Introduction to Sociology

Week 1

What is sociology?

→ The study of societies, groups, and social interactions 

What is a Society?

→ a society is a group of people who live in the same geographic area, interact with each other, and who share a common culture

What is Micro-level vs Macro-level?

→ micro-level study small groups and individual interactions, while those using macro-level analysis look at trends among and between large groups and societies

What is Culture?

→ culture refers to the group’s shared practices, values, and beliefs

→ includes everything produced by a society, including all the social rules

What is antipositivism?

the view that social researchers should strive for subjectivity as they worked to represent social processes, cultural norms, and societal values

How do sociologists study culture?

→ Sociological Imagination: described by sociologist pioneer C. Wright Mills as the ability to understand how your own past relates to that of other people, history, and societal structures

CONNECTION: allows us to see people’s behavior in relationship to historical and societal structures

→ ex. Culture’s influence on marriage?

→ Sociologists try to identify cultural patterns and social influences that put pressure on individuals to select one choice over another

This is done by examining the behaviour of large groups of people living in the same society & experiencing the same societal pressures

→ ex. US family dynamics have changed from what was historically ‘typical’ the percent of unmarried couples, same-sex couples, single-parent and single-adult households is increasing, 3.5 million fathers are also raising their children alone (U.S. Census Bureau, 2020)

→ Other sociologists study social facts—the laws, morals, values, religious beliefs, customs, fashions, rituals, and cultural rules that govern social life—that may contribute to these changes in the family

How do Sociologists View Social Structures?

→ A key component of the sociological perspective is the idea that the individual 

and society are inseparable 

It is impossible to study one without the other

→ sociologist Norbert Elias called this process Figuration: simultaneously analyzing the behavior of individuals & the society that shapes that behavior 

→ ex. Religion: people experience religion in an individual manner, but religion exists in a larger social context as a social institution; government dictate holidays, places of worship, rituals and this influences individual practices as well as social pressures 

How did Auguste Comte contribute to the field of sociology?

→ Comte was one of the founding pioneers of sociology as he developed the theory of positivism or the study of social patterns. He believed that once scholars identified the laws that governed society, sociologists could address problems such as poor education and poverty  

How did Karl Marx view sociology? 

Marx rejected Comte’s positivism. He believed that societies grew and changed as a result of the struggles of different social classes over the means of production

Historical Context

→ the Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism led to great disparities in wealth between the owners of the factories and workers

→ Capitalism, an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of goods and the means to produce them, had developed in many nations

Marx believed that communism was a more equitable system than capitalism

→ Communism is an economic system under which there is no private or corporate ownership: everything is owned communally and distributed as needed

saw society as being made up of individuals in different social classes who must compete 

for social, material, and political resources

CONNECTION: supports conflict theory

How did W.E.B. Du Bois impact the field of sociology?

→ introduced groundbreaking empirical (observation) methodology into sociology by documenting the familial/employment structures and challenges found in the African American community in Philadelphia

→ published empirical evidence to challenge pseudoscientific ideas of biological racism which had been used as justification to oppress people of different races

How did Émile Durkheim influence sociology?

Theorized that individual behavior is not only influenced by internal factors but also by external societal factors

→ studied social solidarity (the social ties that bind a group of people together such as kinship, shared location, and religion) 

Believed that society is a complex system of interrelated and interdependent parts that work together to maintain stability (Durkheim, 1893), and that society is held together by shared values, languages, and symbols

→ to study society, a sociologist must look beyond individuals to social facts such as laws, morals, values, religious beliefs, customs, fashion, and rituals, which all serve to govern social life (Durkheim, 1895)

CONNECTION: Functionalism → society is made up of parts or institutions that work together in order to function properly 

What are the sociological theories, their level of analysis, and focus?

Sociological Theories/Paradigms	Level of Analysis	Focus	Questions that might be asked
Structural Functionalism	Macro or Mid	Society is a complex system of interrelated & interdependent parts that work together to maintain stability, and that society is held together by shared values, languages, and symbols (Durkheim)	How does education work to transmit culture?
Conflict Theory	Macro	Society is in a state of perpetual conflict because of competition for limited resources: The way inequities & inequalities contribute to social, political, and power differences and how they perpetuate power (Marx)	Does education transmit only the values of the most dominant groups?
Symbolic Interactionism	Micro	The use of communication& interactions to create subjective symbols and meanings	How do students react to cultural messages in school?

Explain the theory of functionalism or structural-functional theory 

→ proposed by Herbert Spencer; views society as a complex structure with interrelated parts designed to meet individual’s biological and social needs (macro level)

→ various parts of society work together to keep society functioning (like organs in the body) referred to as social institutions (patterns of beliefs and behaviors focused on meeting social needs) ie. government, education, family, healthcare, religion, and the economy

→ Durkheim applied theory to explain how societies change and survive over time

→ In a healthy society, all parts work together to maintain stability (dynamic equilibrium)

Key concepts: Positivism, meritocracy, anomie

Why do social processes often have more than one function?

Manifest functions are the consequences of a social process that are sought or anticipated (ex. college education preparing you for a career) while latent functions are the unsought consequences of a social process (ex. finding your partner at uni) Dysfunctions are undesirable consequences (ex. not finding employment after graduating)

Explain conflict theory

Looks at society as a competition for limited resources (macro level approach) developed by Karl Marx

→ Social institutions like government, education, and religion reflect this competition in their inherent inequalities and help maintain the unequal social structure

→ Power & influence are used to maintain social institutions. *The perpetuation of 

power results in the perpetuation of oppression

→ Sociologist Max Weber believed that not only economic inequalities, but inequalities 

of political power and social structure also cause conflict

*noted that different groups were affected differently based on education, race, and gender, and that people’s reactions to inequality were moderated by class differences and rates of social mobility, as well as by perceptions about the legitimacy of those in power

Can conflict benefit society?

Georg Simmel believed that conflict can help integrate and stabilize a society by showing 

that groups work to create internal solidarity, centralize power, and reduce dissent & that 

→ resolving conflicts can reduce tension and hostility and can pave the way for future agreements

How has conflict been explored to expand across other inequality disciplinaries?

Critical theory attempts to holistically address structural issues causing inequality

ex. Institutionalized power structures have been shown to maintain inequality based on 

gender & race 

→ Janet Saltzman Chafetz’s theory on The Coercive Structures of Gender Inequality 

elaborates on how capitalism structures gender inequality

→ Capitalism requires the existence of two groups, one that controls the means of production, in this case the capital, and  those who are exploited. Chafetz points out that patriarchy adds another element to this. Those who control the capital are, predominantly, men, while those who are exploited the most are women

→ A great deal of the work that women do, work that’s necessary to perpetuate capitalist markets and productivity, is unpaid (domestic labor)

Critical race theory looks at structural inequality based on white privilege and associated 

wealth, power, and prestige

Explain Symbolic Interactionist Theory

a theoretical perspective through which scholars examine the relationship of individuals within their society by studying their communication (language and symbols)

→ Perspective that people contribute to the shaping of society, not just society impacting the choices and behaviours of the individual

→ highlights the importance of symbols in building a society

Herbert Blumer

1. humans interact with things based on meanings ascribed to those things; 

2. the ascribed meaning of things comes from our interactions with others and society; 

3. the meanings of things are interpreted by a person when dealing with things in specific circumstances 

How do sociologists apply symbolic-interactionist thinking into their work?

By looking for patterns of interaction between individuals & observing one-to-one 

interactions (ex. how individuals in the protesting group interact, as well as the signs and 

symbols protesters use to communicate their message)

→ dramaturgical analysis (Erving Goffman) uses theater as an analogy for social 

interaction & recognized that people’s interactions showed patterns of cultural “scripts” 

He argued that individuals were actors in a play. We switched roles, sometimes minute to 

minute

→ uses qualitative research methods, such as in-depth interviews or participant 

observation

Explain Constructivism

an extension of symbolic interaction theory which proposes that reality is what humans 

cognitively construct it to be (micro level)

→ We develop social constructs based on interactions with others, and those constructs that last over time are those that have meanings which are widely agreed-upon or generally accepted by most within the society

What was Karl Marx’s view on conflict theory?

→ people would be so alienated to work, not making enough money, the working class would get so big as capitalism require more individuals to work it would acquire more individuals until those in power are overthrown

Under Capitalism we become an individual who is alienated, stressed over work, capitalism acts on the individual but also other way because they will then change the structure if they collectively act on the structure

Bidirectional relationship between society and the individual 

Conflict is a motive for change

What did Emile Durkheim think of functionalism?

Economic system shapes the way that people are

Individualism makes people lose their function in society, with more freedoms and individual entities it actually doesn’t make people happier, suicide rates were going up, more institutional and capitalist ways of living reduced social bonds where people didn’t feel a part of society or belonging, in traditional society people were connected through their purpose and role in families and society, this is called mechanical solidarity 

If we have these patterns within society of individual acts, it actually becomes a social problem because they can be tied to institutions, social norms, etc

If we want to understand individuals, we need to understand them more than individuals 

Anomie: if there is a lack of social norms, people are alienated, it can lead to a great breakdown in social norms, ex. Crime serves as a bigger social function, it can lead to social progress, crime alienates people a sort of deviance

What is WEB DuBois perspective on social structures?

We need to understand how social structures impact individuals highlighting the role of systemic oppression, capitalists used workers to create division, racism divided the working class, INTERSECTIONALITY: class and race cannot be separated, there’s economic and racial oppression, there’s not one structure, there’s many that work together to affect the individual  

What is C Wright Mills’ concept of sociological imagination?

→ the ability to tie an individual’s personal experiences and troubles to widespread social public issues and understand that our lives are shaped by factors such as history, culture, and societal institutions (ex. viewing unemployment as a public issue rather than a personal failing) 

What kind of world does C. Wright Mills say we live in?

→ We live in a time of indifference (neither aware of any cherished values nor experience any threat) and uneasiness (unaware of any cherished values, but still are very much aware of a threat)

→ Indifference: people focus on problems of leisure “Not child labor but comic books, not poverty but mass leisure, are at the center of concern” 

→ There is a “narrowing of interest to the Western societies, or even to the United States—thus ignoring two-thirds of mankind”

→ the world’s greatest threat is contemporary society itself “with its alienating methods of production…political domination…international anarchy” 

What was Dubois’s veil metaphor?

→ Du Bois argues that the Veil prevents white people from seeing black people as Americans, and from treating them as fully human

→ Du Bois argued that racism and the practices of segregation excluded blacks from mainstream American life - "shut them out of their world by a vast veil"