Download “Thinking Like a Sociologist” I. What Is Sociology? A. Sociology is

“Thinking Like a Sociologist”
I. WHAT IS SOCIOLOGY?
A. Sociology is the systematic study of social interaction at a variety of levels. Social interaction is
the process by which we act toward and react to people around us.
B. Are You Unique?
1. Humans adapt to expected and acceptable behavior even though individuals are different
in many ways. We follow a variety of rules and customs about what we eat, how we drive,
how we act in different social situations, and how we dress for work, classes, and leisure
activities.
C.
Common Sense? What’s so common?
1.
2.
3.
4.
No. Sociology goes beyond common sense in several ways:
Common sense ignores facts.
Common sense is often contradictory.
Common sense perceptions vary across groups and cultures.
Much of our common sense is based on myths and misconceptions like in the United
States it is common sense to automatically go all the way through from the first grade to the
twelfth grade in school. Why?
II. THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION
A. The Sociological Imagination: The sociological imagination is the intersection between
individual lives and larger social influences. C. Wright Mills emphasized the connection between
personal troubles (biography) and structural (public and historical) issues.
B. Microsociology: How People Affect Our Everyday Lives: Microsociology focuses on small-scale
patterns of individuals’ social interaction in specific settings. In most of our relationships, we
interact with others on a micro, or “small,” level.
C. Macrosociology: How Social Structure Affects Our Everyday Lives: Macrosociology focuses on
large-scale patterns and processes that characterize society as a whole. Macro, or “large,”
approaches are especially useful in understanding some of the constraints—such as economic
forces, social movements, and social and public policies—that limit many of our personal options
on the micro level.
D. Why Sociology Is Important in Your Everyday Life?
1.
2.
3.
4.
Making Informed Decisions Understanding Diversity.
Evaluating Social and Public Policies Think Critically
Expanding Your Career Opportunities.
E. Sociology and Other Social Sciences: What’s the Difference?
1. The social sciences include disciplines that study human society.
2. Sociologists laid the foundation for criminology, or the scientific study of criminal
behavior and criminal justice, which attempts to control crime.
3. Anthropologists study developing countries and may engage in archaeological
exploration.
4. Economists study the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
5. Historians examine the past.
6. Political scientists focus on power relationships—how people vote, how laws are passed,
and how governments exercise power.
7. Psychologists are interested in what occurs within people, including emotions,
perception, learning, personality and thinking.
8. Social workers help people through an agency, organization, or non-profit organization.
III. SOME ORIGINS OF SOCIOLOGICAL THINKING
Emile Durkheim saw society as characterized by unity and cohesion because its members are bound
together by common interests and attitudes. To be scientific, Durkheim maintained, sociology must study
social facts. Social facts are aspects of social life, external to the individual that can be measured.
Durkheim argued that an interdependence of different tasks and occupations or a division of labor helps
to maintain social solidarity or social cohesiveness and harmony. Durkheim set out to show that social
integration is related to suicide. He used data on gender, age, and religion to show that suicide is
connected to an individual’s level of integration with society.
Karl Marx maintained that economic issues produce divisiveness rather than social solidarity. Marx
maintained that economic issues produce divisiveness rather than social solidarity. Marx’s main emphasis
is on class struggle. Class Conflict produces a society divided into the “haves” (capitalists) and the
“have-nots” (proletariat). Marx contended that industrial society produces alienation, the feeling of
separation from one’s group or society.
The Hull
House
recently
closed due
to funding.
In contrast to Marx, Max Weber focused social organization and the interrelationships between
economic, political, and cultural institutions. Weber focused on the differences rather than the similarities
between the natural and the social sciences. Weber didn’t dismiss “objective research,” but he posited that
an understanding of society requires a “subjective” understanding of behavior. Weber also argued for a
value-free sociology where the researcher separates her or his personal values, opinions, ideology, and
beliefs from scientific research.
Other researchers such as Jane Addams represented one of the founders of symbolic interactionism in
America and co-founded Hull House, one of the first settlement houses in Chicago that served as a
community center for the neighborhood poor. W.E.B Du Bois examined the oppressive effects of race
and class, described the numerous contributions of U.S. blacks to Western culture, and advocated
women’s rights. He was the first major black sociologist writing prolifically on race relations in the U.S.
IV. CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES
A. Functionalism
1. Functionalists maintain that society is a complex system of interdependent parts that
work together to ensure a society’s survival. They argue that society is a social system.
2. Manifest and latent functions are two kinds of functions. Manifest functions are intended
and recognized; they are present and clearly evident. Latent functions are unintended and
unrecognized; they are present but not immediately obvious.
B. Conflict Theory

Conflict theory examines the ways in which groups disagree, struggle over power, and
compete for scarce resources (such as property, wealth, and prestige). In contrast to functionalists,
conflict theorists see disagreement and the resulting changes in society as natural, inevitable, and
even desirable. Karl Marx predicted that conflict would result from widespread economic
inequality. Later conflict theorists emphasized that the key sources of economic inequity in any
society also include race, ethnicity, gender, age, and sexual orientation.

For conflict theorists, there is a continuous tension between the “haves” and the “have-nots,”
most of whom are children, women, minorities, and the poor.

Conflict theory is important in explaining how societies create and cope with disagreements.
C. Feminist Theories

Feminist theories focus on gender. Feminists try to explain the social, economic, and political
position of women in society with a view to freeing women from traditionally oppressive
expectations, constraints, roles, and behavior.
D. Symbolic Interactionism
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
Symbolic interactionsim is the role of constructing meaning through symbols.
Symbols are keys to symbolic interactionist analysis.