From Social Thought to Social
Science
 Social sciences developed out of the
human desire to understand the world
and predict events
Renaissance
Science comes first to the
natural and physical world
Science of sociology emerges from
the social ferment of 18th and early
19th centuries
Scientific Revolution

Industrial Revolution
French Revolution
Emerging scientific discoveries had
huge impact on people’s social
lives
Kepler, Copernicus, Newton, Galileo, Descartes, and Ptolemy
18th Century philosophers believed in progress
guided by human reason rather than the idea of
preordained fate
Montesquieu
Rousseau
Voltaire
Diderot
French Revolution
 American and French revolutions
were social movements fueled by the
ideas of:
 Egalitarianism
 Democracy
 Self-government
Industrial Revolution
Massive changes in society
 Horses to the Steam
Engine
 Rural to Urban
 Cottage industry to
Mass production
New social conditions require new
ways to answer social questions
 If the current social structure was not
divinely ordained, what structure
would replace old traditions?
 Would people’s increasing desire for
freedom lead to deterioration of social
order?
 Answers to these questions not found
in Scripture or Greek Classics
Sociological Imagination
 Sociologists are concerned with how
social conditions influence our lives
as individuals
 The sociological imagination helps
one see the relationship between
social conditions and one’s own
situation in life
Early Sociologists thinking
 KARL MARX(1818-1883): Conflicts
between workers and owners of
capital would cause major upheavals
 People should try to change
society
Marx didn’t consider himself
A sociologist, but his ideas
About class struggle are
sociological
 EMILE DURKHEIM(1858-1917): Social change
would be the result of population growth, and
change in organization of work and community life
 Well known for suicide studies
 Each country had stable suicide
rates, and different sub groups
had different suicide rates
THEREFORE human behavior cannot be understood
simply in individualistic terms; we must always
examine Social forces in people’s lives
MAX WEBER(1864-1920): People
attach meaning to their own actions
and the actions of others. Social life
is based on the accumulation of
individual interactions.
Societies differ in how
their members see the
world and interact with
it.
Sociology, the Human Science
 DEFINITION: “The scientific study of
human societies and human behavior
in the many groups that make up
society
 CORE IDEA: Individual choice is
always determined to some extent by
a person’s environment
A suggested
explanation for
something…
A systematic and
general attempt to
explain something…
“Why do people
commit crimes?
“How does the
media affect us?”
“Why do some
people believe in
God?”
“Theory”
“Why do people
get married?”
“Why do kids play
truant from school?”
“How is our identity
shaped by culture?”
…is something we
use all the time in our
everyday life
“Theory”
We all use theory to
construct explanations
about the social world in
which we live…
Which, in a way, is
what Sociologists
also try to do…
In a slightly
different way,
of course…
“Why do I feel
unwell?”
“Why are my
friends behaving
oddly?”
“Why do I have to go
to school?”
sociological theories are
usually known by their morecommon label of “Sociological
Perspectives”
A “perspective”, for our
current purposes, is
simply a way of looking at
and understanding the
social world.
Different sociologists, working within
different perspectives, construct different
theories about the nature of that world…
The following slides are designed to
help you understand the basic
themes / principles of a range of
sociological perspectives
Sociological Perspectives…
They do this
by using
analogies…
In other words, they help you to
decide “what society is like” (from
different sociological perspectives) by
asking you to compare “society” to
something familiar…
Part of your task in the following
screens, therefore, is to use a variety
of different analogies to develop a
picture of how the concept of “society”
is seen and explained by different
sociological perspectives…
Functionalism
 Social structures exist to fulfill vital
functions (purposes) for society
 Function of family is to raise and train
new generation
 Change can throw social structures out
of balance.
 Agrarian societies with large families became
out of sync as need for labor decreases.
 Now current family structures are
‘dysfunctional’
Functionalism…
“Society Is Like”: A Human Body
Characteristics of human body…
Each part of the body works in
harmony with all other parts
Characteristics of society…
Each part of society works in
harmony with all other parts
Conflict theory
 Emphasizes the role of conflict and
power in social change
 How power affects distribution of scarce
resources
 How conflict changes societies. (Politics,
social movements, corporate power
structures and struggles)
Conflict theory
 Most history points to conflict and
strife as basic to society




WWI and WWII
The Great Depression
Civil Wars
Holocaust
Conflict Theory…
“Society Is Like”: A Football league
Characteristics of football league…
A league is characterised by
competition between teams
Characteristics of society…
Society involves competition
between social groups / classes
Major Sociological Perspectives
 INTERACTIONISM:
 Views social order and social change as
resulting from repeated interactions
among individuals and groups.
 EXAMPLE: “Alive”
 Our world is socially constructed.
 Nothing contains ‘built in’ meanings. Humans give
arbitrary meanings
 How do they learn and understand social
meanings?
 ‘social processes’
 Meanings can be changed
Interactionism…
“Society Is Like”: A Play
Characteristics of a play…
A play has actors who play their
individual roles
Characteristics of society…
Society consists of individual
actors who play a variety of
roles
APPLY THESE 3 PERSPECTIVES TO SPORTS
 Functions of sports?
 manifest?
 latent?
 dysfunction?
 Sports and Conflict
 race?
 economic power?
 Sports as Interaction
 rules?
 ongoing and changing?
 different realities?
Levels of analysis:
 MACRO: Whole societies and the way
they are changing
 Large scale patterns of society
Levels of Analysis: Micro
Implications of individual behavior
Personal Space
 Examples of marking personal space
at school? Class? lunch? bus?
bathroom?
 How do you feel when someone
invades your personal space? Why
do you think you feel this way?
 Look around class right now. How are
people marking their personal space?
 Intimate distance: 6-18 inches
 personal distance: 18 inches to 4 feet
 social distance: 4-12 feet
 Public distance: 12 feet or more