basis; culture and identity

• Sociology is a general social sciences.
• It uses evidence to make social observations.
• Sociology is the study of the human social life, groups and society.
• It studies repeated patterns of social behaviour, manners and events.
• sociology and common sense are not the same and common sense is not allowed to be used in sociology.
• C. Wright Mills is the person who created the sociological imagination.
• we must forget our personal beliefs when talking about sociology.
• sociology looks at privilege, stereotypes and also changes.
• the Enlightenment is a period of time where we move from believing in superstition and religion to science
• french revolution brought about a lot of changes such as politics, voting and freedom
• the industrial revolution was a period of time where people moved to cities for work or a future there
• the industrial revolution created the issue of dirt, disease, filth and overpopulation
• the industrial revolution brought about the expansion of factories and social problems like crime and poverty
• Auguste Comte coined the term sociology in 1838
• positivism is the scientific approach to the study of society
• Auguste Comte called it social physics before sociology
• Herbert Spencer studied both the human body and society. he believed there was a lot in common between them. this is called social Darwinism
• Both Herbert Spencer and Auguste Comte believed in positivism.
• Karl Marx, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim are the "founding fathers" of sociology. they established sociology as the science of society.
• Emile Durkheim believed in the Functionalist Perspective.
• The Functionalist Perspective/Theory is the theory of saying that society is how it is for a reason and is right in the way it functions.
• Emile Durkheim said that society almost has a life of its own - without us it would still be a society
• as long as we are alive, society will always influence us with thoughts, beliefs and actions
• In order to understand people you must understand society
• the hair in the dough; people believe that everything in the dough has a reason to be there as without those ingredients it would not be dough. In society, functionalists believe that everything has a function (education, crime and family)
• the conflict theory is looking at society and noticing the hair in the dough
• conflict theorists are the set of people that try to find the bad in the situation to the point where they only see the hair rather than the dough
• symbolic interactionists say that our actions can speak for themselves - everyting has a meaning
• example of symbolic interactions are when you snap fingers to get people's attention.
• Anomie is a state of being in a society there is no moral consensus, there is no up or down or the expectations of us.
• Anomie: a sense of separation and not knowing whats causing it
• Karl Marx (1818 - 1883) was seeing a lot of people move and society change in a quick manner
• the industrial revolution brought up capitalism. Marx brought up the idea of Social Classes
• Max Weber (1864 - 1920) was influenced by Marx
• Weber looked at how society operates and how we create society between us
• Weber said modern society pushes towards rationalisation - logical mode of thinking
• Weber said we shouldnt study people like we study plants or animals because we attach meaning to our behaviour
• Harriet Martineau (1802 - 1876) introduced sociology to England and insisted on studying the domestic life.
• Martineau is the first known woman psychologist
• Martineau said we cant study society when everything is behind closed doors (women and children getting abused)