The Sociology Imagination: An introduction (Chapter 1)

Sociology

The systematic scientific study of human society and its structures, dynamics, and institutions

Sociological Imagination

the ability to connect the most basic, intimate aspects of an individual’s life to seemingly impersonal and remote historical forces

Social Institution

a complex, large-scale system of interrelated roles that, accepted by a group of people, regulate behavior and social expectations. Examples include governments, familes, universities, and organized religions

Auguste Comte

Coined 'Sociology.' Believed society could
be studied scientifically like nature
(positivism).

Harriet Martineau

First feminist sociologist. Wrote the first
methods text. Analyzed inequality in
American society.

Founding Fathers of Sociological Discipline

Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Èmile Durkheim

Karl Marx

Historical materialism: class conflict drives
social change. Bourgeoisie vs. Proletariat

Max Weber

Verstehen (interpretive understanding).
Bureaucracy. Religion shapes capitalism.

Verstehen

German for “understanding”, conveys the need to understand research subjects from their point of view; comes from Max Weber and is the basis of interpretive sociology.

Interpretive Sociology

A type of scholarship in which researchers try to capture the lived experiences of the people they want to understand rather than treating them as objects to be analyzed (as in positivism)

Èmile Durkheim

Social facts. Mechanical vs. Organic
solidarity. Division of labor. Study of
suicide

Anomie

A sense of aimlessness or despair that arises when we can longer reasonably expect life to be predictable; too little social regulation; normlessness; Èmile Durkhiem, who coined the term, found the anomie arises in unstable historical moments during which social expectations change abruptly and cannot be immediately reestablished.

Positivist Sociology

The approach to sociology that emphasizes the scientific method as an approach to studying the objectively observable behavior of individuals irrespective of the meanings of those actions for the subjects themselves.

Georg Simmel

Formal Sociology (One of the founders, but isn’t touched on until later chapters)

Chicago School

Questioned essentialist concepts of race, ethnicity, and the self itself

Charles Horton Cooley

“Looking-glass self” —> We see ourselves through how we think others see us — like a mirror. This is throught 3 steps:

1. We imagine how we appear to other

2. We imagine their judgment of us

3. We develop our self-concept accordingly

George Herbert Mead

“Generalized Other” —> The self emerges through social interaction and role-
taking.

“I" vs. "Me":
I = spontaneous, creative self
Me = society's internalized expectations

“If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences”

W.E.B. Du Bois

Double consciousness. Race as a social
construction. Empirical research on Black
Americans.

Double Consciousness

A concept conceived by W.E.B. Du Bois to describe the use of two behavioral scripts, one for moving through the general social world and the other incorporating the external opinions of prejudice onlookers; these two scripts are constantly maintained by African Americans.

Jane Adams

Founded Hull House— the first American Settlement house that attempted to link the ideas of the university to the poor through a full-service community center.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Feminist Sociology (possible founder?), and family sociology

Functionalism

The theory that various social institutions ad processes in society exist to serve some important (or necessary) function to keep society running.

Conflict Theory (Or Marxist Theory)

The idea that conflict between competing interests is the basic, animating force of social change and society in general.

Symbolic Interactionism

A micro-level theory in which shared meanings, orientations, and assumptions from the basic motivations behind people’s actions. (red light meaning stop)

Postmodernsim

A condition characterized by the questioning of the notion of progress and history, the replacement of narrative with pastiche (i.e. a college of existing ideas) or imitation of other work in the service of satire or subversion, and multiple, perhaps even conflicting, identities resulting from unconnected affiliations.

Social Construction

An entity that exists because people behave as if it exists and whose exitence is perpetuated as people and social institutions act in accordance with widely agreed-upon formal rules or informal norms of behavior associated with that entity.

Midrange Theory

A theory that attempts to explain generalizable patterns of behavior that are neither all-encompassing of society as a whole nor focused on very particular groups or individuals

Feminist Theory

Emphasizes equality between men and women, working to see women’s lives and experiences represented in sociological studies.

Microsociology

A branch of sociology that seeks to understand local interactional conexts; its methods of choice are usually ethnographic, generally including participant observation and in-depth interviews

Macrosociology

A branch of sociology generally concerned with social dynamics at a higher level of analysis— that is, across the breadth of society