Introduction to Sociology
The Basic Insight of Sociology:
– Human behavior is socially conditioned.
– Probabilities and rates are often determined.
Social structures often involve multiple
causes operating at multiple levels.
– It is not quite true that “Anything is possible”
– Nor is true that “Nothing can be different.”
Syllabus and Course
Requirements
Many materials are on the web page.
– Syllabus
The web copy will be updated as needed
And has active links
– For example self-tests and project specifications.
– These power point lectures (with links to course themes
and glossary) can be printed in different forms
Volunteers to help those with net problems
or questions: at web-help
Sociology: The scientific study
of society.
Sociology is often concerned with rates and
probabilities. For example,
–
–
–
–
Murder rates
Suicide rates
Divorce rates
Probabilities of terrorism …
We often do not need to predict individual
behaviors in order to predict and explain rates.
The predictability of rates is one of the reasons
that we do not assume that "anything is
possible."
Example #1
the zip code trick
– (*p.4 - i.e. this example is described in Sociology,
Micro, Macro and Mega p.4)
– One knows a great deal about someone from their zip
code.
One's zip code changes the odds of virtually any
kind of behavior:
– music, sex, voting, reading, grades.
– E.g. Probability of going to college from 90210 and
from E. L. A.
– The zip code mainly reflects social class.
This is the point of Table 1.1 (*pp.16-18).
Approach to sociology in terms
of social problems
3 x 5 card:
What is the most serious social problem
we face?
What does it mean to say that something
is a “Social Problem?”
What causes the social problems?
Sociological Imagination; micro- and
macro-level analysis; keeping our levels
straight
Example #2: 187 – a sick school
Benny leads the class in trashing the
class and throwing books on the ground.
As a substitute teacher, what do you do?
Depending on the level that we address
it different responses are appropriate:
1. Micro: Benny’s character: get rid of him.
2. Macro: the role of KOS head: get rid of it.
3. Mega: the conditions generating KOS: get
rid of them.
Thinking in Systems Terms
Pettigrew, in How To Think Like a Social
Scientist says that social causation is usually
multicausal at multiple levels.
1. Multiple causes: since many causes are
operating, each one has only a statistical
effect.
2. Since there is a cascade of effects of any
action, estimating the net effect is complex.
3. Any action to be explained usually exists at
such different levels as the individual actor,
the role and the structure.
Two Responses to Social
Problems
Individual explanations and solutions
– Change individuals’ behaviors
– E.g. rewards, punishments, incarceration
– “Shooting bullfrogs”
Systemic explanations and solutions
– Change the conditions generating the
behavior
– E.g. structural changes
– “Draining the swamp”
Example #3: A little quiz
Consider the following common sense
interpretations of research questions:
1. Common sense often gives several
different answers or the wrong answers
2. Pettigrew ch. I Table