Putting Social Life Into
Perspective Sociology is the systematic study of human society and
social interaction.
Sociologists study societies and social interactions to develop theories of :
How human behavior is shaped by group life.
How group life is affected by individuals.
Why Study Sociology? Helps us gain a better understanding of ourselves and our
social world.
Helps us see how behavior is shaped by the groups to
which we belong and our society.
Promotes understanding and tolerance by helping us look
beyond personal experiences and gain insight into the
larger world order.
Society A society is a large social grouping that shares
the same geographical territory and is subject to
the same political authority and dominant cultural
expectations, such as the United States, Mexico,
or Nigeria.
The Sociological Imagination
The ability to see the relationship between
individual experiences and the larger society.
Distinguishes between personal troubles and
social issues.
Personal Troubles Personal troubles are private problems that affect
individuals and the networks of people with which
they associate regularly.
Example: One person being unemployed or
running up a high credit card debt could be
identified as a personal trouble.
Public Issues Public issues are problems that affect large
numbers of people and require solutions at the
societal level.
Widespread unemployment and massive,
nationwide consumer debt are examples of
public issues.
Discussion Fresh Prince Extended
Introduction
What problems led Will’s
mother to ship him off to
Bel-Air?
Were these personal
troubles or public
issues?
It is sometimes difficult
for Americans to
recognize public issues.
Why do you think this is?
Overspending as a Personal
Trouble People use credit cards and spend more than they can
afford, affecting all aspects of their lives, including health, family relationships, and employment stability.
Sociologist George Ritzer suggests that people may overspend through a gradual process.
Credit cards lure people into consumption by easy credit and entice them into further consumption by offers of ‘payment holidays,’ new cards, and increased credit limits.
Overspending as a Public
Issue Between 1990 and 2000, credit card debt tripled in
the United States.
As corporations “write off ” bad debt from those
who declare bankruptcy or do not pay their bills, all
consumers pay either directly or indirectly for that
debt.
Overspending as a Public
Issue Poverty is forgotten as a social issue when more affluent
people are having a spending holiday and consuming all they can afford to purchase.
Sociologist Robert D. Manning found that students are aggressively targeted by credit card companies even though it is accepted that some of the students will ruin their credit while still in college.
Importance of a Global
Sociological Imagination Although existing sociological theory and research provide
a foundation for sociological thinking, we must develop a
more global approach for the future.
In the 21st century, we face important challenges in a
rapidly changing nation and world.
High Income Countries Nations with highly industrialized economies;
technologically advanced industrial, administrative, and service occupations.
Examples: United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Western Europe.
Have a high standard of living and a lower death rate due to advances in nutrition and medical technology.
Personal debt may threaten economic even among middle- and upper income people.
Middle Income Countries Nations with industrializing economies, particularly
in urban areas, and moderate levels of national
and personal income
Example: The nations of Eastern Europe and
many Latin American countries.
Low Income Countries Primarily agrarian nations with little industrialization and low
levels of national and personal income.
Examples: Many of the nations of Africa and Asia,
particularly the People’s Republic of China and India,
where people typically work the land and are among the
poorest in the world.
Definitions Race is used to specify groups of people distinguished by
physical characteristics such as skin color.
There are no “pure” racial types, and race is considered by most sociologists to be a social construction people use to justify social inequalities.
Ethnicity refers to the cultural heritage or identity of a group and is based on factors such as language or country of
origin.
Class is the relative location of a person or group within the larger society, based on wealth, power, prestige, or other valued resources.
Sex refers to the biological and anatomical differences between females and males.
Gender refers to the meanings, beliefs, and practices associated with sex differences, referred to as femininity and masculinity.
Sociology and the Age of
Enlightenment The origins of sociological thinking can be traced
to the scientific revolution in the late 17th and mid-
18th centuries and the Age of Enlightenment.
A basic assumption of the Enlightenment was that
scientific laws had been designed with a view to
human happiness.
Sociology and the Age of
Enlightenment In France, the Enlightenment was dominated by the
philosophes, including Montesquieu, Rousseau, and
Turgot.
They believed human society could be improved through
scientific discoveries.
If people were free from the ignorance of the past, they
could create new forms of political and economic
organization, which would produce wealth and destroy the
aristocracy.
Sociology and the Age of Revolution,
Industrialization, and Urbanization The Enlightenment produced an intellectual revolution in
how people thought about social change, progress, and critical thinking.
Views of the philosophers regarding equal opportunity stirred political and economic revolutions in America and France.
The Industrial Revolution occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries, when economic, technological, and social changes occurred as technology shifted from agriculture to manufacturing.
Sociology and the Age of Revolution,
Industrialization, and Urbanization Industrialization is the process by which societies are
transformed from dependence on agriculture and handmade products to an emphasis on manufacturing and related industries.
Urbanization is the process by which an increasing proportion of a population lives in cities rather than in rural areas.
In Case You Missed It…
Incredibly Brief Little Summaries of a Small
Number of Important Sociologists from
Across the Modern Era that Made a Huge
Impact on the Field and led to Major
Categorizations and Innovations While Also
Contributing to the Greater Realm of
Science Wait Are You Still Reading This
August Comte Considered the “founder of sociology.”
Comte’s philosophy became known as positivism—
a belief that the world can best be understood
through scientific inquiry.
Comte believed objective, bias-free knowledge was
attainable only through the use of science rather
than religion.
Two Dimensions Of Comte’s
Positivism Methodological - the application of scientific
knowledge to physical and social phenomena.
Social and political - the use of such knowledge to
predict the likely results of different policies so that
the best one could be chosen.
Harriet Martineau Believed society would improve when:
Women and men were treated equally.
Enlightened reform occurred.
Cooperation existed among all social classes.
Liked by: Comte
(Winter 1995, Michigan) During the ski season at Sugarloaf
Resort, a new lift operator was assigned to work the bottom
of Lift 2. He was greatly impressed by the bull wheel that
turned slowly above his head. The giant spokes on the
wheel were impossible to resist. He grabbed a spoke and
did a few pull-ups while the wheel turned. After entertaining
himself in this manner for awhile, he decided to try this trick
on the outer rim of the wheel. His timing was off. He did not
drop down in time. Caught between the wheel and the lift
cable, he was sliced in twain during his fateful final trip
around the bull wheel.
(13 January 2005, Croatia) One fateful afternoon, 55-
year-old Marko retreated to his semi-detached
workshop to make himself a tool for chimney cleaning.
The chimney was too high for a simple broom to work,
but if he could attach a brush to a chain and then
weigh it down with something, that would do the trick.
But what could he use as a weight? He happened to
have the perfect object. It was heavy, yet compact. And
best of all, it was made of metal, so he could weld it to
the chain. He must have somehow overlooked the fact
that it was also a hand grenade and was filled with
explosive material.
Marko turned on his welding apparatus and began to
create an arc between the chain and the grenade. As
the metal heated up, the grenade exploded. The force
of the explosion killed poor Marko instantly, blasting
shrapnel through the walls of the shed
(23 September 2002, Brazil) A farm keeper from
São Paulo decided to remove a beehive from
his orange tree. He didn't know exactly how to
proceed, but he knew the hive should be
burned, and he knew bees sting. So he
protected his head with a plastic bag sealed
tightly around his neck, grabbed a torch, and
went off to fight the bees.
His worried wife went to look for him a few
hours later, and found him dead. However, it
wasn't the bees that killed him. The plastic bag
had protected him from smoke, stingers, and...
oxygen! He had forgotten to put breathing
holes in the bag.
Herbert Spencer Spencer’s major contribution to sociology was an
evolutionary perspective on social order and
social change.
Social Darwinism - the belief that those human
beings, best adapted to their environment survive
and prosper, whereas those poorly adapted die
out. Overshadowed by:
Darwin
Emile Durkheim Believed the limits of human potential are socially, not
biologically based.
One of his most important contributions to sociology was
the idea that societies are built on social facts.
Social facts are patterned ways of acting, thinking, and
feeling that exist outside any one individual but that
exert social control over each person.
Disagrees with:
Spencer
Karl Marx Viewed history as a clash between conflicting
ideas and forces.
Believed class conflict produced social change
and a better society.
Combined ideas from philosophy, history, and
social science into a new theory.
Max Weber Believed sociological research should exclude
personal values and economic interests.
Provided insights on rationalization (world as
efficient machine), bureaucracy and religion.
Georg Simmel Theorized about society as a web of patterned
interactions among people.
Analyzed how social interactions vary depending
on the size of the social group.
Developed formal sociology, an approach that
focuses attention on the universal recurring social
forms that underlie the varying content of social
interaction.
The Chicago School
First dept. of sociology in U.S. @ U. of
Chicago
Faulty instrumental in starting American
Sociological Association
Jane Adams Founded Hull House, one of the most famous
settlement houses, in Chicago.
One of the authors of a methodology text used by sociologists for the next forty years.
Awarded Nobel Prize for assistance to the underprivileged.
W. E. B. Du Bois One of the first to note the identity conflict of being
both a black and an American.
Pointed out that people in the U.S. espouse values
of democracy, freedom, and equality while they
accept racism and group discrimination.
Theoretical Perspectives
Theory View of Society
Functionalist
Composed of interrelated
parts that work together to
maintain stability.
Conflict
Society is characterized by
social inequality; social life is
a struggle for scarce
resources.
Theoretical Perspectives
Theory View of Society
Symbolic
Interactionist
Behavior is learned in interaction
with other people.
Postmodernist
Postindustrialization,
consumerism, and global
communications bring into
question assumptions about
social life and the nature of reality.
Functionalist Perspective
MACROLEVEL
Church, school, gov’t all must function in
tandem
Merton: Manifest Functions vs. Latent
Functions
Intended functions of social unit vs.
unintended/hidden functions
Conflict Perspective MACROLEVEL
“Power Elite”
Proletariat and bourgeoisie
Power and Prestige
Feminism
Postmodern
MACROLEVEL/MICROLEVEL
Consumption of information, services has
changed things
Question the system
OUTDATED
Sociological Research Theory - a set of logically interrelated statements that
attempt to describe, explain, and predict social events.
Research is the process of collecting information for the
purpose of testing an existing theory or generating a new
one.
The relationship between theory and research has been
referred to as a continuous cycle.
Sociology and Anthropology Anthropology seeks to understand human
existence over geographic space and evolutionary
time.
Sociology seeks to understand contemporary
social organization, relations, and change.
Sociology and Psychology Psychology is the study of behavior and mental
processes - what occurs in the mind.
Sociological research examines the effects of
groups, organizations, and institutions on social
life.
Sociology and Economics Economists attempt to explain how the limited
resources of a society are allocated among
competing demands.
Economists focus on economic systems such as
monetary policy, inflation, and the national debt.
Sociologists focus on a number of social
institutions, one of which is the economy.