Download Sociology The Essentials Chapter I

Chapter 1
What is Sociology?
1
Definition of Sociology
Sociology is the study of
human behavior in society.
Sociology is a scientific way of
thinking about society and its
influence on human groups.
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What do the following people have in common?
Rev. Jesse
Jackson
Debra Winger
(Actress)
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Q: What is the difference between sociology
and other social science disciplines?
1. Focus on human behavior
2. Social groups as unit of analysis
3. Focus on current social issues or historical
background of ongoing issues
Issues vs. Troubles
Troubles are privately felt problems that spring from
events or feelings in a person’s life.
Issues affect large numbers of people and have
their origins in the institutional arrangements and
history of a society.
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Auguste Comte
• The founding father of
sociology.
• He believed that society
could be studied
scientifically.
– This approach is
known as
positivism.
1798–1857
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C. Wright Mills
• C.W. Mills coined the
term the
sociological
imagination (1959).
– The ability to see the
societal patterns that
influence the
individual as well as
groups of individuals.
1916–1962
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Sociological imagination
“personal biographies are linked to the social and
historical context in which they are lived.”
ex. Brian & Jen’s Marriage
Unemployment Rate
• Unemployment rate
4.5 % (Dec. 2006)
9.5% (July 2010)
(Dec. 2006)
•
•
•
•
White
Black
White (16 to 19)
Black (16 to 19)
4.0 %
8.4 %
(July 2010)
8.6%
15.6%
23.2%
40.6%
Unemployment rate (2008)
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Sociological imagination
• COMPLETE THIS
Technological
development
law
economy
Your life
Scientific
development
Educational
system
The media
War/military
system
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•
•
•
Health Care System
Cost for Child Care
Public Support for Raising Children
Law regarding Credit Card Activity among
youth
• Popular Culture (ex. TV, movie, internet)
• Gender Roles
etc.
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Making hypotheses using The
sociological imagination
• Median age at first marriage (the U.S.)
1960
2007
22.8 (men)
20.3 (women)
27.5 (men)
25.6 (women)
• Murders
43 per 1,000,000 people (the U.S.)
5 per 1,000,000 people (Japan)
The United Nations (2000)
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Assignment #1
Assignment #1
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Discussion Question
Describe a trouble that you currently face.
– Why do you think you are facing this trouble?
– Which social group do you think is most likely to face
this trouble in our society?
– Why?
– How is your trouble related to a public issue?
ex. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/us/27teen.html
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Discovering Unsettling Facts
• Peter Berger (1963) calls this process debunking.
– Debunking refers to looking behind the facades of
everyday life.
– Berger called it the “unmasking tendency” of
sociology (1963).
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Debunking
Ex.
• going to school
• http://www.theknotinc.com/press-releaseshome/2009-press-releases/2009-04-08-realwedding-survey.aspx
• http://www.darndivorce.com/divorce-ratesaround-the-world/
• http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_curr
ent_divorce_rate_in_the_US
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The Significance of Diversity
• Diversity is a central theme studied by sociologists.
– Racial and ethnic groups currently comprise 35%
of those living in this country.
– This percentage continues to steadily increase.
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Minorities in the U.S.
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What is Diversity?
• Diversity is a concept that includes studying group
differences in society.
• Diversity shapes the opportunities one has to:
– marry
– go to school
– get a job
– buy a home
– join a religious institution
– receive healthcare
– live a safe and comfortable life
– save a life
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Theoretical Frameworks
• The main theoretical frameworks used by most
sociologists are:
1. Functionalism (macro)
2. Conflict (macro)
3. Symbolic Interaction (micro)
– Diverse Theoretical frameworks (macro and
micro)
ex. Feminism
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1. Functionalism
• focuses on how each of society’s parts, institutions,
and systems contribute to the stability of the whole.
• concerned with the stability and shared public
values of the culture or the society
• conditions such as deviance are disruptive to the stability
of the society and they lead to social change as the
society must find ways to deal with it and re-establish its
social stability and order.
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1. Emile Durkheim
• Some of Durkheim’s
major work focuses on
the forces that hold
society together.
– He called this force
social solidarity.
1858-1917
• People are glued
together by religious
rituals which sustain
moral cohesion.
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Suicide
• Durkheim is well known for his early work on
suicide.
– He demonstrated that suicide was not purely a
personal trouble, but that rates of suicide within a
society varied by how clear and consistently
upheld the norms and customs of the society
were.
– He showed that suicide rates were higher in
societies where norms were unclear or
contradictory.
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2. Conflict Theory
• society is comprised of groups that compete for
social and economic resources.
• emphasizes the role of economic force and power
• Social order is maintained not by consensus, but by
domination.
• emphasizes strife and revolution as an agent of
social change
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Karl Marx
• He saw society as
systematic and
structural and class as
a fundamental
dimension of society
that shapes social
behavior.
• Marx was a political
activist
1818-1883
Marx’s ideas
Marx:
• was devoted to explaining how capitalism shaped
society
• spoke of economic determinism with a class
system of owners (bourgeoisie) and workers
(proletariat).
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Max Weber
( “Vay-ber”)
• Weber expanded on
Marx’s thinking; he said
that society had three
basic dimensions:
political, economic,
and cultural, which
must all be examined.
• He did not advocate
political activism.
1864–1920
Functionalism vs. Conflict Theory
• Hu, Winnie (2008) "As Food Costs Rise, So Do
School Lunch Prices" The New York Times.
August 24, 2008
• Traffic on campus
• Campus book store issue
Weber’s ideas
Weber:
• saw society from a multidimensional perspective that
went beyond Marx’s strictly economic focus
• believed that sociologists must not project their political
ideas on their students - being value-free.
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3. Symbolic Interaction Theory
• This theoretical framework focuses on immediate social
interaction to be the place where “society” exists.
– It studies the ways groups of people, cultures, and
societies assign different meaning to behavior,
events, or things.
– emphasize face-to-face interaction and pay attention
to words, gestures, and symbols.
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Symbolic Interaction
• Study material include things such as: what one
talks about, styles and fashion, how individuals
develop a self-identity, and the roles one performs.
• Social order is constantly negotiated and created
through the interpretations people give to their
behavior.
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Cooley & Mead
– examined how society shaped the mind and identity
of individuals.
– Society is a “laboratory.”
– the Chicago School of thought.
G.H. Mead
C.H. Cooley
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Question
• Think about the example given about smoking
and using a symbolic interaction framework in
Chapter 1, how would you explain other risky
behaviors, such as steroid use among athletes
or eating disorders among young women?
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Early American Thinkers
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Charles Darwin
Charles Horton Cooley
George Herbert Mead
Robert Parks
Jane Adams
Ida B. Wells Barnett
W.E.B. Du Bois
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W.E.B. Du Bois
“due boys”
• A black scholar and cofounder of the NAACP, he
was deeply troubled by
the racial divisiveness in
society.
– He envisioned a
community-based,
activist profession
committed to social
justice.
– He also believed in the
scientific approach to
sociological questions.
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Test Your Knowledge
•
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Who is the founding father of sociology?
C. Wright Mills
Karl Marx
Max Weber
Auguste Comte
None of the above
Test Your Knowledge
• Conflict theory is concerned with:
a.
b.
c.
d.
micro-level behaviors and events
survival of the fittest
exploitation of the masses
day-to-day interaction
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Test Your Knowledge
• Charles H. Cooley:
a.
b.
c.
d.
was a slave who studied lynching
was the founder of functionalism
studied day-to-day interactions
none of the above
45
Test Your Knowledge
• C.Wright Mills:
a. coined the term the sociological imagination
b. saw society as a reflection of its history and the
way people behaved in a social context
c. discussed capitalism and the exploitation of the
workers
d. all but answer c above
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Test Your Knowledge
•
a.
b.
c.
d.
Which of the following theoretical
frameworks uses micro-perspective?
Functionalism
Conflict Theory
Symbolic Interaction Theory
All of the above