I. What is sociology?

• A. Seeing Sociologically

• B. Sociological Theory

• C. Research Methods

A. Seeing Sociologically

Sociology:

“the scientific study of human social life, groups, and societies.” (Giddens & Duneier, p. 3)

a “way of seeing”; a perspective

Seeing what?

Scope of sociology:

Micro (self, everyday life)

Macro (global, historical)

Sociology is about relationships:

People

people things

space

Sociological Imagination

• C. Wright Mills, 1959

• A “quality of mind”:• “objective… not detached”

• Thinking self away from the daily routine• Feel trapped? (25)

• “grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society”

Biography (self)

History (“unruly forces”)

Mills’ Promise

• social scientist’s concern with history: epoch

• concern with biography: type of character that prevails

• Understanding these things—the sociological imagination—is “our most needed quality of mind.” (36)

Sociological imagination: the coffee example

• Daily ritual (often shared)

• Legitimate drug

• Social and economic relations in production and consumption

• Global socio-economic and political development

• Ecology

Berger’s Invitation

• Like Mills, sees impossibility of detachment: “His (the sociologist’s) own life, inevitably, is part of the subject matter.” (4)

• “It can be said that the first wisdom of sociology is this—things are not what they seem.” (5)

Sociology: a way of seeing

• Society is patterned (social structure)

• “what society makes of us and what we make of ourselves.” (Giddens: 7)

• Sociology provides a way of seeing all these things

social structure

• underlying regularities or patterns in how people behave and in their relationships with one another (glossary: A12)

• not static: social change

• “what society makes of us and what we make of ourselves”: structuration

• globalization

Two more themes in Giddens

• Globalization• Ex.: 9/11

• Social change• Ex.: Romantic love