Sociology

• Sociology

  The study of human societies
• Definitions of Sociology

  • The systematic study of human interaction and relations
  • An academic discipline that addresses issues of practical importance in society
• Society


  A group of people who occupy a geographical area over an extended period of time, share a common political leadership, religion, culture and language
• Institutionalized


  Commonly adopted practices over a long period of time (e.g. church & family)
• Sociology examines how human beings are influenced by the groups to which they belong
• Sociological Imagination


  An ability to connect personal challenges to larger social issues
• Sociological Imagination


  • Understanding why a promiscuous woman behaves that way (is there an underlying reason?)
  • Understanding divorce and unemployment
• Symbolic values

  Simple things that show social status, e.g. only rich people used to drink coffee
• Micro and Macro scales

  Micro deals with the individual and smaller scale, macro deals with a larger group or holistic view
• Personal trouble vs Public issue

  Our activities both structure and give shape to the social world around us, and at the same time, the social structure affects our activities
• Social Structure

  The relationship patterns we have with each other
• Intended and Unintended Consequences

  • Restaurants setting high prices to keep out certain people with low social status/income
  • Crazy, drunk people being excluded so only the financially stable can access
• Culture

  The blueprint for living of a group (society), the key to which is the evolution of the capacity for using symbols
• Symbols are given meanings by members of the group, not always displayed by pictures and language but can also body language. Symbols only have value because we share the meaning of the symbol
• Other areas of Culture

  • Artifacts
  • Material and Non-material Culture
  • Ideas
• Status

  A position in the social system characterized by certain rights and obligations
• Types of Status

  • Ascribed Status (given at birth by virtue of parentage)
  • Achieved Status (achieved by one's own efforts)
• Role

  Expected behavior
• Factors that influenced the beginning of Sociology as a science in the 1800s/19th century include the French Revolution, the emergence of the Industrial Revolution, and the use of social science rather than religion
• Rapid social change in Europe, such as the shift from cottage industry/domestic production to mass production in factories due to advances in technology, contributed to the growth of Sociology
• August Comte (1798-1857)

  A positivist who invented the word 'sociology' (previously known as 'social physics'), believed that this new field could produce knowledge of society based on scientific evidence, and argued that sociology should contribute to the welfare of humanity by using science to understand, predict and control human behavior
• August Comte believed that all sciences, including sociology, share an overall framework of logic and method, and seek to uncover universal laws governing the particular phenomena they deal with, so that we can shape our own destiny like the natural sciences
• As a positivist, Comte suggested that knowledge should be derived from observable facts (empirical evidence) rather than supposition
• Comte believed the social world is governed by a set of laws which made it possible for the study of society to be scientific in nature
• Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

  Sociology is concerned with social facts, which can be approached in the same way as the facts with which the natural sciences deal, according to the rules of the Sociological Method
• Durkheim said social facts are social phenomena that should be treated like things, and we should regard ourselves as though we were objects in nature
• Durkheim said sociology is the systematic study of an empirical subject matter (human beings)
• Differences between social/sociology sciences and natural sciences

  • Human actions - human action in the creation of society gives rise to double involvement of individuals and institutions
  • The relation between sociology and its subject matter is different from that involved in the natural sciences (human agency) - changing our actions can change behavior
• Qualitative measures

  Humanistic, subjective experience described in words (e.g. different opinions)
• Quantitative measures

  Based on numbers
• August Comte (positivism/positivist) only wanted to measure phenomena which can be objectively observed and classified, ignoring things like motives, feelings and emotions
• Durkheim said sociology should study social facts, statistical data, correlation and causation
• Systematic Accumulation of knowledge

  Both Science and sociology
• Multivariate Analysis


  Statistical technique that examines the effects of multiple independent variables on a single dependent variable
• Independent Variable


  The factors that cause the dependent variable
• Dependent Variable


  The outcome that is caused by the independent variable
• Example: Heavy rainfalls (independent variable) lead to high yield of apples (dependent variable)
• Structuralism


  The assumption that our actions or to a very large extent are shaped by our socio-cultural environment
• Consensus


  The order that society should be in, in a stable equilibrium with predictability
• Durkheim (1868-1917) developed a mode of analysis to conduct general research strategies in the investigation of social phenomena