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Course: College Sociology
Instructor:
[email protected]
Required Textbook:
Sociology: A Brief Introduction, by
Alex Thio
Why you need this
textbook:
• You will be tested from this book
• Reading Assignments
• Homework Assignments
• Quizzes
The Website!
Holyoke.schoolfusion.us
Nicolas Balog
Sociology
Find the syllabus and the Nacirema Reading
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Chapter One:
The Essence of
Sociology
The Study of Social Life
More Than Common Sense

Sociology offers factually supported ideas based
on sociological research.
Appreciation of Social Diversity

Sociology suggests that we can know ourselves
better by studying others.
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
The Importance of Global Analysis
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The whole world has become a global village.
Economic globalization has become a big
influence in both the U.S. economy and
society at large.
Outsourcing has changed the way U.S.
corporations operate.
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Sociology as a Science
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Scientists search for patterns using a method
known as observation.
When scientists discover a pattern in the world,
they describe it in the form of a hypothesis –
which is a tentative statement of how events
are related to each other.
A theory is comprised of logical hypotheses that
explain the relationship among various
phenomena.
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
The Sociological Imagination
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To understand human behavior, sociologists
look “from the outside” at individuals.
Sociologists examine the impact of social
forces on individuals.
Social forces include: friends, family, customs,
beliefs, and politics.
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Sociological Frontier
Deconstructing Society –
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Postmodern Theory- traced back to early 20th
century.
Core of Postmodern theory today is
deconstructionism – idea that to understand society,
we should “deconstruct” it, or take it apart, and
anything associated with it.
Then we can uncover the meaning, values, and
ideologies of society.
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
The Development of Sociology
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Sociology is a very new
discipline.
It emerged during the
nineteenth century.
It grew out of upheaval
during the Industrial
Revolution.
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The American and French
Revolutions encouraged
new thought.
Scientists began applying
the scientific method to
real world problems.
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Comte - “The Father of Sociology”
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Comte coined the term
“sociology.”
He argued that reliance on
superstition and
speculation was
inadequate in
understanding society.

He envisioned a science
of society with two
branches: statics - the
study of the
organization that allows
societies to endure and
dynamics – the study of
the processes by which
society changes
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Spencer “Society is an Organism”
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Spencer thought family,
religion, government are all
parts of one organism—
society.
Society corrects its own
problems— “survival of the
fittest”
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Spencer believed that
governments should
leave social problems
alone.
Society will evolve to
become better naturally.
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Karl Marx
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Marx stated that all
human history is marked
by class conflict.
Marx believed that
economic systems
determine beliefs and
values.
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Marx urged people not
to let society evolve but
to change it.
The struggle between
the capitalists and the
proletariats would end
in revolution that would
create a classless
society
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Emile Durkheim
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Pioneered the systematic
application of scientific
principles to sociology.
First to use statistical
methods to test
hypotheses.
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Studied suicide.
Argued that sociologists
should only consider what
they could observe and
should look at “social
facts as things.”
Believed that people’s
subjective experiences
should not be a concern of
sociologists.
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Max Weber
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Believed that individuals
always interpret the
meaning of their own
behavior and act according
to these interpretations
Sociologists should adopt a
method called Verstehen –
emphatic understanding of
their subjects.

Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Sociologists could
then obtain
“interpretive
understandings” of
the meanings of
particular behaviors.
Sociology in the United States
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Jane Addams - cofounded the Hull House
in Chicago.
Addams played a
significant role in
establishing government
programs such as:
Social Security and the
Children’s Bureau.
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W.E.B. DuBois was the
first African American to
receive a doctorate at
Harvard.
He worked on racial
equality and created the
NAACP.
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Theoretical Perspectives
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Functionalist Perspective – Focus is on social
order.
Conflict Perspective – Focus is on social
conflict
Symbolic Interactionist Perspective – Focus is
on social interactions
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Functionalist Perspective
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Society is made up of interdependent parts that
perform functions for society as a whole.
Society is held together by social consensus—the
majority agree on what would be good for
everybody.
For Durkheim, social consensus came out in two
forms:
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Mechanical solidarity
Organic Solidarity
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Functionalist Perspective
Mechanical Solidarity
•
Social cohesion that develops when people do
similar work and have similar beliefs.
•
Exists in small-scale societies
Organic Solidarity –
•
Social cohesion that arises when the people in a
society perform a wide variety of specialized jobs
and have to depend on each other.
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Conflict Perspective
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Portrays society as always changing and
marked by conflict.
Emphasizes that different groups compete
with each other for scarce resources.
e.g.: men and women; one religious group or
another.
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Feminist Theory

A form of conflict theory that explains human
life in terms of the experiences of women.
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Women’s experiences differ from men’s
Women’s position in most social situations is
unequal to that of men.
Women are viewed as oppressed – restrained,
subordinated, controlled, and abused by a male
dominated society known as patriarchy
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Symbolic Interactionist Perspective
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A micro view of society.
People assign meanings to each other’s words and
actions.
Our response to a person’s actions is determined by our
subjective interpretation of that action.
Behavior is fluid and always changing.
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Theoretical Thumbnail: Major Perspectives
in Sociology
Perspective
Focus
Insights
Functionalist
Social order or
stability
Society consists of interdependent groups pursuing
common goals. Social order is maintained through social
consensus, whereby people agree to cooperate in order to
contribute to social order.
Conflict
(including
feminist theory)
Social conflict
or change
Society is made up of conflicting groups, such as women
and men, each pursuing their own interests. Social order
is maintained through coercion, whereby social order is
imposed by the powerful over the weak, such as how
patriarchy is imposed by men on women.
Symbolic
interactionist
Interaction
between
individuals
Society is composed of individuals whose actions depend
on interpreting each other’s behavior. Social order is
maintained through constant negotiations between
individuals trying to understand each other’s actions and
reactions.
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
“Which one is right?”
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The perspectives are not incompatible.
They each offer a different view of society that
when brought together, enrich our sociological
knowledge of the world.
They offer a fuller and more balanced view of
sociology.
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Sports: Illustrating the 3 Perspectives
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Conflict Perspective – Sports harm society by
serving the interests of the relatively powerful
over those of the powerless.
Functionalist Perspective – Sports contributes
to society by performing 3 major functions.
Symbolic Interactionist Perspective – View
how athletes, coaches, and fans behave.
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Major Research Methods
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Social research checks validity of theories.
Produces information that describes our lives.
Helps develop new theories.
Includes: survey, observation, experiment, and analysis
of existing data.
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Surveys
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Ask questions about
opinions, beliefs, and
behavior.
Use self-administered
questionnaires or
personal interviews.
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You need to select a
sample—small number
of people selected from
population.
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Observation and Ethnography
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Participant
 Detached
observation—the
observation—the
researcher takes part in
researcher observes as
the group they are
an uninvolved outsider,
studying.
from a distance.
 Ethnography –an
analysis of people’s
lives from their own
perspective.
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Experiment
A research operation in which the researcher
manipulates variables so that their influence can be
determined.
Situation is created in which researcher determines if
independent variable caused dependent variable.
Create experimental group – exposed to independent
variable and the control group – which is not.
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Analysis of Existing Data
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Searching for new knowledge in the data
collected earlier by another researcher or a
public agency.
Data is usually quantitative
Content analysis is used to search fro specific
words or ideas and then turning them into
numbers.
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Major Research Methods in Sociology
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009
Chapter Review
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How does sociology differ from common sense?
How did the early U.S. sociologists differ from
their European predecessors?
What are the basic ideas of the 3 theoretical
perspectives?
What research methods do sociologists use?
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2009