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Inleiding sociologie - samenvatting introduction to sociology
Dit is een samenvatting van het boek van Frank van Tubergen, introduction to sociology. Het hele boek is samengevat.
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Voorbeeld 4 van de 36 pagina's
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Introductie SociologieHoofdstuk 1
Learning goals
- describe the difference between sociological and individual perspectives on
human behavior
- explain what is meant by proximate and ultimate causes of human behavior
- describe the difference between micro, meso and macro level
- describe the similarities and differences between a social problem and a social
phenomenon
- describe the three aims of sociology
- differentiate between normative and scientific questions
- formulate, descriptive, theoretical and application questions
- reformulate ill-defined questions into more precise questions
- describe the meaning of societal and scientific relevance
- describe how private sociologists differ from academic sociology
- describe how cumulative sociological science works
Describe the difference between sociological and individual perspectives on
human behavior
the individual perspective focuses on individual causes when it comes to explaining
human behavior. For example: you look at someone’s characteristics to find an answer
for occurrences. The sociological perspective focuses on social causes when looking for
an explanation for human behavior. They would for example look at someone’s social
context: the social environment someone’s embedded in. another difference between the
two is that the sociological perspective also looks at the collective outcome, a social
phenomenon. Sociologists often say the sociological perspective supplements the
individual perspective. Together they provide a more comprehensive explanation for
human behavior.
Explain what is meant by proximate and ultimate causes of human behavior
Proximate causes are factors close to the phenomena to be explained. Sociologists say
that these are often individual causes. Ultimate causes are factors that underlie
proximate causes. They seem to be more hidden or deeper.
Ultimate cause Proximate cause Consequence
Bullying in school Negative self-image Obesity
Describe the difference between micro, meso and macro level
Micro level is the level at which individuals operate. You look at behavior, attitude and
recourses. Meso level are social contexts at the intermediate level, like families,
neighborhoods, schools and organizations. The macro level are social contexts based on
,a broader group, like a nation, a group of nations or even a continent. It is important to
remember that you can identify social contexts at different levels.
Describe the similarities and differences between a social problem and a social
phenomenon
A social problem goes beyond personal troubles of the individual (it affects many people)
and it is an issue which many are concerned about. What people see as a problem does
depend on their values. The similarity between a social problem and a social
phenomenon is that they both look at the bigger picture, they focus on a group of people
and don’t look at the individual. A difference is that a social problem is a problem, while a
social phenomenon doesn’t have to be a problem, it’s just an outcome of a situation.
Neither look at personal trouble, a problem related to the personal life of an individual.
Describe the three core aims of sociology
The three core aims are: describe, explain and apply.
describe: sociologists aim to come up with an accurate description of a social
phenomenon. This is an important contribution to the understanding of social problems
because people could uphold wrong beliefs about it.
explain: sociologists come up with explanations ad subsequently use empirical data to
examine if these explanations are true.
apply: lastly sociologists aim to apply and share the insights. The first way this can be
done is via predictions, sociological findings can be used to describe what is likely to
happen. The second way this can be done is by applying their knowledge and to evaluate
social interventions, a social policy measure. Interventions are subject to scientific
insights and empirical work and are targeted towards reducing social problems. For
example: how does positive discrimination affect the workplace. Based on sociological
explanations and theoretical insights, sociologists can evaluate what the outcome will be
of the various interventions and if these outcomes concur with what is seen as desirable
by politicians and the public at large.
Societal relevance tells us the relevance of sociological work for the understanding of
social problems. This is important for coming up with accurate descriptions, which is very
important because a lot of the time there are misperceptions about social problems in
the public. Secondly sociologists dig deeper into the processes that underlie social
phenomena. They systematically construct and test explanations, leading to a better
understanding of what causes the social phenomena. Third they can apply their
knowledge such that they can give scientifically grounded predictions of what will
happen, as well as developing and evaluating social interventions. Societal relevance
does not imply that sociologists should pursue normative statements or engage in social
activism.
Differentiate between normative and scientific questions
A normative question is a question that entails value judgements. Normative questions
usually involve social problems with what ‘should be done’. A scientific question is a
question that does not entail value judgements. There are three types of scientific
questions: descriptive, theoretical and application. Scientific questions need to be
differentiated from normative questions.
,Formulate descriptive, theoretical and application questions
Descriptive questions (Q(d)) are a type of scientific questions targeted towards
describing social phenomena. They are ‘how much’, ‘how many’ or ‘what is happening’
questions. They scientifically observe and describe social phenomena. Theoretical
questions (Q(t)) are targeted towards understanding phenomena. These are ‘why’
questions. The answers to such questions are theories which provide explanations for
social phenomena and from which one can derive hypotheses to test those explanations.
Application questions (Q(a)) are targeted towards applying scientific knowledge. These
questions can be targeted towards predictions or social interventions.
Reformulate ill-defined questions into more precise questions
Ill-defined questions are questions that are vague and ambiguous. They lack precision
and relevance. Precise questions are questions with a clear interpretation. There are four
ingredients that can be considered when you formulate your question: the human
behavior you’re interested in, the social context, the period and the population. These
four ingredients can also be used with theoretical and descriptive questions.
Describe the meaning of societal and scientific relevance
Societal relevance means that your sociological question becomes more relevant when
you can relate it to social problems that exist in society, the more pressing these
problems are, the more relevant they become. Scientific relevance is relevance of
sociological work for the accumulation of sociological knowledge. This knowledge can be
used to understand social problems, but social problems are not the primary motivation
of the study.
There are three challenges to the relevance of a sociological question. The first challenge
is that you have to avoid questions that have already been asked before and to which we
already know the answer. Therefore it is essential to get an overview of what has been
done before. So its highly recommended to do a literature review, a systematic overview
of the theories and observations that are known, typically in a certain specialized field of
research.
Background:
scientific knowledge B(k) Scientific relevance
Scientific questions
Q
The second challenge is the false theoretical question, which is a theoretical question
Background:
which aims to explain something that doesn’t exist. So we need to be sure that our
Social problems
description of the social phenomena we are studying are correct. The third challenge is
B(sp)
the comparative-case question, which means
Societal questions includes some comparison of
relevance
cases , such as multiple social contexts, multiple moments in time and/or multiple
populations. This way you can best discover social causes. Sociologists study how social
contexts change over time, to discover societal trends. Within the same social context
you could make a comparison between different sub-populations, such as between men
and women or age groups.
Common sense is everyday thinking, intuitions, beliefs and perceptions. We often use it
implicitly, intuitively and it helps to solve all kinds of small things. But common sense
, thinking often is utterly and completely wrong when it comes to understanding social
phenomena. People often think that only other people are subject to the failure of
common sense. Our failure of common sense forces us to do science. Sociological
knowledge challenges common sense.
describe how private sociologists differ from academic sociology
private sociologists is 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. All human beings are private sociologists, because we engage in social
life and develop our own, private, beliefs about social phenomena. Academic sociology is
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.
on difference between the two is that in academic sociology knowledge becomes
available to others, it becomes public, “objective” and hence the subject of critique and
systematic inquiries of many people. Academic sociology is the collective knowledge
generated by many scholars in an attempt to filter out inaccurate descriptions of reality
and theories that are wrong. Such collective filtering mechanisms are lacking when we
keep our knowledge private.
There are different kind of biases, one of them is hindsight bias: this is when after being
confronted with the facts or explanations, people tend to think its obvious and makes
sense. It is important to realize that coming up with descriptions and explanations of
social phenomena does not imply that they are true. Another bias is the confirmation
bias: this is when people search for observations that confirm their ideas and disregard
facts that might undermine their ideas.
describe how cumulative sociological science works
cumulative science is the practice that theories and observations of earlier studies are
incorporated in the work of successive studies. So you use background knowledge, the
theories and observations that are known before the study commences, to set up a new
theory or expand on an already existing one. New studies are always conducted in an
attempt to contribute to what is already known. Only when knowledge is made public
and shared with others is it possible to elaborate on that knowledge. It is also important
for sociologists to work together.
Hoofdstuk 2
Learning goals
- describe what a sociological theory is
- use a theory schema to represent sociological theory, hypotheses and
observations
- describe criteria by which one could evaluate the usefulness of a sociological
theory
- describe the notion of causality and explain how it is related to sociological theory
- use a conceptual model to represent various types of causal relation
- describe the pros and cons of various theory tools
describe what a sociological theory is
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