Sociology Portfolio

What is Sociology?

Sociology is the systematic study of human society.

Peter Berger said in his book Invitation to Sociology that Sociological perspectives involves seeing the general in the particular, seeing the strange in the familiar and individuality in social context.

Seeing the general in the particular is how sociologists look at the patterns of life in people's behaviour.

Seeing the strange in the familiar is recognizing the impact society has on our lives.

Individuality in Social Context

Emile Durkheim, a pioneer in sociology chose suicide as a topic of research. He was able to demonstrate that social forces figure in the apparently isolated act of self-destruction. He found that men, protestants, wealthy people and the unmarried each had significantly higher suicide rates compared to women, Roman Catholics and Jews, the poor and married people.

The sociological perspective in everyday life?

Benefits of sociological perspective

The sociological perspective

* Becomes a way of thinking, "a form of consciousness" that challenges familiar understandings of us and of others, so that we can critically assess the truth of commonly held assumptions.

* Enables us to assess both the opportunities and the constraints that characterize our lives.

* Empowers us to be active participants in our society.

* Helps us to recognize human differences and human suffering and to confront the challenges of living in a diverse world.

Problems with the sociological perspective.

* Sociology is part of a changing world.

* Sociologists are part of what they study.

* Sociological knowledge becomes part of society.

Social change and the origins of sociology

Science and Sociology

Auguste Comte, Emile Durkheim, and Ferdinand Toennies were three pioneers in sociology whose goal was to understand how society actually operates. Comte sorted human efforts to comprehend the world into three distinct stages.

* The first stage was the medieval period in Europe which he termed the theological stage. This is the stage where thoughts about the world were guided by religion, therefore people regarded the society as an expression of God's will. Humans were capable of fulfilling a divine plan.

* The Renaissance Era was the metaphysical stage when people came to understand society as natural rather than supernatural. Thomas Hobbes posited that society reflected not the perfection of God as much as the failings of a rather selfish human nature.

* The final stage was the scientific stage. The scientific approach was first used to study the physical world to study society. Positivism is a means of understanding the world based on science.

How did sociology develop?

Sociology was born out of the 'massive social transformation' of the past two centuries. Two great revolutions - the French Revolution of 1789, and the more general 'industrial revolution' traced to England in the eighteenth century - 'have all but totally dissolved the forms of social organization in which humankind has lived for thousands of years of its previous history. There were four dimensions of change as traditions crumbled.

* First, there was a new industrial economy. Scientific discoveries and technological advances had produced a factory-based industrial economy.

* Second, there was urbanization. The factories drew millions of people from the countryside, causing an explosive growth of cities.

* Third, there was political change. The people from the burgeoning industrial cities had new ideas about democracy and political rights.

* Finally, there was the loss of community. The theory of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft were used to describe the loss of community. Gemeinschaft had traditional ties that bound people of a community together, 'people were essentially united in spite of all separating factors.' Gesellschaft described the modern world that turned societies inside-out so that people are 'essentially separated in spite of uniting factors.' This was especially found in large cities. There was the steady loss of traditional morality, the human community.

Sociologists look to the future

Auguste Comte and Ferdinand Tonnies feared that people would be uprooted from long established local communities and overpowered by change. There will be continuing change in the future.

CHAPTER TWO OVERVIEW

What is the classical tradition of sociology?

Starting a short tour of sociological theory

A theory is a statement of how and why specific facts are related. Durkheim explained his observations of certain categories of people by creating a theory: a high risk of suicide stems from a low level of social integration.

A theoretical perspective is seen as a basic image that guides thinking and research.

Mainstream or 'classical' perspectives in sociology

The classical perspectives are the functionalist perspective, the conflict perspective and the social action. These are sociologists three major ways of thinking about society.

The functionalist perspective can be defined as the framework for building theory that envisages society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability. This perspective began by recognizing that our lives are guided by social structure which means relatively stable patterns of social behaviour.

Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer were two