CHAPTER OUTLINE
Chapter 1
I. Introduction
A. Sociology is defined
as the science dealing with the study of social forces. It is the science of
society and social behavior.
B. Social forces that
shape our lives:
1. Ideologies
2. Social
relationships
3. Groups
such as race, sex, and class
4. Structured
pressures coming from corporations or international politics
II. The
Sociological Perspective (The
sociological ways of perceiving and interpreting the social world)
A. 3 key assumptions of
the sociological perspective:
1. Individuals are by
their nature social beings.
a. Human infants are
totally dependent on others for an extended period of time.
b. Throughout history humans have demonstrated a capacity and
need to cooperate with others in order to survive.
2. Individuals are largely
socially determined
a. Society (e.g., rules,
values, goals) is transmitted to the child through the family.
b. The individual's identity and perceptions are shaped by the
social environment.
c. One of the main tasks of sociology is to identify these
social forces.
d. However, this does not imply a total social determinism (the
assumption that human behavior is explained exclusively by social forces).
3. Individuals create,
sustain, and change the social forms within which they conduct their lives.
a. Assumptions
1. Social
groups of all sizes and types (families, peer groups, work groups, etc.) are
made by people.
2. Interacting
people create social structures that become sources of control over them.
3. The
continuous interaction of group members act to change
the group.
b. Four important
implications:
1. Social
forms that are created have a certain momentum of their own that defies change.
2. Social
organizations, because they are created and sustained by people, are imperfect.
3. Through
collective action, individuals are capable of changing the structure of society
and even the course of history.
4. Individuals
are not passive; rather, through the process of human agency, they actively
shape social life by adapting to, negotiating with, and changing social
structures.
B. Problems with the
Sociological Perspective
1. Sociology is not a
comfortable discipline.
a. The sociological
perspective challenges what is ordinarily taken for granted to the extent that
sociologists:
1) Sociologists do not
take everything at face value.
2) They ask questions about existing social arrangements.
b. The critical
examination of society
1) Sociology perspective
demystifies and demythologizes social life.
2) It sensitizes individuals to the inconsistencies present in
society.
c. The sociological
assumption is that the social world is human-made and therefore not sacred.
d. An understanding of society's constraints is liberating.
e. However, sociology is difficult because the behavior of
sociology's subjects is not always certain.
2. Sociology is
extraordinary because it can be regarded as both trivial and threatening.
a. Some students may see
sociology as trivial and boring.
1. May
question the value of sociology and see Sociology as a science of the obvious.
2. Most
are unconscious of their social boundaries.
b. Sociology is
subversive; it undermines our foundations by questing social arrangements.
III. The Historical Development of
Sociology
A. Sociology emerged in
B. Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
C. Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
1. Durkheirn
a. Provided the rationale
for sociology by emphasizing social facts, which are human factors that explain
human behavior.
b. His classic study of suicide (1897) demonstrates how social
factors explain individual behavior.
2. Durkheirn
also pointed out the binding power of belief systems, how labeling some people
as deviant reaffirms our conception of what is right, and. the impact of the
division of labor on social solidarity.
3. Key concepts introduced by Durkheim:
social roles, socialization, anomie, deviant behavior, social control, and the
social bond.
D. Karl Marx (1818-1883)
- The founding father of conflict theory
1. Devoted his life
to analyzing and criticizing the society around him.
2. He reasoned that the economic system found in society
provides the basic social structures, which are:
a. System of
stratification
b. Unequal distribution of resources
c. The bias of the taw
d. Prevailing ideology.
3. Interested in how the
economic system, particularly capitalism, shaped society.
a. Owners of capital:
1. Exploited
their workers for maximum profit.
2. Used
their economic power to keep the less powerful in their place and to benefit
unequally.
3. Determined
the prevailing ideology created false consciousness (believing in ideas that
are not in their objective interests but rather in the best interests of the
capitalist class) which contributed to the oppression of the working class.
4. Social change occurs
when the contradictions inherent in capitalism cause the working class to:
a. Recognize their
oppression
b. Develop class consciousness by recognizing their class
interests, common oppression, and an understanding of who
their oppressors are
c. Revolt against the system.
5. Marx made
extraordinary contributions to core sociological concepts: systems of
inequality, social class, power, alienation, and social movements.
E. Max Weber (1864-1920):
A response to Marx
1. Much of Weber's
thought was a reaction to the writings of Karl Marx (who Weber considered to
narrowly deterministic.
2. Weber contended:
a. The basic structure of
society comes from three sources: the political, economic,
and cultural spheres.
b. Weber argued that political power may have its source in the charisma,
or expressive qualifies, of individual leaders or in organizations.
3. The Protestant Ethic
and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904), which demonstrates how the Protestant
belief system made capitalism possible, was Weber's most important work.
4. Weber added to the field of sociology such core concepts:
power, ideology, charisma, bureaucracy, and social change.
IV. Sociological Methods: The Craft of
Sociology
A. 4 types of
sociological questions:
1. Factual
questions try to identify "who," "what," "when,"
and "where."
2. Comparative
questions allow us to compare one area or group to others. (See Table 1.1)
3. Historical
questions look for trends and changes over time.
4. Theoretical
questions seek to identify causal relationships
a. Theoretical questions ask why?'
b. A sociological theory is a set of ideas that explains a range
of human behavior and a variety of social and societal events.
B. Problems in collecting
data
1. Objectivity
a. Sociologists as social
scientists are obligated to study society in a detached and dispassionate
manner.
b. However, sociologists are also members of society with
beliefs, feelings, and biases.
2. Value neutrality (to
be absolutely free of bias in research) can be attacked from three positions:
a. Scientists should not
be morally indifferent to the implications of their research.
b. Type of problems researched and strategies employed tend
either to support the existing societal arrangements or to undermine them. In
both cases, social research is political.
c. Bias is inevitable in studying social problems.
d. Sociologists must display scientific integrity and must
recognize bias so that it does not and must recognize bias so that it does not
invalidate their findings.
3. Minimizing bias
(see Research Methods box)
4. Non-scientific analysis
a. People tend to generalize
from personal experiences, which is a sampling problem.
b. People may make assumptions from a single case.
c. People tend to use some authority, such as the media or the
Bible, instead of their senses.
5. Prevailing myths and
stereotypes that are contradicted by scientific evidence.
a. Six myths that
are not supported by the facts:
1. Most
homeless people are disabled by drugs, mental disease, or physical afflictions.
2. Adolescent
Blacks are more likely than adolescent whites to use drugs.
3. Welfare
makes people dependent, lazy, and unmotivated.
4. Welfare
is given more generously to the- poor than to the non-poor.
5. Blacks
are similar in their behaviors (i.e. they are monolithic).
6. Unmarried
women are having children to increase their welfare payments.
b. Use of aphorisms,
proverbs and conventional wisdom to describe events.
C. Sources of data
1. Survey research-allows
researcher to obtain information using standardized questionnaires and
sophisticated statistical techniques.
a. Data may be gathered
using:
2. Personal
interviews (caption, p.21)
3. Written
questionnaires
b. The researcher obtains
information:
1. From
a selected sample (a representative part of a population).
2. Regarding
a particular variable (an attitude, behavior, or condition that vary in magnitude and significance from case to case).
2. Experiments are used
to understand the cause and-effect relationship among a few variables.
a. Two groups are used:
1. The control group,
which is a group of subjects not exposed to the independent variable.
2. The experimental group, which is made up of the
subjects who are exposed to the independent variable.
b. Change is studied
because the researcher.
1. Varies
the subjects' exposure to the independent variable, which is the condition that
is believed to be responsible for the anticipated change.
2. The
amount of change that happens to the dependent variable (the variable that is
influenced the effect of another variable) is observed and measured.
3. Observations
can be used to record or watch and study what occurs in a community, group, or
social event.
4. Existing
data, which has been collected by another researcher or agency, may be used as
the source of data needed to describe.