Lesson 1: What is Sociology?

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Lesson 1 What is Sociology?

• Intro to Sociology

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Three revolutions had to take place before the
sociological imagination could crystallize

• The scientific revolution (16th c.) encouraged
  the use of evidence to substantiate theories.
• The democratic revolution (18th c.) encouraged
  the view that human action can change society.
• The industrial revolution (19th c.) gave
  sociologists their subject matter.

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Sociology

• Sociology is the systematic study of human
  society and social interaction. It is based on
  the idea that our relations with other people
  create opportunities for us to think and act but
  also set limits on our thoughts and action.

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What is Sociology?

• Sociology is also the study of reifications, or
  social constructions.

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Sociology

• Howard Becker defined sociology as the study of
  people doing things together.

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Sociology

• This reminds us that society and the individual
  are inherently connected, and each depends on the
  other.

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Sociology

• Sociologists study this link how society affects
  the individual and how the individual affects
  society.

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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.
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Society Is.

• A society is a group of people who share a
  culture and live more or less together. They have
  a set of institutions which provide what they
  need to meet their physical, social, and
  psychological needs and which maintain order and
  the values of the culture.

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• Social structures are the more or less stable
  patterns of peoples interactions and
  relationships.

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• Institutions are the principal social structures
  that organize, direct, and execute the essential
  tasks of living.

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• Some institutions are
• Family,
• Educational,
• Economic,
• Religion,
• Law,
• Political Systems

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Sociological Imagination

• The ability to see the relationship between
  individual experiences and the larger society.

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Cool Insights from Sociology

• Humans cannot be understood apart from social
  context (i.e. society)

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Cool Insights from Sociology

• Society makes us who we are by structuring out
  interactions and laying out an orderly world
  before us

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Cool Insights from Sociology

• Society is a social construction, that is an idea
  created by humans (i.e. doesnt exist in the
  biological world but only in the social world)
  through social interaction and given a reality
  through our understanding of it and our
  collective actions.

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Society Influences You

• Death
• Related to society?

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Baby Names
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Names that have gained the most popularity, 2004
2010 ...Or, the names Ill begin seeing all
the time in 2022-2028
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What Does Society Look Like?

• While the idea of society is familiar, describing
  it can be difficult. Ultimately society is made
  up of many different components, such as culture,
  race, family, education, social class, and
  peoples interactions.
• People who share a culture and territory

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Meaning through Interaction

• People actively and collectively shape their own
  lives, organizing their social interactions and
  relationships into a meaningful world.
• Sociologists study this social behavior by
  seeking out its patterns.
• Patterns are crucial to our understanding of
  society

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Society

• Society is a group of people who shape their
  lives in aggregated and patterned ways that
  distinguish their group from other groups.

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The Social Sciences

• Social Sciences are the disciplines that use the
  scientific method to examine the social world, in
  contrast to the natural sciences, which examine
  the physical world.
• Examples of social sciences include .?

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How Sociology fits in
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Levels of Analysis

• We can study society from different levels
• Microsociology is the level of analysis that
  studies face-to-face and small-group interactions
  in order to understand how they affect the larger
  patterns and institutions of society.
• Microsociology focuses on small-scale issues.
• Ex Symbolic Interactionism

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Levels of Analysis (cont)

• Macrosociology is the level of analysis that
  studies large-scale social structures in order to
  determine how they affect the lives of groups and
  individuals.
• Macrosociology focuses on large-scale issues.
• Ex Functionalism, Conflict Theory

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How We Use Levels of Analysis

• Pam Fishman took a micro-level approach to
  studying issues of power in malefemale
  relationships.
• She found that in conversation, women ask nearly
  three times as many questions as men do, perhaps
  because a speaker is much more likely to ask a
  question if he or she does not expect to get a
  response by simply making a statement.

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Levels of Analysis (cont)

• When conducting research, methodology involves
  the process by which one gathers and analyzes
  data.
• Quantitative research translates the social world
  into numbers that can be treated mathematically
  this type of research often tries to find
  cause-and-effect relationships.
• Any type of social statistic is an example of
  quantitative research.

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Levels of Analysis (cont)

• Qualitative research works with non-numerical
  data such as texts, fieldnotes, interview
  transcripts, photographs, and tape recordings
  this type of research often tries to understand
  how people make sense of their world.
• Participant observation, in which the researcher
  actually takes part in the social world he or she
  studies, is an example of qualitative research.

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Take Away Points

• Humans cannot be understood apart from the social
  context they live in (society, culture and time
  place)

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Take Away Points

• The world around us profoundly shapes and
  influences who we are, how we behave and even
  how/what we think.

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Take Away Points

• It is the job of the sociologist to understand
  how this process works and to what effect.

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Lesson Quiz

• 1. Which of the following is NOT an example of a
  social science?
• a. biology
• b. political science
• c. psychology
• d. economics

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Lesson Quiz

• 2. Sociology is defined as
• a. the scientific study of humans.
• b. the study of ancient cultures and behavior.
• c. the study of how the brain works.
• d. the study of human society and social
  behavior.

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Lesson Quiz

• 3. __________ is the level of analysis that
  studies face-to-face and small-group interactions
  in order to understand how those interactions
  affect the larger patterns and institutions of
  society.
• a. Microsociology
• b. Macrosociology
• c. Sociology
• d. Social science

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Lesson Quiz

• 4. A sense of disorientation that occurs when you
  enter a radically new social or cultural
  environment is called
• a. cultural mind.
• b. culture shakes.
• c. cultural fear.
• d. culture shock.

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For Next Time

• How we come to understand the social world
• Theories and Theorists
• Read more!