Unit 1

1. Unit 1 Foundations to Theory and Research Smith 2013 Sociology Luella High school

2. Sociology Sociology is the systematic study of human action in social context. It is based on the idea that our relations with other people create opportunities for us to think and act but also set limits on our thoughts and action.

3. The Sociological Perspective • Look beyond commonly held beliefs • There are other reasons than those that are apparent • “We do it therefore everyone must” • The society we live in affects our perspective • Why will you go to college? • Society can dictate individual choices (marriage and death)

4. The Global Perspective • We must take a worldly approach, we can no longer be Eurocentric. • 3 types of countries in the world • Highly developed nations • Developing nations • Lesser developed nations

5. Theories of Sociology • Theory is built on evidence that is gathered and a clear conclusion can be made. • Can you tell what type of people we are talking about from the clues given?

6. Observation Exercise • Wealthy businessman • Is able to sit on leather while traveling from place to place • Separates himself from others at sporting events • Monday through Friday is seen wearing a silk object • Enjoys hitting a small white object with a staff • His life partner goes by the name “Muffy”

7. Observation Exercise Cont.. • College Student • Can be seen drinking out of an aluminum object • Might be nocturnal • Has been known to pray to a porcelain deity • Food of choice is micro waved noodles

8. Observation Exercise Cont.. • Homeless Person • Able to produce their own domicile • Extremely resourceful when it comes to making money • Often found in areas of high population

9. Observation Exercise (practice) • Teenager (ages 13-19) • Come up with 5 traits that will differentiate this group from the previous groups discussed..

10. Social Theory • Sociologists follow a particular theoretical perspectives. (image of society that guides research) • 3 theoretical perspectives • Structural-Functional • Social-Conflict • Symbolic-Interaction

11. What is Social Theory? • Put simply: Social theories are ideas about society, social functioning, and social change. • To better understand what social theory, we will do the following: • We will break up into small groups • Each group will be given a large sheet of paper containing one fact about the social world in which we live. • With your group, try to develop an explanation for why that fact is true and write it on the bottom of your sheet of paper.

12. What is Social Theory? • Now let’s develop a more precise definition… • Social theory is a system of generalized statements or propositions about social phenomena. • Social theories do two things: • Explain and predict the phenomena in question • Produce testable hypotheses • Thus where formal social theory departs from the type of theorizing exercise we just did is that formal social theories put forth propositions that extend across societies and across time periods.

13. What is Social Theory? • For example, a long standing social theory predicts that as society becomes more modern, the importance of religion will decline. • This theory is not restricted in its scope to any one time period or population. • Instead it is a general proposition that can be tested in any society undergoing modernization at any time.

14. What is Classical Social Theory?: Background • Many of the seeds for what would later become sociology were first planted in the Enlightenment (late 1600s to late 1700s). • During the Enlightenment, a number of long-standing ideas and beliefs were turned upside down. • One of the new ideas introduced was the notion that science and reason could be used to understand both the physical and natural world.

15. What is Classical Social Theory?: Background • The rise of science in turn gave birth to sociology in the mid 1800s. • The central idea behind the new discipline of sociology was that society could be the subject of scientific examination just like biological organisms or the physical properties of material objects. • In fact, sociology was originally called social physics • The goal of early sociologists was to uncover--rationally and scientifically--the laws of the social world.

16. What is Classical Social Theory?: Background • While sociology as a discipline arises out of the Enlightenment it is the changes brought on by the Industrial Revolution (late 1700s to early 1900s) that gave new impetus to the field. • The new field of sociology sought to understand the causes and effects of the dramatic economic, social, and political developments occurring during the Industrial Revolution. • The writings of these sociologists form the basis of classical theory.

17. Why Study Classical Social Theory? • Many students find it difficult to understand and interpret what classical theorists have to say. • Many more wonder what the point is of studying the ideas of old, dead, white guys; how are their ideas relevant to our world today. • There are two reasons why studying the works of classical social theorists are important: • The ideas articulated by classical theorists lay the foundation of sociology as a discipline. • The theories they put forth still guide contemporary theory and research. • For example, we are still concerned with the nature of capitalism, the role of authority in social life, the dynamics of gender and racial oppression. • The concepts and ideas introduced by classical theorists thus help us to better understand our world today.

18. Three revolutions had to take place before the sociological imagination could crystallize: • The scientific revolution(16th c.) encouraged the use of evidence to substantiate theories. • The democratic revolution(18th c.) encouraged the view that human action can change society. • The industrial revolution(19th c.) gave sociologists their subject matter.

19. Social Theory Cont.. • Functionalist Perspective • Society is a complex system that works together in order to function • “Glass ½ Full” • Society is orderly and nice, everything keeps it rolling • Manifest Functions • Latent Functions

20. Social Theory Cont.. • Early Functionalists Auguste Comte • Founder of Sociology • Used French Revolution as basis for study • Looked at social order and social change • Suffered from depression

21. Comte • Philosopher Auguste Comte was born on January 19, 1798, in Paris, France. He was born in the shadow of the French Revolution and as modern science and technology gave birth to the Industrial Revolution. During this time, European society experienced violent conflict and feelings of alienation. Confidence in established beliefs and institutions was shattered. Comte spent much of his life developing a philosophy for a new social order amidst all the chaos and uncertainty.

22. Comte • Free on his own, Comte developed a social doctrine based on scientific principles. In 1826, he began presenting a series of lectures to a group of distinguished French intellectuals. However, about one-third of the way through the lecture series, he suffered a nervous breakdown. Despite periodic hospitalization over the next 15 years, he produced his major work, the six-volume Course of Positive Philosophy. In this work, Comte argued that, like the physical world, society operated under its own set of laws. • Comte’s efforts furthered the study of society and the development of sociology.

23. Herbert Spencer Coined: Social Darwinism “Survival of the Fittest” Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) is typically, though quite wrongly, considered a coarse social Darwinist. After all, Spencer, and not Darwin, coined the infamous expression “survival of the fittest”, leading G. E. Moore to conclude erroneously in Principia Ethica (1903) that Spencer committed the naturalistic fallacy. According to Moore, Spencer's practical reasoning was deeply flawed insofar as he purportedly conflated mere survivability (a natural property) with goodness itself (a non-natural property). http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spencer/

24. Emile Durkheim • Created first scientific sociological study • Suicide • Anomie: Rules w/in society were breaking down and people don’t know how to act • Durkheim became interested in a scientific approach to society very early on in his career, which meant the first of many conflicts with the French academic system, which had no social science curriculum at the time. Durkheim found humanistic studies uninteresting, turning his attention from psychology and philosophy to ethics and eventually, sociology. He graduated with a degree in philosophy in 1882. Durkheim's views could not get him a major academic appointment in Paris, so from 1882 to 1887 he taught philosophy at several provincial schools. In 1885 he left for Germany, where he studied sociology for two years.

25. Durkheim Cont.. • . Durkheim's period in Germany resulted in the publication of numerous articles on German social science and philosophy, which gained recognition in France, earning him a teaching appointment at the University of Bordeaux in 1887. This was an important sign of the change of times, and the growing importance and recognition of the social sciences. From this position, Durkheim helped reform the French school system and introduced the study of social science in its curriculum. Also in 1887, Durkheim married Louise Dreyfus, with whom he later had two children.

26. Durkheim Cont.. • In 1893, Durkheim published his first major work, The Division of Labor in Society, in which he introduced the concept of "anomie", or the breakdown of the influence of social norms on individuals within a society. In 1895, he published The Rules of Sociological Method, his second major work, which was a manifesto stating what sociology is and how it ought to be done. In 1897, he published his third major work, Suicide: A Study in Sociology, a case study exploring the differing suicide rates among Protestants and Catholics and arguing that stronger social control among Catholics results in lower suicide rates. • By 1902, Durkheim had finally achieved his goal of attaining a prominent position in Paris when he became the chair of education at the Sorbonne. Durkheim also served as an advisor to the Ministry of Education. In 1912, he published his last major work, The Elementary Forms of The Religious Life, a book that analyzes religion as a social phenomenon.

27. Durkheim’s Theory of Suicide I According to Durkheim: • a group’s level of social solidarityis determined by the frequency with which its members interact and the degree to which they share beliefs, values and morals; • suicide rates are lowest at intermediate levels of social solidarity and highest at low and high levels of social solidarity.

28. Durkheim’s Theory of Suicide II High egoistic and anomic suicide altruistic suicide Suicide rate Low High Intermediate Low Social solidarity

29. Conflict Theories • Karl Marx • Founder of Communism • “The Have nots will rise up against the haves” • Proletariat v. Bourgeoisie • Society is an arena of inequality • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqcMy3cOiW4

30. Marx Cont.. • Karl Marx (1818–1883) is best known not as a philosopher but as a revolutionary communist, whose works inspired the foundation of many communist regimes in the twentieth century. It is hard to think of many who have had as much influence in the creation of the modern world. Trained as a philosopher, Marx turned away from philosophy in his mid-twenties, towards economics and politics. However, in addition to his overtly philosophical early work, his later writings have many points of contact with contemporary philosophical debates, especially in the philosophy of history and the social sciences, and in moral and political philosophy.

31. Marx Cont • Historical materialism — Marx's theory of history — is centered around the idea that forms of society rise and fall as they further and then impede the development of human productive power. Marx sees the historical process as proceeding through a necessary series of modes of production, characterized by class struggle, culminating in communism. Marx's economic analysis of capitalism is based on his version of the labour theory of value, and includes the analysis of capitalist profit as the extraction of surplus value from the exploited proletariat.

32. Marx Cont.. • in Marx's prediction of the inevitable economic breakdown of capitalism, to be replaced by communism. However Marx refused to speculate in detail about the nature of communism, arguing that it would arise through historical processes, and was not the realisation of a pre-determined moral ideal.

33. Interactionist Theory • Max Weber • Looks at society as a group of individual one on one interactions • Verstehen: “Walk a mile in someone’s shoes” • Ideal type: What would an ideal situation look like

34. Weber Cont.. • Arguably the foremost social theorist of the twentieth century, Max Weber is known as a principal architect of modern social science along with Karl Marx and Emil Durkheim. Weber's wide-ranging contributions gave critical impetus to the birth of new academic disciplines such as sociology and public administration as well as to the significant reorientation in law, economics, political science, and religious studies.

35. Weber Cont.. • His methodological writings were instrumental in establishing the self-identity of modern social science as a distinct field of inquiry; he is still claimed as the source of inspiration by empirical positivists and their hermeneutic detractors alike. More substantively, Weber's two most celebrated contributions were the “rationalization thesis,” a grand meta-historical analysis of the dominance of the west in modern times, and the “Protestant Ethic thesis,” a non-Marxist genealogy of modern capitalism. Together, these two theses helped launch his reputation as one of the founding theorists of modernity. In addition, his avid interest and participation in politics led to a unique strand of political realism comparable to that of Machiavelli and Hobbes. As such, Max Weber's influence was far-reaching across the vast array of disciplinary, methodological, ideological and philosophical reflections that are still our own and increasingly more so.

36. Weber Cont.. • Together, these two theses helped launch his reputation as one of the founding theorists of modernity. In addition, his avid interest and participation in politics led to a unique strand of political realism comparable to that of Machiavelli and Hobbes. As such, Max Weber's influence was far-reaching across the vast array of disciplinary, methodological, ideological and philosophical reflections that are still our own and increasingly more so.

37. Why is Sociology important? • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HcX3iffQcI • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ8iMwA11TQ

39. Research Methods in Sociology • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vnsoqqzrg9s

40. How Research Filters Perception R E A L I T Y Values, Theories, Existing Research, Methods

41. The Research Cycle 2. Formulate a testable theory (a tentative explanation of a phenomenon) • Figure out what matters to you 8. Report results 3. Review existing literature 7. Analyze data 4. Select method(s) 6. Treat subjects ethically 5. Collect data

42. Research Ethics • Respect your subjects’ right to safety.Do your subjects no harm and, in particular, give them the right to decide whether and how they can be studied. • Respect your subjects’ right to informed consent. Tell subjects how the information they supply will be used and allow them to judge the degree of personal risk involved in supplying it. • Respect your subjects’ right to privacy. Allow subjects the right to decide whether and how the information they supply may be revealed to the public. • Respect your subjects’ right to confidentiality. Refrain from using information in a way that allows it to be traced to a particular subject. • Do not falsify data. Report findings as they are, not as you would like them to be. • Do not plagiarize.Explicitly identify, credit, and reference authors when making use of their written work in any form, including Web postings.

43. Participant Observation • Researchers engage in participant observation when they try to observe a social milieu from an outsider’s point of view and take part in the activities of their subjects (allowing them to understand the point of view of their subjects). • They must avoid influencing their subjects’ behaviour (reactivity or the Hawthorne effect). • Most participant-observation studies begin as exploratory research in which the researcher uses hunches as hypotheses (unverified but testable statements derived from theories).

44. Participant Observation • Researchers engage in participant observation when they try to observe a social milieu from an outsider’s point of view and take part in the activities of their subjects (allowing them to understand the point of view of their subjects). • They must avoid influencing their subjects’ behaviour (reactivity or the Hawthorne effect). • Most participant-observation studies begin as exploratory research in which the researcher uses hunches as hypotheses (unverified but testable statements derived from theories).

45. Measurement • Variables are concepts that can take more than one value. • Operationalization involves establishing criteria for assigning values to variables. • If a measurement procedure yields consistent results, we consider it reliable. • If a measurement procedure measures what it is supposed to, we consider it valid (and it hasexternal validityif it is consistent with what we know from previous research or allows us to make useful predictions). • If research findings hold in many contexts, we consider them generalizable. • Causalityis the measurement of causes and their effects.

46. Measurement as Target Practice 1.Not Valid, Not Reliable 2. Not Valid, Reliable x x x x x x x x 3. Valid, Reliable 4. Valid, Reliable, Generalizable (Target 2) xx xx xx xx Validity, reliability, and generalizability may be explained by drawing an analogy between measuring a variable and firing at a bull’s-eye. In case 1, above, shots (measures) are far apart (not reliable) and far from the bull’s-eye (not valid). In case 2, shots are close to each other (reliable) but far from the bull’s-eye (not valid). In case 3, shots are close to the bull’s-eye (valid) and close to each other (reliable). In case 4, we use a second target. Our shots are again close to each other (reliable) and close to the bull’s-eye (valid). Because our measures were valid and reliable for both the first and second targets in cases 3 and 4, we conclude our results are generalizable.

48. Sampling A sample is part of a group. A population is the entire group. A voluntary response sample is a group of people who chose themselves in response to a general appeal. A representative sample is a group is a group of people chosen so their characteristics closely match those of the population of interest. A convenience sample consists of people who are easiest to reach. If respondents are chosen at random and an individual’s chance of being chosen is known and greater than zero, the respondents constitute a probability sample. A sampling frame is a list of all the people in the population of interest. A randomizing method is a way of ensuring every person in the sampling frame has a known, equal, and non-zero chance of being selected.

49. Surveys • A mail questionnaire is a form containing questions is mailed to the respondent and returned to the researcher through the mail system. • The response rate is the number of people who answer the questionnaire divided by the number of people asked to do so, expressed as a percent. • In a face-to-face interviewsurvey, questions are presented to the respondent by the interviewer during a meeting. • In a telephone survey, questions are presented to the respondent by the interviewer over the phone. • A closed-ended questionprovides the respondent with a list of permitted answers. • Open-ended questions allow respondents to answer questions in their own words.

50. Threats to Validity • Undercounting occurs due to an imperfect sampling frame. • Nonresponse occurs when respondents do not answer some or all questions. • Response bias occurs when respondents do not answer questions completely accurately. • To avoid wording effects, questions should be specific, simple and neutral, and they should focus on important, singular, current events.