- Coined by Auguste Comte (1798-1857), meaning the study of society- socius (being with others) ology (the study of)
- Henslin et al: “simply put, sociology is the discipline study of human social behaviour, especially the
investigation of the origins, classifications, institutions, and development of human society on a global level” - “the systematic study of social behaviour in human societies”
- SOCIETY:
- “the sociologists think of ‘society; as denoting a large complex of human relationships or to put it in more technical language, as referring to a system of interaction”
- THE SOCIAL:
- “as one in which people orient their actions towards one another. The web meanings, expectations and conduct resulting from such mutual orientation is the stuff of sociological analysis”
- sociologists sees a situation by analyzing the social activities
Thinking Sociologically…
- sociologists strive to go beyond common sense understands of how society works
C. Wright Mills
- developed concept of sociological imagination
- wrote book in 1959, another book called Power Elite
- interested in social inequality
- two ideas:
- private troubles
- public issues
- Both ideas can be tied together, private troubles, for example, husbands expecting their wife to cook and clean for them is more than a private trouble. It is related to the public issue of spousal abuse
Peter Berger
- Sociologists should see:
- The strange in the familiar
- The general in the particular
Three Necessary Needs in Order to be Sociological:
- Objects of analysis
- Research areas
- Research topics
- Research questions
- Theory: functionalism, conflict theory, symbolic interactionism
- Methods
- Quantitative: surveys, polls, questionnaires
- Qualitative: participant observations, formal and informal interviews, content analysis
- Social theory
What Sociology is NOT
- History, English, psychology, philosophy, anthropology…
