Introduction to Sociology The Real World: Chapter 1 Introduction to Sociology

What Is Sociology? Sociology= A social science One of disciplines that examines the social world. The social sciences are interested in understanding the social world in the same way that the natural sciences are interested in understanding the natural or physical world. Social scientists and natural scientists even use many of the same research methods, including the scientific method! Social scientists employ many different kinds of research methods, which we’ll learn about in Chapter 2. [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TTU_First_Game_2008.jpg]

Sociology and the Social Sciences

What Is Sociology? (cont’d.) Sociology—Scientific study of society and human social behavior The study of people “doing things together” (Howard Becker) Individual & society are interdependent Human beings are social beings—without the contact of other people, we would not be the unique individuals that we are. You can ask students if they have ever been told that they “act like” a relative. Then, have them speculate as to whether this is a genetic link or if they learned that shared trait through their interactions. Ask them to continue to consider this as the discussion may come up again in Chapter 5. [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Life_is_difficult.JPG]

What Is Sociology? (cont’d.) Social Structure: Organized and Enduring patterns of social interaction Students who have never been exposed to the social sciences before may find the concept of an “institution” abstract and difficult to grasp. A few additional examples of institutions include: religion, family, and so on. You can explain that institutions aren’t physical buildings or locations, but rather structures that make up our society. These structures may be different in other societies—for instance, in some societies, education is not available for all children, thus the structure of education in those societies will be much different. [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TTU_English_Philosophy_Building.jpg] [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jama_Masjid.jpg] [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Capitol-Senate.JPG]

Social Structure

Social Structure

Social Institutions Social Structures provide basic social needs Examples: Education Economics Politics Family What basic social needs do these meet?

The Everyday Actor Has practical knowledge needed to get through daily life May not have scientific or technical knowledge of how things work

Skills of an Everyday Actor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYmrg3owTRE&feature=related Language Hugh Laurie and Ellen Your “practical knowledge”?

The Social Analyst Seeks knowledge that is systematic, comprehensive, coherent, clear, and consistent. Questions most everything the “Everyday Actor” assumes is true or real.

Sociological Imagination C. Wright Mills. “To understand social life, we must understand the intersection between biography and history.” Ask students to speculate on what this means. Students seem to have a hard time grasping Mills’s abstract language, but you may be able to help them by trying the following activity: On the overhead or chalkboard, draw a long horizontal line ending in an arrowhead on both sides. Write the year 1900 under the arrow on the left and the current year under the arrow to the right. Tell students that this line represents roughly the last 100 years of history. Then, ask them what has happened in this span of time that is important. Put a hash mark with the event and approximate year of each event that they name. When they have a pretty thorough list, tell them that there is one last thing to add to the list. Draw a stick figure and tell them that is representative of them. “At some point, you were born, and you entered our timeline. This is the intersection between YOUR biography, and history.” Now, ask them to think how their life might have been different if they were born this year, or in 1910 before women had the right to vote, or in the 1950s before the civil rights movement gained momentum, or in the 1970s, before Facebook, cell phones, or the Internet! C. Wright Mills says that if we don’t take history into account, we can’t understand the social lives of people.

Sociological Imagination

Sociological Imagination

Happens when you: Culture Shock Experience disorientation Upon entering new environment This is very common when people travel abroad. For discussion, ask your students if they have experienced this. It is also possible to experience culture shock when traveling to another part of the country. If you’re from a big city, mannerisms of people in small towns (like saying hello to strangers) might surprise you. If you’re from a small town, hailing a taxi might be difficult until you become accustomed that culture. This relates to Mills’ quote—without understanding the context, it is difficult, if not impossible, to understand social life.

Culture Shock

Culture Shock—Food

Culture Shock http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBND33BNfZw

The Beginner’s Mind To explore the social world, Clear our minds of: Stereotypes, Expectations, and Opinions Be receptive to our experiences. (Bernard McGrane) Talk to your students about the experiment on page 21 and emphasize the importance of using their beginner’s mind. [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Helmeted_boy_on_training_wheels.jpg]

Levels of Analysis Microsociology: Focus -> Social interactions Friendship groups, work groups, peers Macrosociology: Focus -> Large scale social structures Family, Economy, Education, Healthcare A microsociological analysis might look at the relationship between a couple or the interactions of a sports team, or even the short interaction between a cashier and a shopper. A macrosociological analysis might look at the economy and how it impacts consumer behavior or how a presidential election influences American morale, etc.

Microsociology Macrosociology Macrosogiology credit: [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flags_at_United_Nations.jpg] Microsociology credit:[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cash_Registers.JPG]

The Micro-Macro Continuum

Research Methods: Quantitative & Qualitative Quantitative Research: Collects numerical data Does statistical analysis Examples: U.S. Census Uniform Crime Report It is important to note that within the social sciences, both of these types of research are valuable. Some researchers specialize in one type of research or the other, but many researchers use both methods to “triangulate” their data, or to make sure that their findings are consistent no matter what kind of research they do. A good example of quantitative research is the US census, which uses surveys to analyze data from across the country. A good example of qualitative research could be Anne Frank’s diary, which served as field notes based on her experiences and observations.

Quantitative Research

Qualitative Research Uses non-numerical data: Texts Interviews Photos Recordings Observation

Napoleon Chagnon American anthropologist and professor at the University of Missouri in Columbia Long-term ethnographic field work among the Yanomamo A society of indigenous people in Amazon region of Venezuela.

Quantitative & Qualitative

Sociological Theories Theories in sociology are propositions that explain the social world and help to make predictions about future events. Theories are also sometimes referred to as approaches, schools of thought, paradigms, or perspectives. Your book mentions the poem about the blind men and the elephant. The purpose of this is to suggest that there are different ways of approaching or looking at a specific topic. While people (even sociologists) may disagree about which way is the best, there are times when considering many different perspectives or theories will lead to the best understanding of the topic.

8/28 Auguste Comte

Sociology’s Roots Auguste Comte: Sociology to be like other scientific disciplines Coined the term “sociology” Helped build the discipline Social stability Social change Auguste Comte was the first thinker to provide a program for the scientific study of society, or a “social physics,” as he first labeled it. Comte, a French scientist, developed a theory of the progress of human thinking from its early theological and metaphysical stages toward a final “positive,” or scientific, stage.

Harriet Martineau

Sociology’s Roots (cont’d.) Harriet Martineau: Social activist Traveled the United States Wrote about social changes Martineau translated Comte’s work into English Martineau became a journalist and political economist, proclaiming views that were radical for her time: for example, she supported labor unions, the abolition of slavery, and women’s suffrage.

Herbert Spencer

Sociology’s Roots (cont’d.) Herbert Spencer was the first great English-speaking sociologist Spencer believed in evolution and coined the phrase “survival of the fittest.” Believed societies evolve through time by adapting to their changing environment His work was primarily responsible for the establishment of sociology in Britain and America. Although Spencer did not receive academic training, he grew up in a highly individualistic family and was encouraged to think and learn independently. His interests as a young man leaned heavily toward physical science, and instead of attending college, he chose to become a railway engineer. When railway work dried up, Spencer turned to journalism and eventually wrote books including The Study of Sociology (1873) and The Principles of Sociology (1897).

Émile Durkheim

Sociology’s Roots (cont’d.) Émile Durkheim Social factors that hold people together Mechanical solidary Organic solidarity Study of suicide anomic Sociology as academic discipline In his work, he demonstrated the effectiveness of using scientific (empirical) methods to study “social reality,” essentially completing the project that his countryman Comte had anticipated half a century earlier. In his first major study, The Division of Labor in Society (1893), Durkheim expressed his belief that social bonds were present in all types of societies, but that different types of societies created different types of bonds. He suggested that the mechanical solidarity experienced by people in an agrarian society bound them together on the basis of shared tradition and beliefs and similarities of experience. On the other hand, in industrial societies, where factory work was becoming increasingly specialized, organic solidarity prevailed: people’s bonds with each other were based on the tasks they performed, interdependence, and individual rights. In both cases, people are bound to each other—it is the qualities of the bonds that are different. Durkheim believed that even the most individualistic of actions had sociological explanations, and he set out to establish a scientific methodology for studying these actions. He chose for his ground-breaking case study the most individualistic of actions, suicide, and used statistical data to show that suicides were related to social factors such as religious affiliation, marital status, and employment. Explaining a particular suicide by focusing exclusively on the victim’s psychological makeup neglected the impact of social bonds.

Karl Marx

Sociology’s Roots (cont’d.) Karl Marx German philosopher Political activist Contributed significantly to sociology’s conflict theory Sociologists have found that Marx’s theories continue to provide powerful tools for understanding social phenomena. His idea that conflict between social groups is central to the workings of society and serves as the engine of social change is one of the most vital perspectives in sociology today.

Sociology’s Roots (cont’d.) Capitalism Created social inequality Bourgeoisie: owned “means of production” Money, factories, natural resources, and land Proletariat: The workers Inequality leads to class conflict Marx noted that a small percentage of the population owned the means of production and thus were able to exploit the masses and thereby ensure even greater gains for themselves. This is the basic tenet of capitalism today, and many modern sociologists use Marx’s theories to evaluate the contemporary workplace.

9/2 Max Weber

Sociology’s Roots (cont’d.) Rationalization: Economic logic to human activity Disenchantment: Dehumanizing features of modern societies Bureaucracy Much of Weber’s work expressed a pessimistic view of social forces, such as the work ethic, that shaped modern life. Like other social theorists of his time, Weber was interested in the shift from a more traditional society to a modern industrial society. Weber proposed that modern industrialized societies were characterized by efficient, goal-oriented, rule-governed bureaucracies. He believed that individual behavior was increasingly driven by such bureaucratic goals, which had become more important motivational factors than tradition, values, or emotion. Weber believed that this lifestyle left people trapped by their industrious way of life in what he called an iron cage of bureaucratic rules, which led to disenchantment.

George Herbert Mead

Sociology’s Roots (cont’d.) George Herbert Mead Connection between individual & society Meaning People interact Meanings come from these interactions For example, a chair isn’t inherently important as an object for sitting (as many of us know, it can also be used for climbing and reaching, for blocking an entrance, or as a weapon against an enemy), but because we interact on a daily basis with others who use chairs most commonly for sitting, we come to accept that this is the meaning of this object. This is a trivial example, but the idea can be applied to lots of other objects in our society—for example, things like flags or religious icons have meanings that have been shaped by social interactions. Mead is a symbolic interactionist. We’ll talk more about symbolic interactionism in a minute.

Erving Goffman

Sociology’s Roots (cont’d.) Erving Goffman How “self” develops through interactions with others Dramaturgy “Presentation of Self” Goffman found it interesting that a person could “act” on way in front of her parents, and yet “act” totally differently in front of friends. When you think about it, people are usually very adept at recognizing the social situation they are in and “acting” accordingly. This does suggest, though, that we are always acting, so when are you being “your true self,” s this really the case?

New Theoretical Approaches Feminist theory: Gender inequalities in society How gender structures social world Link to Conflict Theory Both focus on inequalities Both seek change There is a link between feminist theory and conflict theory in that both deal with stratification and inequality in society and both seek, not only to understand that inequality, but also to provide remedies for it.

New Theoretical Approaches (cont’d.) Queer theory: Categories of sexual identity are socially created No sexual category is fundamentally deviant or normal Queer theory, which arose in the late 1980s and early 1990s, proposes that categories of sexuality—homo, hetero, bi, trans—are social constructs (Seidman 2003). In other words, no sexual category is fundamentally deviant or normal; we create these meanings socially (which means that we can change those meanings as well).

New Theoretical Approaches (cont’d.) Modernism: Universal human nature Postmodernist theory: No absolutes No claims to truth, reason, right, or stability Constantly changing Everything is relative In order to understand postmodernism, we first need to juxtapose it with modernism, the movement against which it was a reaction. Modernism is both a historical period and an ideological stance that began with the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, or “age of reason.” Modernist thought values scientific knowledge, a linear (or timeline-like) view of history, and a belief in the universality of human nature. In postmodernism, on the other hand, there are no absolutes—no claims to truth, reason, right, order, or stability. Everything is therefore relative—fragmented, temporary, and contingent.