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SociologySociology

Introduction to Sociology: What is Sociology? 2

Cool Insights from Sociology

• Humans cannot be understood apart from social context (i.e. society)

• Society makes us who we are by structuring out interactions and laying out an orderly world before us

• Society is a social construction, that is, it is an idea created by humans (i.e. doesn’t exist in the biological world but only in the social world) through social interaction and given a reality through our understanding of it and our collective actions.

Society Influences You• Death…

Related to society? Of course!


Baby Names



Names that have gained the most popularity, 2004 – 2010


What Does Society Look Like?

• While the idea of society is familiar, describing it can be difficult. Ultimately society is made up of many different components, such as culture, race, family, education, social class, and people’s interactions.

• People who share a culture and territory


Meaning through Interaction

• People actively and collectively shape their own lives, organizing their social interactions and relationships into a meaningful world.

• Sociologists study this social behavior by seeking out its patterns.

• Patterns are crucial to our understanding of society


Society

• Society is a group of people who shape their lives in aggregated and patterned ways that distinguish their group from other groups.


The Social Sciences

• Social Sciences are the disciplines that use the scientific method to examine the social world, in contrast to the natural sciences, which examine the physical world.

• Examples of social sciences include economics, psychology, geography, communication studies, anthropology, history, and political science.


How Sociology fits in


What is Sociology?

Sociology is the systematic or scientific study of human society and social behavior, from large-scale institutions and mass culture to small groups and individual interactions.

Sociology is also the study of reifications, or social constructions.


Sociology

• Howard Becker defined sociology as the study of people “doing things together.”

• This reminds us that society and the individual are inherently connected, and each depends on the other.

• Sociologists study this link: how society affects the individual and how the individual affects society.


Levels of Analysis

• We can study society from different levels:• Microsociology is the level of analysis that studies face-

to-face and small-group interactions in order to understand how they affect the larger patterns and institutions of society.

• Microsociology focuses on small-scale issues.– Ex: Symbolic Interactionism


Levels of Analysis (cont)

• Macrosociology is the level of analysis that studies large-scale social structures in order to determine how they affect the lives of groups and individuals.

• Macrosociology focuses on large-scale issues.– Ex: Functionalism, Conflict Theory


How We Use Levels of Analysis

• Pam Fishman took a micro-level approach to studying issues of power in male–female relationships.

• She found that in conversation, women ask nearly three times as many questions as men do, perhaps because a speaker is much more likely to ask a question if he or she does not expect to get a response by simply making a statement.


How We Use Levels of Analysis

• Christine Williams took a macro-level approach to studying women in male-dominated occupations and men in female-dominated occupations.

• She found that women in male-dominated positions faced limits on their advancement (the glass ceiling), while men in female-dominated positions experienced rapid rates of advancement (the glass escalator).



• When conducting research, methodology involves the process by which one gathers and analyzes data.

• Quantitative research translates the social world into numbers that can be treated mathematically; this type of research often tries to find cause-and-effect relationships.

• Any type of social statistic is an example of quantitative research.



• Qualitative research works with non-numerical data such as texts, fieldnotes, interview transcripts, photographs, and tape recordings; this type of research often tries to understand how people make sense of their world.

• Participant observation, in which the researcher actually takes part in the social world he or she studies, is an example of qualitative research.


The Sociological Imagination

• C. Wright Mills used the term sociological imagination to describe the ability to look at issues from a sociological perspective.

• Personal troubles versus public issues– Ex: unemployment, obesity


The Sociological Perspective

• Incorporates Mills’ notion of the sociological imagination

• The sociological perspective is a quality of the mind that allows us to understand the relationship between our particular situation in life and what is happening at a social level.


The Sociological Perspective

• When using a sociological perspective, one focuses on the social context in which people live and how that social context has an impact on individuals’ lives.

• This is the essence of what sociology does.


The Sociological Perspective (cont)

• One way to gain a sociological perspective is to attempt to create in ourselves a sense of culture shock, which is a sense of disorientation that occurs when one enters a radically new social or cultural environment.


The Sociological Perspective (cont)

• Bernard McGrane suggests that people wanting to use a sociological perspective should utilize a beginner’s mind, which means approaching the world without preconceptions in order to see things in a new way.


Starting Your Sociological Journey

• An important distinction can be made between the everyday actor, who has the practical knowledge needed to get through daily life, but not necessarily the scientific or technical knowledge of how things work,


Starting Your Sociological Journey

• and the social analyst, who studies the social world in a systematic, comprehensive, coherent, clear, and consistent manner in the pursuit of scientific knowledge.

• Both approaches have strengths and weaknesses.


Take Away Points

• Humans cannot be understood apart from the social context they live in (society, culture and time + place)

• The world around us profoundly shapes and influences who we are, how we behave and even how/what we think.

• It is the job of the sociologist to understand how this process works and to what effect.

Personal experience Awareness of friends Systematic studywith drug use and associates’ patterns of a random of drug use sample of drug users

Defining the Sociological Perspective

• “Sociology is the scientific study of human society and social interactions.”

• What makes sociology “scientific?”

Levels of Understanding Drug Use

The Sociological Imagination• C. Wright Mills coined the term

“sociological imagination” to refer to “...the vivid awareness of the relationship between private experience and the wider society.”

C. Wright Mills

Sociology and Common Sense• Common sense assumptions are usually based on very

limited observation.

• Moreover, the premises on which common sense

assumptions are seldom examined.

• Sociology seeks to:• use a broad range of carefully selected observations; and

• theoretically understand and explain those observations.

• While sociological research might confirm common

sense observation, its broader base and theoretical

rational provide a stronger basis for conclusions.

The Scientific MethodSociology and Science• Science is “...a body of

systematically arranged knowledge that shows the operation of general laws.”

• As a science, sociology employs the scientific method

Formulate hypotheses

Choose research design

Gather Data

Analyze Data

Review of literature

The Development of Sociology

• Sociology emerged as a separate discipline in the nineteenth century

• This was a time of great social upheaval due largely to the French and Industrial Revolutions

• Several early sociologists shaped the direction of the discipline

Auguste Comte (1798-1857)• Responsible for coining the term

“sociology”• Set out to develop the “science of

man” that would be based on empirical observation

• Focused on two aspects of society:• Social Statics—forces which produce

order and stability• Social Dynamics—forces which

contribute to social change

Harriet Martineau (1802-1876)• Authored one of the earliest

analyses of culture and life in the United States entitled Theory and Practice of Society in America

• Translated Comte’s Positive Philosophy into English

Harriet Martineau

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)• Authored the first sociology text,

Principles of Sociology• Most well known for proposing a

doctrine called “Social Darwinism”• Suggested that people who could not

compete were poorly adapted to the environment and inferior

• This is an idea commonly called survival of the fittest

Karl Marx (1818-1883)• Marx is the father of conflict theory• Saw human history in a continual

state of conflict between two major classes:• Bourgeoisie—owners of the means of

production (capitalists)• Proletariat—the workers

• Predicted that revolution would occur producing first a socialist state, followed by a communist society

Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)• Durkheim moved sociology

fully into the realm of an empirical science

• Most well known empirical study is called Suicide, where he looks at the social causes of suicide

• Generally regarded as the founder of functionalist theory

Emile Durkheim

Max Weber (1864-1920)• Much of Weber’s work was a critique

or clarification of Marx• His most famous work, The Protestant

Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism directly challenged Marx’s ideas on the role of religion in society

• Weber was also interested in bureaucracies and the process of rationalization in society

Theoretical Perspectives: Functionalism• Functionalism sees society as a

system of highly interrelated parts that work together harmoniously

• The image that functionalists use to understand society is a living organism

• Each part of society works together for the benefit of the whole much like a living organism

Theoretical Perspectives: Conflict Theory• Conflict theory is grounded in the work of Karl

Marx• Society is understood to be made up of

conflicting interest groups who vie for power and privilege

• This dynamic results in continuous social change, which is the normal state of affairs

• Conflict theory focuses heavily on inequality and differential distribution of power and wealth

Theoretical Perspectives: The Interactionist Perspective

• Focuses on how individuals make sense of and interpret the world

• This perspective tends to focus on the “micro-order” of small groups

• Has given rise to several specific approaches:– Symbolic Interactionism developed by George

Herbert Mead– Ethnomethodology developed by Harold Garfinkel– Dramaturgy developed by Erving Goffman

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