SOCIOLOGY 1

• Auguste Comte, a Frenchman, is traditionally considered to be the father of sociology. Comte is accredited with the coining of the term sociology (in 1839).
• Sociology


  The science of society
• Different definitions of Sociology according to authors

  • Auguste Comte: "the science of social phenomena subject to natural and invariable laws, the discovery of which is the object of investigation"
  • Kingsley Davis: "Sociology is a general science of society"
  • Harry M. Johnson: "sociology is the science that deals with social groups"
  • Emile Durkheim: "Science of social institutions"
  • Park: "the science of collective behavior"
  • Small: "the science of social relationships"
  • Marshal Jones: "the study of man-in-relationship-to-men"
  • Ogburn and Nimkoff: "Sociology is the scientific study of social life"
  • Franklin Henry Giddings: "Sociology is the study of man and his human environment in their relations to each other"
  • Max Weber: "the science which attempts the interpretative understanding of social action in order thereby to arrive at a casual explanation of its course and effects"
  • Alex Inkeles: "Sociology is the study of systems of social action and their inter-relations"
  • Kimball Young and Raymond W. Mack: "Sociology is the scientific study of social aspects of human life"
  • Morris Ginsberg: "In the broadest sense, sociology is the study of human interactions and inter-relations, their conditions and consequences"
• 10 Influential Sociologists of the 20th Century

  • Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
  • Max Weber (1862-1920)
  • Charles Wright Mills (1916-1962)
  • Daniel Bell (1919-2011)
  • Erving Goffman (1922-1982)
  • Michel Foucault (1926-1984)
  • Jurgen Habermas (b. 1929)
  • Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002)
  • Anthony Giddens (b. 1938)
  • 10. Gary Alan Fine (b. 1950)
• Emile Durkheim


  • First professor of sociology in France, considered one of the three "fathers of sociology", his work "The Division of Labor in Society" challenged Karl Marx's criticism of industrialization, his seminal work "Suicide" pioneered the separation of social science from psychology
• Max Weber


  • Cited as the third founding architect of sociology, his primary focus was on the role of religion, not economics, as the catalyst of social change, famous for his theory of "Protestant Ethic"
• Charles Wright Mills


  • Coined the phrase "power elite", a term used to describe the people who ran a government or organization because of their wealth and social status
• Daniel Bell


  • Primary thought leader in the field of post-industrialism, a concept that defines a society where the service sector generates more wealth than the manufacturing sector
• Erving Goffman


  • Developed the theory of dramaturgy, which explores how we construct our self-identity, introduced concepts such as stigma, spoiled identity, and impression management
• Michel Foucault


  • Popularized the idea that institutions can use a combination of power and knowledge as a form of social control
• Jurgen Habermas


  • His theory of communicative rationality states that successful communication leads to human rationality
• Pierre Bourdieu


  • Established the "cultural deprivation theory", which states that people tend to think higher-class cultures are better than lower-class cultures, his most famous work is "Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste"
• Anthony Giddens


  • Helped redefine the field of sociology, developed the theory of structuration, and published work on theories of modernity and its relationship to globalization and politics
• Gary Alan Fine


  • His contributions focus on social culture, his ethnographies explore a variety of cultural expressions, and he has researched collective experience and memory
• The three major theoretical perspectives in sociology

  • The functionalist perspective
  • The conflict perspective
  • The symbolic interactionist perspective
• Functionalist perspective


  Society should be analyzed and described in terms of functions, society is a system of interrelated parts where no one part can function without the other
• Prominent functionalist theorists


  • Auguste Comte
  • Herbert Spencer
  • Talcott Parsons
  • Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore
  • Robert Merton
  • Gabriel Almond, and Bingham Powell
• Conflict theory


  Proposes that the presence of competition for limited resources results in a state of perpetual conflict within society, emphasizes the role of social inequality, competition for resources, and class struggle in shaping the social order
• Theorists who have formulated conflict theory

  • Karl Marx
  • Max Weber
  • Talcott Parsons
  • Ralf Dahrendorf
• Symbolic interactionist perspective


  Focuses on the meanings that are attached to human interactions, both verbal and non-verbal, suggests that communication, which involves the exchange of meanings through language and symbols, is how individuals make sense of their social worlds and interactions
• George Herbert Mead


  • Sociologists believed he was the true founder of symbolic interaction theory, his teachings and lectures were published in the book "Mind, Self, and Society"
• Object of Investigation