1. Ch.1 The Sociological Perspective

2. Today’s coming attractions:
How did Sociology get started?
How does Sociology look at the world?
The Sociological Perspective
The Sociological Imagination
Social theories

3. How did Sociology get started?
From France, Germany & England
August Comte (France)
Coined the tern “Sociology”
Behavior more complex than natural phenomena
Becomes an academic discipline in U.S. around 1900

4. The Sociological Perspective
Peter Berger
Seeing the general in the particular
Durkheim’s Study of suicide
Lack of social integration
Eg. Wealthy,unmarried Protestant male

5. The Sociological Imagination
C. Wright Mills
How changes in society effect us individually

6. Social theories Theory How & why specific facts are related
Confirmed, modified, or rejected through research

7. Theoretical paradigms
Help decide what kinds of research questions to ask.
Structural Functionalism
Conflict
Symbolic interaction
Social exchange analysis

8. Structural Functionalism
Society promotes solidarity and stability
Manifest functions
Recognized or intended consequences
Latent functions
Unrecognized and unintended consequences
Social dysfunction
Examples
Family
Prohibition
P.M. Sex

9. Conflict Theory Karl Marx
The point of studying society is to produce changes
Social patterns benefit some people while depriving others
Example
Workers VS owners

10. Symbolic Interaction
Society operates on the subjective meanings of symbols
Examples:
Stubborn VS. steadfast
Bus
Police lights & bar fight
Slides & Clothes
Cloning VS “Somatic cell nuclear transfer”, producing “human NT blastocysts”.

11. The sociological exchange perspective
Smiling
Relationships
Politics