Download Introduction to Sociology

Introduction to Sociology
Professor Munshi
Spring 2015
Schedule for Today, 2/9/15
• Sociological Imagination continued.
• Theory and Methods: What do
sociologists do, and how do we do it?
Applying the sociological imagination:
real-life examples
Think of experiences that you are familiar with, in your own life
and the people around you. Write about one example that
illustrates a "personal trouble" that someone you know has
experienced.
Then, apply the sociological imagination to this example. Can
you connect the personal trouble to a public issue?
How does this exercise help us to understand the relationship
between personal biography and social history?
**Please protect privacy by not mentioning any real names.
Applying the sociological imagination:
real-life examples
(How) Does group membership (like race,
gender, ethnicity, culture, age, sexual
orientation, religion) affect the situations?
What other factors can affect personal
problems/public issues?
Sociological Imagination: Discussion
What does the sociological imagination
allow us to see?
(How) Does it disrupt ways that we have been
taught to understand the world around us?
Sociological Imagination: Discussion
What does the sociological imagination do to
the “American Dream?”
(What *is* the American Dream?)
Sociological Imagination: Discussion
“…the individual can understand his own experience &
gauge his own fate only by locating himself within his
period, that he can know his own chances in life by
becoming aware of those of all individuals in his
circumstances. In many ways it is a terrible lesson; in
many ways a magnificent one.” (Mills 1959)
What does Mills mean by this, and do you agree?
Sociological Imagination: Discussion
What is the “American Dream?”
What does the sociological imagination do to
the “American Dream?”
Sociological Imagination: Discussion
“…the individual can understand his own experience &
gauge his own fate only by locating himself within his
period, that he can know his own chances in life by
becoming aware of those of all individuals in his
circumstances. In many ways it is a terrible lesson; in
many ways a magnificent one.” (Mills 1959)
What does Mills mean by this?
Sociological Imagination: Free Write
In many ways [the sociological imagination] is a
terrible lesson; in many ways a magnificent
one.” –Mills, 1959
What do you think?
How is it terrible? How is it magnificent?
What questions does this discussion bring up for
you?
What does sociology DO?
What kinds of questions does sociology ask and
how does it find its answers?
• Sociology asks questions about the world and
looks for evidence to support claims
• Sociology describes the world and also tries to
explain it
History of Sociology
• Sociology emerged in a specific place and
time: Europe in the mid/late 1800s
– Industrialization  people moving into cities
– Science became a challenge to religion as a way of
explaining the world
History of Sociology:
the “founding fathers”
1. Karl Marx
• Critic of capitalism (e.g. 1848, with Engels, wrote
“The Manifesto of the Communist Party”; 1865,
wrote Capital)
• The economy is the central change agent in
society.
History of Sociology:
the “founding fathers”
Marx, continued:
• Society is organized through conflict of the
two classes, the bourgeoisie (owners) and the
proletariat (workers)
• Class conflict  social change to a utopian
classless society, achieved through revolution
History of Sociology:
the “founding fathers”
Today: conflict theory
• Assumes that social change and conflict are
normal
• Social order is attained through domination
and/or coercion
• Attention to unequal power relations
History of Sociology:
the “founding fathers”
2. Emile Durkheim
• Concerned with how social order and
cohesion is maintained
• Human nature is to be insatiable and society
regulates our desire
• Afraid of chaos
• What would replace religion as a way to
create connection and stability for society?
History of Sociology:
the “founding fathers”
Durkheim continued
• Social fact: something that exists externally &
independently from any individual & can not
be seen & has a real force on how we behave
• Shared values keep society together
History of Sociology:
the “founding fathers”
Durkheim continued
Functionalism: society is a functional whole
where every part has a role (like a human body);
negative effects = dysfunction, which yields
change
– Manifest function: the explicit use
– Latent function: consequences that are not
explicit
Conflict Theory vs. Functionalism
How does each theory explain inequality?
History of Sociology:
the “founding fathers”
3. Max Weber (pronounced “veber”)
• Society is organized through rationalization
(efficiency, predictability, calculation)-bureaucracy
• Links Protestant ideology to the economic
practices of saving and reinvestment (1905)
• Human action is trapped within an “iron cage”
History of Sociology:
the “founding fathers”
3. 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
Is Sociology Objective?
What does it mean to be
“objective?”
(to be continued)
Homework for 2/17
Read: Chapter 2, pp. 39-51
Reading Worksheet #3 due