Professional Documents
Culture Documents
By Datin Sitti Haishah Abd Rahman, Curriculum Unit, Teacher Education Division
1. Development of sociology took place in Europe during 18 and 19 centuries as a result of:
• a new industrial economy
• the growth of cities
• the political change
• a new awareness of society
2. The term sociology was coined by a French social thinker Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
to describe a new way of looking at society. It is the youngest academic disciplines than
physics, history, economics, etc.
3. Sociological theory
A theory is a statement of how and why specific facts are related. A sociological theory
explains social behavior in the real world. (e.g. Durkheim’s theory that explained why
people with low social integration are at higher risk of suicide).
In building the theory, what issues should be studied and how the facts should be
connected? To answer this sociologists look into several approaches. The approaches
are:
(i) The structural-functional approach: i.e. it sees the society as a complex system
whose parts works together to promote solidarity and stability. It explains about
social structure (any stable pattern of social behavior) and social functions
(consequences of social pattern).
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Comte (pointed out the need to keep the society unified at times when many
traditions were breaking down) and Durkheim’s work was based on this approach.
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) compared the society to human body (just as the
structural parts of human body function to keep the entire organism survive, the
social structures work together to preserve society)
(ii) The social-conflict approach: i.e. it sees society as an arena of inequality that
generates conflict and change.
Sociologists investigate how factors such as class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual
orientation, and age are linked to society’s unequal distribution of money, power,
education, and social prestige.
The gender-conflict approach focuses on inequality and conflict between women and
men, while feminism focuses support on social equality for women and men. Harriet
Martineau (1802-1876) and Jane Addams (1860-1935) were two sociologists that
took these approaches.
The race-conflict approach focuses on inequality and conflict between racial and
ethnic categories. Sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) studied the black
community in the U.S. applying this approach.
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(iii) The symbolic-interaction approach: i.e. it sees society as a product of everyday
interaction. Rooted in the thinking of Max Weber (1864-1920), a German sociologist
who emphasized the need to understand a setting from a point of view of the people
in it.
Scientific knowledge depends on empirical evidence (i.e. information we can verify with
our senses). Three ways to do research in sociology are:
• scientific sociology
• interpretive sociology
• critical sociology
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• Measurement is assigning a value to a variable. e.g. measure a person’s social
class through income, occupation or education.
• Reliability is consistency in measurement. e.g. repeated measurements give the
same result time after time.
• Validity means measuring exactly what you intent to measure.
(ii) Interpretive sociology – the study of sociology that focuses on the meanings people
attach to their social world. Favor qualitative data, research in natural setting. Weber
believed the key to interpretative sociology is to apply verstehen (understanding).
(iii) Critical sociology – study of society that focuses on the need for social change
(seeks not just to understand the world but also to improve it).
(i) Experiment is a research method for investigating cause and effect under highly
controlled conditions. Researchers devise an experiment to test hypothesis, i.e. a
statement of possible relationship between two or more variables. In experiment
research, subjects can be divided into experimental group and control group. The
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Hawthorne effect is change in a subject’s behavior caused simply by awareness of
being studied.
• Sample is a part of the population that represents the whole. (random sampling,
stratified sampling).
• Questionnaire is a series of written questions a researcher presents to subjects
(closed-ended questions and open-ended questions).
• Interview a series of questions a researcher asks respondents in person.
References
Macionis, John J. 2007. Sociology. 11th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.