SOCA01H3 Lecture Notes - Neoliberalism, American Middle Class, Symbolic Interactionism
Document Summary
Common-sensual explanations of social life are usually: People with good ideas, attitudes, and values have good life. Sociological knowledge is: systematically tested in research and, aware events are shaped not only by individuals but also by culture. & social structures that cause, or even force people, to experience conditions they would rather avoid. Sociology is a study of social behaviour in human societies. Emphasis on agency, current in sociology of the 2000s. Social cause neo-liberalism and rational choice theory. Knezevic: sociology is a study of social relations, created in an interaction of agency, social structure and culture. Social structure: relatively stable network of social relationship that enable and constrain individual agency. Culture: ideas (understanding, values, norms) about society: examples: gender, religion, music. Society has an existence of its own (not a sum of individuals, not an illusion cf. post-modernism: 2. Society creates itself (through human interactions: 3. Cultures vary over time and place: 4.
