Discovering Sociology Chapter one Review

Sociology 101                  Lecture 1                        2/7/16

• Sociology is the study of how society works their trends and pattern.
• Lot of ways psychology and sociology study basically the same thing.
• Sociologist is looking at the working of society while psychology is the study of the person.
• Social embeddedness – all functions of society (political and economic) ... social interaction help change every little element. Idea social interaction is the bedrock.
• What happens to only one person, sociologist don’t care, because its not the society its just one person. So not really studied
• Sociological Imagination

• Concept between individual and society level important

• Public issues VS private issues

• For example, if you lost your job. Its bad for family and for you personally, wouldn’t matter with society. But then will transcend and become a public issue when unemployment rate goes up. What is impacting society as a whole. NOT INTRESTED in the one individual UNLESS it becomes an issue to the public. Effected society as a broad.

• What elements do we have to understand in order to understand what’s going on… 2 concepts – critical way of looking at things sociology

• Agency – do they have free will, ability to exercise the free will
• Structure – patterns that impact agency. Usually Restrain your agency. Something you do things you don’t want to do, but you do it because it benefits you

• For example, you hate your boss, we all have free will, we can tell our boss to screw off. if we do we get fired and become jobless

• Social forces that keeps us from doing that, because we need to pay bills. Society is arranged because we need money. Most of the world chooses a consumer world. Certain forces that constrain our behavior. Sometimes we willing to participate it. 
• Family structures also can restrain you from doing anything or constrain you making you do something.

• Forces are invisible and one interacts with another. the structure is your imposing very structure expressing agency is hard but if your structure is loose you can express your agency (free will) more

• Critical Thinking – analyze claims (objectivity VS Valued Judgment) – as sociologist you must always be objective – problem we are biased the second we are born, its almost impossible to be objective.

• Being objectivity is to analyze things as to how it actually exists in reality. Can be proved over and over again but valued judgment can not.
• Valued Judgment is your opinion- how things should or should not be

• Being objective is saying the first sexual intercourse time period is on average 17 but then in valued judgment people say people wait for marriage.

• The Six rules of Critical Thinking

• Be willing to ask to ask questions
• Think logically and be clear
• Back up your argument
• Think about the assumptions and biases
• Avoid anecdotal evidence
• Be willing to admit your wrong

• In late 1900s we moved from a rural farming life into an urban life, with factories and industrials at this point everyone was closer together interacting more. – history of the progression – from how they went from religious superstitious thinking into a more scientific reasoning. Metherphysical change...

• This is when the changes happened. where the shift happened … scientific revolution into enlightenment period

Sociologist Founding Figures

• Auguste Comte – Found sociology and coined the term

• He believed that societies went thru phases

• Theological phase - Metaphysical – then positive phases

• Superstition/religion – then in-between the two – then scientific reasoning

• positivism – based on scientific reasoning and facts

• Harriet Martineau – credited as the first women sociologist

• Had women working as sociologist but wasn’t credited, she fought for justices for women and races

• Max Weber

• Very impactful Sociologist

• Understanding of theocracy and capitalism. Was one of the first sociologist to push for
• Pershane - Interrupted thinking – trying to put yourself in someone else’s shoes

• Karl Marx – the most profound conflict thinker

• Bourgeoisie vs proletariat – worker’s vs employers

• Robert Ezra park – studies city and impact in population. urban socialist
• W.E.B Dubois – Famous for black studies, double- consciousness: ideas they had to deal with on the regular bases and how it affects them
• Robert Merton –

• Manifest Function
• Latent Function

• C. Wright Mills – Sociological imagination

Women

• Women were considered to be too emotional so that was the actually real reasons why they were excluded

• Lawyer
• Sociology

• Easiest to get on a project was to be a coauthor with men. Women were usually the one with the ideas, and they were the one writing the work but men were getting the credit. Women scientist had the problem and difficult for them to getting the credit they deserve.

Theories – Trinidad theories

• Sociological Theories

• Micro – looking at individuals and social interactions
• Marco – looking at large scales like institutions

• There is sociologist who do only Micro – Ethnography Long term research – note taking Audio recording. Pick a subset of people and only focus on them. Gives a more in-depth analysis. Can not be used to generalize.
• More theorist does more of Marco so they can generalize to a lot of people like all of state or country. Macro level is what is focused on more.

• Functionalism – every structure element, if a structure exists and persists it is considered functionalism. That means it serves a purpose.

• Laws
• Schools

• A functionalist turns a blind eye to racism, believes that everything even bad things in society serves a role, if we don’t have bad we will not be able to describe what the bad or good or norm should be. Normative is average behavior. They believe if it does not function it disappears itself

• Crime
• Deviancy – behavior outside of the norm. we need it to see what the norm is

• Men VS Women – functionalist say that these roles serve a purpose – functionist say they change to help maintain society. change only cause of the maintenance of society. Will not change if it allows society to maintain.
• Tradition gender roles -

• Women should take care
• Men should work provide for family

• Organic Solidity – all organs are interdependent to each other
• Conflict theorist – believe that there are always groups that every group will act in its own interest. Everyone will do what is beneficial for their group

• conflicts believe that it’s the constant fighting we highlight in inequality and we highlight for change, massive change happen with revolution.

• Symbolic interactionism – how we interact with each other. Like through symbols. it’s a micro analyze. Its one on one not really a generalized

• Language is a form of symbol

• Verbal
• Nonverbal – very important – different in society

• America – have to look directly in the eye to be polite
• Other countries – It is disrespectful to look in eye
• America – okay hand symbol means ok
• Australia -  okay symbol means asshole

• Labeled – what is the impact of the label – does it cause them to act out or do they fight against it. Exchange of symbols.

• Criminal

• Concept of power – Power is the ability to get someone to do what you want them to do, regardless of their resistance to it.

• Legally allowed to use power and authority        

• Police – have power over you – have means to arrest you. They are a lot of them can run away from police but can’t run away from the radio regardless of your resistance, it is okay for police office to do it. they have authority to do it.

• Who What Why How about power

• What happens with an unequal distribution of power?

• Conflict will ensue, there will be a contention over who has more power. You’ll have a rebellion if it gets too extreme.
• Power is explesit

• Sometimes used to oppress people – will do things from letting other groups to advance.

• Globalization – communication has changed, changed everything we know about society because we can communicate faster

• Writing – telephone – thru phones/satellite.
• Value of information was about who knows more – now its more about knowing how to get things. The research process increasing more important in our society. As people are becoming more connected, more groups of people are becoming more similar to each other even though they are across the planet. Culture wise we are becoming more similar. Interconnected economically, politically, culturally, and environmentally.

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