Introduction to Sociology – Frank van Tubergen
Chapter 1
1.1
Perspectives
o Individual perspective = type of explanation of human behaviour which focuses on individual
causes
o In sociology they don’t only look at individual explanations, but they take the social context
in account.
o Social context = the social environment in which people are embedded.
o Social imagination/perspective = type of explanation of human behaviour which focuses on
social causes and considers collective outcomes. It examines a social phenomenon
o Social contexts change sociologist study these changes
o Social phenomenon = collective human behaviour
Relation between the perspectives
1. The individual an social perspective supplement each other
2. But some argue that they are alternatives from each other
3. Individual causes are the factors that are close to the phenomena < = proximate causes
4. Proximate causes are explained by ultimate causes = factors that underlie proximate
causes
- Social contexts affect individual predispositions (negative self-concept for example)
Social contexts on different levels
- Micro level: the levels at which individuals operate
- Meso level: social contexts at the intermediate level (families, neighbourhood, schools etc.)
- Macro level: social context that are broader than meso level units (nations, continents etc.)
1.2
Sociologist study social phenomenon’s because they are (mostly) considered social problems
o Social problem = a problem that goes beyond the individual and is an issue that concerns
many people.
o The problems with which people are confronted differ over time and space.
1.3
Three aims of sociology:
1. Describe: come up with accurate descriptions of the phenomenon’s
2. Explain: come up with scientific explanations for social phenomenon’s
3. Apply: to apply and share its insights (1. Come up with predictions. 2. Develop and evaluate social
interventions)
,Difference between a social phenomenon and a social problem
- Social problems have a normative dimension: goals or values are threatened, people want to
solve this problem
- Sociologist study social problems as social phenomenon’s, not as a normative problem but as
a scientific phenomenon of interest.
When sociological work is carried out in view of current social problems, it has societal relevance
o = relevance of sociological work for understanding of social problems
1. They come up with accurate descriptions of social phenomenon’s
2. They dig deeper into the explanations underlying the phenomenon’s
3. They apply their knowledge (predicting and intervening)
But a full understanding of a social problem also includes the work of other scientists (it can have
non-social causes)
1.4
Normative questions
o = question that entails value judgements, what ‘should be’ done. The answers to these
questions differ between people. Sociology is not a normative ideology, they need to ask
scientific questions.
Scientific questions
o = question that does not entail judgements. There are three types of scientific questions.
1. Descriptive questions (Qd) = describing social phenomenon’s. (how much, how many, what
is happening?)
2. Theoretical questions (Qt) = understanding social phenomenon’s. (why questions)
3. Application questions (Qa) = applying scientific knowledge. (predictions and social
interventions)
1.5
Good sociological question need to be precise and relevant:
- Precision: the question you raise is clear. You make explicit what you are interested in.
- How to make a question precise, consider the following four question ingredients:
1. The human behaviour you are interested in
2. The social context
3. The period
4. The population
- Example: ‘How high was the male homicide rate in England in the year 2015?’
- Relevance: it can be related to social problems that exist in society. Or it is scientifically
relevant.
1. Do a literature review: Avoid asking questions that have been asked before
2. Avoid false theoretical questions: You need to be sure that before addressing a certain
social phenomenon, our descriptions of this phenomenon are correct.
,Sociologist are interested in questions that entail a certain comparison: comparative-case questions
o = question which includes comparison of cases, such as multiple social contexts, multiple
moments in time and multiple populations.
1. Vary the social context
2. Changes over time discover societal trends
3. Compare different populations
1.6
Some people think that sociological work is no different from common sense and conventional
wisdom
o Common sense = everyday thinking, intuitions, beliefs and perceptions.
o Sociology is not just common sense. People have too much confidence in their common
sense when it comes to understanding a social phenomenon.
o Common sense helps us with practical issues that we encounter on a daily basis. It is
intuitively.
o Common sense fails doing science
o Difference between private sociologist and academic sociologists:
- 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
conformations.
- Academic sociologist = 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 studies and rigorous testing.
o Academic sociology is open for everyone. And when we hear about it, we are able to
understand the explanations. This is called the ‘hindsight bias’, after being presented with
the facts or explanations people think it makes sense and is obvious.
o When people try to investigate a certain phenomenon, they beforehand think about the
outcome, and expect it to be true or false and they expect the research to confirm that. This
is called the ‘confirmation bias’.
Sociology is a cumulative science
o = the practice that theories and observations of earlier studies are incorporated in the work
of successive studies
o Knowledge is an evolutionary path as new studies bring to light that previous theories were
wrong and need to be replaced by better ones.
o Background knowledge = the theories and observations that are known before the study
commences.
o Critical: scholars make their knowledge public and do not keep it private!!
o Academic communities where sociologists share ideas and collaborate
Research questions Q
Theoretical explanations T
Observations O
, Chapter 2
2.1
2.2
Theories and explanations are the core of science and a key contribution to public understandings of
what is happening in the world.
Karl Popper: what does a scientific explanation look like?
o We start with a proposition =universal statement about the causal relationship between
two or more concepts
o Initial conditions = assumption about a specific setting which relates propositions to
observations and hypotheses
o Observation >>> =
that what you
want to explain
Theory
o = coherent set of propositions and assumptions about conditions which can explain certain
phenomenon’s and which generate hypotheses (predictions) on other (yet unobserved and
hypothetical) phenomenon’s
o Two aspects:
1. There should be coherence between the entire set of propositions and assumptions about
conditions. They are interrelated (not conflicted).
2. Theory explains phenomenon’s as well as predicts new ones.
o Proposition and hypotheses are part of sociological theory
o Hypothesis = testable prediction, derived from theory
2.3
When is a sociological theory useful?
1. When it’s true, not false: theories need to correspond with reality the empirical success = the
degree of empirical confirmation of a theory. The higher the empirical success of a theory, the more
useful it is.
2. It should be informative: the degree of information content. The higher this degree, the more
useful the theory is.
- The theory needs to be able to be falsified, therefore it needs to have a high degree of
information. (so not a tautology = a statement which is logically true. Example: ‘Tomorrow it
will rain, or it will not rain.’ )
