Introduction to Sociology

1
Introduction to Sociology

• The Sociological Perspective

2
Sociology

• The scientific study of human organization and
  social interactions.
• Goal is to understand social situations and look
  for repeating patterns in society.
• Children abductions in the U.S.
• Sexual predators on the internet
• Focus is on the group, not the individual.
• Issues of reporting personal experiences.

3
Applied Sociology

• Applying sociology to solving real-world
  problems
• How does building a dam affect the residents of
  the area?
• How does jury makeup affect the outcome of a
  case?
• How do relationships among administrators,
  doctors, nurses, and patients affect hospital
  care?

4
Social Science Disciplines
5
Sociology Vs. Other Disciplines
6
The Development of Sociology

• Emerged as a separate field of study in Europe
  during the 19th century.
• During this period the social order was shaken by
  the industrial revolution and by the American and
  French revolutions.

7
Auguste Comte (17981857)

• Identified two major areas for sociology
• Social statics - study of how social institutions
  are interrelated, focusing on order, stability,
  and harmony.
• Social dynamics - study of how societies develop
  and change over time.
• Comte had a determinist view of society
• Determinism in the philosophical sense implies
  that all events are dependent on precedent events
  free will?

8
Harriet Martineau (18021876)

• Published Theory and Practice of Society in
  America, in 1837.
• The book analyzed the customs and lifestyles of
  the 19th century United States.
• Her travels through the United States observing
  prisons, mental hospitals, factories and family
  gatherings formed the basis for the book.
• Scholars should use their research to bring
  social reform and benefit society
• Slavery in America?

9
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

• When in the Course of human events it becomes
  necessary for one people to dissolve the
  political bands which have connected them with
  another and to assume among the powers of the
  earth, the separate and equal station to which
  the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle
  them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind
  requires that they should declare the causes
  which impel them to the separation.
• We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
  all men are created equal, that they are endowed
  by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
  that among these are Life, Liberty and the
  pursuit of Happiness

10
Herbert Spencer (18201903)

• Believed society was similar to a living
  organism.
• Just as organs of the body make specialized
  contributions, the various segments of society
  are interdependent.
• A proponent of Social Darwinism.

11
Social Darwinism

• Applied Charles Darwins notion of survival of
  the fittest to society.
• Lack of success was viewed as an individual
  failing unrelated to barriers created by society.
• To help the poor and needy was to intervene in a
  natural evolutionary process.
• Can you think of some other examples?

12
Sociology in the 19th Century

• Three scholars shaped sociology into a relatively
  coherent discipline
• Karl Marx
• Émile Durkheim
• Max Weber
• Their ideas were greatly shaped by
  industrialization, capitalism, and
  socio-political revolutions

13
(No Transcript)
14
(No Transcript)
15
Karl Marx (18181883)

• Believed the history of human societies could be
  seen as the history of class conflict between
• The bourgeoisie, who own and control the means of
  production.
• The proletariat, who make up the mass of workers.
• A critique of capitalism

16
Karl Marx (18181883)

• Marx lived shortly after the French and American
  revolutions
• He was greatly influenced by what he observed to
  be conflict as an engine of change
• Historical development

17
Émile Durkheim (18581917)

• Believed individuals were the products of their
  social environment.
• Society shapes people in every possible way.
• Showed how a personal act, suicide, is patterned
  by social factors.
• Differences in suicide according to religious
  practices

18
Durkheims Three Types of Suicide

• Egoistic suicide - derives from loneliness and a
  commitment to personal beliefs over group values.
• Altruistic suicide - the individual is willing to
  die for the sake of the community.
• Anomic suicide - results from feeling
  disconnected from societys values.

19
Suicide in the United States

• Social factors
• Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death for 15-
  to 24-year-olds.
• Older adults account for 20 of suicide deaths,
  but only 13 of the overall U.S. population.
• Suicide rates for Native Americans are 1.5 times
  the national rates.

http//www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_sui_rat_mal-
health-suicide-rate-males
20
Max Weber (1846 1920)

• Ideology can influence the economic system
  (material conditions)
• Ideology as means to explain the development of
  capitalism
• Rational man
• Minimize risk maximize profits
• Bureaucracy

21
Robert Merton

• Influential proponent of the functionalist
  theory.
• Two forms of social functions
• Manifest
• The intended and recognized consequences of those
  process
• Going to college to obtain knowledge
• Latent
• Unintended or not readily recognized consequences
  of such processes
• New opportunities
• Finding lasting friendships

22
Contemporary Sociology

• What is a theory?
• A theory is a systematic explanation for the
  observations related to a particular aspect of
  life.

23
(No Transcript)
24

• Functionalism
• Views society as a system of highly interrelated
  structures or parts that function or operate
  together harmoniously

25

• Conflict
• People are basic struggling battling over
  something

26

• Symbolic interactionism
• Concerned with the meaning that people place on
  their own and one anothers behavior.

27

• Materialism
• Human consciousness rests on certain material
  conditions without which it would not exist
• In other words, ideas reflect the economic,
  physical, or environmental conditions!
• Early communities
• Lord of the flies
• The ideas of any epoch are the ideas of a ruling
  class because they control the means of mental
  production