Sociology: Science, Research, Education & Society

• The provided text is about sociology as a science, social research methods, sociological theory, and the relationship between education and society, including culture, civilization, socialization, and agents of socialization.

Sociology as Science

• Natural sciences study nature through physical causes, seeking verifiable knowledge.
• Human sciences study the material and immaterial dimensions of human beings.
• Humanities conduct studies without using experimental sciences, like philosophy, history, and theology.
• Social sciences examine specific human characteristics using methods from experimental sciences, such as experimental psychology or sociology.
• Sociology is the study of the structure and function of human society, which is subjectively "constructed" reality that is constantly evolving.
• Sociology aims to understand social behaviors to provide causal explanations.
• Sociology examines human behavior, making it a flexible science.
• Sociological research should be empirical and theoretical with cumulative character.
• Sociology seeks to understand and explain without judgment, using the scientific method.
• The scientific method observes and interprets our world objectively, seeking cause-and-effect relationships through theory verification.
• Pioneers of the scientific method include Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton, whose work has promoted verifiable knowledge.
• Sociology adopts the scientific method and deductive reasoning to understand and explain society, moving away from philosophical thought.
• Sociological research requires documentation, testable hypotheses, original data, data treatment/interpretation, and conclusions.
• Sociologists propose a comprehensive method because social life cannot be fully described by scientific laws.
• The comprehensive method focuses on the subjective meaning individuals assign to their actions within social contexts, going beyond external observation.
• Max Weber defined social action as oriented towards others within a social context, a concept the comprehensive method seeks to interpret.
• Social philosophy reflects on how things "should be," whereas sociology studies "how things are" and the structures that form them.
• Sociology examines institutions like family, education, social class, and political entities.

Sociological Theory

• The birth of sociology parallels the emergence of modern society, marked by the Industrial Revolution and a crisis in the traditional system.
• Sociology emerged due to the need to explain social change and its consequences, leading to a more complex society.
• Modern society's study involves new intellectual and ideological environments, like liberalism and Marxism.
• The need to study social relations expanded throughout the 19th century, with first sociological investigations appearing around 1900.
• Sociology defines its object of study as the study of social action, institutions, relations, and social actions in modern society.
• Social facts are enduring properties of social life that shape individual actions, which includes manners of acting, feeling, and living.
• Social facts are external to the individual and exert a coercive power over their conduct.
• Culture shapes conduct, predisposing individuals to act in certain ways.
• Habits offer advantages such as simplifying lives, predicting social behaviors, and creating institutions.
• Research can be descriptive, explanatory, or critical, with additional non-scientific "normal" practice of engaging with people directly.
• Descriptive levels looks to describe a social situation and classify based on regularities.
• Explanatory level seeks to contrast the causes that explain the regularities discovered.
• Critical levels take into account alternative explanations ,like economic or politics reasons.

Study of Education

• The term "cultura" comes from the Latin verb "colere," meaning to cultivate, care for, practice, or honor.
• "Cultura animi" refers to the cultivation of the person through education (paideia).
• "Cultos vitae" refers to a society's culturally regulated ways of life that give it a unique identity.
• In 18th-century France, "cultura animi" evolved to include the cultivation of specific knowledge areas like arts and sciences.
• "Culture" then shifted towards the action of cultivating or instructing, understood as the state, result, or product of cultivating.
• Civilization is the concept from the Enlightenment includes collective progress.
• The concept of civilization includes improvements in social institutions, legislation, and education.
• Culture and civilization led to a progressive philosophy of history, moving away from theological explanations.
• While "culture" is an abstract set of values, beliefs, costumes, knowledges etc., "civilization" is tangible, structural, and involves the organization institutions.
• Cultural traits are shared by entire societies, while other traits belong specifically to particular cultural groups.
• Core cultural values (mores) have great importance they are related with what is accepted as moral.
• Informal cultural traits (folkways) have less moral weight.
• Tolerance is teaching to be understanding with diversity and cultural plurality.
• There are different political strategies that exists in front of cultural plurality: the repressive and freedom political strategy.
• A "repressive" stance bans public views of a culture that aren't main stream.
• A "freedom" stance integrates everyone in to the dominant culture or protects all with official support.
• Subcultures, often associated with youth, propose innovative features in customs leading to diversity.
• Avoid ethnocentrism by not assuming your own culture is superior over others.
• Culture stabilizes social forms and uses education as a modern way of transmission.
• Traditional concepts of socialization and social development have evolved influenced by changes in western society.
• Children are seen as active subjects with rights
• The child has the capacity to affect their environment.
• Personality is divided into temperament and character.
• Temperament is inherited and affects reactions, while character is constructed through social interaction.
• Elements of character are socially conditioned and influenced by society and socializing agents.

Education and Society

• Schools have role in forming, supporting and guiding good citizens.
• Schools have a crucial role in addressing inequality, promoting equity.
• Paradigms of education exist across 5 different and prominent streams of sociological study.
• Social relations serve as the driving force behind most lines of social thought.
• There exist deterministic points of view, and open / dialectic schools of thought.
  • Deterministic schools of thought includes functionalism, structuralism and psychoanalysis paradigms
  • Open schools of thought includes symbolic interactionism, the theory of "habitus," communicative action etc.
• Functionalism emphasizes how social facts shape individual behavior
• Structuralism focuses on deep structures of language and culture.
• Psychoanalysis sees human behavior through the subconscious and repressed impulses.
• Symbolic interactionism highlights the social understanding through interactions, that lead to dynamic meanings of each interaction.
• Individuals progressively integrate into the their society with the capacity to adapt.
• Socialization is a process individuals acquire culture from society through experiences and agents.
• Life in society provides contents, stimuli, conditioning, environment, norms, beliefs, and institutions.
• Social tensions are addressed in a balanced adaptation through education, leading to a "second nature" in social habits.
• The functions that derive from a process of socialization is vital because society can form self-control, transmit their cultures (beliefs) and help integration.
• Socialization avoids recreating everything from scratch, enables continuity of society, and incorporates new individuals.
• Socialization is a continuous process, internalizes culture through models, involves a guided imposition of options, and uses communication with a system of rewards and punishments.

Agents of Socialization

• Socialization is influenced by various agents, either primary or secondary, intentional or not.
• Primary socialization occurs within the nucleus of family; their world view, and interactions with it.
• Secondary socialization is a permanent process of learning rules of coexistence throughout life in social interaction.
• Fundamental principles are taught to teach patterns, belief etc..
• Schools and families provide the intention and direction for the children in a society.
• Modernization transforms social integration, and can lead to the decline of social integration.
• Family relations are based on affection, provides action through development, and allows families to bring individuals into educational tasks.
• Schools must provide an environment where rational thinking is more important than the desire to be affective.
• Schools should not be perceived as a place to institutionalize infancy.
• Group interactions that involve age-related or non-familial ties allow the individuals in focus to practice societal habits.
• Communication mediums can be the manipulators of society that provide cognitive and comprehensive narratives.