What Is Sociology? Fall 2024 Lecture Slides PDF

What is Sociology? What is sociology? Sociology is the “study of society” What does this mean? The study of human inter-connectedness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Whn1urlpWvw What is sociology? Sociology is the “study of society” What does this mean? The study of human inter-conn...

What is Sociology? What is sociology? Sociology is the “study of society” What does this mean? The study of human inter-connectedness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Whn1urlpWvw What is sociology? Sociology is the “study of society” What does this mean? The study of human inter-connectedness The study of social constructions, and the processes through which they come into being SOCAL CONSTRUCT: an object of analysis whose reality is derived from the social EXAMPLES: the value of money, national identities and boundaries Social Sciences and Humanities Economics: the economy, economic behaviour Anthropology: culture History: the past, how societies change over time Psychology: human behaviour and the mind Political science: the state, interactions between states Linguistics: language  SOCIOLOGY Economic sociology: the - Political sociology: economy and its relationship to society the state and its Cultural sociology: culture relationship to and its relationship to society society Historical sociology: the - Social construction: past and its relationship language and its to contemporary society relationship to society  American Sociological Association Sections: 53 in total Sex + Gender Aging and the life course Altruism, Morality, and Social Solidarity Children and Youth Economic Sociology Sociology of the Family Disability & Society Labor and Labour Movements Medical Sociology Sociology of Consumers and Sociology of Human Rights Theory Consumption Sociology of Law Sociology of Religion Sociology of Culture Sociology of the Body & Sexualities Sociology of Mental Health Embodiment Sociology of Education Social Psychology Racial and Ethnic Minorities Political Sociology Peace, War, and Social Conflict Organizations, Occupations, and Work Sociology of Emotions Mathematical Sociology Global and Transnational Sociology International Migration Community and Urban Sociology Collective Behaviour and Social Movements Questions?  What is the common thread? The Sociological Imagination The Sociological Imagination, C. Wright Mills (1959) “Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both.” “…every individual lives, from one generation to the next, in some society; that he lives out a biography, and that he lives it out within some historical sequence. By the fact of his living he contributes, however minutely, to the shaping of this society and to the course of its history, even as he in made by society and by its historical push and shove.”  Karl Marx, 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte “Men make their own history, but they do not make it simply as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances directly found, given and transmitted from the past.” The Sociological Imagination Connects the most intimate and private moments of our lives with the totality of the societies in which we live The Sociological Imagination Biography / History / Personal troubles public issues the life trajectory the trajectory of a and experience of society over a an individual period of time person The Sociological Imagination Emphasizes the co-constitution of individual people and the societies in which they are embedded People create societies; societies create people The Sociological Imagination Mills: to use the sociological imagination is to conceive of the relationship between personal troubles and public issues * See Mills, pg. 9 The Sociological Imagination What factors do you think will be most important for determining your success at university? What is “success”? What choices will lead to success as an undergraduate student? Personal Troubles / Public Issues What is the nature of the relationship between personal troubles and public issues? SOCIAL FORCES: Social forces are societal-level mechanisms that influence the character of individuals and their life trajectories  Ideology/culture: shared Social Forces symbolic representation; influences us to perceive the world in particular ways, and to make particular judgements Social forces à can influence choices about behaviour Social Structure: Stable patterns of social relations, Ideology/culture Social structure often elicited and/or reinforced by the organization of social institutions How to become batman: ideology - beliefs that blind people have “blind people can’t do those about themselves Production of a social reality that things” confirms the belief - beliefs of sighted people Often, people mistake observations of the social world for evidential confirmation of the ideological belief, instead of seeing the ways in which the belief produces the so-called “evidence” Bobbi Gibb Applied to run the Boston Marathon in 1966 Received a letter from the organizers that denied Gibb’s entrance into the race on the basis that “women are not physiologically able to run a marathon” Biological reality? Social construction? Gibb was disallowed from racing because the organizers feared that they would be held liable if she collapsed or suffered some other medical complication Number of women who have completed the Boston marathon to date: 250 000 Ideology / Culture Ideology (or culture) is a social force that influences the character of society by influencing people’s behaviour à behaviour is often experienced as being unique to the individual, but we can see that it is socially influenced when it exhibits observable patterns within a group How does ideology influence behaviour? Influences the array of choices that people think they have Makes behaviour meaningful in particular ways Provides the framework that individual feelings, thoughts, judgements, etc. are experienced in relation to The same situation / behaviour can be made meaningful in different ways The squeaky wheel gets the grease The nail that sticks out gets hammered down Social Structure While our beliefs about ourselves, our values, and our world certainly shape the choices we make about how to behave, sometimes we are likely to engage in some particular behaviour regardless of what we believe Social Structure refers to the stable patterns of social relations that make some behaviours seem easy, natural, or just “what everyone does” One’s position within social structure, like ideology/culture, has an influence on how people behave How to become batman: social structure Structure: A society’s stable patterns of social relations organization of the school for the blind: people available to walk students in between classes, no Students are presumed to fundamentally lack the No development of students’ ability to navigate the assistive technologies available to make this task ability to navigate the environment of the school environment of the school unassisted unassisted easier for students to complete on their own, no education in echolocational exploration, etc. Like the effects of ideology/culture, structural effects are often misrecognized as natural, obvious, etc. The extent to which they are produced by the structural organization of social institutions is often not recognizable Public Policy and the Configuration of Social Structure: Public Education and the Structuring of Disability Educational segregation Mainstreaming Students with disabilities are Students with disabilities are segregated from their able- integrated into the classroom bodied peers, often in their own environments with their able- dedicated schools bodied peers Social structure: Networks of Social structure: Students with students with disabilities and disabilities and their able-bodied networks of able-bodied peers are embedded in an students remain segregated integrated social structure Social Construction Social forces like ideology and social structure produce social constructions – elements of reality whose truth comes from the social It is tempting to think about social contractions as being “not real” or “subjective,” but in reality we live as though our social constructions are as real as the law of gravity, or the truth of cellular mitosis Questions? Social reproduction and social change Social reproduction Social change Social reproduction occurs when basically Social change occurs when a society’s the same societal configuration gets structural configuration transforms over reproduced over time, day to day, year to time year, and generation to generation Social change can occur slowly or rapidly Occurs when people’s behaviour more or Social change can arise because of less aligns with the existing expectations of ideology and the existing structure of The introduction of new technologies social institutions Substantial changes in population, or a society’s demographic makeup Social movements Social and political revolution Social Forces and their Relationship to Agency Social forces like ideology and social structure provide possible explanations for how society influences individuals But remember, society and individuals are co-constituted So how do individuals influence society? Agency Decision to act in accordance with Social reproduction In sociology, we are interested in social expectation (ideology, structure) studying the effects of social forces on behaviour. But we shouldn’t go so far as to reduce individual behaviour to exposure to social forces Individuals always make decisions – in sociology, we refer to the Decision to capacity for individual decision- Social making as “agency” defy social change expectation Agency is always a part of both societal reproduction and social change  Structure Society Ideology/ Agency Culture  Because of the complicated relationship between ideology, structure, and agency, sociology is much better at explaining patterns that exist at the level of a particular social group than it is at explaining the behaviour of an individual person This is because most people behave in ways that are consistent with ideology and structure most of the time General trends that sociologists observe therefore always have many exceptions àPatterns are observable at the level of large groups