Overview and What is SOCY Flashcards
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What is sociology?
The systematic study of human behaviour in a social context with the aim of understanding the relationship between the individual and society
What do sociologists do?
Sociologists examine the connection between personal troubles/experiences and the social relations and structures surrounding the individual
What does Sociology offer?
Sociology offers a framework that is underpinned by the belief that personal troubles are public issues
What is the Sociological imagination?
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
What is Social Agency?
Social agency is the ability of individuals and groups within society to act within
social structures/institutions to create change.
What are the three large facets which are explored in Sociology?
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.
What are the four structural levels?
Microstructures, Mesostructures, Macrostructures and Global structures.
What are Microstructures?
Microstructures are patterns of intimate social relations
e.g. friends and family
What are Mesostructures?
Mesostructures are located in between Micro and Macro (e.g. civil society)
What are Macrostructures?
Macrostructures are overarching patterns of social relations outside our circle of acquaintances (e.g. patriarchy or capitalism)
What are Global structures?
Global structures are patterns of social relations that lie above the national level, (e.g. the global economy or United Nations)
What are theories and perspectives in Sociology?
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
What are the four major paradigms.
Functionalism
Conflict Theory/Marxism
Symbolic Interactionism
Feminist Theory
What is the level of analysis, focus and question of Functionalist theory?
Macro, Values, How do institutions of society contribute to social stability and instability?
What is the level of analysis, focus and question of Conflict theory?
Macro, Inequality, How do privileged groups seek to maintain their advantages and how do subordinate groups seek to increase theirs (often conflict)?
What is the level of analysis, focus and question of Symbolic theory?
Micro, Meaning, How to individuals communicate so as to make their interaction in social settings meaningful?
What is the level of analysis, focus and question of Feminist theory?
Macro and Micro, Patriarchy, Which social structures and interaction processes maintain male dominance and female subordination?
What is Research?
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.
What are Values?
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.
What are the four key contemporary sociological puzzles?
Post-Industrial Revolution
Globalisation
Equality
Individualism
What is the Post-Industrial Revolution sociological puzzle?
Technology-driven shift from manufacturing and service industries and its consequences for virtually all human activities
What is the Globalisation sociological puzzle?
The process whereby formerly separate economies, states and cultures are growing increasingly interdependent
What is the Equality sociological puzzle?
Where do disparities exist nationally and around the globe? How do we explain and address these?
What is the Individualism sociological puzzle?
Logics and limits of choice and responsibility
Structure/Agency debate
