1. CHAPTER ONE The Study of Society

2. The study of people doing things together, or
Sociology is
The study of people doing things together, or
“the systematic study of human social interaction” (Brinkerhoff, p. 2).

3. THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION IS:
“the ability to see the intimate realities of our own lives in the context of common social structures; it is the ability to see personal troubles as public issues” (Brinkerhoff, P. 2).

4. THREE FOUNDERS OF SOCIOLOGY:
KARL MARX
EMILE DURKHEIM
MAX WEBER

5. KARL MARX Materialist Conception of History
People’s class positions depend on their relationship to the means of production.
Two classes:
Bourgeoisie (Owners)
Proletariat (Workers)

6. EMILE DURKHEIM Social Facts: 1. Externality
2. Ability to Constrain Behavior

7. MAX WEBER
Rationalization of Society: “the search by people for the optimum means to a given end is shaped by rules, regulations, and larger social structures” (Ritzer, p. 23).

8. Rationalization has four dimensions:
efficiency
predictability
calculability
nonhuman technology

9. Three Sociological Perspectives:
1. Functionalism
2. Conflict
3. Symbolic Interactionism

10. Functionalism (Structural Functionalism) “addresses the question of social organization and how it is maintained” (Brinkerhoff, p. 10). Founder: Emile Durkheim

11. Functionalism
Just as physical scientists ask how particular body parts help maintain healthy biological organisms, so functionalists ask how particular institutions maintain healthy societies.

12. ASSUMPTIONS BEHIND FUNCTIONALISM (BRINKERHOFF, PP. 10):
Stability
Harmony
Evolution

13. FUNCTIONALISTS ASK:
“What is the function?”

14. Conflict “addresses the points of stress and conflict in society” (Brinkerhoff, p. 12). Founder: Karl Marx

15. Conflict:
Certain groups of people benefit from existing social arrangements at the expense of other groups of people.

16. ASSUMPTIONS UNDERLYING CONFLICT (BRINKERHOFF, P. 13):
Competition
Structural Inequality
Social Change

17. CONFLICT THEORISTS ASK:
“Who Benefits?”

18. “Macrosociology focuses on social structures and organizations and the relationships between them” (Brinkerhoff, p. 14).
“Microsociology focuses on the interactions among individuals” (Brinkerhoff, p. 14).

19. Symbolic Interactionism “addresses the subjective meaning of human acts and the processes through which people come to develop and communicate shared meanings” (Brinkerhoff, p. 13). Founder: George Herbert Mead

20. SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM:
Symbols (Language) point to:
Objects:
Goals
Things
Social Acts

21. Symbolic Interactionists focus on the definition of the situation for the people involved.

22. ASSUMPTIONS UNDERLYING SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM (BRINKERHOFF, P. 13):
Symbolic meanings are important
Meanings grow out of relationships
Meanings are negotiated

23. SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISTS ASK:
“What does it mean?”

24. RESEARCH METHODS

25. Sociologists are Scientists. They
A) study the empirical world in
B) a systematic fashion

26. Empirical data pertains to the senses; things we can OBSERVE.

27. THE RESEARCH PROCESS:
1. Gathering Data -collecting/gathering empirical observations
2. Finding Patterns -discovering correlations
3. Generating Theories -explaining patterns
4. Testing Hypotheses -examining our explanation

28. “Variables are measured characteristics that vary from one individual or group to the next” (Brinkerhoff, p. 17).

29. CORRELATION
VS.
CAUSAL
RELATIONSHIPS

30. In a CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP an INDEPENDENT VARIABLE CAUSES A CHANGE IN A DEPENDENT VARIABLE.

31. CORRELATION:
“occurs when there is an empirical relationship between two variables” (Brinkerhoff, p. 18); the variables vary together, but they don’t necessarily cause change in one another.

32. Falsifiable statements.
Hypotheses:
“statements about relationships that we expect to find if our theory is correct” (Brinkerhoff, p. 17).
Falsifiable statements.

33. Theory:
“an interrelated set of assumptions that explain observed patterns” (Brinkerhoff, p. 18).

34. RESEARCH METHODS:
FIELD WORK
SURVEYS
EXPERIMENTS

35. FIELDWORK
Strengths:
Provides a detailed, “thick description,” of people being observed
Weakness:
lack of theoretical generalizability

36. SURVEY RESEARCH:
“is a method that involves asking a relatively large number of people the same set of standardized questions” (Brinkerhoff, p. 21).

37. Surveys are generally distributed to a sample of people from an entire population. Sociologists often use random samples, a sample in which all members of the population have an equal chance of being picked.

38. Population
Sample

39. SURVEYS Strengths Weakness
good idea about what a large amount of people think about a specific set of topics
Weakness
don’t know much else about the population

40. EXPERIMENTS:
“the researcher manipulates independent variables to test theories of cause and effect” (Brinkerhoff, p. 20).

41. CONTROL GROUP
EXPERIMENTAL GROUP
Independent variable
introduced

42. EXPERIMENTS Strengths Weaknesses
excellent for testing hypotheses about cause and effect
Weaknesses
possibly unethical
subjects behave differently when under observation
they omit factors that would influence the same behavior in a real-life situation