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INTRODUCTION
Introductory Sociology
Dr. Ablo Bah
Copyright © 2016
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SOCIOLOGY
• Sociology is the scientific study of social life
• Sociology studies the relationship between
individuals and social structures
• Sociology includes micro-level analyses focusing
on individuals, such as studies of small groups
and attitude change
• Sociology includes macro-level analyses
focusing on social structures, such as studies of
political and economic systems
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AUGUST COMTE
(1798-1857)
•
Born in France and heavily influenced by the
French Revolution (1789)
•
Comte coined the term sociology
•
Comte proposed applying the scientific methods
used in the natural sciences to the social
sciences
•
He called this approach Positivism
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C. WRIGHT MILLS
•
The sociological imagination is the capacity for
individuals to understand the relationship between
their individual lives and broad social forces that
influence them.
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THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION
The intersection of history and biography
The relationship between private troubles and
public issues
Our lives are not purely personal, but are lived
out in the context of social circumstances that
affect us all
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RECURRENT THEMES
Social Control
The Social Construction of Reality
Inequality
Social Structure
Knowledge
Social Change
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SOCIAL THEORY
Sociology has several theories that we use to explain these recurrent
themes
Structural-Functional Theory
Conflict Theory
Interactionist Theory
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CLASSIC SOCIOLOGISTS
Marx
Weber
Durkheim
Mead
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THEME: SOCIAL CONTROL
How is social control maintained in a society?
How powerful is social control?
HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO IN RESPONSE TO SOCIAL CONTROL?
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SOCIAL CONTROL (CONTINUED)
For example…
Would you let someone take pictures of you
naked?
No…not when you were a child, but today?
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POSTUR
E
PHOTOS
Have you had your
posture photos yet?
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POSTURE PHOTOS
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Not Just the
Few
Thousands of
students at some of
the nation’s most
prestigious
universities had
these posture
photos taken,
including George
Bush, Sr., Hillary
Rodham Clinton,
and many others.
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HOW CAN SOCIAL CONTROL BE SO
POWERFUL?
The great majority of social control is
internalized social control in which people do
things because they believe it is the right
thing to do, not because they are forced to do
so.
- Emile Durkheim
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INTERACTIONIST THEORY
•
•
•
Individuals, though constrained by social circumstances, can make
decisions and take actions that influence their own lives and those
of others.
Symbols are used to communicate meaning between people
Emergent properties are important characteristics of groups that
cannot be reduced to some simple combination of characteristics of
individuals.
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THEME: THE SOCIAL
CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
People offer a “definition of the situation”--a statement or action
that explicitly or implicitly suggests the meaning the actor
would like others to attribute to their actions.
Competing definitions of the situation are reconciled to produce a
“negotiated order”--a shared meaning of the situation agreed
upon by all participants.
Since the meaning of social life is negotiated in a social process
among participants, reality is not directly experienced by
individuals so much as it is socially constructed.
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DEFINITION OF THE SITUATION
She’s cute, but kind
of 2-dimensional for
a senior, and has
funny hair
Michelangelo’s David
Amedeo Modigliani’s
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Head and Bust in Profile
COMPETING DEFINITIONS OF THE
SITUATION
He’s kind of
immodest, but nice
chest
She’s cute, but kind
of 2-dimensional for
a senior, and has
funny hair
Michelangelo’s David
Amedeo Modigliani’s
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Head and Bust in Profile
NEGOTIATED ORDER
After all, it is a toga
party
Carpe Diem
Michelangelo’s David
Amedeo Modigliani’s
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Head and Bust in Profile
IS THIS A CRIME?
Is taking this picture a crime?
On November 2, 1995 Cambridge, MA police arrested Toni
Marie Angeli for taking photographs of her nude 4-year old
son after they were called by photo shop employees who
developed the film.
Yet many families have nude photographs of young children
taken in bathtubs, playing outside, and so on.
Mrs. Angeli claimed she was taking the photographs for a
photography class at Harvard University.
What do you think?
How does this relate to defining the situation and negotiated
order?
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DEFINING CRIME
Posters like this appeared on
trains and subways early in the
20th Century as part of efforts to
criminalize marijuana.
- Howard Becker
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GEORGE HERBERT
MEAD(1863-1931)
Son of a New England minister
Taught at the University of Chicago


Developed Symbolic Interactionist
Perspective
Believed people can interact by taking the
role of the other
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THEME: SOCIAL STRUCTURE
•
Social structures are enduring, relatively stable patterns of social
behavior
•
Social structures constrain social behavior, even behaviors we might
think are solely individual
•
For example, consider suicide. Suicide is not just a highly personal
individual act, but is influenced by social factors
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SUICIDE
Suicide rates
differ
systematically
by country and
Gender
Source: World Health Organization
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SUICIDE
Suicide
I. Russell Sorgi, 1942
The woman was
described as a
despondent divorcee.
Sorgi’s camera caught
her as she plunged to
her death.
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SUICIDE
A Bhuddist
monk burns
himself to death
to protest the
Diem
government in
South Vietnam
Malcolm
Browne,
Associated
Press, 1963.2
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EMILE DURKHEIM
(1858-1917)
Social facts are regular patterns of behavior that exist
independently of individuals and constrain individual
behavior
Conducted a classic study in which he found suicide to
be related to social integration of individuals in the
larger society (e.g., egoistic suicide and altruistic
suicide)
Developed the structural-functional perspective
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STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL THEORY
Some social structures lead
to important consequences
So societies
that survive
are more
likely to have
these
structures
Structures
Social
Consequences
The
consequences, in
turn, help
societies survive
Society
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STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL THEORY
EXAMPLE: FAMILIES
Families have important
consequences like
socializing children
So societies
that survive
are more
likely to have
families,
because
those lacking
families were
unlikely to
survive.
Socializing
Children
Families
Well-socialized
children help
societies survive.
Society
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THEME: SOCIAL INEQUALITY
There is great inequality both
within societies and between
societies.
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POVERTY
Death vigil in Sudan
Kevin Carter, 1993
After taking this
picture, the
photographer chased
away the vulture.
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CHILD LABOR IN
THE U.S. IN EARLY
20TH CENTURY
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EXAMPLES OF SOCIAL INEQUALITY
• Top 10% of U.S. population owns 91% percent of
all securities
• The average income in the United States is
hundreds, even thousands of times, larger than
the average income in some developing countries.
• The per capita energy consumption in developed
countries is more than ten times the per capita
consumption in developing countries.
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KARL MARX
(1818-1883)

Born in Germany, spent most
of his life in Britain
Influenced by the Industrial Revolution
Believed that human history was the history of class
conflict
Father of the conflict perspective
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CONFLICT THEORY
Society consists of groups competing for scarce resources.
What appears on the surface to be cooperation merely masks the struggle
for power.
Social structures persist in society because they serve the interests of
those who have wealth and power.
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CONFLICT THEORY
bourgeoisie
proletariat
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THEME: KNOWLEDGE
How do we KNOW something?
How do we distinguish scientific knowledge from beliefs?
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SO, IS THIS SOME
VAST COSMIC
INTERGENERATIO
NAL
CONSPIRACY?
Or could it be
due to chance?
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THEME:
SOCIAL CHANGE


Social change is a
pervasive aspect of
social life
Social change occurs
more quickly in some
societies than in
others…Why?
This statue of Lenin
was torn down after
the fall of the Soviet
Union in 1989
This statue of
Saddam
Hussein met a
similar fate in
2003
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MAX WEBER (1864-1920)
•
German son of a successful Protestant entrepreneur
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Argued modern life was experiencing increasing rationality
•
Traditional organizations were being superceded by
bureaucracies
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The Protestant Work Ethic encouraged the rise of
capitalism
•
Social life is based on rational action guided by subjective
understanding (verstehen) anchored in shared cultural
ideas
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AN EXAMPLE: COLLEGE LIFE
Question
Concept Illustrated
Inequality (race, gender, class)
Who’s not here?
CLASSROOM BEHAVIOR
• how should we act?
Social structures (norms,etc.),
socialization
• what is a classroom? social construction of reality
• talking and other
disruptions
deviance, social control, crowd
behavior
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AN EXAMPLE: COLLEGE LIFE
(CONTINUED)
Question
Concept Illustrated
What is a university?
Roles, Social statuses,
organizations, social change
Grading
knowledge
Grading on a curve
latent functions, inequality
Student subcultures
Culture, distinction
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RECAP
What is Sociology?
Recurrent Themes
Theoretical Perspectives
Founding Sociologists
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THE END
BYE
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