SY210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Social Fact, Sick Role, Sociological Perspectives
Document Summary
5-6 for a breakdown of the different sociological perspectives. Auguste compte - gave name "sociology" --> goal: give society sense of order + progressiveness. Mile durkheim - provides both theoretical and methods based models/guides for how things are to be done under the structural functional perspective: sociology = study of social facts which are: -> *external to individuals but shape how they think + behave. -> treated as real phenomena that have real consequences on how people behave. Therefore ---> humans can be predicted and controlled if we understand these social facts. Positivism -- goal: remain objective (not impacted by personal views/opinions) + value-free in research. -> seek universally true, causal explanations for social world. "system explainable and predictable through a series of "if x then y" statements -- with both x and y being social facts: human behaviour = measured objectively and quantitatively (through stats, etc. ) Ex. norms, values, folkways, religion, social structures, marriage, etc.
