SOC 656 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: The Sociological Imagination, Nacirema, Sociological Perspectives

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 656
• Professor: Janna Eggebeen

Document Summary

Looks at the ways people are limited by society. Social expectations, laws, and demands that society has for you: needed for order so we can co-exist, sociology and science, sociology is a "soft" or human science, emergent in its procedures and criteria rather than fixed and measurable. Sociology tends to be descriptive and individual: nomothetic operates by law. Sociology is largely interpretive and looks for understanding: the sociological imagination or thinking like a sociologist, sociological imagination. Sociological perspectives: classical perspectives, functionalism or structural functionalism (durkheim) Society operates as a system of interconnected parts: how society works, positive denotation (stable) Sociopaths, suicide, mass shootings, etc: conflict theory (karl marx, complete opposite of functionalism, associated with marxism, haves and have nots. Focus on economic aspects of society as the governing force: power, perspective that sees power as the core, all social relations as two opposing groups, having power vs. seeking power, competition.