What is Sociology?

• Sociology is the scientific study of society, including how individuals both shape and are shaped by society.

• It's a two-way street between individuals and society, both influence and impact how the other behaves, thinks, and sees.

Shaping and Being Shaped by Society

• Malala Yousafzai is the youngest Nobel Prize winner to date, however, if she was not raised in the society she was in she would not have influenced the world as she has today.

  • Imagine she was born in the suburbs of New Jersey rather than Pakistan during the time of the Taliban- she would have never been shot and never felt a passionate need to advocate for girls' education or have created the Malala Fund.

• Sociology helps us understand society's impact on people and how we work with one another to solve the social issues facing our societies.

The Origins and Current Uses of Sociology

• The roots of sociology are based on efforts to understand and help control the impact of major societal changes.

• It is key to remember that sociology does not just affect one professional field or organization, but impacts everyone as it allows one to understand how people interact with one another.

  • It also helps one learn how to communicate and interact with anyone, despite physical and cultural differences such as gender, race, culture, sexual orientation, and economic class.

  • Sociology can be used to make connections and recognize and address issues of inequality and privilege.

• People in every profession benefit from sociological training, and employers value employees with sociological skills.

Changing How You View the World

• Developing a sociological eye and sociological imagination will allow one to notice and make sense of social patterns in ways that enable work.

  • With this awareness, you can take steps to create change when you desire to do so.

The Sociological Eye

• Sociological Eye enables you to see what others may not notice

  • It allows one to see beneath the surface of a situation and notice social patterns

• Once you start to notice different patterns, such as gender or racial ones, you will start to see more correlations and won't be able to stop noticing them.

The Sociological Imagination

• Sociological Imagination is the ability to connect what is happening in your own life and in the lives of other individuals in the larger society.

• C. Wright Mills developed the concept of the sociological imagination to describe how our individual lives relate to social forces.

  • It gives one the ability to recognize the relationship b/w our own biographies and the society in which we live.

• While our lives are shaped by the society we live in, we also help shape this society.

  • When nations go to war, individuals fight in armies, and industrial societies cant be without both investors and workers.

  • At the end of the day, individuals make the choice on how to exist and behave in their social environment.

The Fallacy of the Individualistic Perspective

• While individuals do haw a choice, most times those choices are still limited by one's environment.

• From this individualist perspective, whether we succeed or fail depends primarily on our own efforts.

  • Take the U.S.A, for example; it said you must just work hard enough to “make it,” but one's surroundings significantly impact if you can so call “make it.”

  • A sociological eye will see that this perspective is flawed, as some will have more opportunities or more hurdles than others.

  • The sociological eye gives us the ability to recognize the impact society has on us and how the individualistic perspective works to prevent people from noticing that impact.

    • Those blind to the influence of society are unknowingly shaped by it

Sociology as a Social Science

• Sociology is a social science, a scientific discipline that studies how society works.

• Sociologists follow rules that work to ensure the research is transparent and replicable and that others can confirm or refute one's findings.

Theoretical Perspectives

• Theoretical Perspectives are paradigms or ways of viewing the world

• Different theories have different focus points and ask different questions about the social world

  • Some are questions on social order/cohesion, others are about societies problem, and some are about the way we see ourselves in relation to others

The Scientific Research Process

• To Understand how society operates and to test ur perspectives and theories about how society works, sociologists must collect and analyze data.

• The purpose of sociological research is to constantly learn more about how society works.

  • Doing research in open, systematic ways allows others to replicate one's research process and support one's conclusions.

    • This also allows to reveal flaws in the data gathering process and findings

  • Open research allows for a more scientifically sound understanding of society as a whole.

Differentiation between Good Generalizations and Stereotypes

• Generalizations are statements used to describe groups of people or things in general terms, with the understanding that there can always be exceptions

Stereotypes

• Stereotypes are predetermined ideas about particular groups of people

  • Ex. all Asians are good at math, or all Irish are drunks

• They are typically bad generalizations used to excuse ones discriminatory treatment

• While some may be closer to the truth than others, they aren’t backed with solid evidence.

Good Generalizations

• Bad vs good generalizations

  • Bad: “Chatty Cathys” women who talk incessantly

  • Good: in mixed-sex conversations, men tend to talk and interrupt more than women. Women also ask more questions than men and tend to work hard at fostering conversation, but it is men who tend to dominate verbal interactions.

  • The difference? The bad example is used to judge a certain group, and the good example is a description of how a group interacts with another. The good example is also backed by more research.

The Obligations of Sociology

• The earliest socicologists used sociology to find ways to understand and to improve society.

• W. E. B. Du Bois, one of the founders of sociology used sociological tools to show how society works and to fight racism.

  • As an African american, he faced lots of rejections for employment due to his race despite being a harvard trained scholor

  • Through his career he carried out a combination of research and activism, achieving groundbaking work in both areas

  • Founded the National association for the Advancement of Colored people (NAACP)

The Two Core Commitments

• Core Commitments of sociology are, to use the sociological eye to observe social patterns and noticing patterns of injustice & taking action to challenge those patterns

The Benefits of Sociology

• Developing a sociological eye and gaining a sociological perspective will benefit both you and society

  • One will see patterns many are unable to

    • And while some are unpleasant, noticing and uncderstaning these patterns will help you develop ways of dealing with them in your own life

• Through gaining a sociological perspective you will learn how to act more effectively in groups and with people of other cultures.

Sociology and Democracy

• In a democratic society it is important for citizens who vote in election to understand how society works to develop the ability to notice social patterns

  • Also vital to know the difference between good information and fake news

Sociology and Careers

• Sociological knowledge is  useful in any career

  • Ex. a marketer must have research skills to learn what appeals to different groups and how to advertise to each most persuasively