What is Sociology?

Introduction

• The living world changes constantly, marked by deep conflicts and social divisions.
• Modern technology has contributed to the destruction of the environment.
• Sociology studies human social life, groups, and societies.

What is Sociology?

• Sociology is the scientific study of human social life, groups, and societies.
• The subject matter of sociology is human behavior as social beings.
• Sociology is a social science, relying on systematic methods to obtain facts.
• These methods involve observation and social research using specific tools.
• Scientific evidence is based on verifiable evidence that can be checked and cross-examined for truth and accuracy.

Sociological Imagination

• C. Wright Mills advanced sociological imagination.
• Sociological imagination involves thinking away from familiar routines, questioning things considered common sense, natural, or inevitable.
• It deepens the understanding of society and provides a broader view of social life.

Debunking Sociology and Recording Data

• Debunking sociology suggests an ability to look below the surface of what is taken for granted to expose a person or claim.
• Recording involves scientific observation and recording of facts.
• Science cannot depend on human memory because it is not perfect.

Social Cohesion and Relations

• Social cohesion links and binds people and social groups.
• Immediate contacts are made with friends and family.
• Social relations emerge where humans interact, becoming a study focus of sociology.
• Sociology uses scientific study, with knowledge gained through specific methodologies or ways and rules of social investigation.

Origins of Sociology

• The origins of sociology lie in the thoughts of great thinkers of the past.
• Auguste Comte conceptualized sociology as a scientific discipline and is traced back to this.
• The systematic study of society began in the late 1780s and 1800s.
• Sociology emerged through a series of sweeping and rapid changes.
• The French Revolution of 1789 and the Industrial Revolution in Europe brought about changes.
• The use of science instead of religion became key to development.

Early Theorists: Auguste Comte

• Auguste Comte, Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, and Max Weber are early theorists.
• Auguste Comte belonged to the functionalist school of thought and sought to create a science of society to explain the laws of the social world.
• His vision was that of positive science, contending that sociology should apply scientific methods to study society.
• Comte identified the law of three stages.
• He viewed societies as organisms that should be analyzed.

Comte's Three Stages

• Human efforts passed through theological/religious, metaphysical, and positive/scientific stages.
• The theological stage was guided by religious ideas, with society seen as an expression of God's will or supernatural/magical power.
• The metaphysical stage came during the Renaissance, involving the justification of universal rights, reasoning, and the questioning.
• Society was seen not in natural or supernatural terms.
• The positive stage arose through the discoveries and achievements of figures like Copernicus, Galileo, and Isaac Newton.
• This stage encouraged the application of scientific techniques to the social world.
• Sociology was regarded as the last science to develop.
• Sociology was considered the most significant and complex of all sciences.

Karl Marx: Social Change

• Karl Marx focused of social change, belonging to the conflict school of thought.
• His view grounded what he called the materialist conception of history.
• Ideas and values were not the sources of social change.
• Social change was influenced by economic factors.
• Conflict between classes resulted in historical development.

Marx's Class Conflict

• Conflicts became the motor of history.
• Social systems transition from one mode of production to another, such as primitive communal society, slavery, feudalism, and capitalism.
• Society would no longer be divided into a small class that monopolizes economic and political power.
• The large mass of people benefit little from the wealth their work creates.
• Marx argued society is divided into the haves (capitalists) and the have-nots (proletariat).
• Class antagonisms and active hostilities revolved around struggles between the capitalists, who increased their profits by exploiting workers.
• Workers resisted but depended on capitalists for jobs.
• Wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few capitalists.
• Marx predicted a bloody revolution and eventually a classless society.
• Alienation is the feeling of separation from one's group or society.
• Workers felt alienated because they did not own or control either the means of production or the product.
• The major focus for capitalists is on increasing profits.

Emile Durkheim

• Emile Durkheim agreed with Comte that societies are characterized by unity and cohesion.
• Societal members are bound together by common interests and attitudes.
• His first principle of sociology was to study social facts as things.
• Durkheim stressed that sociology must pursue the analysis of social institutions and human social behavior.
• The concern of sociology is the study of social facts.

Social Facts and Suicide

• Social facts shape actions; they act as external forces on individuals.
• Social facts are a way of thinking, acting, or feeling influenced by society.
• Social facts exercise coercive power over individuals.
• Suicide, according to Durkheim, can be viewed as a personal act.
• Suicide is the intentional killing of oneself or self-destructive action
• There are four types of suicide: egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic

Durkheim's Four Types of Suicide

• Egoistic: Individuals are weakly attached to others, showing less resistance to suicide.
• Altruistic: People commit suicide on behalf of the group they love more than themselves.
• Anomic: Ties attaching the individual to the group are disrupted.
• Fatalistic: Individuals see their futures as permanently blocked, resulting in unhappiness; ie. social factors exert influence on suicidal behavior
• He was interested in social and moral solidarity.

Max Weber

• Max Weber rejected the materialist conception of history.
• He believed ideas and values have an impact on social change.
• Sociology should focus on social action, not structures.
• Ideas, values, and beliefs have the power to bring about transformations.
• Cultural ideas and values shape society and individual actions.
• Ideal Types are conceptual and analytical models used to interpret the world.
• The development of science, modern technology, and bureaucracy constitutes efficiency and technical knowledge.
• Weber noted that The Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism were the trends towards rationalization.
• Capitalism is not dominated by class conflict but by the rise of science and bureaucracy.
• Value-free sociology: a researcher separates their personal values, opinions, ideology, and beliefs from scientific research.

Three Major Theories in Sociology

• Functionalism
• Radical Theory (Marxist)
• Symbolic Interactionism

Functionalism

• Society is a complex system.
• Various parts produce stability and solidarity.
• Comte and Durkheim used an organic analogy.
• Social processes within a society are likened to the organs of a living organism.
• Parts of society work together.
• Functionalism stresses the importance of moral consensus in maintaining order in society.
• Order and balance is the normal state of society.
• Religion reaffirms people's adherence to core social values.
• This contributes to the maintenance of social cohesion

Conflict theory

• Rejects functionalism's emphasis on consensus.
• Highlights the divisive aspects of society.
• Views society as one with coopperative, harmounious, and competing devisions.
• Concentrated on the issues of power, inequality and struggle.
• Society is composed of different groups pursuing their own interests
• Existence of separate interests may lead to potential conflict.
• Conflict theorists examine the tensions between dominant and disadvantaged groups.

Symbolic Interactionism

• The roots of this perspective can be traced from the works of George Herbert Mead.
• Human mind and self arise in the process of social communication.
• People interpret and define each other's actions through symbols
• Is concerned with language and meaning.
• The key element of this perspective is the symbol.
• A symbol is something that stands for something else.
• It focuses on how people interact in their everyday lives, face-to-face.

Levels of Sociological Analysis

• Microsociology: The study of everyday behavior in situations of face-to-face interaction, focusing on the individual in society.
• Macrosociology: The analysis of large-scale social systems, such as political systems, economic order, etc.