SOC 302 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Harriet Martineau, Auguste Comte, Sociological Perspectives
Document Summary
Three major changes during the 17th and 18th centuries that were important to the development of sociology: Move from agrarian society to industrial society. Thought society should be studied with tools of science. Two main scientific tools: observation and classification (used to uncover patterns) Compared musical forms from around the world (european at the top, australian. Tried to study society using the scientific data of his time at the bottom) Researched and theorized about patterns in sociology. Protestants more likely to commit suicide than catholics. Soldiers more likely to kill themselves than civilians. We study problems by using evidence; collect data to answer questions. A theory is a statement about how and why specific facts are related. The goal of that theory is to explain something about social behavior. A paradigm set of assumptions that guide our thinking and research. Looking at the big picture (macro-oriented paradigm/perspective) Functionalists look at society as a complex system whose parts work together to.
