Lesson 1: What is Sociology?
Intro to Sociology
Robert Wonser
Lesson Outline
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What does society look like?
What is sociology?
Levels of Analysis
The Sociological Perspective
Starting your sociological journey
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Sociology?
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Cool Insights from Sociology
 Humans cannot be understood apart from
social context (i.e. society)
 Society makes us who we are by
structuring out interactions and laying out
an orderly world before us
 Society is a social construction, that is, it
is an idea created by humans (i.e. doesn’t
exist in the biological world but only in the
social world) through social interaction and
given a reality through our understanding
of it and our collective actions.
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Society Influences You
 Death…
Related
to
society?
Of
course!
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Sociology?
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Baby Names
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Sociology?
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Names that have gained
the most popularity,
2004 – 2010
...Or, the names I’ll begin seeing all
the time in 2022-2028
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Sociology?
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What Does Society Look Like?
 While the idea of society is familiar,
describing it can be difficult.
Ultimately society is made up of
many different components, such as
culture, race, family, education, social
class, and people’s interactions.
 People who share a culture and
territory
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Meaning through Interaction
 People actively and collectively shape
their own lives, organizing their social
interactions and relationships into a
meaningful world.
 Sociologists study this social behavior
by seeking out its patterns.
 Patterns are crucial to our
understanding of society
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Society
 Society is a group of people who
shape their lives in aggregated and
patterned ways that distinguish their
group from other groups.
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The Social Sciences
 Social Sciences are the disciplines
that use the scientific method to
examine the social world, in contrast
to the natural sciences, which
examine the physical world.
 Examples of social sciences include
economics, psychology, geography,
communication studies, anthropology,
history, and political science.
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How Sociology fits in
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What is Sociology?
Sociology is the systematic or scientific
study of human society and social
behavior, from large-scale institutions
and mass culture to small groups and
individual interactions.
Sociology is also the study of reifications,
or social constructions.
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Sociology
 Howard Becker defined sociology as
the study of people “doing things
together.”
 This reminds us that society and the
individual are inherently connected,
and each depends on the other.
 Sociologists study this link: how
society affects the individual and how
the individual affects society.
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Levels of Analysis
 We can study society from different levels:
 Microsociology is the level of analysis that
studies face-to-face and small-group
interactions in order to understand how
they affect the larger patterns and
institutions of society.
 Microsociology focuses on small-scale
issues.
 Ex: Symbolic Interactionism
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Levels of Analysis (cont)
 Macrosociology is the level of
analysis that studies large-scale
social structures in order to
determine how they affect the lives of
groups and individuals.
 Macrosociology focuses on large-scale
issues.
 Ex: Functionalism, Conflict Theory
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How We Use Levels of Analysis
 Pam Fishman took a micro-level approach
to studying issues of power in male–female
relationships.
 She found that in conversation, women ask
nearly three times as many questions as
men do, perhaps because a speaker is
much more likely to ask a question if he or
she does not expect to get a response by
simply making a statement.
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How We Use Levels of Analysis
 Christine Williams took a macro-level
approach to studying women in maledominated occupations and men in femaledominated occupations.
 She found that women in male-dominated
positions faced limits on their advancement
(the glass ceiling), while men in femaledominated positions experienced rapid
rates of advancement (the glass
escalator).
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Levels of Analysis (cont)
 When conducting research, methodology
involves the process by which one gathers
and analyzes data.
 Quantitative research translates the
social world into numbers that can be
treated mathematically; this type of
research often tries to find cause-and-effect
relationships.
 Any type of social statistic is an example of
quantitative research.
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Levels of Analysis (cont)
 Qualitative research works with nonnumerical data such as texts, fieldnotes,
interview transcripts, photographs, and
tape recordings; this type of research often
tries to understand how people make sense
of their world.
 Participant observation, in which the
researcher actually takes part in the social
world he or she studies, is an example of
qualitative research.
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The Sociological Imagination
 C. Wright Mills used the term
sociological imagination to
describe the ability to look at issues
from a sociological perspective.
 Personal troubles versus public issues
 Ex: unemployment, obesity
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The Sociological Perspective
 Incorporates Mills’ notion of the
sociological imagination 
 The sociological perspective is a
quality of the mind that allows us to
understand the relationship between
our particular situation in life and
what is happening at a social level.
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The Sociological Perspective
 When using a sociological
perspective, one focuses on the social
context in which people live and how
that social context has an impact on
individuals’ lives.
 This is the essence of what sociology
does.
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Using the Sociological Perspective
 In small groups:
 How would you explain the following social
problems using the sociological
imagination/perspective?
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Obesity
Homelessness/Poverty
Unemployment
Marriage
The metropolis
War
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The Sociological Perspective (cont)
 One way to gain a sociological
perspective is to attempt to create in
ourselves a sense of culture shock,
which is a sense of disorientation that
occurs when one enters a radically
new social or cultural environment.
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The Sociological Perspective (cont)
 Bernard McGrane suggests that
people wanting to use a sociological
perspective should utilize a
beginner’s mind, which means
approaching the world without
preconceptions in order to see things
in a new way.
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Starting Your Sociological Journey
 An important distinction can be made
between the everyday actor, who
has the practical knowledge needed
to get through daily life, but not
necessarily the scientific or technical
knowledge of how things work,
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Starting Your Sociological Journey
 and the social analyst, who studies
the social world in a systematic,
comprehensive, coherent, clear, and
consistent manner in the pursuit of
scientific knowledge.
 Both approaches have strengths and
weaknesses.
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Take Away Points
 Humans cannot be understood apart from
the social context they live in (society,
culture and time + place)
 The world around us profoundly shapes and
influences who we are, how we behave and
even how/what we think.
 It is the job of the sociologist to understand
how this process works and to what effect.
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Lesson Quiz
1. Which of the following is NOT an
example of a social science?
a. biology
b. political science
c. psychology
d. economics
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Lesson Quiz
2. Sociology is defined as:
a. the scientific study of humans.
b. the study of ancient cultures and
behavior.
c. the study of how the brain works.
d. the study of human society and social
behavior.
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Lesson Quiz
3. __________ is the level of analysis that
studies face-to-face and small-group
interactions in order to understand how
those interactions affect the larger patterns
and institutions of society.
a. Microsociology
b. Macrosociology
c. Sociology
d. Social science
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Lesson Quiz
4. The glass escalator effect refers to the:
a. limits on the advancement of women in
the workplace.
b. limits on the advancement of men in the
workplace.
c. rapid rate of upward mobility for women.
d. rapid rate of upward mobility for men in
female-dominated workplaces.
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Lesson Quiz
5. A sense of disorientation that occurs
when you enter a radically new social
or cultural environment is called:
a. cultural mind.
b. culture shakes.
c. cultural fear.
d. culture shock.
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For Next Time:
 How we come to understand the
social world
 Theories and Theorists
 Read! (check your syllabus for
assigned readings!)
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Sociology?
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