Download THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY

THE STUDY OF
SOCIOLOGY
Why study Sociology?
• “Educating students to better understand themselves and
others, to value our heritage, and to appreciate the
diversity of the world and its cultures."
• Sociology provides us with an understanding of how
social forces shape individual attitudes and behavior.
• Sociology shows us how societies are developed and
maintained.
• Sociology introduces us to the sociological imagination,
which is the mindset that allows us to see the connection
between the individual and society.
• Sociology helps us to the appreciate the diversity that
exists in the human population.
• Sociology challenges our common sense notions about
the social world that we live in.
• Sociology sharpens our analytical skills.
• Sociology helps us to understand ourselves and others.
• Sociology adds value to our lives by empowering us to
make well-thought out decisions.
Where can it lead you????
• Corporate America…many
sociologists are employed in Human
Resources to maintain a positive,
organized corporate environment.
Social Work
• Many sociologists are employed as
social workers in communities and
schools.
Sports
• Large sports franchises employ
sociologists to deal with the
following areas:
• sport subculture and fan base
• the political economy of sport
(marketing),
• sport and the media,
• sport, the body and the emotions,
• sports violence,
• sport politics and national
identity,
• sport and globalization.
Research and Travel
• Getting paid to travel, do field
work, and gather data.
Sociology Majors…
• …have done
everything
from
teaching, to
becoming
President, to
changing the
world.
http://www.asanet.org/cs/root/leftnav/care
ers_and_jobs/careers_and_jobs_home
Emergence of Sociology
• Product of the Industrial
Revolution, as well as political,
intellectual, and economic
upheavals of the 18th and 19th
centuries. Why?
• Radical change in social
organization (urbanization) gives
way to a need to understand
why the sudden change in
society...this leads to the desire
to want to control society… this
science becomes sociology
(originally called “Social
Physics”)
The Founders…who can we thank?
• AUGUST COMTE
• Father of Sociology
• Believed we can study the social
world , like the natural/ scientific
world. Once we understand we
can control events
• Divided study into 2 parts:
• 1. social structure (social order,
stays the same) STATICS
• 2. social process (changes in
society) DYNAMICS
HERBERT SPENCER
• Influenced by Darwin.
• Thought that social
change and conflict were
just stepping stones on the
road to a perfect society.
• Believed best aspects of
society would survive over
time… became known as
Social Darwinism.
KARL MARX
• Repulsed by poverty and inequality.
• Thought a society’s economic
system, greatly influenced it’s social
structure. (Have’s vs. Have Not’s)
• Saw conflict as a “human-made”
condition that society fostered to
slow or stop social change to
oppress the worker.
• His theory becomes known as
Conflict Theory.
EMILE DURKEIM
• People are the product of their social
environment.
• Concerned with the stability of
society… felt religion was main thing
that held a society together… less
religion=less order.
• Says successful society needs
balance between regulation and
freedom
• One of the first to discuss suicide and
society… talk of suicide was taboo
until then.
• MAX WEBER
• Most influential… modern thinker.
• Disagreed with Marx…economics
not the “building block”.
• Unlike other theorists, he was
concerned with separate groups
rather than society as a whole.
• Studied without judging…
sociology concerned with what is,
not what should be…this is Value
Free Sociology
Sociology in the United States
• Reform approach vs. radical (Europe)… in
other words only reform what needs to
change, don’t radically overhaul all of
society.
• Slavery, Civil War, and Immigration sparked
interest in study of Soc.
• W.E.B DuBois… writer who brought racial
problems to light. Started one of the first
Sociology classes at the Univ. of Atlanta.
• Jane Adams… founding mother of Soc.
Founded Hull House which pushed for social
reform programs in Chicago.
First formal Sociology class in
the United States…Yale in
1876. Who do you think it was
geared towards?
• WHY?????
How do politicians use
sociology?
•Look at the following
pictures… how is the
politician trying to
appeal to the group?
2008
2005
Society vs. Culture…
• Culture is way of life shared by
members of a society…a group in
which we choose to live.
• Society is the mass of different
cultures around us bound together by
territory, economics, and politics. If
culture is where we choose to live,
society is the world we “can’t avoid”.
• Society = territory (have to live in it)
• Culture = things (we choose this)
• Example… I might be a member of
American society, but my culture is
that of a Dutch American.
The Sociological Imagination
• Seeing the connection between your
personal world and the world around
you.
• Theory of C.Wright-Mills…says social
problems require changing social
structure, NOT just personal therapy.
Seeing personal issues, such as divorce,
poverty, etc in a larger social context.
In other words, some of what we
experience is beyond our individual
control. Example…poverty=lack of
education (individual) AND lack of
opportunity/jobs (society)
In other words…
according to Mills’
Sociological Imagination
there is a definite
relationship between
individual lives and the
larger forces of society.
What are some “social problems”?
• “When, in a city of 100,000, only one man is
unemployed, that is his personal trouble and
for its relief we look at the character of the
man…his skills, opportunity that he has
missed, and what he has done wrong. But
when in a nation of 50 million employees, 15
million men are unemployed, that is a social
issue, and we will not find its solution within
the range of opportunities open to any one
individual. Then, societies structure of
opportunities has collapsed and it is the issue
of society… not the problem of the
individual”. – C. Wright Mills.
• Do you agree or disagree???
Look at the following pictures
and explain using Sociological
Imagination.
• Fault/Problem of individual because?
• Fault/ Problem of society because?
• Fault/Problem of individual because?
• Fault/ Problem of society because?
Fault/Problem of individual because?
Fault/ Problem of society because?
• Fault/Problem of individual because?
• Fault/ Problem of society because?
Everything that happens
to people is not
private… people are
shaped by forces they
don’t even see.
• Macrosociology= looking at
large groups or parts of society..
(Ex: study of female college
graduates in Europe or a big
issue like crime)
• Microsociolgy (Weber)= looking
at smaller groups or parts of
society. (Ex: study of a group of
female high school students at
SHS or a small issue like family
relationships).