SOCI 1001H Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Sociology, Max Weber, Karl Marx
12 Oct 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
SOCI 1001H
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
SOCI1001H: Introduction to Sociology I: Critical Foundations
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Lecture One
Sociology: the systematic study of human social life
-Study groups and human behaviour
-Can be small groups, or larger groups such as institutions, or even larger, such as nations
-How the social world around us shapes our actions, ideas, where we go in life
-Uncovering and understanding social processes, culture
-Individual experiences as well as patterns of power and inequality in our society, in terms of gender,
social class, etc.
-Crime and deviance, how they are understood and defined, and by who
-Education, health care systems, media, political systems, bureaucracies
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
SOCI1001H: Introduction to Sociology 1: Critical Foundations
Tuesday, September 19th, 2017
Lecture Two
Exploring what Sociology is About
-Sociology as a 'way of knowing'
oVs. direct knowledge, conventional wisdom, aesthetics/art, religious knowledge
oDiffers based on its methods and perspective
øParticular way of thinking and understanding things in the social world that we live in
øDifferent ways of knowing about the world
øMuch of what we know and what we think about the world comes from conventional wisdom
øConventional wisdom is the stuff that everyone knows, the common sense notions – part of how we
know the world around us – some of it is useful, a lot of it doesn’t have evidence to support us
øDirect experience/knowledge
øAesthetics
øReligious knowledge: based on traditional wisdom to some extent, but mostly based on faith. To know
the world from a religious sense, does not mean you need proof or direct experience, but it means you
know the world through faith
øPartial/limited forms of knowledge – have value, but are limited – sociology is one way of knowing
øFounded on the principle that we must attempt to move past the other limited interpretations or ways of
knowing in order to fully understand things
øDetermining the extent to which artistic insight is representative of what is going on more broadly
øSociology tries to move beyond these understandings and does not generally accept facts as truth
øTwo ways of knowing, methods and unique perspective
oMethods that it uses that is the way that sociologists use – systematic and objectively based
øOne of the main ways that sociology moved past the ways of knowing is by contextualising events –
putting things into context – examine things systematically
-The sociological perspective
oTo key assumptions: social beings and social problems
oSeeing the general in the particular (uncovering surface reality)
oSeeing the strange in the familiar
oThe value of a comparative approach (historically or cross-culturally)
øRevolves around the assumptions that patterns of behaviour exist
øSocial patterns refer to the way humans interact socially – assumption that we are social beings and that
we all interact with other humans and there are patterns to how we do this
øNo one survives outside of the social context – we are all born helpless and undeveloped, cannot defend
or fend for ourselves, dependent from day one and must have interaction in order to survive
øConsequence of the different patterns we behave in with different people
øConsistent social patterns that exist in society
øRevolves around seeing the general in the particular
oBroader patterns in particular lives and events
oSeeing the general in the particular – connecting it to our social patterns
oAnalyzing or considering that event with certain social concepts that reflect the established social
patterns
Race, social class, gender, education, occupation, sexual orientation
Become tools that are used in respect to individual situations
øBy comparing things, we can make our own structures and patterns more apparent
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
