SOC 101

Introduction to Sociology
 Note how the question restricts on 2 axis

A CHANGING WORLD…
Gender and generation (age)

- Note how the example controls for family background

- Note its a generalized assumption that same family
will result in similar/ comparable background

▧Write down 5 ways your life is different from

your mother (if you are female) and your father
(if you are male) when they were your age.
- Income
- Education
- Parenting style
- Socio-economic environment
- Access to opportunities
- Languages and social norms

LQ: Why do we have changes in birth rates?

-Why is marriage and age of family formation
.. Woman access to education and career aspiration
.. Functional value of children (Rural to Urban)
..

LQ: What other decisions you have is due to social influence?

.. Is going to university solely a personal decision?
... Have social norms (micro social), employer preferences (structural)
...
 CONTEXT
Types of Context:
- Time: E.g. middle ages
- Situation. E.g. Diff country
 Sociology
Latin: Socius (companion)
Greek: logos (study of )
Quiz*

Auguste Comte
‘Laws of the social world’
Social sciences
Proposes that the social world can be studied in the same
way as the hard sciences
Can almost be condensed into natural laws
 Auguste Comte 1798-1857
Science of the associate life of humanity

Socius SOCIOLOGY Logos

‘Companion’ ‘Reason’
 Enlightenment
• Emphasize on reason, experience
• Sceptic of religious & traditional
authority
- Social order was based on divine right
- Religion and Monarchy were the center piece orientating societies

- The enlightenment brought about by the scientific method, undermined

the authority of these institutions resulting in a social upheaval
 Meaning of ‘SOCIAL’
QL: What do we mean by "Social"

More than one person

The individual in a group is diff from an individual on their own
- Due to context and
 Social problems in SG
Social problems = problems in society
. Comment: How you know if it's a problem with society or the idea
being suggested is wrong

QL: What are some e.g. in SG

- Mental health
- Low Birthrate
- Political
- income inequality (not true)

L: Says sociologist is not meant for solving problems

Say socio is to help develop new perpsectives
 Institutions
Patterns of behaviour
L:
You come uni, you know where to sit, eat, and what to prep
These behavior's aren't naturally occurring, but a product of institutional socializations

Implicit social rules/ norms

With institutions comes hierarchy, and hence the possibility for power inequality

E.g. is also family, younger brother has a specific way to behave etc
 Norms
Expected behaviour
Norms aren't necessarily legal in nature
. Talked about giving up seats for people
who need them more in public transport
• Proscribed beh What you can't do
Norms are meant to generate social order • Prescribed beh What you should do
. can be good and bad
. norms need to be analyzed in terms of
why they have been created
Views of sociologists
- Micro (in-depth)
-Macro (structural)
Positivism:
Uses empirical and quant methods

Interpretivisms
Uses qualitative methods

Positivism vs.
Interpretivism
 Birth of Sociology

▧ 18th and 19th Century

▧ Europe- period of crisis
▧ Age of revolution
▧ Rapid and dramatic social changes
▧ 3 major revolutions: Quiz* (but not the date)
1. American revolution 1776
2. Industrial revolution 1780
3. French revolution 1789
▧Sociology as ‘intellectual’ response
▧‘The Enlightenment’
▧Modernity
4 aspects of modernity:
○Industrialism - Industrialism > Means of production changes (e.g. Factories and specialization,
and economy of scales) (agrarian to factory production)
○Capitalism
- capitalism > Change from feudal social organization
○Urbanism -- Organization according free market principles
-- Efficiency and utility maximization are prioritized

○Liberalism -- Urbanism > rural to urban and concentration of human pop

--- Comment: I think it's more of a technological issue

-- Liberalism >
--- Equality
--- Natural rights
--- Democracy
--- Progressive view of history
 Digest digest
Goal is to not take the world as it is
Need to question everything
Anything

▧In what ways do the sociologist’s

understanding of social life differ from that of a
layperson?
▧How might the sociologist’s observations
differ from those of a journalist or psychologist
or other informed observer?
▧How far is sociology a child of the nineteenth
century?
Any questions?