The Sociological View

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The Sociological View
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Sociological Perspective

• Special vision
• Seeing the general in the particular
• Seeing the strange in the familiar
• Seeing individuality in social context

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Benefits of the Sociological Perspective

• Helps us assess the truth of common sense.
• Helps us assess both opportunities and
  constraints in our lives.
• Empowers us to be active participants in society.
• Helps us to live in a diverse world.

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What is Sociology?

• The scientific study of social behavior and human
  groups.
• Influence of social relationships on individual
  attitudes and behavior

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C. Wright Mills

• Sociological Imagination
• An awareness of the relationship between the
  individual and the wider society.
• View as an outsider
• Beyond personal to public

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Key concepts

• Skepticism
• Uncovering inconvenient facts- Weber
• Method of organizing perspectives
• Objectivity
• Ethics
• Critical thinking

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Origins of Sociology

• Industrial Revolution
• Growth of cities
• Pull of factories
• Push of enclosure
• Political Change
• Pursuit of self-interest

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August Comte

• Born in France
• Coined the term Sociology in 1838
• Favored Positivism
• A way of understanding based on science
• Social Statics vs. Social Dynamics
• Not only discovered social principles but also
  applied them to social reform

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Harriet Martineau

• Wrote Society in America family, race,
  gender, politics, and religion
• Translated August Comtes ideas into English and
  reduced 7 volumes to 2

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Emile Durkheim

• Emphasis on showing how social forces impact
  peoples behavior
• Emphasis on thorough research
• Suicide (1897)
• Social factors underlie suicide not simply
  personal reasons
• Social integration the degree to which people
  are tied to their social group

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Emile Durkheim

• Social research must be practical
• Discover causes for social ills and recommend
  remedies
• Anomie
• Breaking down of the controlling influences of
  society
• People become detached form society and are left
  with too little moral guidance
• -answer more social groups

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Karl Marx

• Class conflict is the engine of human history
• Society divided into classes who clash in pursuit
  of their own class interests
• Group identifications and associations influence
  an individuals place in society

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Karl Marx

• People should take active steps to change society
• Concept of praxis
• theory and action

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Max Weber

• Urged students to use Verstehen (understanding)
  in their intellectual work
• To fully comprehend behavior, we must learn the
  subjective meanings people attach to their
  actions how they themselves view and explain
  their behavior

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Max Weber

• Disagreed with Marx that economics was the
  central force in change
• Felt that religion was
• Concept of the ideal type
• Construct a made-up model that serves as a
  measuring rod against which actual cases can be
  evaluated

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W.E.B. DuBois

• Worked under Max Weber
• 1st person of color to receive a doctorate from
  Harvard
• Founding member of the NAACP
• Worked on race and inequality
• U.S. State Department refused to give him a VISA

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Herbert Spencer

• Did not believe that sociology should guide
  social reform
• Believed in social Darwinism
• Over time, societies improve
• Coined the term Survival of the fittest
• Did not conduct scientific studies

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Why Theory?

• Allows for full exploration of an issue or
  problem
• 3 sociological theoretical paradigms
• Sets of assumptions that guide thinking and
  research

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Structural-Functionalism

• Society is a complex system whose parts work
  together to promote solidarity and stability.
• Social structure relatively stable patterns of
  social behavior
• If something does not serve a useful,
  identifiable purpose, it will not be passed from
  generation to generation

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Structural-Functionalism

• Manifest function recognized and intended
  consequences of any social pattern
• Latent function largely unrecognized or
  unintended consequence
• Dysfunction undesirable consequence or
  disruption to social structure

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Social-Conflict Theory

• Sees society as an arena of inequality,
  generating conflict and change
• Interested in how societys institutions
  including family, government, religion,
  education, and the media may help to maintain the
  privileges of some groups and keep others in
  subservient positions
• Looks to who benefits and who suffers

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Symbolic-Interactionist

• Sees society as the product of the everyday
  interactions of individuals
• Micro-level orientation
• Humans live in a world of meaningful objects
• symbols

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Feminist Perspective

• Views inequity in gender as central to all
  behavior and organization

• Often allied with conflict theory
• Tend to focus on the relationships of everyday
  life like the interactionists would
• Extended analysis beyond the male point of view

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How Sociology is studied

• Science a logical system that bases knowledge
  on empirical evidence
• Scientific method
• Systematic, organized series of steps that
  ensures maximum objectivity and consistency in
  researching a problem

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Step 1 Defining the Problem

• State as clearly as possible what you hope to
  investigate

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Step 2 Review the Literature

• See what other people have already written about
  the issue

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Step 3 Formulate Hypothesis

• Hypothesis A speculative relationship between 2
  or more factors
• Variables concepts whose value changes from
  case to case
• Measurable and subject to change under different
  conditions

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Step 3 Formulate Hypothesis

• Independent variable the variable that
  influences other variables
• Dependent variable the variable that depends
  on the influence of the independent variable

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Step 3 -Formulate Hypothesis

• Causation vs. Correlation
• Causation the independent variable causes a
  change in the dependent variable
• Correlation a change in one variable coincides
  with a change in the other.

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Step 3 Formulate Hypothesis

• Measurement the process of determining the
  value of a variable in a specific case
• Reliability the extent to which a measure
  produces consistent results.
• Validity the degree to which a scale or measure
  truly reflects the phenomenon under study
• Operationalize data

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Step 4 Selecting Research Design

• Detailed plan for obtaining data scientifically
• Survey research a study which provides info on
  how people think and act
• Interview
• questionnaire

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Step 4 Selecting Research Design

• Samples
• Representative a selection from the larger
  population that is statistically typical
• Random everyone in the population has the same
  change of being selected

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Step 4 Selecting Research Design

• Existing sources
• Observation watching individual behavior
• Competence vs. performance
• What people say they do and what they actually do
• Experiments specific design to produce expected
  results
• Experiment group exposed to the independent
  variable
• Control group not exposed to the independent
  variable

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Step 5 Developing the Conclusion

• May not support hypothesis
• Serves as basis for further research