Overview and What is SOCY

Question 1

What is sociology?

Answer 1

The systematic study of human behaviour in a social context with the aim of understanding the relationship between the individual and society

Question 2

What do sociologists do?

Answer 2

Sociologists examine the connection between personal troubles/experiences and the social relations and structures surrounding the individual

Question 3

What does Sociology offer?

Answer 3

Sociology offers a framework that is underpinned by the belief that personal troubles are public issues

Question 4

What is the Sociological imagination?

Answer 4

Coined by the American sociologist C. Wright Mills in his 1959 book The Sociological Imagination to describe looking at the world sociologically.

E.g. Cultural, Critical, Structural and Historical

Question 5

What is Social Agency?

Answer 5

Social agency is the ability of individuals and groups within society to act within
social structures/institutions to create change.

Question 6

What are the three large facets which are explored in Sociology?

Answer 6

Explores how both individuals and collectivities construct, maintain, and alter social organisation in various ways.

Sociology asks about the sources and consequences of inequality in social arrangements and institutions.

Sociology examines the dynamics of social change, and sociologists are often motivated by the desire to improve people’s lives as the sociological lens reveals trends of inequality in society.

Question 7

What are the four structural levels?

Answer 7

Microstructures, Mesostructures, Macrostructures and Global structures.

Question 8

What are Microstructures?

Answer 8

Microstructures are patterns of intimate social relations

e.g. friends and family

Question 9

What are Mesostructures?

Answer 9

Mesostructures are located in between Micro and Macro (e.g. civil society)

Question 10

What are Macrostructures?

Answer 10

Macrostructures are overarching patterns of social relations outside our circle of acquaintances (e.g. patriarchy or capitalism)

Question 11

What are Global structures?

Answer 11

Global structures are patterns of social relations that lie above the national level, (e.g. the global economy or United Nations)

Question 12

What are theories and perspectives in Sociology?

Answer 12

Theories are tentative explanations of some aspect of social life.

Study of society and we are part of society = objective/subjective debate

Challenge the common-sense views that exist and apply a more evidenced-based analysis

Question 13

What are the four major paradigms.

Answer 13

Functionalism
Conflict Theory/Marxism
Symbolic Interactionism
Feminist Theory

Question 14

What is the level of analysis, focus and question of Functionalist theory?

Answer 14

Macro, Values, How do institutions of society contribute to social stability and instability?

Question 15

What is the level of analysis, focus and question of Conflict theory?

Answer 15

Macro, Inequality, How do privileged groups seek to maintain their advantages and how do subordinate groups seek to increase theirs (often conflict)?

Question 16

What is the level of analysis, focus and question of Symbolic theory?

Answer 16

Micro, Meaning, How to individuals communicate so as to make their interaction in social settings meaningful?

Question 17

What is the level of analysis, focus and question of Feminist theory?

Answer 17

Macro and Micro, Patriarchy, Which social structures and interaction processes maintain male dominance and female subordination?

Question 18

What is Research?

Answer 18

Research is the process of observing aspects of social life to test (deductive) or develop (inductive) theory.
E.g. For example, research on divorce rates could involve looking up marriage statistics.

Question 19

What are Values?

Answer 19

Values are ideas about right and wrong; they help sociologists theorise and research their questions.

Sociologists need to be conscious of ‘where they stand’; their own lives and stories often tell us something about their theory.

Question 20

What are the four key contemporary sociological puzzles?

Answer 20

Post-Industrial Revolution
Globalisation
Equality
Individualism

Question 21

What is the Post-Industrial Revolution sociological puzzle?

Answer 21

Technology-driven shift from manufacturing and service industries and its consequences for virtually all human activities

Question 22

What is the Globalisation sociological puzzle?

Answer 22

The process whereby formerly separate economies, states and cultures are growing increasingly interdependent

Question 23

What is the Equality sociological puzzle?

Answer 23

Where do disparities exist nationally and around the globe? How do we explain and address these?

Question 24

What is the Individualism sociological puzzle?

Answer 24

Logics and limits of choice and responsibility

Structure/Agency debate