Summary of all Lectures introduction to
sociology
Lecture 1: What is sociology - 31/08/2021 2
Lecture 2: What is theory - 31/08/2021 6
Lecture 3: history of sociological thought 10
Lecture 4: Genesis of sociology 15
Lecture 5: Karl Marx, inequality and historical materialism 19
Lecture 6: Inequality & Developments Historical Materialism 24
Lecture 7: Durkheim - Cohesion & Structural Functionalism 30
Lecture 8: Durkheim – Developments Structural Functionalism 37
Lecture 9: Weber - Rationalization & Interpretative Individualism (5+12) 43
Lecture 10: Interpretative Individualism & McDonaldization 51
Lecture 11: Sociology of daily life Simmel 56
Lecture 12: Small overview 64
Short overview articles 71
Paul Lazersfeld –What is obvious 71
Marx -Capital and the fetishism of commodities 71
Durkheim -Mechanical and organic solidarity 71
Marx -Human history as class conflict 72
Durkheim -The essence of religion 72
Durkheim -The normality of deviance 72
Weber –The bureaucratic machine 72
Weber -The spirit of capitalism and the iron cage 73
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,Lecture 1: What is sociology - 31/08/2021
What is sociology: Everything is sociology because it’s about how people interact with each other.
In the UK in the early 1980 Margaret Tatcher: there is no such thing as a society. Start of new liberal thinking:
emphasis on the individuality, nothing is greater than the individual. There is a movement of individualization,
presenting yourself on social media in the best possible way. But we all do the same. At the same time everyone
wants to belong to some kind of group.
Sociology
● 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)
● Lamps are different but light is the same
There are many definitions, but the most straightforward:
“Science of society”
A. Science
B. Social/societal problems
Problems such as: delinquency, terrorism, migration, self-enrichment (enormous bonuses but the lower class doesn’t
get anything), poverty, divroce, extreme-right voting and extreme left violence.
Pro’s a cons of sociology as a academic discipline:
● 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: Certain patterns are about yourself, by doing research you can recognise
certain patterns and you get a feeling of acknowledgement.
● Everything changes always: but a lot of thing stay the same
● Sociologistsare also people: Distance is difficult. Thin line to be able to study and staying close but also
keeping enough distance.
● Sociology becomes part of societal discourses: Within a short amount of time the social concepts get into
daily language, it’s difficult to constantly invent new terms to detach them from their daily meanings.
Social problems vs personal troubles (C.W. Mills) The sociological imagination.
Imagine a city with 100.00 people. When 3 people get unemployed is it personal or societal? Probably personal, it
doesn't have an impact on the entire city. But when 10.000 people get unemployed, it’s definitely a societal problem. It
has an impact on the city, such as closing stores. Problem: when does it move from a personal problem to a social
problem? It depends on the amount of people but also their place in society. Upper class usually has more impact,
also because they have easier access to media.
Sociological imagination: what did Mills mean by that? Sociological view on society.
● You can make a difference between personal troubles & social problems.
● Awareness on how society works: how do different groups work in society, how do they interact with
eachother?
● Way of thinking (theories) and 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).
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,Social problems: 6 criteria (C.J.M. Schuyt, 1997)
1. Problem involves many people
2. ‘Private troubles’: people have to experience the problem themselves.
3. Accumulation of problems: when people have no money, their social world will decline because they can’t
join certain activities.
4. Not temporary/ persistent
5. Systematic causes: the way we structure society has an effect on certain groups of society which can cause
a social problem.
6. Fundamental values threatened: delinquency, lawbook explicitly states what is criminal behaviour.
Sociology as a science: It’s asking scientific questions about social problems = sociological problems. A problem is a
challenge, you want to figure out how it works, what the cause is, why is it a problem?
Sociology: the science is written in human language. Non academic / lay people have direct access to the
academic discord. We don’t have an artificial language. We don’t have to learn mathematics for it, but lay people think
they understand something they dont really understand.
Common joke: sociologists tell what everybody knows, in such a way that nobody understands it anymore.
Zygmunt Bauman made a difference between common sense and sociology
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 the different figurations and
institutions which people are embedded in.
4. Defamiliarize: the ability to discuss/question the familiar and the obvious.
Science is about asking questions.
Not:
● In what way can we rule out delinquency?
● Normative, more interesting for policy makers.
but:
● WHAT is going on?
● WHO are committing more crimes than others?
● Getting the facts straight
Most important is the WHY-question, like: Why do lower educated people commit more crimes than higher educated
people?
3 types of problems
● Social or societal problems:
● Sociological problems: academic way of dealing with social problems
● Social policy problems: politician wants to offer a solution to social 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
Sociology: 3 levels that interact with each other
Micro: Family & Friends
Meso: Office & University
Macro: Government & Country
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, Differences with psychology
Type of problem
● PSY states problem mostly at individual level
● SOC states problem mostly at societal level
Type of explanation
● PSY gives individual explanation (psyche)
● SOC gives social explanation
There is an increase in interest in psychological perspectives( Dr. Phill/Oprah), sociological view is less explicit in our
modern culture.
P -T –O (EmpiricalCycle)
P= Problem → Why?
T= Theory → Maybe because...?
O= Observation → Is the explanation true?
•P1 (why?)
•Why do men have a higher income than women?
•T1 (maybe because?):
•Because men are higher educated than women, and a higher educational level is associated with a higher income
(Human Capital theory)
•O1 (is the explanation true?) : •40% of difference in income is due to difference in educational level. But: even with a
similar education men have a higher income
•T is partly true, but not sufficient!
PTO-PTO (starts with the why question)
•O1 raises a new question, and a new T and a new O…
•P2 :Why do women with the same educational level as men, still have a lower income?
•T2: Maybe because…
•O2: Is T2 true?
•O2 P3, etc.
•PTO-PTO = ‘empirical’ cycle
PO-PTO (starts with the what question)
•Cycle may also start with a what Question
•P1: Change in crime in Netherlands 2000-2015?
•O1: Decrease
•P2: Why a decrease?
•T2: Because of wealth
•O2: T not true. In prosperous countries sometimes higher crime rates(USA)
•P3: Why....?
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?
Founding fathers of sociology
Inequality → Karl Marx(1818-1883)
Cohesion → Emile Durkheim(1858-1917)
Rationalization → Max Weber(1863-1921)
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