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Sociology SOCL1016 MBBCH I Week 1
- Institution
- University Of The Witwatersrand (wits)
Week 1 of SOCL1016 MBBCH 1 Notes for University of Witwatersrand
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Sociology Week 1What is Sociology?
Study of society
Can be defined as either a subject or skills set
Subject:
- Study of development, organization, functioning and change within a society and of
social groups.
- It is the study of social beliefs, values and meanings, social relations, and interactions,
as well as collective action, behaviour, and practices.
Skills set
- Encourages critical thinking
- Taking a step baking from personal views and instead looking at social influences and
societal views
- Understanding different views + beliefs
- Sociological imagination → a different view of looking at life (reflexive, critical
thinking, thinking like a sociologist)
- Everyone’s perspectives are different, need negotiation
How to develop a sociological imagination?
- Make the familiar, unfamiliar, or strange
- Question/critique what you have come to learn (upbringing, socialisation)
Think about your private troubles that may be shared with other people. When you can
see that your troubles are also experienced by the public, public issues, this leads to
thinking like a sociologist.
People that have same problems are often part of same social group as you identify with
them easier.
- Sociological Imagination in action → the realization that our personal, private
experiences are actually part of a long socio-economic, political, cultural, and historical
process in which we as individuals become part of the society we live in
- You begin to view things from a less micro perspective and more macro perspective
- Society shapes how you understand certain things
- Sociologists try to understand how each person fits in the societal puzzle
4 defining characteristics of the Sociological Imagination
Sociological imagination helps us understand and connect us as individuals to a larger society.
To make a link between ‘private troubles’ and ‘public issues’. Often what an individual has a
problem with, is a problem that many too have a problem with, often having the same cause
therefore the best way to solve the problem is through collective action.
, A term coined by Charles Wright Mills to describe the sociological approach to analysing
issues. We see the world through a sociological imagination, or think sociologically,
when we make a link between personal troubles and public issues.
4 factors forming the Sociological imagination and showing how to analyse in a sociological
way. NB in sociological analysis.
1. Historical factors
How the past influences the present
2. Cultural factors
How culture impacts our lives
3. Structural factors
How particular forms of social
organisation effect our lives
4. Critical factors
How we can improve our social environment
How do we become social beings?
Socialization → the process to becoming social
- We learn what it means to be/come a fully functional member of society, through a
system of positive rewards and negative sanctions as we move through, engage, learn
from, and contribute to a range of socialization agents.
- Positive rewards → encouragement, accolades
- Negative sanctions → discouragement, punishments
- We have socialized over the 2 years as we wash and sanitize our hands more than we
used to as it rewards us with life, while deterring from it can lead to death or illness.
We learn from others regarding race, religion, sexuality.
Socialization agents → anything that effects or drives your process of becoming more social
and more interactive with your society, shape us individuals and members of society
Primary socialization agent = family
Secondary socialization agent = school, religious organization, media, peer groups, cultural
groups
Structure vs Agency
The debate that tries to understand to what extent we make decisions by our own free will and
own thoughts and feelings, free choice (agency) or if we are shaped by external effects (family,
schools, peer groups) (structure).
Structuralists → view one’s position and experience as highly determined by social structures
Functionalists → view society as working well, positively and for the greater good
Marxists, Feminists, Critical Race Scholars → view society as being set up for the specific
benefit of particular groups of society at the expense of others
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