Download - the discipline of sociology
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THE DISCIPLINE OF SOCIOLOGYLecture 1
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The Sociological Imagination
Defined as: “...the ability to see the relationship between individual experiences and the larger society” (Mills, 1959)
Defining “society” social group geographical territory same political authority and cultural expectations
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Importance of Global Interdependence
1. Where we live shapes the lives we lead2. Societies are increasingly interconnected3. Many social problems in Canada are
more serious elsewhere Macionis and Gerber, 2011:8
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The Discipline of Sociology
• Industrial economy
• Growth of cities
• Political change
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Early Thinkers
Auguste Comte (1798-1857)• coined the term sociology..and
considered the founder• He believed that societies contained:• Social Statics • Social Dynamics • Natural science applied to society• Positivism
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Early Thinkers
Harriet Martineau (1802-1876)
• Made Comte’s work more accessible
• She was an active sociologist studying social customs and consequences of industrialism and capitalism
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Early Thinkers
Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
• Believed that people are a product of the social environment
• Society are built of social facts• Anomie - a condition when social
control becomes ineffective as a result of the loss of shared values and a sense of purpose in society
• Scientific approach to studying social facts
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What do these thinkers have in common?
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Questioning the status quo
Karl Marx (1818-1883)Conflict (especially class conflict) was necessary– Bourgeoisie and proletariat– Capitalist system made poverty
• Capitalist class controls and exploits the masses of struggling workers
• Results in Alienation• Marx predicted that the workers would becomes aware
of its exploitation and overthrow the capitalists, creating a free and classless society
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Just one more…
Max Weber (1864-1920)• Value-free sociology conducted in a scientific
manner• Verstehen – see the world as others see it• Bureaucracies and organization
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Development in North America• United States
• Canada– First department
– Canadian Review of Sociology founded in 1965
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Theoretical Perspectives
• Theory• Perspective
• A basic image of society that helps us think about social issues and guide social research
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Contemporary Theoretical Perspectives
• Functionalist (or structural-functionalist)• Conflict • Feminist• Symbolic Interactionist
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Functionalist Perspectives
• Assumption that society is a stable, orderly system
• The parts of society work together to promote solidarity and stability
• Everything in a society (institutions, customs, interactions) function to keep the society going
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Types of functions
R. K. Merton (1910-2003)• Attempted to classify functions–Manifest– Latent–Dysfunctions
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Conflict Perspectives• Assumption that groups in society are engaged in a
continuous power struggle for control of scarce resources
• Social patterns and relations benefit some individuals while hurting others
• Emphasize factors such as social class, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity and age
• Conflict can also lead to social change
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Feminist Perspectives• Assumption that gender is necessary category to
understand and to explain inequalities in the household, paid labour force, politics, law and culture
• There is no single unified approach.• Focus on patriarchy : a hierarchical system of power
in which males possess greater economic and social privilege than females
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Symbolic Interactionist Perspectives
• Assumption that society is a sum of the interactions of individuals and groups
• Focuses on micro-level of analysis• Symbolic interactionists attempt to examine people’s
day-to-day interactions and their behaviour in groups• This perspective examines:– Interaction– Symbol
• Each person has a subjective interpretation of a given situation
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Theory guides our research!
• Research is the process of systematically collecting information for the purposes of testing an existing theory or generating a new one
• But not all sociologists collect research in the same manner
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The Sociological Research Process
• With quantitative research, the goal is scientific objectivity, and the focus is on data that can be measured numerically
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The Sociological Research Process
• With Qualitative Research, the use of interpretative description (words) rather than statistics (numbers) are used to analyze the underlying meanings and patterns of social relationships
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Research Methods
• Research methods: strategies or techniques for systematically conducting research– Surveys– Secondary Analysis of Existing Data– Field Research– Experiments
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Surveys
• Survey: a poll in which the researcher gathers facts or attempts to determine the relationship among facts
• Respondents: people who provide data for analysis through interviews or questionnaires
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Types of Surveys
Telephone•More honest and less threatening•Greater control over the data•Problems: Some not accessible to researchers
Self AdministeredQuestionnaires
•Simple and inexpensive•Respondents are anonymous•Problems: low response rates
Interview•Personal and direct contact•Face to face Respondents•Problems: Major cost and time
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Surveys
• Sampling Considerations:– Survey research involves some type of sampling– From a population (those persons we want to find
out about)– Sample• Representative Sample
• Random Sample
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Secondary Analysis
• Using data that has already been gathered by someone else
• One kind: content analysis: the systematic examination of cultural artifacts or various forms of communication to extract thematic data and draw conclusions about social life
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Field Research
• Field research is the study of social life in its natural setting: observing and interviewing people where they live, work and play
• Use of qualitative data• Varieties of observation:
– Participant observation– Ethnography
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Experiments
• Defined: a carefully designed situation in which the researcher studies the impact of certain variables on subjects’ attitudes or behaviour.– experimental group– control group
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Experiments
• Process: After persons are selected with very similar characteristics into these two groups, then:
1. Both groups are pre-tested2. Exposed to a stimulus representing the
independent variable3. Post-tested: to see if the independent variable
had an effect on the dependent variable
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Ethical Issues in Sociological Research
• Elements of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association:–Participation must be voluntary–No harm to research subjects
(physically, psychologically, or personally)–To protect confidentiality and
anonymity
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To summarize
• Sociology involves using different theoretical perspectives to systematically study the social world
• Different perspectives can be used to interpret the same issues/topics in different ways
• These different perspectives allow us to deconstruct the “taken-for-granted” ways of thinking