Sociology: Its Purposes, Theories, and Research Approaches

1
Sociology Its Purposes, Theories, and Research
Approaches

• Perspectives in sociology
• Sociology and other social sciences

2
Sociology is

• The systematic study of social behaviour in human
  societies
• A variety of concepts, theories, and research
  methods have been developed to facilitate this
  study

3
Goals of Sociology

• to accurately describe the social world
• to explain how and why social processes happen
  the way they do
• to critique existing social arrangements that
  have negative effects, and to work toward social
  change

4
Sociology and Common Sense

• Common-sensical explanations of social
  relationships are usually untested and have a
  voluntaristic bias
• Sociological knowledge is systematically tested
  in research and is aware that social
  circumstances cause people to experience unwanted
  conditions

5
Macrosociology

• Studies large-scale social organizations and
  large social categories
• Studies social processes and patterns in society
  as a whole
• Perceives social change as slow and social
  patterns as persistent

6
Microsociology

• Studies the processes and patterns of
  face-to-face interaction
• Studies interpersonal interactions and
  negotiations that produce the persistent patterns
  studied by macrosociology
• Perceives change as rapid, yet subtle

7
Social Imagination

• Connects personal problems to large-scale social
  processes

8
Strength of Weak Ties

• Why are you more likely to find a good job
  through acquaintances than through family
• Weak ties provide the best combination of
  awareness, information quantity and quality, and
  evaluation
• Strong ties (family) are more motivated to help
  but are unlikely to have access to new information

9
and other social sciences

• Sociology and History/Journalism
• All disciplines are descriptive
• Sociology is explanatory and interpretive
• Sociology and Philosophy
• Both are analytical
• Sociology is empirical

10

• Sociology and Psychology
• Psychology is interested in individual human
  behaviour and often studies it under experimental
  conditions
• Sociology is interested in social relationships
  and group dynamics observed in society

11
Social Structure

• The enduring and predictable pattern of social
  behaviours and social relations within a society
• Social relations any relations in which a
  persons actions have consequences for another
• Social institutions stable patterns of that
  endure over time and accomplish goals that are
  generally recognized as important
• e.g., family, education, or religion, etc.

12

• Roles patterns of interaction with others that
  are governed by role expectations
• e.g., from a parent, patient, or student
• Statuses socially defined positions of
  interaction with others
• Status is relational, and carries rights, duties,
  and responsibilities

13

• Interaction the process of relating to others,
  including communication
• Negotiation conferring, bargaining,
  compromising, and reaching an agreement that
  allows interaction on the basis of common
  understanding

14
Societies

• Are the largest social structures
• Although many social relationships span
  international borders, sociologists often study
  societies within nation-states, because social
  relationships differ across international borders
  (e.g., Canada and the US)

15
Culture

• A complex of ideas shared by members of a
  society, including
• Meanings (that people learn from others)
• Beliefs (descriptive and normative)
• Values (criteria for judging behaviour)
• Norms (rules of behaviour)

16
Culture and Social Structure

• Culture comprises ideas that are developed in
  social relationships
• Culture also helps determine social relationships
• Geertz they are different abstractions from the
  same phenomena.

17

• Constraining behaviour people with very
  different personalities act the same way in the
  same social situations
• Transforming behaviour individual people act
  differently in different social situations

18

• Socialization transformation of behaviour
  through internalization of cultural norms,
  values, and beliefs

19

• The resulting social relationships are enduring
  and stable because
• People learn to value stable relationships
• People lack the knowledge or courage to change
  relationships
• People in power urge others to maintain stable
  relationships

20
Emergence of Sociology

• Emerged in the late 19th and the early 20th
  century as an attempt to understand the rapid
  social change accompanying industrialization

21

• Founders of sociology
• Karl Marx (181883)
• Max Weber (18641920)
• Emile Durkheim (18581917)
• Durkheim and Weber developed their views partly
  in reaction to Marxs work

22
Marxist Theory of Structure

• Based on materialist conception of history the
  ongoing need to produce necessities drives human
  affairs
• Modes of production are organized by
• Productive forces
• Relations of production (primarily relations of
  ownership

23

• Differences in ownership give rise to classes
• The mode of production is the base of other
  institutions (superstructure)

24

• Exploitation is the defining class relationship
• Ideologies systems of beliefs that justify the
  supremacy of the ruling classes and rationalize
  the subordination of the labouring classes
• False consciousness oppressed classes
  internalize ruling ideologies

25

• Revolutions occur in conjunction with changes in
  the productive base and the class consciousness
• Contributions of Marxism
• Use of history to predict future social change
• Attempt to discover objective laws of social
  structure and change

26
Webers Historical Sociology

• Historical change is complex and must be
  explained in terms of multiple determination (not
  just in terms of technological advances and class
  conflict)

27

• The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
  Capitalism religious values affirmed economic
  activity
• Work was seen as a form of religious devotion
• Relation between Protestantism and capitalism is
  one of elective affinity

28
Weber Relations of Domination

• Power is derived from multiple sources
• Class inequalities are based n property and
  market opportunities for different skill levels
• Status inequalities are based on ethnic, racial,
  and religious identities
• Party inequalities result from access to
  political power

29

• Bureaucracy is a hierarchical organization with
  specialized offices, based on written rules and
  depersonalized handling of cases
• The iron cage forced regimentation of human
  experience

30

• Webers contribution to sociology
• Refusal of simple, universal explanations
• Development of explanations of inequality

31
Durkheim

• Social reality is a reality sui generis
• It is an emergent, objective order that
  transcends the level of acting individuals
• It is external and coercive to individuals
• Individuals thinking is informed by collective
  consciousness

32

• Suicide suicidal tendencies are influenced by
  the degree of solidarity and normative
  integration
• Modern societies are characterized by egotistic
  and anomic suicide
• Religion the experience of the sacred is the
  experience of societya power greater than the
  individual

33

• Durkheims contribution to sociology
• Link between seemingly individual problems and
  broader social processes
• Development of rigorous research methods

34
Paradigms

• A set of assumptions about society and behaviour
• Directs sociological research
• What kinds of questions are asked?
• How are research results interpreted?

35
Four Sociological Paradigms

• Structural functionalism
• Conflict theory
• Symbolic interactionism
• Feminism

36
Structural Functionalism

• Inspired partly by Durkheim
• Society is defined as a social system, with
  structures organized in an orderly way to form an
  organic, stable whole
• The system has certain basic needs that must be
  met in order for it to survive

37

• Structures within the system exist to fulfill one
  or more of these needs
• The normal state of the system is equilibrium
• Changes in one structure provoke changes in other
  structures
• Change is disruptive

38
Functions of Social Processes

• Every activity in society has beneficialthough
  often hiddenconsequences for the system
• These consequences are their functions, and they
  explain the activity

39
Manifest Functions

• Manifest functions are the intended consequences
  of an activity
• e.g., educational system conveys knowledge to the
  young

40
Latent Functions

• Latent functions are unintended and often
  unrecognized, but are socially important
  consequences of an activity
• e.g., educational system provides babysitting,
  teaches obedience, provides credentials

41
Conflict Theory

• Conflict and change are basic features of social
  life
• They are inevitable, because society is composed
  of groups differing in wealth, power, and prestige

42

• Conflicts are caused by
• Inequalities in wealth, power, and prestige
• Differing values, and the struggle for the right
  to define values
• Conflict is not destructiveit focuses attention
  on a social problem and mobilizes efforts to
  solve that problem

43

• This paradigm is formulated
• Partly in reaction to structural-functionalist
  emphasis on stability and absence of conflict
• Often following Marxs work, but denying that all
  social conflicts are based on class conflict

44
Symbolic Interactionism

• Society is seen as a product of continuous
  face-to-face interaction between individuals
• A symbol is something that meaningfully
  represents something else
• Most interaction is symbolic (dependent on
  language or symbolic gestures)

45

• Herbert Blumer
• Human beings act toward things on the basis of
  the meanings that the things have for them
• Meanings arise out of social interaction (or,
  meanings are socially constructed)
• Social action results from fitting together of
  individual lines of action.

46

• People do not respond to each other or to a
  situation directly, but on their definition of
  the situation
• In order to understand an action, one must
  understand the actors definition of the
  situation
• Action (and social relationships) are possible
  because actors negotiate their definitions of the
  situation

47
Feminist Paradigm

• Composed of many differing views, including
• Radical feminism patriarchy is the main and
  universal cause of womens oppression and women
  must organize separately from men to protect
  their interests
• Materialist feminism Gender inequalities are
  viewed in historical and economic contexts and
  women should organize with men of the same class
  to solve the problem of gender inequality

48
Characteristics of Feminism

• Gender inequalities are not biologically
  determined, but socially constructed
• Patriarchy is present in nearly all societies
• The personal is political
• Private areas of life (family, child rearing)
  are connected to gender inequality in other areas
  of social life

49

• Recently, feminists increasingly acknowledge that
  women from different classes, ethno-racial, and
  cultural groups have different social experiences
• Research must acknowledge these differences
• Feminism is a new social movement.

50
Postmodern Critique

• Sociology is a set of ideological statements that
  need to be deconstructed in order to reveal its
  biased assumptions about truth and society
• Postmodernists deny that reality is knowable in
  an absolute sense
• Freedom from values and bias is impossible,
  truth does not exist

51

• Sociologists value this critique because it
  reminds them that
• An objective, scientific sociology is a
  difficult goal to achieve
• They should always be aware of the influence of
  ideology in research and interpretation of their
  findings

52
Experiments

• Experiments are traditionally the standard of
  research
• Controlled environment where factors can be
  manipulated to determine effects on the outcome
• Experimenting is not often feasible in social
  sciences
• Variables cannot be manipulated for practical or
  ethical reasons
• External validity of findings is problematic

53
Surveys and Pseudo-surveys

• Good for study of large populations
• Goals
• Description of a population
• Theory testing
• Generalization

54

• Pseudo-surveys have a low generalizability
  because of
• Poor sampling (based on convenience and luck, not
  at random)
• Low response rate (people who do not answer the
  questionnaire may be systematically different
  from those who do)

55
Field Research Ethnographic or Participant
Observation

• Goal collecting rich, nuanced qualitative data
  that may or may not be generalized
• Techniques
• Participant observation (ethnography)
• In-depth interviewing
• Documentary analysis

56

• The researcher participates in daily activities
  of research subjects, usually for an extended
  period of time
• Field notes (or recordings)
• No rigid research design
• Particularly appropriate for some theories (e.g.,
  Goffmans dramaturgical approach)

57
In-depth Interviews/Documentation

• In-depth interviews varying degree of structure
• Semi-structured interviews are usual the
  researcher sets basic questions, but allows
  participants to explore other topics
• Documentation usual when studying formal
  organizations

58

• Choosing a site and informants
• Research topic
• Practicality
• Length of stay on site until the researcher is
  no longer gaining much new information
• Flexibility of field research allows for
  correcting mistakes in research design and
  pursuit of unexpected leads

59
Secondary Data Analysis

• Sources official statistics and existing surveys
• Has grown because of increased availability of
  computers and statistical software
• Advantages
• Broad coverage of data
• Use of data whose collection needs more expertise
  and resources than the researcher has

60

• Disadvantages
• Data are often not directly related to the
  researchers ideas
• The researcher needs to learn new techniques of
  analysis

61
Historical Research and Content Analysis

• Historical methods use of documents, records,
  interviews with participants
• Problems
• Bias in the documents
• Loss or destruction of documents

62

• Content analysis records are sampled and
  analyzed to reveal patterns
• Manifest content analysis words, phrases, and
  images are counted
• Latent content analysis focus is on implicit
  themes

63
Selecting a Research Method

• Any method can be used to investigate social
  phenomena from any theoretical perspective
• Some methods are seldom used in some perspectives
• e.g., surveys in symbolic interactionism
• The problem determines the method
• However, some researchers prefer to use familiar
  techniques, and frame their research questions
  accordingly

64
Sources of Social Change

• People assume different roles
• Different types of people assume the same roles,
  and play them somewhat differently
• Institutions grow and shrink (e.g., family)
• Material innovations (e.g., technology)

65

• Applied social research
• Its influence has been limited because of
• Complexity of social problems
• Limited will and ability of those in power to
  address researched social problems
• Sociology as moral enterprise
• Value preferences