Understanding Sociology

• Sociology systematically studies human society and social behavior, ranging from institutions to individual interactions.
• The term "sociology" has Latin and Greek roots, reflecting its focus on the study of society.
• A society constitutes a group shaping their lives collectively, distinguishing themselves through shared patterns.
• Howard Becker defines sociology as the study of people "doing things together," highlighting the interdependence of individuals and society.
• Survival relies on group living, like families and communities.
• A sense of self comes from the membership in a society.
• Sociology is a social science and uses the scientific method to examine the social realm.
• Fields like anthropology, psychology, economics, and political science are included in the social sciences.
• Sociology is likely to focus on contemporary society, unlike history.
• Sociology studies societies at all levels of development, unlike anthropology.
• Sociology views a range of social institutions, unlike economics and political science.
• Sociology focuses on all people rather than just places, unlike geography.
• Sociology studies interpersonal and social levels, unlike communications
• Sociology relates the individual to external social forces, unlike psychology.

How to Think Like a Sociologist

• Adopting a sociological perspective means viewing the world through a sociological lens.
• A primary step in building this perspective involves differentiating between practical and scientific knowledge.
• Practical knowledge facilitates daily interactions.
• Scientific knowledge, requiring systematic and coherent inquiry, arises from constant questioning.
• To gain sociological insights, Bernard McGrane suggests adopting a beginner's mind by shedding preconceptions.
• Approaching the world without preconceptions allows for new perspectives.
• Overcoming habitual thinking is key to new sociological discoveries.
• Encountering culture shock can provide a sociological perspective.
• Culture shock involves disorientation upon entering a new social or cultural setting.
• Behaviors deemed normal in one culture may seem strange in another.
• Awareness of the strangeness of one's own culture appears when viewed from an outside perspective.
• Sociological studies reveal that, contrary to common belief, men are generally more talkative than women.
• Sociology necessitates suspending personal preconceptions, assumptions, and beliefs.
• The sociological imagination connects individual circumstances with broader social forces.
• According to C. Wright Mills, understanding social life requires recognizing "the intersection between biography and history."
• The sociological imagination is a search for understanding the links between micro and macro analysis levels.
• The sociological imagination allows for the discovery of differing ways of experiencing and interpreting reality beyond one's immediate sphere.
• The sociological imagination facilitates understanding how personal experiences, such as unemployment, are influenced by global events.
• Eating disorders, commonly seen in psychological terms, find a basis in social factors.

Levels of Analysis

• Sociological perspectives use varying analysis levels to examine subjects differently.
• Microsociology explores face-to-face interactions, understanding how they shape larger societal patterns.
• Macrosociology studies broad social structures to understand their effects on groups and individuals.
• Theories are abstract propositions explaining the social world and predicting the future.
• Theories are also known by approaches, schools of thought, perspectives, or paradigms.
• A paradigm is a framework of assumptions and perspectives shaping the understanding of social reality.
• Sociological theories often address social processes on micro and/or macro levels.

Sociology’s Theorists

• Auguste Comte developed positivism, suggesting society operates under specific laws that can be objectively described using the scientific method.
• Harriet Martineau, a journalist and political economist, wrote about radical social changes in the U.S. and translated Comte's work into English, broadening its accessibility.
• Herbert Spencer established sociology in Britain and America, viewing societies as evolving and adapting, and introduced Social Darwinism.
• Social Darwinism applies evolutionary theory to the study of society.

Macrosociological Theory

• Structural functionalism views society as a unified system, where separate structures contribute to its function.
• Émile Durkheim is a key figure in functionalist theory, noted for his study of how social factors create solidarity.
• Solidarity refers to the degree of unity within a society and how connected individuals feel.
• Mechanical solidarity occurs in premodern societies, where shared traditions create cohesion.
• Organic solidarity emerges in modern societies, based on interdependence and individual rights.
• In "Suicide (1897)," Durkheim theorized that a lack of social connection results in anomie.
• Anomie is "normlessness," creating alienation from weakened social bonds and rapid change.
• In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), Durkheim linked religion to social solidarity because religion reinforces collective bonds and shared moral values.
• Sacred refers to the supernatural.
• Profane refers to the ordinary
• Durkheim's successful establishment of sociology as a discipline involved scientific methods to study "social reality."
• Empirical is based on scientific experimentation.
• Society will function as a stable, ordered made up of interrelated parts.
• A structure is a social institution that meets the needs of society by performing certain functions.
• Dysfunction in a structure leads to a new equilibrium,.
• Dysfunction is the undesirable consequence of some aspect of the order.
• The manifest functions are the intended functions of a social structure,
• The latent functions relate to social structure, perhaps unintended.
• Functionalism examines how societal institutions can be explained in a model.
• Functionalism only creates change from dysfunction, and it can only be seen as static.
• The social inequalities in functionalism seem to see poverty , racism, and ism as serving as social functions.

Conflict Theory

• Conflict theory sees social conflict as the basis of society and social changed with a materialist view.
• Social inequality is a characteristic of society.
• Social inequality comes from the distribution of power, wealth, or prestige.
• Karl Marx inspired conflict theory, sometimes referred to as "Marxism".
• Most problems are a reult of crime, proverty, or capitalism.
• There is conflict for tensions between the wealthy and the poor
• Means of production: the means of production of their own and so are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live
• Bourgeoisie: owners; the class of modern capitalists who own the means of production and employ wage laborers
• Alienation: the sense of dissatisfaction the modern worker feels as a result of producing goods that are owned and controlled by someone else.
• False consciousness: a denial of the truth on the part of the oppressed when they fail to recognize that the interests of the ruling class are embedded in the dominant ideology
• Class consciousness: the recognition of social inequality on the part of the oppressed, leading to revolutionary action
• Critical theory critiques ideologies and systems for different reasons.
• Mass comunications and culture are important to critical theorists in that many of these are powerful tools.
• Critical race theory studies and applies to power relations and the race.
• Laws reflect the instittuions in America.
• The adherants are dedicated to finding and fighting the racism.
• Feminists belive in the ways gender and power show up in the social world.
• Judith butler , hook and Roxana belive that it all relates to ethinicity, sex, and class.

Queer theory

• Difference and rejects ideas of innate identities or restrictive categories are what the category is about.
• Queer theory emerged from the gay liberation movement in the 70s and 80s.
• They believe that no sexual category is deviant.

Praxis

• praxis, the idea is to act on what one believes.
• The application of these theories will improve things.
• The arrangements don't mean that it is helpful for conflicts.

Weberian Theory: Rationalization and the Iron Cage

• Rationalization: the application of economic logic to human activity; the use of formal rules and regulations in order to maximize efficiency without consideration of subjective or individual concerns
• Iron cage: Max Weber's pessimistic description of modern life, in which we are caught in bureaucratic structures that control our lives through rigid rules and rationalization

Weberian Theory: Verstehen

• Weber looked for the role that individual had towards society and why some are special.
• Humans should study humans.
• "empathic understanding"; Weber's term to describe good social research, which tries to understandthe meanings that intidavials attratc to values, or emotions.

Global Theory

• Asians show up the same at sociological theoy
• Favoring European or weatern hitory.

Symbolic Interactionism

• interaction and meaning are central to society
• Interactionism can help explain individual personalities.
• The US has seen the growth of many sociological tools.
• University school taught famous studies in the department w erebert Park, W. I. Thomas, Charles Horton Cooley, and later George Herbert Mead and Herbert Blumer.
• Chicago school.
• Understanding the level of the everyday and their interactions.
• Pragamitism is an important part. humans do this through cognition, interpretation, and interaction.
• Language is the key to understanding this.
• Blumer appealed for researchers to get "down and dirty" with the dynamics of social life and it should be an important act because of the way social life goes.
• Dubios does ground breaking research for the black society/NAACP.
• He was involved with antiracist, antipoverty, and antiwar activism and helped found the NAACP.
• Admas advocated for apply to apply sociology. The tenets are laid from HB.
• We act towards the things based off meanings
• Meanins are negotiated and interactions.

Errving Hoffmen

• He has interaction with with.
• He used metaphor and dramaturgy.
• Goffment: it is similar in the way we treat theatrical performances.
• Conversation is how we create meaning.
• Interactionism helps make an actove and expressiv emodel.
• All level should create one picture.

Post Modernism

• social reality is diverse, pluralistic, and constantly in flux
• Postmodernism developed primarily out of the French intellectual scence.
• science and logic.
• They are all relative.
• "factual" accounts of history are no more accurate than those that might be found in fiction, preferring mini- narrativies
• Many are looking to the alternatives.

Midrange theory:

• Integrates emprircm.
• Robertt Martin, it is balanced in micrp and macro in psychology.