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    Sociology Essentials
    Sociology Essentials
    Sociology Essentials
    Ebook163 pages1 hour

    Sociology Essentials

    By Robyn Goldstein Fuchs

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    About this ebook

    REA’s Essentials provide quick and easy access to critical information in a variety of different fields, ranging from the most basic to the most advanced. As its name implies, these concise, comprehensive study guides summarize the essentials of the field covered. Essentials are helpful when preparing for exams, doing homework and will remain a lasting reference source for students, teachers, and professionals. Sociology reviews sociological perspectives, methods of research, socialization and self-formation, cultures, society, theories of societies, social structure and the social process, social groups and organizations, deviance, law and crime, the family, social stratification, gender and sexuality, ethnicity and race, aging and the elderly, health care, collective behavior, social movements and social change.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherResearch & Education Association
    Release dateJan 1, 2013
    ISBN9780738670331
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    • 5/5
      Very easy to read ? and straight to the point. Most helpful
    • 5/5
      Really easy to read and understand the general sociological concepts.

    Book preview

    Sociology Essentials - Robyn Goldstein Fuchs

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    CHAPTER 1

    Introduction to Sociology

    1.1 Defining Sociology

    Sociology is the science, or discipline, that studies societies, social groups, and the relationships between people. The field encompasses both the formation and transformation of particular societies and social groups, including their continuation, dissolution, and demise, as well as the origins, structure, and functioning of social groups.

    1.2 The Unit of Study

    Sociologists utilize a number of different levels of analysis to understand social life. Whereas some study the social interaction that occurs within groups (the social processes represented by behavior directed toward, affected by, or inspired by others in the group), other sociologists study the social structure of group life. Some are interested in the structure of societies—that is, the organization of populations living in the same area who participate in the same institutions and share a common culture. Others in the field are concerned with the social system, a social group, or with society as a whole unit, distinct from the individuals within it.

    Other sociologists concern themselves with social relationships; that is, relationships between people that are based upon common meaning, or with social action, defined as meaningful behavior that is oriented toward and influenced by others. No matter what is designated as the unit of study, the focus of the discipline is on social groups and society as a whole, rather than only on the individual, which is the focus of psychology.

    1.3 The Perspective: Humanistic or Scientific

    Some sociologists adopt a humanistic approach to their work, which means that they see sociology as a means to advance human welfare. They seek self-realization, the full development of a cultivated personality, or improvement of the human social condition.

    Alternatively, some sociologists adopt the scientific perspective. They are primarily concerned with acquiring objective empirical knowledge (the actual knowledge derived from experience or observation that can be measured or counted) and not with the uses to which such knowledge is put. They believe that in science one must be concerned with what is and not with what should be. Some sociologists work to integrate both humanistic and scientific perspectives.

    1.4 The Sociological Imagination

    According to sociologist C. Wright Mills, a certain quality of mind is required if we are to understand ourselves in relation to society. This quality of mind seeks to expand the role of freedom, choice, and conscious decision in history, by means of knowledge. Mills referred to this concept as the sociological imagination.

    The sociological imagination expresses an understanding that personal troubles can and often do reflect broader social issues and problems. It also expresses faith in the capacity of human beings to alter the course of human history. The sociological imagination, therefore, expresses the humanistic aspect of the sociological perspective.

    1.5 The Science

    As in all other sciences, the sociologist assumes there is order in the universe and, through methods of science, that order can be understood. The sociologist, however, cannot assume that human beings will always behave in predictable ways. There are times when we doand times when we do not.

    Although most of us will think and act tomorrow as we did today, some of us will not. Unlike the rocks and molecules studied by natural scientists, we are capable of changing our minds and our behavior. Unlike the organisms studied by biologists, we are capable of treating each other as whole and complete beings. Hence, the explanations and predictions offered by sociology cannot be so precise as to express universal laws that are applicable to anything or any event under all circumstances.

    1.6 The Social Sciences

    The social sciences are concerned with social life. Psychology emphasizes individual behavior and mental processes; economics emphasizes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services; political science emphasizes political philosophy and forms of government; and anthropology emphasizes both primitive and modern culture. What, then, distinguishes sociology from these other social sciences? In sociology the social, however it is defined, is the immediate concern. Sociology makes a point of broadly considering any and all factors at play when two or more people interact with each other in any context.

    1.7 The Theory: Inductive or Deductive

    A theory describes and/or explains the relationship between two or more observations. Deductive theory proceeds from general ideas, knowledge, or understanding of the social world from which specific hypotheses are logically deduced and tested. Inductive theory proceeds from concrete observations from which general conclusions are inferred through a process of reasoning.

    Figure 1.1 Deductive and Inductive Logical Thought

    1.8The Theoretical Approach

    Sociologists often use the theoretical approach or perspective to guide them in their work. In making certain general assumptions about social life, this perspective provides a point of view toward the study of specific social issues.

    The three most recent methods of theoretical approach are interpretative, conflict theory, and structural functionalism.

    1.8.1 Interpretative Sociology

    Interpretative sociology studies the processes whereby human beings attach meaning to their lives. These processes include the perspectives of symbolic interaction, dramaturgy, and ethnomethodology.

    Derived from the work of George Herbert Mead and Herbert Blumer, symbolic interaction is focused on the process of social interaction and on the meanings that are constructed and reconstructed in that process. Human beings are viewed as shaping their actions based upon both the real and anticipated responses of others. Thus, defined by an ongoing process of negotiation, social life is considered to be far from stable.

    Actors are thought to be continually engaged in the process of interpreting, defining, and evaluating their own and others’ actions, a process that defies explanation in lawlike terms or in terms of sociological theories that proceed deductively. Thus, out of the symbolic interactionist school of thought, the social construction of reality—the familiar notion that human beings shape their world and are shaped by social interaction—was conceived (Berger and Luckman, 1967).

    Focusing on the details of everyday life, the dramaturgical approach of Erving Goffman conceives social interaction as a series of episodes or human dramas in which we are more or less aware of playing roles and, thereby, engaging in impression management. We are actors seeking to (1) manipulate our audience, or control the reaction of other people in our immediate presence by presenting a certain image of ourselves; (2) protect or hide our true selves, or who we really are offstage through onstage, frontstage, and backstage behavior; and (3) amplify the rules of conduct that circumscribe our daily encounters.

    In the 1960s, sociologist Harold Garfinkel and others developed ethnomethodology as a system to study the methods used

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