sociology

Durkheim

(French) Durkheim laid out his theory on how societies transformed from a primitive state into a capitalist, industrial society. sociologists to study objective "social facts" also believed that through such studies it would be possible to determine if a society was "healthy or "pathological" he saw healthy societies as stable, while pathological societies experienced a breakdown in social norms between individuals and society. ex: his work on suicide durkheim studied the social factors of suicide that affected it. "social solidarity"-- social ties within a group. believed that to study society, a sociologist must look beyong individuals to social facts such as laws, morals, values, religious beliefs, customs, fashion, and rituals, which all serve to govern social life.

Comte

(French) Comte named the scientific study of social patterns "positivism". believed in the potential of social scientists to work toward the betterment of society.

weber

(german) believed that it was difficult, if not impossible, to use standard scientific methods to accurately predict the behavior of groups as people hoped to do. they argued that the influence of culture on human behavior had to be taken into account. introduced the concept of "verstehen", a german word that means to understand in a deep way. in seeking verstehen, outside observers of a social world-- an entire culture or a small setting-- attempt to understand it from an insider's point of view anti-positivism-- where social researchers would strive for subjectivity as they worked to represent social processes, cultural norms, and societal values. this approach led to some research methods whose aim was not to generalize or predict (traditional in science), but to systematically gain an in-depth understanding of social worlds.

Marx

(german) rejected Comte's positivism. believed societies grew and changed as a result of the struggles of different social classes over the means of production. marx predicted that inequalities of capitalism would become so extreme that workers would eventually revolt. this would lead to the collapse of capitalism, which would be replaced by communism.

3 types of paradigms

1. structural functionalism 2. conflict theory 3. symbolic interactionism

figuration

Norbert Elias called this process of simultaneously analyzing the behavior of individuals and the society that shapes that behavior ex: religion, while people experience their religions in a distinctly individual manner, religion exists in a larger social context. for instance, an individual's religious practice may be influenced by what government dictates, holidays, teachers, places of worship, rituals, and so on. these influences underscore the important relationship between individual practices of religion and social pressures that influence that religious experience

what are sociologists' goals?

all sociologists are interested in the experiences of individual and how those experiences are shaped by interactions with social groups and society as a whole. to a sociologist, the personal decisions an individual makes do not exist in a vacuum. cultural patterns and social forces put pressure on people to select one choice over another. sociologists try to identify these general patterns by examining the behavior of large groups of people living in the same society and experiencing the same societal pressures

reification

an error of treating an abstract concept as though it has a real, material existence. ex: culture is a product of the people in a society; sociologists take care not to treat the concept of "culture" as though it were alive in its own right.

grand theories

attempt to explain large-scale relationships and answer fundamental questions such as why societies form and why they change

hypothesis

create a testable proposition

society

group of people who live in a defined geographic area, who interact with one another, and share common culture

social facts

laws, morals, values, religious beliefs, customs, fashions, rituals, and all of the cultural rules that govern social life, that may contribute to these changes in the family

macro-level analysis

look at trends among and between large groups and societies ex: research of the ways that language use has changed over time or in social media outlets

social institiutions

patterns of beliefs and behaviors focused on meeting social needs, such as government, education, family, healthcare, religion and the economy ex: the similarities between society and the human body, like how various organs work together to keep the body functioning, various parts of society work together to keep society functioning.

paradigms

philosophical and theoretical frameworks used within a discipline to formulate theories, generalizations, and the experiments performed in support of them

culture

refers to the group's shared practices, values, and beliefs. includes everything produced by a society, including all of the social rules.

functionalism "structural-functional theory"

sees society as a structure with interrelated parts designed to meet the biological and social needs of the individuals in that society

sociological imagination

sociologists often study culture using this method, which is the awareness of the relationship between a person's behavior and experience and the wider culture that shaped the person's choices and perceptions. its a way of seeing our own and other people's behavior in relationship to history and social structure, described by C. Wright Mills. ex: decision to marry, in the US, this choice is heavily influenced by individual feelings ;however, the social acceptability of marriage relative to the person's circumstances also plays a part.

micro-level study

study of small groups and individual interactions ex: look at the accepted rules of conversation in various groups such as among teenagers or business professionals

positivism

the scientific study of social patterns

what is sociology?

the study of groups and group interactions, societies and social interactions, from small and personal groups to very large groups

theory

way to explain different aspects of social interactions