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Topics possible to study as a sociologist

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- sociology of agriculture - sociology of aviation hobbyists

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Topics NOT possible to study as a sociologist

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- sociology of bonobo apes - sociology of bees - sociology of early hominids

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Sociology

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study of human society

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What does it mean to think like a sociologist?

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- To think of the world in such a way as to make the familiar strange - realize that a strange-seeming practice in another culture has parallels in our own

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According to Karl Marx, the struggle of class against class in a society is preceded by the struggle of the society against nature

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Industrial technology begins as a means to control nature, said Marx, but then becomes a means for some people to enslave others

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Key difference between psychology and sociology

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Psychology is individual-focused, whereas sociology is group-focused

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"The Communist Manifesto"

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Karl Marx

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"The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism"

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Max Weber

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"The Division of Labor in Society"

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Émile Durkheim (economic specialization)

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"The Philosophy of Money"

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Georg Simmel

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Primary branches of Anthropology

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- cultural anthropology - physical anthropology

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Important concepts in the writings and work of W.E.B. Du Bois

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- talented tenth - class inequality within the black community was necessary for social progress - anomie (explain high crime rates among southern blacks) - double consciousness

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Talented Tenth

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A talented tenth of economic and intellectual elites should provide leadership in the African American community (Du Bois)

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Double consciousness

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An African American has to maintain two parallel behavioral scripts (Du Bois)

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What is another name for the methodology Auguste Comte called "social physics"

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positivism

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Positivism

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a methodology of dealing with all questions in empirical, quantitative terms (in contrast to methodology that emphasized narrative and other nonscientific descriptions of the phenomena studied) - understand society by identifying its underlying logic

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Important themes in Émile Durkheim's thought

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- division of labor: has social and moral consequences and helps determine a society's social solidarity - positivist sociology

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Example of Symbolic Interactionism: "A certain high school student is wearing 'cool' clothes and is considered 'cool'"

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- coolness is a construction rather than an objective fact - coolness is a product of social dynamic involving the student, the clothing, and other students - symbolic interactionism does not deny the reality of a construction like 'coolness', it only points out how this reality came about - the coolness of the student and the clothing are connected in a causal cycle

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Durkheim used the word "anomie" to refer to a very specific condition

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- a sense of disorientation, despair, and being at loose ends, due to a drastic change in circumstances - this sense of "normlessness" was one common cause of suicide

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Social identity

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built from the sum of stories that are told

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Cultural Anthropology vs Sociology

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- Anthropologists studied "them" - sociologists studied "us" - differences have eroded, but sociology remains distinct based on its use of a wide variety of methods

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Marx believed that factory capitalism would lead to a conflict between a small number of capitalists and a large number of workers, which would eventually lead to a new Communist society

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Marx believed that it was the struggle between classes that drove social change

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Functionalism

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- primarily concerned with understanding how a society maintains its equilibrium - seeks to understand how a social phenomenon/institution by discerning the role it plays in enabling society to continue on its present course

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Which theorists are associated with the positivist-functionalist tradition

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- August Comte: invented positivism - Émile Durkheim: introduced functionalist thinking and is considered the founder of positivist sociology - Talcott Parsons: expanded on functionalist theory in mid-20th century

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Goals of conflict theory

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- understanding the role of conflict at all scales of investigation - does not recognize long-term stability as a natural condition of societies - conflict is the normal state of society - conflict is essential for social change and revolution/war are often necessary for social progress

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Difference between a pure historian and a historical sociologist

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a sociological historian is interested not only in what happened in a particular case, but also what that case has in common with other cases, from other times, and places

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Key tenets of the Chicago School in American sociology

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- the self emerges from a process of interacting with other selves (mirror self - C. H. Cooley) - society is conceptualized as a "generalized other" - social ecology - challenged the European notion that ethnicity was about bloodlines

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Social ecology

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human behavior and personality are shaped by social and physical environments

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Functions of college as a social institution

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- segregates a portion of the population by age - provides a shared narrative by the alumni - as a brand for apparel an other products, it is part of the commercial marketplace - certifies what counts as legitimate knowledge

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Total Institutions

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- controls all aspects of day-to-day life

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Symbolic Interactionism

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- it is part of interpretive sociology - concern for what people's behaviors mean to them and in their lives

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Areas of study traceable to work of Georg Simmel

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- study of microinteractions - network theory - studies of the formal properties of groups of two, three, and more individuals - formal sociology

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Interpretive Sociology

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- situates research and explanation within a time period and locality - seeks to understand how individuals ascribe meaning to social phenomena - first articulated by Max Weber

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Positivist Sociology

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- takes the perspective that the social world is knowable, and that patterns of behavior can be predicted from social theory - approach sometimes called "normal science" - social theory is used to generate a hypothesis which is tested through rigorous methods

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Important elements in Max Weber's thought

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- role of the Protestant religion in transforming European economies - "Verstehen": captures the importance of approaching social behavior from the perspective of those engaged in it

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Scholarly contributions that Jane Addams made to the Chicago School

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- rejected the label of social worker - tested many Chicago School ideas through her applied research (opened Hull House) - developed the methodology of community studies

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Which American sociologist's work most closely followed the functionalist tradition of analyzing social phenomena based on the role they played in society

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- Talcott Parsons: drew on the ideas of Durkheim, who saw society as a set of interconnected parts, each playing a role to stabilize the whole

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Years post high school to the returns to college

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- 3 years: returns to college are negative - 13 years: returns to college match the returns to a high school degree - 25 years: modestly higher returns to college - 39 years: returns exceed a million dollars

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Political Science

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- subsector of sociology that focuses on power as an aspect of social relations - increasingly shared with economics a use of the rational actor model of human behavior

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Ultimate basis for a social institution's existence over time

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an ongoing narrative construct that links the past, the present, and the future

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According to C. Wright Mills, what is the function of the sociological imagination

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to connect out personal experience with the larger forces of history

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