SOCL 2001 Sociological Imagination January 15 20 2016 Chapter 1 What is sociology Sociology is the study of human society The function of sociology as of every science is to reveal that which is hidden Pierre Bourdieu The Sociological Imagination the ability to connect one s personal experiences to society at large and greater historical forces coined by C Wright Mills argued that we need to use our sociological imagination to think critically about the social world around us Historical Context connecting biography and history Using your sociological imagination make the familiar strange question habits or customs that seem natural What is a social institution a group of social positions connected by social relations that perform a social role Social institutions such as the legal system the labor market or language itself have a great influence on our behavior and are constantly changing The interactions and meanings we ascribe to social institutions shape and change them networks of structures in society that work to socialize the groups of people within them Examples include the legal system the labor market the educational system the military the family What is social identity Auguste Comte French scholar known as the first positivist the way individuals define themselves in relationship to groups they are a part of or in relationship to groups they choose not to be a part of We all contribute to one another s social identity which can also be thought of as a grand narrative constructed of many individual stories positivism or social physics idea that society can be studied scientifically and logically believed that we could prove that there were certain laws of social interaction and that they were consistent believed that we needed to make moral sense of society as religious authority declined Comte s 3 Historical Epistemological Stages society is the result of divine will Theological Stage Metaphysical Stage Scientific Stage human behavior governed by natural biological instincts develop a social physics to understand human behavior Harriet Martineau first to translate Comte s works to English authored How to Observe Morals and Manners first sociology methods book One of the earliest feminist social scientists historical materialism identifies class conflict as the primary cause of social change conflict usually resources or power drives social change throughout history humans tend to dominate their environment then other humans means understanding in German empathetic understanding emphasis on subjectivity became a foundation of interpretive sociology considered founding practitioner of positivist sociology division of labor helps to determine how social cohesion is or is not maintained The History of Sociology con t Functionalism conflict theory feminist theory symbolic interactionism postmodernism and midrange theory are all modern sociological theories Functionalism Conflict Theory society is a living organism and institutions are like vital organs everything has a function emphasizes the role of consensus in maintaining order identifies power relationships that create different phenomena in society Karl Marx Max Weber Verstehen Emile Durkheim social inequality results from power struggles between groups Symbolic Interactionism focuses on how face to face interactions create the social world individuals act based on symbolic meaning attached to objects and people
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