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SOCIOLOGYBy Datin Sitti Haishah Abd Rahman, Curriculum Unit, Teacher Education DivisionTopic 1: Sociological Perspective and Sociological ResearchWhat is
 
Sociology
?According to John J. Macionis, sociology is the
systematic study 
of 
human society 
. DianaKendall defined sociology as the systematic study of human society and social interaction.Systematic because sociologists apply theoretical perspectives and research methods (theorderly approaches).
Why study?
In order to develop theories of how human behavior is shaped by group life and how grouplife is affected by individuals.
What is
 
sociological perspective
?A perspective is simply a "way of seeing" something. The sociological perspective is aparticular way of approaching phenomena common in sociology. It involves maintainingobjectivity and not being influenced by one’s values. The sociological perspective oftenassumes that “official” explanations are incomplete or self-serving. It involves a consciouseffort to go beyond the obvious and question what is accepted as true or common sense.
There are different ways to sociological perspectives:
1.Peter Berger described sociological perspective as
seeing the general in particular 
. Whathe meant is sociologists look for general patterns in the behavior of particular people. For example: what general behavior of high-income women that we can see when it comesto the expectation of men they marry? Likewise, what general behavior of the low-income women when it comes to the same expectation?2.
Seeing the strange in the familiar 
is another way at looking sociological perspective (e.g.people have many reasons getting married or enrolling at a particular university)3. Another way is
seeing personal choice in social context 
(e.g. how many children thatcouples in the world would like to have? Also examine Emile Durkheim analysis of suicide.)4. Another way is
seeing social marginality 
(being part outsider and part insider in asociety)
and social crisis
. We can have a better sociology perspective if we experiencesocial marginality and social crisis (e.g. being in the immigrant society and living ineconomic downturn).5.C. Wright Mills’ term
sociological imagination
is also a way of applying sociologicalperspective. For example Mills claims that the society is the cause of poverty and other social problems.
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