General learning goals:
1. Gain knowledge and insight in (the history of) sociology.
2. To be able to identify and formulate sociological problems on everyday socials
problems → learning to look at the world as a sociologist.
3. To learn the rules of (sociological) science.
− To formulate questions.
− To use theories and derive hypotheses.
− To confront hypotheses with scientific results.
Material: Introduction to sociology - Frank van Tubergen
Extra material: NO part of the exam.
LABS: attendance is obligatory. You can be absent for one LAB without a reason.
Grade:
1. LABS (30%)
2. Written exam (70%)
− MC (80%)
− 2 Essay questions (20%)
, Lecture 01
What is sociology?
“Science of society” (social/societal problems) (Sociology as science).
− The interaction between persons.
− Academic discipline who investigates society in a systematic way.
− Investigates human patterns of thinking, feeling and social action.
− Looks at how we can see the general in the special.
− (Everything is always different - but also a bit the same).
Pros and cons of sociology:
− Debunking: not everything we think is always true.
− Understanding: better understanding of the circumstances we live in (and why).
− Empowering: shows disadvantages for some groups, which can mobilize them.
− Recognition/acknowledgement.
− Everything changes always.
− Sociologists are also people, distance is difficult.
− Sociology becomes part of societal discourses (= toespraken).
Sociological imagination? (C.W. Mills):
− Sociological imagination:
• Social problems vs personal troubles:
• It has to have effect on the society, will it cause a problem in society/will it
have effect in society?
• When becomes a personal trouble a social problem, where is the line?
− Awareness of how society works.
− Way of thinking (theories) and a way of doing (methods).
• Critique: pseudo-science: not an own object of study.
− Critical view on what people see as natural.
− Sociology versus “common sense” (bubble talk).
Social problems 6 criteria (C.J.M. Schuyt):
1. Problem involves many people.
2. ‘Private troubles’, affect people individually.
3. Accumulation (= ophoping) of problems.
4. Not temporary, but a persistent problem.
5. Systematic causes (caused by the system).
6. Fundamental values threatened.
Sociology as science:
Scientific questions about social problems = sociological problems.
Sociology: in/is human language. Everyone can understand. Therefore, a lot of theories and
methods are made up.
Sociology = common sense?
Sociologist tell what everybody knows, in such a way that nobody understands it anymore.
,Sociologie versus ‘common sense’:
Zygmunt Bauman:
1. Responsible speech: rules of responsible arguments.
2. Size of the field: transcending your own social world.
3. Making sense: explaining and interpreting human behaviour by looking at different
figurations and institutions which people are embedded in.
4. Defamiliarize: the ability to discuss/question the familiar and the obvious.
Questions:
− What-question: what is going on? (facts).
− Why-question: why is something the way it is?
3 types of problems:
1. Social or societal problems.
2. Sociological problems (academic way of dealing with those problems).
3. Social policy problems.
Sociological vs social problems:
Sociological problems:
− Logical problems.
− Objective.
Social problems:
− Issue of valuation/it is bad that people…
− Issue of action/something should be done.
Scientific principles (of sociology):
Empirical Cycle P - T - O
P = problem → why
T = theory → maybe because?
O = observation → is the explanation true?
Is the explanation not 100% true?
PTO - PTO = empirical cycle: you start again with a new why-question.
PO - PTO = PO-PTO cycle: you start with the what question.
Key questions of sociology:
1. Social inequality: to what extent are scarce resources unequally distributed?
2. Social cohesion: to what extent do members of a society live peacefully together?
3. Rationalization (or culture): to what extent is a society rationalized.
Why key questions?
− Most important/classical questions.
− Overarching questions (lead to new questions).
, Why are key questions necessary?
− Unity in chaos.
− Learning from (answers to) similar questions.
Inequality → Karl Marx
Cohesion (= samenhang) → Emile Durkheim
Rationalization → Max Weber
Inequality Cohesion Rationalization
Poverty Individualization Individualization
Self-enrichment Delinquency bureaucracy
Differences in health Divorce secularization
School dropout Ethnic integration
Ethnic integration Urban decay
Extreme right
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