SociologyFall Semester 2022

Chapter 1 - An Introduction to Sociology

1.1 What Is Sociology?

• society - a group of people who live in a defined geographical area, who interact with one another, and who share a common culture

• Scientists study society either through micro-level analysis, in small groups and individual interactions, or through macro-level analysis in large groups and entire societies.

• Culture - a group’s shared practices, values, and beliefs, encompassing a group’s way of life.

• Sociological imagination - an awareness of the relationship between a person’s behavior and experience and the culture that shaped their choices and perceptions. (as described by sociologist C. Wright Mills)

• Culture is not meant to be seen as alive and real, it is an abstract concept. Culture is the product of the people in a society and just a word used to encapsulate real things.

• Nothing happens independently. All decisions made by people are influenced by society. In sociology, it is impossible to study a person or persons without also studying their surroundings and the things that affect their decisions and life. The individual and society are inseparable.

• figuration - the process of simultaneously analyzing the behavior of individuals and the society that shapes that behavior

1.2 The History of Sociology

• Philosophers were studying the relationship between individuals and society before sociology was an actual study. Ancient philosophers are often studied in modern sociology, including theories of social conflict, economics, social cohesion, and power in a continued attempt to describe an ideal society.

• Unfortunately there aren’t many reliable ancient records about sociological studies, as most of the literate population was aristocracy or people of religious importance. So most of the writings are biased/subjective.

European Theorists:

• Auguste Comte - pupil of social philosopher Claude Henri de Rouvroy Comte de Saint-Simon. He believed that social scientists could use the scientific methods from natural sciences.

He created the idea of positivism, which means that social scientists can help improve society

• Harriet Martineau - introduced Comte’s ideas to English scholars by translating his writing from French to English. She wrote “Illustrations of Political Economy” to educate ordinary people on economics. She was highly disregarded because she was a woman in a male-dominated field.

• Karl Marx - Coauthored the Communist Manifesto. Marx rejected positivism and believed that societies changed due to the struggles of different social classes over the means of production.

• Georg Simmel - German art critic, anti-positivism. Focused on two or three person groups.

• Émile Durkheim - established the first European department of sociology at the University of Bordeaux. According to Durkheim, people rise to their proper levels in society based on merit. He believed sociologists could study objective facts and determine if a society was healthy or pathological. Healthy meaning it was stable while pathological meant a breakdown in social norms. Published the work Suicide, claiming that differences in suicide rates between Catholic and Protestant communities were specifically due to the dominant religion in the area.

• Max Weber - established a sociology department in Germany. Known for the 1904 book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism where he said that the beliefs of Protestants led to the rise of Capitalism. He believed it was difficult to use standard scientific methods to predict group behavior.

verstehen - to attempt to understand actions from an insider’s point of view

• W.E.B Du Bois - pioneered the use of rigorous empirical methodology into sociology. Provided empirical evidence to challenge the pseudoscientific ideas of biological racism. Helped found the NAACP.

• Thorstein Veblen - studied the economy socially, researching the chronically unemployed and the working classes.

• Jane Addams - founded Hull House, which informed research on child labor, immigration, health care, and other areas of public policy.

• Charles Herbert Cooley - established the idea of “the looking glass self” - that individuals compare themselves to others in order to check themselves against social standards and remain part of the group

• George Herbert Mead - focused on the ways in which the mind and self were developed due to social processes. “Slightly modified the idea of the looking glass self” by saying that a reaction to positive or negative reflection depended on who the other person was. Significant others were people who had the greatest impact on one’s life, while generalized others were the overall attitude of a social group.

• Robert E. Park - the founder of social ecology, focused on how individuals lived within their environment. One of the first sociologists to focus on ethnic minorities. Researched the inner city to show that residents did not cause social chaos, but the environment did.

1.3 Theoretical Perspectives in Sociology

• Sociologists study social interactions and develop theories to create a hypothesis (a testable proposition) about society.

• social solidarity - social ties within a group

• grand theories - attempt to explain large-scale relationships and answer fundamental questions like why societies form and change

Functionalism

• Functionalism (structural-functional theory), sees society as a structure with interrelated parts to meet biological and social needs of those within the society

• Social institutions -  patterns of beliefs and behaviors focused on meeting social needs, such as government, education, family, healthcare, religion, and the economy

• Durkheim believed that society is held together by shared values, languages, and symbols.

• Dynamic equilibrium - all parts working together to maintain stability in a society

• manifest functions - the consequences of a social process that are sought or anticipated

• latent functions - the unsought consequences of a social process

• dysfunctions - social processes that have undesirable consequences for the operation of society

• Criticism: The structural-functional theory is no longer seen as useful as a macro-level theory by many sociologists, but it is seen as having a useful purpose in mid-level analyses.

Conflict Theory - macro level

• Conflict theory looks at society as a competition for limited resources, most identified with the writings of German philosopher and sociologist Karl Marx

• Believes institutions like the government, education, and religion help maintain inequality and oppress the poor

• Sociologist Ludwig Gumplowicz added to this that war and conquest are the basis of civilizations and that cultural and ethnic conflicts lead to defined groups

• Sociologist Max Weber expanded upon this by saying that politics and social structure cause competition as well as economic inequality

• Out of conflict theory came critical theory - a holistic theory and an attempt to address structural issues causing inequality

• Critical race theory and feminism both examine the social structures that continue the oppression of these groups.

• Criticism: conflict theory is criticized for its focus on conflict and the complete exclusion of stability.

IndentSymbolic Interactionist Theory - micro level

• Sees languages and symbols as the way in which people make sense of their worlds

• George Herbert Mead technically founded the theory, but his student Herbert Blumer coined the term

• This theory sees people as active participants in the social world and not just being acted upon

• “humans interact with things based on meanings ascribed to those things; the ascribed meaning of things comes from our interactions with others and society; the meanings of things are interpreted by a person when dealing with things in specific circumstances”

• “If you love books, for example, a symbolic interactionist might propose that you learned that books are good or important in the interactions you had with family, friends, school, or church. Maybe your family had a special reading time each week, getting your library card was treated as a special event, or bedtime stories were associated with warmth and comfort.

• The importance of symbols in society led Erving Goffman to create the technique of dramaturgical analysis - using theater as an analogy for social interactions and showing that most interactions have distinct patterns of cultural “scripts”

• Those using symbolic interactionist perspective focus on individuals and their interactions as opposed to large groups.

• Constructivism - the idea that reality is what humans cognitively construct it to be

• Criticism - critics few only studying symbolic interaction as very narrow and the field is scrutinized based on the difficulty of remaining objective in these studies.

INDENT 1.4 Why Study Sociology?

• Sociology can teach about how to understand the world around us, and to question things we never questioned before.

• Sociology also teaches critical thinking skills

Chapter 1 cheat sheet:

Structural Functionalism - originated with Emile Durkheim, said society is a complex system that keeps stability by fulfilling certain social functions. Macro-level and sometimes mid level

This society has two types of functions: manifest functions - intended or obvious consequences of a structure, and latent functions - unintended consequences of a structure

Cons: doesn’t see any actions as negative and doesn’t help explain change

Conflict Theory __- established by Karl Marx, economics, race, gender, and other social theories are important when establishing society. Conflict theory sees society as defined by our chaos, society only functions through inequality. Macro-level.

Cons: the theory completely ignores stability or any possibility for it

Symbolic Interactionism - established by Max Weber. He believed that sociology needed to focus on individuals and what is important to them. This sees society as created between people, people assign meaning to interactions and objects. Micro-level.

Cons: in this area it can be hard to make objective judgements