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Sociology
study of human society studying the lives of people, groups, societies, behavior, analyzes the patterns of individual experience; making the familiar strange
Sociology is about
understanding how society works
Berger states that you should NOT
judge normatively
What is sociology similar to?
cultural anthropology, but sociology has more methods, comparison, etc
biology, but sociology focuses larger scale
economics, numbers discipline
political science, but sociology focuses on more than just power
history, but sociology focuses on the present day as well as the past
According to ____ sociological insights could just as well be used for as good as evil
Berger
Sociology is the systemic study of society and sociological perspective is
one that analyzes patterns of individual experience
Sociology focuses on
making comparisons across cases to find patterns, create hypotheses about how societies work, how they worked before
Individualism
specific to a single person's psychology or situation, everyone is unique
Universalism
apply to all humans across cultures
Discipline of sociology as distinct from other social sciences
systemic, comparative approach to discovering patterns in how society works
Sociological Imagination creator
C. Wright Mills
Sociological imagination
connect personal experience to society at large, make the familiar strange
In Mills opinion...
we can't begin to understand our personal lives without thinking about the social context
Sociological imagination 3 parts
Biography, History, Society
The government, google, apple, family, language, and gender are examples of what
social institutions
Social institution
networks of structures in society that work to socialize the groups of people within them
other examples of social institutions include
the legal system, labor market, educational system, military, family
Social institutions are not dependent on
any one individual to sustain them
Social identity
the way individuals define themselves in relation to the groups they are a part of or in relation to groups they cannot choose not to be a part of
examples of social identities include
profession, hobbies, frats, sororities, race, gender, daughter, son, student
Auguste Comte
determine logic or scientific laws governing human behavior, social physics, positivism
determine logic or scientific laws governing human behavior
social physics, positivism
first sociologist
Comte
systematic data based analysis can be applied to
understanding the social world as well as the natural world
What are Comte's 3 social stages?
God's will plan: theological stage
Enlightenment: metaphysical stage
Social physics: scientific stage
Harriet Martineau
first to translate Comte's written works to English, earliest feminist social scientists stating marriage and the inferiority of women
What sociologists form the discipline of sociology/sociological theory?
Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim
Marxism
historical materialism, conflict between social classes, economic is the root cause of everything in society, superstructure
Historical materialism
Karl Marx, identifies class conflict as the primary cause of social change.
What does Marx believe to be the makeup of current society?
Small number of capitalists and large number of workers
social facts
(Durkheim) the aspects of social life that shape our actions as individuals
Max Weber
expanded Marx's theory to include economics, culture, and politics into sociological analysis, interpretive sociology; culture, ideology, and beliefs shape economics
Verstehen
the meanings people attach to their actions
example of using ones sociological imagination
being puzzled by how people in another country greet one another and then thinking about why they might do it that way
one factor is said to influence another factor, it is called
causality
types of data collection used in social research
participant observation, interviews, survey research, experimentation, content analysis, historical methods
deductive approach
starts with a theory, develops a hypothesis, makes empirical observations, analyzes data and modifies original theory
inductive approach
starts with empirical observations and then works to form a theory and determines if correlation exists
to prove causation...
correlation and time order are established and alternative explanations are ruled out
Emile Durkheim
saw that the division of labor has social and moral consequences as well as brought about positivist sociology, anomie, and functionalism
Anomie
a sense of aimlessness or despair that arises when we can no longer reasonably expect life to be predictable, possibly due to drastic changes in living conditions or arrangements; too little social regulation; normlessness
Posivist sociology
the social world can be described and predicted by certain observable relationships (Durkheim)
Positivism (Comte)
social physics
strain within sociology that believe that the social world can be described and predicted by certain observable relationships
positivism
Georg Simmel
formal sociology, or a sociology of pure numbers (for instance, how a group of two is different than a group of three), network theory, etc
Social ecology
humans' behaviors and personalities are shaped by their social and physical environments
Key characteristics of American sociology
social ecology, Chicago school, empirical research, community studies, cultural sociology, social self from Cooley and Mead, meaning emerges from social interaction
Social self/looking glass self
self concept is derived from how we think others view us
who theorized looking glass self
Cooley
____ developed a theory about how the social self develops over the course of childhood
Mead
Infants only know ___ but learn ___ and ____ and develop ________ which allows them to apply norms and behaviors
I, me, other, generalized other
___ stressed the importance of play, imitation, and games to help children recognize one another, distinguish between self and other, grasp the idea that other people can have multiple roles
Mead
sociologist that argues the key element in determining the form of social relations in a group is the size of the group
Simmel
role theory
Robert Merton
W.E.B. DuBois
double consciousness, anomie from sudden freedom in the south sparked crime, class inequality drives communal progress, talented 10th, NAACP
Double consciousness
maintaining 2 cultural scripts, coined for black people taking in society's view of oneself and thus they are restrained to others' perceptions of them
Jane Addams
the founder of Hull House, which provided English lessons for immigrants, daycares, and child care classes, dubbed social worker
Social facts
The elements that serve some function in society, such as the laws, morals, values, religions, customs, rituals, and rules that make up a society
Structural functionalism
each element of society serves a particular function to keep the entire system in equilibrium (Talcott Parsons)
Manifest
obvious; very clear; evident
Latent
hidden, present but not realized
Feminist Theory
sociology as a discipline and society as a whole subordinate women; therefore, sociologists must take to women's stories as legitimate and advocate for policy change
biological determinism
the belief that men and women behave differently due to inherent sex differences related to their biology
Symbolic Interactionism
a micro-level theory in which shared meanings, orientations, and assumptions form the basic motivations behind people's actions
Microsociology
The study of human behavior in contexts of face-to-face interaction, participant observation, interviews, etc
Macrosociology
across breadth of society
Innumeracy
The lack of quantitative literacy; not having an ability to reason with numbers and other mathematical concepts, which leads to mutant statistics and misunderstanding of data
Mutant Statistics
Bad statistics that are spread around; the more shocking a statistic is the more likely it will be repeated, thus the worse a statistic the stronger the likelihood of spreading
What does Weiss say about qualitative interviews?
Interviewees must be treated with respect and attentive listening; because memories are reconstructions of events, distortion can occur even accidentally; must care for the interviewee
Feminist critique
acknowledge kinship with respondents to humanize them
How does Weiss say we can use surveys?
surveys can compliment qualitative data by strengthening arguments through utilizing larger statistics
Constructionist Perspective
the ability of investigators to get as close to reality as possible depends on the preconceptions and concerns
Investigator bias
choosing respondents, encouraging answers, or writing reports to achieve a personal goal with the interview
Quantitative Research
information about the social world that is already or can be readily converted to numerical data using the scientific method of control and treatment groups, noting causality through eliminating other factors, etc
Qualitative Research
documents meanings that actions engender in social participants or describe mechanisms by which social processes occur; cannot be converted to numeric form; causality through descriptions and ruling out other possibilities
goal of sociological research
to show how individual lives are intimately related to the social forces that exist beyond us
deductive reasoning
theory -> hypothesis -> empirical observations -> analysis to confirm, reject, or modify original theory
inductive reasoning
empirical observations -> theory
Correlation/association
between two events X and Y; occurs when there is an observed mutual relationship between the two events
Causal mechanism
what exact effect exists
causality
change in 1 factor changes another factor
What needs to be established before confirming causality?
time order
correlation
ruling out alternative explanations
you need ___ to have causation
correlation
reverse causality
a situation in which the researcher believes that A results in a change in B, but B, in fact, is causing A
spurious correlation
an apparent but false relationship between two (or more) variables that is caused by some other variable
independent variable
a measured factor that the researcher believes has a causal impact on the dependent variable
dependent variable
outcome that a researcher is trying to explain
key independent variable
the most important independent variable
moderating variable
variable that alters the relation between the independent variable and the dependent variable
mediating variable
positioned between the DV and IV, but has no effect on the relationship
hypothesis
a proposed relationship between two variables with a direction (positive = same, negative = different)
operalizationalization
process of assigning a precise method for measuring a term being examined for use in a study; defining your term
alternative hypothesis
opposite of null hypothesis
validity
Actually measuring exactly what you intend to measure
Realiability
consistency of measurement
Generalizability
Extent to which research results apply to a range of individuals not included in the study
white coat effect
the effects that researchers have on the very processes and relationships they are studying by virtue of being there through changed behavior of participants
Reflexivity
analyzing and critically considering our own role in, and effect on, our research
Note 
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