Download Introduction to Sociology

Introduction to Sociology
Dr. Munshi
Fall 2015
Agenda, 9.16.15
• Social Theory, continued: WEBER
• What is the relationship between ideology and the economy?
• Sociological Methods
• What does it mean to be “objective”? What is the difference between values
and facts?
• What is the epistemology of intersectionality? How do we see what we see?
What does it mean to see through intersectionality?
History of Sociology: the “founding fathers”
Max Weber (pronounced “veber”)
1. On pages 110-112, Weber is stating his interest, his object of study:
what is it?
2.
According to Weber, what is the relationship between capitalism
and religion?
3. What is the “cage” that Weber refers to at the end of the essay?
History of Sociology: the “founding fathers”
Max Weber (pronounced “veber”)
• Inequality or social stratification is not limited to class (different from
Marx)
• Includes status and party– looks at how power operates in politics and culture
Weber on the Protestant Ethic
• Links Protestant ideology to the economic practices of saving and
reinvestment
• Human action is trapped within an “iron cage”– we are bound within
the “technical and economic conditions of machine production”
Making links: ideology and the economy
• Weber shows us that society’s economic practices/action are in
relationship to beliefs and feelings.
• Can we think of current applications?
Example: “The American Dream”
Free write in your notebook: What is your relationship to the
American Dream? Do you believe in it? Is it important to you? Why or
why not?
SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS
Is Sociology Objective?
What does it mean to be “objective?”
Is Sociology Objective?
According to Weber:
the goal of social science is to examine what is, not what ought to be
(values)
Society determines values and social science observes and explains
actions
According to Marx:
Studying the world is not enough; the point is to change it (values and
actions)
Is Sociology Objective?
• Sociological research is a process of gathering and interpreting data,
to describe and/or explain the social world
• Most sociologists gather evidence that is based in empirical
observation (something we can see, or hear, or smell or experience in
some way).
Is Sociology Objective?
Are the following statements based on values or based on empirical
evidence?
If it is a value statement, how can you make it an empirical statement
instead?
Value or Empirical Statement (“fact”)?
Michael Jackson died in 2009.
Fact
Michael Jackson is the best singer of all time.
Value
Most sociologists at BMCC name Michael Jackson as their favorite singer.
Fact (about a value)
Michael Jackson died in 2014.
Just wrong (incorrect fact)
Sociological Methods: Patricia Hill Collins
• Professor of Sociology, University of Maryland at College Park
• First African American woman to hold the position of President of the
American Sociological Association
• Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of
Empowerment (1990)
• Argues for a Black feminist epistemology
• Epistemology: how we know what we know, how we see the world.
Sociological Methods: Patricia Hill Collins
If you had to explain this article to a friend in a few sentences, what
would you say you learned from it?
(in pairs)
Sociological Methods: Patricia Hill Collins
What does Patricia Hill Collins say is the problem with dichotomous
either/or thinking?
• Relies on false opposites, like:
• thought or feeling
• oppressed or oppressor
• gender or race
• INSTEAD, Collins argues for a both/and way of understanding people, ideas
Sociological Methods: Patricia Hill Collins
What does it mean to say that facts/thinking and opinions/feelings are not
opposites?
• Feelings can be based on facts.
• The kinds of facts we are interested in can come from our feelings.
Sociological Methods: Patricia Hill Collins
What does she say Is the problem with “ranking” difference?
• Ranking difference relies on oppositional thinking
• It implies that you can add up different forms of oppression like it’s a
formula that stays the same regardless of time and place
• DOES NOT mean that some forms of oppression are more violent
than others (--she gives the example of lynching vs. sexual
objectification)
Sociological Methods: Patricia Hill Collins
What are the three dimensions of oppression that Collins describes?
• Institutional
• Symbolic
• Individual
Homework for Monday, 9/21
***************CHANGE TO SYLLABUS *********************
Read: DuBois piece (originally for 9/28).
The MEAD piece is now recommended, not required.
We will have Quiz #2 at beginning of class.
NO CLASS NEXT WEDNESDAY, 9/23