SOCI 1001H Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Social Class, The Sociological Imagination, Social Forces
14 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Lecture 2: Exploring What Sociology is About
Sociology: study of social groups and interactions, a variety of social issues and social problems
Sociology as a ‘way of knowing’
• These forms of knowledge are all partial or limited forms of knowledge, they have value
but can be seen differently by different people
• We know things from our own experiences of them (direct knowledge)
• We also know things through conventional wisdom, things known as common
sense
• Generally learned through parents, media, or teachers
• Generally not scientific
• Some of it is valuable information, a lot can be inaccurate without much
evidence to support it
• Creative ideas of artists often shed light on what is going on in society
• Can be through writing, music, visual art, dance, film, etc.
• Ex. To Kill A Mockingbird shows racism through writing
• We also can know things through religious knowledge
• Based on traditional wisdom, but largely on faith
• Sociology is founded on the principle that we must attempt to move beyond these limited
ways of knowing to begin to understand the ways of life
• Sociology does not accept something as fact because of one person’s belief
• Contextualizing individuals and events is one of the main ways sociology can be
a way of knowing
• Putting our lives and what appears to be going on in a context that things
may be going another way
• Sociology differs from other approaches in two main ways:
• Methods used
• Systematic and objectively based social methods
• Unique perspective (the sociological perspective)
The Sociological Perspective
• Two key assumptions:
• We are all social beings
• We are all born helpless and unable to defend ourselves
• We are dependent upon others, causing us to need social interaction
• Patterns of behaviour exist
• Sociology works to uncover and understand these behaviours
• Seeing the general in the particular (uncovering surface reality)
• Through looking at particular patterns and behaviour of individuals we can make
connections to larger, general social patterns
• One of the main ways to see this is using certain social categories or concepts to
understand a particular situation
• Ex. Social class, race, gender, education, occupation, etc.
• Example of first sociological study: Emile Durkheim on suicide
• Although suicide was considered very personal, he said there are
underlying patterns and showed things are not always as they seem
• Social Patterns:
• Men, Protestants and unmarried people had higher suicide rates
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
