Download 1 – Introduction to Sociology

Lecture 1
THE DISCIPLINE OF SOCIOLOGY
The Sociological Imagination
Defined as: “...the ability to see the relationship
between individual experiences and the larger
society” (Mills, 1959)
Defining “society”
social group
geographical territory
same political authority and cultural expectations
Importance of Global Interdependence
1. Where we live shapes the lives we lead
2. Societies are increasingly interconnected
3. Many social problems in Canada are
more serious elsewhere
Macionis and Gerber, 2011:8
The Discipline of Sociology
• Industrial economy
• Growth of cities
• Political change
Early Thinkers
Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
• coined the term sociology..and
considered the founder
• He believed that societies contained:
• Social Statics
• Social Dynamics
• Natural science applied to society
• Positivism
Early Thinkers
Harriet Martineau (1802-1876)
• Made Comte’s work more accessible
• She was an active sociologist
studying social customs and
consequences of industrialism and
capitalism
Early Thinkers
Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
• Believed that people are a product of
the social environment
• Society are built of social facts
• Anomie - a condition when social
control becomes ineffective as a result
of the loss of shared values and a sense
of purpose in society
• Scientific approach to studying social
facts
What do these thinkers have in
common?
Questioning the status quo
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Conflict (especially class conflict) was necessary
– Bourgeoisie and proletariat
– Capitalist system made poverty
• Capitalist class controls and exploits the masses of
struggling workers
• Results in Alienation
• Marx predicted that the workers would becomes aware
of its exploitation and overthrow the capitalists, creating
a free and classless society
Just one more…
Max Weber (1864-1920)
• Value-free sociology conducted in a scientific
manner
• Verstehen – see the world as others see it
• Bureaucracies and organization
Development in North America
• United States
• Canada
– First department
– Canadian Review of Sociology founded in 1965
Theoretical Perspectives
• Theory
• Perspective
• A basic image of society that helps us think
about social issues and guide social research
Contemporary Theoretical Perspectives
•
•
•
•
Functionalist (or structural-functionalist)
Conflict
Feminist
Symbolic Interactionist
Functionalist Perspectives
• Assumption that society is a stable, orderly
system
• The parts of society work together to promote
solidarity and stability
• Everything in a society (institutions, customs,
interactions) function to keep the society
going
Types of functions
R. K. Merton (1910-2003)
• Attempted to classify functions
– Manifest
– Latent
– Dysfunctions
Conflict Perspectives
• Assumption that groups in society are engaged in a
continuous power struggle for control of scarce
resources
• Social patterns and relations benefit some individuals
while hurting others
• Emphasize factors such as social class, gender, sexual
orientation, race, ethnicity and age
• Conflict can also lead to social change
Feminist Perspectives
• Assumption that gender is necessary category to
understand and to explain inequalities in the
household, paid labour force, politics, law and
culture
• There is no single unified approach.
• Focus on patriarchy : a hierarchical system of power
in which males possess greater economic and social
privilege than females
Symbolic Interactionist Perspectives
• Assumption that society is a sum of the interactions
of individuals and groups
• Focuses on micro-level of analysis
• Symbolic interactionists attempt to examine people’s
day-to-day interactions and their behaviour in groups
• This perspective examines:
– Interaction
– Symbol
• Each person has a subjective interpretation of a given
situation
Theory guides our research!
• Research is the process of systematically
collecting information for the purposes of
testing an existing theory or generating a new
one
• But not all sociologists collect research in the
same manner
The Sociological Research Process
• With quantitative research, the goal is
scientific objectivity, and the focus is on data
that can be measured numerically
The Sociological Research Process
• With Qualitative Research, the use of
interpretative description (words) rather than
statistics (numbers) are used to analyze the
underlying meanings and patterns of social
relationships
Research Methods
• Research methods: strategies or techniques
for systematically conducting research
– Surveys
– Secondary Analysis of Existing Data
– Field Research
– Experiments
Surveys
• Survey: a poll in which the researcher
gathers facts or attempts to determine the
relationship among facts
• Respondents: people who provide data for
analysis through interviews or
questionnaires
Types of Surveys
Self Administered
Questionnaires
•Simple and
inexpensive
•Respondents are
anonymous
•Problems: low
response rates
Interview
Telephone
•Personal and
direct contact
•More honest and
less threatening
•Face to face
Respondents
•Greater control
over the data
•Problems: Major
cost and time
•Problems: Some
not accessible to
researchers
Surveys
• Sampling Considerations:
– Survey research involves some type of sampling
– From a population (those persons we want to find
out about)
– Sample
• Representative Sample
• Random Sample
Secondary Analysis
• Using data that has already been gathered
by someone else
• One kind: content analysis: the systematic
examination of cultural artifacts or various
forms of communication to extract thematic
data and draw conclusions about social life
Field Research
• Field research is the study of social life in its natural
setting: observing and interviewing people where they
live, work and play
• Use of qualitative data
• Varieties of observation:
– Participant observation
– Ethnography
Experiments
• Defined: a carefully designed situation in
which the researcher studies the impact of
certain variables on subjects’ attitudes or
behaviour.
– experimental group
– control group
Experiments
•
Process: After persons are selected with very
similar characteristics into these two groups,
then:
1.
2.
3.
Both groups are pre-tested
Exposed to a stimulus representing the
independent variable
Post-tested: to see if the independent variable
had an effect on the dependent variable
Ethical Issues in Sociological Research
• Elements of the Canadian Sociology and
Anthropology Association:
–Participation must be voluntary
–No harm to research subjects
(physically, psychologically, or
personally)
–To protect confidentiality and
anonymity
To summarize
• Sociology involves using different theoretical
perspectives to systematically study the social
world
• Different perspectives can be used to interpret
the same issues/topics in different ways
• These different perspectives allow us to
deconstruct the “taken-for-granted” ways of
thinking