Week 1: The Sociological Imagination

Sociology

Studying society in a systemic way

Societies

Large scale huma groups sharing common territory and institutions

Cultures

Systems of behaviour, beliefs, knowledge, practices, vales and materials

They are built on interactions among its members

How are societies different from states?

INteractions happen in patterned ways through routines, expectations, and behaviors that establish themselves over time and build common meanings

How do interactions happen?

By culture

How are interactions shaped?

Dominant culture

The culture capable of imposing its beliefs and behaviours on individuals becasue fo the economic and political power it wields

Countercultures

Differs from the dominant culture and reject it

Subcultures

Differs from the dominant culture but does not necessarily oppose it

High culture

Considered the culture of the elite

Low culture

The culture of the majority

C. Wright Mills

Who developed the idea of the sociological imagination?

The sociological imagination

Idea to help individuals see connections between their lives and larger society.

1. family

2. class

3. gender

4. race

5. economy

Social forces include:

Exercise our own agency

“make our own decisions”

Is shaped or limited by larger social forces.

How is agency shaped?

1. The study of social inequality

2. the role of social institutions in society

3. the study of social change

The three core foci of sociology

Social inequity

The gap between the advantaged and disadvantaged

1. rights

2. Opportunities

3. rewards

4. privileges

Social inequity exists in terms of: [4]

1. Family

2. education

3. religion

4. economy

5. government

Five social insitutions in Canadian society:

Social insitutions

Defined as the norms, values, and rules of conduct structuring human interactions

1. How they maintain the functionality of society

2. How they hold society back

3. They facilitate social change

4. They are standardized ways of doing things

5. They are contradictory (helps society run smoothly while also reproducing social inequity)

Research on insitutions has shown that: [5]

Secularization

The process of a religion losing its authority over individuals and in social life in general

Religiosity

A measure for how religious an individual or society is

1. to define general themes in everyday life

2. To critically determine what is familiar or common sense in human societies and why it is that way

3. To examine how individuals are shaped by society and how, in turn, individuals shape their society

The three main goals of sociology

To remember people’s eeriences contain generalizations of how society funcvtions and how people behave

To define general themes in everyday life, sociologists are required to what?

Developing a deeper understanding of how society functions

The familiarity with our experiences sometimes prevents us from what?

Do research to determine why those patterns exist

What do sociologists do when patterns are found in behaviour?

Through systematic study

How do sociologists study patterns in behaviour?

How we shape society and how society shapes us

Sociologists aim to examine the dual process of what?

Emile Durkheim

Noted how differnt sociology was from philosophy, due to its reliance on empirical research

It focused on social facts, or external social structures, norms, and values that shape the actions of individuals.

How did Emile Durkheim say that sociology was unique from philosophy?

By considering social facts, or those elements of society beyond the individual’s control

Durkheim confirmed that the difference in suicide rates by country, gender, and religion, could only be explained by what?

Egoistic suicide

suicide occurs in societies with low levels of integration

Altruistic suicide

Suicide ocurs in societies with high levels of integration

anomic suicide

suicide occurs in societies with excessively low regulation

Fatalistic suicide

Suicide occurs in societies with excessively high regulation

Research question

questions focus on the relationship between variables

Independant variable

Variables that potentially affect other variables

Dependent variables

Variables affected by independent variables

1. quantitative research

2. qualitative research

Two major types of research comprise the type of work sociologists do:

Quantitative research

Research on things that can be counted

Qualitative research

Research on social processes; tends to focus on a smaller number of things to analyze

1. surveys

2. experiements

Quantitative research uses two main methods:

Survey

Involves distributing questionnaires to a large number of people. Purpose is to learn about characteristics, attitudes, or behaviours of individuals in human societies

Experiment

The researcher is interested in understanding how some factor affects individual behaviour. Involves comparing two groups (experimental and control). Treatment is given to the experimental group to see how they will react

1. interviews

2. Participant observation

Two main methods for qualitative research

Ethnography

“participant observation”

Interview

Involves asking each participant the same set of questions and records their responses. Allow researchers to ask questions that require longer answers and they provide opportunities to ask follow-up questions

Participant observation

Researcher actively engages with a group of individuals to understand their lives and experiences. Requires extensive involvement with the group under study for a long period of time

Content analysis

Used to study documents such as newspapers, historical letters, or other inds of texts

Focus groups

Are like interviews but involve a larger number of people