation, and they developed rational thinking and behavior in their economic pursuits (Weber [1904–1905] 2010).
Eventually, as later generations of Calvinists became mostly success-motivated in their economic enterprises, they stripped the calling of its religious and spiritual anchorages (Weber [1904–1905] 2010). They also transformed the calling into a rationalist system of success for the sake of success as well as rationalist approaches for dealing with every aspect of life, including politics, arts, and family (Edles and Applerouth 2015). The popularity of the Calvinists’ rational economic approach to religion led to the adoption of rational economic behaviors by other Protestants, and it was through the Protestants’ rational economic practices that the patterns (spirit) of modern capitalism evolved (Weber [1904–1905] 2010). Hence, for Weber, an economic system, in this case, modern capitalism, was the result of the religious ideologies of the 1500s Calvinists and other Protestants, confirming his point that ideologies were the substructure of society and that the economic system was a resultant superstructure.
Data
The 11 top-selling introductory sociology textbooks in 2019 (Liu and Szasz 2019) were used to analyze the thoroughness of coverage of both Marx’s economic determinism and Weber’s ideological determinism in introductory sociology textbooks. We defined an introductory sociology textbook as a book that was written and intended to be used as the main teaching and learning resource in an introduction to sociology course, and only the latest edition of each book was included in this study. We used the top-selling books (see Table 1) because they represented the most widely read introductory sociology textbooks and the most likely books to frame the discipline for students, especially online students and those whose only exposure to sociology would be the introductory course. Also, we adopted the list of 11 top-selling introductory sociology textbooks in Liu and Szasz (2019) for this study because the list was very recent (only a few months old) and was published in a reputable journal (Teaching Sociology), therefore nullifying any necessity for a newer list of top-selling books.
Eleven Top-Selling Introduction to Sociology Textbooks.
Note: Adapted from Liu and Szasz (2019).
Coverage of Economic and Ideological Determinisms
We analyzed the extent of thoroughness in the explanations of both economic determinism and ideological determinism in each of the 11 top-selling introductory textbooks that constituted our textbook sample. For each book, we began by reading and analyzing how our focal concepts were explained in the early chapters, where the most relevant sociological works of the classical thinkers were first introduced to students. Only the chapters where the concepts were explained were studied, rather than each entire book. We estimated that thoroughness in explanations of our concepts of interest in the early chapters was important in shaping students’ understanding of relations among social structures and in guiding students in framing the discipline from the works of the theoretical thinkers. We also assumed that it was likely that instructors might augment the content of an early chapter with materials from other (later) chapters in the textbook. Hence, we used the glossaries of concepts and names to locate all other pages in each book where economic determinism, ideological determinism, substructure, superstructure, Karl Marx, and Max Weber were mentioned and added any relevant additional information relating to economic and ideological determinisms that were not already explained in the early chapters to our analysis.
Economic determinism
Our analysis of the coverage of this concept was based on the extent of thoroughness in explanation of Marx’s position that the economic mode of production was the foundation (the base) upon which all aspects of the superstructure of society was built. As a pattern, except for Macionis (2017) and Benokraitis (2019), who presented the works of both Marx and Weber in the fourth chapter, the two classical thinkers were discussed in the first chapter in most of the textbooks (Conley 2019; Ferris and Stein 2018; Giddens et al. 2018; Henslin 2017; Schaefer 2012; Thompson, Hickey, and Thompson 2019; Tischler 2019) and in the second chapter in two books (Manza et al. 2018; Ritzer 2018). All the textbooks presented the works of Marx and Weber after basic foundational concepts like social structures, the sociological perspective, and the sociological imagination had been explained. We deemed the locations of the coverage of the two thinkers in each book appropriate for adding value to understanding sociology’s emphasis on social structures because students could begin to learn about relations among social structures from these thinkers in early chapters.
The pattern of coverage showed that economic determinism was, at best, minimally explained by most of the textbooks. For example, in SOC 6 (third best seller) Benokraitis (2019) omitted any discussion of economic determinism (or historical materialism). Instead, the section on Marx only acknowledged Marx’s focus on the analysis of society’s economy, especially capitalism. The rest of the section was on the understanding of class, class exploitation, and class conflict but without tying any idea to economic determinism.
Like Benokraitis (2019), the pattern of emphasis on Marx’s economic transition through class conflict rather than a discussion of economic determinism or historical materialism was true of Conley (2019), Ferris and Stein (2018), Giddens et al. (2018), Henslin (2017), Schaefer (2012), and Tischler (2019). Although Giddens et al. (2018) indicated that Marx’s conception of history was materialistic and addressed the point that Marx believed that social change was primarily the result of economic influences, the expatiation offered was on class exploitation and overthrow of capitalism. Although class conflict and economic transitions from capitalism to communism are supposed outcomes of the capitalist economic system and hence, an evidence of economic determinism, Giddens et al. (2018) omitted Marx’s direct explanation of how all social outcomes (not just the demise of capitalism) were the product of an economic substructure.
The discussion of Marx in Thompson et al. (2019) also did not directly address economic determinism, but it affirmed the role of social forces in shaping social realities. The discussion was minimal and did not address critical promulgation of Marx’s dimensions of substructure and superstructures of society and how the substructure shaped all other structures. But unlike the other books that did not advance their explanations of economic determinism in other chapters (beyond what was explained in early chapters), Thompson et al. (2019) revisited Marx in the chapter on religion (chapter 15) and slightly addressed economic determinism by stating that “Marx argued that the economic base influenced all other social institutions” (Thompson et al. 2019:217). This statement was followed by how the elite in society controlled the politics, the economy, and religious ideologies and use religion to promote their interests, but the comment was not connected to a deterministic economic substructure.
Manza et al. (2018) used neither the term economic determinism nor historical materialism, and neither did the book directly explain the concepts of substructure nor superstructure. The essence of these concepts, however, permeated through the discussion of Marx. For example, the book explained Marx’s key point of an economic system as the foundation of any society and that the relationships between individuals and groups were created by the economic system. It also explained Marx’s position that the economic system of society determined what was possible in politics and culture; therefore, to understand why particular kinds of social or cultural ideas emerged, we must look at society’s economic system (Manza et al. 2018).
Macionis (2017) appears to be the most detailed in explaining economic determinism. Rather than using the term economic determinism, the book used Marx’s own words, materialism. The book also used the term infrastructure (Latin for below) rather than the alternative term, substructure, to explain the structural base of society. In addition, Macionis (2017) explained the concept of the superstructure as the rest of society that was built on the infrastructure. The book made the point that for Marx, “it is the economy that forms the real foundation of society” (Macionis 2017:96), and all social institutions like the family, the political system, and religion were built on this foundation. Macionis (2017) also explained how the economy shaped other social institutions of society and how other social institutions supported the economy. The book illustrated this point with an example of how “under capitalism, the legal system protects capitalists’ wealth, and the family allows capitalists to pass their wealth from one generation to the next” (Macionis 2017:19). Lastly, like other books (Conley 2019; Manza et al. 2018; Ritzer 2018; Schaefer 2012; Tischler 2019), Macionis (2017) addressed Marx’s point that two classes, the capitalist and the proletariat, existed in a capitalist society as owners and laborers, respectively. And the book also discussed how class conflict, alienation, and economic transition from capitalism to communism were the products of capitalist economic infrastructure.
Some books contained Marx’s narrative on alienation, so we analyzed the explanations of alienation relative to economic determinism in those books. As a pattern, these books (Benokraitis 2019; Conley 2019; Ferris and Stein 2018; Ritzer 2018) indicated that class exploitation resulted in proletariat alienation but without explaining the deterministic nature of capitalism in producing alienation. The discussions on alienation could have been an additional ideal location for explaining Marx’s substructure-superstructure relations if the books had explained how alienation was determined by an economic substructure in Marx’s philosophy. That is, alienation was a superstructure determined by an economic substructure, namely, capitalism. Instead, the books generally focused on how alienation caused class conflict leading to the eventual demise of capitalism. An exception to the pattern of coverage of alienation was Ritzer’s (2018), which directly connected alienation to structural determinism by indicating that the systems of economic, political, and social relationships allowed the bourgeoisie class the opportunity to exploit workers, invariably causing a proletariat revolution and the overthrow of the existing class system.
Economic determinism thoroughness criteria
We reviewed each book and analyzed thoroughness of explanations based on the presence of a few key ideas that we deemed adequate in explaining economic determinism from our benchmark knowledge of the concept. Each idea was coded as “yes,” “yes plus,” or “no” (Y, Y+, N) for being included or excluded in the explanation of economic determinism in each textbook. When an idea was included in an early chapter in a book, it was coded as Y. And because we also searched the entirety of each book for other chapters where economic determinism was further explained, we assigned the code of Y+ when the concept was further described in a later chapter. When an idea was not explained anywhere in a book, the idea was coded as N. Although both Y and Y+ indicated inclusion of an explanatory idea, we deemed the location of an explanation (earlier or later chapter) noteworthy because we perceived greater details in explanation in one earlier chapter best for effective and efficient understanding of concepts at first introduction.
The criteria for determining thoroughness of coverage was based on the inclusion of the following six basic ideas in the discussion of economic determinism in each book: (1) the term economic determinism or materialism, (2) the meaning of substructure or infrastructure, (3) the meaning of superstructure, (4) the infra/substructure determining the superstructure, (5) the economic system is society’s infra/substructure, (6) the economic infra/substructure determining all social institutions, social structures, and human realities such as poverty (see Table 2).
Analysis and Rating of Thoroughness of Economic and Ideological Determinisms.
Note: Y = yes: explained; Y+ = explained as additional information in a later chapter; N = not explained. Criteria for items sought for inclusion in explaining economic determinism: (1) the term economic determinism or materialism, (2) the concept of substructure or infrastructure, (3) the concept of superstructure, (4) the substructure determines the superstructure, (5) the economic system is society’s substructure, and (6) the economic substructure determines all social institutions, social structures, and human realities, such as poverty. Criteria for items sought for inclusion in explaining ideological determinism: (1) disagreement with Marx on what constitutes the substructure of society; (2) the collective of ideas and ideologies form the substructure of society; (3) the ideological substructure shaping the superstructure-social institutions/social outcomes; (4) the economic mode is superstructure, not substructure; (5) the Protestant ethics; and (6) the emergence of modern practices of capitalism from the protestant ethics.
Ideological determinism
Consistently with Weber’s position (and in opposition to Marx’s economic determinism), ideological determinism was defined in this study to mean that prevailing social ideologies formed the substructure that determined the superstructure of society. The presentation of Weber’s ideological determinism appeared to be substantially more thorough than the coverage of Marx’s economic determinism across all 11 top-selling introductory sociology textbooks. Macionis (2017) gave an extensive explanation of Weber’s ideological determinism, beginning with an explanation of Weber’s opposition to Marx’s philosophy of materialism (economic determinism), and the book pointed out that Weber substituted Marx’s economic base with an ideological base in the philosophy of idealism.
Other books (Benokraitis 2019; Conley 2019; Henslin 2017; Tischler 2019) also briefly commented that Weber opposed Marx’s view of a deterministic economic structure. Conley (2019), for example, commented on Weber’s opposition to Marx’s emphasis on the economy and social class and how Weber offered an alternative perspective to Marx by indicating that sociological analysis should include other factors, such as culture and politics beyond the economy. Henslin’s (2017) discussion of Weber also asserted that Weber controverted Marx on the claim that the economy was the central force that produced change. Although Henslin (2017) did not directly address economic determinism under Marx, the book alluded to the concept under Weber. Similarly to Henslin’s (2017) approach, Tischler’s (2019) explanation of ideological determinism was juxtaposed with economic determinism. In explaining Weber, Tischler (2019) did not directly use the terms economic determinism and ideological determinism. Instead, the book presented Marx’s idea of how ownership of factories determined the control of wealth, power, and ideas in society and Weber’s opposition that “ideologies sometimes influence the economic system” (Tischler 2019:15).
Although very brief on Weber, Giddens et al. (2018) addressed the point that Weber opposed Marx’s materialistic view of history and that ideas and human values were equally deterministic of social change. Benokraitis (2019) was also very brief, but the book addressed the difference between Weber and Marx on forces of social change and without indicating that Weber directly opposed Marx’s economic determinism. Benokraitis (2019) mentioned Weber’s position that to understand society, we must understand the roles of the economy and political and cultural structures of society. This was the closest description of ideological determinism in this book, but it did not specifically advance the explanation of the roles of society’s ideologies as the substructure upon which all other social structures were built.
The most prominent area of explanation of ideological determinism in the 11 books was Weber’s explanation of the roles of the Protestant ethics in the development of capitalism. Each one of the 11 books addressed this aspect of ideological determinism either in one of the beginning chapters or later in the book, especially in the chapter on religion (Benokraitis 2019; Ferris and Stein 2018; Giddens et al. 2018; Schaefer 2012; Thompson et al. 2019; Tischler 2019) or bureaucracies and formal organizations (Henslin 2017) and researching the social world (Ritzer 2018). For the most part, the coverage of ideological determinism in most of the books mainly addressed how Protestantism was a factor in the development of capitalism rather than a contrast of the ideas of Marx and Weber in what constituted the substructure of society and the proper location of the economy within the two dimensions (substructure or superstructure) of society. In some cases (Giddens et al. 2018; Macionis 2017; Manza et al. 2018; Ritzer 2018; Schaefer 2012), the coverage of the Protestant ethics focused on why capitalism developed first in Protestant western countries rather than countries dominated by religious ideologies like Catholicism, Hinduism, and Confucianism.
Although the general concept of the Protestant ethics was commonly mentioned and discussed in all the books, albeit typically in brief, scattered across chapters, and not fully demonstrating a contrast in structural determinism (economic or ideologic) between Marx and Weber, the specific contribution of Calvinism was mainly missing in most of the books. The exception to this omission were Benokraitis (2019), Henslin (2017), Macionis (2017), Ritzer (2018), and Tischler (2019). Macionis (2017), perhaps, gave the most detailed narrative of Weber’s account of Calvinism that included explanations of major key ideas, including worldly ascetism, predestination, profit-making, application of rationality for economic success, the calling, and practices of investment and accounting. The book also explained how, according to Weber, the religious ethics of early Calvinists became work ethics in capitalism. And importantly, the book narrated Weber’s example of Calvinist teachings to demonstrate how the substructure of society comprised of ideas, in opposition to Marx’s economic substructure. Both Henslin (2017) and Tischler (2019) were also strong in discussing Weber’s work on Calvinism. These books (Tischler more so than Henslin) gave a considerable explanation of Weber’s discussion of the Protestant ethics that included a fair amount of similar content about Calvinist doctrines as found in Macionis (2017).
The discussion of Calvinism in the chapter on education and religion in Benokraitis (2019) extended the explanation of Weber’s Protestant ethics beyond what was covered in the first chapter in the book. This extension was made relative only to the functions of religion in promoting social change rather than in explaining the contrast between economic and ideological substructures. Like Benokraitis (2019), Ritzer’s (2018) and Henslin’s (2017) explanations also lacked the connection that Weber made between a substructure of ideologies and the existence of all social institutions of society, including how the economy was an outcome of ideologies.
Ideological determinism thoroughness criteria
Like our analysis of the coverage of Marx’s economic determinism, we assessed each book for the presence of six key ideas in its explanation of Weber’s ideological infrastructure (ideological determinism). The assessment criteria were discussions of (1) disagreement with Marx on what constituted the substructure of society; (2) the collective of ideas and ideologies forming the substructure of society; (3) the ideological substructure shaping the superstructure of social institutions, social structures, and all social outcomes; (4) the economic mode as superstructure rather than substructure; (5) the Protestant ethics; and (6) the emergence of the practices of modern capitalism from the Protestant ethics.
To determine the ratings for thoroughness of explanations of ideological determinism in the top-selling textbooks, we used the same Y, Y+, and N coding system, with the same meanings, as we used for assessing economic determinism. Because there were six explanatory criteria ideas that we scored as Y, Y+, or N for being included in the explanations of each concept (economic determinism and ideological determinism), the total possible number of Y and Y+ a book could get for explaining each determinism was six, and the minimum was zero. In the case that a book did not explain a concept at all (i.e., a complete absence of all the six explanatory ideas for economic or ideological determinism), the book was designated as “absent” for the concept.
Next, we added the number of Y and Y+ scores for each concept (ideological and economic determinism) and determined final ratings for thoroughness of explanation for each concept in each book. For each concept, the thoroughness rating of low was assigned if a book obtained only one or two Y/Y+ scores. Also, the thoroughness ratings of average and high were assigned when a concept obtained three or four and five or six Y/Y+, respectively, in each book.
Findings
Findings of our analysis are described in the following under each of the objectives for this study:
Thoroughness Ratings of Economic Determinism
Among the 11 top-selling introductory sociology textbooks reviewed for this study, all but one (Benokraitis 2019) gave at least a partial explanation of economic determinism. The explanations were either in one of the opening chapters or in another chapter in the book, where students could possibly augment the materials in an earlier chapter with information in a later chapter at the direction of an instructor (see Table 2). Benokraitis (2019) was the only one that gave no explanation of economic determinism anywhere in the textbook. This is despite our decision to generously grant a Y or Y+ score to any explanation that appeared to minimally meet our inclusion criteria for explaining a concept and risk erring, if warranted, on the side of inclusion (i.e. fairness to a book) than omission of an explanatory idea.
Only 18 percent (N = 2) of the books (Macionis 2017; Ritzer 2018) met our threshold of high thoroughness, but only Macionis (2017) clearly met the threshold in one early chapter (chapter four) in the book. The location of a thorough explanation of economic determinism in this book is very likely to make a significant impact on students’ critical thinking in understanding relations among social structures in sociology. Although Ritzer (2018) scored as high as Macionis (see Table 2), the explanation in the early chapter (chapter two) in Ritzer was not as thorough as that of Macionis’s. We, however, added additional explanations found elsewhere (chapters 14 and 15) in Ritzer (2018) to augment the explanation given in the book’s early chapter. This would require the instructor to point students to additional areas in the textbook for augmenting knowledge and is hence likely to lack the same degree of learning efficiency (and perhaps effectiveness) as found in a single chapter in Macionis (2017).
The modal ranking (see Table 2) for thorough explanation in all 11 books was low (64 percent, N = 7), and except for Thompson et al. (2019), all the books with low ranking for thoroughness earned their inclusion scores in one of the early chapters (mainly chapter one). Thompson et. al (2019) earned one inclusion score in a later chapter (chapter 15) in the textbook. Lastly, with three inclusion ideas explained (all in chapter one) in the textbook, the rating of average for thoroughness was received by only one book, Conley (2019), the top selling of the 11 books (see Table 2).
Thoroughness Ratings of Ideological Determinism
As earlier mentioned in our analysis, the explanations of ideological determinism in all 11 textbooks were generally more thorough than their coverages of economic determinism. But despite this observation, only Macionis (2017) received high ranking for thorough explanation in our analysis. As in its coverage of economic determinism, the book included five of our six explanatory criteria ideas in its discussion of Weber’s ideological determinism, and it did so in only one early chapter (chapter four).
The remaining 10 books were evenly split between average (Benokraitis 2019; Conley 2019; Henslen 2017; Ritzer 2018; Tischler 2019) and low (Ferris and Stein 2018; Giddens et al. 2018; Manza et al. 2018; Schaefer 2012; Thompson et al. 2019) thoroughness ratings (see Table 2). Among the five books that we rated low, two (Ferris and Stein 2018; Thompson et al. 2019) included only one of the six thoroughness ideas criteria into their explanations. Each of the other three (Giddens et al. 2018; Manza et al. 2019; Schaefer 2012) explained two of our six explanatory criteria (see Table 2). In addition, both of Schaefer’s (2012) points and one of Giddens’s (2018) were made in later chapters in each book (chapter 15 and chapter 17 respectively), making these books less likely to have the same level of learning efficiency (and maybe effectiveness) as Manza et al. (2018), in which the two points made were in one early chapter (chapter one).
Among the five books with average thoroughness rankings, two (Benokraitis 2019; Conley 2019) explained three of our six criteria ideas, and each of the other three books (Henslin 2017; Ritzer 2018; Tischler 2019) explained four ideas (see Table 2). Each of the five books explained all their ideas of ideological determinism in an early chapter (mainly chapter one), except Benokraitis (2019), which explained only one idea in the opening paragraph (that ideology formed the substructure of society). It was later in the textbook (chapter 15) that Benokraitis (2019) added more ideas (on the Protestant ethics and emergence of modern capitalist practices) that could be used to augment the learning of ideological determinism in the book.
Conclusion
Although this study focused on the coverage of economic and ideological determinisms, our interests in these concepts were mainly in the exposure of students to knowledge of relations among social structures as introduced by both Marx and Weber regarding the presence of a deterministic substructure and a dependent superstructure. It is the knowledge of substructure-superstructure relations that we deemed most important for students to learn in the works of both Marx and Weber. This is because of the likelihood that such knowledge would extend students’ understanding of the sociological perspective and the sociological imagination, which they would have learned before studying the two classical thinkers.
The six ideas we used to assess the thoroughness of explanations of both economic and ideological determinisms were based on the most basic ideas that could convey full explanations of each concept at the introductory sociology level. We were also very generous in accepting that an idea was explained to avoid the error of indicating lack of explanation when one might arguably be present. Despite our generous acceptance approach, no book explained all six criteria ideas for either determinism, and only one book (Macionis 2017) explained five ideas in each determinism. Even though the book did not cover all six ideas we sought in a full explanation, Macionis (2017) was, without doubt, the most thorough in explaining both economic and ideological determinisms.
Overall, our findings led us to conclude that except for Macionis (2017), the 11 top-selling books, which are the most likely books to shape students’ understanding of relations among social structures, were not sufficiently thorough in explaining both economic and ideological determinisms. Clearly, low thoroughness was the most common rating for the textbooks given that 64 percent and 45 percent of them received low ratings for economic determinism and ideological determinism, respectively. In addition, one book (Benokraitis 2019) completely omitted the coverage of economic determinism and therefore would neither expose students to the concept nor give them the opportunity to contrast ideological determinism (which was partially explained in the book) with economic determinism. Also, the rating of average thoroughness was not common (only 27 percent across both determinisms) but higher for ideological determinism (45 percent, N = 5).
We claim, based on our observation and analysis, that the top-selling introductory sociology textbooks mostly lack the rigor that is reasonably meritorious of higher (college-level) learning. Our observations were consistent with Dixon and Quirke (2014), who commented that introductory sociology textbooks often included simplistic contents. Similarly, Blalock (1961) indicated that explanations in introductory books tended to be very basic and unsophisticated and often consisted of simple assertions that connected one event with another. We therefore argue that if the inclusion of economic and ideological determinisms in introductory textbooks is to properly educate students and arouse their critical thinking about relations among social structures, more robust explanations are necessary in the textbooks. Thoroughness in explanations will likely raise both the quality of introductory books and quality of learning for students.
Some instructors may find simplistic explanations adequate in introductory textbooks, but we hold the assumption that when explanations are thin in these books, advanced-level courses would be forced to become watered down, and consequently, the quality of learning in the discipline gets compromised. Our assumption rests on the position of Puffer (2009) that the rigor of introductory sociology textbooks ought to be sufficiently high to prepare students for learning in advanced-level courses as well as to contribute to public appreciation and support for the discipline.
It is possible that the current publishing culture that seems to favor lower costs of books to students through reduced book size may be a major contributing factor to why relations among social structures in economic and ideological determinism are not fully explained in the majority of our sample of textbooks. Therefore, our recommendation for thoroughness in explanations could be critiqued for the likelihood of expanding book size with the possibility of increasing cost to students. We admit the likely validity of this potential critique, but we also may assert that logically, any expansion of book size from additional explanations of our focal concepts would likely be negligible (perhaps averaging less than two pages), and any increase in textbook cost would also likely be minimally consequential to students’ ability to purchase textbooks.
An instructor that uses a textbook that insufficiently explains concepts and ideas may provide supplemental readings to students in addition to thorough explanations during lectures. The instructor may use relevant materials from sociology readers such as Readings for Sociology (Massey 2015), Seeing Ourselves (Macionis and Benokraitis 2004), and The Contexts Reader (Ali and Cohen 2017) as supplemental readings for students. For online students, the instructor could also add recorded lecture videos to supplemental readings to augment the textbook.
Lastly, it is important to emphasize that this study only investigated how well sociology textbooks explained economic and ideological determinisms. We therefore suggest that any perceptions emanating from this study regarding the 11 books in our sample be limited to the scope of this project. We do not in any way imply the overall goodness of any book from our analysis, findings, or conclusion. Although this study may provide useful knowledge on these books relative to the thoroughness of explanations of the concepts we examined, we make no judgment on the overall quality of the entire contents of any book, and this study should not be interpreted as such. In addition, it is important to recognize that the criteria we used for assessing thoroughness of explanations of concepts were strictly ours. They were relative to our best judgment on what we deemed reasonably acceptable and commensurate with learning at the first-year level in higher education. We therefore accept the possible critique that our standards might be high, average, or low based on the relative judgments of other scholars.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We give sincere gratitude to the blind reviewers and the editor of Teaching Sociology for their constructive comments for revising the manuscript for this article. Their comments were invaluable to us in the final development of this project.
Editor’s Note
Reviewers for this manuscript were, in alphabetical order, Jay Howard, Kathleen Korgen, Lorien Lake-Corral, and Stephanie Medley-Rath.
