Sociology 2206A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Symbolic Interactionism, Structural Functionalism, Post-Structuralism

• School: Western University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: Sociology 2206A/B
• Professor: Donna Maynard

Document Summary

A system of ideas that are used to explain the causes &/or consequences of social phenomena. Coherent, big, structured, a whole system system of explanation. Durkheim"s suicide: suicide: purposefully ending one"s own life, also define social integration, anomie, etc. The suicide rate in canada is about . 15/1000 population, which is about average for oecd countries. This rate varies by characteristic s such as gender, age, ethnic identity & income; with men, young people, certain ethnic minorities & people with lower incomes having higher rates, etc. Theories suggest way that concepts are related to one another. If you know something about one, you know something about the other (ie: as social integration increases, the suicide rate decreases; as age increases, social integration increases) Two basic types: deterministic: the 2 concepts or variables always go together (as social integration increases, the suicide rate decreases) Nb: almost no determinism in social research, though sometimes it sounds like it.