What is sociology?

 Sociology-systematic, critical study of social.

 It studies the way people do things together.
 It is more than facts and figures about society.
 It is a form of consciousness.
 A way of thinking.
 Critical way of seeing social.

Definition: Richard jerkens:

 Sociologist concerned with understanding society in a disciplined way.
 The nature of discipline-scientific.
 Sociology concerned with human world.

 Sociological perspective-way of seeing general in particular.

 Each individual is unique.
 But society acts differently.
 The general categories into which we fall shape our life.
 Impact of society on our actions, thoughts and feelings.
 Society attaches different meanings to gender.
 Different kinds of work, responsibilities.
 Inter connectedness of social and cultural.
 The global flows, economies, political systems, people, media, messages, internet etc.
 Social and cultural communities, societies, institutions,national states – have existence independently of us.
 They have different structures and symbolic meanings over and above us.

Interactional: interacting with family, friends, and strangers – awareness of others.

Individual: The inner world, the psychic world.

 The human behaviour is not what people decide to do.
 Society guides our thoughts, deeds.
 Sociology shows patterns, process- shapes what we do.
 How social forces affect human behaviour can be found in study of suicides.
 Durkheim Showed that an individual act of suicide was socially shaped.