Sociology: the systematic, sceptical, and critical study of the social – studies the way people do things
together
Form of consciousness – a way of thinking, a critical way to see the social
Berger: Invitation to Sociology: sociological perspective = a way of seeing the general in the particular
sociologists can identify general patterns of social life by looking at concrete specific examples of
social life.
Layers of social life:
- Cosmic: widest presence in cosmos.
- World and globe: interconnectedness of social and cultural across globe (economy, politics,
people, media)
- Social and cultural: communities, societies, institutions and nation states that exist
independently of us and have definite structures above us
- Interactional: the experience of the world in the immediate face-to-face presence and
awareness of others (self, inter-subjectivity, encounters with friends/family/groups)
- Individual: inner world, psychic world of human subjectivity and bio workings of hormones,
brain structure and genetics
Demonstration of how social forces affect human behaviour: suicide
Act seems individualistic (driven by choice) but is prop shaped by social forces
Durkheim:
, - Difference in categories of people committing suicide – based on the degree of social
integration: how they bonded, connected and tied into society.
low rates with people with strong social ties, high rates with individualistic peepz
- Little integration could lead to anomic suicide while too much integration could lead to
altruistic suicide.
- In male dominated societies, males more freedom, less integration, more suicide than
women.
- Chinese exception in china more women, more in countryside,
5 p’s, circle of sociological life
People and everyday life – Professional sociology – Public and popular sociology – Practitioners and
applied – Policy and ‘political’
Social marginality: social outsiders. More social outsider, more aware of surroundings and different
perspective
Periods of crisis stimulate people’s sociological perspective (often less individual and more social)
Benefits of sociological perspective
1. Becomes a way of thinking, form of consciousness that challenges familiar understandings
2. Enables to assess opportunities and constraints that characterize life
3. Helps us to be more active participants in society
4. Enables us to recognise human differences and human suffering and confront challenges of
living in a diverse world.
Problems with the sociological perspective:
1. World is always changing, societies change
2. Sociologists are part of what they study
3. Sociological knowledge becomes part of society, the work is recursive, feedback on itself
Transformation 1
Origins of western sociology:
In many ways the product of the Enlightenment.
Enlightenment highlighted following ideas
Rationality and reason, empiricism, science, universalism (common laws), progress,
individualism, toleration, freedom, human nature is uniform, secularism (opposition of church)
Comte: founder of sociology: new discipline that looks at how society is held together and how it
changes – creating scientific approach to look at society.
3 stages of to comprehend the world
1. Theological: thoughts were guided by religion, society is expression of gods will
2. Metaphysical stage: society is natural, not supernatural phenomenon (with Renaissance)
3. Scientific stage, understand society as science (Copernicus, Galileo, Newton)
Comte was a proponent of positivism: a means to understand the world based on society.
, What is different, why sociology new: previously philosophers and theologians focused on
imagining the ideal society, not analyse society as it really is. Comte, Durkheim and Toennies
reversed the priorities
4 changes that created sociology
1. Growth of modern capitalism: machines -> factories -> capitalism. Drastic change in system
of work (instead of personal, anonymous for strangers), weakened families and demoralised
societies.
2. Growth of cities: factories -> work -> pull of people -> cities -> homelessness. Disease,
pollution
3. Political change: individual liberty and individual rights, break with political and social
traditions control and democracy (French revolution)
4. The loss of the Gemeinschaft: Toennies created theory of gemeinschaft and gesellschaft.
Modern world was loss of gemeinschaft: human community. Industrial revolution
undermined the social fabric of family and tradition. People became rootless and impersonal
and based on self-interest (gesellschaft)
Transformation 2:
Cyber revolution, different names and highlights
- digital age: highlights the computerisation of life, analogue to digital. Digitalisation is key process
- cyborg age: people are more adapted to live with all forms of technology (from transplants to space
travel)
-Information age: highlights the rapid growth of production and availability of all sorts of data and
info
-Network society: highlights the ways in which new ways of communicating and relating have
developed
-Virtual age: highlights the mediated nature of reality. Less direct and more mediated through
technology
Spencer: survival of the fittest – about society (NOT DARWIN)
3 classical perspectives of sociology
1. The functionalist perspective, a world of balance
functionalism: a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose
parts work together and interconnect – often to promote solidarity and stability
Our lives are guided by a social structure (relatively stable patterns of behaviour). Social structure has
social functions (consequences for the operation of society.
, Comte, Spencer (Darwinist, body and society), Durkheim (social solidarity, how societies hang
together), Parsons (US, society treated as a system, with basic task that have to be performed to
survive) and counterpart Merton (consequences of social pattern are different for each person;
manifest functions (recognised and intended consequences of any social pattern) vs latent functions
(consequences that are largely unrecognised and unintended); social dysfunctions (any social
pattern’s undesirable consequences for the operation of society))
Critical comment: most salient characteristic = vision of society as a whole being comprehensible,
orderly and stable. But it is in fact changing and by emphasising integration, functionalism glosses
over inequality based on race, class gender etc.
2. The conflict perspective, a world of difference
conflict perspective: a framework for building theory that sees society as an arena of
differences and inequalities that generate conflict and change
Complements functionalists by highlighting solidarity AND division based on different interests and
potential inequality. Mostly points out differences between dominant and disadvantaged categories
of people
Marx (his ideas underlie conflict perspective).
critical comment: highlights inequality and division it glosses over how shared values or
interdependence generate unity among members of a society, and the extent that the conflict
approach pursues political goals, it can relinquish any claim to scientific objectivity. (conflict peeps
believe that all theoretical approaches have political consequences).
both conflict and functionalism: envisage society in very broad terms
3. The social action perspective, a world of meaning
Both functionalism and conflict perspective share a macro-orientation: focus on broad social
structures that characterise society as a whole. Action theory starts with the ways people orientate
themselves to each other and how they do so on the basis of meanings. micro level orientation: a
focus on the emerging meanings of social interaction in specific situation
Weber (human meanings and action shape society, ideas have transforming power).
Close to weber is American symbolic interactionalism (Mead) and the Chicago school of sociology.
symbolic interactionalism: theoretical framework that envises society as the product of the everyday
interactions of people doing things together
Goffman: dramaturgical analysis: emphasises how we resemble actors on a stage.
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