1. The Sociological Perspective
Chapter 1

2. Learning Objectives
Understand the sociological point of view and how it differs from that of journalists and talk-show hosts.
Compare and contrast sociology with the other major social sciences.
Describe the early development of sociology from its origins in nineteenth-century Europe.
Know the contributions of sociology’s pioneers: Comte, Martineau, Spencer, Marx, Durkheim, and Weber.
Describe the early development of sociology in the United States.
Understand the functionalist, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionist perspectives.
Realize the relationship between theory and practice.

3. Sociology studies the interactions among different social groups

5. Sociology as a Point of View
What is Sociology?
It is the scientific study of human society and social interactions.
Main focus
Group
Seeks to understand:
Forces that operate throughout society
Forces that mold individuals and shape their behavior
And, thus determine social events

6. The Sociological Imagination
C. Wright Milles (1959) used the term sociological imagination to refer to:
Examining the relationship between individual experiences
Bringing into focus the forces in the larger society that shape our actions

7. The Sociological Imagination at Work
Social Problems
Divorce
Appropriate taxation
Increased tuition
Suicide or death of a loved one

8. The Sociological Imagination at Work
Social Relationships
Crowds at sports events
Shifts in styles of dress and popular music
Changing patterns in courtship and marriage
The emergence and fading of different lifestyles
Political movements
Religious sects
The distribution of income and access to resources and opportunities
Decisions made by the Supreme Court, congressional committees, and local zoning boards

9. To be a sociologist, you have to:
Develop a Sociological Imagination
Change how you see the world
Broaden your perspective on the world
Make objective sense out of what’s going on around you

10. The focus of sociological imagination:
Every aspect of society
Every relationship among individuals
Crowds at sports events
Shifts in styles of dress and popular music
Changing patterns in courtship and marriage
The emergence and fading of different lifestyles
Political movements
Religious sects
The distribution of income and access to resources and opportunities
Decisions made by the Supreme Court, congressional committees, and local zoning boards.

11. Objective Analysis
Understanding Crime Statistics
An example of moving from personal or anecdotal experience to objective understanding

12. Is Sociology Common Sense?
Common sense is what people develop through everyday life experience.
It is a set of expectations about society and people’s behavior that guides our own behavior.
Unfortunately, these expectations are not always reliable or accurate.
Common sense is often vague, oversimplified, and contradictory, but sociology is specific, qualifies its statements, and proves its assertions.

13. Sociology and Science Sociology
Commonly described as one of the social sciences
Refers to a body of systematically arranged knowledge that shows operation of general laws
Employs the same general methods of investigation that are used in the natural science

14. Scientific Method
A process by which a body of scientific knowledge is built through observation, experimentation, generalization, and verification.

15. Believe faith produces true happiness
Empiricism The view that generalizations are valid only if they rely on evidence that can be observed or verified through sense.
Theologians
Philosophers
Sociologists
Believe faith produces true happiness
Debate what happiness encompasses
Note, analyze, and predict consequences of such measurable items as job satisfaction, relationship between education and income, role of social class, and divorce.

16. Social Sciences Sociology Anthropology Psychology Economics History
The disciplines that apply scientific methods to the study of human behavior.
Sociology
Anthropology
Psychology
Economics
History
Political Science
Social Work

17. Sociology vs. Other Disciplines
Sociologist study groups and institutions within large, modern, and industrial societies using research methods that enable them to quickly gather specific information about large numbers of people.
Cultural anthropologists immerse themselves in another society for a long time, trying to learn as much as possible about that society and the relationships among it.
Sociologists look at patterns of behavior.
Psychologists look at motivation, perception, cognition, creativity, mental disorders, and personality.
Sociologists study social factors that influence a person’s economic decision.
Economists study price availability factors.
Sociologists look at historical events within their social contexts to discover why things happened and, more importantly, to assess what their social significance was and is. Sociology focuses on the present.
Historians look at past events to attempt to learn what happened, when it happened, and why it happened.
Sociologists focus on how political systems affect other institutions in society.
Political science devotes more attention to the forces that shape political systems and the theories for understanding these forces.
Sociologists try to understand why problems exist.
Social workers help people solve problems.

18. Cultural Anthropology

19. Sociologists and anthropologists share many theories and concepts
Sociologists and anthropologists share many theories and concepts. However, sociologists tend to study groups and institutions within large, modern, industrial societies; anthropologists tend to focus on the cultures of small, preindustrial societies.

20. Development of Sociology
Emerged as a separate field of study in Europe during the 19th century
Stimulated by the Industrial Revolution and the 18th-century American and French Revolutions.
Period social order was shaken by the Industrial Revolution and the American and French Revolution.
Tightly knit communities, held together by centuries of traditional and well-defined social relationships, were strained by dramatic changes in the social environment.
A void was left by the declining power of the church to impose its views of right and wrong.

21. Development of Sociology
This was a time of turmoil, the social order was being shaken by the growing Industrial Revolution and by violent uprisings against established rulers.
Factory cities began to replace the rural estates of nobles as the centers for society at large.
People with different backgrounds were brought together under the same factory roof to work for wages instead of exchanging their services for land and protection.
Families now had to protect themselves, to buy food rather than grow it, and to pay rent for their homes.
These new living and working conditions led to the development of an industrial, urban lifestyle, which produced new social problems.

22. Development of Sociology
People were terrified by this new social order and wanted to find a way to understand and deal with so many changes taking place.
Children were working in factories instead of going to school.
The need for a systematic analysis of society added to the acceptance of the scientific method resulted in the emergence of sociology.

23. Influential Sociologists
Auguste Comte ( )
Harriet Martineau ( )
Herbert Spencer ( )
Karl Marx ( )
Émile Durkheim ( )
Max Weber ( )
W.E.B. Du Bois ( )

24. Auguste Comte (1798-1857) Envisioned a science of man
Sought to develop a cohesive discipline that would:
reveal the underlying principles of society
utilize scientific principles of physical science
Coined the term sociology
Auguste Comte coined the term sociology. He wanted to develop “a science of man” that would reveal the underlying principles of society, much as the sciences of physics and chemistry explained nature and guided industrial progress.

25. Harriet Martineau ( )
Published Theory and Practice of Society is America in 1837.
Emphasized observation of day-to-day life
Traveled throughout the United States observing life everywhere from prisons to family gatherings
Encouraged social activism
Outspoken about treatment of women in the United States
Translated Auguste Comte’s six volume Positive Philosophy to English
Harriet Martineau was an early and significant contributor to the development of sociology. She believed that scholars should not simply offer observations but should also use their research to bring about social reform.

26. Herbert Spencer ( )
Believed that society was similar to a living organism
Proponent of social Darwinism
Charles Darwin’s notion of “survival of the fittest”—animals adapted to the environment survived and prospered while the poorly adapted died out.
Provided support for social inequality
Herbert Spencer helped define what sociology would examine. Spencer also became a proponent of the doctrine known as social Darwinism.

27. Classical Sociological Theorists: Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Karl Marx is often thought of as a revolutionary proponent of the political and social system seen in countries once labeled communist. It is true that nearly half of the people in the world live under political systems that claim ties to Marxism. The governments, however, have often modified Marx’s original ideas to fit their own philosophies.
Marx lived in Europe during the early period of industrialization, when the overwhelming majority of people in such societies were poor. The rural poor moved to cities where employment was available in the factories and workshops of the new industrial economies. Those who owned the factories exploited the masses who worked for them. Even children, some as young as five or six years old, worked 12-hour days, six and seven days a week (Lipsey and Steiner, 1975), and received barely enough money to survive. The rural poor became the urban poor. Meanwhile, the owners achieved great wealth, power, and prestige.

28. Karl Marx Focused on human condition during Industrial Revolution
Historical perspective of class conflict
Bourgeoisie – the owners and controllers of the means of production (capitalists)
Proletariat – the mass of workers
Provided foundations for modern conflict theory
In many capitalist societies today, regulatory mechanisms have been introduced to prevent some of the excesses of capitalism. Unions have been integrated into the capitalist economy and the political system, giving workers a legal, legitimate means through which they can benefit from the capitalist system.
Marx was not a sociologist, but his considerable influence on the field can be traced to his contributions to the development of conflict theory.

29. Karl Marx’s views on class conflict were shaped by the Industrial Revolution. He believed that capitalist societies produced conflict because of the deep divisions between the social classes.

30. Émile Durkheim ( )
Viewed individuals as the product of the social environment
Society shapes people in every possible way
Focused on forces that hold society together
Concept of social variables
Provided foundations for functionalist theory

31. Studied/Identified Three Types of Suicide
Egoistic
Suicide comes from low group solidarity, and underinvolvement with others.
Altruistic
Suicide derives from a very high level of group solidarity and overinvolvement with others.
Anomic
Suicide results from a sense of feeling disconnected from society’s values (norms).

32. Émile Durkheim produced the first true sociological study
Émile Durkheim produced the first true sociological study. Durkheim’s work helped move sociology out of the realm of social philosophy and into the direction of social science.

33. Max Weber (1864-1920) Focused on understanding social actions
Primary interest: Individual meanings people attach to the world around them
Subjective interpretative
Concentration on understanding human behavior
Emphasized understanding rather than activism
Pursued description and explanation of social truth or fact as means for influencing the social system

34. Much of Max Weber’s work was an attempt to clarify, criticize, and modify the works of Karl Marx. He also studied the role of religion in the creation of new economic conditions.

35. American Sociologists
W.E.B. Du Bois ( ) Talcott Parsons ( ) Robert Merton ( ) George Herbert Mead ( )

36. W. E. B. Du Bois was the first African American to receive a PhD from Harvard University. He wrote dozens of articles and books on the history of sociology of African Americans.

37. Table 1-1Major Theoretical Perspectives in Sociology
Scope of Analysis
Point of View
Focus of Analysis
Structural-Functional
Macro level
The various parts of society are interdependent and functionally related.
The functional and dysfunctional aspects of institutions and society
Social systems are highly stable.
Social life is governed by consensus and cooperation.
Social Conflict
Society is a system of accommodations among competing interest groups.
How social inequalities produce conflict
Social systems are unstable and are likely to change rapidly.
Who benefits from particular social arrangements
Social life involves conflict because of differing goals.
Interactionist
Micro level
Most of what people do has meaning beyond the concrete act.
How people make sense of the world in which they participate
The meanings that people place on their own and on one another’s behavior can vary.

38. Foundation of Sociology
Classical
Sociological
Theories
Functionalist
Conflict
Symbolic Interactionist

39. Functionalism
Views society as a system of highly interrelated structures or parts that function or operate together harmoniously
Society viewed as organism in balance
Attempts to account for all social variables
Conflict between variables disrupts balance

40. Conflict Theory Envisions constant struggle to obtain maximum benefit
Conflict viewed as the normal order
Wealth, power, and prestige are focus of conflict
Emphasis on who benefits from social division and control
Struggle based on unequal power and control of means of production (resources)

41. Symbolic Interaction Subjective Interpretation
Focuses on how individuals interpret the social world
Seeks understanding of meanings of individual and social behavior—the social act
The interpretation and meaning of:
Signs
Symbols
Language
Gestures
Objects

42. Interactionist Perspective
The interactionist perspective focuses on how individuals make sense of-or interpret-the social world in which they participate.
This approach is primarily concerned with human behavior on a person-to-person level.,
George Herbert Mead devised a symbolic interactionist approach that focuses on signs, gestures, shared rules, and written and spoken language.
Harold Garfinkel used ethnomethodology to show how people create and share their understanding of social life.
Erving Goffman took a dramaturgical approach in which he saw social life as a form of theater.

44. Contemporary Sociology
A synthesis of theory and research
Seeks broad understanding of and attention to social problems via:
Empirical study
Compilation and interpretation of data gathered
Activist application

45. Contemporary Sociology
These theories continue to build on the original ideas that were proposed in the interactionalist perspective, functionalism, and conflict theory.
Sociologists today have stopped trying to develop all-inclusive theories and opt for what Merton called middle-range theories.
Middle-range theories are concerned with explaining specific issues or aspects of society instead of trying to explain how all of society operates.
Contemporary sociological theory
Continues to build on the original idea proposed in the interactionist, perspective, functionalism, and conflict theory.
Sociological Theory
Gives meaning to sociological practice.

46. 1-4a Summary What is unique about what sociologists do?
Sociology is the scientific study of human society and social interactions. Sociologists seek an accurate and scientific understanding of society and social life. A great deal of social-issue information comes from sources that have an interest in developing support for a particular point of view
What is the difference between sociology and the other major social sciences?
The main focus of sociology is on the group, not on the individual. A sociologist tries to understand the forces that operate throughout the society—forces that mold individuals, shape their behavior, and thus determine social events. The social sciences consist of all those disciplines that apply scientific methods to the study of human behavior. Although the areas of interest do overlap, each of the social sciences has its own area of investigation. Cultural anthropology, psychology, economics, history, political science, and social work all have some things in common with sociology, but each has its own distinct focus, objectives, theories, and methods.

47. How did sociology begin?
The need for a systematic analysis of society, coupled with the acceptance of the scientific method, resulted in the emergence of sociology. Sociology became a separate field of study in Europe during the nineteenth century. It was a time of turmoil and a period of rapid and dramatic social change. Industrialization, political revolution, urbanization, and the growth of a market economy undermined traditional ways of doing things.

48. Who were the early pioneers in sociology?
August Comte developed the new science, which he named sociology. He believed it would bring all the sciences together into a cohesive whole, thereby improving society.
Herbert Spencer believed that every part of society served a specialized function necessary to ensure society’s survival as a whole. During the nineteenth century, sociology developed rapidly under the influence of three other scholars of very different orientations. Despite their differences, however, Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, and Max Weber were responsible for shaping sociology into a relatively coherent discipline.

49. Describe the early development of sociology in the United States.
In the United States, sociology developed in the early twentieth century. Its early growth took place at the University of Chicago, where the first graduate department of sociology in the United States was founded in The so-called Chicago school of sociology focused on the study of urban neighborhoods and ethnic areas and included many of America’s leading sociologists of the period.

50. What are the major theoretical approaches in sociology?
Sociologists have developed several perspectives to help them investigate social processes. Functionalism views society as a system of highly interrelated structures that function or operate together harmoniously. Functionalists analyze society by asking what each part contributes to the smooth functioning of the whole. From the functionalist perspective, society appears to be quite stable and self-regulating. Critics have attacked the conservative bias inherent in this assumption.
Conflict theory sees society as constantly changing in response to social inequality and social conflict. For these theorists, social conflict is the normal state of affairs; social order is maintained by coercion. Conflict theorists are concerned with the issue of who benefits from particular social arrangements and how those in power maintain their positions.
The interactionist perspective focuses on how individuals make sense of, or interpret, the social world in which they participate. This perspective consists of a number of loosely linked approaches.