THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY

Why study Sociology?• “Educating students to better understand

themselves and others, to value our heritage, and to appreciate the diversity of the world and its cultures."

• Sociology provides us with an understanding of how social forces shape individual attitudes and behavior.

• Sociology shows us how societies are developed and maintained.

• Sociology introduces us to the sociological imagination, which is the mindset that allows us to see the connection between the individual and society.

• Sociology helps us to the appreciate the diversity that exists in the human population.

• Sociology challenges our common sense notions about the social world that we live in.

• Sociology sharpens our analytical skills.• Sociology helps us to understand ourselves and others.• Sociology adds value to our lives by empowering us to

make well-thought out decisions.

Where can it lead you????

• Corporate America…many sociologists are employed in Human Resources to maintain a positive, organized corporate environment.

Social Work

• Many sociologists are employed as social workers in communities and schools.

Sports• Large sports franchises

employ sociologists to deal with the following areas:

• sport subculture and fan base• the political economy of sport

(marketing), • sport and the media, • sport, the body and the

emotions, • sports violence, • sport politics and national

identity, • sport and globalization.

Research and Travel

• Getting paid to travel, do field work, and gather data.

Sociology Majors…

• …have done everything from teaching, to becoming President, to changing the world.

http://www.asanet.org/cs/root/leftnav/careers_and_jobs/careers_and_jobs_home

Emergence of Sociology• Product of the Industrial

Revolution, as well as political, intellectual, and economic upheavals of the 18th and 19th centuries. Why?

• Radical change in social organization (urbanization) gives way to a need to understand why the sudden change in society...this leads to the desire to want to control society… this science becomes sociology (originally called “Social Physics”)

The Founders…who can we thank?

• AUGUST COMTE• Father of Sociology• Believed we can study the social

world , like the natural/ scientific world. Once we understand we can control events

• Divided study into 2 parts: • 1. social structure (social order,

stays the same) STATICS• 2. social process (changes in

society) DYNAMICS

HERBERT SPENCER

• Influenced by Darwin.• Thought that social change

and conflict were just stepping stones on the road to a perfect society.

• Believed best aspects of society would survive over time… became known as Social Darwinism.

KARL MARX

• Repulsed by poverty and inequality.• Thought a society’s economic

system, greatly influenced it’s social structure. (Have’s vs. Have Not’s)

• Saw conflict as a “human-made” condition that society fostered to slow or stop social change to oppress the worker.

• His theory becomes known as Conflict Theory.

EMILE DURKEIM

• People are the product of their social environment.

• Concerned with the stability of society… felt religion was main thing that held a society together… less religion=less order.

• Says successful society needs balance between regulation and freedom

• One of the first to discuss suicide and society… talk of suicide was taboo until then.

• MAX WEBER• Most influential… modern

thinker.• Disagreed with Marx…

economics not the “building block”.

• Unlike other theorists, he was concerned with separate groups rather than society as a whole.

• Studied without judging… sociology concerned with what is, not what should be…this is Value Free Sociology

Sociology in the United States

• Reform approach vs. radical (Europe)… in other words only reform what needs to change, don’t radically overhaul all of society.

• Slavery, Civil War, and Immigration sparked interest in study of Soc.

• W.E.B DuBois… writer who brought racial problems to light. Started one of the first Sociology classes at the Univ. of Atlanta.

• Jane Adams… founding mother of Soc. Founded Hull House which pushed for social reform programs in Chicago.

First formal Sociology class in the United States…Yale in 1876. Who do you think it was geared towards?

• WHY?????

How do politicians use sociology?

•Look at the following pictures… how is the politician trying to appeal to the group?

2005

2008

Society vs. Culture…• Culture is way of life shared by

members of a society…a group in which we choose to live.

• Society is the mass of different cultures around us bound together by territory, economics, and politics. If culture is where we choose to live, society is the world we “can’t avoid”.

• Society = territory (have to live in it)• Culture = things (we choose this)• Example… I might be a member of

American society, but my culture is that of a Dutch American.

The Sociological Imagination

• Seeing the connection between your personal world and the world around you.

• Theory of C.Wright-Mills…says social problems require changing social structure, NOT just personal therapy. Seeing personal issues, such as divorce, poverty, etc in a larger social context. In other words, some of what we experience is beyond our individual control. Example…poverty=lack of education (individual) AND lack of opportunity/jobs (society)

In other words… according to Mills’ Sociological Imagination there is a definite relationship between individual lives and the larger forces of society.

What are some “social problems”?

• “When, in a city of 100,000, only one man is unemployed, that is his personal trouble and for its relief we look at the character of the man…his skills, opportunity that he has missed, and what he has done wrong. But when in a nation of 50 million employees, 15 million men are unemployed, that is a social issue, and we will not find its solution within the range of opportunities open to any one individual. Then, societies structure of opportunities has collapsed and it is the issue of society… not the problem of the individual”. – C. Wright Mills.

• Do you agree or disagree???

Look at the following pictures and explain using Sociological Imagination.

• Fault/Problem of individual because?• Fault/ Problem of society because?

• Fault/Problem of individual because?• Fault/ Problem of society because?

Fault/Problem of individual because?Fault/ Problem of society because?

• Fault/Problem of individual because?

• Fault/ Problem of society because?

Everything that happens to people is not private… people are shaped by forces they don’t even see.

• Macrosociology= looking at large groups or parts of society.. (Ex: study of female college graduates in Europe or a big issue like crime)

• Microsociolgy (Weber)= looking at smaller groups or parts of society. (Ex: study of a group of female high school students at SHS or a small issue like family relationships).