Sociology
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What does society look like?
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What is sociology?
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Levels of Analysis
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The Sociological Perspective
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Starting your sociological journey
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is Sociology?
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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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is Sociology?
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Death…
Related
to
society?
Of
course!
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is Sociology?
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is 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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is Sociology?
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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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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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is Sociology?
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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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is Sociology?
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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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is Sociology?
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Sociology is the systematic or scientific study of
human society and social behavior, from largescale institutions and mass culture to small groups
and individual interactions.
Sociology is also the study of reifications, or social
constructions.
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is Sociology?
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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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We can study society from different levels:
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Microsociology is the level of analysis that
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Microsociology focuses on small-scale issues.
studies face-to-face and small-group
interactions in order to understand how they
affect the larger patterns and institutions of
society.
◦ Ex: Symbolic Interactionism
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is Sociology?
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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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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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is Sociology?
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Christine Williams took a macro-level approach
to studying women in male-dominated
occupations and men in female-dominated
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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is Sociology?
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When conducting research, methodology
involves the process by which one gathers and
analyzes data.
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Quantitative research translates the social
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Any type of social statistic is an example of
quantitative research.
world into numbers that can be treated
mathematically; this type of research often tries
to find cause-and-effect relationships.
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Qualitative research works with non-numerical
data such as texts, field-notes, 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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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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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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is Sociology?
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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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is Sociology?
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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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is Sociology?
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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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is Sociology?
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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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is Sociology?
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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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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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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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