Sociology First Week

sociology

The scientific study of human society, including ways in which groups, social institutions, and individuals affect each other

systematic study of groups and group interactions, societies, and social interactions

society

a group of people who live in a defined geographic area, who interact with one another, and who share a common culture

micro-level study

small groups and individual interactions

macro-level analysis

trends among large groups and societies

culture

group’s shared practices, values, and beliefs——-includes everything produced by a society, including social rules

sociological imagination use

sociologists often study culture through C Wright Mills idea

sociological imagination

C. Wright Mills

an awareness of the relationship between a person’s behavior and experience and the wider culture that shaped the person’s choices and perceptions

The relationship between people and culture

People are the product of their culture and culture is the product of people in a society

reification

material existence

cultural patterns

social forces and influences that put pressure on people to select one choice over another

social facts

the laws, morals, values, religious beliefs, customs, fashions, rituals, and cultural rules that govern social life

key component of the sociological perspective

the idea that the individual and society are inseparable

figuration

Nobert Elias

the process of simultaneously analyzing the behavior of individuals and the society that shapes that behavior

*****as one analyzes the social institutions in a society, the individuals using that institution in any fashion need to be “figured” in to the analysis

The reason why we have few non-religious texts

until very recently, we have very few texts that are non-religious in nature that theorize about social life

****doing so gave the catholic church, for example, the power to maintain its own traditions and to safeguard them from the influence of people practicing other religions

Consequences of social rebellion

If any social patterns challenged any belief of the Church, those practitioners were often persecuted and killed in horrific manners

Ma Tuan-Lin

13th century Chinese historian

first to record in General Study of Literary Remains of the social dynamics underlying and generating historical development

Ibn Khaldun

1332-1406

tunisian historian set the foundation for both modern sociology and economics———proposed a theory of social conflict and provided a comparison of nomadic and sedentary life, analysis of political economy, and a study connecting of tribe’s social cohesion to its capacity for power

***often challenged authorities

the bubonic plague

1347-1522

dealt a major blow to the credibility of the catholic church because its mass devastation in killing 35% of the population

Philosophers post the bubonic plague

Included copernicus, galileo, leonardo, newton, linnaeus, and other philiosphers whose teaching contradicted the church

18th century enlightment philosophers

***developed general principles that could be used to explain social life

• john lock, francois-Marie, Immanuel Kant and Thomas Hobbes responded to what they saw as social ills and societal reformation

• Mary Wollstonecraft wrote about women’s conditions in society

1970s and Wollstonecraft

since the 1970s, Wollstonecraft has been widely considered the first feminist thinker of consequence———-her work was long ignored by male academic structure

Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes

a French essayist who coined the term sociology in 1780

August Comte

** (1798-1857)

**reintroduced the term sociology

thought that social scientists could study society using the same scientific methods ultilized in natural sciences——believed in the potential of social scientists to work toward the betterment of society

positivism

***Comte****

the scientific study of social patterns

• Comte believed that by revealing the laws by which societies and individuals interacted would usher in a new “positivist” age of history

Harriet Martineau as a tranlator

introduced sociology to english speakers through her translation of Comte’s writing from French to English

Harriet Martineau

(1802-1876)

an early analyst of social practices, including economics, social class, religion, suicide, government, and women’s rights

***found the workings of capitalism at odds with the professed moral principles of people in the US—-pointed out the faults with the free enterprise system in which workers were exploited and impoverished while business owners became wealthy

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

**(1818-1883)

German philosopher and economist—-coauthored the Communist Manifesto

**rejected Comte’s positivism and believed that societies grew and changed as a result of struggle and the different social classes over the means of production

Marx prediction

the inequalities of capitalism would become so extreme that workers would eventually revolt, leading to the collapse of capitalism which would be replaced by communism

Marx belief

believed that communism was a more equitable system than capitalism

Herbert Spencer

(1820-1903)

published Study of Sociology in 1873 which was the first book with sociology int he title

***rejected much of Comte’s and Marx’s philosophy——-favored a form of government that allowed market forces to control capitalism

• Used Charles Darwin’s work as a comparison——”this survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called “natural selection,: or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life”—-this has been misinterpreted as to believe in argarian bullshit

georg simmel

(1858-1918)

A German art critic who wrote widely on social and political issues——-took an anti-positivism stance and addressed topics such as social conflict, the function of money, individual identity in city life, and the european fear of outsiders

***work also emphasized individual culture as the creative capacities of individuals

Emile Durkheimm

(1858-1917)

helped establish sociology as a formal academic discipline by establishing the first European department at the Univesity of Bordeauz

***believed that people rise to their proper levels in society based on merit

Durkheim belief

sociologists could study objective social facts and that they could use this to determine if a society was healthy (stable) or pathological (breakdown of social norms)

Durkheim’s 1987 Suicide

published work that attempted to demonstrate the effectiveness of his rules of social research——examined suicide statistics in different police districts to research differences between Catholic and Protestant communities——-attributed differences to socio-religious forces

Max Weber

(1864-1920)

He is known best for his 1904 book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism—still controversial

***some believe that he was trying to argue that the beliefs of many Protestants led to the rise of capitalism while others think he is claiming that the ideologies of capitalism and protestantism are complementary

, Weber description of sociology

In The Nature of Social Action

*****striving to “interpret the meaning of social action and thereby give a causal explanation of the way in which action proceeds and the effects it produces.”

Positivism V Anti-positivism

often considered the foundation for the differences found today between quantitative sociology and qualitative sociology

quantitative sociology

uses statistical methods such as surveys with large numbers of participants—-researchers analyze data using statistical techniques to see if they can uncover patterns of human behavior

qualitative sociology

uses in-depth interview, focus groups, and analysis of content sources like books to understand human behavior

Weber and Dilthey

introduced verstehen, a German word that means to understand in a deep way————outside observers of a social world attempt to understand it from an insider’s point of view

WEB Du Bois

* (1869-1963)

**pioneered the use of rigorous empirical methodology into sociology———used comprehensive research methods through interviews to document and identify social structures, which stood in stark contrast to other sociologists of the time—-challenged pseudoscientific ideas of biological racism which had been used as a justification for oppression

Thorstein Veblen

(1857-1929)

studied economical classes through a social lens, writing about leisure class, the business class, etc.

****researched the employed and chronically unemployed

known as the co-founder of the branch of institutional economics

Jane Addams

(1860-1935)

***founded Hull House—-a center that served needy immigrants through social and educational programs providing opportunity for sociological research——informed child labor, immigration, health care, and other areas of public policy

Charles Horton Cooley

(1864-1929)

believed that individuals compare themselves to others in order to check themselves against social standards and remain part of the group——called it the looking glass self

***was concerned with increasing individualism and competitiveness of US society, fearing it would disrupt families as primary groups lost their importance

George Herbert Mead

(1863-1931)

work focused on the ways in which the mind and the self were developed as a result of social processes

—-adopted Cooley’s concept of ‘looking-glasses,’ but felt that an individual’s reaction to a positive or negative reflection depended on who the ‘other’ was

Mead belief

that the individuals that had the greatest impact on a person’s life were significant others while generalized others were the organized and generalized attitude of a social group\

fathers of symbolic interactionism

• George Mead

• Erving Goffman

• Charles Cooley

Robert E Park

*(1864-1944) **founder of social ecology

focused on how individuals lived within their environment——-one of the first to focus on ethnic minorities