Sociology class notes 8 29 14 Sociology is the study of the dynamic relationships between individual people and social structures and their influence on human behavior and social life Challenges conventional wisdom First piece of definition is individualism aka social problems caused by flaws in individual character Individualism believes problems are caused by individuals themselves i e terrorists are bad guys they hurt people because they have no regard for the human race or school shooters are bad guys and the do bad thing bc they individually are bad people ignores social influence Society is made up of individual people This ignores the difference between individuals and social relationships Collections of statuses roles and shared ideas norms values that tie these Social structures are made up of intertwining groups of people statuses and roles together into relationships Examples families universities or whole societies The individualistic perspective that dominates current thinking about social life is limited Social structures cannot be understood simply by looking at individuals i e suicide terrorism Sociology is based on an epistemology of empiricism Epistemology how we know what we claim to know Empiricism knowledge through evidence gathered from senses The sociological imagination seeing the general in the particular Seeing patterns and connections between personal experience biography and social structures history General categories of social structure gender age race class in which we fall shape our particular life experiences Mills says that recognizing thee intersection of biography and history is both terrible and magnificent matrix scene Moving beyond the individualistic bias in seeking solutions to social problems social structurse Mills distinguishes between personal troubles of milieu and public issues of Fundamental and proximal causes Recognize that fundamental social causes shape individual proximal causes Economy family agriculture diet and exercise obesity Fundamental social causes proximate individual causes social problems Sociology class notes 9 3 14 Sociology and the industrial revolution Shift in economic structure of society away from agriculture Mass movement away from rural life on farm to cities and work in factories Had profound influence on all aspects of social life and brought new social problems including urban poverty Augustus Comte French social thinker who coined the term sociology in 1838 to describe a scientific view of understanding society Aka the father of sociology Coined positivism society can be understood by determining the logic or scientific laws governing human behavior Really thought that sociologists would end up knowing all answers to society and would run society and be the great priests to humanity He was a little crazy Modern sociology run by 3 principles 1 Functionalism social patterns exist because of the useful function they serve Durkheim Talcott parsons society is a complex system whose parts are interdependent and work together to promote order and stability Social structures can best be explained in terms of the useful functions they serve All functions work together to promote order and stability Robert Merton manifest and latent functions Critiques focus on stability circular reasoning explaining inequality Emile Durkheim interested in what societies needed to function smoothly and have organic solidarity society is a body and all of the parts work together to create a functioning society Best know for studying social isolation and anomie normalness in relation to social change and human behaviors Suicide study 2 Conflict perspective social patterns exist because they serve those with power and are justified by ideology Marx Society is characterized by inequality that generates conflict and change Social patterns exist because they serve those with power Associated with Karl Marx Materialist conception of history all social patterns and relations stem from the economic system False consciousness workers misunderstood their position in the social economic system individualistic bias Bourgeoisie top of society owners of labor had most of the Proletariat laborers sold labor bottom majority of society 3 Symbolic Interactionism social patterns maintained and changed by wealth people interacting Social patterns maintained and changed by people interacting based upon shared meanings and assumptions Shared meanings and assumptions guide interaction and produce social order Social construction of reality Influence of shared meanings interactions and perceptions of others on individuals identity formation and maintenance Macrosociology broad focus on large social systems and institutions Functionalism Conflict Microsociology close up focus on everyday face to face interaction Symbolic internationalism Sociology class notes 9 5 14 Sociological research Approaches that social scientists use for investigating the answer to questions and in some cases establishing a causal relationship between social phenomena Sociology as a social science takes on empirical approach to answering questions about the world Sociologists ask four primary types of questions 1 Factual what is happening 2 Comparative happen everywhere 3 Developmental does it always happen 4 Theoretical causes and effects Research vs Me search challenges to objective research in the social Deborah Carr on special challenges Sociology faces because of the nature of sciences the subject matter we study Empirical Observations Methods Methods of data collection systematic plan for obtaining empirical observations Three basic types Survey Ethnography includes participant research Experiment Reliability and Validity validity Regardless of the method used researchers want to maximize reliability and Reliability extent to which the results can be replicated in a new study Validity how well the study measures what it is intended to measure Methods differ in the extent to which the provide reliability and validity there are often tradeoffs Ethnography participant observation Ethnography study based on observations of people in their own environment using participant observation Participant observation one method od collecting data for ethnographies in which the researcher both observes and become a member of a social setting Example Alice Goffman On the Run Both use an interpretive framework not focused on hypothesis testing but an in depth understanding of a phenomenon