Introduction to Sociology - Frank van Tubergen
Chapter 1 Questions
1.1 The sociological perspective
Individual perspective: type of explanation of human behavior which focuses on individual
causes (FE: obesity).
Social context: social environment in which people are embedded (FE: country).
Social context changes & sociologists study the human consequences of such
changes.
Sociological imagination Mills (= sociological perspective): type of explanation of human
behavior which focuses on social causes.
Social phenomenon: collective human behavior.
Sociologist aim to understand:
1. How human behavior typically results from shared contextual conditions.
2. How this gives rise to collective outcomes.
Differences between the individual perspective and the sociological perspective:
Individual perspective Sociological perspective
Phenomena of interest Individual phenomena, Social phenomena,
individual behavior collective behavior
(FE: why is John obese?) (FE: why is obesity
increasing in society?)
Explanations for behavior Individual characteristics Social context, social causes
(FE: genes, personality) (FE: country, school)
The sociological Perspective: sociology is the scientific study of social phenomena. This
means that, if you want to give a sociological explanation of human behavior, you need to
consider the influence of social contexts and study the resulting collective human behavior.
3 Relationships between sociological perspective and the individual perspective:
1. Supplemental perspectives: the 2 perspectives together provide a more
comprehensive explanation of human behavior.
2. Alternative perspectives: the explanation is only the social context or only individual
causes.
3. Proximate causes: factors that are close to the phenomena to be explained.
Ultimate causes: factors that underlie proximate causes.
Proximate causes are explained by ultimate causes (= distal causes).
,Different levels of social context:
− Micro level: the level at which individuals operate.
− Meso level: social contexts at the intermediate level (FE: families, neighborhoods,
schools).
− Macro level: social contexts that are broader then meso level units (FE: nations,
continents).
1.2 Social problems
Social problem (= public issue): is one that:
1. Goes beyond the individual (it affects many people).
2. Is an issue about which many people are concerned (it is in conflict with certain values).
What is identified as a social problem varies from time to time, from context to
context.
Personal trouble: problem related to the personal life of an individual.
1.3 Three aims of sociology
The 3 core aims of sociology:
What sociologists do is often motivated by contemporary social problems, and they
approach social problems from a scientific perspective, as social phenomena.
Social problems: normative dimension: desirable goals or values are threatened, people
want to solve this problem and politicians, policy makers and organizations offer various
measures and interventions to do so.
Social phenomena (in sociology): problems are not studied as a normative problem but as a
scientific phenomenon of interest. Contributes to understanding and solving social
problems.
,Describe: what is the problem about?
Explain: how was the problem caused?
Apply: share and apply the insights
− Coming up with predictions
− Develop and valuate social interventions: social policy measure.
Societal relevance: relevance of sociological work for the understanding of social problems.
A full understanding of social problems also includes the work of other scientists then
sociologists.
1.4 Three types of sociological questions
Normative question: question that entails value judgments (what should be done?).
Scientific question: question that does not entail value judgments. There are 3 types of
scientific questions:
1. Descriptive question: type of scientific question targeted towards describing
phenomena.
2. Theoretical question: type of scientific question targeted towards understanding
phenomena.
3. Application question: type of scientific question targeted towards applying scientific
knowledge.
Type of question Symbol Nature of the question Examples
Descriptive Q (d) How much, many? How high is the crime rate
What is happening? in Brazil and Canada?
Theoretical Q (t) Why is this happening? Why is the crime rate
higher in Brazil than in
Canada?
Application Q (a) What will happen in the How will the crime rate
future? develop in Brazil?
What are the consequences Which interventions
of a certain social reduce crime?
intervention?
1.5 The art of asking good sociological questions
2 elements: precision and relevance
1. Precision
Ill-defined question: question which is vague and ambiguous.
Precise question: question which has clear interpretation.
4 Question ingredients:
1. What is the human behavior you want to describe?
2. What is the social context you are interested in?
3. What period do you want to cover?
4. Which population do you want to include?
, 2. Relevance
Scientific relevance: relevance of sociological work for the accumulation of sociological
knowledge.
Literature review: systematic overview of the theories and observations that are known
(background knowledge) typically in a certain specialized field of research.
False theoretical question: theoretical question which aims to explain something that does
not exist.
Comparative case question: question which includes some comparison of cases, such as
multiple social contexts, multiple moments in time and/or multiple populations.
1.6 Sociology and common sense
Common sense: everyday thinking, intuitions, beliefs and perceptions.
Private sociologists: the way human beings, in daily life, make sense of the social world. As
such they are prone to, among other things, intuitive thinking, implicit reasoning,
development of incoherent and vague ideas, keeping knowledge private and searching for
confirmations.
Academic sociology: the way academic institutions describe and explain the social world.
Characteristics are the systematic way of gathering knowledge, making explanations public
and subject to criticism, the development of coherent theories and rigorous testing.
