SOC103 Lecture 1 Sociology: The systematic study of societies 1. Types of: a. People b.

Relationships influences attitude, day-to-day realities c. Groups d. Haves and have-nots 2. Social behaviours 3. Social Institutions Social Institutions: 1. Organized structures involving various social relationships to solve social problems 2. Relatively stable, shared pattern of behaviour based on relatively stable values 3. Meets people s most important needs order, belief and reproduction 4. Structural components through which most needs are met laws, religions and families Stable patterns of behaviour created and maintained through social interaction. y y y y Herbert Spencer: argued that institutions are like plants Require weeding and watering Must grow gradually Marx: All institutions are machines of oppression except the proletariat institutions

Social institutions perform both manifest and latent functions. 1. Manifest functions: a. Intended and easily recognized (universities transmit 2. Latent functions: a. Uninteded and oftenly hidden Sociology s emergence 1. 200 years ago 2. New social problems arose from: a. Industrialization b. Urbanization c. Polotical revolutions 3. The enlightement People realize the potentional 4. Rise of science 5. New questioning of religious belief and tradition The Two Revolutions 1. Industrial Revolution

a. New inventions, development of factories, those working in industries were forbidden to travel abroad to keep it sacred 2. French Revolution Founders of sociology 1. Karl Marx 2. Emile Durkheim 3. Max Weber Comte s Stage of Social Evolution Theological Understanding based on ascription of events to wills of supernatural agencies Understanding based on assumptions, essence and teleological predispositions Understanding based on observation of relationships between events

Metaphysical

Positivist

Noting and explaining differences 1. Explain differences between societies a. Why we do things this way i. E.g) Herodotus wrote about differences between Greeks, Persians and Eyptians ii. E.g) Voltaire wrote about differences between the English Protestants and French Catholics Practical applicants 1. Oriented to problem solving 2. Find bettwe ways of living together 3. Finding and correcting the rrots of violence, racism and sexism. Explaining, not blaming 1. Social theorizing moves us away from ideas of blame, guilt, sit and wrongdoing 2. Everyone has agency and free will 3. Everyone is also constrained and manipulated 4. Everyone is to blame for something to a greater or lesser degree Common sense is not enough 1. Leads to incomplete and inaccurate explanations 2. Ignores root social causes of problems 3. Untested Free Will (Agency)

1. What people get in life is the result of cicumstances beyond their control 2. People make choices 3. Make structed or constrained choices a. We want to understand this structure of constraint Useful Tools (Concepts) 1. Macrosociology: The study of large events and organizations 2. Microsociology: The study of small events and processes (patterns of faceto-face interaction in small groups 3. ** Macro and Micro differ in size and social institutions but must coexist (NOT independent) Social Imagination (C. Wright Mills) 1. Links semingly personal experiences with larger historical and social trends (history and biography) Main approaches to sociological thinking 1. Functionalism (Structural) The role of cohesion 2. Critical theory The role of power 3. Symbolic interactionism The role of symbols Functionalist Emile Durkheim Suicide 1897 1. Helped establish sociology as a field of scientific research within academia 2. Developed the sociological method a. Ruled out psychological explanations (suicides) i. E.g) Suicides ii. E.g) The Jewish community had the highest rate of recorded neurosis, lowest rate of suicide b. Looked to social causes instead Social causes of suicide 1. Types: a. Egoistic b. Altruistic c. Anomic 2. Rates of suicide correlate with a person s degree of integration into domestic, religious and political society 3. Protestants had higher rates of suicide than Catholics 4. Married people had lower rates of suicide 5. Sucide Counsellors? William Melchert-Dinkel a. Encourages english man and a canadian girl to commit suicide by chatting on the internet b. Posed as a female nurse, he communicated with up to about 20 people on suicide chat rooms

c. Entered suicide pacts never intending to keep his side of the deal 10 people d. 6. K; Merton (1910 2003) 1. Enhanced functionalist perspective by nothing that there are 3 different types of functions that any institutional structure can produce: a. Manifest functions: intended and easily recognized b. Latent functions: unintended c. Latent Dysfunctions: unintended and produce socially negative consequences Functionalism 1. Emerged from Durkheim s macrosocological work a. Notable North American proponents: Talcott Parsons, Robert Merton 2. Society is a social system a. Interconnected, interdependent and interrelated parts contributing to the whole The notion of equilibrium 1. Elements operate together in equilibrium to maintain the overall stability and efficiency of the society as a whole 2. Healthy social institutions help maintain social equilibrium 3. Society is always reacting and readjusting to new inputs 4. Most changes are gradual The notion of consensus 1. Sudden and major social change sometimes disrupts traditional values and common ways of doing things causes anomie 2. There is a general consesnsus about social values and the way social institutions should operate The raesons for conformity 1. Rules are constantly imposed on us 2. Functonalists ask: under what conditions are people likely to obey society s rules or break them? a. Answer: Conformity is a response that results in a benefit, or at the very least, avoids punishment 3. All societies allow a margin of tolerable or invisible deviance 4. Vital for social system, about how society functions ** The meaning of deviance 1. Sociology looks for answers to deviance ourisde the individual a. Break rules because of belief that they will not get caught, of if caught, not punished

b. Motivated to maximize their own welfare even if they have to break some rules The functions of deviance 1. Most people obey most rules, for various reasons 2. Durkheim pointed out that deviance and crime are universal 3. Functionalists says deviance and crime are normal and necessary components of societies 4. Punishment brings people together 5. People learn to behave in conforming ways and they feel reqarded for doing so New sources of cohesion in society 1. Durkheim argued that, very gradually, societies develop new forms of cohesion based on mutual interdependence 2. Interdependence is evident in any well-functioning market economy 3. Consider Canada in 1965: a. Fragmented by class and ethnicity