SOSA 1003 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: George Herbert Mead, Harriet Martineau, Altruistic Suicide
23 May 2018
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SOSA 1003 - Notes
Chapter 1
- Power of Sociology : relationship between people and society
- See the operation of the social world more clearly, the powerful force of social
relations
- Charting a better course for society
- Come to grips with your century
- Sociological Perspective – Suicide
- Unique and enlightening perspective on social events
- Suicide – antisocial and non-soial at? Usuall doe i priate, rare…et.
▪ patterns of social relations that might encourage such actions in general
- Emile Durkheim: pioneers of sociology
▪ Suicide rates strongly influenced by social forces
- He found now correlation between psychological disorders and incidence of
suicide
- Suicide rates vary because of the degree of social solidarity – very high (altruistic
suicide – like going to war or sacrificing yourself) or very low (egoistic and
anomic suicide)
▪ Degree of integration for the social groups of which the individual forms a
part
- Married less likely to commit suicide (social ties/moral cement), women less
likely than men (more involved with social life) and Jews less likely than
Christians (social knit because of years of persecution)
- Patterns of social relations
- Affects your innermost thoughts and feelings, your actions and shapes who
you are
- Social structures: stable patterns of social relations
- Peoples persoal troules --- the social structures their embedded in
- Microstructures: intimate relations, face to face interactions (families,
friendship circles and work)
- Macrostructures: lie outside your intimate circle
▪ Ex: patriarchy – traditional system of inequality between women and
men in societies
- Global structures: international organizations, pattern of travel or economic
relations between countries
▪ Foreign debts are a large problem that keep poorer countries struggling,
pay more to countries they owe than they get in Charity financial aid
- Sociological Imagination
- The ability to see the connection between personal troubles and social
structures
- Scientific Revolution – sound conclusions must be based off of solid evidence
- Democratic Revolution – people are responsible for organizing society and human
intervention can solve social problems
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
- Massive change in a short period
- Industrial Revolution
- New social problems created
- Responded to these revolutions with the sociological imagination
Theory – tentative explanations of some aspect of social life – how and why certain facts are
related
- August Comte – coined sociology
- Herbert Spencer – societies evolve like species do, the fittest succeed, evolve from
barbaric to civilised
- Social Darwinism – justifies social inequality and trumpeted the superiority of the
wealthy and powerful
Research – process of carefully observing social reality to test a theory for validity
Values – decide on which problems are worth studying
- Therefore, they have ideas of what is right and wrong, to formulate or favour some
theories over others
Functionalism
- Durkheim
- Human behaviour is governed by stable patters of social relations (social
structures)
- Social structures maintain social stability – how parts of a society fit together and
contribute to the overall stability (its function)
- Social structures – shared values (moral cement that binds people together)
- Parsons and Merton
- How social equilibrium could be restored
- Functionalism
- How various institutions must work to ensure the smooth operation of society
as a whole
- Exaggerated the degree to which member of society share common values
- Merton: different social structures may have different consequences for
different groups of people
▪ Some may be dysfunctional
- Manifest function: intended and observed – like learning at school
- Latent function: unintended and less obvious – meeting a significant other at
school
- Conflict Theory
- Large macrostructures – class relations
- Major patterns of inequality between society – social stability or social change
- Privilege groups try to maintain their advantages while subordinate groups
struggle to increase theirs
- Eliminating privileges will lower the level of conflict and increase human welfare
- Marx
- Class conflict – struggle between classes to overcome the opposition of other
classes
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
- Owners of industries are eager to improve the way work is organized, become
more efficient, and earn higher profits.
- Workers in larger and larger establishments, keeping wages as low as possible
and invest little into better working conditions
▪ Shrinking class of wealthy owners – growing class of poor workers
- Class consciousness – when they become aware they apart of the exploited class
– encourage trade unions and labour parties
- Weber
- Rapid growth of the service sector of the economy, its many non-manual
workers and professionals > stabilize society over the manual workers
-
- Du Bois
- Poverty and social problems faced by African Americans were not due to
atural iferiorit ut hite prejudie
- Critial of ealth Afria Aerias eause the didt help their fellow race
and segregated themselves to be accepted by whites
- C. Wright Mills – coined sociological imagination
- Foundations for modern conflict theory
Symbolic Interactionism- focuses on interpersonal micro-level relationships, attach meanings
to things, people attach meaning to their circumstances dot erel at uder the
- People do not accept culture passively, we actively produce and interpret culture,
fashioning it and attaching meaning to it with our diverse needs
- Weber
- Udestadig peoples oties ad eaigs they attach to their actions
- Focus on individual – or the connection between the individual and society
- George Herbert Mead
- Ho the idiiduals self is foed i the ouse of iteatio ith othe
people
-
- Erving Goffman
- Increases the tolerance for minority and deviant viewpoints
Social Constructionism – soial reatio
- When people interact they typically assume that things are natural or innate
- Features of life that are usually assumed so, are created from social processes that
historically and culturally vary
- Ex: difference between men and woman? Not biological, society constructed
differences between them depending on the way power is distributed between
them and how they are looked at overall
Feminist Theory
- Harriet Martineau
- First woman sociologist
- Studied slavery, factory laws and gender inequality
- Modern Feminism
- Patriarchy is male dominant system in society
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Power of sociology : relationship between people and society. See the operation of the social world more clearly, the powerful force of social relations. Unique and enlightening perspective on social events. Usuall(cid:455) do(cid:374)e i(cid:374) pri(cid:448)ate, rare et(cid:272): patterns of social relations that might encourage such actions in general. Emile durkheim: pioneers of sociology: suicide rates strongly influenced by social forces. He found now correlation between psychological disorders and incidence of suicide. Married less likely to commit suicide (social ties/moral cement), women less likely than men (more involved with social life) and jews less likely than. Christians (social knit because of years of persecution) Affects your innermost thoughts and feelings, your actions and shapes who you are. Social structures: stable patterns of social relations. People(cid:859)s perso(cid:374)al trou(cid:271)les --- the social structures their embedded in. Microstructures: intimate relations, face to face interactions (families, friendship circles and work)
