Notes from the introductory course "Understanding Social Life", covering topics of culture, society, gender, human behavior, and race.
Course description: "This course is an introduction to the discipline of sociology and to the insights it provides into the human condition."
What is Sociology (Chapter 1)
Sociological Imagination
-the ability to see things socially and how they interact and influence each other
-helps us to think critically about what is "natural" to us
Differentiating Sociology
-history
-looks at unique cases like famous events throughout time
-anthropology
-focuses on "us" vs. "them"
-currently it is becoming more like sociology (especially cultural anthropologists)
-psychology
-what drives the individual, the self
-social psychologist is what the individual thinks about social policies
-biology
-understanding the body and things, especially disease, manifest in the body
-economics
-using quantitative methods to understand how economies work
-political science
-both fields study power
Key Concepts
-institutions (is a society or organization founded for a religious, educational, social, or similar
purpose)
-we interact with them daily, they shape our experiences and viewpoints of the world
Significance of Social Location
-the way in which one is situated in the world- what characteristics might influence one's social
location
-race, class, gender
-geography
-bodily abilities
-sexuality
-religious background
-family composition, educational background
-effects the way we see the world, interact with others, and interact with the world
-social location shifts, changes, and evolves over time
Research Methods (Chapter 2)
How do sociologists do what we do?
-quantitative data
-numbers, statistics
-qualitative
, -words, descriptions
-deductive research
-make a hypothesis then collect data to confirm this hypothesis
-inductive research
-start with data, round up to see what can of conclusions or theories you can make
-causation
-one variable having an effect on another variable
-correlation
-relationship between two variables
-use of variables
-independent variables
-dependent variables
Research Goals
-validity
-are you using objective research methods to get to our conclusions?
-test were conducted using the scientific method
-generalizability
-draw conclusion on a small subset of the population then use it to apply to the general
population
-more quantitative research
-reliability
-if a study is repeated and similar information is found
What is the Role of the Researcher?
-respect for participants
-not always possible to remain completely objective; bias BUT, we must always work toward it
-power as a researcher
How Do We Collect Data?
-participant observation
-interviews
-informal and formal
-survey research
-comparative/historical
-content analysis
-themes in documents
-experiments
Doing ETHICAL Research
-history of formal ethics procedures
-after WWII, many inhumane experiments were done on homosexuals and jewish individuals.
Another example was the experiment of syphilis being injected into black men
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