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What is Sociology?
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The systematic study of
human society.
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Look for patterns among
people.
How does society influence
individuals?
 How do individuals influence
society?
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Three Major Approaches
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Sociologists use approaches to
guide thinking.
Structural-Functional
 Social-Conflict
 Symbolic-Interaction
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Structural-Functional
• A macro-level orientation, concerned with
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broad patterns that shape society as a whole.
Views society as a complex system whose
parts work together to promote solidarity
and stability.
This approach points to a society’s social
structure and looks for a structure’s social
functions.
Key Terms: Benefits, unity, solidarity,
stability, needed for the operation of society
Ex. Studying why deviance is needed in
society.
Social-Conflict
• A macro-oriented paradigm
• Views society as an arena of
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inequality that generates
conflict and social change.
Society is structured in ways to
benefit a few at the expense of
the majority.
Factors such as race, sex,
class, and age are linked to
social inequality.
Key Terms: Inequality, conflict,
change, divide, differences
Ex. Studying income
differences between male and
female athletes.
Symbolic-Interaction
• A micro-level orientation, a close•
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up focus on social interactions in
specific situations.
Views society as the product of
everyday interactions of
individuals.
Society is nothing more than the
shared reality that people construct
as they interact with one another.
Society is a complex, ever-changing
mosaic of subjective meanings.
Key terms: individual, everyday
interactions, meanings
Ex. Studying how we determine
what is feminine or masculine.
Important Sociologists
Structural-Functional
 Auguste Comte
 Emile Durkheim
 Robert Merton
 Herbert Spencer
Social-Conflict
 Karl Marx
 W.E.B. DuBois
 Harriet Martineau
 Jane Addams
Symbolic-Interaction
 Max Weber (view of individuals)
 George Herbert Mead (personalities)
 Erving Goffman (dramaturgical analysis)
Research
Be objective.
 Don’t let your personal
feelings get involved in
research.
 “Common sense” isn’t always
the truth.
 Hawthorne effect – a change
in the subject’s behavior due
to the awareness of being
studied.
 Easy to lie with statistics.
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Experiments
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Variables
 Independent – causes the change
 Dependent – changes
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Operationalizing a variable
 Assigning a value to the variable
○ Ex. Good Teaching
Reliability = consistency
Validity – measuring what you intend to
measure
 For a measurement to be valid, it must
be reliable.
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Survey Research

Questionnaire
 Subjects respond to questions on paper.
○ Open-ended – free response
○ Closed-ended – fixed response
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Interview
 Asking subjects questions orally
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Participant Observation
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Impossible to survey everyone.
 Sample – a part of the population that represents the
whole.
Culture
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The values , beliefs, behavior, and
material objects that, together,
form a people’s way of life.
Material culture – tangible
Non-material culture – intangible
Ethnocentrism – judging cultures
by the standards of your own
culture.
Cultural relativism – judging
cultures by its own standards.
Culture shock – disorientation due
to not being able to make sense
out of your surroundings.
Different Meanings
Symbols can mean different things in
different cultures.
 Norms – Rules and expectations by
which society guides the behavior of its
members.
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Proscriptive – should nots
Prescriptive – shoulds
Folkways – Right v. Rude
Mores - Right v. Wrong
○ Taboo – strictly forbidden mores
Social Control
How we encourage
people to conform
to society’s norms:
 Guilt
 Shame
 Sanctions
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Deviance
Deviance - Recognized
violation of cultural norms.
 Crime – Violation of law.
 Hate crime – criminal act
against a person or person’s
property motivated by racial
or other bias.
 Victimless crime –
Prostitutes and gamblers
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Social Stratification
Social Stratification - a system
by which a society ranks
categories of people in a
hierarchy.
 Social mobility – change in
social position.
 Caste system – Social
stratification based on birth
(ascription).
 Class system – Social
stratification based on birth and
individual achievement.
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Sexuality
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Thoughts are often consumed
by sexuality.
Sex – biological distinction –
male or female
Gender – socially constructed
Intersexuals – neither male
nor female
Incest taboo – universal but
varies among cultures.
Other cultures prefer
homosexuality.
Types of Sexuality
Heterosexuality
 Homosexuality
 Bisexuality
 Asexuality
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Sexual History
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Not really talked about until 1920.
Sexual Revolution - Peaked in
1960s.
Sexual Counterrevolution – 1980s
Teen pregnancy lower today than in
1950s.
Official rape statistics only include
females.
Roe v. Wade – legalized abortion